Temperance

Richard sat in his chair, his thoughts in turmoil.

In his previous life, he had spent years lurking on folklore forums, and he had never lacked imagination when it came to gods, ghosts, and spirits.

Those posts contained field investigations that were half true and half false, detailed records of witchcraft traditions from various regions, firsthand accounts from shamans in trances...

He had read through hundreds of posts, written several research articles, and argued with people in the comments about the differences and similarities between Cursecraft and Voodoo.

Back then, his excitement had rested on one fundamental assurance: reality was on this side of the screen, while stories were on the other.

Because he knew that once he shut down his computer, the world would remain as it had always been.

But now that he had truly arrived in another world, that assumption had been dismantled.

The Veil was real. Aether was real. And the things behind The Veil were real too.

The excitement remained, but something else weighed beneath it.

Cold, heavy, and enough to make him reluctant to rise from his chair.

It was an instinctive fear of the unknown.

Standing at the edge of a deep pool and looking down was a completely different experience from lying on the couch and reading swimming tutorials.

He began organizing the information in his mind, forcing himself to pull free of his emotions and enter a state of flow.

First, supernatural power existed. It had systems, inheritances, and dangers.

Appendix C's description had been restrained, but the warning between its lines was unmistakable.

Second, advancing Breathing required a Supernatural Breathing Technique, and there were at least three legitimate paths.

The Golden Path was the safest, the Blood-Burning Path was too radical, and the Abyssal Path was forbidden ground.

Given his current physical condition, the Golden Path was almost his only choice.

Third, Mr. Hutton.

The old gentleman had given him the slip of paper and pointed out the bookshelf's location, precise down to the row and compartment.

Those borderline lectures in class—the Road God, the priestly hierarchy, the Temple Information Network, the redacted government reports—now seemed like nothing but groundwork.

How much did Mr. Hutton really know?

Was he merely a scholar, or did he play some role within the supernatural cultivation system?

Why had he guided a student toward contact with these things?

Fourth, his cousin Vincent.

After wearing that copper pendant for only a few days, the original Richard had been drained to death.

Did Vincent know there was something wrong with it?

If he did not, then he was merely the messenger, and the real problem lay with the pendant's source.

If he did... Richard temporarily set that lead aside. He would not make a judgment without evidence, but he marked it as a high priority.

Once the information had been arranged in his mind, he let out a long breath.

The panel glowed quietly at the edge of his vision.

[Scholarship] Lv.1 Experience: 102/200

After three consecutive days of high-intensity decoding work, his Scholarship experience bar had jumped forward quite a bit.

Every time he successfully restored a coded word, every time he found a key clue in the etymology handbook, every time he pieced scattered sentence fragments back into their original form... the panel faithfully recorded those inputs.

Decoding itself was an extremely dense application of knowledge: Latin grammar, etymology, the basics of cryptography, and cross-referencing religious texts.

It was far more efficient than simply listening in class.

Thinking about it now, Mr. Hutton's selection criteria likely went beyond whether someone was interested in Occultism. Sufficient academic ability was probably one of the conditions as well.

Put bluntly, a poor student who could not even grasp classroom knowledge had no way of approaching the world behind The Veil.

His Breathing was nearly full as well. In another two or three days, it would probably reach Lv.2.

He stood up, and his joints cracked twice. He had been sitting for too long.

As he was tidying the papers on his desk, the clatter of bowls and plates came from downstairs.

"Richard!"

Evelyn called for him to come eat dinner at the top of her lungs.

But with a floor and a tightly shut door between them, her voice was muffled.

At the moment, all his attention was on the notes spread across his desk. His index finger traced downward line by line through the derivation on the paper while his lips silently formed words.

After a while, the girl's footsteps sounded on the stairs, light but carrying a hint of resentment.

Knock, knock, knock. Three knocks.

"Richard! Are you deaf? I'm calling you down for dinner!"

Richard suddenly came back to himself.

He lowered his head and glanced at the desk.

The translation of Appendix C covered the entire surface, with the reference chart unfolded beside it.

The notebook was filled with dense derivations, and that book lay open in the most conspicuous spot.

The doorknob was already turning downward.

His body reacted faster than his mind. He grabbed every sheet of paper from the desk and crammed them, along with the book, haphazardly into the drawer.

There was no time to put away the notebook, so he flipped it to a blank page and placed it face-down on the desk.

The door opened.

Evelyn stood in the doorway, one hand on her hip and half a cucumber stick between her lips, probably something she had casually grabbed from the kitchen.

Her mouth opened as though she was about to say something, but she froze when she saw the state of the room.

The young man stood beside his desk in a stiff posture, as if he were hiding something.

Sweat beaded on his forehead, the tip of his nose, even behind his ears. His breathing was somewhat hurried, and his chest rose and fell much more noticeably than usual.

The desk lamp was still on, the curtains were drawn tightly shut, and the room was stuffy and hot.

Evelyn forgot to chew the cucumber stick in her mouth.

"You..."

"Doing homework." Richard told the lie without changing expression.

"You got yourself drenched in sweat doing homework?"

"It's a little stuffy in here."

"Then open the window."

"I forgot."

Evelyn took the cucumber stick from her mouth and narrowed her eyes at him.

A locked door, tightly drawn curtains, a sweltering room, sweat all over him, and a panicked attempt to hide something after hearing the knock.

And most suspicious of all—the locked drawer.

She was not completely ignorant.

Girls occasionally passed around vague, half-hidden topics among themselves, and her mother had also told her about certain "changes boys would experience when they grew up."

Her mother's exact words had been:

"Your brother has reached that age. He may... have certain behaviors... You don't need to pay too much attention to them, and you shouldn't disturb his private space."

At the time, Evelyn had nodded as if she understood, feeling that the matter was far removed from her.

But now that all the clues came together, the girl's face immediately began reddening from her ears.

"Y-you, you..." She took half a step back, and the cucumber stick in her hand nearly fell to the floor.

"I really am doing homework." Richard repeated himself, his tone firm and sincere.

"What kind of homework requires you to lock the door, close the curtains, and work up a sweat?"

Evelyn raised her voice, then hurriedly lowered it again, afraid their parents downstairs would hear.

Her face was already completely red, the heat spreading from her neck all the way to her hairline. Even the tips of her ears burned.

"Latin homework," Richard said, enunciating every word.

"Liar!"

"It really is Latin."

"Latin can make you look like that?!"

From a certain perspective, Latin really had made him look like this, Richard thought with a bitter smile.

Decoding three pages of coded language was enough to make anyone sweat buckets.

But he also realized what his sister was thinking.

This sudden misunderstanding was far too enormous, and every bit of outward evidence supported her conclusion.

The more he explained, the more she would think he was making excuses.

Evelyn took a deep breath and turned her face away.

She stared at the corner of the wall for a while, seemingly rehearsing it several times in her mind. Yet when she finally spoke, she still stammered.

"Um... Richard."

"Yeah?"

"I know you... well... you're at that age, right? Mom told me. It's normal."

Richard's ability to manage his expression faltered slightly.

"But!" Evelyn raised her voice a notch.

"Your health is already poor. Did you forget how you almost didn't wake up before?

The doctor said you needed to take good care of yourself, but instead you..."

By this point, she was nearly suffocating from embarrassment.

Her entire face was red enough to drip blood, and her voice grew softer and softer until it became little more than a mosquito's hum.

"...Y-you need to exercise some restraint."

After saying that, Evelyn turned and ran as though her brother were some monstrous flood beast.

Her footsteps clattered down the stairs, and she even stumbled against the railing halfway down.

Richard stood where he was and looked down at his sweat-soaked shirt.

Indeed, anyone would have thought in that direction.

He wiped the sweat from his face, finding it a little funny.

Compared with the awkwardness waiting for him at the dinner table, the unknown behind The Veil suddenly seemed far less frightening.

In the dining room, his father was already seated, with his folded newspaper set aside.

His mother placed the soup tureen on the table and glanced back at him.

"Did you wash your hands?"

"I did."

Richard sat down and ladled himself a bowl of soup.

"Today's soup is good," his father remarked.

"I added pepper," his mother replied.

Evelyn lowered her head and drank her soup, the tips of her ears still red.

Richard drank his own bowl beside her without saying a word.

Some things only became more unclear the more one explained them. Once his little sister forgot about it after a few days, everything would return to normal.

He still needed to eat dinner properly.