Chapter 494: Entering the Kill Zone

Isabella repeatedly flipped the photo back and forth, her voice trembling slightly.

"The extra people... they're all from our family."

The faint breeze in the backyard died down. The three extra figures in the image each had their own distinct way of standing.

Standing directly behind Gerard's chair was a young woman.

Both her hands rested on the back of the chair. It was a classic pose for wives; forty years ago, everyone in the studios stood exactly like that.

She wore a very plain dress, her hair pinned up at the back of her head. Her facial features were seventy or eighty percent similar to Margaret and Isabella's.

The woman wasn't looking at the camera. Instead, her head was bowed as she studied the back of her husband's neck.

Her right hand was lifted from the chair's back, seemingly about to reach into his collar... The shutter had clicked right at that moment, freezing her hand suspended mid-air.

Richard instinctively flipped the photo over. The left side of Gerard's collar was indeed slightly crooked.

He never would have guessed that his grandmother had a penchant for practical jokes.

Margaret noticed it too and covered her mouth, stifling a laugh.

"...That was just how the two of them got along."

Gerard raised a hand and touched his own neck, as if feeling a sudden chill. "Richard, let me see the photo."

Richard handed it over.

The old man's hand was perfectly steady when he reached for it, but the moment his fingers closed around the print, it began to shake.

He didn't speak. For a full minute, the only sound in the backyard was the splashing of geese in the distant pond.

"...Her nose is smaller than the one I drew."

Isabella stood behind her older sister, wringing her hands together.

She hadn't spoken this entire time, but now she let out a sudden gasp of surprise.

"Dad, look at the bottom of the photo."

Lying flat on the small patch of ground right in front of the chair was an old dog.

It sprawled out comfortably, its chin resting on its paws, looking exactly as it had while lying at Gerard's feet for decades.

Isabella's face flushed bright red from her ears all the way down her neck.

"..."

"Oh? So your 'Flower Fairy' showed up too," Gerard remarked, glancing at his youngest daughter with deliberate teasing.

"...Dad! My students are right here."

Beside them, Clara and Sophia tactfully kept their heads down, but their ears were fully pricked.

If Rogers were here right now, he would definitely point out that this was the very same old dog that had blocked the door and refused to let him in the first time he visited with Margaret.

Two men stood in the back row.

One was the butler. The man standing next to him was a full half-head taller.

He had incredibly broad shoulders and kept his arms crossed over his chest. His chin was slightly tucked, his expression stern and unsmiling.

Standing at the very back of the group, his imposing frame took up more than half the space in the rear.

Richard had seen this face in the iron-riveted room upstairs; in the old photograph of the four men, he had been standing right beside Gerard.

The angle at which he stood was exactly the same.

"My father always stood in that spot when taking pictures," Gerard said.

"He said the person in the middle sits, and the one standing in the back gets to see the whole field."

The old man's finger lingered over that section of the photograph.

"He burned himself clean away. Didn't leave a single bone behind."

The final person stood on the far right of the row. He was standing so far to the edge that half his shoulder was cropped out of the frame.

He looked to be in his twenties, one hand jammed casually in his pocket, his neck craned forward in a laid-back, slouching posture.

He was looking at the broad-shouldered man in the back row, wearing an expression that seemed to say he was waiting to be scolded.

Gerard stared at him, though the face in his memory had blurred long ago.

"...That's the second child, my younger brother. He never could manage to stand properly in the frame."

"My father had to yank him into place every single time, but even after that, he'd still stand exactly like this."

The old man lifted the photo slightly, then lowered it again.

"He went out on a field mission when he was twenty-two and never came back."

"People leave so fast," Gerard sighed with heavy emotion.

No one in the backyard said a word.

"How long can this photo last?" Isabella suddenly asked.

"The archives in our department hold transcripts from the 1730s, and the paper is so brittle it turns to dust if you turn the page."

"This photo..."

"It will probably last longer than most of us," Richard said.

That morning, he stayed alone in his room to continue his research.

He placed the family portrait dead center on the desk, lining up the three photos from last night beside it.

Next to those sat his notebook, the Sacred Ibis Bronze Paperweight, and the Small Bronze Balance.

The sacred ibis's long beak tilted toward the family portrait, but the resulting record was vague: "Carrier medium unknown, formation time accurate to the second, origin derived from a Signature object's ability."

When it reached the final column, the long beak hovered in mid-air.

"...Can't record it?"

Richard nudged the balance closer. It weighed for a long time, but the left pan kept wobbling, unable to stabilize.

By the time he returned to the dining room, lunch had already been served.

Gerard wasn't drinking today; the butler had locked the liquor cabinet back up.

Sophia, sitting diagonally across from Richard, suddenly spoke halfway through the meal.

"Richard, have you been upstairs all morning?"

"Yes."

"Thinking about the photography thing?"

"Thought about it for three hours."

"Did you figure it out?"

"No."

Sophia let out a "Hmm," set down her fork, and rested her chin in her hands.

"I think it's pretty useful."

"How so?"

"Fast, stable." She stated exactly what Richard already knew.

"You don't have to wait for the developing chemicals, you don't have to worry about light leaks, and you don't have to worry about your hands shaking."

Clara chimed in beside her. "Most importantly, it captures the other side."

"Exactly!" Sophia slammed the table, then hurriedly pulled her hand back when Isabella glared at her.

"Cameras can't capture that side, and the Rubbing Machine can't press out anything that moves."

At this point, she suddenly froze.

"...Anything that moves."

Sitting nearby, Evelyn watched them speak in riddles, her face plastered with a 'here we go again' expression.

Richard looked up and saw Sophia sitting there, her eyes slowly widening.

Normally, his senior would talk like a machine gun; in one meal, she could carry the conversation for the entire table.

But when she genuinely started thinking deeply, sometimes even Clara couldn't keep up with her.

"Richard."

"Yeah."

"When I was at Mons, the graduate students were in the rear taking notes every single day. Do you know what the hardest part was?"

"What?"

"Not being able to write it down."

Sophia spread her hands flat on the table.

"The thing is right in front of you. You can see it perfectly clearly.

But the second you look down to write, it changes. When you look back up, it's no longer the same as it was a moment ago."

The dining room fell silent.

"So?" Richard prompted.

Sophia stared at him.

"So now you can capture whatever you want, freeze it entirely, and bring it home to study slowly."

"If looking at it for one night isn't enough, you can look for three. If three nights aren't enough, you can call Clara, call the Mentor, call that old professor—five people can crowd around a table and study it together."

"It can't run away anymore."

Richard sat there, utterly motionless.

Half a potato was still speared on the fork in his hand.

"...It can't run away anymore," he muttered, rolling the phrase over his tongue.

"Exactly!" Sophia looked very pleased with herself.

Richard set down his fork. "Senior Sophia, thank you."

"...Why are you suddenly being so serious?"

"I'm treating you to a meal."

"We're eating right now."

"I'm going to treat you to something better!"

Sophia blinked, then turned to look at Clara.

"Did he figure something out?"

Clara set down her lemonade.

"Every time he gets like this, something big is about to happen."

Returning to his room after lunch, Richard had a sudden flash of inspiration. He flipped the photo of the Gargoyle to its back and fished the Silver Needle from his pocket.

He hadn't practiced the branch-severing Spell Formula Professor McPhee had given him very much these past few days.

He had flipped through the thin booklet Catherine handed him before leaving until the pages were worn, but he had actually initiated a cut less than twenty times.

Now, he spread out Still Water and shone it over the photograph. The specific attributes of the Gargoyle cascaded into the water.

The flow of Ether, the start of the stroke, the end of the stroke, exactly where the line originated and where it was heading... It was all there. It wasn't a single bit inferior to reading the physical object.

Furthermore, the information sealed within the photograph didn't move.

More accurately, it moved very slowly. Richard could casually observe it over and over again before deciding where to drop the blade.

Before, when facing the candle in the training room, he had less than two seconds from the start of the stroke to its end.

He had to read, judge, and cut—all within those two seconds.

Now, his time to make a judgment was practically infinite.

Richard's grip on the Silver Needle slowly tightened.

He didn't actually strike. His grandfather had given him the Gargoyle, and he didn't intend to test his theories on it.

The biggest unknown right now was whether acting on the photograph would affect the physical object itself.

If it could only be read, then this photography ability was at best a clearer, more convenient Rubbing Machine.

But if slicing through the photograph caused the main body to snap in half...

Richard set down his pen and leaned both hands against the edge of the desk.

"...A remote curse kill?"

He mentally combed through similar case studies within Erudition, checking to see if he could find any corroborating evidence.

In the Black Soil River system, the importance of names was repeatedly emphasized;

In the Moon Hunting Tradition, a shadow was the projection of a name;

Professor McPhee had told him on the slope: "The stronger you are, the longer and darker the shadow you cast behind the veil, and the darker the shadow, the easier it is to read."

There was also his own Shadow Armor, which piled rocks on a target's shadow, subjecting the physical body to immense pressure.

Three pieces of circumstantial evidence, and all of them were essentially pointing to the same truth.

"...So this is more than just a photograph."

Richard flipped the family portrait over, his Speculation operating at full capacity.

First off, this photography allowed him to bring back whatever he couldn't finish reading on-site to analyze in peace.

This was the most practical benefit. That night in Whitcom, the moment Mrs. MacNeil opened her formation, he was stuck standing in the innermost circle of the light lock, not even daring to raise his head too high.

The night at the Unresponsive Pit was even worse. Once things flipped, he hadn't even dared to dart his eyes around.

The things he hadn't dared to look at, hadn't had time to look at, or had looked at but couldn't decipher... From now on, he could capture them all.

Snap a picture, take it back to the dorm, close the door, brew a pot of tea, and read it at his leisure.

And after reading, he could use the photo as practice material.

Thinking about this, Richard grew so excited that his palms began to sweat.

The most difficult part of the branch-severing Spell Formula that Professor McPhee provided was the pre-reading before striking; on a battlefield, half a second of preparation was considered generous.

The reason he had been able to eliminate Loki's table so cleanly back then was because he caught them at the exact moment they had just devoured the Celtic table's divine names, leaving them in their most readable and vulnerable state.

This was the massive chasm between coming prepared and a sudden encounter. Normally, Professor McPhee could never have so easily crushed multiple Minor Adepts led by a Major Adept.

Now, he could stretch that "coming prepared" preparation time infinitely.

If an evil creature lunged at him, he might not be able to react in the heat of the moment.

But if he took a photo first, brought it back, and analyzed it up and down on his desk until he could trace the start and end of the strokes with his eyes closed...

The next time he encountered the same species, facing it on the spot would be like solving a test question he had already practiced to perfection.

Essentially, Richard thought, this was relocating the battlefield back behind a desk.

Of course, the most critical point remained whether or not he could actually affect the main body through the photograph.

It was highly probable. Richard poked the Gargoyle in the photograph with his Silver Needle, overcome with a premonition that if he were to strike, the object would instantly shatter.

The problem was that, at its core, this ability was still restricted by his Rank and Ether reserves.

Today's photograph had been taken while Gerard and Isabella had absolutely zero defenses raised against him.

Even so, it had still burned through the entirety of his Ether reserves, including what was stored in his Spiritual Capacity.

If his targets were neutral or hostile, never mind a Major Adept, it was questionable whether it would even work on a Minor Adept.

Richard ran a rough calculation in his head.

'...If a High-Tier Evil Entity or a hostile Major Adept really came at me, it might kill me through burnout before I could even take the picture.'

If it actually allowed a mere Practitioner like him to casually bypass Ranks and turn a Minor Adept into a piece of paper for him to do as he pleased, he would have suspected there was something deeply wrong with the ability.

Then again, he did have a ready-made target available.

Richard pulled up the specific line from his interface panel.

[Sealed true name: Incomplete (One segment extracted)]

A true name was the chain that bound a target.

Perhaps he didn't need to wait until he was a Virtuoso to make use of this true name.

His Signature ability could still continue to evolve, and he still had two major transformations ahead of him: his third evolution and his Minor Adept tradition selection.

......

Before Richard even realized what was happening, his sister's relationship with Grey had suddenly become very close.

It was only when he saw Evelyn all dressed up, clutching a bag as she changed her shoes in the foyer, that it finally dawned on him.

The butler watched her for a while before finally being unable to resist asking, "Who are you heading out to meet today, Miss?"

"A friend," Evelyn replied.

"Shall I prepare a car?"

"No need, I'll take the bus."

Richard leaned against the doorframe and decided to probe. "I have nothing going on today. I'll drop you off."

"No need!"

She answered far too quickly, so fast that even she realized it seemed suspicious. She hastily added another sentence.

"...We're going to talk about girl stuff."

Richard raised an eyebrow but didn't press the matter.

"What time will you be back today, Miss?" the butler asked.

"I don't know."

"Then I'll have the kitchen keep some soup warm."

"Don't bother." Evelyn tucked her umbrella under her arm. "Sister Grey is feeding me."

When she arrived at the large kitchen in Grey's house, she made herself right at home, firing up both ovens simultaneously. The entire room quickly became as hot as a steamer.

The two girls rolled their sleeves up to their elbows and tied their hair back with strips of cloth, but they still dripped with sweat.

Today, they were baking a batch of lemon shortbread. The lemons had been grown by Grey's family.

Evelyn was peeling them, shaving them down very thin, taking only the yellow zest.

Grey was beside her, whipping butter. As she beat the mixture, she suddenly spoke up out of the blue.

"Evelyn."

"Hmm?"

"Your brother..."

She trailed off, looking slightly embarrassed, and tapped her whisk against the edge of the bowl.

Evelyn's hands didn't stop moving, her eyes fixed on the lemon in her grasp.

"What about my brother?"

"What does he normally like to eat?"

"..."

Evelyn set the lemon down, thinking to herself, 'After all this, it turns out she wants to become Mrs. Williams.'

She turned around and sat down very solemnly at the edge of the long counter, crossing her arms over her chest as if preparing for a serious meeting.

"That is an excellent question!"

Grey turned pale with shock, her hand trembling so hard that butter splattered onto her apron.

"Don't be like that, I was just casually..."

"He likes sour things," Evelyn declared in one breath.

"The sourer, the better. Lemons, green apples, last year's gooseberries... as long as it's sour, he'll eat it.

That jar of pickles our family made last autumn was supposed to last until spring, but he polished it off entirely on his own in two weeks."

"...Two weeks?"

"He has a huge appetite." Evelyn threw her hands open.

"You have no idea how much he eats. At the Imperial Capital University cafeteria, he gets six portions per meal."

"The version I heard before was three portions." Grey sighed and set the whisk down.

"Then that heart-shaped box I made him last time..."

"He scarfed it down in half a day."

Grey turned around to grab a bowl from the shelf, dawdling for a long time.

"Then what about..." she asked, her back still turned, her voice a bit muffled, "...sweet things?"

"He eats sweet things too." Evelyn thought about it. "But he doesn't have any expression when he eats sweets. When he eats sour things, he squints."

"Squints?"

"Yeah." Evelyn squinted her eyes, demonstrating.

"Just like this. He doesn't even realize he does it."

Grey set the bowl on the counter and turned back around.

"Evelyn, with you telling me all this, won't your brother..."

"He won't know." Evelyn waved her hand dismissively, acting like a seasoned veteran.

"He's always thinking about other things all day long. You could burn an entire pot of caramel right in front of his face and he might not even look up."

After saying that, she added another line.

"But his memory is exceptionally good. Something you mention casually, he can recite word-for-word half a year later."

Grey's hands froze against her apron.

"...Then does he remember what I've said?"

"He definitely remembers."

"For example?"

"Like how you mentioned in your March letter that you couldn't figure out how to turn the heel when knitting socks."

"He even brought it up to me last month, saying that with the socks the girls over in St. Brie were knitting and sending to the front lines, some poor soldiers were probably going to end up with one foot warmer than the other."

Grey's entire face burned red down to her ears.

"...He told you all about that."

That day, a batch of lemon shortbread ended up burnt.

After that, these private, whispered conversations became the norm. Whenever Evelyn visited Grey's house, she would start by helping with the chores.

When they took a breather midway through, Grey stopped bothering to hide it and just started asking directly.

"What was your brother like when he was little?"

"A sickly weakling," Evelyn answered without an ounce of mercy.

"Skinny as a beanpole, panting after running just two steps.

When I was seven, I got into a fight with him and pushed him onto the steps, and he ended up stuck in bed for two days."

"...You pushed him onto the steps?"

"He stole my candy first."

"And what happened after that?"

"Later on, he got better on his own." Evelyn flipped a ball of dough over.

"Starting the winter before last, he suddenly developed an appetite. He ate more and more with each passing day. My mom said it was because he genuinely wanted to live."

At this, she paused and wiped her hands on her apron.

"But I always felt like something wasn't right."

The two ovens in the kitchen hummed loudly. Grey didn't say anything.

"He has this bad habit," Evelyn continued.

"He shoulders everything by himself. When my mom asks, he says he's fine. When I ask, he changes the subject. When my dad asks, he starts talking about railway bridges."

"Railway bridges?"

"Yeah, he knows my dad gets completely sidetracked the second he hears about bridges."

Grey didn't laugh. She set down the spatula in her hand.

"Evelyn."

"Hmm?"

"Last month in the Imperial Capital, there was an entire week where he didn't answer the phone."

Evelyn's hands stilled.

"I called his dorm, and the old man in the reception room said he was there, but he refused to come downstairs."

"I called three times, and it was the same every time."

"...Which week?"

"Mid-June."

Evelyn lowered her head, flipping the dough over yet again.

She had been busy preparing for exams during that time, and her mother had also gotten up several times in the middle of the night that week.

Neither of them said anything else.

After a while, Evelyn shaped the dough into a smooth ball, dropped it into the bowl, and covered it with a damp cloth.

"Sister Grey."

"Hmm?"

"If there ever comes a day when he stops saying anything at all, you go find him."

Grey lifted her head.

"Don't ask him what happened. Even if you ask, he won't tell you.

Just bring some food and sit next to him. Once he starts eating, he'll eventually start talking on his own."

After saying this, she thought for a moment and added one more piece of advice.

"It's best to bring something sour."

That evening, Grey's mother kept Evelyn over for a proper formal dinner.

The woman asked a great many questions at the dining table. Finally, when she asked too much, Grey kicked her mother under the table.

Evelyn answered rigidly and precisely, "Both my brother's tuition and mine are paid for by my grandfather."

After dinner, Grey walked Evelyn to the door, and the two stood by the courtyard gate for a while.

"I'm sorry, my mom asked too many questions."

Evelyn shrugged, completely unbothered.

"It's fine. If my mom met you, she would ask even more."

Grey froze entirely.

"...Me? Meet your mother?"

"It's bound to happen sooner or later." Having said her piece, Evelyn hugged her paper bag and dashed off toward the bus stop.

Grey was left standing in the evening breeze, her face flushed red as she stood lost in thought.

......

The July of this year was unreasonably, oppressively hot.

Catherine's hometown was located in the northernmost reaches of the Highlands, where one still needed to sleep under woolen blankets even on July nights.

When you opened the door in the morning, the grass would be damp with dew, and a layer of white mist would hover over the surface of the lake.

When she was a child, she had always assumed the word "summer" meant: the days grew longer, but the nights were still cold.

Now, in the neighborhood where she rented in the Imperial Capital, the roofs were a sprawling sea of sheet iron. The sun baked down on them starting at eight in the morning and didn't let up until six in the evening.

Lying in bed at night, she could physically feel the brick walls radiating all the heat they had stored up during the day.

She had rented this room at the end of June. It was located very close to the sanatorium where her uncle was staying.

The landlady hadn't been willing to rent to a mute girl at first, only handing over the keys after Catherine produced her enrollment certificate from Imperial Capital University.

Catherine moved her desk beneath the window, allowing her to save a candle during the day.

She began to do her accounts.

In this sweltering weather, resting her elbows directly on the paper would instantly soak it with sweat.

She had to lift her arm and pad her hand with a handkerchief before she could continue writing.

First, she calculated her income.

For the deciphering commission, Heracles, Dionysus, and Prometheus had paid a combined total of ten pounds and two shillings.

From the group battle payout, Mars's Moon Hunting Tradition couldn't be converted into ready cash, so she didn't record it.

Then there was one sum she felt extremely uncomfortable about. That day in his office, Professor McPhee had forcefully stuffed the money into her hands, claiming it was a field stipend from the department.

At the time, she had quickly written a line and held it up: "The department doesn't have such a stipend."

The professor hadn't even looked at it. He merely slung his leather bag over his shoulder and walked away, throwing back his usual refrain at the door: "It's never easy for a Highlander living away from home."

She recorded those fifteen pounds on a separate page, writing "To Be Repaid" in the header.

As for expenses: rent was six shillings a week.

The inpatient fees at the sanatorium were exorbitant, medicine had to be calculated separately, and then there was the "special care fee" that the head nurse reminded her about once a week.

Buying ice was a newly added expense.

Her uncle's room was on the third floor, facing west. By the afternoon, the entire room was baked through by the sun.

The nurses claimed this room had the best lighting. "Best lighting" really meant that a person lying in there would sweat enough to completely soak their mattress.

And so, ice had to be bought.

Coupled with next year's tuition at Imperial Capital University, it formed a massive lump of expenditure.

Catherine tabulated everything, adding line after line, and let out another sigh when she reached the bottom.

At this rate of spending, the money in her hands would only last two months.

In two months' time, Catherine would have no choice but to drop out of school and take up field missions from the Guild.

At her Rank, the jobs she could get were nothing more than running errands for others, creating inscription rubbings, or serving as an assistant to Hunter squads.

A single trip might earn her three to five pounds, and every single trip could be her last.

There was another option: transferring her uncle to a charity hospital.

She had visited the charity hospital once. The wards there crammed fourteen beds into a single room.

When the orderlies rolled their carts down the aisle, the people occupying the row of beds wouldn't even raise their heads.

Catherine snapped the ledger shut and stood up to pour herself some water.

The water in the kettle was lukewarm. For the past two weeks, the water in this room had never once been cool.

On Wednesday afternoon, she headed to the sanatorium as usual.

Duncan lay in the innermost room on the third floor.

"Girl."

His eyes were open. When he saw the girl enter, he forced his head to turn toward her with great difficulty.

Catherine dragged a chair over to the side of the bed and pulled out a thermos.

"Drinking... soup again."

She nodded.

"It was soup yesterday, too."

She flipped open her notebook and wrote: "The doctor says you need to drink it."

"The doctor says." Duncan scoffed.

"The doctor also said this leg of mine will be able to run in half a year. Does he even believe that himself?"

Catherine poured the soup out and helped him sit up a little.

Duncan took a few sips, then pushed the cup away.

"Girl, how much does this room cost per week?"

Catherine lowered her head, pretending not to hear.

"I asked you how much."

She tightened the lid on the thermos before flipping open her notebook.

"You don't need to worry about it."

"Don't waste your money on me," Duncan said.

It was the loudest he had spoken since he woke up.

Catherine flipped to a new page.

"You are my uncle."

"I'm your uncle, which means I know exactly how little my life is worth!"

By the time she returned to her rented room, it was past six o'clock.

Catherine opened her ledger again. She remembered how, right before leaving after the group battle ended, Richard had told her he had a way to make her uncle better.

She had spent the last two weeks waiting, her thoughts shifting with every passing day.

On the first day, she thought, 'That was probably just casual comfort. He saw how exhausted I was when we parted ways, and knowing his personality, it's completely normal for him to say a few kind words.'

On the third day, she thought, 'Richard is only a Practitioner himself. I've seen too many Practitioners, including myself. What could a Practitioner possibly do?'

After a week had passed, she thought, 'Even if Richard really does have a way, why would he waste it on a middle-aged man who has absolutely nothing to do with him?'

And today, she had started thinking about something else entirely.

'If Richard breaks his promise, what should I do?'

The moment the thought sprouted, the Nemesis Mask provided her with an answer.

The answer came so fast and so clearly that it startled even her.

'...Breaking a promise is also a form of imbalance, and it must be punished.'

She sat on the edge of the bed, gripping her skirt tightly with both hands, battling that intrusive thought for half the night.

When morning came, she grabbed her notebook and scribbled down a single line.

"If he breaks his promise, it's what I deserve.

He owes me absolutely nothing. I'm the one who owes him far too much."

Right at that moment, a knock echoed from the front door downstairs.