I Loaded the Occult Panel

Richard looked toward the window and saw the white titmouse still waiting.

The letter read, ”There is a Professor MacFie at Imperial Capital University. Do you know him?”

Why would a girl in Prague know the name of a relatively obscure professor at Imperial Capital University?

MacFie never appeared in the newspapers and rarely gave lectures.

Even when he did, they were strictly on campus. He hated appearing on any public registry.

If someone else had made her ask this, they probably already knew the answer. It wouldn’t matter whether he admitted to it or not.

But if Lillian had added the line herself, then perhaps she wasn’t looking for an answer at all.

What she wanted to know was whether Richard would lie to her.

Richard dug out a blank sheet of stationery, dipped his pen in the ink his aunt had given him, and began to write.

He had learned far too many tricks for lying over the past year. He couldn’t even count how many times the mask had seared his face.For this letter, he didn’t really want to lie.

”Lillian, I have received your letter and the things you sent.

”Regarding the professor you asked about, I do know him.

”He is my friend’s mentor. He looks incredibly fierce and eats more than anyone else, but in truth, he is a very generous and lenient elder.

”As for the matter you asked about, I can only tell you that he is not the sort of person who would hesitate over such things.

”He only ever takes an instant to make a decision. Once it’s done, he doesn’t look back, and he doesn’t explain himself.

”As for why, I won’t lie to you—I don’t know either.”

”You mentioned names and seats in your letter. Actually, I also sit at a table.

”The coldness in your hands isn’t a sickness. You should know that much better than I do.

”That cold will travel upward. This year it’s your hands; later on, it might be more than just your hands.

”I won’t tell you to turn back, because I don’t have the right to.

”And you aren’t the type to listen to such advice anyway. I’ve known that for a long time.”

Richard sighed softly as he wrote this. The tip of his pen hovered over the paper, leaving a tiny speck of ink.

He wrote another half-sentence further down:

”If one day, we...”

Midway through, he lifted his pen and stared at the words for a long time.

In the end, he crossed the sentence out and continued writing.

”As for a return gift, I didn’t prepare anything in advance.

”I rummaged through the whole room. The only things worth giving were either things I couldn’t give you, or things that would be useless to you.

”Finally, I just found a box of pastries my younger sister baked. She stuffed them into my bag the morning I left, telling me to eat them on the road.

”I was thinking about other things the entire trip and haven’t opened the box to this day.

”Speaking of which, you asked me to make a specimen for you the year before last, and I still haven’t managed to do it.

”I ruined two of them. I soaked the first one for too long, and I attached the wings on the second one backward.

”I haven’t dared to touch the third one. I’ll wait for you to come back and teach me.

”—Richard Williams”

After finishing, he folded the letter and placed it on the windowsill along with his sister’s box of pastries.

”I’ll trouble you with this.”

The white titmouse messenger lowered its head. Its body dissolved into a flurry of frost, completely wrapping around the items to be sent, before gathering back into the shape of a bird.

It was now several sizes fatter than when it had arrived, looking rather comical. It flapped its wings twice and flew away.

The ring of frost on the outside of the window took a long time to melt after it departed.

The melted water trickled down the seams of the bricks, drying up before it even reached the second brick.

...

In an attic in the Old Town of Prague, Lillian sat on the edge of her bed, waiting.

The white titmouse messenger rested on the windowsill and dispersed, dropping two items before melting away completely.

The Ether of the person who made it was still very shallow; a single round trip was already its absolute limit.

Lillian picked up the letter with almost desperate impatience.

”...he is not the sort of person who would hesitate over such things.”

The young girl’s lips trembled slightly as she read this answer.

The doubts in her heart had remained unanswered, and after agonizing over it for so long, all she could do was fill in a name herself.

At the time, she hadn’t a shred of evidence, yet her instinct was to believe it.

Now this letter lay before her. He hadn’t said anything like, ”It’s because of you.”

But that phrase—”I won’t lie to you, I don’t know either”—felt more sincere than anything else could have.

She pressed the letter to her chest and held it there for a long time before she continued reading.

”I also sit at a table.”

Seeing this sentence, Lillian thought once again of the team battle roster Loki had originally prepared.

The first alternate choice was the Greek Theogony.

”If one day, we...” These words were crossed out.

The girl stared at that half-sentence for a long time, temporarily suppressing a certain thought.

She reached out for the pastry box.

The frosted rabbit drawn on the lid was crooked, and a small chunk was missing from its left ear. It was obvious that the person who made it had been quite proud of their work at the time.

Inside, almond crisps were neatly stacked. She picked one up and took a bite.

Of course, she couldn’t taste anything. Her sense of taste had been the first to fail.

After taste came sensitivity to heat and cold. Ever since she sat in that chair, her blankets felt cold, hot coffee tasted no different from iced, and she couldn’t even feel the sweltering June heat of Prague.

She had always thought that there would never be anything to make her feel warm again.

But right now, sitting on the wooden bedframe, cradling the pastry box and eating that tasteless almond crisp, Lillian felt a sense of warmth slowly rising within her.

That tiny shred of warmth started from the parts of her that were already broken, washing over her lost senses of taste and temperature, all the way to her fingertips.

She reached up to wipe her eyes and was surprised to find them hot. A drop of water fell onto the letter, causing the ink on the words ”wait for you to come back and teach me” to bleed slightly.

She hurriedly held the paper up and blew on it.

After blowing it dry, she thought about burning the letter, but as soon as she picked it up, she couldn’t bear to part with it. In the end, she tucked it into her notebook, right next to a pressed four-leaf clover.

The young girl had just put the pastry box away when someone knocked on the door again.

”Lillian,” Ms. Holloway said, standing in the doorway with a cup of hot coffee in her hand.

”What is that smell in your room?”

”Pastries.”

”Where did they come from?”

Lillian guarded the pastry box fiercely against her chest. ”A friend sent them.”

”...Lillian,” Ms. Holloway said, standing in the doorway and scrutinizing her.

”Now that you’ve embarked on this path, there is no use keeping these things.”

”I know.”

”You know, yet you still keep them?”

Lillian raised her head, her eyes thoroughly stubborn. ”I just want to keep them.”

Ms. Holloway frowned but said nothing more.

She downed her coffee in one gulp, turned around, and left.

The light in the hallway dimmed, only brightening again a moment later.

After the door closed, Lillian hugged the pastry box and rolled over on the bed.

Outside the window, the bells by the Vltava River were still tolling, striking for the twelfth time.

The young girl placed the pastry box beside her pillow and lay down.

That night, her body was warm as she fell asleep.

...

On the night of June 13th, inside a nameless country house.

Demeter returned from the fields, her shoes completely caked in mud.

There was still warm water on the stove. She soaked her feet in it and began to wash them, sending a layer of muddy ash floating instantly to the surface.

She stared down at it for a moment, and without a second thought, she dumped the water out.

That same night, in a city in the southern part of Franc, Hecate sat before her loom.

The warp threads were pulled taut, and forty-one clay weights hung in their proper places.

It had been days since all six intelligence reports were dispatched.

After sending them out, she began feeling out her own thread of Inspiration again.

Her task tonight was simple: eliminate these threads one by one and find the mole.

Hecate started with the one on the outermost ring. This belonged to the guy holding the wine glass.

What he wanted at this table had always been very simple: a path that could take him further upward.

Hecate loosened his thread for a moment, then pulled it taut again.

The thread was clean. She wasn’t particularly surprised.

Dionysus actually seemed the most like a mole out of everyone at the table. He talked the most, his laugh was the most relaxed, and he was always holding that wine glass of his.

But precisely because of this, he was the easiest to rule out.

A person who laid their desires bare on the table was the hardest to bribe.

Next was Heracles’.

This person was the latest to arrive, having only taken this chair last year. Before then, he hadn’t known anyone at the table.

Hecate wrapped this thread around her finger a few times, then let it go.

He was clean too.

Thinking of that big oaf, Hecate smiled.

Heracles was endearingly straightforward, and his interpersonal relationships were incredibly simple.

That kind of person wasn’t suited to be a mole. Being a mole required hiding things.

And after putting on the Heracles mask, the blood rage it brought would make it impossible for anyone to keep secrets.

The third thread belonged to Prometheus. Here, Hecate began to hesitate.

Over the past six months, she had consistently spoken very harshly to him.

Standing behind him was an artisan who was a Major Adept; he was the one at this table capable of acquiring the most external resources.

Feeling along the thread, it turned out to be clean as well. Hecate breathed a sigh of relief.

She remembered the night Prometheus lifted the mask to his face—he had hesitated for a full ten seconds or more.

A man who hesitated that long before finally putting on a mask wouldn’t become a mole.

The fourth was Nemesis.

When Hecate felt this thread, her movements were more casual than before.

Behind her stood a Scholar of the Moon Hunting Tradition who was a Major Adept. Half a year ago, she had the lowest resonance at the entire table.

But last month, with the materialization of her Divinely Crafted Armament, she had already caught up.

This thread was clean as well. In truth, Hecate hadn’t really suspected her from the start.

Nemesis’s scales absolutely had to be balanced; people like that couldn’t play both sides.

Then came Hermes. Hecate’s finger lingered on this thread the longest.

He had been the most dazzling presence this past year. Decryption, appraisal, channels, intelligence... As merely a Practitioner, his resonance ranked fourth, and his Divinely Crafted Armament had materialized even faster than a Minor Adept’s.

Moreover, he also had a Scholar behind him who was a Major Adept. That professor was a figure of paramount importance in the Empire’s academic circles.

As she traced the thread, Hecate genuinely began to hesitate. This thread completely blocked her probing.

It wasn’t a shield, nor was it a disguise; it was simply a pool of water that reflected nothing.

Hecate stopped before that pool of water and drew her hand back.

”...It seems he truly isn’t simple.” She didn’t try to probe any deeper.

Only the final thread remained. Even by simple process of elimination, one could tell there was a problem with it.