The room was silent for quite a while.
The once-gentle atmosphere of the tea room had grown heavy and oppressive under the weight of Mr. Hutton’s words.
Maggie felt she had to do something, so she cleared her throat.
"Speaking of which, do you know how people in the Gael Highlands spot an outsider?"
The old man was a bit baffled, but he responded politely, "How do they?"
"By watching if they frown when drinking whiskey."
"...So the one who frowns is the outsider?" Richard guessed.
"The one who *doesn’t* frown is the outsider," Maggie said with a perfectly straight face.
"We Highlanders frown with every sip of our own whiskey.
The deeper the frown, the purer the batch.
Anyone who doesn’t frown is either used to that watered-down stuff from the midlands or is already too drunk for their face to move."
The diversion eased the tension, and both of their expressions softened.
"I’ve got another one." Seeing the atmosphere lighten, Maggie pressed on.
"When my grandma was alive, she’d tell us kids the same thing every winter.
’Children, remember, there are three things in the Highlands that’ll freeze you to death: the wind, the snow, and your relatives.’"
"...Relatives?" This time, Richard was genuinely confused about what she was going on about.
"When a relative visits, they bring a bottle of liquor. If you don’t drink, they don’t leave.
The more you drink, the warmer you get. Before you know it, you’ll want to lie down in the yard to cool off."
Maggie finished with the punchline: "And when they find you in the morning, you’ll probably still have a smile on your face."
The old man shook his head. The joke was morbid, with a dry, dark humor.
He picked up his teacup again and glanced at Maggie. "You Gaels are better at telling jokes than you are at casting Curse Spells."
"Of course," Maggie replied with a straight face. "You can forget a Curse Spell, but if you forget a joke, you’ll be an outcast."
Mr. Hutton chuckled lightly and finished the cold tea in his cup.
’Still, to get my Scholarship to Level 3, I need to decipher a Double Overwrite text...’
Richard thought for a moment and decided to try a different angle.
"In that case, can we learn encryption techniques?"
Mr. Hutton leaned back in his chair.
"Of course. It’s a fundamental skill for any Scholar who wants to publish. When the semester starts, I can find some time to teach you."
"Or you could just ask your aunt, Professor Isabella. Asking her would be the fastest way."
Richard nodded. ’If I can learn to encrypt, I can learn to decipher. The process should be the same as when I dismantled the Sphinx Seal.’
’Besides, learning encryption and attempting to decipher things will also fill my Scholarship progress bar. It all works together.’
Mr. Hutton glanced at him again.
"Speaking of which, that book about encryption methods you saw in the Imperial City Library..."
"Hmm?"
"What was the full title of that book?"
Richard searched his memory.
"On the Construction and Evolution of Ciphers. The title page said it was from a publisher affiliated with the Royal Anthropological Society, and the author just used the initials L.D.V."
Mr. Hutton’s eyebrows twitched slightly when he heard the initials.
"Do you know them, sir?"
The old man didn’t answer directly.
"Richard, the next time you’re in the library... don’t go browsing random books."
......
By the time they left Mr. Hutton’s room, the sky outside was completely dark.
The proprietress was behind the bar wiping glasses. Seeing the two young people come downstairs, she nodded at them.
"Dinner’s in about half an hour."
"Okay," Richard responded.
The freckled girl beside him jerked her chin toward the inn’s entrance.
"Talk?"
"Okay."
The wind outside was colder than in the afternoon.
There was no moon. The stars were sparse, with a few bright ones hanging in the western corner of the sky.
Only a few scattered houses in Whitcomb Village had their lights on.
The two of them slowly walked along the stone-paved road in front of the inn.
When they reached the low stone wall at the edge of the village, Maggie stopped.
She took out a small tin box from her pocket.
It was the roasted chestnuts she’d swiped from the kitchen at noon. She offered some to Richard.
"They’re still warm?"
"I warmed them in the hearth embers for a bit."
Richard took them. The shells were almost too hot to hold.
He cracked a shell open with his thumb and popped the nut into his mouth.
Sweet, with a hint of smokiness.
The two of them leaned against the stone wall, eating chestnuts in silence for a while.
Wind blew in from the moors. Richard’s breath formed a small white cloud in front of him, which was then scattered by the wind, only to form again.
He finished the chestnut in his hand and spoke, affecting a casual tone. "By the way, I wanted to ask you something."
"Hmm?"
"Last time in the peat bog, your Cyan Green Ring..."
Maggie’s hand, which was peeling a chestnut, paused.
Richard continued, "On the Ether Layer, it made you look like a tree. The Swamp Corpses passed by without a second glance. That Technique is really practical..."
"Are you asking if I can teach you?" the freckled girl cut him off.
"If you can," Richard nodded, dropping the pretense.
"The Scholar path doesn’t have many ways to stay safe. Every little bit helps."
Maggie pinched the half-peeled chestnut shell between her fingers.
"You can’t learn it."
"...Can’t be taught to outsiders?" Richard asked, disappointed.
Maggie glanced at him. "Even if I taught you, you wouldn’t be able to learn it."
"Why?"
"It’s a Technique passed down through bloodline."
She popped the nut into her mouth and chewed slowly.
"There was an Expert in my family line."
Richard stopped peeling his chestnut.
’An Expert. All the information and literature he’d been able to find so far had only the briefest mentions of Experts, as if they were beings from another world entirely.’
"About nine generations back," Maggie said, holding up one hand and slowly unfolding her fingers one by one.
"My grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather... around that far back."

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