The walls of the back garden took on a faint warmth in the afternoon sunlight. Charlotte stood beside a tree near the rear of the mansion and lowered her head to check her skirts once more.
To make moving easier, she had pinned up the hem of her long dress, revealing her calves in wool stockings, and changed into lighter shoes with soft soles. If the servants saw her dressed like this, they would probably think their young lady had finally been driven mad by her recent succession of frights.
At that thought, she glanced toward the other side of the garden.
The gardener stood with his back to her, trimming the hedges with a steady snip-snip of his shears. There were no maids nearby, nor any footmen making their rounds.
Good. No one was watching.
Charlotte let out a soft breath, hurried to the wall, and glanced up. She immediately picked out several suitable climbing holds.
A few days earlier, even knowing she could use the decorative columns and projecting window ledges for support, she would never have believed she could climb to the second-floor balcony. Even if she had possessed the upper-body strength, her long dress, shoes, and fear of heights would have been enough to keep the idea firmly in her head.
Charlotte sprang lightly upward, caught the edge of a stone carving with her left hand, and planted her right foot on a projection less than a meter above the ground. As she hauled herself up, her other hand found a precise grip in a groove in the decorative molding between the first and second floors. The stone was somewhat rough, and dust coated her palms, but she did not let it distract her. With a light push from her toes, she moved upward, close against the wall.
Distances, angles, adjustments to her center of gravity-these things scarcely required conscious thought. It was as though the useless details once scattered throughout her field of vision had suddenly been arranged by some invisible order and presented to her one after another.
Moments later, Charlotte swung over the low stone railing and returned to the second-floor balcony.
She looked down at her hands. A little dust clung to her knuckles, and her breathing was slightly quickened, but she was nowhere near as exhausted or disheveled as she had imagined.
So this was the power of an Arbiter...
She pushed open the French windows and entered her bedroom, barely able to contain her excitement.
The changes brought by the potion could not be summed up as merely "excellent fighting ability." Her strength, agility, bodily control, and powers of observation all seemed to have improved. None of these improvements was particularly dramatic-she was still far from snapping a rolling pin with her bare hands or jumping from a rooftop without injury-but together, they produced a qualitative change.
In terms of raw strength, Charlotte still did not think she could beat tall, militarily trained men like Roselle or Green. But if they were not on guard beforehand and failed to coordinate in time, she should be able to exploit their openings and bring them down separately in very short order.
No sooner had that thought surfaced than images flashed through Charlotte's mind: Viève making holy water, Henriette appearing out of thin air, and the woman in black lying in ambush as though she had merged with the shadows.
Arbiter was only the lowest Sequence. The potion's physical enhancements were merely the surface; those powerful, mysterious abilities were what really mattered... She quickly suppressed her fleeting smugness and straightened her skirts. Just as she was about to wash her hands, she heard approaching footsteps and looked toward the washroom adjoining her bedroom.
Lila emerged carrying a copper basin filled with hot water and towels. When she saw Charlotte's current appearance, her eyes widened at once.
"Miss! Your hands, and your dress... If His Excellency the Baron sees you, he'll surely..."
"Keep quiet."
Charlotte stopped her.
Lila's mouth froze half-open. She even forgot to ask any questions, merely lowering her head instinctively and speaking softly:
Charlotte herself was momentarily taken aback.
She had not deliberately used any ability just then. She had simply felt that Lila should not make such a fuss, and her tone had naturally acquired a quality that brooked no argument.
Was this an Arbiter's authority and persuasive bearing? She glanced at the maid, who had become noticeably more subdued, and softened her tone.
"After those accidents, I ought to have some means of protecting myself. Hiring someone to teach me fencing or fighting would attract too much attention, while exercising is far less likely to arouse suspicion. I'll only try it at home. I won't let outsiders see."
Lila nodded repeatedly.
"I understand, miss. I won't tell the master."
Her response was perfectly natural. She did not even offer any of the objections expected of a lady's maid.
But this hardly confirmed the effects of a Beyonder ability. As a maid, Lila was already accustomed to obeying me... Charlotte watched her set the copper basin beside the washstand, feeling less than satisfied.
The other household servants, including the butler, were much the same. Nor could she test it on her father, who clearly knew something about mysticism. Thus, over the past two days, her experiments with an Arbiter's powers had mostly involved physical activities such as climbing onto the balcony, along with confidently demanding from the butler the spending money her father had promised her.
The aristocratic hunt in a few days might provide an opportunity. Young noblemen and ladies of a similar age and standing would make ideal subjects for persuasion and intimidation. For example... Roselle.
Hopefully he would attend the hunt-as my prey... she muttered inwardly. She washed her hands in the basin, then found an excuse to send the maid away.
Only after the bedroom door closed again did Charlotte return to the little table by the window and retrieve the handwritten booklet Viève had given her from the back of a drawer. She did not open it immediately.
Apart from testing her strength, she had spent most of the past two days reading this "Guide for Peripheral Members" and practicing meditation.
The method was not complicated. After regulating their breathing, clearing their mind, and shutting out external distractions, the meditator first pictured an object that existed in reality and focused their attention on it. Then they replaced it with an imagined object that did not exist in this world. Through this process, the meditator could transcend the self and unite their spirit body with the world and the universe, achieving what was called a "mystical experience."
Meditation was a key step in many rituals. When Charlotte's condition had been unstable just after taking the potion, she had relied on its first step to stabilize her spirituality and return to normal.
But when she actually attempted the second step-picturing "an object that did not exist in this world"-she failed several times.
Her first thought had been a steam engine, which had yet to be invented. But no matter how she imagined its pistons and pipes spouting white vapor, she could not enter that stable state. Considering the possibility that the Church of the Artisan or some genius had already built a prototype, she next tried imagining a nuclear power plant with yellow-and-black warning symbols, orderly factory buildings, and cooling towers. That proved equally ineffective.
For a time, this made her wonder whether spirituality could recognize something that would inevitably appear in the future, or whether artificial objects simply made unsuitable subjects for meditation.
She even tried an abstract concept from her original world, such as "God Almighty," but that did not work either.
Finally, Charlotte thought of her former self, of Gao Linyuan, who did not exist in this world.
As she pictured her original face-the short hair, the rather ordinary features, the eyes that had always seemed tired when he looked in the mirror-and that body so utterly different from her present one, her irritation instantly subsided. Her thoughts drifted, her spirituality extended, and she transcended herself.
Now, after several attempts, she could replace that familiar face with an abstract symbol of her own creation and enter a meditative state with ease.
Following the method Viève had taught her, she used rapid meditation to activate Spirit Vision, then deactivated it. After repeating this several times to make the process more familiar, she stopped meditating and opened the booklet beside her.
The handwriting was elegant and graceful, very likely Viève's own. The opening section contained basic Hermes vocabulary, with meanings and pronunciations annotated in Intisian alongside them. The nun had instructed Charlotte to memorize the common and dangerous words first, so that she would not misread or miswrite anything without knowing its meaning and cause serious consequences.
After the Hermes section came basic knowledge of mysticism, the confidentiality rules Peripheral Members had to follow, methods for distinguishing genuine ritual magic from fakes, and the behavioral traits of certain secret organizations and cultists.
Charlotte understood that her greatest value lay in the Sauron surname and her status as a noblewoman, which granted her access to social occasions ordinary Purification-ers could not easily attend. One of Viève's reasons for recruiting her as a Peripheral Member was to make her a pair of eyes hidden in the shadows, so she read these sections with particular care.
The booklet specifically warned that cultists were not always mad, gloomy, or strangely dressed. On the contrary, many might appear no different from ordinary people, and could even enjoy considerable standing and respectable identities. Resourceful people in the middle ranks of society who were anxious about their circumstances or deeply dissatisfied with reality were, in fact, more easily lured in by those with ulterior motives. Believing they were merely exploring forbidden knowledge, seeking opportunities, or taking revenge, they could stray step by step onto the wrong path and sink ever deeper.
"...Signs worth noting include a lack of basic respect for the orthodox deities, prolonged seclusion apart from necessary social engagements, unexplained accidents or abnormalities that persistently occur around them, and excessive avoidance of or sensitivity toward certain topics in mysticism...
"These are only leads for observation, not evidence, and must never serve as grounds for acting on your own. If you discover anything unusual, report it immediately to the clergy member who serves as your contact."
Charlotte's gaze passed over the lines of small handwriting, her expression gradually growing solemn.
After a moment of silence, she locked the booklet in the back of the drawer. Then she straightened her skirts and cuffs before the mirror, making sure she still looked like the dignified, quiet Miss Sauron, before leaving the bedroom. She descended the carpeted stairs, passed the family portrait in the entrance hall, and headed toward a corridor deeper within the other side of the mansion.
This was where Raoul usually spent time alone and painted, far from the areas the servants frequently passed through. The farther she went, the more worn the carpet's patterns became. Several busts along the walls seemed silent and aloof, as though watching everyone who approached without permission.
Charlotte stopped before a red wooden door and raised her hand. After a brief hesitation, she knocked softly.
Baron Raoul Sauron's voice soon came from behind the door.
"Come in."