Chapter 466: Whip of Nemesis

At that exact moment on the mountain peak, Ether seeped from the cracks in the stone pillars.

The red-haired girl shifted over, swapping her carving knife to her left hand.

For the first time, she wished she had a few extra arms, just like the aboriginal gods in the Spice Islands.

Three pillars. She simply couldn't handle them alone.

MacFie sat in the center of the circle, still saying nothing and offering no help.

Catherine knew perfectly well the professor was only sitting there tonight to sustain the core incantation for the two of them; everything else rested on her.

She wiped the blood off the knife's handle and crawled toward the third pillar.

Then her hand stopped. The scales above her head had tipped, and the Nemesis Mask began to burn.

Throughout the night, she had glanced over there every so often. At nightfall, people had been packed all the way from the water's edge to the island.

Now only a small stretch remained, and the list Richard had copied from Queenstown was almost read to the end.

One thousand two hundred had almost all been sent off; this side was nearly cleared out.

But the scales on that end plummeted heavily. Catherine lost her grip on the carving knife.

She knelt before the third standing stone, both hands trembling.

Hecate's words echoed in her ears.

"The name behind the mask will ask you a question, and you must answer."

"It will ask you: Is this retribution something only you can deliver?"

Catherine rested her forehead against the stone. She had no answer.

She had always felt that such things should be handled by those whose duty it truly was.

By the Department of Internal Affairs, the Admiralty... by those with the power to speak in the newspapers.

And those who held fleets, courts, and official seals in their hands—what were they doing at a time like this?

Even during that refugee crisis in Folkestone, she had only been forcefully hypnotizing herself.

The girl lifted her forehead and gripped the knife again, but she couldn't carve.

Across the sea, the black mass in the sky swooped down, snatching up another person.

The Nemesis Mask forced Catherine to see it clearly: the one snatched up had just been called.

There was no helping it; not many were left on the road.

The dead who had completed their Ferrying by Richard couldn't be touched at all, but the ones still standing on the path could be stolen.

Catherine suddenly set the knife down and subconsciously pulled out her notebook.

For the past half year, all her words had gone through these pages: decryption conclusions, terms of trade, giving thanks, and offering apologies.

But then she closed the notebook. The wind swept up her red hair as she opened her mouth to speak for the first time in six months.

"Those who cross the line must be disciplined!"

The moment that sentence left her throat, all the Ether on the slope shifted toward her.

A Divinely Crafted Armament touched down.

The scales above Catherine's head finally leveled out.

They balanced for a moment, and then the left pan plummeted to the bottom with a heavy thud.

A whip descended from the scales.

The body of the whip was braided incredibly tight, section by section, and its long tip bristled with spikes.

[Nemesis: Whip of Discipline (flagellum)]

The moment Catherine grasped it, she understood that if someone stole, owed, or took what didn't belong to them, a single lash would crack them apart starting from the very depths of their soul.

"Professor, I need to borrow your Green-Furred Phantom Hound."

The white-haired giant didn't ask what she intended to do. He simply waved his hand, and the Green-Furred Phantom Hound bounded back from the surface of the sea.

As soon as Catherine swung onto its back, the phantom hound leapt down from the peak.

Out over the sea, Catherine raised her head.

The horde of the dead was dragging the stolen person upward, and that person was on the verge of scattering.

Catherine cracked the whip.

The tip of the whip extended through the air, reaching just far enough to lash the horde of the dead.

"Crack!!!"

When the whip fell, even Richard, far in the distance, felt that sharp, resounding crack ring in his ears.

Nemesis unleashed all her long-pent-up fury into that strike, and the horde of the dead was whipped right open.

Things started dropping from its mass, piece after piece—all in the shape of humans.

Catherine saw it clearly. They had been returned by a single strike of the Whip of Discipline.

For the first time, that entire expanse of black in the sky retreated.

It retreated so quickly that the massive blur of indistinct murmurs was stretched into a warped, off-key echo.

Catherine withdrew the whip and coiled it around her forearm.

She opened her mouth, letting out only a faint breath, and looked down at the hemp-rope-like object in her palm.

For half a year, she hadn't been able to answer that question, and she still couldn't answer it now.

The Green-Furred Phantom Hound turned around and bolted for the island.

Richard was still crouching on the northern slope.

He looked up and saw the red-haired girl riding a green dog the size of a calf toward him across the sea.

When Catherine jumped down, she stumbled, and Richard reached out to steady her.

She pulled out her notebook and flipped it open, poking a hole through the paper with her pencil before she finally wrote out the words.

"That thing in the sky is stealing them, I saw it!"

"I knocked all the stolen ones back out!"

Richard looked up the northern slope.

On the grass, the hundreds of human figures that had just fallen were standing up, one by one.

Richard spread out the Still Water to illuminate them, and his palms began to sweat.

These hundreds had absolutely nothing on them—how was he supposed to perform the Ferrying?

Catherine wrote another line in her notebook and held it up.

"What do we do?"

Richard turned and looked toward the shore, where the new fire was still burning.

He suddenly remembered the three lines carved from bottom to top into the stone edge of the doorframe.

"If a portion is left for it, it is a guest; if not, it is something else entirely."

"Catherine, do me a favor."

The red-haired girl looked at him.

"Go up the slope and tell the villagers that Covered Fire Village is taking in a batch of children tonight."

"Ask them if they'll accept them."

Catherine didn't hesitate. Dissolving the whip and stowing her notebook, she swung onto the back of the Green-Furred Phantom Hound.

Richard didn't know how she conveyed the message, but he quickly realized the tune reaching his ears was changing.

The melody that followed grew long and drawn out.

In the past, every village had one or two women who knew how to mourn. Whenever someone died, they would be hired to cry.

They had to weep until the entire village was crying along with them; only then was the deceased considered to have truly passed on.

The Church had banned it for two hundred years up to this day, yet the wailers remained.

The one leading the chant was the oldest among them—the ninety-one-year-old woman, who had been invited out of her house.

Richard pushed his naming ability outward. This time, he was analyzing this very fire.

He laid down the strokes: "Children of Covered Fire Village."

The fire leapt up from the tin pot.

The tune, the words, the seal—tonight, all three were on this slope.

The hundreds of human figures on the grass turned to face the flames.

MacFie stood up on the mountain peak and began to sing.

He had chanted incantations all night until his throat tasted of rust.

This was an elegy in Gaelic, unrecorded in any book.

"a leanbh, tá do chuid ag an doras."

(Child, there is a portion for you outside the door.)

He sang a line, and the eight women on the slope harmonized with a line.

"bhi si ann aréir, beidh si ann amárach."

(It was there last night, and it will be there tomorrow night.)

"ach anocht, tar isteach."

(But tonight, come inside.)

For a thousand years, this village had left a portion outside the door every single night. And to leave a portion was to invite a guest.

Guests were supposed to stand outside the door, but tonight, for the first time, someone had opened it.

"ni aoi thu a thuilleadh."

(You are a guest no longer.)

"codail anois."

(Now, sleep.)

On the slope, the old woman sang to the very last line, singing the village's name.

On the slope, the eight women wept to the final line as well.

When the weeping finished, a second mallet did not fall upon the long board.

The tiny, floating flames on the northern slope sank one by one into the earth and stone, burying themselves deep beneath this island into an era that no one had turned over for a millennium.

The hundreds of human figures on the grass walked into the fire, one after another.

This time, no one lined up—because in life, these people had never been allowed to stand in line.

The twelve standing stones lit up to their peaks, one after another.

On the island, the Green-Furred Phantom Hound shook the water from its coat, turned around, and barked for the third time.

When a green hound barked a third time, it had to devour a human. With the third bark echoing right next to his ear, Richard froze completely.

Catching him at his most unguarded, that sound sent a chill straight from the soles of his feet up to the nape of his neck.

The bark faded over the empty sea, and nothing happened.

The massive hound turned back and wagged its thick, braided tail a couple of times, shaking its entire rear end with it.

Richard stared at it. "...You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

The giant hound laid down, resting its chin on its paws, putting on a look like it hadn't understood a word.

......

Dawn broke very slowly.

The black over the sea gradually faded to indigo, then to gray, and finally dissolved into a murky white.

By the time Richard returned from the island, the tide had already risen to his waist.

He had returned to the material realm and continued to float using his flying shoes, but as he neared the shore, the two small wings began to blur. His Ether had bottomed out.

He simply dropped into the water to walk the rest of the way. Cold water flooded over the tops of his boots, and by the time he staggered ashore, both his legs were completely numb.

MacFie was waiting at the tide line. He reached out and gave Richard's shoulder a forceful pat, nearly knocking him back into the water.

Catherine's right hand was wrapped in cloth—a strip she had torn from the hem of her own skirt.

She walked up to Richard, pulled out her notebook, and flipped it open.

"Can't speak again."

On the slope, the eight women were rolling up that length of woolen cloth.

After being beaten all night, the wool had shrunk down thick and dense. Rolled up, it was so heavy it took two people to lift one end.

The girl who drove the mail cart gathered the wooden mallets into a basket, yawning as she worked.

"This year's roll turned out better than in past years."

"You said they were good in past years, too."

"I was lying in past years. This year, it's actually good."

They started laughing.

The twenty-odd sheep on the hillside were also clambering to their feet one by one, shaking off the dew before lowering their heads to graze as if nothing had happened.

An old man from the village came up from the bottom of the slope carrying a bucket, catching sight of the scene.

"You lot!"

He shouted at his own three.

"Slept outside all night, did you?"

The sheep ignored him and kept on eating grass.

"I left the pen gate open last night, and you refused to go in."

He muttered under his breath, walking right between them.

"Raised you this big, and you still haven't got a lick of sense."

By the time six o'clock rolled around, the first wisp of smoke drifted up from the village.

It started with the ninety-one-year-old woman. She was the earliest riser, and she had woken up at this exact hour every day of her life.

She stirred the hearth ash, bent down, and blew a couple of breaths. The embers beneath the ash immediately sprang back to life.

Then came the second wisp of smoke, then the third... Richard stood on the slope, watching a dozen plumes rise from the rooftops one by one.

Someone was scolding their dog.

"Get out! You little mutt! The second I turn my back, you're up on the table!"

Someone added water to their pot in too much of a hurry; the splash hit the fire with a loud sizzle.

The girl who drove the mail cart was harnessing her horse in the courtyard.

She led the old horse out, nudging its belly with her knee to make it exhale before tightening the girth.

She still had a mail run to make today. As she harnessed the animal, she chatted to it, complaining about how that old mail clerk in town had spelled her name wrong again the day before yesterday.

Richard stood there, taking it all in.

The eight women on the slope had beaten cloth all night, leaving their arms sore;

The man scolding his dog only knew his sheep had slept out in the open all night;

The oldest woman had noticed the village fire went out last night, so she blew it back to life this morning.

The village began to cook breakfast.

"Hey!" MacFie walked up from behind.

"Wash your face. Come eat breakfast."

Richard turned around, noticing an unnatural look on the white-haired giant's face.

"She must have thought the two of us didn't eat nearly enough that other night."

"She even said that people from the south eat too little and have weak stomachs, so we needed to replenish our strength this morning."

MacFie let out a cough. "She slaughtered two chickens."

The two of them headed toward the village.

Breakfast was laid out on a long table: two chickens, a large bowl of roasted potatoes, and a pot of mutton soup.

The old woman dipped the ladle into the soup and gave it a stir.

The first bowl was served to Catherine, the second to Richard, and only the third went to MacFie.

"The youngest eats first."

Richard picked up his bowl. The steam rushed over his face, making his eyes sting.