I Loaded the Occult Panel

From within the plowed trench, the voice of that Virtuoso suddenly rang out.

”...Kid.”

”You bypassed my trench.”

His hoarse voice carried a hint of appreciation.

”No tearing things down, no smashing things up. You didn’t do anything to annoy me.”

”Those names you recited were issued by the city itself.”

Richard pressed his hands against his knees and slowly stood up.

”What is your name?” the voice asked.

Richard gripped the Caduceus without answering. Messengers were not entered into the roster.

”...A pity,” the voice in the trench said.Richard planted the staff firmly on the ground.

”Senior, the sun hasn’t risen yet.”

The battle beneath the Seven Hills was fought by men, but no one could comprehend the clash taking place above them.

The path Matthew had paved from the Deep Realm was held back outside the city walls, inching along the edge of the trench to test it point by point.

It would test a spot, get repelled, retreat half a step, and try the next.

On the ninth attempt, it carved a flight of stairs into the trench wall.

”...Oh?”

The old city-forging artisan in the trench sounded somewhat surprised.

The trench shifted upward, severing the stairs.

Outside the city walls, Matthew scratched his head and feigned curiosity.

”You dug this trench so deep and straight. Why not build a bridge over it?”

The city-forging Virtuoso scoffed coldly, knowing this kid was setting a trap for him.

”If I bridge the trench, it can no longer serve as a boundary!”

Matthew chuckled. ”If you won’t build one, I will!”

In that instant, Richard felt as if the ambient ether within the entire city had been siphoned away.

Out of thin air, a massive paving stone wedged itself into the trench.

The Virtuoso of the Apennine peninsula grew irritated. He ground the stone away once again and drew upon the power of the entire peninsula to strengthen the Romanization.

Heracles’s club was stopped dead mid-swing.

Demeter’s hand, wedged into a crevice in the stone, was pinned so tightly she couldn’t pull it free.

”...What are those two doing?” Dionysus asked, leaning against a colonnade.

”Fighting for the right to define the city,” Richard said.

”What?”

”Over whether the road from outside can be paved into it.”

Deeper within the veil, high-tier entities had been watching the spectacle all along.

Beneath an impossibly low-hanging expanse of clouds, a flute was playing.

The Gale Adept from the Gale Tradition naturally recognized Matthew.

The two of them had advanced to the Virtuoso Rank in roughly the same batch. Both had managed to ascend in their prime only by reaping the dividends of the New Continent.

By all accounts, he still owed Matthew a favor.

The Gale Adept raised his flute. He was just about to play when he paused in embarrassment.

Every high-Rank entity across the entire Apennine peninsula had cast their gaze toward him, their meaning crystal clear.

Matthew had been the first to break the rules; their side was entirely in the wrong.

The massive cloudbank retreated, and the flute fell silent.

In the distance, an endless procession was halted atop Cloud Ridge.

The figure at the very front sported antlers and held the reins, though the few bones beneath his ribs had not yet been drawn out.

The lord of the hunt was tallying his ledger.

He was calculating whether those two might drop anything tonight, and how long the city-forging Virtuoso would need to recover after the fight.

And whether the few weak points in the northern Apennine peninsula would erupt into chaos while he was recuperating.

As for the New Continent, he couldn’t reap any benefits there, so he couldn’t be bothered to think about it.

A third gaze peered over from across an entire ocean. The Black Earth River Master was also sneaking a glance.

Watching to see if there was anything it could reflect from these two clashing Virtuosos, hoping to find an opening to exploit.

To replace them, it first needed to know where to strike.

Naturally, it didn’t plan on entering the fray tonight, but there was no harm in recording the details first.

Unfortunately, the fragments of the recording tradition had been lost; otherwise...

There was another presence extremely close by, situated right in the south of the peninsula.

Meanwhile, Hohenheim was huddled in his old lair in Berlin, also stealing a look. Among all the Virtuosos watching, he was the most deeply engrossed.

He had severed all of his Anchors, cutting them completely clean.

The Virtuoso of the Labyrinth Tradition on the peninsula seemed different from him.

After Hohenheim severed his Anchors, he had no way back, but that other Virtuoso simply was the path itself.

Hohenheim lay flat on the ground and watched for a very, very long time. In the end, he did nothing.

Above the Seven Hills, Matthew’s road finally emerged from the far side of the trench floor.

”This road of yours cannot be severed,” the Virtuoso in the trench said.

”It can be,” Matthew replied casually. ”You just severed a section of it.”

”Then how are you still moving forward?”

”Because the severed section will find its own way.”

The two sides clashed back and forth, but in the end, neither gained the upper hand.

The trench was not broken, and the road was not connected.

”How long are they going to keep fighting?” Heracles wiped a smear of blood from his face.

”It won’t end,” Richard said.

”Then what do we...”

”We fight our own battle.”

Above the Seven Hills, those two were still clashing.

The expanse of clouds in the extreme north had retreated out of sight.

The endless procession atop Cloud Ridge remained halted in place, perfectly motionless.

The darkness in the extreme south was still recording.

The one in the south of the peninsula was lying on the ground, so absorbed in watching that he forgot to conceal himself.

It was at this moment that Matthew made his move, asking a seemingly offhand question.

”Old Senior, let me ask you something.”

The aged voice in the trench hummed in response.

”Ask away, kid.”

”The people you fenced out with this trench... did they ever come back?”

The City of Seven Hills fell silent.

The entity in the trench didn’t answer immediately.

”This business of drawing boundaries,” Matthew continued.

”I started later than you, but I’ve done it.”

”Once you close the trench, those inside are counted as city folk, and those outside are outsiders.”

”When Romulus finished drawing this trench back in the day, the first person to step across it was the very brother he depended on for survival. He was killed to set an example.”

”...”

”As for the people who were walled out later—some left, and some died. You know exactly how many times you’ve done this sort of thing in the century-plus you’ve spent establishing city boundaries for others.”

Matthew pulled his hands from his pockets and gestured along the edge of the trench.

”My whole life, I’ve specialized in walking the paths those people walked.”

”So I’m just asking you this one question tonight: did they come back?”

The entity in the trench remained silent for a long time.

”...A few came back,” the voice said.

”And those few who returned?”

”The trench didn’t recognize them anymore.”

Matthew let out a laugh.

”Exactly.”

The suppression radiating from the plowed trench receded. Soil began to crumble and fall along its entire length.

The Romanization within the walls weakened by about a third. Richard felt an immediate lightness in his bones; in one breath, he pushed the Condensed Mirror Method down to a depth he hadn’t reached all night.

”Attack!” Hecate seized the perfect moment.

The three individuals Richard had named received a double enhancement in that instant.

They retained the enhancement from their Greek divine names, and now gained the localized enhancement of Rome.

It truly proved the saying: a Greek god in Greece, and a Roman god in Rome. They reaped the benefits of both sides.

When Heracles brought his club crashing down, Mars couldn’t even maintain a kneeling stance.

He was sent flying backward by the blow, crashing through an entire row of colonnades, and was unable to get up for a long time.

Dionysus’s intoxicating mist surged to twice the height of a man, enveloping the entire left wing of the legion.

The Sickle of the Harvest Deity carved out an opening for the first time. Once that row of figures was cut down, no new ones sprang up to replace them.

Prometheus’s puppet rose from its kneeling posture.

”Ten minutes, I can only hold out for ten minutes.”

Atop the sixth hill, Fortuna’s hands spinning the Wheel of Fortune suddenly faltered.

Richard could see it with absolute clarity in his own mirror-like water.

The wheel was spinning faster and faster, blurring the spokes until it began to emit a grating, hollow whir of idle rotation.

”What’s wrong?” Minerva asked.

”It doesn’t align,” Fortuna said.

”What doesn’t align?”

”Their threads of fate don’t align.” Her hands pressed down on the rim of the wheel, but she couldn’t stop it.

”I calculated that he would go left, but he went right. I calculated that puppet wouldn’t last three minutes, but it stood up.”

”The Wheel of Fortune is spinning on nothing.”

Beneath the Seven Hills, the entire legion fell into disarray.

As the faceless soldiers marched, the front row slowed down, and the row behind them, still keeping their original pace, crashed right into them.

The collision threw the formation into a tangled mess.

Richard looked up as Fortuna stood atop the sixth hill and began to shout at the top of her lungs.

”Hecate!”

”Hermes on your left... is a Practitioner, ranking fourth in resonance!”

”Nemesis on your right joined in the same batch as Hermes! The two of them have a great relationship, and both are backed by Major Adept Scholars!”

”And that good farming sister of yours burns a batch of hollow grain in her fields every season! On the nineteenth of last month, she burned seven mu and three fen!”

”This seemingly honest farmer lady of yours has been feeding your intelligence to our side all along!”

At those words, all the fighting beneath the Seven Hills ground to a sudden halt.

Standing in the center of the circle, Richard didn’t react at first.

Then it dawned on him, and he slowly turned around.

The Club of Heracles hung suspended in midair.

Dionysus lowered his cup.

Prometheus’s crimson-gold flames ceased their flickering.

The scales above Nemesis’s head tipped so far toward Demeter that they stood almost vertical.

”Demeter!” the giant wielding the club roared, his voice terrifyingly grim, unable to contain his bloodlust any longer.