Chapter 352: Did Everything Right

Backup arrived neither early nor late.

Several hidden ones jumped out of a black van, carrying a complete set of seal maintenance equipment.

They chose a relatively flat clearing right in the center of the camp.

The woman leading them wasted no words. She crouched and began drawing an array on the ground.

The moment it activated, Richard felt the ground hum beneath his feet.

Every inscription channel across the entire eastern half of the camp was sealed simultaneously.

The circular array drawn in silver powder resonated with the Ancient Gaulish Inscriptions buried underground, nailing the channel entrances shut from the inside out.

The drowned ones' supply line was cut.

Those that had already surged out began to dissipate after losing their underground source.

The two lingering in Row B cast a glance in Richard's direction.

The look was brief—so brief he wasn't even sure if they had eyes.

In that split second, he felt as though something dripping wet had traced him from head to toe.

Then they faded, turning into a layer of moisture that the ground reabsorbed.

By the time the final drowned one vanished, the sky was already growing light.

After daybreak, Inspector Harding gathered all the squad leaders and members.

He ordered someone to lift the canvas curtain of the temporary morgue set up behind the tents.

Behind it lay rows of bodies resting on makeshift wooden racks.

Old bedsheets covered the racks, soaked through by the water that had spilled from the victims' mouths and had not yet dried.

Their eyes were all wide open.

Some wore expressions that were almost too peaceful, as if they had merely fallen asleep and forgotten to close their eyes.

Others had bluish lips and iron-gray faces, with water trails at the corners of their mouths dried into white salt stains.

A few had fingers stiffly curled—the frantic, scratching grip of drowning victims frozen at the exact moment of death.

Inspector Harding made the young people stand before the curtain.

Seagulls cried overhead, and the sea breeze whipped the canvas with sharp snaps.

Only after five minutes did Inspector Harding let the curtain drop.

"The squad in Row B didn't do much."

"But every single thing... they did right."

He offered no overt praise, but the stark contrast in the casualty numbers spoke for him.

Pratt sought Richard out privately afterward.

The people from the Row B tent area had already been relocated to the safe zone in the warehouse. The empty tents snapped one by one in the sea breeze.

The two stood beneath a gas lamp that had returned to its normal brightness.

"What method did you use to block the channel entrances?"

"A pressurization Spell Formula," Richard replied casually.

The mole at the corner of Pratt's mouth twitched.

"Madam Marie taught you that?"

Richard didn't answer, which Pratt took as silent confirmation. He patted Richard on the shoulder in understanding.

Admittedly, Madam Marie's golden reputation was quite a useful shield.

The large-scale sealing work was left to the professional seal maintenance team that arrived later.

This wasn't something Practitioners like them needed to worry about. Their Rank was too low, and their skills fell short.

Richard and several other Scholars were assigned a different task: record-keeping.

They were to make complete rubbings of the Ancient Gaulish Inscriptions beneath the foundation, marking the location, size, and seepage intensity of every channel entrance.

This was the fundamental duty of a Scholar.

While the hidden ones worked above, Richard and the others crouched in the pit, tracing the stone surface stroke by stroke.

Beside him, Catherine made rubbings slower than Richard, but with far greater precision.

There was a minuscule difference in the force applied between supplementary strokes and original ones; to her eyes, it was as clear as using two different colors of ink.

Edmund was assigned to the refugee settlement area to pacify the survivors.

The people dragged out of the tents huddled in a corner of the warehouse, wrapped in blankets and staring blankly ahead.

Some wept; others showed no emotion at all.

Edmund paced among them, clutching a Missal in his hands.

"Drink some water first."

"Your child is next door. It's okay, he's asleep."

"Pull the blanket down a bit if your feet are cold."

These words worked better than any prayer.

A few women who had been curled up tightly, refusing to let anyone touch them, finally loosened their white-knuckled grip on their blankets upon hearing him say "the child is fine" in Flemish.

After the rubbings were finished, Maggie was sent to help patrol the pipelines.

When the rubbings reached the deepest part of the stone foundation, Richard saw the fish-shaped pendant again.

It was still embedded right in the center of the inscription's return channel.

The lead hidden one, a Minor Adept, drew a red marker ring around it.

Naturally, Richard didn't touch it.

But as he pressed close to make a rubbing nearby, that warm sensation flowed over him once more.

[Available Points: 2.35]

Including what he'd absorbed earlier, it had increased by 0.34 in total—equivalent to a small supernatural item.

Inspector Harding simply shoved the completed rubbings into an official dispatch bag headed back to the Imperial Capital. He couldn't read them anyway.

"Make three copies when you get back. Keep one for the Imperial Capital General Administration, give one to the Academy, and file the last one."

On top of that, Richard received his post-battle supply allocation.

A small bottle of Ether Condensate, and field pay amounting to roughly seven pounds in cash.

A note was also added to his field record:

"Port Folkestone refugee reception camp temporary patrol mission, Row B tent area patrol squad: Best performance in the sector."

Fischer's head injury had been treated.

"Not injured by an evil creature, but knocked over by an ordinary person. What a disgrace to my Practitioner career!"

They had half a day of free time before the return trip.

Richard sat on the warehouse steps, a standard-issue military ration laid out before him.

He first broke the compressed biscuits apart and soaked them in hot water. He didn't touch the beef paste; the canned sludge reminded him of vomit.

The apple was quite sweet, despite a couple of bruises on its skin.

He chewed on it, gazing toward the harbor.

Several troop transports were docked in the distance, their smokestacks billowing black smoke.

Mr. Hutton's words floated back to him.

"Scholars can't charge the front lines, but Scholars can ensure fewer of those who charge die."

He really had kept a few more of the refugees around him alive.

Yet that very same night, forty-seven people in the adjacent tent row had drowned out of nowhere.

While he crouched in the Row B pit pressing down the drainage holes, hundreds of people across from him had water bubbling from their lips.

When those people died, they were less than fifty yards away from him.

The squad rules were clear: Guard your own section.

He had guarded his, but he'd also heard the noises from fifty yards away.

Richard tossed his apple core into a mud puddle by his feet. It rolled over in the muddy water and sank.

Catherine walked out of the warehouse and sat on the steps next to him.

She carried cheese, half a glass of water, and an apple just like his—though hers looked to be in better condition.

The two sat side by side, neither saying a word.

After a long while, Catherine opened her small notebook.

She scribbled a line and showed it to Richard.

"The sixty-some people I counted, we didn't lose a single one."

Catherine tore out the page, balled it up inside her cheese wrapper, and tossed it into the nearby trash bin.

This was her way of calling things "even."

Edmund approached from the other end of the warehouse, carrying a pastry box.

The cake was long gone, leaving just one last baked cookie.

Knowing Catherine wouldn't accept food from others, he split it in half with Richard.

Maggie returned from her pipeline patrol. After a moment's hesitation, she sat down on Edmund's side.

Edmund opened his empty hands toward her.

"All out."

Maggie dug into her pocket and pulled out a handful of roasted chestnuts.

The four sat there on the warehouse steps, quietly chewing.

In the distance, Fischer walked over with a bandage wrapped around his head.

Holding a thermos of hot tea, he looked at them lined up and eating.

"Any left?"

"All out!" they answered in unison.

...

On the return trip, just as Richard took a window seat, Catherine squeezed in beside him for some unknown reason.

She had her small notebook spread open on her lap, looking like she had something private to discuss.

Aside from them, the only others in the train car were a few civilian passengers dozing in the front row.

Edith sat in the aisle seat in the row behind Fischer.

She opened her book but couldn't focus on it at all.

Maggie and the others were taking a train heading in the opposite direction.

While they were saying their goodbyes on the platform, Maggie had been rubbing her eyes as Theodore carried her suitcase.

Richard pulled his water cup from his backpack. He took a sip; the water was completely cold.

He began mentally reviewing all the suspicious details surrounding this mission.

The Ancient Gaulish Inscription System beneath the eastern half of the camp dated back at least two thousand years.

The people of the Middle Ages knew about it, and the Romans knew about it too.

It had been recorded in the Port Authority's old files since the warehouse was built in the 1870s.

So how could the mystical side of the Empire not know?

Even abandoned wells in a small place like the Unresponsive Pit were registered and inspected every spring and autumn.

How could such a crucial chokepoint on the strait not be logged?

If it was on the books, it meant someone knew—and yet they still approved building the refugee camp directly on top of it.

And another thing: there were over a dozen patrol squads, each led by at least one Senior Practitioner.

The leader of the Row C squad hacked away for twenty minutes before realizing the drowned ones couldn't be killed.

Would a veteran Hunter facing an unkillable spirit really need twenty minutes to judge that physical attacks were useless?

Either that leader was an absolute fool, or he had done it on purpose.

If he were a fool, he wouldn't have lived this long.

The leader of the Row D squad had reacted quickly, ordering an immediate retreat.

He pulled his people out cleanly and efficiently, handing over the tent area without a fight.

With the area surrendered, the drowned ones lined up inside the empty tents to charge a massive attack, ultimately causing heavy casualties.

In Row F, Montagu had held up a light barrier single-handedly for ten minutes.

During those ten minutes, what was everyone else doing?

They had only carried him away after the barrier finally faded.

And before it faded?

Before it faded, they just watched.

They watched a prep student maintain an entire row's defensive line all by himself, draining his ether bit by bit until he collapsed from exhaustion.

Then there was the arrival time of the backup.

The first wave of drowned ones surged out at 2:50 AM.

The backup activated the sealing array around 4:00 AM.

The fastest train from the Imperial Capital to Port Folkestone took two hours.

Even if those hidden ones were stationed at the nearest Canterbury Branch Office, the drive would still take about forty minutes.

Factoring in the time to receive the report, gather personnel, and load the sealing equipment, it was impossible for them to arrive so promptly.

Furthermore, the reinforcement force had brought a complete Web-Weaving Tradition Sealing Array.

Such equipment wasn't kept in standard branch offices; it had to be requisitioned from a higher-level Storeroom.

The only explanation was that they knew something was going to happen, and the backup personnel had been standing by nearby all along.

Richard set his cup on the windowsill.

The leftover water rippled inside the cup, swaying gently with the rocking of the train.