Chapter 268 - 214: Fog Bell

The business of the transaction was mostly settled, but Richard still had two questions to ask.

He brought his hands together on the edge of the table.

"Excuse me, does anyone have a reliable source for Many-eyed Black Moss and Silent Fern?"

Prometheus was the first to react.

"Many-eyed Black Moss can be gathered in the near-shore transition zone."

The voice from beneath the Red Gold Mask was unhurried.

"North of Manchester City, there’s a ’Natural Sample Allocation Station’ under the Royal Botanical Society.

Nominally, it supplies specimens to Scholars of natural history, but outsiders can buy from them too. You just have to go through a registration process."

"They classify Many-eyed Black Moss under ’Bryophyta, Anomaly Group,’ and the price isn’t too expensive."

Richard made a mental note of this.

"And what about Silent Fern?"

Prometheus didn’t immediately offer a source.

The Red Gold Mask tilted toward the head of the table, confirming Hecate had no intention of interjecting before turning back.

"For that particular ingredient, my direct advice is... don’t go looking for it any time soon."

Richard waited for the rest.

"Silent Fern touches the edge of the Deep Realm."

"The few channels where you can buy it on the surface are backed by several different networks, each with its own agenda.

Some belong to legitimate Guilds, some to shady middlemen, and some... to the layer even further below."

"Cultists are the most ravenous users of Silent Fern.

Sealing living people, rewriting true names, and performing rituals that transfer the price to others—none of it can be done without it."

Richard frowned.

’Transferring the price to others.’

That one sentence landed squarely on a deduction he had been mulling over recently, one he never dared to commit to paper.

"A person going to inquire about Silent Fern through dark channels..."

Prometheus didn’t say any more.

Inquiring about Silent Fern would almost certainly get you noticed by one of those networks, and everyone at the table knew full well what happened after you were noticed.

"Understood." Richard swallowed the follow-up questions he had prepared.

Nemesis took over the conversation.

"If you absolutely must use Silent Fern, you can find a substitute."

"A substitute?"

"In the Moon-Hunting Tradition, there is an herb called Fog Bell."

"Fog Bell grows near old battlefields in the Highlands. Its properties are similar to Silent Fern, and it can serve as a temporary replacement in most Sealing- and barrier-type Techniques."

"Silent Fern works by ’making the target unable to hear and isolating them.’

Fog Bell works by ’swallowing the sound.’"

Nemesis’s explanation was brief.

"The two paths lead to the same destination. It’s a decent enough substitute, though the Sealing effect will be a bit weaker."

She added the most crucial detail.

"It isn’t cheap, but it’s not as rare as Silent Fern, so it circulates quite a bit among the populace."

Richard thanked her solemnly.

’The original Silencing Technique uses Many-eyed Black Moss paired with Silent Fern. He now had a legitimate place to buy the moss, and as for the fern, he could use Fog Bell as a temporary replacement for now. Though the effect would be diminished, it was still better than handing his name over to one of those networks.’

"One last question."

He raised his eyes and scanned the entire table.

"Regarding legitimate channels for circulating Marvels, does anyone have one they could introduce me to?"

Aries spread his only remaining hand, his right, and a short puff of air, something like a laugh, escaped from beneath his Red Copper Mask.

"Marvels... Hermes, you’re asking the wrong people."

"How so?"

"True Marvels are hard currency. The moment one appears on the market, it gets snatched up."

Aries lifted the coin purse full of sovereigns, and the gold coins inside clinked dully.

"For people like us, there’s only one reliable way to accumulate Marvels.

Go into the field yourself, and pilfer them from Evil Being lairs, altars, or from the hands of dead colleagues."

He gestured with his empty left shoulder.

"You’ve seen the price."

Prometheus mentioned a more common channel.

"Besides fieldwork, you can go to the major Marvel markets and fight people for them.

The Imperial Capital occasionally holds some private auctions, under the name of a few old auction houses.

You need connections to get in, and once you’re in, you have to burn real gold and silver. A mid-tier Marvel starts bidding in the triple digits."

Richard asked, a little unwilling to give up, "Isn’t there any chance of finding a bargain?"

Prometheus nodded.

"The chance of finding a bargain... exists, but it’s extremely rare.

Usually, it’s when an item is misidentified as a common antique and falls into the hands of someone who doesn’t know its true worth. You don’t hear about that kind of thing more than a few times a year."

Richard nodded silently.

’This information largely matched what he had figured out on his own over the past six months. He recalled his first visit to Donal’s antique shop on Huayue Street, where he’d bought the copper coin and the Incense Burner for ten pounds. Without the letter of introduction from his maternal grandfather, Gerald, he wouldn’t have even been able to enter Donal’s back room. In the end, the path of Marvels came down to birthright, luck, or risking it all for a fortune.’

"Thank you all for your guidance." He stopped there, not pressing the issue further.

At the head of the table, Hecate finally stirred.

Beneath the Triple Goddess mask, the two layered sets of eyes fell in unison upon the spoils, which now lay divided in the center of the table.

"The transaction is concluded."

The three voices, layered together, were enough to send a chill down one’s spine after listening for a while.

"Next, we will share intelligence, as is tradition."

Before anyone else could speak, Aries pressed his only remaining hand—his right—onto the tabletop.

"Then I’ll share my recent experience, as a warning to you all."

He had gone to the Ashen Zone, lost an arm, and gained a good deal of intelligence in return.

"The publicly available data vaguely categorizes the threat in the Ashen Zone as a ’high-risk Evil Being cluster.’

But from what I saw on the ground this time, things are quietly starting to change."

"Those Evil Beings... they’re becoming more and more organized."

Hecate’s knuckles stilled on the armrest of her chair.

"They have ranks, a command structure, specialized units for defense, and specialized units for pursuit—all clearly defined."

Aries gave his empty left shoulder a slight shake.

"The thing that sends a chill down my spine just thinking about it now... is that they have a whole set of countermeasures for our standard Techniques.

When I used my Enchanted Blade on the first one, it worked. But by the second and third, they were already starting to learn the rhythm of my attacks."

"It was only later that I realized the first one was just there to test my moves."

As he spoke, his voice grew heavy again.

"My two brothers... were ambushed and killed by a detachment.

They sent a few weak ones first to drain our Ether and Enchanted Bullets. Once we were empty, the real squad closed in from behind."

No one at the table spoke.

Even Hecate showed a hint of surprise.

"According to the data I have, the Ashen Zone is just a relatively large ’High Concentration Ether District.’"

She said, "The concentration is high, so the Evil Being density is great and their incubation is rapid. That’s all."

"If there truly are organized, intelligent entities there..."

Of the three tones in her voice, the crone’s was somewhat grim.

"Then that means our understanding of that place has a major gap."

Prometheus began to share his own intelligence.

"Over the past year on the New Continent, three colonies have seen their populations plummet in a manner that was ’not due to war or plague.’

All three are on the edge of the interior, the kind of small towns that were only established a few years ago.

The official report calls it ’population outflow,’ saying people couldn’t survive and moved to the coastal cities."

"But according to the internal data I could access... it’s a disappearance. The people just vanished.

The houses are still there, the furniture neatly arranged, the clothes folded in their chests.

The pots on the stoves still have half-eaten, moldy stew in them."

"The people are gone."

’Richard thought of the news articles he’d seen on the library’s periodical rack. The lost expedition, the captain of the Gloucester dying suddenly in his hotel, the Navy Department’s endlessly delayed recruitment for a relief force. Each piece was just ordinary bad news on its own, but strung together, they formed a net that was closing in.’

Nemesis also shared a piece of related intelligence.

"In the northern Gael Highlands, the number of ’roaming’ Evil Beings tallied internally by the Guilds over the past six months has increased by about thirty percent."

"’Roaming?’" Aries asked.

"They don’t exhibit normal territorial behavior," Nemesis answered.

"Normal Lower-rank Evil Beings will guard a weak point and rarely move from their nests.

This batch is different. They don’t have fixed habitats; they just keep moving south."

"It’s as if something is driving them down from further north."

"After being driven down, they don’t disperse naturally. Instead, they follow the old belts of weak points, moving south section by section."

"Moving in the direction of the Imperial Homeland Industrial Belt."

Prometheus’s eyes narrowed.

"The weak points in the southern industrial belt are growing, while beings from the north are being driven down by some force, heading south to fill the gaps."

The Red Gold Mask slowly lifted, turning toward Nemesis.

"These two events are connected."

It was Richard’s turn.

’He couldn’t talk about the West Suburb Mine Area. However, the deductions he had worked on all winter contained a piece that not only avoided the subject of the Unyielding Pit but also connected to what had just been discussed.’

"I’ll offer a theory," he began.

"The industrial cities themselves might be reshaping the weak points in the Curtain."

The gazes of everyone at the table turned to him.

"Traditional weak points—forests, rivers, mountaintops, isolated islands, ancient sacrificial sites... these are naturally formed, composted over hundreds or thousands of years by death and ritual."

Richard gestured to indicate an area on the tabletop.

"But in the last century, many new things have emerged.

The smokestacks of massive factories, spewing smog into the sky day and night.

Areas dense with industrial accidents where workers died en masse: collapsed mines, textile mills that caught fire, workshops with exploding boilers.

The sprawling sewer systems beneath the cities, and the old, abandoned tunnels in the mining districts that no one ever bothered to fill in."

With each item he listed, the others present could form a concrete image in their minds.

"These places are accumulating death, fear, and Ether pollution at an unprecedented rate."

"If my theory holds water, then the work of Sealing will also need to be updated in the future.

The maintenance manuals we have are all written with natural weak points in mind.

How to Seal a forest, how to Seal a river, how to Seal a mountaintop... there isn’t a single page that teaches you how to Seal a functioning factory."

After hearing him out, Hecate remained quiet for a long moment from her seat at the head of the table.

"Hermes, you’ve hit on the key point."

She raised her hand and tapped lightly on the armrest of her chair.

"The times are changing. Factories, mines, railways, steamships on the surface... year by year, they pile up in the human world.

The face of death is changing, the face of fear is changing, and the ways people gather together are also changing."

"The ’thin places’ on this side of the Curtain are, in the end, shadows composted by humanity."

The crone’s aspect of her face slowly darkened.

"When people change, their shadows naturally change with them."

"Decades ago, some Scholars had already proposed similar arguments in internal publications.

...However, most of those articles were suppressed and never entered mainstream academic circles."

"The reason is simple. If you follow this line of reasoning, the entire system of Sealing, built on the foundation of natural weak points, would have to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up."

"The cost is too great. No faction is willing to be the one to poke that hornet’s nest."

The Triple Goddess mask turned slowly, sweeping its gaze over each person at the table.

"But today, everyone here has seen the strangeness for themselves."

In Hecate’s telling, the four accounts automatically linked together into a single thread.

From the Ashen Zone to the New Continent, from the Gael Highlands to the Imperial Homeland Industrial Belt.

It covered almost every level of the world they could interact with.

Hecate folded her hands on the tabletop.

"I’ll add one more thing, so you all know what you’re up against."

"...The Old Continent is going to war."

As these words were spoken, a change came over everyone at the table.

War. This was something that would affect the very sky over the heads of countless people in the Surface World.