I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Catherine's pen kept moving.

She filled a page, tore it off, and handed it to Richard.

Richard took it and glanced at it.

There were no lengthy treatises on the paper, only a few very brief lines of words and numbers.

first row:

"B row 10, C row 47, D row 74, E row 29, F row 58, A row 43. Total 261."

second line:

"Occupational injuries: Fisher (minor impact injury), others 0."

The third row:

"All 261 who died were refugees, and none were experienced professionals or students."

In the fourth line, she drew a horizontal line, and below the line, she wrote: "What is the probability?"

A massive spiritual attack erupted, with hundreds of drowning victims emerging simultaneously, and six tent areas were simultaneously affected.

The practitioner was pushed down and bumped his head, while the preparatory student was so exhausted that he collapsed for several days.

Montagu held up the light screen for ten minutes, and the ether almost collapsed onto the muddy ground when it ran out of energy.

These are all non-fatal injuries.

Even Fisher, the only one who was truly injured, was pushed down by a panicked strong man and hit his head on a bolt; it had nothing to do with the evil entity.

Two hundred and sixty-one ordinary refugees died, but not a single worker or student died.

The Empire's most elite, highly skilled hermits appeared at just the right moment.

With a complete set of standardized equipment packed in advance, they precisely sealed off all the passages.

For the preceding hour and a half, the young practitioners were placed in an environment that was enough to send chills down their spines, make them exert all their strength, yet just barely prevent them from actually dying.

Richard felt a chill run down his spine and handed the paper back to Catherine.

When Catherine took the paper, her fingers touched his; her fingertips were icy.

She tore up the paper and stuffed it into her pocket.

Then she wrote another line and turned it over.

"Hardin once said..."

"The B-platoon group didn't do much, but they did everything right."

Catherine paused for a moment on the notebook, then wrote another line.

"His tone was similar to Croft's when he gave us a score."

The train stopped at an unnamed small station.

The platform was deserted, with only the lights flickering in the wind.

After a pause of about three minutes, the carriage suddenly stopped and started moving again.

This meal woke up Fisher in the back row.

He glanced in this direction, still half-asleep, with the bandage sticking out above his head.

Then she turned over and fell asleep again.

Montagu walked over from the back row.

He was holding a military enamel mug, with hot water that he had somehow gotten his hands on.

The blond youth sat down in the empty seat opposite Richard.

He didn't say anything at first, but put the enamel cup on his lap and took a sip.

Then his gaze fell on the small notebook on Catherine's lap.

The notebook was quickly closed, so he couldn't see anything.

Montagu looked away.

"You're settling accounts."

Richard didn't deny it, and Catherine didn't move.

Montagu placed the cup on the metal rack below the car window.

"I advise you to stop calculating."

Catherine turned to a new blank page in the notebook.

"What's next?" Richard feigned ignorance.

"Who approved it?" Montagu asked, looking at him.

"Why did the person who approved the construction of the refugee camp in that location only send practitioners and pre-university students to do patrols, and what was the timing of the reinforcements?"

Richard remained silent.

"The answers to these questions," Montagu said, lowering his voice so that only the three of them could hear.

Even if you find out, it won't change anything.

"Two hundred and sixty-one people," Catherine wrote, turning the page.

Montagu glanced at the line of text.

"Yes, two hundred and sixty-one people."

His tone contained no indifference, only a calmness born from having seen too much.

Montagu picked up the cup again.

"The number 261 was calculated."

"Have you calculated it?"

"The total number of refugees registered in the camp is 4,712."

Montagu's voice was very soft.

"The actual death toll was 261, which is about five percent."

Richard didn't consider the so-called sacrifice; he simply converted it into the normal losses that shouldn't be taken advantage of at weak points.

The annual budget provided by the Capital Administration to each department includes figures that implicitly reflect the expected loss of personnel.

These refugees are not practitioners and cannot be included in the regular loss allowance.

The ancient Gaulish inscription system is known and registered.

The refugees were placed up there because someone needed these 4,700-plus people to stay there.

Their existence and breath, even the fear and despair that lingered day and night in the tent.

The emotions of these living people are the best testing reagent.

Put over 4,700 living people on a receiving system from 2,000 years ago and see if that system will overload under the constant influx of new tributes from the Flanders front.

To what extent will it overload, and what level of stuff will emerge after overload?

Can practitioners hold them off? If they can't, how long will it take before they need reinforcements at the level of a junior expert?

All of this data is wartime data.

Military supplies departed from these ports, crossed the strait, and were sent to the front lines. Troop transport ships also departed from these ports, carrying reinforcements.

The port cannot afford any problems, so they need a real-world test.

The reagents are like refugees, and the testers are these young professionals.

The insurance was provided by those few secretive individuals and the standardized sealing array they carried, always present.

When things develop to the point where young people are terrified, enough data is generated to filter out who is useful and who is not.

As for the sounds of labor that follow, which fertilize the land, that's not something he should be thinking about at this stage.

"You're all smart people; you can't pretend you don't see it."

"But you need to understand one thing."

"We sit on this train, receive fieldwork pay, and have fieldwork records in our files; we are the beneficiaries."

"You, me, Catherine, Fisher... everyone who participated in this mission, our names have been written into that report."

His voice was very soft.

"The report will be sent to the Imperial Capital Headquarters for those important figures who will decide our future direction to read."

He looked at Richard and Catherine:

"The 'Best Patrol Team in the B-row Tent Area' will follow you for a long time."

Montagu stood up.

"Just keep the matter of those 261 people to yourself."

Richard leaned against the car window, watching the other person's figure disappear into the shadows of the back seat.

Montagu had held up the light barrier for so long that the ether was almost depleted, and he nearly fell into the mud.

But none of the things in his pockets had been touched.

The answer is probably the same as his own reason for not bringing up the shadow.

Richard turned his gaze from the window to his own hands.

Everything he did was done just right, within the limits of what a professional could do.

The shadow remained hidden under the curtain for the entire performance, and the Hermes mask was not worn.

The red-haired girl sitting next to me had her scarf wrapped tightly around her neck.

Richard didn't know all the details of what Professor McFee gave her after the debate week.

But he had seen Catherine's performance in the C-row tent area.

It's beautifully made, but it's just beautifully made.

It was meticulous, clean, and flawless.

She was also hiding.

Richard didn't ask what was hidden, nor should he.

Catherine, on the other hand, thought of an old woman.

At that moment, the old woman was clinging to the tent ropes with both hands when the drowning victim crawled out from behind her and grabbed her ankles, pulling her down.

The old woman glanced in Catherine's direction.

He didn't say anything, he just glanced at her.

At that moment, the cost of the Nemesis mask almost spiraled out of control.

She was almost about to unleash the true power of judgment through the mask.

But she suppressed that force herself.

The sealing and deflection technique that Professor McFee performed on her worked.

She would rather be dragged to proofread rubbings than face trial in front of more than four thousand refugees and a group of practitioners, where her mask would be exposed.

She chose to remain silent, and in that instant of silence, some people were gone.

The carriage remained quiet for a long time.

The train stopped again at a certain platform.

The stop was relatively long this time, seemingly because they were waiting for a troop transport train from the opposite direction to pass.

The platform remained deserted, and the wind blew the old newspapers lying by the tracks over and over again.

In the midst of this silence, a voice came from the back row.

"Mmmmmmmmmmm..."

Fisher was talking in his sleep.

The sound wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the quiet carriage.

"Mmm...it wasn't my fault...mmm...he pushed me...mmm..."

Richard and Catherine turned to look at the same time.

Fisher huddled on the hardwood bench.

The back of his head rested against the carriage wall, and the corner of the bandage sticking out rose and fell with his breath.

His lips moved twice, and he mumbled another sentence.

"He was a fisherman... umm... a fisherman as strong as an ox... he nudged me..."

He turned over, facing the car window.

"...Don't touch the bandage...it hurts...uh...uh..."

Catherine quickly scribbled a line in her notebook and held it up.

"Is he awake or asleep?"

Richard glanced at it with inspiration.

"Asleep."

Catherine closed the notebook, a smile playing on her lips.

The train started moving again.

The wheels rolled over the seams of the rails, making a steady clattering sound.

The train entered the tunnel, and the light dimmed.

Fisher was snoring very loudly in the back seat.

Richard also closed his eyes in the darkness and began to doze off.