I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Beneath the canal's woven net, flames blazed everywhere.

Under the curtains, one layer upon another, the bottom layer dressed in short clothes with a longbow lying beside them;

Next up are the breastplate and the spear; the rust on the breastplate is from three hundred years ago.

Above that was a row of red coats, with buttons exactly the same as the one worn by the person in the group;

The top layer was newly laid tonight, and it's still warm.

This land was cultivated through war, making it a true strategic location fought over by military strategists.

Plant one crop after another, harvest one crop after another, turn the soil over after harvesting, and plant again the following year.

A new layer of yellow-green toxic gas hangs more than a meter above the ground.

Not only the material world, but also the layer behind the veil is extremely corrosive.

It was laid out flat and evenly, stretching from the west side all the way to the east side where it could not be seen.

Someone spread out a tablecloth along the entire front line, waiting for people to come and take their seats.

"Do you know what this place reminds me of right now?"

The simple-minded young man wielding the axe started muttering to himself again.

No one paid him any attention, but he kept talking to himself: "Braised food, the kind of braising liquid used for pickling things."

The old scholar nodded in agreement: "You finally said something smart tonight."

"In Flanders, the mud doesn't drain. No matter what you pour in, not a single drop will leak out."

"There is no better pot in the world."

The ingredients were all ready, the pot wasn't leaking, and they were still adding firewood.

"That person just needs to add their own seasoning."

Richard spread out the still water.

[Perception] After reaching that level, the water level will be clear.

The pot underneath started to boil.

The previously thin, translucent ghosts and their voices swelled up completely after being exposed to that smell.

In a trench on the south side of the material world, more than twenty wounded soldiers who had just been dragged out of poison gas were sliding down the trench wall.

They could have survived.

The military doctor has arrived, and the wet cloth has been changed a second time. One of them even started cursing.

The wounded soldier who was still cursing was cursing the quartermaster, cursing the truck that delivered the wet cloths, and cursing the ancestors of the person who invented this thing.

He cursed with great force, his spittle splattering onto the trench wall.

When the army doctor heard him cursing, he put down the piece of cloth he was holding.

Then the cursing stopped halfway through the sentence.

The military doctor looked up.

The layer of yellowish-green poisonous gas had clearly faded, but the chest of the person next to him was swelling up again, as if someone was blowing air into it from below.

"It took those that could still be saved as well," Richard said.

There was a deathly silence over the windy spot.

Then the dozens of hands holding the reins simultaneously pulled the rope back half a turn.

"Walk."

"Walk?"

"Let's go." Dozens of hands said in unison.

"The ones cleared out in Warburg were the ones that lingered all winter and refused to leave; the ones underneath were the ones that were brought out by catalysts and have owners."

"We don't touch things that are already taken."

The shadow struck the double-snake staff.

"You all promised me in court."

"The court agreed to hunt down those ownerless evil creatures for you, so we have no reason to do so. You are not the hunter."

"Then I would like you all to take another look."

The shadow stretched out its hand and pointed below.

"There were indeed people standing by the pot, but the bottom layer was buried three hundred years ago."

People have already recorded, mentioned, and sealed the record of the offenses.

The names are in the parish register, the years are carved on the stones, and the grass on the graves has grown countless times.

"It's also digging up other people's graves."

It's been quiet for a long time now.

"...He has a point."

"Your rules make sense," the first hand finally spoke, "but you can't shoo the dog away."

"How so?"

The hand beckoned downwards, and the pack of dogs pounced.

They dispersed from the air, circled around, and ran through every trench.

He came up exhausted after running, with nothing in his mouth.

The lame one came up last, lying down at the shadow's feet with its head drooping.

Its tail was tucked under its belly, and a soft whimper escaped its throat.

"See that?" said dozens of hands.

"Tens of thousands died at the same moment; when a dog smelled them, it was all a wall, and the wall couldn't distinguish them from the outside."

Have any of you ever hunted pheasants?

Richard thought for a moment, then suddenly changed the subject.

Distracted by this, someone behind them chuckled.

"We don't hunt pheasants."

"I've fought them." The lobster soldier in the red jacket leaned out from the ranks.

"Back then, we would knock on the trees with sticks and stomp on the bushes until the birds got up on their own."

"Why don't you knock?"

"If you don't knock on the bird, just squat there. You can stand outside all day and you won't see a single feather."

After saying that, the woman in the red coat suddenly realized what she had said.

"...Is that what you mean?"

"That's what I mean," Richard said.

"Send half of you down, and drive the living people to the higher ground to the south."

"When you're rushing, you have to walk hard; you can't walk quietly."

"When a living person moves, those things in the mud move along with them."

........................

Tucker leaned against the trench wall, still clutching the pocket watch in his hand.

The hands had long since stopped; he didn't know how long they had stopped, but he was still counting.

When he counted to eighty, he felt a breeze on his face.

The wind blew against his back, rhythmically.

"……sergeant?"

No one answered.

The wind blew against him again, this time causing him to stumble forward half a step.

Tucker then realized that he could move his feet again.

He stuffed his pocket watch into his breast pocket and stood up, leaning against the moat wall.

He stepped into a hole and fell headlong to the south.

As he lunged forward, he heard a "plop" sound from the mud behind him.

The sound was muffled, as if someone were pulling their entire hand out of the kneaded dough.

Tucker did not turn around.

He didn't respond to the first call, nor to the second.

He counted in his mind as he climbed, and he climbed even faster when he reached three.

Half a mile further south, the communications soldier who always swung his legs too far apart when running was pulled out of a bunker that had collapsed halfway.

He was pushed south along the trench, his hands flailing wildly at the trench wall, pulling up handfuls of wet soil.

He cried all the way, and even while crying, he remembered to press the long-dried cloth on his face.

He pressed on it until he felt it was no longer useful, so he clenched the cloth tightly in his hand.

Above him, a small dog with a slight limp in its hind leg followed him along the edge of the moat.

It stopped at the foot of the low hill to the south.

………………

Where the ether explodes and burns, the veil will leave a mark.

Baldwin was dragging someone south.

Take ten steps, then stop and take one step. When you stop, push that breath back into your lungs.

The shadow did not approach.

It simply sent its leash-bound dog for a walk outside Baldwin's trench.

The dog walked over, and everything that was stubbornly refusing to leave in the ditch retreated to both sides.

Baldwin glanced up, then pretended not to see anything.

He steadied the man again and continued south.

Six miles further south, Richard found Vincent.

This cheap cousin is in a support trench, his arm supporting the back of someone's head.

His area was the most chaotic.

The living and the non-living were mixed together, so much so that even the curtains were almost indistinguishable.

The shadow spent a little more time there.

It released a shushing sound, so thinly that it only covered a small area.

Within that small covered area, there was something about to call out Vincent's name.

It opened its mouth, but no sound came out.

After trying it a few times and finding it didn't work, I went back into the mud.

Vincent helped the man up, glanced back at him, and left.

Further north, Shadow pushed that sentence out.

Hermes' words were not heeded.

"Go south, don't go down into the pit."

In a trench, a dozen or so people who were climbing downhill stopped at the same time.

They looked at each other, but neither of them asked who had said it.

Then the leader pressed the wet cloth tightly against his face, turned around, and climbed up to the south.

The second trench, the third... By the time they pushed the ninth trench, the wisp of spirit within the shadow's body had begun to feel sluggish.

The shadow followed Baldwin's line back once.

It's looking for someone.

Richard had given him acupuncture dozens of times and could recognize him even with his eyes closed.

I looked it over, but it wasn't there.

The shadow expanded its perception range, traversing the entire company's footholds, bunkers, first aid stations, and ammunition piles.

I searched again, but still couldn't find it.

It extends its coverage to the entire trench.

Every living person has a loop, and that loop is illuminated.

Count through the lit sections one by one, until you reach the last one, and there's no one there.

The shadow stopped on the pedal.

There was a tin box on the pedal, the lid was knocked open, and one corner of the box was crushed by someone stepping on it.

A layer of debris was scattered next to the box, which was repeatedly crushed into the cracks in the wood by the soles of the boots, becoming part of the mud.

The old newspaper that was lining the bottom of the box is still there.

The newspaper had a column displaying the price of white sugar in the capital last month.

In the backyard, hundreds of miles away, the person in the wicker chair stirred.

Gerald stood behind the pillar and watched as his grandson's hand, which was resting on the railing, slowly tightened.

In the Wild Hunt team, the barefoot one had somehow moved next to the shadow.

Looking for someone?

The shadow did not answer.

"Sir Envoy."

"Um."

"You smell too strongly of a living person."

........................

The number of things that were driven out was far greater than Richard had imagined.

The moment a living person moves, the mud turns upside down.

As soon as the mud was turned over, the newly sprouted saplings emerged from below, rising up piece by piece.

Some of them even recognized what they were, rising halfway up before retreating back down;

Some of them don't recognize anything anymore; they just pop up and rush towards the hottest places.

The pack of dogs was waiting up there.

When the first one was bitten, the entire sky heard the tearing sound.

"It's done," the old scholar said.

"Can you tell the difference now?"

"I can tell the difference now," he nodded.

"Those that can run away on their own are already mixed with other colors, while those that will retreat are still on the threshold."

"And what about those still on the threshold?"

The old scholar did not answer.

The shadow fell to the ground, stabilizing the double-snake staff.

It first read the Latin text of the church ceremony, and when it finished, the person in the closest row didn't even lift their eyelids.

Of these tens of thousands of people, half have only been to church twice in their lives—on their wedding day and their funeral—while the other half have skipped even those two times.

It changed to runes, the oldest kind of binding, binding what is "deserved to be repaid".

This time, the wind also helped it.

But this is not the north, and their ancestors are not buried in the soil here.

It switched to Gaelic script and then to the local dialect of Albion.

When the third line was read, the hand that had been moving the longest slowed down by half a beat, but then sped up again.

"What?" someone asked sarcastically from above, "Sir, are you finished reading already?"

The shadow walked into the furrow.

It no longer looks at faces; tens of thousands of faces are the same, and there is no difference between them.

It started looking at the hand.

The one next to him was holding a button, and the other was holding half a shoelace.

Further inside, a person held a photograph in their palm; the face in the photograph was obscured by sweat and mud.

Another one is holding a spoon with two letters engraved on the handle.

The items in each hand are different.

There's only one thing, and tens of thousands of people have it all.

The shadow stopped in front of a ditch that had been partially collapsed and took a card from the man's pocket.

It's a light yellow sheet with curled edges.

A few lines of pre-written text were printed on it, neatly and legibly.

This one doesn't have a single line drawn.

The shadow held it in its palm, raised its head, and swept its gaze across the entire lowland.

Tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands of identical cards.

The words these people wrote throughout their lives have been read, crossed out, and marked by others.

Lengthy writings should be destroyed, detailed writings should be destroyed, and writings that are too clear should be destroyed.

Finally, the quartermaster department issued a piece of paper, finished the sentence for them, and only allowed them to cross it out.

Cross out the ones you don't want, and consider the last sentence as true.

This was the last time they were allowed to speak in this format.

"What are you dawdling about down there for?"

"I'm looking for a hook."

"Found it?"

The shadow held up the card.

The double serpent staff was pulled from the ground, its tips pointing upwards, with a golden wing unfurling at the top, and the [Exile] ability began to activate.

It recited the first sentence.

"I have been admitted to the hospital, cross that out."

In the outermost trench, dozens of hands had stopped.

"A letter will be sent out soon, cross that out."

"I'm in good health, cross that out."

After that sentence, many people looked up.

"I have received your letter."

Tens of thousands of faces turned towards this side at the same time.

"Except for those that have been crossed out, all other lines are true."

They walked in a neat line this way, as they were used to being in rows.

The shadow held the double-snake staff horizontally, the two golden snakes staggered, and the seam in the middle opened.

The procession passed through the gap.

The dogs crouched on either side, heads bowed, clearing the way for the middle path.

The more you go through, the thinner the tablecloth becomes.

It was originally a death without a name, but once the name was spoken, it became empty.

This time, not a single dog in the pack missed.

"I can smell it!" shouted the young man wielding the axe from above. "The smells have separated!"

"Shut up, it's not your turn yet."

"The court has dispersed!"

Even if you're leaving, you still have to queue.

The old scholar stood beside the shadow, watching the rows of people passing through the gap.

"The triple confirmation doesn't work, Rune can't hold on, and Gugel and the others can't understand."

"But they all agree with this one."

"Because it's their own paper," Shadow said.

"The verdict was written on a form printed by the quartermaster department."

The one carrying the burnt black wood scoffed.

"The line at the bottom is well written."

Which line?

"Add one word and it will be destroyed."

Laughter rose and fell.

"These rules are even stricter than ours."

The more you go through, the thinner the tablecloth becomes.

In the end, only the last layer remained on the entire battlefront.