Chapter 483: We Are Also Rome

Nemesis wrapped the whip tightly around her forearm, reached into her robes with her left hand, and pulled out a Waxing Moon Stone.

Another arrow flew toward them, this time aimed straight at Richard in the center of the circle.

Heracles smashed the arrow aside, sending it flying off at an angle.

Even after all this time, they had only seen arrows, never the shooter.

Nemesis silently activated the Waxing Moon Stone. A second moon appeared over the Seven Hills, casting a shadow that revealed half of the archer's shoulder.

Before the next arrow could leave its bowstring, Catherine's whip lashed out.

"Crack..."

White light exploded against the colonnade. The figure let out a grunt of pain and frantically recoiled.

The interval between incoming arrows slowed from one every five seconds to one every full half minute.

After a few exchanges, every Hunter on the Greek side had taken injuries.

Demeter's sickle was still reaping, but a new row sprouted for every row she cut down.

Dionysus was no longer splashing his wine about; he had started using it sparingly.

"If this keeps up, our side is going to suffer casualties." A line of text surfaced on the pan of Nemesis's scale.

Richard gritted his teeth. At this moment, the ether in his circuits was absurdly dense.

A Practitioner's ether was thin and loose; pushing it even a little too hard caused it to destabilize.

He had the fourth-highest resonance at this table but the lowest rank, so he was receiving a significant correction boost during this group battle.

But compared to charging forward to fight, the pen in his hand could actually play a much greater role.

"Everyone, I have a plan," Richard said.

Confusion surfaced on their faces first, slowly giving way to skepticism.

"What are you going to do?" Dionysus asked.

"I'm going to run an analysis," Richard said, slowly outlining his plan.

"This city recognizes Roman names, and a few of you already have them."

Once the [Chronicler's Pen] wrote them down, someone had to bear the weight.

Why would the city recognize them? Because he, the chronicler, was acting as the guarantor.

From the moment the names were written, the toll the city exacted would be charged to his account.

He was the guarantor, and a guarantor could never vouch for himself.

In the deepest part of the Imperial Capital Museum's Storeroom, the sacred ibis head had spoken a certain passage:

"Do not alter, do not forge, do not replace the names of others for personal gain."

"Record only the truth of what you see."

The pen could write for anyone, but it absolutely could not write for him.

That was fine. He hadn't planned on writing his own name tonight anyway.

"I need you to buy me some time," Richard said.

"I can't move or be distracted while analyzing."

"If the writing is off, the name will turn around and devour that person." He deliberately exaggerated the threat.

Heracles pulled back his Great Club and drove it into the ground.

"Then I'll come back and act as your shield."

Prometheus raised a hand, and the inscriptions covering his puppet body shifted from dull bronze to dark red.

"I've switched to defensive mode on my end as well."

Demeter pulled her hands from the cracks in the stone slabs, dragged her sickle over, and sat down with her back to him.

Hecate stepped to the outermost ring and raised her torch.

"Hermes, my entire table will guard only you tonight."

Minerva frowned. Seeing the Greek faction rally to guard Hermes, she sensed something was wrong.

She exchanged a glance with Fortuna and pulled a parchment from her sleeve.

"I don't know if this will work."

The moment the parchment was unrolled, Richard felt as if someone had clamped a lid over his head.

A massive section of the ever-expanding library in his mind suddenly went dark.

"Closed Book," Minerva explained to Mars.

"The skills of a Scholar from the Classical Records Tradition are all in their head. Now that I've locked up his shelves, he's just an ordinary man holding a staff."

Richard opened his eyes.

[Erudition] had indeed been temporarily sealed off in a massive chunk.

What was sealed were all the classical records, annotated editions, rubbings, and cipher texts he had read over the past two years.

But what he needed to do tonight wasn't in that section at all.

The mirror reflected the present.

That surface of water didn't ripple in the slightest.

"...He's still reflecting it," Fortuna said.

"I know." Minerva slowly lowered her hand.

"He isn't using books tonight. Our intelligence was wrong."

The first was Heracles.

The very first altar in this city was dedicated to a strongman from a foreign land who passed through while driving cattle.

Richard pulled the Reed Pen from his inner pocket; its barrel grew hot against his palm.

"Heracles."

"What!"

"You have a name in this city," Richard said.

"Older than Mars's sons."

"When they drove cattle past the river, they had to offer a tenth before your altar. When they made deals and swore oaths, it was your name they invoked."

"So you were never an outsider."

He brought the pen down.

"Hercules."

The City of Seven Hills trembled.

[Spiritual Capacity: 20/20 → 17/20]

Half of Richard's body went numb. He staggered back half a step, only to be supported from behind by Demeter.

The strongman looked down at his feet.

When he took a step forward, the stone slabs didn't bite him.

"...What is this?"

"You're a local now."

When the god of strength swung his club and charged out, all the stone slabs beneath the Seven Hills simultaneously gave way for him.

This time, he didn't take a detour. He smashed his club head-on into Mars.

With a booming tremor, Mars's iron boots sank into the stone slabs, and the impact sent him skidding back over a dozen steps.

Heracles had already smashed Mars to the ground several times tonight.

That last strike had cratered the stone slabs, yet Mars simply stood back up as if nothing had happened.

"Something's wrong."

The big lug slammed his Great Club into the ground.

"This club of mine is a dead man's club. One direct hit means lying in bed for at least half a month."

"How many seconds was he down just now?"

"Four seconds." The words surfaced on Nemesis's scale in reply.

"...Four seconds." Heracles's face turned green.

Richard spread the Still Water over, reflecting the rift that had just been smashed open on Mars's body.

Ether surged up from the stone slab beneath his feet, pushing the rift back into place from the inside.

At the bottom of the slope, Mars straightened his bent iron spear across his knee.

"Figured it out?"

"Out of the seven people at this table, I am the only one with the blessing of a Virtuoso."

"As long as I stand within this trench, none of you can kill me."

The second was Dionysus. Richard was already getting the hang of it.

His name was the root word for "freedom" in this city's language.

The god of wine's festival fell on March 17.

On that day, all the youths in the city stripped off their boyhood tunics and donned the white togas of adulthood.

From that day on, they were no longer just someone's child; they officially became men of Rome.

On that day, the commoners drank, sang crude songs, and pushed carts down the streets, and the Senate couldn't stop them.

"Dionysus."

"Your name in this city is older than your wine cup."

Richard brought the pen down.

"Bacchus."

[Spiritual Capacity: 17/20 → 14/20]

That ring of intoxicating mist shifted, becoming the city's own carnival.

Beneath the Seven Hills, Mars's faceless legion was marching forward in step.

The god of wine slammed his empty cup onto the ground.

The first row's steps faltered. With one row in chaos, the second row crashed right into them.

"Halt!" Mars roared from the bottom of the slope. "Ha—"

People in the third row were already beginning to retreat.

"March 17," the god of wine drawled. "Your soldiers are due for a holiday."

The third was Demeter. This time, it went even faster.

She maintained the same sitting posture, her back facing him, with her two callused hands resting on her knees.

"The grain goddess of the plebeians. Whoever harmed a tribune of the plebs was sacrificed to you, along with all their property."

"The most crucial part is the other meaning behind this name."

He lifted his head and looked at the plowed trench encircling the Seven Hills.

"That Virtuoso used a plow to draw the boundary, but a plow's most primitive purpose was never drawing boundaries."

"The very first task a plow had upon its creation was turning the soil for seeds. It belongs to you."

"Ceres."

[Spiritual Capacity: 14/20 → 11/20]

Demeter stood up.

She walked to the edge of that plowed trench, tossed her sickle onto the ground, crouched down, and plunged her hands into the newly turned soil.

The City of Seven Hills began to shake.

A near-hysterical roar tore from beneath Mars's iron mask. "A Virtuoso's trench, you—!"

"A Virtuoso's trench is still plowed all the same," the agricultural goddess said.

"The earth turned up by the plow belongs to me, from beginning to end."

The ether along the trench's edge that had been repelling everyone else began to part to the sides.

Catherine's uncle immediately pushed back on the spot, and the cracks below his puppet's knees stopped climbing.

The rest didn't have Roman names, so Richard could only reinforce them.

"Nemesis."

The tilted scales swung around.

"You don't need to change your name."

"Your name is already on this city's roster; it's just that no one ever declared it for you."

"Above every gate of the amphitheater sits a shrine to you."

"Gladiators had to make an offering there before entering the arena. Whether they walked out or were carried out was entirely up to you."

"They called you... Nemesis of the Arena."

"There is only one rule there."

He brought the pen down.

"What happens in the arena ends in the arena. No one takes anything for free."

[Spiritual Capacity: 11/20 → 5/20]

Venus leaned against a colonnade, the smile that had yet to fade now freezing on her face.

What she had done for this half of the fight was very simple: without ever stepping onto the battlefield, she just stood on the hill and smiled, and the god of strength's club would slow down by half a beat.

But now, that entire stretch of sand recognized a different rule.

"Those outside the arena," Catherine spoke up.

It was her first time speaking loudly tonight. Her voice was so hoarse it was almost out of tune, yet the entire city heard it.

"Keep your hands out!"

On the scales, the left pan plummeted to the bottom with a heavy thud.

The whip lashed out, its tip extending through the air, bypassing the brawling Heracles and Mars to strike directly against the colonnade on the third hill.

"Crack..."

Venus was whipped right off the colonnade. She tumbled down seven or eight steps and sprayed a mouthful of blood over the stone stairs.

This time, she could not get back up.

Beneath the Seven Hills, the god of strength's fourth swing did not slow down again.

Mars's iron spear bent in the middle at an angle that could never be straightened. He was smashed down, sinking into the stone slabs until he was buried in the dirt up to his knees.

Richard turned around. He actually wanted to write Hecate's name.

She was the one with the highest rank at this table. If she could just shake off the label of "outsider," tonight wouldn't have to be this grueling anymore.

Just as he was about to push the reflection over, the Reed Pen grew unnaturally hot in his palm.

On the surface of the water, Hecate's name surfaced.

It wasn't that the Romans didn't have her; they called her Trivia—the crossroads.

The Romans had erected shrines to her. They built them everywhere.

They built them in the suburbs, at the entrances to tombs, and at the forks where two country roads split just outside the walls.

But not a single one was built inside the city.

"No need to write it."

Hecate's voice drifted over from the outermost ring.

"Chief."

"I felt what you did just now." She raised her torch a little higher.

"You've been elevated to the Minor Adept threshold tonight, and having borrowed someone else's pen, you can act as a guarantor for a Minor Adept."

"But you cannot bear the weight of vouching for me."

Richard didn't speak.

The trace amounts of residual ether in his palm shrank back down the barrel of the pen.

"You don't need to write me." Hecate held up her key.

"I have always been the one standing outside the door."

"The people inside the door can't open it; only the one outside has the key."

She turned around and thrust the key into thin air.

"Click."

Beneath the Seven Hills, yet another entire swath of people who had died outside the city stood up.

Richard tried again to reflect Prometheus but failed once more.

He wasn't on this city's roster.

There wasn't a single temple or altar, not even a single sworn oath that included his name.

The Romans had adopted so many gods, but they had uniquely left him behind.

"...Sorry," Richard said.

The fire beneath the red gold mask flickered.

"If it can't be found, it can't be found." The craftsman showed neither sorrow nor joy.

"A fire-thief was never meant to be recognized by city walls anyway. I've always felt that not having a name is perfectly fine."