In the library of the Royal Crown University on Tivian’s northern outskirts, Dorothy sat in her usual spot, commanding her many corpse marionettes scattered throughout the campus to continue investigating the academic partner of Duke Barrett.
Now that she had determined the individual was likely a professor at RCU and had a specific interest in the hidden history surrounding the Wind King’s Rebellion, the search had become far easier. All she needed to do was examine each professor’s published research, their borrowed library materials, and their academic interests to understand their "scholarly persona." From there, she could judge whether they were someone likely to be invested in the history of that era.
After compiling and analyzing a vast amount of data, Dorothy narrowed her list of candidates down to a single name: Professor John Acheson, from the Department of Archaeology. He had written several papers focused on the pre- and post-Wind King era, and the historical texts he had borrowed leaned heavily toward that period.
Though his published work outwardly respected the official accounts, in some passages he subtly expressed, in veiled language, his distrust and dissatisfaction with the official historical narrative. Among all the professors at the university, he was the most suspicious—the most likely to be Duke Barrett’s academic collaborator.
“John Acheson, huh...? Heh… interesting. Didn’t expect it to be someone I already knew.”
Seated in her quiet corner of the library, Dorothy murmured as she reviewed the faculty file sent by one of her corpse marionettes stationed in the archives. She had heard that name before—and had even met the man. Professor Acheson was Nephthys’s advisor, a senior professor in the archaeology department. He had led the overseas academic expedition that Nephthys had participated in, and Dorothy had briefly encountered him aboard the cruise ship.
“To think… the university harbors more secrets than just the Secret Knowledge Society. Then again, it makes sense. The whole campus sits atop dual hidden ruins belonging to the Star Numerology Scriptorium and the Mirror Moon Church. One of the university’s directors is a high-ranking member of the White Craftsmen’s Guild. Many of Pritt’s official mystic systems are staffed by alumni from this place. A few more secrets wouldn’t be surprising…”
Now that she had almost confirmed that Barrett’s research partner was Nephthys’s teacher, Dorothy checked the calendar and found that the archaeology expedition was set to return in just two days. Their ship would dock in the eastern port district of Tivian, concluding a study tour that had lasted over half a year.
“Two days, huh? In that case, I’d better prepare a few gifts. I’ll pay the professor a proper visit when he gets back.”
But just as she was controlling one of her marionettes to re-shelve the documents in the archives, she noticed something strange.
For ease of access, archival documents follow a strict organizational structure. Materials are grouped by type into broad categories, which are then broken down further into subcategories—archival shelves and drawers are labeled accordingly. Even within a single folder, documents of the same type are arranged by logical metrics like date.
Dorothy had understood this system and had been organizing materials accordingly. But during this process, she noticed an inconsistency in one particular item—a research report filed by a chemistry professor. After skimming its content and placing it back in its folder, she suddenly frowned.
The report seemed slightly inconsistent with how she had remembered it.
She recalled that, when she first looked at the report, two of the pages had been in reverse order—but now, after her logical reordering, the sequence made complete sense. The report had been written across several loose pages—not bound—and stored together with the professor’s other reports, which made them easy to misplace.
When Dorothy first accessed the report, its sequence had been wrong. But now that she had reordered it based on internal logic, her memory told her something was off—the order she remembered seeing didn’t match the one she now believed correct.
And as a Beyonder on the Revelation path, Dorothy’s memory never failed. That meant the order she initially saw was indeed incorrect—the pages were out of place when she first retrieved them.
“So… did the professor mess up the page order when submitting the report?”
That was the simplest explanation. Most people would’ve stopped there and moved on. But Dorothy was different—some might call her obsessive; others would say she had a hyperactive mind. She was the type who couldn’t help but dig into even the smallest inconsistencies, able to multitask and still do everything else efficiently.
Driven by this detail, Dorothy reviewed the professor’s other papers. She discovered that he was an extremely meticulous individual. His experiment designs and academic writing were precise and logical. His lengthy handwritten reports were immaculate, neatly written, and mostly free from any corrections or spelling errors—just a few minor revisions here and there.
This person clearly wasn’t someone who would make a simple mistake like mixing up pages in a report.
“So… if it wasn’t him, maybe the mistake happened during archiving or later during a consultation. But these reports are submitted whole—archivists usually only check the cover page, so they wouldn’t have a reason to flip through the entire thing. That leaves only one possibility: someone else looked through it before me.”
The thought struck her with a flash of insight. She continued reorganizing documents while directing her marionettes to inspect the entire archive more carefully. At the same time, she recalled every detail of her own visit here—and soon, more evidence emerged.
Since it was summer break, very few people remained on campus, and the archives had been nearly deserted for over a month. Normally, that kind of disuse would lead to visible dust buildup. But Dorothy remembered that when her marionettes first entered the archive, there had been no dust on the floors or cabinet tops, as though someone had recently cleaned the place—yet heavier dust had accumulated in neglected corners.
Based on the current dust distribution, the archive had been lightly cleaned two or three days ago. But during summer break, there were no janitors assigned to this place—especially not in areas like this where traffic was so low. Who would bother cleaning it?
Dorothy also noticed that, while most of the folders were dusty, the ones related to the university faculty—the same ones she had consulted—showed no such dust at all.
A professor’s report mysteriously disordered… Unusual cleaning signs in the archive… It all pointed to one conclusion.
Someone else had come to the archive not long before Dorothy—and looked at the same set of files.
And more importantly, they weren’t acting openly. They had tried to erase their tracks. The floor had visible dust—so their footprints would’ve been obvious. To avoid leaving evidence, they had apparently cleaned the floor before leaving.
While flipping through those faculty records, they had accidentally disordered the chemistry professor’s experimental report. When re-filing it, they mixed up the page order—and that’s what Dorothy had noticed.
These individuals had, overall, been rather meticulous in restoring the documents they consulted. Only the experimental report had gone awry—and that was due to its nature. It was written on several loose pages, with no page numbers, and its content was highly technical. Filled with formulas and specialized terminology, it would appear incomprehensible to anyone lacking a sufficient academic background.
And if they didn’t understand what it said, they couldn’t logically reorder it—so they likely put it back randomly. By contrast, Dorothy, thanks to her Revelation-path scholar’s breadth, could read the entire report at a glance and immediately discern the error.
“So… I’m not the only one interested in these archives after all…”
Dorothy thought silently. After a brief pause, she drew an ordinary coin from her pocket and held it in her palm.
“The person who came to Royal Crown’s archives before me—were they trying to find someone?”
Murmuring to herself, she expended 1 point of Lantern and 1 point of Revelation, then tossed the coin into the air. It spun briefly before falling—but instead of landing in her palm, it bounced off and clinked to the ground.
The divination failed.
And that failure meant one thing: her inquiry had triggered a counter-divination safeguard. Whoever had come to the archives before her was operating under a cloaked, mystical background.
And right now, given the timing, there was only one likely party interested in these archives.
“Looks like... when it comes to Barrett’s collaborator, the Eight-Spired Nest isn’t entirely in the dark either…”
Dorothy picked up the coin in silence. Clearly, just like herself, the Eight-Spired Nest had realized Duke Barrett wasn’t working alone.
It made sense. After all, Barrett’s research materials had fallen into their hands. Dorothy had only copied a small portion; the Eight-Spired Nest had access to far more than she or Misha did. If Barrett and John Acheson truly collaborated, there might have been letters exchanged between them—or notes in Barrett’s research referencing a collaborator. That would be enough to alert the Nest. And given their ruthless methods, it was only natural they’d try to hunt down the collaborator to eliminate future threats.
From what she could deduce, they had likely learned from Barrett’s materials that his partner was connected to Royal Crown University. But after Barrett’s assassination triggered a joint crackdown by the Pritt authorities and the church, Tivian became highly unsafe. The Eight-Spired Nest had been forced to withdraw completely from the city—leaving them unable to follow up on their lead.
It was worth remembering: the Nest had already operated on this campus before. Thanks to Dorothy’s interference, their ritual was disrupted, and their attempt to infiltrate and manipulate Royal Crown’s students had been exposed to the Serenity Bureau, putting them on the Bureau’s official watchlist.
Later, when Misha took over the Nest-related cases, she had greatly strengthened the security around the university to prevent future infiltration. After Barrett’s assassination, those security measures were further upgraded, making it nearly impossible for the Nest to return.
But all of that changed recently, when the Serenity Bureau lifted the high-alert lockdown that had been imposed during the crackdown. The threat level against the Nest was downgraded, and Misha—the one most deeply involved in thwarting them—was “dead.” Her specially arranged defenses around the campus were dismantled shortly after her “death,” finally giving the Nest a window to return to the university and resume their search for Barrett’s hidden collaborator.
At this point, Dorothy couldn’t say how much they had uncovered about John Acheson, but the fact that they’d narrowed their target to university professors was already too close for comfort.
“Good thing those spider bastards aren’t very literate. If they’d been able to understand the professor’s report properly, they wouldn’t have mixed up the pages—and I wouldn’t have noticed they were here. Their education standards really need improving.”
“Looks like... I’ll need to make some preparations for how I welcome Professor Acheson back.”
Dorothy murmured softly, staring at the ordinary-looking coin in her hand.