I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Richard returned to the windowless classroom once again and continued to review his new request forms.

He needs to handle and categorize all of these, including things like dormancy, sealing, disconnection, reforging, and other miscellaneous issues.

He flipped to the middle and saw some things that interested him, things that weren't on the demand list.

He pulled out those few cards.

It was an anomaly investigation report sent back from the front lines.

The top one is labeled "Mons Retreat".

The same event, told from the perspectives of three different people.

The first one was written by a captain. The handwriting was very neat, but there was still a sense of lingering fear in the neatness.

"Saint George has returned with the archers of Agincourt."

"They stood in a line in the sky and deflected all the enemy's bullets."

The second document was written by a veteran himself, and then someone else wrote it down on his behalf.

Because the handwriting was too neat, but the speech was very rough.

"Angels and archers? That's all nonsense! I didn't see a single one!"

"I vaguely saw a light blocking the way between us and the Germans. Maybe it's a new weapon being developed by command?"

The third document was written by a chaplain who was with the army.

His words were very devout, and every stroke of his pen conveyed power.

"This is a miracle; God has not abandoned His people."

"I saw with my own eyes that the angels bent down and protected us."

Richard laid the three portions out side by side on the table.

Three people have three different versions of this story.

"Oh? You're also watching that Mons thing?"

Someone nearby glanced at the paper in his hand and came over as well.

This person is the most senior among the graduate students, and he was assigned the most difficult sealing map. He rarely talks to the preparatory students.

"Hmm," Richard replied casually.

"You should know that a while ago, the higher-ups sent a team from major universities to that area specifically."

The graduate student nodded his chin toward the three oral accounts.

"This matter caused such a big commotion? Wasn't it all over?" Richard asked casually.

"Of course, that's not their main purpose. They're mainly working on the sealing process; investigating these things is just a side job," the graduate student scoffed.

"A much bigger battle took place in Mons hundreds of years ago, and more people were buried there than this time."

"In the past, the main task of this team was to reforge those old seals that had been awakened."

His tone was full of disapproval.

"The matter of the angels was investigated incidentally."

The original quote was: "When you pass by, investigate that thing as well."

"Have you found out anything?" Richard asked with interest.

"What kind of bullshit can you find out?" The graduate student stuffed the oral accounts back into the pile of papers.

"They were exhausted from repairing the seals during the day, and only had time to investigate these things at night."

He yawned, and the dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced than usual.

"Anyway, it has nothing to do with us. We'll consider our task complete once we've compiled the manual."

The man returned to his seat, leaving Richard still pondering the matter.

………………

Mons's sealing team sends a batch of supplies back to the capital every few days.

It was sent via the college's special line, and the sealing wax was applied by the Ministry of the Interior.

Most of them are work records related to sealing:

Recast blueprints, pending demand orders, and collected data on weaknesses piled up in thick stacks.

The matter of angels is mixed in with this pile of work records and occupies a very small portion.

Sofia's letters came even more frequently than the samples.

Before she left, she boasted that she would send telegrams to her mentor every day.

She didn't quite live up to that promise; when it comes to work, how could she possibly have the energy to send telegrams every day?

But there's always a letter every three to five days, and it's always the same long message.

"tutor:

It's much safer here than I thought. I haven't even encountered any decent evil spirits, but I'm exhausted.

During the day, I followed the team to repair the seals. Those old seals were shattered by artillery fire, and reforging them was much more difficult than what was taught in class.

The senior student leading the group was very fierce, even fiercer than Associate Professor Croft.

He glared at me whenever I made a mistake in writing, and his glare made my hand shake.

The food was even worse; the bread was so hard you could crack walnuts with it. I still dream about the cream stew from the cafeteria.

Oh right, this sample I took along with the letter was something I picked up on a whim.

The angel appeared on a piece of spent cartridge on the ground, which was covered in ether.

We can only collect them after we finish work at night, but that guy from the seminary insisted they were sacred objects and wouldn't let us take more than that.

I argued with him for ages before I finally managed to get this portion back.

Mentor, Richard, you can take a look at what this is when you have time.

—Sofia

P.S. I didn't slack off; I didn't miss a single seal.

Isabella visibly breathed a sigh of relief after reading it.

"Still so much nonsense." She put the letter down.

Richard also read the letter, but by the time he finished, Isabella had already set up a barrier.

"I'm not the only one who received the samples from the rear," she said as she made the arrangements.

"Each group will look at their own perspective, and then we'll come up with a consensus later."

"So what is this...?"

"After looking at that stack of recasting blueprints from the front lines, I need to change things up and give my brain a break."

Isabella rubbed her temples.

"There's no rush, take your time."

She looked at her nephew with a hint of testing in her eyes.

"You try it first."

Richard nodded.

He sat down at the writing desk and laid out his inspiration.

The layer of still water silently seeped up to the front of the container and adhered to it.

At first, the ether on the cartridge case was a mess and couldn't be sorted out.

Richard let his inspiration sink even deeper.

Slowly, the messy mass was separated.

Thoughts, one after another, converged from all directions and twisted together.

"Please... don't let me die."

He changed his hair.

"I don't want to die yet."

Another strand was changed.

"Let me go home alive."

He pulled his inspiration away from the container.

"What I read was born from 'faith'."

"Tens of thousands of people prayed at the same time."

Richard stared at the container.

"Pray that we will be saved."

"This will itself... has coalesced into something capable of stopping bullets?"

My aunt put the teacup down.

"On the other side of the curtain, thoughts have weight; you should know that."

"When tens of thousands of people believe in something at the same time, it becomes true."

"The conclusion sent back from the seminary is similar to what you read."

She added a sentence.

"It's just that they pronounced it differently."

"Why is it different?"

Isabella's tone was neither complimentary nor critical.

"What they read was 'God has mercy on us'."

Richard suddenly remembered something.

He took out the folded paper from the very back of the notebook.

"I've read it before."

"What?" Auntie looked up.

"Mrs. Mary made me an automatic scribe."

Richard pointed to the piece of paper.

"That night, my hand wrote this down by itself."

"I didn't know what it was at the time."

He pushed the paper toward his aunt.

"Looking back now, what I fished out that night was the echo of Mons in the spirit world."

"Tens of thousands of 'Don't let me die's thoughts are twisted into one."

My aunt picked up the paper and looked at it for a long time.

"The fact that the automatic book could retrieve this... means it has become an inseparable entity in the spirit world."

She folded the paper and handed it back to Richard.

"Make a copy of this one for me."

Richard carefully put the paper away.

He could feel his own "reasoning" had progressed a step further as he disassembled the thing.

But just as he was dismantling this layer, another layer of questions emerged.

"Auntie."

"Um?"

"The thoughts of tens of thousands of people are scattered." Richard stared at the paper.

"They won't gather together and form a 'shape' on their own."

There has to be an initial seed.

"Let these scattered thoughts have a place to hang."

His finger landed on the end of the paper.

Under that expanse of "Don't let me die," there was only one lonely sentence.

"The archers are right above you."

Richard stared at that sentence for a long time.

"Why an archer of all?"

………………

Richard wasn't the only one asking this question.

Several groups of scholars gathered Mons's oral accounts together, arranged them chronologically, and found themselves stuck at the same point.

The later reports became increasingly confusing: angels, Saint George, light, miracles—all sorts of things were mentioned.

The earlier the report appears, the more consistent the wording becomes.

Almost all of them are the same word: archers of Agincourt.

Agincourt was a major battle in the Hundred Years' War in which a weaker force defeated a stronger one.

Several thousand longbowmen used the terrain to defeat an enemy force several times their size.

This battle is one of the most famous battles in the history of the empire.

Shakespeare described it in detail in Henry V, and the empire's new battleship was named after it.

"The archers are right above you."

The Ministry of the Interior traced the origin of that statement back to its source.

What was eventually discovered was a short story printed in a newspaper.

"The Archer"

My aunt placed the clippings she had found on the writing desk.

It was an old newspaper from more than two weeks ago, the literary supplement section.

The short story is not long, and the author's name is listed as Arthur Mechan.

Richard's gaze fell on that name.

"You recognize him?"

Isabella's expression was somewhat indescribable.

"I recognize it."

She picked up the clipping and tapped the author's name with her finger.

"I still have two of his books on my bookshelf."

"The Great God Pan, and also a collection of short stories."

"It's really well written."

"That damp, eerie feeling, not many people can describe it."

Richard was somewhat surprised. He had thought his aunt only read ancient books and inscriptions, but he hadn't expected her to read such leisurely books in private.

"I met him in person at a literary salon a few years ago."

Isabella continued.

"What kind of person?"

Isabella thought about it.

"Just an ordinary middle-aged man."

"Wearing a worn-out jacket, and after having a few drinks, he started rambling on and on."

"He talked about the 'ancient things' he saw in the countryside when he was young, such as the Celtic Holy Grail and the lost ancient roads."

She put the clipping back on the table.

"Everyone in the room thought he was a drunkard with an overactive imagination."

Richard understood the meaning behind her words.

"You mean, he's not a practitioner?"

"We can't even get close to it," Isabella shook her head, her tone very certain.

"He was completely clean, without a trace of etheric circulation."

"He's just an ordinary person, a novelist who writes about the mystical as a literary subject."

Isabella picked up her grapefruit tea and took a sip.

"That's where things are not right."

Richard understood why she looked that way.

"A novel written by an ordinary person," Richard said slowly.

"Why should something that can stop bullets be erected on the other side of the curtain?"

"Yes." Isabella nodded.

"No matter how widely a novel is circulated, it's at most just something to talk about over tea."

"It can move people, frighten them, and make them mutter a few words to themselves."

"But it has no 'roots'."

She pushed the newspaper clipping toward Richard.

"Tens of thousands of people read it, believed it, and their thoughts were scattered."

But if scattered thoughts are to be united into something that can stop bullets, tens of thousands of mouths alone are not enough.

"Someone needs to be on the other side of the curtain to build the 'bridge' first, and to gather and compress these tens of thousands of scattered thoughts into one place."

Richard's mind raced.

"Meiqin planted the name 'Archer'."

"There is someone else who can 'cultivate' this name into something."

"Hmm." Isabella's voice trailed off.

"The person behind the scenes just wants a shell."

"What's the person behind this doing?" Richard asked.

"We have managed to find some clues about Mei Qin herself."

Isabella pulled another sheet from the stack of documents.

"After his article 'The Archer' was published, the church invited him to give a speech, and the newspaper asked him to write a column."

Even the military approached him, asking him to continue writing morale-boosting material.

"In just half a month, he went from a forgotten writer to 'the man who prophesied miracles'."