Chapter 207: Ebony Revolver

Richard folded the parchment and glanced at Old Biggs. The gunsmith held his hands up in a "count me out" gesture.

"Since Senior Sister let you learn it, I've got no objections. I could never master it anyway."

Richard finally tucked the parchment into the inner compartment of his satchel.

He recalled the "Perception Shielding" spell Dionysus had traded at the Theogony Salon.

The core of the Silence Spell was to temporarily sever an opponent's Spell Formulas and breathing method.

If he thought about it in reverse...

Mrs. MacNeil clearly didn't have the time to notice the brief flash of inspiration in his eyes.

She extracted the Rut Net from the Chief Responder's chest cavity, refolded it, and returned it to its ebony box.

"That's all for today."

The medium checked the wall clock. It was 1:20 a.m.

"I need to report the canal map's deployment tonight."

She nodded to Richard.

"Get some rest. We have a debriefing first thing tomorrow morning."

Richard murmured in agreement and looked at Old Biggs.

The older man waved him off.

"You go on ahead. I'll stay to handle the rest."

"The refining furnace only burned off the corpse's external port. I still have to dismember the rest and dispose of it piece by piece."

"Thanks for the hard work," Richard said with a nod, turning to leave.

Old Biggs chuckled, digging that Copper Penny out of his pocket again.

"I'm telling you, the longer I work in this trade, the more I feel..."

He caught a glimpse of Mrs. MacNeil and swallowed the rest of his sentence.

"Never mind. We'll talk later."

Richard took off his autopsy apron and hung it back on the hook behind the door.

...

Back in his dormitory, Richard dropped his satchel by the head of his bed.

He took out the parchment and spread it on the desk.

[Erudition] gave him a photographic memory, but he still preferred to review things a few extra times with his own eyes.

Richard ran the core structure of the Silence Spell through his mind over and over, silently calculating the possibility of an inversion.

[Shadow Inversion] could only reverse Spell Formulas he had already mastered, and he hadn't truly learned this Silence Spell yet.

He folded the parchment and tucked it back into his satchel's inner compartment.

After turning off the wall lamp, he lay down on his camp bed.

The entire Branch Office building was dead silent, save for the occasional thud of the boiler drifting up from the underground passage.

Richard's mind was still spinning.

The external port, the Silence Spell, the thirteen nodes, the Echo Society, the borrowed signature artifact...

Any single one of those was enough to study for a while, but mashed together, they formed a tangled mess.

Then there was that eye and the matter of a certain Virtuoso—things he didn't even dare dwell on.

At some point, he drifted into a hazy sleep.

In his dreams, he was still inside the flipped core zone of the Unresponsive Pit.

The inverted sea of stars overhead was as cold as frost reflecting from the bottom of a well.

The Chief Responder stood in the center of the Pit Core, turning to face him.

"Are you going to answer, or not?"

Richard had no salt under his tongue.

He opened his mouth to reply, but swallowed his response back down.

The Chief Responder smiled.

"You will respond, sooner or later."

Richard's eyes snapped open.

It wasn't dawn yet.

...

The debriefing was held in the conference room on the Branch Office's second floor.

Lieutenant Colonel Ord sat at one end of the long table, his Steel Prosthetic Arm resting on the surface.

In the corner of the room, Pony sat on a chair pushed against the wall.

He had no cup in front of him, nor any paper or pen.

The female squad leader of Team One, the woman with the scarred brow, sat right beside him, a hand resting steadily on his shoulder.

The meeting began with a posthumous pension document.

Lieutenant Colonel Ord pushed the document to the center of the table.

"File it under the 'routine attrition' clause. A Hunter died during a maintenance mission at a medium-tier weak point.

The pension amount, family placement, and posthumous honors will all follow established protocols."

"Wait," Wentworth said, looking up. "How do we explain it to his parents?"

"Carbon monoxide poisoning," the lieutenant colonel answered without missing a beat.

"The Western Suburbs Mining Area went on strike this year, causing ventilation issues in the shafts. He accompanied us down the mineshaft as an inspector and suffocated."

"...Understood."

Listening to this exchange left a sickening knot in Richard's stomach.

Lieutenant Colonel Ord signed the document and passed it to Mrs. MacNeil for her signature.

When the document finally reached Wentworth, the inspector squad leader paused for a fraction of a second before picking up his pen.

But he still signed his name.

"Next," the lieutenant colonel said, filing the document into the folder on his right.

"We distribute the spoils."

He tipped his chin toward Mrs. MacNeil.

The medium placed a suitcase on the table and unlatched the lid.

She pulled items from the case in two separate batches.

The first batch consisted of several small porcelain jars sealed with black wax and tied with red strings.

Each jar bore a handwritten label with a wax seal stamped onto the corner of the tag.

"This batch contains the casting mediums found on the Chief Responder."

The medium arranged the jars in the center of the table.

"The leftover herbs inside the two steel pipes: seven grams of Multi-Eyed Black Moss and three grams of Silent Fern.

Aside from those, we have the remnants of the external port, the blood pact template, and the rubbing of the Rut Net... seven items in total."

"This is the first time physical evidence of the Echo Society's main body has been secured on this scale within the Empire."

"The deep realm harvesting network is a lead the Northern Branch Headquarters has been chasing for years, but until now, it was purely theoretical, based on intelligence shared by the Western Continent.

Landing this batch today brings that lead off the paper and into the Empire for the first time."

She pushed the jars toward Lieutenant Colonel Ord.

"I've sealed them along with the autopsy notes."

Lieutenant Colonel Ord glanced at the labels. Without a word, he shifted the porcelain jars beneath the folder on his right.

"By the rules, evidence is exempt from loot distribution," the lieutenant colonel stated.

"Until the receipt from higher up comes down, no one lays a finger on them."

"Understood," the group replied in unison.

Richard felt a slight twinge of disappointment.

Mrs. MacNeil's words from last night—"If you're interested, you can learn it"—still echoed in his ears.

Now, the actual physical materials were being confiscated right in front of him.

But he knew it was protocol; he couldn't force the issue.

The medium then brought out the second batch from the suitcase.

These were stored in glass jars, each glinting with a different hue under the lights.

"This is what the Unresponsive Pit actually left for us from this mission."

She pushed the first glass jar to the center of the table.

Inside was a handful of dark gray stone dust. The fragments were small, their edges riddled with cracks, looking as if they had been repeatedly folded and flattened.

"Deep Echo Stone," the medium introduced.

"Scrapings from the outer ring of the Nine-Fold Stone Ring. Having been soaked in dead sound for years, the etheric structure of the stone itself has been rewritten."

"Stone dust like this simply doesn't circulate on the open market.

The Branch Office conducts maintenance twice a year, in spring and autumn; accumulating even this small handful is considered lucky."

Mr. Hutton let out a soft hum from the sidelines.

The old gentleman's fingers, which had been resting on his teacup, paused near the glass jar of Deep Echo Stone.

Lieutenant Colonel Ord handed the jar of Deep Echo Stone directly to Mr. Hutton.

The old man didn't decline. He took the jar, kept a quarter of it for himself, and distributed portions to the two sealers and Mrs. MacNeil.

The medium pushed the second glass jar forward.

Inside was a handful of exceptionally fine, silver-gray sand.

Under the light, the color of the grains seemed almost fluid. Tilted to the left, a faint, pale silver sheen floated across the surface; tilted to the right, it sank back down.

"Starfall Sand."

"The sector housing the Unresponsive Pit corresponds to the phenomenon of Starfall."

"On the surface layer, a place of Starfall typically manifests as a 'top-down suspension.'

Its byproducts carry that same essence of 'suspension'."

"The sand itself is useless for combat, but it serves as an auxiliary material for advanced divination.

It can be mixed into crystal ball bases, astrolabe pointers, or the sealing paste for Tarot Cards."

"Furthermore, it can be used to nourish certain supernatural items related to 'suspension,' 'inversion,' or 'Reflection'."

She glanced toward Lieutenant Colonel Ord.

The lieutenant colonel tapped his index finger lightly on the table twice.

"Keep two grams in the public account for reserve."

"Distribute the rest by contribution."

The medium voiced her assent and unscrewed the glass jar.

Using a tiny copper spoon, she divided the handful of silver-gray sand into seven portions, spreading them across the table.

The three largest portions went to Lieutenant Colonel Ord, Wentworth, and herself.

Mr. Hutton, Ms. Maud, and Mr. Spence each received a slightly smaller share.

The final, smallest portion was pushed toward Richard.

"This share is yours."

Richard collected the tiny pinch of sand from the table.

Thanking her, he carefully wrapped the sand in oil paper and tucked it into his satchel.

"Next are the Ether Condensates."

Mrs. MacNeil took out several even smaller porcelain jars.

"Two pieces of high-purity condensate left behind after the Chief Responder was sliced apart.

Seven pieces of mid-purity condensate left by the 'Harmony' and 'Final Tune' members of the chorus, and a handful of low-purity condensate from the fog shadow riot."

She handed the distribution rights for this batch over to Lieutenant Colonel Ord.

The lieutenant colonel's method was straightforward.

Of the two high-purity pieces, one went to Mrs. MacNeil to nourish her Spirit Lodging Vessel, and the other went into the Branch Office's public account.

The seven mid-purity pieces were divided among everyone present according to their contributions.

The pile of low-purity pieces was cashed out as a field allowance.

Richard received one piece of mid-purity condensate, along with three pounds from the cashed-out portion.

The condensate was wrapped in oil paper—slightly smaller than a longan fruit, and cool and heavy to the touch.

"I noted your contributions."

Lieutenant Colonel Ord spoke his first words of the day to Richard as he pushed the condensate in front of him.

Richard opened his mouth to reply.

The lieutenant colonel pressed a hand down, signaling him to let him finish.

"Calculated by the routine attrition clause, the sacrifice of a Practitioner-level Hunter is acceptable within the system."

The lieutenant colonel's Steel Prosthetic Arm clicked lightly against the tabletop.

"But on a personal level, I prefer to lose as few people as possible."

"That injection of yours yanked Wentworth back from idling.

Otherwise, given the situation last night, we'd be signing another pension document at today's debriefing."

Wentworth nodded from the other end of the table.

"Your contributions will be recorded. From now on, whatever you need, whoever you need to find, whatever files you need to check—the Branch Office will give you the green light."

"The Branch Office has an internal procurement line,"

Mrs. MacNeil added from the side.

"It's linked to the Northern Branch Headquarters' inventory list, exclusively for registered Practitioners and apprentices."

"Any casting mediums needed for teaching, training, or live-fire exercises can be requisitioned through this channel.

Prices follow the market rate—not cheap, but not overpriced either."

"The key is the source... every blade of grass, every piece of ore, every drop of reagent passes through HQ's appraisal before entering the vault. When it reaches your hands, you can use it with absolute peace of mind."

"Thank you all," Richard said gratefully.

The Branch Office's internal procurement line wasn't just a perk; it was a secure channel for resources.

Who knew how many traps awaited in the outside black market?

Going through the official process might be a hassle, but a 'hassle' was always better than a 'trap.'

Mr. Hutton coughed gently from the sidelines.

"By the rules, today's meeting should be adjourned here."

The old gentleman turned his gaze toward the lieutenant colonel.

"But that map..."

Lieutenant Colonel Ord's face darkened.

"We wait for Manchester's telegram regarding that matter."

He pressed his right hand flat against the table.

"Until Manchester's approval comes down, keep your mouths shut tight.

Do not spread what happened last night, do not discuss it in private settings, and do not write it into any unencrypted documents."

"Yes, sir," everyone chorused.

"Meeting adjourned."

Richard stood up.

He threw a glance toward Pony.

The kid, fresh out of the military academy, was still sitting in the chair in the corner, his eyes hollow.

Richard hesitated, but in the end, said nothing.

Some things weren't his place to address as a passing acquaintance.

He turned and walked toward the conference room door.

Just as he reached it, Wentworth called out from behind him.

"Richard, I have something to give you."

Richard stopped, and the two men walked deeper down the third-floor corridor.

At the very end of the hall was a room with the number "307" spelled out in copper nails in the center of its wooden door.

Wentworth pushed it open.

The room's layout was sparse.

It held a desk, a file cabinet, and a glass display case leaning in the corner.

Inside the case sat two items: a dagger with an exceptionally thin blade, and an Old Pocket Watch, half-scorched by fire.

Several unfinished documents sat under a paperweight on the desk, the top one titled "Pension Supplement Application."

Wentworth didn't let him linger on the desk.

The inspector squad leader pulled a palm-sized wooden box from the bottom drawer of the file cabinet.

He set the box on the desk and flipped the lid open.

Inside lay a revolver.

Richard's eyes immediately locked onto the weapon.

It was different from his own police-issue Webley. The barrel was shorter and thicker than the Webley's, and its blued finish gleamed with a deep, matte luster under the lamp.

A thread of ultra-fine silver wire was inlaid into each of the cylinder's six chambers.

The grip was made of dark brown hardwood, with a small silver nail embedded at its very base.

The nail's position was designed to press perfectly against the heel of the user's palm.

A line of Latin was engraved into the side of the barrel.

Richard read it aloud.

"...Ebenum."