I Loaded the Occult Panel

”Speaking of working for me... little brother, don’t you think you’ve forgotten something?”

Richard froze.

Matthew glanced at him and kept chewing his shortbread. ”Back in June, I told you that if you ever became a Virtuoso, you had to go to the Mouth of the Underworld River and do a job for me.”

”I said it in your dorm. Have you forgotten?”

”No...” Richard scratched his head. ”But wouldn’t that be decades from now, at least?”

”Normally, yes.” Matthew brushed the crumbs off his hands.

”I figured even if you rushed it, it would take you at least fifty years.”

”But who could have guessed? Over this past year, leaving aside the fact that you managed to hire me, you actually tore apart the table in Rome, made that miser pay you out of his own pocket, and even had that person... personally turn on the lights for you.”

”Fifty years? It won’t take nearly that long!”

Matthew sounded incredibly certain. ”Let’s revise our agreement. Once the war is over, you’ll come pay me a visit.”

”Are you serious? I can barely get downstairs as it is.”

”I didn’t say right now. I said after the war is over.”

Matthew leaned back against the headboard and rested his head on his arms, staring up at the ceiling.

”I should also mention something else. A lot of people are gathering boats to head for the Pole. There are teams going to both the north and the south.”

”Heading for the Pole?”

Richard suddenly remembered what Professor Mortimer had said: new positions for a Virtuoso came from only two sources. Either the veil itself grew something new, or someone walked to a place no one had ever reached before.

”Well? Think about it.”

Matthew gave him a half-smile. ”You can’t grow a new path sitting at a desk.”

”Yeah, I definitely need to think about it.” Richard nodded.

Matthew stood up and stretched with a long yawn.

”If you want me to testify that you were with me, that’s fine, but you have to come with me today.”

Richard immediately tensed up. ”Wait, my Inspiration hasn’t recovered yet. I can’t touch anything on the mystical side...”

”Who said you had to touch anything?” Matthew gave him no chance to resist, grabbing the wheelchair and pushing him out. ”Just sit obediently in the chair. You won’t need to spend a single drop of Ether.”

”Mr. Matthew, I need to...”

Before he could finish, the wheelchair was already hurtling toward the wardrobe.

Richard tried to reach out and grab the doorframe, but it was too late.

With a slight push, Matthew shoved him and the wheelchair right through.

There was still no moon at the Mouth of the Underworld River. Both the sky and the water were pitch black.

The moment Richard arrived, the stench of river mud hit him. Looking down, he saw the wheelchair was already bogged down in the muddy bank.

”This wheelchair of yours really isn’t much good. You should install off-road tires.”

Matthew’s voice came from behind him, laced with gloating amusement.

The haystack by the door of the stilt house rustled. A skeleton dog darted out, circled Richard a few times, and finally stopped at his feet, sniffing vigorously.

”Friday, what are you doing?” Matthew looked utterly shocked.

Friday didn’t spare him a single glance. It simply lifted its hollow eye sockets and stared quietly at Richard. Richard paused, the image of the limping little dog from the Wild Hunt flashing through his mind. He seemed to have a constitution that dogs loved.

Not just living dogs—dead ones were no exception.

”Whatever. Let’s go inside first.”

Matthew dragged him and the wheelchair into the house.

The furnishings inside were simple: a table, a stove, and a large water vat in the corner.

Matthew rolled up his sleeves, scooped a few fish out of the vat, heated some oil, and tossed them into the pan.

”I told you a long time ago that when you came over, I’d make you eat the fish I cooked myself.”

”It won’t burn, will it?”

”Impossible!”

As Matthew tossed the fish with a spatula, his face lit up with excitement, and he gestured toward the window with his chin.

”Look at the river outside. For centuries, someone has been picked off every single boat that crossed...”

Reaching the climax of his story, Matthew started gesturing wildly, completely forgetting the fish in the pan. It wasn’t until the smell of burning reached him that he jolted back to reality.

Unfortunately, it was too late. The fish had been burnt to a crisp.

He stared at it for a long time, then turned to Richard with a deeply resentful look. ”Don’t blame me. You’re the one who insisted on chatting with me.”

”I didn’t even get a chance to interrupt.”

”Just sitting there is distracting enough!”

Richard shook his head helplessly. There was no point in arguing with him.

He reached out, broke off a charred piece of fish, and popped it into his mouth. ”Not bad. Burnt on the outside, raw on the inside. The texture is definitely distinct.”

The resentment on Matthew’s face vanished instantly. He slapped Richard so hard he nearly knocked him out of the wheelchair. ”A true connoisseur!”

Friday lifted its head from Richard’s feet, hopped onto the stove to sniff at the pan, and then shot back out to its haystack at lightning speed.

Outside the window, a flat-bottomed barge was sailing along the Underworld River.

A man stood at the bow of the boat. He had a ruddy face, a thick beard, and an unlit half-cigar clamped in his teeth.

With one hand on the oar and the other holding a liquor bottle, he tilted his head back for a swig, and his hearty laugh echoed across the Underworld River. When that face turned around, Richard felt his breath stop for a second.

It was too similar!

He looked exactly like what Cousin Vincent would look like twenty years from now.

”That’s the guy guarding the boat, see him?”

Matthew gestured with his chin.

A few nights ago, the moon actually came out at the Mouth of the Underworld River. It shone exclusively on him.

”This guy walks with a swagger now. He even came over yesterday just to pay for the table he smashed back then.”

Without realizing it, Richard placed his right hand over his chest.

Matthew glanced at him but didn’t ask anything. He merely opened the door. ”Wanna go say hi?”

Richard opened his mouth. ”...There’s no need.”

”Up to you.” Matthew nodded, gripped the handles of the wheelchair, and pushed him toward the back door.

”If you went over like this, he’d wonder why I brought a patient along.”

The moment the back door of the stilt house was pushed open, an endless great plain unfolded before them.

The sun was setting. Seven golden cities of varying sizes slowly rose on the horizon, wisps of cooking smoke drifting up from within their walls.

Long tables stretched all the way out from the cities, laden with steaming bread, almond shortbread, lemon tarts, and honey-glazed ribs. The mouthwatering aroma drifted over on the wind.

A nasal voice echoed from the nearest city gate:

”Brother, time to eat!”

Richard’s stomach growled uncontrollably, rumbling several times in a row.

Matthew looked at him. ”Your stomach is much easier to fool than you are.”

He tossed his own hat over Richard’s face. ”Stop looking. Stare any longer and your spirit will be left here for good.”

With his vision covered, before Richard could even react, the world spun wildly around him.

Matthew had abruptly spun the wheelchair around and was pushing him into a mad sprint.

The delicious aromas behind them vanished, replaced by the frantic clattering of dishes.

Matthew’s pace quickened even more. He shouted as he ran, ”He still owes a manuscript to the boss up there! The library card is right in his pocket!”

The area around the city gates instantly fell silent, followed by the heavy thuds of the gates slamming shut.

In the blink of an eye, all seven bustling cities sank back beneath the horizon.

Matthew laughed. ”See? Even they’re scared of editors chasing deadlines.”

The third stop was the Mount Washington Summit.

The wind here was fierce. Matthew had to exert a massive amount of effort just to hold onto him and the wheelchair.

There was a hut built from wind at the top of the mountain. Its door was open, and a stream of musical notes drifted out from the holes of the Bone Flute:

”This poetry-writing guy—I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before?”

Matthew nodded proudly. ”You remember right. That’s him.”

The Bone Flute turned toward Richard and blew out another set of notes. ”I want a poem, too.”

”If you want one, get in line!”

Matthew stepped forward and blocked Richard.

Richard shrugged and confessed honestly, ”It takes me at least two months to produce a single poem. The queue is already booked up to the end of the year.”

The wind paused for a second. In the very next moment, it swept Matthew’s hat right off his head.

By the time the two of them returned to Chelsea, only twenty minutes had passed.

Richard patted the wrinkles out of his clothes. ”Well, this is perfect. Now, when you write my leave request saying I went over to your place, it won’t be a lie.”

Matthew curled his lip slightly at this. ”Do you really take your head seat for a fool?”

Richard froze mid-motion.

”She knows your real identity.” Matthew laughed cheerfully.

”The moth on your dorm windowsill, the deer at the school gates—she sent them all.

”And your red-haired female classmate. She investigated both of your backgrounds thoroughly. At the very least, she definitely did so before inviting you.”

Matthew stepped in front of him, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared down at him.

”I’m claiming you’re building roads in the New Continent, while everyone in the Imperial Capital says you’re sitting in a wheelchair. What do you think she’ll make of that?”

Richard swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out on his back. ”She’ll definitely wonder why I had to lie, what I’m trying to hide...”

”Exactly.”

The room fell silent for a long moment. On the windowsill, a hyacinth petal slowly drifted down.

”Then, maybe we should just change the leave request to sick leave...” Richard hesitated.

”No.” Matthew shook his head. ”It has to say you’re building roads.”

”Today she can investigate whether you’re sick or not. Tomorrow, she can investigate whether you actually took part in the battle on the night of the winter solstice.”

He leaned comfortably against the headboard.

”You might be able to fool her this time, but what about the next? Are you going to consider whether she’ll investigate you before you do absolutely anything from now on?”

Richard fell silent. This was exactly what he feared the most.

Matthew chuckled. ”You don’t actually need to be afraid of her. She wants to investigate, right? Let her investigate. That way, she can also find out just how powerful your backing is.”

Richard’s eyes lit up. When he was at the table, he had declared, ”Hermes will not approach that mountain pass,” and the mask system hadn’t triggered an alarm.

Hecate had once said that if anyone broke an oath, she would be the first to know. As far as she could tell, Hermes was completely clean that night.

Because of the Mask of the Reverse Envoy, the passage that winter solstice night had been bolted shut from the inside, so she hadn’t received a single signal.

Moreover, the lord of the hunt had publicly and explicitly stated that the Honored Envoy was just bait he had intentionally released.

If Hecate were to expose him, it would be equivalent to slapping the lord of the hunt in the face in public.

Actually, when the librarian called out ”Close the library!” on the night of the winter solstice, it wasn’t just shouted within the Deep Realm.

”Across the entire Old Continent, anywhere there was a bookshelf under His jurisdiction, many readers heard it. Some of the ones with high Inspiration slept for an entire day.”

Matthew spoke at a leisurely pace. ”You were just the one who slept the longest.”

”Let her investigate. If she investigates up to this point and stops, that’s naturally for the best. If she doesn’t stop, let her crash into a brick wall on her own.”

The man stood up and squeezed into the wardrobe, leaving Richard with one final sentence:

”By the way, take your time flipping her chair over.”

Matthew smiled, looking exceptionally delighted. ”For now, just let her be afraid.”

The wardrobe doors snapped shut. Richard sat in the wheelchair, staring at the doors, unmoving for a long time.

...He originally just wanted to ask for time off.

In that seaside cottage in the south of Franc, Hecate sat completely still at her loom.

The commotion in the Spirit Realm had been so massive that she had started investigating it on the second night of the winter solstice.

But as her forty-one servants returned one after another, the reports they brought back were increasingly similar.

In Milan, a copyist named Luca slept for an entire day, and the first thing he did when he woke up was yearn for coffee with sugar.

Leiden, Heidelberg, Salamanca, Basra... there was even a report stating that an associate professor at Trinity College had fallen asleep while working. When he woke up, he even corrected the librarian in his dream, saying that using the phrase ”close the library” to kick people out lacked academic rigor.

Out of all thirty-seven reports, the most severe case was that boy at 13 Chelsea Road.

Having investigated up to this point, Hecate had originally let the matter rest.

But five days before the gathering, a slip of paper dropped out of thin air, with one of those withered, five-pointed split leaves attached to it.

The paper read:

”I’m borrowing Hermes for three months. You don’t have a problem with that, do you? —...”

Matthew wanted to borrow Hermes and take him to the New Continent for three months?

Hecate’s heart filled with doubt. This was entirely different from the information she had gathered in the Imperial Capital.

Why would Matthew lie for that boy?

Or was that boy really heading over to the New Continent?

The threads on the loom grew tighter and tighter, and a card slowly slid down.

The handwriting on it was remarkably neat:

Creator: l.

Status: Convalescing.

Off-site requests: Denied.

A red stamp sat in the bottom right corner: Just this once.

Below the stamp was an even smaller line of text.

”Repeat offenders will have their borrowing privileges suspended.”

Hecate knew the ropes of the mystical side. And the more one knew, the more terrified they would be.

As she held that card, an unprecedented, intense warning from her Inspiration made her hands tremble uncontrollably.

From this day onward, when it came to Hermes, she would never send anyone to take so much as a single glance at the Imperial Capital.

She still remembered his true name, but she didn’t dare utter it again.

She glanced at the long wooden box beside the loom.

There were seven slots on the tiller arm. The Caduceus hadn’t been lit up yet, but the sense of crisis in Hecate’s heart only grew thicker.

In mid-February, the regular gathering commenced right on schedule.

Of the seven chairs, one was empty. On it rested a withered leaf stained with river mud.

Hecate sat at the head seat and spoke slowly. ”Hermes took a leave of absence.”

”A leave of absence?”

Dionysus paused with his wineglass. ”He said he wouldn’t go to the mountain pass on the winter solstice. Could it be...”

”He was borrowed by someone.”

Hecate cut him off directly, pulling the slip of paper from her sleeve.

”I’m borrowing Hermes for three months...” She covered the rest of the text with her finger.

The handwriting on the slip was incredibly ugly, but its powerful fluctuation of Ether caused the entire hall to fall dead silent.

Dionysus remained silent for a long moment before his lips twitched. ”He went to the New Continent with a Virtuoso? He’ll have to be a Minor Adept by the time he gets back, won’t he?”

Heracles slapped his thigh. ”During that group fight last time, I just knew this kid was definitely going places...”

”What did you know?” Demeter shot him a sidelong glance. ”All you knew how to do back then was clap.”

Prometheus didn’t say a word, only habitually using his fire to illuminate the empty chair.

Of course, it didn’t reveal a person. It only illuminated a path heading west, stretching out endlessly without a visible end.

Faintly, two thin ruts were also visible, as if some wheeled vehicle had been pushed along it.

During the trading segment, everyone was a little distracted.

Dionysus brought out his newly brewed bitter wine like he was presenting a treasure, claiming it was a gift for Hermes to drink when he returned. Demeter told him he was just sucking up.

Dionysus didn’t even deny it, asking what was wrong with sucking up.

If Hermes came back from the New Continent carrying some local specialties, wouldn’t she be curious?

Only Nemesis hadn’t spoken a single word from beginning to end.

The Scales above her head swayed back and forth. A question mark surfaced on the left pan, and another question mark surfaced on the right.

The red-haired girl had already asked her captain for leave, wanting to head back to the Imperial Capital to take a look.

Her leave hadn’t even been approved yet, and now they were saying he had been taken to the New Continent by a Virtuoso.

How could a person be sitting in a wheelchair at home while simultaneously being in the New Continent?

The question marks on the Scales grew larger and larger.

After the meeting dispersed, she wrote down a single line:

”Ask for leave, go back and ask him clearly face-to-face. Accounts must be settled.”

...Among the recent visitors checking on his recovery, there was one who surprised Richard quite a bit.

Montagu had actually been coming by two or three times a week. Every time, he would sit beside Richard and read the newspaper out loud to him.

He read completely trivial news: how some theater had changed its play, how a major street had been repaved, or how the ducks in Hyde Park survived the winter.

One day, his uncle, Colonel Javier, came along as well.

The colonel wore civilian clothes, politely shook hands with Richard’s grandfather, chatted idly in the living room for half an hour, and even offered his sympathies regarding Richard’s health.

Lying in bed, Richard’s thoughts churned.

Falling on hard times was just like a mirror. He could see exactly why people chose to leave or stay, their motives laid bare.

As for why mere acquaintances gave him the cold shoulder, he fully understood all the practical considerations and reasons behind it.

Only Montagu baffled him.

The Montagu Family had Virtuoso ancestors behind them. Major Adepts were nothing more than ordinary guests who frequented their home.

Even Professor Mortimer’s letter of recommendation back then was absolutely nothing special in their household.

So why would the Montagu Family repeatedly pay attention to him—a ”half-crippled” young man who had shattered a strand of his Inspiration, couldn’t advance for three years, and might even be stuck at this stage for the rest of his life? Montagu’s visits were far too frequent, and even his uncle had shown up.

Richard remembered a line by Ennius that Cicero had quoted in On Friendship: a reliable friend is only recognized in an unreliable situation.

His personal relationship with Montagu was decent enough, but Montagu didn’t have much of a voice in his own family.

And there certainly wasn’t any deep friendship between the Montagu Family and Ashford House.

This could only mean one thing: someone knew the inside story, and knew that he would eventually get back on his feet.

Richard pulled his blankets up to his chin and stared at the ceiling.

Meanwhile, in Count Blackburn’s study, there hung a tapestry embroidered with many names in gold thread.

At the center of the tapestry was a great tree, its branches spreading outward layer by layer, with a name woven onto each branch.

The names at the very bottom had long since faded beyond recognition.

That night, when Viola was summoned over, the Count was sitting in front of the tapestry, enjoying a glass of wine.

Constance was sitting by the window, reading a book.

The gold threads on the tapestry suddenly flared to life. From top to bottom, even the names at the very bottom lit up brilliantly.

”Attached to that boy are the unresigned wills of two Virtuosos.”

A voice, indiscernible in both gender and age, suddenly echoed from the tapestry.

”He also bears the stamp of that librarian, and his account is opened in the registry book at the Summit of Myriad Ledgers.”

The Count set down his wineglass. Viola and Constance both looked over at the same time.

”Most people can only see him fall, but we know exactly when he will get back up.”

”Tying him to our family now is the perfect opportunity.”

The voice faded away, and the gold threads dimmed once more.

Constance looked exceedingly helpless. ”The ancestor only spoke half the sentence again.”

Viola just rolled her eyes.

”It is a truth universally acknowledged that a wealthy bachelor must be in want of a wife.”

”Our family is exactly the opposite. Whenever there’s a promising bachelor, they always want to marry a daughter off to him.”

The Count did not argue. After Viola returned to Calais, she wrote a private letter to Richard.

Williams:

The ancestor of my family said you were putting on an act, but I don’t think so.

You might be able to lie in bed for a day, or a week... but I don’t believe you could lie there for three months.

Someone like you wouldn’t be able to stand it by the third day.

I’m back in Calais now, and I just finished repairing a Ford last week. Come find me when you’re all healed up. I’ll take you for a spin.

—V.

Richard flipped the envelope over. On the back, there was a somewhat abstract drawing of an Ambulance, along with a line written in watercolor pen: ”Careful, next time I’ll drive right up to your front door!”

On the library card sitting on his nightstand, however, a line of tiny text would appear every Monday morning:

”Volume two of The Pillars of the Earth, progress?”

”When will you submit chapter seven of The Tale of the Wrong Door?”

”Chapter four of Wolfsmund, waiting for seven days.”

The handwriting was dignified and neat, the tone utterly impassive.

The whole world was downgrading him, yet the library’s demands for manuscripts had never once lessened.

Richard opened his manuscript paper and continued writing volume two of The Pillars of the Earth.

That youngest son of the quarry worker was already a nineteen-year-old apprentice.

He stood in the empty lot south of Milan, watching the very first pillar of the cathedral rise up.

Just as he wrote this, a line of text immediately surfaced on the library card:

”This chapter is not bad.”

Richard shook his head with a smile, picking up his pen to continue.

...

Rewinding the clock back to the day of the winter solstice, Professor Mortimer spent the entire afternoon sitting at Ashford House.

Isabella had urged him to go back and get some rest, pointing out that her nephew didn’t need an audience to sleep.

Upon returning to the Petrie Building, the old professor found the bearded Greer leaning against his office door.

”...The Military gave the ’secret weapon’ a name.”

”What secret weapon?” Professor Mortimer pulled out his keys and unlocked the door.

Greer followed him inside and sat down in a chair without being asked.

”That iron box riveted together with steel plates, with two tracks on the bottom. It can easily cross trenches, and barbed wire can’t even stop it. I went to see it twice last month.”

The old professor simply gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment, not particularly caring. ”Sounds like the kind of iron contraption you’d like.”

”The thing itself is alright, I just don’t like the name.”

Greer stroked his thick beard. ”To hide the truth from the workers, they originally claimed to the public that it was a water carrier headed for Mesopotamia.

”A secretary on the Committee even abbreviated ’water carrier’ directly to W.C. just to save time on reports.”

”During the meeting that day, a colonel stood up, slammed the table, and roared that he would rather die in battle than have the history books say they rode into battle sitting on flush toilets.”

The old professor couldn’t hold it in and laughed so hard he coughed.

Greer practically gritted his teeth as he continued.

”So those idiots changed it to Tank, finalized just the day before yesterday.”

By the time the bearded man finished speaking, the world outside the window was gradually swallowed by the night.

Professor Mortimer put away his smile. Looking at the dark night outside, he spoke slowly.

”The people of the Black Earth River never wrote true names on walls, either.

”This ’secret weapon’ is the same. Even if enemy spies found out, they would only think it’s just an iron tank.

”One day, when it really rolls onto the battlefield, and soldiers scream at the top of their lungs: The tanks are coming! The tanks are coming!

”Once it’s shouted a thousand times, ten thousand times, that name will become impossible to change.”

Greer had never been interested in these convoluted theories. He stood up and dusted himself off.

”All I care about is whether its tracks will slip in the mud of Flanders.”

After he left, the door was left slightly ajar, letting in gusts of cold wind.

Professor Mortimer remained seated where he was, not saying a word.

If he had encountered this sort of thing on a normal day, he would have definitely clipped it out and put it into his ”joke book.”

He would scribble a couple of notes in the margins, ready to flip it open for a laugh whenever he was bored. But what Greer had talked about today hadn’t been published in the newspaper, so there was nothing to clip.

He thought it over, then finally pulled out his little calfskin notebook and opened it.

The first few pages were events from the autumn of the year before last.

The Evening Post, September 1914: The Angels of Mons.

At the end of it, he had written a comment in red ink: ”Stupid.”

May 1915, tucked in a corner on the seventh page of the Imperial Capital Morning News: A certain chemist and his family were found dead. Police concluded it was a case of nervous exhaustion.

The mass getting-lost incident in the East District. Experts’ final conclusion: please keep to the right when walking in foggy weather.

Professor Mortimer laughed as he kept flipping through the pages.

”The further back you look, there were already many dead souls buried beneath Flanders. They came from the war of 1870, and even further back, the Thirty Years’ War.”

”And now, tens of thousands more are going down there every single day. None of them have a chance at sleep-return.”

The new methods of dying on the other side of the veil were skyrocketing.

The war dictionary on the Germanic Pantheon’s side was also taking shape, and the Rune Brigade similarly wanted to be the first to define these new entities.

Richard’s mind flashed back to that night in Flanders, when the Black Earth River Master had seized the initiative to name the newly born poison gas Virtuoso: ”one who causes people to cough out their lungs in a single night.”

”If the position was seized by whoever named it first, those who spoke later could only talk back in vain.”

But this time, the timing of both sides speaking up was almost indistinguishable.

”Then, how do you judge which side won?” Isabella frowned deeply.

”That depends on which side has more readers.”

Professor Mortimer pulled out a copy of Through the Looking-Glass and tossed it onto the bed.

”However, we still have the advantage in this regard.

”Just have your nephew weave the definitions of these new evil creatures into stories for his Collection of Strange Tales. They’ll spread much faster.”