I loaded the Mysticism panel.

The old scholar returned to his seat and laid the scroll on his lap.

Everyone in this team has something they brought with them.

The axe-wielder carried his axe, while the lobster soldier wore his New Paradigm uniform.

This is the scroll he brought in.

The vast majority of the team members are in their prime.

Whoever came in as they were will always remain as they were.

A twenty-year-old is still twenty years old, a thirty-five-year-old is still thirty-five years old, and some people even have fresh cuts on their faces, the blood not yet dried.

He was the only one who was old, so old that his knees were cold and he had to bring the paper close to his face to read when he wrote.

Every time the group stopped, he would pause for a moment before daring to look down.

He died of old age in his bed at the age of eighty-four. There was a stove burning in the room, and the maid was cooking porridge downstairs.

He finished writing the last page, put down his pen, thinking that he would have someone send the volume to be bound the next morning, and then he never woke up.

When I opened my eyes, I was already up there.

The saddle and the mount were prepared for him.

The hunter waited at the front without saying a word.

Because the terms had already been agreed upon, he had negotiated with this team eleven times in his life.

The first time was in the winter when he was thirty-one. He was holding a keepsake he had taken from someone else's coffin, standing in the snow in his backyard, trembling so much that he could barely speak.

That night he ran halfway and picked up two odds and ends.

Before dawn, I crawled back to my kitchen and emptied a whole basin of snow from my boots.

He went ten times after that, and each time he didn't rush to the front.

He only speaks when it's time to split the profits, he only takes on the odd jobs that nobody else wants to do, and he only takes on the jobs that real hunters find dirty and troublesome.

He counted and calculated for the team, noting on paper who bit how many bites, who shielded whom, and who should get an extra half share.

A true hunter looks down on this.

They say joining the Wild Hunt is risking your life, so what kind of skill is it to hide behind the scenes and do the math for others?

He never denied that he was truly incompetent and that he couldn't beat anyone in the team.

He couldn't even catch up with that lame little dog, but he lived to be eighty-four.

The first of his hunters from that cohort died when he was thirty-four.

The last one died when he was fifty-one, and they left no words behind.

He kept three copies, but he didn't dare use his own name on the most important one.

He tucked it inside a farming book about crop rotation in several northern counties, between the pages of an old archive, and wrote it hastily and haphazardly using the oldest form of rune binding.

The team said they couldn't be without someone to keep the accounts.

For three hundred years, the hunter had never checked his ledgers.

On the day I handed him this volume, I only said one thing: "If you miscount, you're responsible."

The old scholar took the pen from behind his ear and read through the entire account of the messenger with the staff that had appeared that evening.

He used that method back then to earn a couple more small profits each year, so he could take up half a spot when splitting the profits.

After daybreak, I can peacefully return to my own kitchen and have a bowl of porridge.

The messenger used this method to fish 4,967 people out of a pot.

The old scholar smiled slowly. He flipped back to the last blank page and saw the name he had just written: Coleman.

According to the rules, items brought back by the hunter should be recorded under the "Received" column.

Once recorded as "collection," the person belongs to the hunter and can never be separated from them.

The old scholar hovered the tip of his pen over the "收" (shōu, meaning "to close") mark and moved the pen an inch to the left.

He wrote: "Enter the register with the messenger."

………………

The rain didn't stop until it was almost dark, and it wasn't completely stopped; water was still dripping from the eaves.

Richard left the window a crack, and the smell of coal smoke seeped in through the crack.

Outside the crack, something had been squatting for a while.

A black cat, soaking wet with fur clinging to its skin, its tail neatly wrapped around its front paws, looked at him through the glass.

Richard stood up and opened the window halfway.

Aren't you going to ask me which way I came from?

The woman's husky voice, coming from the cat's mouth, went straight into Richard's heart.

Richard took his hand off the window frame.

I won't ask.

"It's best not to ask."

The black cat jumped in from the windowsill, landed with a shake, and water droplets splashed all over his trouser leg.

Richard went into the cupboard and rummaged through it to find a dry cloth.

The black cat took half a step back and its tail stood upright.

"Don't touch it!"

"You're wet."

The black cat corrected him.

"The cat is wet, and the cat is uncomfortable; I just happen to be inside."

That's what he said, but when he laid the cloth on the chair, the cat still stepped on it naturally.

After stepping on it, I remembered I should pretend to be unwilling and circled around the cloth a couple more times.

Richard held back his laughter.

"Why did you come here tonight?"

The black cat lay down and rested its chin on its front paws.

"There are indeed more than a dozen drop-off slips still lying around on Huayue Street, and not a single one has been touched."

"And you?"

"What did you attract last month? Were you being watched?"

Richard suddenly lost all interest in joking.

"How did you know?"

"There's a mark I left on that ring on your chest. Of course I'd know if something rubbed it against it."

The black cat raised its head, its golden eyes narrowing.

"You did two things right that day."

Which two items?

"You didn't ask a second time, and more importantly, you didn't avoid it."

Richard recalled that night when he pressed the etheric wave down onto that line and sat motionless, pretending to be a stone.

"If you hide, it will try to find you."

Mrs. Mary said:

"If something tries to hide in front of you, you'll take a second look at it."

"If you don't hide it, you'll find it meaningless and just leave."

Richard opened his mouth; he had already memorized the explanation.

Most of it is true, and the remaining part is what he has practiced over the past two years.

"You don't need to explain anything to me."

Mrs. Mary interrupted him.

"I won't ask you what exactly happened, but if I do know, I'll have to share the burden with you."

The black cat changed its posture and said jokingly.

"You're not my student, so I'm not going to take the blame for you."

Richard swallowed those words back.

He actually had several other things on his mind:

On the night of April 30th, the endless line of people on the mountaintop;

The night the three syllables were handed out of his hand;

On Hecate's table was the Ten of Swords, which had been flipped through seven times.

The black cat raised its head.

"I just came over tonight to check if you were alright."

"If nothing happened, I can go back."

Before I go back, I have a few words to say to you.

"Please speak."

"First of all, for the next six months starting today, all inquiries from outside sources will be collected."

"No tarot cards, runes, crystal balls, or any of those sets where you close your eyes and let your hands move on their own."

"How do I take inventory then?"

Mrs. Mary did not answer immediately.

The black cat stood up, shook its fur, walked to the corner of the table, and pointed its nose at the oil paper package.

"I want that, I'm a little hungry."

Richard unwrapped the oil paper.

He shared some of the smoked salmon that Catherine's hometown sent.

"You just said this body has nothing to do with you."

"The cat has nothing to do with me," the black cat said steadily. "But the cat is hungry now."

Richard tore off a small strip and put it in the dish.

The black cat lowered its head, sniffed, and commented.

"The smoke is quite good; the firewood used is alder."

After the fish was finished, the plate was licked clean.

Richard then brought over the piece of black bread from the windowsill and broke off a small piece.

"Mrs. McNeil said this is your favorite dish."

The black cat stared at that small corner of bread for a full three seconds before taking a half step back.

"...That child talks too much."

Richard put that piece into his mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and found it to be quite hard.

Even the level 3 "Eating" skill almost made him choke.

After licking its paws, the black cat lay back down on the cloth.

Where were we?

"As for how I'm going to take stock..."

"Yes, there's definitely more than one way to arrange the cards."

"Asking outside is like pushing the door open a crack; you wouldn't know who's standing outside."

"Another way to arrange the cards is to turn them over so that they are like a mirror reflecting yourself, and the mirror will not leave the house."

Richard sat up straight.

"Since you want to follow the mirror tradition, today I will teach you how to use a mirror to reflect four things, one question at a time, and then put them away after you've finished setting them up."

What do you have in your hands right now?

What do you no longer have in your hands?

What you think is yours, is not actually yours;

What you thought wasn't yours is actually yours.

Richard pondered the meaning behind those four sentences.

"In these four sentences, do not ask about the future at all."

The black cat's tail swept across the cloth.

"Don't ask anyone else, don't ask their name, don't ask when."

"You can only ask yourself what you have right now. Only you yourself won't turn around and bite you. Everything else will."