Richard sat down in the other armchair.
"I know you must be wondering why we’d bring newcomers like you into such a dangerous sealing ritual."
Mrs. MacNeil placed the fire poker back on its iron stand and turned to face him.
"In truth, while last night’s ritual seemed precarious, we were never in any real danger."
Richard looked up. "I suspected as much. When you summoned the seventh entity, you never spoke its name."
"You noticed?"
"Yes."
Mrs. MacNeil raised her left hand, pushed back her sleeve, and revealed the Bone Bracelet on her wrist.
"Contained within the Bone Bracelet is a wisp of my teacher’s Spirit."
"...Lady Mary?"
"My teacher gave me this bracelet herself when I completed my apprenticeship."
Mrs. MacNeil pulled her sleeve back down, covering the bracelet.
"She sealed a wisp of her own Spirit in the bracelet. When I’m on field missions, this wisp of Spirit accompanies me."
"A wisp of Spirit... What can it do?"
"Beneath the Curtain, the Spirit of a Secretive One at the Grand Mastery level is equivalent to a temporary fortress wall."
"If the Seal had truly begun to collapse, she would have intervened."
"To what extent?"
"To the point of draining every last reserve within this bracelet."
Mrs. MacNeil’s voice was steady. "It’s enough for her to hold her ground beneath that section of the Curtain for three minutes."
"In those three minutes, she would have scooped the eight of us out of that hall and thrown us back into the Material Realm."
"...Thrown."
"Thrown," Mrs. MacNeil said with a small smile. "She wouldn’t care whether the fall hurt, as long as we survived."
Richard recalled the events of the previous night.
The arm of the seventh entity that had emerged from the Bone Bracelet had been strong enough to pinch the fissure beneath their feet closed.
If that arm was a manifestation of Lady Mary’s power, then it all made sense.
"Captain Field had a failsafe as well."
Mrs. MacNeil continued, "The authorities equipped them with an item called a ’Veil-Piercing Awl.’"
"It’s single-use, and the cost is part of your lifespan. It can forcibly tear open an escape route from beneath the Curtain."
"How much?"
"Five years."
Richard was surprised.
"The Captain already burned through two years last night."
"That’s why he didn’t use the Veil-Piercing Awl. Otherwise, he’d be knocking on death’s door," Mrs. MacNeil said, shaking her head.
She laid it all out very clearly.
"This ritual had a two-tiered safety net."
"The primary plan was to follow standard procedure: repair the Seal, have the Mother enter the Returning to Sleep, and have the entire team return safely."
"If the situation became critical, I’d release the Spirit from the Bone Bracelet, which could hold things off for three minutes."
"If my teacher’s wisp of Spirit couldn’t hold, the Captain would use that opportunity to tear open a rift with the Veil-Piercing Awl for the eight of us to escape. My teacher herself would then cross over from the Material Realm to handle the aftermath."
"So... the worst-case scenario was failure. No one was going to die in there."
Richard looked at the Spirit Medium before him.
"So yesterday really was just a training exercise?"
"Of course." Mrs. MacNeil nodded. "Mr. Hutton could have handled the Forged Blade and the Judgment all by himself."
"Sending the four of you was just to let you experience a complete field mission."
"To be honest, though, your performance last night far exceeded what we’d expect from a Newcomer."
She didn’t press him on the matter, though.
"As for how you stabilized the Shadow and performed the Technique that helped the Captain... I know you wouldn’t tell me if I asked, so I won’t."
"But in terms of your duties as a Scholar, you alone saved Mr. Hutton at least a third of his time."
Richard’s knuckles tightened slightly, but he kept his tone lighthearted as he asked,
"So, does that mean I was the star of the exercise?"
"You could say that." Mrs. MacNeil returned his smile. "When I reported the events of the sealing to my teacher last night, she said she was very impressed with you."
Richard didn’t feel happy about that.
He had once considered trying to connect with Lady Mary, thinking it would be good to have a powerful backer.
But now that the interest was coming from her, he felt uncomfortably scrutinized, as if being examined from head to toe under a bright lantern.
"What... exactly do you and your teacher have in mind?" he asked tentatively.
Mrs. MacNeil raised an eyebrow and got to the point.
"Have you heard of the ’Automatic Secretary’?"
Richard searched his memory. "No."
Mrs. MacNeil nodded, unsurprised.
"There’s a kind of part-time work in our profession."
"A Scholar acts as the secretary, and a Spirit Medium acts as the guardian. The two of them team up to take on jobs."
"What kind of jobs?"
"Dictation."
Mrs. MacNeil picked up a teacup from the small table beside her and took a sip.
"The formal name is Scriba Automatica—the automatic scribe."
"There are many colloquial names for it: ’the Puppet,’ ’the Transcriber,’ ’the Spirit Medium’s Pen.’"
She set the teacup back down.
"The tradition can be traced back to classical antiquity. The Priestess at Delphi would enter a trance to receive divine oracles, while an ’interpreter’ stood by, responsible for recording them."
"The principle behind the secretary is similar, but it works in the opposite direction."
"The Priestess was a passive receiver; the secretary actively opens something."
Richard tapped a finger lightly on the armrest.
"Opens what?"
"A channel to the Spirit Realm."
Mrs. MacNeil’s gaze fell upon the flames in the fireplace.
"The scribe drinks a herbal decoction with an Ashen Grass base, mixed with poppy shell, laurel leaves, and Spirit Moss."
"After drinking it, the scribe enters a trance."
"In that state, they can receive fragmented information coming through the channel to the Spirit Realm."
"And after they receive it?" Richard imagined the scene.
"Their hand moves on its own."
Mrs. MacNeil made a writing gesture.
"The scribe’s hand writes automatically. The person has no control over the content; they merely act as a conduit, a terminal."

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