Chapter 420: Ten of Swords

Richard thought of the Black Trench, and he remembered the very first job he had taken with Mrs. MacNeil.

If the dead refused to admit they had died, it was because they couldn't find a single mark on their own bodies to convince them otherwise.

Whether it was a knife wound, drowning water, or a crushing stone—those were all signs of their demise.

But if they just lay there with neat clothes, intact limbs, and unblemished faces...

How could you possibly find the words to tell someone like that they were no longer alive?

Everyone fell into deep thought.

Hecate looked up and began evaluating everyone's mask resonance progress.

"Of our seven chairs, excluding myself: the Cup of Dionysus, the Staff of the Commerce God, the Sickle of the Harvest Deity, and the Club of Heracles."

The Golden Mask swept across the faces of those four, one by one.

"Four Divinely Crafted Armaments have successfully descended."

Then, her gaze shifted.

"Prometheus, your fire is still spinning at the mouth of the pipe."

The hall fell silent for a moment.

"The Chief is right," Prometheus answered flatly. "I've been maintaining the furnace these past few months."

"You've spent this time patching the hole your master left when he dismantled that mask."

Hecate laid it bare. "I calculated exactly how much time that strike would take to fix."

"Three months," Prometheus said.

"Three months and a few days." Hecate stared at him.

"You are a Minor Adept. Hermes is only a Practitioner."

"Yet his staff descended before your fire."

Richard kept his head down in silence. That remark was a direct slap in Prometheus's face.

"Noted," Prometheus simply said at last.

Hecate looked away from him.

"Nemesis."

The tilted scale shifted.

"Your scale used to tilt without rhyme or reason.

It would lean this way one moment and drop that way the next. It annoyed me just looking at it."

"But over the last few months, the tilt has become much more balanced."

Hecate stated with certainty, "Someone helped you twist that scattered strength into a single strand."

Words surfaced above Nemesis's scale, appearing rapidly.

"I twisted it myself."

Naturally, Hecate didn't believe it.

"It doesn't matter who helped you. I'm just stating what I can read.

You shouldn't be far from the mask's radiant reflection now. Perhaps a little over a month, perhaps even faster."

The words on the scale formed a bit slower this time: "I will look forward to it."

Hecate offered another piece of guidance.

"You don't need to treat Nemesis's power so rigidly.

"What you lack is acknowledgment.

"When the name behind the mask asks you a question, you must answer.

"It will ask you: must you be the one to deliver this retribution?"

No more words appeared on the scale.

Richard turned his head to look.

The scale hung there, its pans utterly still, almost deliberately level.

Hecate retracted her gaze.

"Work hard, both of you. There are six chairs at my table, and everyone needs to advance together.

If you two slow down, the whole table has to wait. Don't drag down everyone's progress."

She folded her hands on the table.

"There is another matter I need to discuss with the four of you who have already completed resonance.

You all probably think that reaching the radiant reflection means the pipe has been fully connected.

But connecting it merely draws the water to the well's mouth. Not a single one of you has reached down to see how deep the well truly is."

She addressed them one by one.

"Dionysus, you only understand the intoxication of the god of wine.

But he is a god who was torn apart and pieced back together. Both fragmentation and wholeness are powers within that divine name."

The man stopped swirling his wine glass.

"Heracles, you only know the god's immense physical strength.

But most of the twelve labors he completed were not achieved through brute force.

He also descended into the Underworld on behalf of others, bringing back those who were supposed to remain there."

The burly man rubbed his forehead, thinking hard.

"Demeter, you've only ever focused on the harvest in the fields.

But during the three months she spent searching for her daughter, not a single sprout grew from the earth."

The woman's calloused hands paused on her knees.

It was Richard's turn.

"Hermes, the messenger is merely his outermost face.

He is also the god of markets and farmers, the one who guides people into dreams.

Oh, right. He also stole Apollo's cattle."

Richard silently committed each point to memory, grumbling internally.

It was true—ironically, over half the work he had done this past year aligned perfectly with that cattle-stealing persona.

Hecate continued.

"Rank determines how much power you can borrow, but your foundation determines how much you can actually hold.

Everyone should be aiming for Major Adept. The masks will assist you on this path, so do not slack off."

She withdrew her hands.

"I originally planned to save this next matter for June."

As she spoke, the flames in the hall suddenly shrank all at once before violently surging back up.

"But on second thought, I will tell you all today."

"I have performed eleven divinations this month. Out of those eleven times, the exact same card was drawn seven times."

"Which card?"

Hecate answered, "Ten of Swords."

Richard quietly recalled the imagery of that card.

It depicted a person lying face-down on the ground, their back completely pierced by swords, all arranged perfectly straight without a single one tilting.

It symbolized total and absolute defeat, a loss so complete that there wasn't even a desire to stand back up.

Hecate said, "The first time, I simply assumed my hand had slipped. The second time, I changed the deck. The fifth time, I changed both the location and the time."

"After the seventh time, I stopped counting."

"By the eleventh time, the deck was missing a card."

The hall was so quiet that they could hear the fire burning between the pillars.

Words surfaced on Nemesis's scale: "Which card exactly was missing?"

Hecate didn't answer.

"Telling you is pointless. You only need to know that several tables harbor malicious intent toward us.

But as for exactly which tables and which individuals, I don't have an answer yet."

Richard frowned beneath his mask.

Even a suspected Major Adept of the Web Weaving Tradition couldn't pinpoint exactly who bore them ill will.

That could only mean there were Major Adepts of the same Rank among their enemies.

Heracles spoke up.

"If a full-on clash really breaks out, where will we fight?"

"We won't need to choose," Hecate said. "The side that comes knocking will set the stage first."

She waved a hand, reminding everyone at the table.

"From now on, you must make preparations in advance.

"First, get your Spellcasting Mediums, healing alchemical potions, and protective alchemical items ready before these two months are up.

Don't show up in just a bathrobe when that night finally arrives."

"Also, do not wander too far alone behind the veil.

Especially do not head into the Deep Realm. Do not even approach its edges."

"And remember this next point well.

From now on, if the tokens in your hands turn cold instead of hot...

That means the table coming for us has arrived."

Everyone around the circle voiced their agreement, with Heracles answering the loudest.

At that moment, Richard spoke up.

"Chief, I have a thought."

"Speak."

"Even if we can't figure out who is targeting us, they still have to prepare before they make a move."

Richard said slowly, "To prepare, they will also need to purchase evil creature materials and resources from behind the veil.

They might also commission craftsmen, scout out our weaknesses, and so on.

When these activities hit the market, they will definitely leave traces.

Like who is suddenly buying up Silver Marrow Water, who is searching the whole city for rare materials, or which broker has had exceptionally good business these past few months."

He continued, "A single clue might not mean anything, but if twenty or thirty clues are laid out together, we might be able to catch their tail."

Hecate took this very seriously.

"Hermes, that is an excellent idea."

"I have messengers on my end, along with dozens of scattered tokens. I will use my own channels to look for these traces."

A sentence surfaced on Nemesis's scale, typing out quickly.

"I can work with Hermes to sort through the clues and intelligence."

The others agreed as well, all saying they would use their own channels to track down these signs.

Hecate finally settled the matter.

"Then we will proceed like this for now. Everyone will use their respective channels to look for potential traces.

At our next gathering, we'll pool all the information we've gathered and sort through it together.

Until then, you must all work hard to prepare for battle, just in case."

"Our next gathering will be in mid-June."

"Until then, take care of yourselves."

Richard closed his eyes.

One, two.

Six thousand steel cylinders, a brightly lit factory in the night.

Three, four.

Rats fleeing to the rear, the sky utterly clean.

Five, six, seven.

The sea of stars scattered.

Beneath that fading sea of stars outside the hall, the wind picked up.

Richard felt the wind blowing from behind him, leaving a chilling sensation on the back of his neck.

When he woke up early the next morning, that chill on the back of his neck still hadn't completely dissipated.

Richard sat on the edge of the bed for a while, then pushed the window open a crack.

The April breeze slipped in, carrying a very faint floral scent.

Come to think of it, that antler tip wrapped in reins had been resting in his pocket for two months.

The lord of the hunt had said it would wait, but Richard first had to figure out which night's rift that endless procession would emerge from next.

But Professor Mortimer's rule was that the next stack wouldn't be given until the current stack was fully copied.

And so, Richard copied for another two days.

He filled in the catalog page by page: the year, location, medium, and the transcriber's signature.

On the afternoon of the second day, Fischer slipped in, having somehow caught wind of the task.

He was exceedingly enthusiastic and volunteered to take a stack.

"I'll help you copy." He rolled his sleeves up to his forearms, looking ready to tackle a massive undertaking.

Half an hour later, Richard picked out two errors from the three pages Fischer had handed back.

"You copied 1763 as 1673."

"I thought that three was a six."

"And you copied the inscription master's surname here as a completely different person."

"...Those two names look very similar."

Fischer set his pen down and stood up with great solemnity.

"I've discovered that proofreading is my true specialty. Grunt work like copying is much better suited for you."

Across from them, Mortimer sat holding his cup of pale, colorless tea, his shoulders trembling with laughter.