Chapter 222: The Old Man and the Wind

The net-clearing lasted into the afternoon.

Dozens of threads were checked and corrected by the professor, one by one.

With the final checkmark drawn, he pulled his hand back from the edge of the basin.

In Richard's Inspiration, the net covering the entire city slowly dispersed, silently retreating from every corner of Briston.

"Done."

The old professor picked up his teacup, found it empty, and handed it to Mr. Hutton.

"Another cup. Keep it light."

"Yes, Professor."

Richard stood there, following the floating thread from his [Concealed Spirit Vision].

He searched through the dozens of caught and erased threads, counting them again and again.

He was looking for someone.

The "true manipulator."

The one Wentworth had mentioned, the one Mrs. MacNeil had mentioned—the one hiding behind all the poor souls pushed to the slaughter.

The "external port" in the Chief Responder's chest had been connected by someone from the other side of the veil;

the person lending power to the Chief Responder, as Wentworth had said, was "likely not on any roster."

Richard had thought that under Professor Mortimer's city-wide net, that person would finally be exposed.

He was wrong.

Every single one of the dozens of threads caught in the net belonged to a pawn.

All of them were poor souls who had been modified, implanted with external ports, and conspicuously connected to the other side of the veil.

The female textile worker in the Western Suburbs, the unemployed man in the south of the city, the skinny young girl by the canal... That person wasn't there.

From start to finish, the net had failed to catch the "main thread"—the thickest, deepest one that should have connected to the source of all the others.

Richard's Inspiration repeatedly scoured the receding net, checking every single corner.

He wasn't there. He had likely left long ago, or perhaps he had never been in Briston at all.

A Major Adept Scholar who had lived through the entire railway era had personally cast a net over the city.

It was effective against those dozens of poor, deceived pawns.

But against the one person who truly needed catching, it was useless.

Richard weighed those dozens of lives on Briston's scales.

The deaths of dozens meant the terror of dozens of families.

The panic in their neighborhoods, the bitter weeping of relatives identifying the bodies.

"They were fine just yesterday"—how many times would that phrase be agonizingly repeated?

All of this terror, pain, panic, and resentment sank down.

It sank into the forming weak point of Briston, fed by smokestacks and industrial accidents.

The solution itself had fattened the very thing it was meant to suppress.

...

The pit-sealing was set for the day after the net-clearing. The location, naturally, was the Unresponsive Pit.

Richard went this time knowing exactly what to expect.

Professor Mortimer was going to join forces with that Virtuoso of the Gale tradition who "hadn't completely left yet" to lay down an absolutely impenetrable seal.

The group descending to the Bottom of the Unresponsive Pit was the same as last time.

This time, Richard wasn't even allowed to bring a camera; he was just told to stand and watch.

"As for today," Mr. Hutton warned him before they went down the shaft, "you only watch. You don't move."

"Understood."

"One more thing. The person the professor is meeting today is something of an acquaintance."

"An acquaintance?"

Mr. Hutton warned him, "When you listen to them speak, let it go in one ear and out the other. Whatever needs to be forgotten, forget it the moment you step out of this pit."

Richard gave a firm nod.

Inside the core area of the ninefold stone ring, Mr. Hutton helped the professor sit down in front of the central silver plate.

He was still holding a cup of warm water.

This time, a very thin slice of ginger soaked in it.

Before leaving the house, Richard had heard Mr. Hutton instruct the kitchen that the professor would be walking a lot today and needed something to ward off the cold.

Taking his seat, the professor first sipped the ginger water.

Afterward, he spoke to Hutton beside him.

"Little Hutton, isn't this ginger sliced a bit too thick?"

Mr. Hutton looked helpless.

"Professor, I watched them slice it myself. It's paper-thin."

"Then my lips must be too thick," the old man mumbled, beginning to ramble.

"You don't need to change it. At my age, I can't taste anything anyway. I can only blame my mouth, not you."

As he spoke, a wind picked up at the bottom of the pit.

Buried thirty feet underground and surrounded by the ninefold stone ring, the area should have been completely airtight.

Yet the wind rose, an inexplicable breeze seeping through every crack and crevice.

Richard understood. The Virtuoso had arrived.

A voice carried through the wind.

"Professor Mortimer, you haven't changed."

"Which year was it when we last met?"

The old man thought for a moment.

"1892?"

"1891."

"Ah, 1891," the old man repeated, taking another sip of ginger tea.

"You see, I can't even remember the years right.

I tell Little Hutton a story, and if I tell it three times, I'll give him three different years."

Professor Mortimer said slowly,

"But I still remember our first meeting at the Imperial Capital University Library. You borrowed a book from me."

"That book was called the Seven Chapters of the Wind."

"I remember."

"When I handed it to you, you said, 'Professor, I don't understand this book.'"

"And I said, 'If you don't understand it, you don't understand it. Just keep it in your head. One day, when you finally do, it will greet you on its own.'"

"Yes."

"Did that book ever greet you later on?"

The wind fell silent.

After a long time, the wind finally answered.

"It did."

"When?"

"The day I dismantled my own body."

The entire core area fell quiet.

The Virtuoso and the professor didn't expend much effort on sealing the pit.

Watching from the innermost ring, Richard gradually caught on to their method.

The foundation of the seal was still Mr. Hutton's routine: engraving, replicating, wax-filling, and activating.

What the professor and the Virtuoso were doing was adding another layer on top.

The professor was responsible for "reading."

Sitting in his chair and holding his ginger water, he read through the pit's seal structure, its weak points, and its years of wear and tear, layer by layer.

Then, using terminology Richard couldn't quite follow, he told Mr. Hutton exactly how to patch each spot.

The Virtuoso was responsible for "pressing."

The wind flowed along the ninefold stone ring, firmly pinning the entire pit to this side of the veil.

As they worked, the two chatted casually.

"Professor," the wind said, "have you heard about the well on Hemus Island?"

"I have."

"Where did you hear it from?"

"The Mirror." Professor Mortimer scratched his thinning hair. "I saw it in a corner on the seventh page."

"You read the Mirror for intelligence?" The Virtuoso was highly surprised.

"I read the Mirror, and I also read the Morning Star, the Northern Literary Review, and the Women's Home Journal... That last one sometimes publishes recipes. I have my housekeeper follow them."

"She never gets them quite right, but the less it tastes like the recipe, the more I can imagine what it was originally supposed to taste like."

Something akin to a soft laugh drifted from the wind.

"Professor, you're still the same."

"At my age, I don't have the energy to meddle anymore."

The old man took a sip of ginger water.

"With the fall of that old friend on Hemus Island, why didn't you go fight for it?"

"I couldn't be bothered."

"Couldn't be bothered..." The professor chuckled.

"Could you really not be bothered, or did you not dare?"

At those words, everyone present couldn't help but break into a cold sweat.

The old professor was truly daring. If he enraged this Virtuoso, he himself might be fine, but small fry like them who had tagged along would definitely be swept away without a trace by a single gust of wind.

Fortunately, the Virtuoso did not take offense.

"A bit of both."

The wind was quiet for a moment before answering.

"Professor, there are children present. There are many things I cannot discuss."

"I know," the old man said slowly.

"I'm not trying to fish for information. I'm just asking.

When old friends meet once every few decades, I have to ask something you're willing to answer."

The wind shifted slightly.

"If you're asking about the fall of that old friend in Thrace, I can say a few more words."

"Then speak."

The wind's words made everyone in the core area instinctively slow their breathing.

"He wasn't murdered."

"Oh?" Professor Mortimer lifted his eyelids.

"He... starved to death."

Standing within the light lock of the innermost ring, Richard silently recorded this information.

He had originally assumed that the fallen Major Adept on Hemus Island had been assassinated.

Caught in a trap, or erased by some higher existence.

He had never imagined that a Major Adept capable of guarding a millennial sacrificial scar could "starve to death."

Holding his ginger water, Professor Mortimer waited for the wind to continue.

"He guarded the trench left by the Thracians a thousand years ago for over a century. He drained its nutrients dry long ago."

"Over these past few decades, he sacrificed thousands of lives to the scar, yet it didn't grow fat; instead, it grew thinner and thinner."

Professor Mortimer cradled his ginger water.

"Outsiders all say it's fertile land."

"Outsiders can't see into his bones," the wind continued.

"He guarded that land for so long that it became his blood vessels.

Relocating would mean dismantling himself and putting the pieces back together, and at his age, he couldn't put himself back together."

"Holding out in place just let him live a little longer than walking away would have. That's all."

"Those two old friends are fighting over that land now, but what they're really fighting for is that ready-made skeleton."

"The land can't support a Major Adept, but a Virtuoso can modify it."

Professor Mortimer held his ginger water, waiting a long time before speaking.

"...None of the old lands can provide nourishment anymore?"

"Pretty much. They might hold out for another fifty years. Eighty, if you're optimistic."

"Those few stubbornly lingering in the old lands will end up just like the one on Hemus Island, one by one—slowly starving to death on the territories they've guarded for centuries."

Richard suddenly recalled the deduction he had made earlier.

The Virtuoso's wind continued to blow:

"Those new weak points you predicted have cropped up one by one over the last fifty years."

"Over the next fifty years, our old friends on the Old Continent will cash out their old lands and exchange them for new ones."

"But factory accidents alone can't grow fertile land."

Richard's chest turned as cold as if someone had jammed a block of ice inside.

It seemed war was unavoidable. For the Virtuosos, this was indeed a clash of interests of paramount importance.

"Professor."

The voice in the wind softened further, sounding almost as if confiding in a dear friend:

"I don't belong to the side 'fighting for new land.'"

"I guessed as much."

"How did you guess?"

"If you belonged to that group, you wouldn't have conveniently helped us seal this pit today."

The wind gently shifted again.

"...True. My main body is currently in the New Continent. There aren't many places I can protect on this side."

"This pit counts as one, as well as a few old weak points around the north here. Any further, and it's out of my hands."

"I see."

"When the fires start burning across the Old Continent, you'd best move your students away from the edge of the battlefield."

"I'm old," Professor Mortimer sighed. "I can't move many of them anymore."

"Move whichever ones you can."

Holding his ginger water, the professor waited a long time before speaking.

"...May I ask you one last thing?"

"Ask."

"When the fires of the Old Continent start burning, what do you... plan to do?"

The wind stopped for a very, very long time—so long that everyone thought it had left.

"...Professor," the wind finally said.

"Yes."

"The village where I was born is in this area."

The old man didn't make a sound.

"My body... it's no longer recognizable as belonging to anyone."

"When I look in the mirror, there's no reflection—just a gust of wind."

"But I still remember that village."

"Where is the village?" Professor Mortimer asked.

"Fifty miles from the Unresponsive Pit."

"What is it called?"

"It's called..." The wind paused. "I'm not telling you."

"If you knew, you'd try to protect it."

The old man held his ginger water and took a long time to speak.

"...Very well," he said. "To each their own."

At that moment, the final inscription for the pit seal fell into place.

Richard's breathing broke free from the rhythm it had been forcefully dragged into.

The wind brushed through the core area one last time.

"Professor, next time we meet, I'll buy you a drink."

"You don't have a tongue."

"I'll just buy the drink for you. I'll watch from the side."

The old man smiled slowly.

"Alright. Until next time."

The wind dispersed completely.