Temperance

Richard sat in his chair, his thoughts in turmoil.

He had spent several years on folklore forums in his previous life, so he had never lacked imagination when it came to gods and ghosts.

Those half-true, half-false field investigations in the posts, the detailed records of witchcraft traditions from different regions, the firsthand accounts of shamans entering trances...

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

Back then, all his excitement rested on one safe premise: reality was on this side of the screen, and stories were on the other.

Because he knew that once he turned off the computer, the world would still be the same.

But now that he had truly come to another world, that premise had been torn apart.

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

The excitement remained, but beneath it lay something else.

Cold, heavy, and enough to make him not want to rise from his chair for a while.

It was an instinctive fear of the unknown.

Actually standing at the edge of a deep pool and looking down was a completely different experience from lying on a sofa and flipping through swimming tutorials.

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

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

Though Appendix C's description was restrained, the warning between the lines was unmistakable.

Second, advancing his 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 aggressive, 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 note and pointed out the bookshelf's location, precise down to the row and compartment.

Those borderline lectures in class—Road God, the priestly class, the Temple Information Network, blacked-out government reports—now all seemed like groundwork.

Just how much did Mr. Hutton know?

Was he merely a Scholar, or did he play some role in the system of supernatural cultivation?

Why was he guiding 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 true problem lay with the pendant's source.

If he did know... Richard set that lead aside for the moment. He would not make judgments without evidence, but he marked it as 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, the Scholarship experience bar had jumped forward by a sizable chunk.

Every time he successfully restored a coded word, every time he found a crucial 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, basic 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 might not have been limited to an interest in Occultism. Sufficient academic ability was likely one of the requirements as well.

To put it bluntly, a hopeless student who could not even grasp classroom knowledge had no chance of touching the world behind the Veil.

His breathing was nearly full as well. In another two or three days, it would probably rise to Lv.2.

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

As he gathered the papers on his desk, the clatter of dishes came from downstairs.

"Richard!"

Evelyn shouted at the top of her lungs, calling him down for dinner.

But with a floor and a tightly shut door between them, the sound was muffled.

At the moment, all his attention was on the notes spread across the desk. His index finger traced down the lines of deductions on the paper as his lips silently mouthed something.

After a while, the girl's footsteps sounded on the stairs, brisk yet carrying a hint of irritation.

Knock, knock, knock. Three knocks.

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

Richard suddenly snapped back to his senses.

He lowered his head and glanced at the desk.

The translation draft of Appendix C covered the entire tabletop, with the comparison chart unfolded beside it.

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

The doorknob was already turning downward.

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

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 with one hand on her hip and half a cucumber stick in her mouth, probably grabbed casually from the kitchen.

She opened her mouth to say something, but froze when she saw the state of the room.

The young man stood beside the desk, his posture stiff, as though he were hiding something.

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

The desk lamp was still on, the curtains were drawn tight, and the room was hot and stifling.

Evelyn forgot to chew the cucumber stick in her mouth.

"You..."

"Doing homework." Richard lied without changing expression.

"You get 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 as she looked him over.

A locked door, tightly drawn curtains, a stifling hot room, sweat all over his head, and frantic attempts to hide something after hearing the knock.

And the most suspicious thing of all—the locked drawer.

She was not completely clueless.

Occasionally, the girls talked about certain half-veiled subjects, and their mother had also told her about some of the "changes boys would have when they grew up."

Their mother's exact words had been:

"Your brother is at that age now. He might... have certain behaviors... You don't need to pay too much attention to them, and don't disturb his private space."

At the time, Evelyn had nodded vaguely, feeling that it had nothing to do with her.

But now that all the information had come together, the girl's face immediately turned red from her ears down.

"Y-you, you, you..." She retreated half a step, nearly dropping the cucumber stick in her hand.

"I'm really doing homework," Richard repeated, his tone firm and sincere.

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

Evelyn's voice rose, then she hurriedly lowered it again, afraid their parents downstairs would hear.

Her face was completely red, burning from her neck all the way to her hairline. Even the tips of her ears were hot.

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

"You're lying!"

"It really is Latin."

"Latin can make you look like this?!"

From a certain perspective, it really was Latin that had made him look like this. Richard smiled bitterly to himself.

The decoding workload from 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 huge, and all the surface 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 several times in her mind, but when she finally spoke, she still stammered.

"Um... Richard."

"Yeah?"

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

Richard's expression nearly slipped.

"But!" Evelyn raised her voice a notch.

"Your health is already bad. Did you forget how you almost never woke 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. Her voice grew quieter and quieter until it became a mosquito-like murmur.

"...you should, you should show some restraint."

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

Her footsteps clattered wildly 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.

Really, anyone would have thought in that direction.

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

Compared to the awkwardness awaiting him at the dinner table, the unknown beyond the Veil suddenly did not seem so 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 commented.

"I added pepper," his mother replied.

Evelyn kept her head down as she drank her soup, her ears still tinged red.

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

Some things only became more confusing the more they were explained. Once his little sister forgot about it in a few days, everything would return to normal.

He still needed to eat dinner properly.