Chapter 467: The Anchorite's Stone Bowl

Halfway through breakfast, someone outside started cursing again.

The old man slammed his bucket hard against the ground:

"The sheep lay outside all night, and the grass is completely covered in dew. If their hooves rot this year because of it, I'd like to see where you'll find a vet."

His wife called back from inside the house, saying the townspeople could just take a look when they came to give vaccines next month.

Richard heard them over his bowl of soup. He knew the sheep probably hadn't been lying down—they had been kneeling.

Beside him, MacFie finished his soup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The professor hadn't said a word all morning, focusing entirely on his food.

Catherine sat between the two men. Her right hand was bandaged in cloth, and she held her spoon awkwardly in her left.

After breakfast, the local priest somehow tracked them down.

He clearly knew the ropes, approaching Professor MacFie to ask:

"Those names I read out last night... I want to write them in the register."

"Which register, exactly?"

"The burial register."

MacFie twitched his white eyebrows.

The priest offered a suggestion:

"I'll write them on the very last page. I'll note that they were buried at sea and are commemorated in this parish."

"Will the higher-ups accept a parish register written like that?"

The priest laughed. "It doesn't matter if the higher-ups accept it, as long as the village does."

MacFie chuckled along with him. "Then go right ahead, Reverend."

"What about the date? They died in different years. The earliest was in 1847."

"Just write yesterday. Yesterday, they were all laid to rest in the village."

The priest thought it over for a moment, nodded, and turned to leave.

Richard understood their reasoning. With the names recorded in the burial register, the parish would read them aloud every All Souls' Day from now on.

The living might think they were simply performing a charitable deed, but it would actively help maintain the stability of the twelve stone pillars on the slope.

The bicycle arrived then, too.

The old man wearing a white armband leaned his bike against the wall:

"I reported to the district yesterday that there's a village to the north where the windows are covered up tighter than a hotel in the Imperial Capital."

He looked exceedingly pleased with himself:

"If anyone comes out to take photos of the village, remember to sweep your yards."

Richard and Catherine spent the entire morning sweeping through the circle of beehive stone huts on the island one by one.

Half of the dozen or so round huts had collapsed. There wasn't much left to salvage from the remaining ones; the anchorites had always prided themselves on owning next to nothing.

Next came the inventory of their spoils. Only a few items were spread out on the table:

An antler-handled chisel with half its iron tip rusted away;

A small cross twisted together from three iron nails, likely made by the same pair of hands;

Two fragments of a whalebone comb, with most of its teeth broken;

A deep blue glass bead laced with a streak of white. Judging by the style, it might have been from the Viking Age. How it had ended up in an anchorite's hands was a mystery;

Seven copper nails and pieces of wax peeled from the seal, along with a full scroll of rubbings duplicated on a machine.

The centerpiece was an anchorite's stone bowl, its inner wall polished smooth enough to reflect a person's silhouette.

A line of Ogham was carved along the bowl's rim. From bottom to top, it contained only three character positions.

This stone bowl was also the only object from the ruins that could truly be called a proper supernatural item.

Richard spoke first. "Professor, you take your pick first."

MacFie sat with his arms crossed over his chest, not moving an inch.

"Boy, my room ran out of space for things a long time ago. The wall in my study at home collapsed last year, crushed under the weight of my own collection."

Catherine held up her notebook: "You won't even take a look?"

MacFie dipped his chin.

"I looked. While you two were inside making rubbings, I looked them all over outside."

He spread his hands. "These were left behind by people who guarded this island for a thousand years. It's only fitting they go to you two, who are just starting out. An old man like me has no need for them."

"Since the professor says so, let's divide them."

Catherine wrote much faster than before.

"You take the bulk of it. I was carving my stones on the slope last night, and what I couldn't finish, I could just continue at dawn. But if you hadn't held off that horde of the dead on the island, this seal wouldn't be behaving so quietly right now."

Richard thought for a moment. "There was also that final whip strike you made."

The red-haired girl pursed her lips and wrote again: "That was only because you cleared out all the others first, forcing it to sneak in."

The two of them continued yielding to each other across the long table.

MacFie let out an impatient cough. "If you two keep deferring to each other, I'm taking all of it."

In the end, Richard made the first move.

He pushed the antler-handled chisel toward Catherine. "You take this first."

Catherine frowned.

Richard pointed at her bandaged hand. "You knelt all night and carved the seal until your hand bled. You deserve this."

Catherine nodded at his words. She looked at the chisel and reached out to grasp it.

Richard continued dividing the items.

"We'll each take a copy of the rubbings once they're duplicated. You take the copper nails and the wax, too; you'll need them to study the seal structure."

Catherine wrote in her notebook: "Then what are you taking?"

Richard placed his hand on the anchorite's stone bowl, then picked up the glass bead.

Catherine wrote a few lines heavily with her left hand.

"Then it'll be the same as before. Whatever results we get from studying these, we share."

Richard nodded.

"I took the most valuable piece, so the rest is yours."

"I don't need that much."

"I'll owe you, then." Richard felt helpless, knowing this strict accounting was the Nemesis Mask's influence.

"If you need anything in the future, just tell me."

Catherine pulled out her notebook, tore off a page, solemnly wrote a few lines with her left hand, and pushed it over.

Richard looked down. It was an IOU.

Date, reason, debtor, and even a space left for a signature at the bottom. It was drafted more rigidly than a law firm's standard format.

"...Is this really necessary?"

Catherine simply shoved the pen into his hand.

Beside them, MacFie reached over and picked up the anchorite's stone bowl.

"This stone bowl is at least a thousand years old. It might even predate the village itself."

He weighed it in his hands.

"It's a pity there's no internal structure or Spell Formula inside, nor has anyone ever sealed anything in it. It was simply carried out night after night, and carried back again, for a thousand years."

As he gathered his two spoils, Richard also pulled out the pendant he had dug from the water horse's stomach.

"Professor, could you take a look at this for me?"

MacFie took it, flipped it over between his fingers, and handed it right back.

"This is clean. It isn't contaminated with anything, and no one has laid a trap on it."

"What about its ether reserves?"

The white-haired giant shook his head.

"Incredibly thin. It's only soaked in seawater for a few decades, so it lacks age. The little bit of ether left in it might not even match the bead in your hand."

"I understand."

Richard wasn't surprised. This was purely an unexpected bonus anyway.

Even a mosquito's leg had some meat on it. Maybe the 0.1 or 0.2 points he absorbed from it would be exactly what he needed to round up to a crucial full point.

They settled lunch with a simple meal of dry rations on the island.

The wind died down in the afternoon. Richard spread the rubbings over his knees.

Catherine had fallen asleep on the grass nearby. She had been carving all through the night, kneeling from dusk until dawn, and was thoroughly exhausted.

Combined with the fact that they had just finished lunch, causing a sudden blood sugar spike... well, they probably didn't have that term in this era, but regardless, she was too full and sleepy to keep her eyes open.

Taking advantage of his student's slumber, MacFie quietly pulled Richard aside to give him some private instruction.

"Hold out your hand."

Richard extended his hand. The older man grabbed his wrist and pressed his fingertips against the stone ridge of the doorframe. "Close your eyes."

Richard closed his eyes. That large hand guided his own to feel along the doorframe.

Groove after groove passed beneath his fingertips, many slicing diagonally across the ridge.

"Count out all the lines carved across the ridge."

"One, two, two, five, one."

MacFie released his hand. "Right. This is Ogham."

"It isn't carved onto the flat faces; it's carved onto the ridges."

"The ridge is the boundary, and the boundary is exactly where it belongs."

Richard opened his eyes. "Is there a reason for that?"

"Because it was meant to be read by the hands."

Richard's fingers were still pressed against the stone ridge.

MacFie continued to explain. "Here in the Highlands, the sun sets early for eight months of the year. When you're traveling in the middle of the night and reach a boundary stone, your eyes can't see a thing. But if you reach out and feel it, you'll know whose land you're standing on, and who is buried beneath your feet."

He pulled the scroll of rubbings over and pointed them out to Richard one by one:

"There are twenty letters in total. Each one is named after a tree: Birch, Rowan, Alder, Willow, Ash."

He tapped his way down the list, one by one. "So when they write a name, what comes out is a little grove of trees."

Richard looked down, counting the engraved strokes. Erudition rapidly recorded the twenty character positions, the five sets of carving methods, the directions, and the stroke counts. Every detail dropped neatly into the ever-expanding library in his mind.

MacFie taught quickly. He had Richard feel along the doorframe, then open his eyes to study the rubbings.

After that, he had Richard read a passage aloud, then made him carve it into another stone. A single mistaken cut meant wiping the whole section clean and starting over.

By the time Catherine finally woke from her nap, Richard could run his fingers over the stone with his eyes closed and list off all twenty character positions in one breath.

MacFie said, "You use your eyes to recognize the words, and your hands to recognize the age."

"How do hands recognize the age?"

"Take the same character position: the pre-Roman layer is cut deep, and the incision is rounded. The batch filled in a thousand years later is cut shallow, flicking slightly outward."

He grabbed Richard's hand and pressed it against two different carvings.

"Can you feel it?"

"The second one is definitely pricklier."

"Right. The pricklier layer was filled in by laymen."

Richard committed it firmly to memory.

At that moment, Erudition retrieved the rubbings of the twelve Boundary Stones from Whitcom, comparing them group by group with the one right in front of him.

When he compared it up to the seventh stone, he raised his head. "Professor, my probatio text from last year covered those twelve stones in Whitcom. They're somewhat similar to this."

MacFie nodded.

"Yes, I've read it. From the veil's decay to the trigger for its return... It's a very novel approach, but your arguments leaped ahead a bit too fast."

Richard choked slightly on the familiar-sounding critique and gave a meek sound of agreement.

"But back then, I only read the inscriptions on the flat faces. I never thought to feel the ridges with my own hands."

MacFie let out a short laugh, his tone laced with a hint of mockery.

"The people lecturing on Ogham at the Imperial Capital University Library rely almost entirely on photographs of rubbings taken from the flat faces. Because of that, they've been lecturing for forty years strictly on what the eyes can see. The layer on the ridge has to be felt by hand, and the person feeling it has to stand on the actual ground. These days, fewer and fewer people are truly willing to stand on the ground and do the fieldwork."

He flipped to the next page of the rubbings.

"Now look at this section."

It was the line Richard had copied from the physical wall yesterday: One meal a day. Before eating, place a portion outside the door, for the Lord was also once a guest on the road.

"The passage on top is in Latin, and the section on the door ridge is in Ogham," MacFie said. "When you read them out, did you think there was no difference between them?"

"No difference. They both say to leave a portion behind."

The white-haired giant raised his chin, glancing up at the circle of stones on the slope.

"The lowest foundation of this town is pre-Roman Celtic. That layer governs the boundary—meaning inside and outside, entering and exiting, who can cross and who cannot. When the anchorites arrived, they didn't tear it down. First, they carved a line of Ogham on the door ridge, stating that whoever you left a portion for was a guest, and whoever you didn't was something else entirely. Only above that did they write in Latin, stating that it was because the Lord was also once a guest on the road."

The white-haired giant opened his palms. "The same sentence was simply translated twice. The bottom layer still preserves the original meaning, which is why this land acknowledges it."

Richard sat on the threshold, remaining silent the entire time.

Speculation and Learning were both operating silently, steadily accumulating experience in their progress bars.

He lowered his head and packed the scroll of rubbings into his bag.

MacFie suddenly spoke up again.

"When you get back, write out this entire ridge-reading method. The character positions, carving techniques, depth, starting strokes, and everything from both sides of this scroll of rubbings. Once I find the time, I'll come and grade it for you."

Richard's eyes lit up. He knew exactly what this meant.

"So you're preparing to teach me..."

The older man shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Don't celebrate too early. I'm much stricter than that old coot, Mortimer."

That evening, the two of them were collecting the final rubbing up on the slope.

The sun had sunk into the sea, leaving a dirty red line across the horizon.

MacFie pulled the flat flask from his breast pocket and took a swig.

Richard sat down beside him, thought for a moment, and finally voiced what he had been holding in for days.

"Professor MacFie, I chatted with Professor Mortimer last month."

"About what?"

"About industry."

MacFie turned his head.

"I asked him what it would have taken in the past to get tens of thousands of people doing the exact same thing at the exact same moment."

"He said it would take a war, or a plague."

"And now?"

"A newspaper."

The trace of leisure vanished from the white-haired giant's face.

"Railways, telegraphs, the phonograph, photography, newspapers, assembly lines... these things are creating an unprecedented scale of transmission."

It was quiet on the slope for a moment. MacFie rested his hands on his knees.

"You're counting steles," he said.

"Steles?"

"All five major traditions have erected a forest of steles. Each stele represents a feat that no one had ever accomplished before."

"I counted the ones for the Moon Hunting Tradition when I was young. There are currently nineteen great deeds in total."

"All these years have passed, and it's still nineteen."

Richard sat up straighter.

"The first great deed was the first person to offer their prey to the moon."

"The fifth was a single person keeping an entire country in a state of long-term terror."

MacFie recalled slowly, "The thirteenth was hunting down and slaughtering an entire army that shouldn't have existed, all in a single night."

"By the time it reached the most recent one, I realized that all the easy deeds had already been done."

The white-haired giant lowered his hands.

"As one of the five major traditions, the seats above the Moon Hunting Tradition are filled much tighter than those of the Classical Records Tradition."