Chapter 209: Secret Base

Ever since his meeting with Madam Marie that week, one lingering issue still weighed on Richard's mind.

It concerned Lillian Hayward.

Lillian was a quiet girl by nature. If they happened to cross paths in the corridors or on the library's second floor, she offered a nod at most.

Over the past two weeks, however, she had been showing up around him with unusual frequency.

If he went to the library's third floor, Lillian was there.

If he left campus through the side gate, Lillian happened to be walking down the same path.

Twice, he had looked up only to lock eyes with her.

Her gaze carried a certain look... like she was searching for something but failing to find it.

This shift in behavior had started right after the black cat left a kiss on his Silver Ring.

At first, Richard brushed it off as his imagination.

Until last week, when she stopped him right outside the third-floor private reading room.

Lillian stood before him, her fingers nervously pinching her hem.

Her large, clear eyes studied him, scanning him up and down.

She finally spoke, her voice incredibly soft.

"Did something... happen to you recently?"

Her intense scrutiny sent a faint chill down Richard's spine.

"No."

"Oh."

She acknowledged, a trace of genuine worry in her expression.

"...That's good."

As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized she had pried too much.

She quickly stepped aside, practically fleeing as she darted into the stairwell.

Richard stood there, recalling Mr. Hutton's words.

Lillian had a solid foundation; she possessed more than enough Inspiration.

Over the past six months, his Ether Micro-circulation had grown denser by the day. To her senses, his progress had likely never been a secret.

He had been constantly moving forward.

And Lillian had been watching him advance from the sidelines the entire time.

Right up until he put on that Silver Ring.

In her perception, the "kindred spirit" she had been silently observing for half a year had gone dark overnight, like a snuffed candle.

Logically speaking, Richard didn't owe anyone an explanation.

Especially since the origins of this ring were a secret he couldn't breathe a word of.

Yet that single question—"Did something happen to you?"—made him feel like he really ought to offer at least some sort of explanation.

According to Grey's intelligence, Lillian vanished for two or three afternoons every single week without fail.

On the attendance sheet for her minor classes, there was always a question mark by her name.

She couldn't be found on the second or third floors of the library.

But she hadn't gone home, either; she was never on the bus after school.

For a student who consistently ranked in the top five, skipping a minor class or two usually meant the teachers would turn a blind eye.

She skipped class, yet she didn't go anywhere.

Or rather, she went to a place no one else knew about.

At first, Richard hadn't wanted to overthink it.

But ever since that night in the Unresponsive Pit, he had become paranoid about these sorts of anomalies.

He went to the telephone booth and called Mr. Hutton.

The line rang seven or eight times before it connected.

"It's me, Richard."

"Yes," Mr. Hutton said, cutting straight to the chase. "What are you calling about?"

Richard gave him a brief rundown of Lillian's recent unusual behavior, the time she stopped him on the third floor, and the afternoons she skipped every week.

The other end of the line went quiet for a moment.

"Sir?"

A very faint chuckle drifted through the receiver.

"Richard, you're no longer the student from last year who needed a teacher to make decisions for you."

"...Right."

"Let me say this upfront," Mr. Hutton said, steering back to the main topic.

"I brought Lillian up to you once last year. Do you remember what I said then?"

"You said that friends can say more to each other than a teacher ever could."

Of course Richard remembered.

"Yes. And I'd like to say it again now.

"A teacher can ask about her classroom performance, her family situation, or what books she's reading lately.

"A teacher can try to persuade her to stay away from certain places, or outright forbid her from going there."

"But as for whether someone has fallen into a pit on their own and can't get out... that's something a teacher can't ask about, nor can they talk them out of it."

The old gentleman offered a few more words of advice:

"Lillian's situation is indeed complicated, but it hasn't escalated to anything genuinely dangerous. Otherwise, she wouldn't still be dutifully attending classes at Greenwald."

"If you want to investigate, do so. Just have a sense of propriety and save the young lady some face."

"...Understood," Richard acknowledged.

"Hanging up."

With a click, the line went dead.

...

During art class the next day, a chipped plaster apple and half a loaf of bread sat on the still-life tray. Richard's pencil had only made three marks on his drawing paper.

He twirled the pencil, resting his knuckles against the paper.

Over the past few days, his thoughts would occasionally drift to that hollowed-out man.

He wondered at which exact cut during his life the man had started to feel that 'this was just how things should be.'

Beside him, Hugh was focused on drawing his imaginary 'charcoal-roasted Briston winter pigeon.'

To his rear right, Warren was fiddling with a sketch that made the apple look like a gourd.

Grey sat one desk diagonally behind him, occasionally glancing up before burying her head in her work again.

The quiet, messy, half-asleep afternoon atmosphere of the classroom slowly dragged his mind away from that autopsy table.

Richard set his pencil down and let his Panel surface.

His eyes lingered on the [Perception] stat.

Lv.2, progress 38%.

The morning he set out from the Western Suburbs Mining Area, he had glanced at the Panel.

[Perception] Lv.2 had been hovering around 27% at the time.

Between his regular divination and Spirit Vision exercises, plus Mrs. MacNeil's hands-on divination tutoring over the past two weeks, he had put in quite a bit of practice.

A 10% increase in a month was already considered impressive.

[Reasoning]-branch skills like [Perception] weren't like [eating] or [sleep], which grew just by him being alive. They had to be ground out through active training.

That extra 11% had been earned during his night down in the Unresponsive Pit.

The thing outside the well wall that had called his name in someone else's voice;

The inverted sea of stars reflected overhead after the flip;

The gaze cast down by Lieutenant Colonel Ord when he borrowed a Virtuoso's power;

And the 'eyes' activated by divination during the autopsy...

It was no wonder [Perception] had been stimulated to this extent.

Come to think of it, throughout the entire battle at the bottom of the pit, the Chief Responder's gaze had never once lingered in his direction.

The advancement condition for the next tier of [Perception] read: "Actively observe a hostile target of a higher Rank from behind the veil for a quarter of an hour, remaining undetected the entire time."

Originally, Richard hadn't expected to meet this condition anytime soon.

A Newcomer "actively observing" a hostile target of a higher Rank.

Even if he stumbled across one, observing it for a full fifteen minutes without being noticed was asking far too much of himself.

But that day at the bottom of the Unresponsive Pit, the whole battle had lasted roughly twenty minutes.

Protected by the innermost ring of the light lock, he had used [Perception] Lv.2 and [Concealed Spirit Vision]—peeking while pressed flat against the wall—to watch the Chief Responder from start to finish.

He had watched how the man moved, the black medium in his hand, the rhythm of his chants, and the preparatory motions for every Silence Spell he cast.

The entire time, the enemy hadn't spared him a single glance.

Twenty minutes. Five minutes more than a quarter of an hour.

Richard checked the Panel again.

A small line of text had appeared beneath the preview condition: "Condition met."

Thinking back on it, the Chief Responder had never taken him seriously.

Aside from being ignored due to his low Rank, the Silver Ring had played a crucial role.

At first, he had only treated it as a basic barrier.

Meant to block the sweeps of low and mid-Rank entities, as well as the gaze extending from the distant "Mother Who Eats Shadows" through Whitcom's channel.

But now it seemed the ring was far more useful than he had originally thought.

The evening before last, that messenger deer had waited at the school gate.

It waited at the gate instead of appearing in the third-floor storage room or on the bus.

The fact that it had waited at the gate rather than coming directly to his side or to his front door meant the Silver Ring prevented even Spirit Realm Messengers from pinpointing his exact location.

The deer could only stake out his general area of activity and wait for him to show himself.

Richard blinked, his eyes returning to the drawing paper.

The progress boost to [Perception] and the Silver Ring's concealment effect would make his upcoming investigation much easier.

Less than halfway through art class, Lillian requested leave and departed early, just as expected.

She exited the teaching building, but instead of heading for the main gate, she detoured around to the back of the main building.

Behind Greenwood's main building lay an old garden. In earlier years, it had been where a certain school board director grew roses.

That director had been dead for over a decade, leaving the rosebushes to ruin. The school never hired a replacement after the gardener retired, and the garden grew more desolate with each passing year.

Now, all that remained was a pathetic boxwood hedge and a few drooping holly bushes, with the gravel path half-buried in fallen leaves.

At the very back of the garden sat a greenhouse. Attached to its side was an even smaller shed crammed with broken tools and old lab equipment.

No one came here in the winter; even the students on cleaning duty couldn't be bothered to walk this far.

Lillian's silhouette appeared at the end of the gravel path, making straight for the shed.

Richard halted at the garden entrance.

The smell of coal smoke drifted over from the distant factories, mixing with the scent of damp earth and rotting leaves.

He narrowed his Spirit Vision and slowly walked deeper down the gravel path.

He stopped upon reaching the greenhouse.

Several panes of the glass roof were shattered and patched with oiled paper. Inside, the plants had long since died.

But a sliver of light peeked out from beneath the wooden door of the adjacent shed.

The clink of metal echoed from within.

It sounded like tweezers tapping against the rim of a glass bottle—very faint and brief. After that came the sound of the girl's breathing.