I Loaded the Occult Panel

Over the next two days, Richard first organized the stack of documents by thickness.

He opened the double-copied manuscript on top, read two pages, and closed it.

Diving directly into decrypting something beyond his current level of [Learning] would be highly inefficient.

To break a cipher, one first needed to figure out who wrote it, who taught them, and which school it came from.

Encryption systems, like a person’s handwriting or a composer’s style, belonged to distinct ”schools.”

The Alexandrian School was merely one of them.

Originating from Ptolemaic alchemical texts, it relied on wrapping secrets in layers, using annotations to hide annotations. The two reference charts Mr. Hutton had given him followed this exact approach.

But Imperial Capital University had more than just the Alexandrian School.

Every higher institution with a Department of Classics cultivated its own Academy Style.

Flipping through the Extended Reference Chart for Late Alexandrian Variants sent by his aunt, Richard increasingly felt it resembled a regional dialect.The Academy Style of the Department of Classics at Imperial Capital University favored breaking keywords into Latin subjunctive moods, hiding information in grammatical shifts;

a northern academy founded on theology customarily wove its ciphers into Bible chapter numbers;

and a few more obscure schools simply used alchemical symbols as substitution ciphers. To a layman, the text looked like a recipe, but an expert could read an entire spell structure out of the sulfur, mercury, and salt.

His aunt had included a handwritten note in the parcel, slipped right on top of the extended reference chart.

The note contained only three lines:

”Identify the Academy Style first, break the text second.”

”The trick to identifying an Academy Style: see which word it is most reluctant to split.”

”The more convoluted the split, the more important the hidden information.”

Richard tucked the note into his notebook.

He spent an entire evening cross-referencing the church liturgical Latin annotated editions and the Gaelic paleography copies his aunt had sent.

He focused specifically on the spots where the encryptor had gone in circles, taking a word that could have been written plainly and deliberately splitting it into three parts.

The most convoluted spot was usually the ”birthmark” of that particular school.

By the following evening, he had figured out the general pattern.

In Imperial Capital University’s system, whenever the word ”veil” appeared, it was never written directly; it was always broken down into ”thin spot” paired with a subjunctive verb.

In the layer of medieval monastic annotations on the Whitcom Boundary Stone, the word ”seal” was always replaced by ”saint’s protection,” and ”Spell Formula” was swapped for ”sacrament.”

Edmund had mentioned this back in Whitcom; Richard had jotted it down, and now it was proving useful.

Once he understood the schools, looking back at that beginner’s exercise was different. In the previously garbled mess of symbols, he could at least tell which layer was the ”skin” and which was the ”core.”

Leaning against the desk, Richard pulled up his panel for a look.

[Learning] Lv.2, Progress 95%.

He hadn’t actually decrypted any text over the past two days, but just from studying encryption schools, the progress bar had climbed several notches.

He dismissed the panel and stretched.

Evelyn’s voice drifted up from downstairs.

”Brother! I made caramel pudding!”

”How many?”

”Six.”

”You spent all afternoon making just six?”

”Are you coming down or not?!”

Richard chuckled, got up, and went downstairs.

When the puddings were served, Evelyn deliberately drizzled an extra spoonful of caramel over the center one.

”This one is yours.”

”Why does mine get an extra spoonful?”

”Because for the past two days, you lock yourself in your room the moment you get home. You look like an old pedant with your eyebrows knit together.”

The young girl shoved a spoon into his hand. ”Eat something sweet and relax those eyebrows.”

Richard scooped up a spoonful.

The pudding melted on his tongue. The bitterness of the caramel hit first, followed by the sweetness of the milk rounding it out.

”It’s delicious.”

”Of course it is,” Evelyn said, hands on her hips.

His mother was slicing bread to the side. Without a word, she added another half a pudding to Richard’s bowl.

..................

On Saturday morning, Richard went to 24 Highfield Road as usual.

The lessons at the Dawn family were completely different from last year.

Tom sat at the desk, a Latin verb conjugation table spread out in front of him.

There was no Slingshot on the desk, nor was there a pirate map of eight islands pinned to the wall.

”Amo, amas, amat,” Tom recited, stumbling a bit but never freezing entirely. ”Amamus, amatis, amant.”

”Now conjugate the past tense.”

”Amabam... amabas... amabat.”

Richard didn’t interrupt. He waited until the boy had finished reciting all six persons of the first conjugation before drawing a checkmark.

”Where’s your Slingshot?”

”Put away.” Tom glanced at the desk drawer.

”And the map?”

”Put that away too.” Tom scratched his head. ”I don’t need to look at it to remember my declensions anymore.”

”Today, memorize this word—corpus.”

Richard thought for a moment and wrote two derived meanings beneath today’s word, corpus:

”Legion (soldiers gathered together)”

”Anthology (words gathered together)”

Tom looked at the two lines and suddenly raised his head.

”Teacher, why didn’t you teach it like this earlier?”

”Because back then, you couldn’t sit still.”

Richard tapped his pencil lightly against the boy’s nose. ”Now that you can sit still, we can cover other things.”

Tom let out a small ”heh” and didn’t argue.

During the rest of the lesson, Richard told a story.

He recounted Coriolanus, the ancient Roman tragedy written by Shakespeare.

It was about a Roman general given the honorary title ”Coriolanus,” meaning ”the conqueror of Corioli.”

Later, he was exiled from Rome, defected to the enemy state, and personally led their army right to the gates of Rome.

His mother knelt outside the city gates and persuaded him to withdraw his troops.

”Did he withdraw?” Tom asked.

”He did.”

”And then what?”

”Then he was killed as a traitor by the enemy.”

”He listened to his mother, and it got him killed?”

”Yes.”

”Then why are you telling me this story?”

Richard looked at Tom for a moment.

”The Latin language.”

”The people who spoke it and wrote it back then are almost all dead.”

”But what they left behind still influences how we speak, write, and think today.”

”The word you memorized today.”

He tapped corpus with his pencil:

”Its inventor has been dead for two thousand years.”

”The idea he wanted to express—a force that gathers scattered things together.”

”Two thousand years later, it is still in your mouth.”

”Don’t you find that a little interesting?”

Tom squeezed his pencil in his hand, saying nothing.

After a while, he drew a small sketch in the margin of his notebook.

A Roman soldier holding a flag, with a group of tiny stick figures below being gathered by the banner.

When he finished drawing, he looked up.

”Teacher, was Coriolanus also being gathered by a force?”

”Hmm?”

”Rome on one side, his mom on the other. He was caught in the middle.”

”If he didn’t withdraw, his mom would die.”

”If he did withdraw, he would die.”

”No matter what he chose, he was being pulled by that force.”

Richard didn’t respond.

In his impression, this kid had always been a mischievous troublemaker.

But judging from what he said today, his previous three tutors hadn’t dulled the boy’s mind.

”You’re right,” he replied after a moment. ”In the end, Coriolanus was torn apart by two forces at once.”

”If he were a bit smarter, could neither side have died?”

”No one can choose neither side.”

Richard flipped the textbook to the next page:

”All you can do is pick a side yourself, before you get torn to pieces.”

Tom didn’t ask anything else, burying his head back in the textbook.

Richard stared absently as the boy wrote.

He had only told the kid about Coriolanus to link a story to the vocabulary word.

But halfway through, he found himself feeling a bit lost.

Being pulled by two forces at once.

He was basically in the same situation right now.

The academy system, the Theogony Salon, his family, the Branch Office, the Civilian Guild...

Every side had expectations of him, and he couldn’t easily drop any of them.

And the paths behind the veil. The Scholar direction, the Secret direction... even the Hunter direction, he wanted to try them all.

Then there was the Sun, Abyss, Weaving, Alteration... With so many traditions and his own cheat, it would be a shame not to try a few more paths.

But then again, his cheat couldn’t clone him. Once things piled up, he would be stretched completely thin...

Richard took a breath, pushing down that slight sense of confusion.

After the lesson, he took some time to go over his prose draft with Charlotte.

When she finished reading, Charlotte refilled both their teacups.

”Richard, this draft was a massive surprise.”

”Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

”Don’t flatter me. With the quality of this manuscript, any magazine you took it to would definitely accept it.”

Charlotte handed him his tea.

”Though I do have a few suggestions on the grammar.”

Every point she brought up was a minor detail.

Just punctuation, sentence rhythm, and pronoun references. She didn’t make him change the overall direction.

”Once you fix these minor issues, it should be fine to hand over to the editor-in-chief.”

”The deadline is February 15th. Just get it to me by the last weekend of this month.”

Charlotte closed the manuscript, her hand brushing over the title.

”What’s wrong?”

”It’s nothing.”

She shifted her gaze back to the manuscript:

”This piece of yours... after reading it, I felt a chill.”

”Did a specific paragraph make you uncomfortable?”

”It’s not exactly discomfort.”

Charlotte frowned.

”Not a single paragraph is overtly ’cold.’ You wrote with great restraint, with no excessive sensationalism or exaggeration.

But when I close the manuscript, that chill is just there.”

”I can’t quite describe what it is.”

She smiled, dropping the subject. ”It’s probably just my nerves. Don’t mind me.”

Richard took the manuscript back.

The young woman before him wasn’t from the occult side of things, yet she could still feel an indescribable chill after reading it.

When he wrote this draft, he had indeed built something into its bones.

The density of death-echoes in industrial cities, the final breath of men like Burns as they collapsed on wooden beds, the sheer apathy of the poor relief system.

He had deliberately avoided writing the occult layer into it, but it was still there in the bones.

Richard tucked the manuscript into his satchel.

”Thank you, Miss Charlotte.”

”You’re welcome.”

He sorted out the manuscript on Saturday morning, and had an appointment with Coleman in the afternoon.

Richard carried his satchel, which held the Webley Revolver and Enchanted Bullets.

He wasn’t particularly close to Coleman, after all. Bringing a gun gave him some peace of mind.

The Coleman family’s house sat on a street corner, a small two-story building.

The outer walls were a bit cleaner than their neighbors’, and the brass handle on the front door was polished to a shine.

Richard rang the bell, and the door opened quickly.

A woman opened it. When she saw Richard, a bright smile immediately spread across her face.

”You must be Richard, right?”

”Are you Mrs. Coleman?”

”Come in, come in!”

Mrs. Coleman ushered him inside, her welcoming posture so eager she was practically leaning forward.

Richard stepped into the foyer.

An old-fashioned coat rack stood inside, next to a small table.

On the table sat a small silver tray holding several calling cards.

Richard scanned the cards from the corner of his eye: three from doctors, two from lawyers, and one from a certain parish.

Mrs. Coleman took his coat and hung it up.

”Was it cold on your way here?”

”Not too bad.”

”Would you like some hot tea? I just brewed a pot.”

”Please don’t go to any trouble. Coleman and I agreed to meet in the afternoon.”

”It’s no trouble at all. Have some tea and rest for a bit.”

She was already ushering Richard into the living room.

A middle-aged man sat by the fireplace reading a newspaper. Seeing Richard enter, he hurriedly set the paper aside and stood up.

The man wasn’t tall, but his shoulders were noticeably broader than those of a typical clerk.

”I’m Coleman’s father. Just call me Old Coleman.”

”Hello.”

”Sit, sit.” Old Coleman pointed to the sofa opposite the fireplace. ”Make yourself at home.”

Richard sat down.

Mrs. Coleman quickly came out carrying a tea tray loaded with teacups, a sugar bowl, a milk jug, and a plate of biscuits.

”Try one.” She handed him a teacup. ”I baked them myself.”

Richard took the cup and picked up a biscuit.

The biscuit was actually quite well-baked. It had a rich milky flavor, and the granulated sugar crunched crisply against his teeth.

”Thank you, Mrs. Coleman.”

”We heard from Coleman that you’re the top student at Greenwood?”

”It’s not that exaggerated,” Richard answered honestly. ”I did well in a few classes last term, but the top student in our year is someone else.”

”That’s still incredibly impressive.” Mrs. Coleman pushed the milk jug toward him. ”Coleman came home and told me you took second place in the Latin speech competition in the Imperial Capital.”

”Yes.”

”And the first place went to someone from Eton...?”

”Montagu.”

”Right, right, Montagu.”

Mrs. Coleman paused on the surname ”Montagu.”

She clearly knew what that name represented.

”And you managed to push that Montagu boy so hard in the speech competition that he only won by half a point?”