Chapter 256 - 206: Eyes and Fingers

The Spirit Medium spread the Tarot Cards on a corner of the workbench, arranging them in a crescent moon.

"First, we’ll look at the man himself. Then, we’ll look at the people behind him."

Her index finger hovered over the spread, and from within the crescent, she drew the first card.

When the card was turned over, Old Big’s shoulders flinched almost imperceptibly.

[The Hanged Man·Upright]

A young man hung upside down by one foot from a T-shaped wooden frame. His other leg was bent into the shape of the number "4," and his hands were bound behind his back.

The Hanged Man’s expression should have been serene; it was a face that had been painted and repainted for centuries.

But at this moment, the eyes of the Hanged Man on the card were closed.

They were sealed shut, as if the card refused to let anyone see what it was looking at.

"He didn’t resist being hollowed out," Mrs. MacNeil began.

"He was cooperative while being hollowed out, cooperative to the point... that even he himself felt ’this is how it should be.’"

Richard recalled the "Harmony" who had been captured alive in the cavern the previous night.

"This is how it should be done."

It was the same thing.

The Spirit Medium’s finger moved to the second card.

[The Moon·Reversed].

An inverted moon hung between two towers.

A dog and a wolf bayed at the moon, but with the card reversed, the small path became a slope leading from underground up to the moon.

"He was deceived, and not just once," the Spirit Medium said.

"The ones who deceived him have at least three layers."

"The outermost layer told him to ’escape your current suffering.’"

"The middle layer told him, ’you are the chosen one.’"

"The innermost layer... told him ’what you do will be remembered.’"

Richard thought of the serene smile on the Answering Head’s face before he died yesterday.

That smile didn’t mean "I’ve won" at all.

That smile was, ’I will be remembered.’

To be remembered by that thing at the bottom of the pit, to have his name called out, even just once.

The Spirit Medium’s finger moved to the third card.

[The Hierophant·Reversed].

The inverted Hierophant sat between two pillars, the triple crown slipping from his head. The two small figures he was supposed to be blessing had turned their heads away.

"This is the one who showed him the way."

"In the Echo Society, they have a ’Mentor.’"

"That ’Mentor’ himself isn’t necessarily the one at the very core of this. He’s more like a... transfer point."

She drew the fourth card.

[The Tower·Upright].

Lightning struck the top of a tower, and two people fell from it.

The body of the tower was split open from the top by a vertical bolt of lightning, its crown blown off by the blast wave.

When Richard saw this card, he frowned instinctively.

The Tower Card is one of the most ominous cards in the Tarot, signifying an impending and unavoidable collapse.

The Spirit Medium’s hand paused over the Tower Card for a few seconds.

Beside Richard, Old Big let out a soft HISS.

The Spirit Medium raised a hand, gesturing for them to remain silent.

She drew the fifth card, but instead of flipping it, she placed it facedown on top of the fourth card, The Tower.

She then drew a sixth card and placed it facedown on top of the fifth.

The final, seventh card was placed facedown on top of the sixth.

On the right end of the crescent, she had stacked three unflipped cards, like a small, three-story tower.

"Senior Sister," Old Big’s voice was low. "Are you trying to dig deeper?"

"Mmm."

"...Should we just stop?"

"I’ll try once first."

The Spirit Medium held her right hand over the stack of three facedown cards.

Her fingers were no longer held in their previous relaxed curve; the five fingertips were drawn tightly together.

She was using the entire deck to knock on the deeper connection behind the Answering Head.

The Spirit Medium chanted something.

On the tabletop, a corner of the top card in the facedown stack lifted on its own.

Mrs. MacNeil’s eyes widened in an instant.

At that moment, the color drained completely from Old Big’s face.

"Senior Sister, pull back!"

Richard stood outside the silver thread, and he saw the card’s original face had been replaced with a blank surface.

From the blank face of the card, an eye was revealed.

The eye stood on the blank card, slowly opening towards Mrs. MacNeil.

It had no pupil, not even an eyeball, only the pure sensation of being watched itself.

It was the act of seeing, stripped of the parts requiring an organ, with only the purest sliver of being seen left behind.

An intuitive warning exploded in Richard’s chest.

This was clearly an intentional trap.

The one behind the Answering Head had planted a reverse hook on him from the very day he was taken as a "tool."

Any Spirit Medium who tried to probe the Answering Head’s true name or the identity of the one behind the scenes would follow that path and deliver their own inspiration right into the other’s hands.

Mrs. MacNeil froze, her left hand hovering over the cards, her right hand subconsciously pressing the Bone Bracelet on her wrist.

Richard could see it—she was transfixed by that eye, unable to move.

Any movement would be interpreted by the other party as an "answer."

Once she "answered," her entire deck, her entire Ether Micro-Cycle, would be dragged away by that eye along this connection.

Richard instinctively wanted to do something. If something really happened, he wouldn’t be able to escape this small room either.

But just as the thought crossed his mind, the silver ring on his chest grew ice-cold.

Lady Mary was reminding him that she would act.

On the other side, the sliver of Spirit in the Bone Bracelet awakened.

From within the Bone Bracelet, it extended a finger toward the blank card.

SNAP.

The face of the card was pressed back down by the finger.

Lady Mary, on behalf of her student, had closed the door that had been pushed open a crack.

The eye was shut behind the door, and the temperature in the autopsy room slowly began to rise again.

Mrs. MacNeil staggered backward and was caught by Old Big.

She gasped for breath, panting for a long while before she could speak.

"...The one behind him... you can’t probe them with Tarot."

A film of fine sweat covered her forehead.

"I almost..."

Old Big helped her to a chair by the wall.

He let out a breath himself and glanced toward the Bone Bracelet.

Mrs. MacNeil sat in the chair for quite some time.

Old Big glanced at Richard and made a "don’t go anywhere" gesture.

The entire autopsy room was silent for about five minutes.

When the Spirit Medium stood up again, her complexion was still poor, but she had steadied herself.

She waved a hand toward the stack of cards on the table.

The three facedown cards she had laid out slid back together.

She returned the entire deck to its box. When the lid closed, the CLICK was exceptionally crisp.

After that, Mrs. MacNeil no longer tried to touch that "behind-the-scenes" layer.

She changed her approach, reading only the "things the Answering Head had done."

She walked back to the front of the table and took out a palm-sized Ebony Box from the bottom of her leather case.

The lid of the box was inlaid with several tiny, polished copper nails.

"Bigelow, open the thoracic cavity a little wider."

Old Big grunted in acknowledgment and made two more cuts with his scalpel on either side of the existing opening in the chest cavity.

The membranous "external interface" that had been pressed against the inner wall of the ribcage had already been thrown into the Refining Furnace and burned away.

The inside of the thoracic cavity was now empty, leaving only the ribs.

The Spirit Medium opened the Ebony Box.

Inside the box was a net woven from Dark Silver Thread.

Richard looked at the net with his Spiritual Vision and could faintly see Ether Flowing within the threads. The flow was extremely chaotic, showing traces of having been repeatedly folded and straightened.

"A Tire Track Net," Mrs. MacNeil explained.

She shook the net out, letting its surface unfurl, and draped it over the Answering Head’s chest cavity.

The entire net slowly sank, adhering to the inner wall of the Answering Head Thorax.

Mrs. MacNeil held her right hand half an inch above the net’s surface.

She began to chant, that same barely audible murmur coming from her throat.

Old Big gave Richard a look, signaling for him to take a step back.

Richard complied.

Standing two steps away, he could hear his own heartbeat, magnified by the echoes in the autopsy room.

The Spirit Medium’s murmuring continued for about three minutes.

The Dark Silver Threads of the Tire Track Net began to change.

The first few threads floated up from the net’s surface, hanging in mid-air, and automatically coiled into a minimalist geometric shape.

Then a second, and a third.

By the time the tenth or so thread appeared, Richard could see what they were.

They were the operational trajectories of Techniques, "run" out of the Answering Head Thorax inch by inch by the threads.

Each trajectory corresponded to a Technique the Answering Head had performed in his life.

These trajectories crisscrossed in mid-air, forming an extremely complex net within a net.

"...Found it," Mrs. MacNeil said softly.

She extended an index finger and, from within the net of nets, picked out a thread that was darker than all the others.

The shape of this thread was very peculiar, an inward-curling spiral.

"The Silencing Technique," she confirmed.

Old Big moved closer.

"Is that the one that hit the Lieutenant Colonel in the cavern?"

"Mmm," the Spirit Medium nodded. "He cast it twice in the mineshaft. I’ve managed to trace them both."

She carefully plucked the thread from the net of nets and placed it on a piece of parchment that had been prepared in advance.

As soon as the thread touched the parchment, it adhered to the surface and transformed into lines of ink.

With the Technique imprinted, she picked up the small bag of Talisman Stones used for Stone Reading and poured them into the Copper Disc.

Mrs. MacNeil had learned her lesson this time. For this Divination of fortune, she used the Stone Reading Technique, which gave a vaguer result and was harder to lock onto.

The stones clattered in the disc, and a few Talisman Stones rolled into the center.

The Spirit Medium read them at a glance, then grabbed another handful and tossed them in.

After three rounds of this, she looked up.

"I’ve performed the Divination. The Technique itself has no preference for good or evil."

"It’s just a tool."

"How a tool is used depends on the person wielding it."

"Any being that relies on the rhythm of Techniques and Breathing Techniques will have their tempo disrupted if they’re hit by it."

Richard moved a little closer.

What had appeared on the parchment was a complete structural diagram of the Technique.

In the center was a tiny symbol whose shape corresponded to the two steel pipes on the workbench.

Around the pipes were two corresponding symbols for herbal components: Many-eyed Black Moss and Silent Fern.

The entire Technique operated by the Caster pushing Ether through the steel pipes, activating the two herbal components inside.

Once stimulated, the herbs would spit out a "vacuum" on the Ether Layer.

When that vacuum covered a target, the rhythm of any Techniques or Breathing Techniques the target was operating would be thrown into chaos.

"Of course, just like with the Gargoyles, the steel pipes are only a Casting Medium. Once you’re proficient, you can discard them."

"Did you get a clear look?" Mrs. MacNeil asked.

"Yes, I did," Richard nodded.

She pushed the parchment toward Richard.

"If you’re interested, you can learn it."

"You’ll have to figure out how to get the two herbs for the Casting Medium yourself.

The Many-eyed Black Moss is manageable; you can harvest it in the near-shore transitional zone.

The Silent Fern is much deeper. It’s found near the edge of the Deep Realm, so it doesn’t usually circulate through proper channels."