East Port.
10:40 AM.
The Port Authority meeting room.
The air was suffocatingly tense.
The constant clamor of a crowd drifted in from outside the window.
Even through the thick glass, intermittent shouting could still be heard.
The table was piled high with documents: hospital statistics, police reports, port registry lists, and the latest work stoppage records.
Over the past three days, the number of striking workers had grown from dozens to hundreds.
This morning, the Third Cargo Zone had ground to a complete halt.
No one in the meeting room spoke.
The Port Authority director's expression was dreadfully grim.
The treasury representative kept flipping through reports, his forehead slick with sweat as the losses were mounting by the hour.
Cargo ships were stranded every day.
Merchant guilds complained daily.
New patients emerged every day.
Yet even now, they still had no idea what the cause was.
On the other side of the conference table sat Jonathan.
His police uniform was somewhat rumpled.
His eyes carried an obvious, deep exhaustion.
Several consecutive days of overtime had pushed the entire East Port police station to its absolute limit.
Finally, a Port Authority official spoke up.
“How many more men can the police station spare?”
Jonathan looked up.
“Twenty.”
The room fell instantly silent.
Someone frowned.
“Only twenty?”
Jonathan gave them a cold stare.
“That is all the men the East Port police station has.”
“The hospital needs men.”
“The port needs men.”
“The warehouses need men.”
“The detention house needs men as well.”
“If you can conjure up more officers, I will gladly take them right now.”
No one spoke.
A merchant guild representative couldn't help but speak up.
“But people are already inciting strikes down there.”
“A crowd gathered again this morning.”
“If this continues, things will get out of hand.”
Jonathan looked at the files on the table and spoke slowly.
“Things will get out of hand, but it is not a riot yet.”
“The workers are simply afraid.”
“They are afraid of falling ill, of disappearing, and of no one telling them what is actually going on.”
Having said this, he paused, his voice dropping.
“And unfortunately, I don't know what is going on either.”
Silence fell over the meeting room once more.
Currently, every institution was acting blind.
The hospital couldn't find the source of the illness.
The police station couldn't find any clues.
The church couldn't find any results.
City Hall demanded reports every day, but no one could provide answers.
The entirety of East Port was like a pot of heating water; no one knew when it would boil over.
Just then, hurried footsteps echoed from outside.
The meeting room door was pushed open.
A Port Authority clerk rushed in, drenched in sweat.
“Sir!”
“Something happened at Pier Three again!”
Everyone looked up at once.
“What is it?”
“Another person collapsed!”
“And the workers are refusing to start their shifts!”
“The pier is completely blocked!”
The room instantly erupted into chaos.
The screech of scraping chairs echoed continuously.
The Port Authority official stood up abruptly.
Jonathan stood up as well, grabbing his police hat from the table and heading straight for the exit.
As he passed the door, an officer beside him asked,
“Sir, do we need to bring guns?”
Jonathan's footsteps paused briefly.
He looked out the window.
In the distance, above the port, gray smoke drifted slowly.
Steam whistles sounded repeatedly.
The faint sound of a crowd arguing could be heard.
After a few seconds, he nodded.
“Bring them.”
...
1:20 PM.
East Port police station.
Jonathan finally returned to his office.
The moment the door closed, most of the noise outside was shut out.
Yet even so, the shouting of the distant crowd could still be heard.
The port was spinning out of control.
There was no longer any doubt about that.
Jonathan took off his police hat, tossed it onto the desk, and sat down in his chair.
The desk was piled high with files: East Port Hospital, the Port Authority, the church shelter, patrol logs, and missing person registries.
A thick stack occupied nearly the entire desk.
He picked up the top file and flipped to the first page.
Thirteen new patients.
Page two.
Seven missing persons.
Page three.
The number of striking dockworkers had increased to 326.
Jonathan remained expressionless.
He kept flipping.
Only at the very end did he slowly close the file.
The office fell quiet once more.
He stood up and walked to the window.
A large cloud of coal smoke rose from the direction of East Port.
Cargo ship sirens blared repeatedly.
From a distance, it didn't seem any different from usual.
But Jonathan knew that the inside had already begun to rot, like an apple that looked whole on the outside but was slowly turning black within.
He fell silent for a moment.
Opening a drawer, he pulled out an old file from the very bottom.
The cover of the file had already yellowed slightly.
A name was written on it.
Ryan Harold.
Jonathan stared at the name, his gaze somewhat complicated.
In fact, he had investigated Ryan long ago.
To be precise, he had looked into him from the very first day Ryan was transferred to East Port from the archive.
Young.
Graduated from a commoner school.
Born in the East End.
Simple family background.
No criminal record.
No church background.
No noble connections.
His resume was as clean as a blank sheet of paper.
It was excessively normal.
Yet two days ago, he had gone missing and requested leave.
Jonathan slowly lit a cigarette.
Smoke rose, obscuring half his face.
He recalled seeing Ryan in the meeting room a few days ago.
Quiet.
Cautious.
He looked like nothing more than an ordinary clerk.
But looking back now, that young man seemed to always appear in the vicinity of trouble, like some sort of magnet for disaster.
Just then, a knock sounded at the door.
“Come in.”
An officer pushed the door open and entered.
“Sir, something happened at Pier Three again.”
“Someone fainted.”
“And some workers got into a fight with the Port Authority staff.”
Jonathan nodded.
“I see.”
The officer left.
The door closed once more.
The office fell quiet again.
Jonathan finally stubbed out his cigarette.
He made a decision: he couldn't wait any longer.
According to normal procedures, the local police station had to investigate first, establish a cause, and then submit an anomaly report.
This was the rule.
It was also to prevent people from constantly disturbing the truly important figures.
But now, he had been investigating for three days.
And he had found absolutely nothing.
2:10 PM.
Jonathan left the East Port police station.
He didn't bring any subordinates, nor did he wear his uniform; he simply threw on a dark overcoat.
He left the port district by carriage.
Heading all the way west, he passed through the commercial streets, through the parliamentary district, and through streets that grew increasingly wider.
Two hours later, the carriage slowly pulled over to the side of the street.
Jonathan stepped out.
He adjusted the collar of his overcoat.
Before him stood an inconspicuous gray building.
It had no sign.
No street number.
It even had fewer windows than the surrounding houses.
Yet Jonathan did not linger.
He walked straight up the steps and pushed open the door.
The lobby was very quiet.
The air was thick with the scent of old books and ink.
An old man sat behind the counter, reading a newspaper.
Hearing footsteps, the old man looked up and glanced at Jonathan.
Then, his gaze fell on the badge pinned to his chest.
“East End?”
Jonathan nodded.
“East Port.”
The old man asked no further questions.
He simply set down his newspaper and picked up the telephone beside him.
A few minutes later, Jonathan was led to the second floor.
The corridor was long.
The carpet absorbed all sounds of footsteps.
The doors on both sides were tightly shut.
A large number of Scholars gathered here.
They were the ones who truly studied Lore.
They read Lore, organized records, and analyzed rituals, archiving and sealing away dangerous knowledge to prevent ordinary people from coming into contact with it.
And further up were the Knowers.
At this thought, Jonathan's steps paused slightly.
Honestly, he did not want things to progress to that point.
Because the appearance of a Scholar meant the case involved anomalies.
But the appearance of a Knower usually meant the anomaly had already spun out of control.
Problems that an Apprentice could not solve, a Scholar would handle.
Problems that a Scholar could not solve would only then be handed over to a Knower.
Over the past few years, Jonathan had only seen a Knower take action twice.
Once in Liverpool, and once in Birmingham.
And in both events, many people had ended up dead.
At this thought, his expression darkened a bit more.
East Port had not reached that level yet.
At least, he hoped so.
Soon, a door opened. Inside sat a middle-aged man wearing glasses.
The desk was piled high with documents.
The man flipped through the files without looking up.
“Sit.”
Jonathan sat down.
He then placed the recent East Port reports onto the desk.
The man flipped through them quietly.
The only sound left in the office was the rustling of paper.
After a long time, he finally stopped.
“Illness.”
“Disappearances.”
“Worker strikes.”
“Port stoppage.”
The man looked up.
“What do you think it is?”
Jonathan shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“If I knew, I wouldn't have come here.”
The man stared at him for a moment, then suddenly smiled.
“Good. At least you are aware of your own ignorance.”
With that, he reopened the file.
His gaze fell on the final pages, which recorded the anomalous data from East Port over the past few weeks.
The man remained silent for a long time.
Finally, he picked up his fountain pen and wrote a few words on the application form.
When Jonathan saw that line of writing, his pupils contracted slightly.
Because it read: Recommend dispatching a Lantern Scholar to intervene in the investigation.
The man set down his pen and said calmly,
“Let a Scholar take a look first. If they can find the cause, the matter ends there.”
“And if they can't?”
The man fell silent for two seconds and then closed the file.
“Then it will no longer be a matter for a Scholar to handle.”
The man seemed to read Jonathan's thoughts.
He set down his pen and suddenly asked,
“Do you want to ask why it is not a Knower?”
Jonathan fell silent for a moment.
“I do.”
The man smiled.
“Because Knowers are very expensive.”
Jonathan was taken aback, then he understood.
The "expensive" here clearly did not refer to money.
The man continued,
“Apprentices always have an illusion, thinking a Knower is simply a stronger Scholar.”
“In reality, they are not.”
“Scholars study problems, but a Knower is themselves the problem.”
The room fell quiet.
The man stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at London in the distance, covered in dark clouds.
“If a Winter Knower enters a graveyard, the things inside the graveyard will awaken.”
“If a Moth Knower enters a crowd, identities and secrets will begin to drift.”
“If a Grail Knower appears in the slums, it usually means things that are unsuitable to be written into a report are about to happen next.”
Jonathan did not speak.
Because he knew this was no exaggeration. It was a fact.
The deeper one went into the Principles, the less human one became.
The man continued,
“Scholars are still studying the Principles.”
“Knowers have already been changed by the Principles.”
“Wherever they go, the Principles follow.”
“So, unless absolutely necessary, no one wants to let them out.”
The man returned to his desk and opened the East Port report.
“Furthermore, East Port is not worth it right now.”
Jonathan looked up.
“What do you mean?”
The man tapped the report.
“How many people die in East Port every day?”
“A dozen or so.”
“How many go missing?”
“A few to a dozen.”
“Can the port still operate?”
“Yes.”
“Can the police station still function?”
“Yes.”
“Can the hospital still take in patients?”
“Yes.”
The man nodded.
“That means order is still maintained. As long as order remains, it is not a Knower's turn.”
Jonathan fell silent.
These words were cruel, but very realistic.
To those at the top, a few dozen slum dwellers falling ill, or a few hundred dockworkers striking, did not constitute a disaster at all.
Only when the entirety of East Port began to spin out of control, and London itself was affected, would the matter truly escalate.
The man picked up his pen and wrote a line of text at the very bottom of the application form.
Then, he said calmly,
“A Scholar will investigate, find the cause, and solve the problem. This is the normal procedure.”
“What if the Scholar disappears?” Jonathan asked suddenly.
The pen in the man's hand paused.
“Then we send another.”
“And if the second one disappears as well?”
The man looked up.
“Then that will prove that whatever is hidden beneath East Port is worthy of a Knower making a personal trip.”
Jonathan did not ask further.
And right now, East Port was clearly not at that level yet.
At least, in the eyes of the truly important figures, it was not.
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