About Professor Armitage

Hope found a screwdriver on Paul and, with Elizabeth, lifted the bed beneath the hole Paul had opened.

He climbed up and screwed the boards back into place. Thankfully, Paul hadn't tossed the screws aside.

He chatted idly with Elizabeth. "What's the professor you mentioned like?"

"Professor Henry Armitage," Elizabeth said. "He's a very kind old man, the librarian at Miskatonic University. He mainly teaches us modern literature of the New Federation. I don't know him very well, actually. I'm only a freshman, and I work part-time under him, helping him sort through some documents."

The New Federation... That seemed to be the name of this country. If there was a New Federation, there must once have been an old one. Perhaps the country had undergone a revolution, or broken away from another nation.

"He sounds like an old scholar, a gentleman. I imagine he often wears a suit, perhaps with glasses."

"You're right." Elizabeth laughed, her laughter mingling with the sound of the screws turning in the boards.

"That's exactly what he's like. He wears an old-fashioned black suit and black shoes, and round glasses. His hair is completely white, and he wears a red bow tie."

"A red bow tie would soften his scholarly air and make him seem even gentler."

"He's very gentle. He's the kindest professor I've ever met."

"But you said he's killed a lot of cultists. Is that true?"

"It is, and there's no contradiction. Though I only heard about it from another young professor. Professor Armitage doesn't usually tell us about those things. That other professor is always bringing up Professor Armitage's deeds, like how Professor Armitage executed Oliver of Dunwich."

No contradiction, huh...

An old gentleman in a black suit and black shoes, with a red bow tie, cheerfully finishes teaching his class and patiently answers every student's questions. Then, after work, he carries a three-finger-thick academic tome and walks with a cane into a remote alley. Without knocking, he opens a room and politely greets the cultist sleeping inside. Before the cultist can react, he suddenly pulls a revolver from his coat and, still smiling, grips it by the barrel and smashes the cultist's skull with the butt...

Hope put an end to his strange imaginings.

"Oliver of Dunwich—what did he do?" The familiar place name put Hope on alert. What was this Oliver's connection to the Whateley family? Could there be two groups of cultists in the same area?

Perhaps he'd worked with the Whateley family, or fought against them.

"Sorry, I only know his name. But it seems to have happened a long time ago. Even the professor who told me about it hadn't experienced it firsthand," Elizabeth said.

As a former university student, Hope knew that "young professor" was relative to the title "professor." Anyone under forty could be called young. That alone couldn't tell him when Oliver had been active as a cultist.

The screws at all four corners of the boards were now tight. The barrier made Elizabeth's voice sound muffled from below. "But you can ask him yourself... Do you want to come with me to Miskatonic University?"

"Together?" Hope said, momentarily stunned. His hands slowed as he laid down the waterproof felt.

That bastard Paul had first cut the felt across its width with a knife, then ripped it away by force. Hope had neither the tools nor the materials to restore it properly. He could almost imagine the rain pattering through the boards.

"Sure. You have that kind of ability. This place shouldn't be able to hold you, should it?"

Hope laid the waterproof felt down, trying to leave no gaps.

"Close your eyes. I'm coming down," he said, knocking on the ceiling at the same time. The hollow "thump, thump" was to make sure Elizabeth could hear him through the felt.

He appeared behind Elizabeth.

"Unfortunately, I have to stay here," Hope said. "Not because I want to remain in a cultist's hideout. But Wilbur—my younger brother—has threatened me with the lives of Dunwich's residents. If they find out I've escaped, I can't imagine what they'll do."

He and Elizabeth moved the bed back into place.

"What would they do?"

"I don't know. But I think if they were capable of killing everyone in Dunwich in a single night, they would. So I'd better stay here."

"Whew... Your brother's a bastard," Elizabeth said. "Believe me, Professor Armitage will definitely save you."

"I believe you, too. I haven't met him, but from your description alone, he sounds like someone worth trusting. There's something else I want to ask, though I'm not sure if it's offensive."

"Go ahead and ask. If I don't want to answer, I'll pretend I didn't hear you."

Hope nodded. "You're an ordinary person, right?"

"An ordinary person? What do you mean by ordinary?"

"If someone like me, who can teleport through space, is 'not ordinary'..."

"Then I'm ordinary. I'm no different from anyone you might pass on the street."

"Then Professor Armitage isn't ordinary?"

"He isn't. I've seen him control the wind to clear off the bookshelves."

Control the wind... He wondered if it was done with a spell or something else.

"What I want to know is how ordinary people like you see people like me, who aren't ordinary."

In other words, how did people in this world view the supernatural? With fear and disgust, as they might view witches, sorcerers, and demons? Or with awe and longing, as they might view chosen ones, celestial masters, and immortals?

Elizabeth thought for a few seconds. "I don't know."

"You don't know? How can you not know?"

"I just don't know. Before I met Professor Armitage, I always thought supernatural things were nothing but folk tales. Even until today, I thought they had nothing to do with me. I haven't had time to think about it."

So the supernatural and ordinary sides of this world were separated by a divide. Ordinary people generally didn't encounter the supernatural...

That fit with how Dunwich residents like Paul acted. They'd always denounced the Whateley family, but their accusations were always based on things they'd "heard." Some people might believe them, but no one had any real evidence. Others treated them as nothing more than idle gossip.

But... Star Hemp, the Great Night Hawk, Robert, the transparent liquid monster... Had he really run into the supernatural this often? He'd been here less than a day, all told. Was it because of the cultists, or was it the protagonist's halo, keeping him in danger at all times?

Hope understood, more or less. "When I teleported you here, I had no idea any of this would happen afterward. I hope today's events won't cause you too much trouble."

"They won't. I might have nightmares for a few days, but I'll forget about them soon enough. Compared to you and the other residents of Dunwich, my troubles are insignificant."

Hope nodded. This was no time or place for idle conversation. After asking Elizabeth for a rough account of what had happened, he planned to use Uncertainty to send her and Paul away from here.

He checked Paul's breathing again. It was steady and strong, and he seemed to be doing better than before.

Just as he was wondering whether to send the unconscious Paul back to Corey and his wife's house, Paul finally woke up.