I Loaded the Occult Panel

At dinnertime on Friday, the Williams family sat around the table.

Richard had used his tutoring income to buy extra meat for the family.

Margaret stewed it with potatoes and onions, and boiled the bones for broth. Nothing went to waste.

An extra letter sat on the table. The front bore the Greenwood crest—an open book and an oil lamp.

Richard recognized the emblem; he walked under it every day when he entered the main teaching building.

He also had a pretty good idea of what it contained.

Before the end of the academic year, students had to choose a path: the university preparatory track or the technical college track.

The preparatory track required two additional years of study after the upcoming academic year, followed by the university entrance exams. Those who passed would go on to higher education.

The technical college track offered two years of practical skills training after the final academic year, leading straight to employment upon graduation.

Richard was currently in his final academic year. He had selected the preparatory track the year before.Before his soul had merged, however, he probably would have struggled to even get into a local college.

Now, his goal was Imperial Capital University, the most prestigious institution of learning.

This particular letter was for his younger sister, Evelyn.

Once the summer vacation ended, she would be entering her final year of middle school.

Their father, Rogers, finished reading the letter, folded it along its original creases, and placed it beside his plate.

After dinner, Richard was reading in his room.

Downstairs, his father called out Evelyn’s name.

Richard set his book face down on the desk and paused to listen.

Thanks to the boost from [Perception], he could still make out the gist of the conversation despite the distance.

His father kept trying to persuade her—or rather, dictate arrangements for her.

Evelyn’s voice started out very low, almost inaudible.

After three or four minutes, her volume suddenly spiked.

She wasn’t exactly shouting, but she was clearly upset.

A few words jumped out from the muffled drone. Richard caught ”don’t want to” and ”useless.”

His father’s voice rose half a pitch as well, but he quickly reined it back in.

Rogers wasn’t the type to argue with his children.

His strategy was to simply repeat his viewpoint until the other person either accepted it or gave up.

Sometimes, that approach was far more suffocating than a direct scolding.

About ten minutes later, the study door opened.

Evelyn took her anger out on the stairs as she came up, making the wooden boards groan beneath her feet.

Richard flipped his book right-side up and stared at the page, unable to absorb a single word.

He stood up and walked to his door.

Light spilled from beneath his sister’s door, and the faint sound of sniffing drifted from inside.

He knocked twice.

”What?” Her voice was muffled; she had probably buried her face in a pillow.

”Open up. Let’s talk.”

After a few seconds of silence, the door opened a crack.

Evelyn stood behind it. Her eyes and nose were red, though she hadn’t shed any tears.

She was incredibly stubborn. The sadder she felt, the more she refused to let anyone see her cry.

Once, she had fallen and scraped her knee, biting her lip from the pain but stubbornly holding back her tears.

”What are you doing here?”

”I just want to talk for a bit.”

Evelyn hesitated, then pulled the door open.

Her room was slightly smaller than Richard’s, but impeccably tidy.

Textbooks and stationery sat on the desk, and two fashion illustrations clipped from a magazine were pinned to the wall.

A glass jar resting on her nightstand held a collection of assorted buttons and bottle caps she had saved up.

Evelyn sat on the edge of her bed and hugged a pillow to her chest.

Richard pulled up the desk chair and sat opposite her.

”I can guess what Dad’s thinking,” he said.

”If you know, then why ask?”

”I want to hear it from you.”

Evelyn rested her chin on the pillow, speaking in a muffled tone.

”He went through his usual speech. Diplomas are important, it’s easy to find a job after graduating from university, and people without degrees can’t make a living.

Then he asked me if I wanted to knead dough in a bakery for the rest of my life.”

She hugged the pillow a little tighter.

”I told him I didn’t want to knead dough for the rest of my life. I want to learn baking. Once I learn, I can open my own shop.

He said opening a shop requires capital, and asked where the money would come from.

I said I could work to save up first. He asked how many lifetimes it would take to save enough.”

”And then?”

”He did the math for me.” Evelyn’s voice took on a bitter edge.

”He calculated two years of tuition at the technical college, and pointed out that a bakery apprentice makes next to nothing. He said I wouldn’t be able to save enough to open a shop even if I worked my whole life.

After adding it all up, he told me that if I spent that same time finishing university to become a clerk or a teacher, the income would be higher and the work would be much easier.”

She buried her face back in the pillow. ”He does this every time. Everything always comes down to a calculation.”

Richard didn’t rush to reply.

Their father’s logic was entirely sound.

An engineer’s annual salary was higher than a baker’s, and the employment options after university graduation were broader than those from a technical college. These were verifiable facts.

But statistics couldn’t account for everything.

Evelyn’s math and science grades consistently hovered near the bottom of her class. Forcing her onto the preparatory track meant two years of prep and three years of university where every single exam would be pure torture.

Furthermore, getting into a university was far from a sure thing.

Less than half of the Greenwood students who took the preparatory track each year actually passed the university entrance exams.

For the remaining half, five years and a hefty tuition fee only bought a preparatory completion certificate—a piece of paper worth even less than a technical college diploma.

When their father did the math, he took for granted that Evelyn would pass the exams.

But that premise was the biggest variable of all.

”Have you told Dad that you want to learn baking?” Richard asked.

”I did.” Evelyn lifted her face from the pillow.

”I brought it up once last semester. He didn’t take it seriously. He just called it a passing phase.”

”And do you still want to learn?”

”Of course I do.”

Her eyes lit up as she spoke, making her look completely different from the dejected girl of a moment ago.

”The teacher said the cookies I made in home economics were the best in the class.”

”They were definitely delicious.”

”It’s not a passing phase.” Evelyn set the pillow aside and sat up straight.

”I started studying it on my own last year. I’ve gone through all of Mom’s recipes, and I’ve read every baking book I could borrow from the library.”

She pulled a notebook from her nightstand drawer and handed it to Richard.

It was an ordinary lined exercise book. She had drawn a cake on the cover with colored pencils.

Inside, the pages were densely packed with various recipes and notes.

The differences between types of flour, the ideal softening temperatures for butter, how various sugars affected texture, reference tables for oven temperatures and baking times...

The handwriting was neat and the entries clear. In some places, she had even drawn simple illustrations to diagram the steps.

Richard flipped through a few pages and noticed crosses drawn next to some of the recipes, accompanied by notes explaining the failures.

”Egg whites under-whipped; collapsed.”

”Butter temperature too high, dough too soft; wouldn’t hold shape.”

...

This was not the work of a passing phase.

Richard closed the notebook and handed it back.

”Have you shown this to Dad?”

”No.” Evelyn shoved the notebook back into the drawer. ”There’s no point. He only looks at report cards.”

Downstairs, the light in the study flicked off. Their father had gone to bed.

He had to work overtime tomorrow, even though it was Saturday, to save up for his children’s tuition.

Richard leaned back in his chair and looked at his sister.

She was huddled on the edge of the bed, hugging her knees. Her hair hung loose, and the tip of her nose was still a little red.

He suddenly remembered something.

”Evelyn, do you remember the last time we were in the Imperial Capital? The day we took a carriage to Grandfather’s house?”

”I remember. Why?”

”On the way there, you told me you wanted to open your own baking workshop one day.”

Evelyn looked a little embarrassed. ”I was just saying that...”

”Someone who was just talking doesn’t fill half a notebook with recipes.”

Richard shifted in his seat. ”Do you know how much those head chefs in the Imperial Capital make a year?”

”No.”

”More than engineers.”

Evelyn turned to look at him, her gray eyes full of doubt. ”Really?”

”Really. In the top ten restaurants in the Imperial Capital, a head chef’s annual salary is several times that of an engineer.

Of course, the people who reach that level are few and far between, but it proves the ceiling for this career isn’t low.”

He smiled, steering the conversation toward the point he had prepared.

”Speaking of which, do you know how ridiculous the dish names are at those fine-dining restaurants?”

”Ridiculous? How so?” Evelyn’s interest was piqued.

”I flipped through a menu while I was at Grandfather’s house.”

Richard cleared his throat and recited in the solemn tone of a news anchor:

”Appetizer: ’Slow-Braised Beef Brisket with Herbes de Provence, Topped with a Parmesan Crisp.’”

He wasn’t making it up. [Learning] allowed him to memorize those dish names with a single glance.

Evelyn blinked. ”...That’s the name of one dish?”

”Just one dish.” Richard held up a finger. ”And there are longer ones.”

He cleared his throat again, deliberately speeding up his delivery:

”Main Course: ’Highland Red Deer Tenderloin Flambéed in Brandy, Paired with a Black Truffle Potato Mille-Feuille.’”

Evelyn’s mouth parted slightly. ”Say that again?”

”Highland Red Deer Tenderloin Flambéed...”

”Wait, wait, wait.” She raised a hand to stop him. ”Translated into plain English, that’s just roast venison with sliced potatoes, right?”

”Pretty much.”

”Then why not just call it ’Roast Venison with Sliced Potatoes’?”

”Because if they called it that, it would only sell for two shillings. Add that long string of words, and they can sell it for five pounds.”

Evelyn stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing.

”There’s also dessert,” Richard pressed on.

”What’s the dessert called?”

He rattled it off in one breath, adopting the rapid cadence of an auctioneer: ”Madagascar Vanilla Bean Caramel Pudding.”

Evelyn completely lost her composure, laughing until she could barely breathe.

”Say... say it again, that Madagascar whatever...”

”Madagascar Vanilla Bean. When you open your workshop, you can write it like that on your menu, too.”

Richard ticked them off on his fingers as he made up more names:

”’Artisanal Butter Cookies Kneaded Using the Ancestral Methods of the Williams Family, Hand-Picked by Miss Evelyn...’”

”Stop, stop, stop!” Evelyn reached out to silence him. ”Your made-up ones are even more ridiculous than the real ones!”

”That’s how fine-dining hotels do it. The longer the name, the more expensive it is.”

”Then from now on, I’ll use a hundred words for the name of every dessert, and sell them for a hundred pounds a piece.”

After the distraction, Evelyn was clearly in a much better mood.

Even so, her frustration hadn’t entirely vanished.

She hugged the pillow against her chest and rested her chin on top. ”Brother, I understand what you’re saying.”

Her voice had returned to its usual tone, carrying a hint of stubbornness.

”But Dad won’t listen. He only has one path in his head: university, a diploma, and a good job. Every other path is a detour in his eyes.”

Richard didn’t argue, because it was true.

”Don’t worry about it just yet.” He stood up and pushed the chair back to the desk.

”We can’t rush this. Let Dad cool off for a few days.”

”He won’t change his mind, no matter how many days he cools off.”

”Then let him cool off for even longer.”

Evelyn glared at him. ”Easy for you to say.”

”It’s easy for me to say because I’m on your side.”

Richard had already walked to the door. ”I’m heading back. I still have to tutor for the Dawn Family tomorrow morning.”

”Brother... thank you.”

”For what?”

”For making up those long dish names to cheer me up.”

”I didn’t make them up. They’re real.”

”Liar. There’s no dessert called ’Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Bean Infused Caramel Pudding.’”

”It’s written in black and white on the menu at the Royal Grand Hotel. If you don’t believe me, go look for yourself one day.”

Evelyn huffed and pulled the blanket up to cover half her face.

Richard closed the door and stepped out into the hallway.

He had successfully made his sister laugh, but he knew the core problem still remained.