Chapter 1348: Designed Transcendence (26)
“I once met an astrologer before building the Magic Tower, at the City Council’s recommendation.”
A vast lobby hall, built to encompass the entire top floor of the skyscraper.
Lennok, standing in line with Jutiya amidst countless people, said,
“I didn’t expect much, but she gave an unexpected reading. So, I remembered her name and location.”
“Hmm, and?”
Perhaps the Scribe of the Council of Fate held little interest in such fortunes or divinations.
Considering Jutiya’s abilities, specialized in records and accounting, it wasn’t strange for her to lack interest in such fields.
But Lennok, unperturbed by Jutiya’s strangely unenthusiastic expression, spoke calmly.
“I heard she predicted the demise of Ars Nova, even though she wasn’t involved with the project.”
“……”
Jutiya’s expression subtly hardened.
Only then did she vaguely understand why Lennok had come here with her.
“……I see. You needed someone who had been the subject of an astrological reading before? To see if the reading might change from last time?”
“I thought I would be enough, but the more cases, the better for comparison.”
Lennok looked down at Jutiya.
“I’m not forcing you. If you don’t want to, go back now.”
“Hmm, what should I do… I don’t have much interest in fortunes or divination.”
Jutiya’s gaze, over her thick glasses, turned to the astrologer.
“What I did in the Council of Fate wasn’t so different from those revelations or prophecies, in a way. I quit being a Scribe; why would I be interested now?”
“……”
“But oh well, it probably doesn’t matter. Watching your reaction seems more entertaining than the astrology itself.”
Jutiya, looking up at Lennok, smiled languidly.
“Alright. Let’s do it together. But will that disguise be enough?”
“……Hmm.”
“Just looking at the warning sign here, it seems she really doesn’t want to meet you.”
Lennok couldn’t refute her words and stared up at the warning sign hanging on the diviner’s wall.
[Black hair. Sharp-featured human male. Fond of wearing black coats or using a staff. Absolutely no entry for lightning wizards or residents of District 49.]
It was clear as day whom the large red-lettered warning sign was rejecting.
That’s why Lennok had already finished disguising himself in a different appearance before getting in line.
He stored away his coat and staff, pulled out the license he’d prepared in Machina, and presented it to the desk.
“Meister Lyman? What kind of identity is this? What exactly do you do normally?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
It was a temporary identity Lennok had used in Machina, the name of a craftsman who had even earned the title of Meister.
He hadn’t used it once since revealing himself as Adamant Thunder, but it would be enough to deceive the diviner.
Jutiya, looking at Lennok with a dumbfounded expression, asked,
“Your face and hair color?”
“I have a method I’ve used before.”
Saying that, Lennok covered his face with one hand.
As he lightly swept his hand over his face, Lennok transformed into a different person right before Jutiya’s eyes.
Light brown hair. A strangely gentle and soft impression, with the sharp features softened.
“……Remarkable skill.”
Jutiya’s eyes widened as she watched a person’s appearance and aura change right before her.
“It changed right in front of me, but I can’t recognize you at all. You’ve really mastered the art of deception.”
“If you’re going to compliment me, there are plenty of better ways to phrase it than that.”
“Does it sound like a compliment?”
Jutiya shrugged and asked.
“What happened last time for her to be so afraid of you? Did you strike her with lightning because you didn’t like the reading?”
“I don’t know what you’ve been thinking of me this whole time, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Lennok explained as he moved towards the astrologer.
“Rather… there was a big problem with the last reading. I suppose this is the aftermath.”
“That’s interesting. A diviner usually gives many ominous fortunes, so she should be indifferent even to terrible results.”
Jutiya tilted her head.
“What kind of reading did she give?”
“Well…”
The moment Jutiya asked her question, Lennok approached the diviner.
The diviner had just finished the reading for the customer at the very front of the line and was now waiting for the next.
It had been quite some time since he last saw her, but the diviner looked much the same as before.
A bronze-skinned woman wearing worn overshoes, adorned with unknown accessories and draped in fabric.
The diviner, who had been wiping a crystal ball with a soft cloth, looked up at Lennok.
“Welcome. Do you have an appointment?”
“My name is Lyman.”
She traced the list on the table as if reading braille, then nodded.
“So you are a Meister from Machina. May I just confirm a few things before we begin?”
“What is it?”
“Have you worn a coat or used a staff recently? And have you ever dyed your hair black?”
“……”
Jutiya suppressed a laugh, and as Lennok shook his head, the diviner calmly pulled out a pen.
“Please write down the type of residence you are staying in and your moving date. It greatly helps me maintain a stable state of mind for divination.”
“……Very well.”
Although he had disguised himself to meet the diviner, Lennok had no intention of harassing or harming her.
He had, in his own way, prepared to receive a different reading this time.
Watching Lennok obediently pick up the pen and fill in the blanks, the diviner spoke in a calm tone.
“Finally, one more thing. For several years now, I have not accepted readings for wizards, especially lightning wizards. May I directly check your mana?”
“……”
“It’s not that I distrust you, but this is due to extremely personal circumstances, so I ask for your understanding.”
Lennok and Jutiya involuntarily exchanged glances.
‘She looks like she almost met a violent end. You didn’t actually do anything wrong, did you?’
‘Didn’t I say no? I didn’t realize the trauma was this deep.’
As the two quietly exchanged messages, the diviner took Lennok’s hand and drew up mana.
As the diviner’s mana detected the mana surrounding Lennok’s fingertips, she nodded.
“Confirmed. Please come this way. I will give both of you a reading right away.”
“Very well.”
As they entered the room behind the diviner, Lennok and Jutiya quietly exchanged words.
‘She confirmed it? Did you actually imitate a Meister right here?’
‘I have actually worked as a Meister before. I wasn’t lying.’
‘She’s so terrified of you; what if she goes into shock and dies when she realizes who you are later?’
‘This time, it will probably be fine.’
‘This time?’
Instead of answering, Lennok followed the diviner into the room.
Blackout curtains blocked all light from the room, and a crystal ball and cards lay in the center of the table.
The diviner, sitting in a chair opposite the table, looked between Lennok and Jutiya and asked,
“Who would like to have their fortune told first?”
“……I’ll go first. Is that alright?”
“Please take a seat.”
It seemed she didn’t even bother with identity verification for customers who weren’t human males.
Jutiya adjusted her glasses, shrugged, and sat opposite the diviner.
The diviner, her eyes half-closed, slowly raised her hand and illuminated the crystal ball towards the cross-armed Jutiya.
Flash!!
A shimmer of light, flowing from the crystal orb, filled the dark chamber.
“……Ah.”
The diviner, gazing at Jutiya through the crystal ball, involuntarily gasped.
A peculiar brilliance, as if she had found a gem among rubble, flickered in her eyes.
“You possess a very… venerable status.”
“You see it?”
“Yes. I do.”
She spoke with a much more respectful tone than before.
“Born in a Golden Age, contributing to the great feat of adjusting fate… You came from a place so high that someone like me wouldn’t dare reach it.”
“……”
“It is an honor to meet such a great compiler of history. I don’t know if I can be of any help…”
“……Hmm.”
Jutiya offered a faint smile at the diviner’s deeply absorbed voice, as if she was already engrossed in the reading.
“Astrology isn’t so bad after all. You’ve seen that far already?”
“I am merely a humble diviner who glimpses fate by reading the movement of the stars.”
The diviner said quietly.
“Compared to those who have truly worked for this world, I am less than a mere firefly.”
“Judging by your words, you seem to have a general idea of what I’ve done.”
Even after her origins were revealed, Jutiya showed no surprise.
Instead, she merely rested her chin on the table with a languid smile.
“Alright, it’s good to meet a colleague. Let’s put aside the small talk and I’ll ask just one thing.”
“I’m listening.”
“You predicted the demise of Ars Nova, didn’t you?”
“……”
“How far did you see?”
The astrologer fell silent.
After stroking the crystal ball in silence for a long time, she answered with her eyes closed.
“I alone could not have foreseen or seen that.”
“I know. You must have given a reading for an Ascendant, right? The scope of what can be seen expands depending on the fate of the foreseen subject.”
“……”
“I’m not trying to press you, so just speak comfortably. You see me, don’t you?”
Jutiya leaned back in her chair and smiled faintly.
“It’s fine to see it to the end, so go on. How far can you see?”
“……It is both visible and invisible.”
The hesitant diviner replied.
Normally, divination probably wouldn’t proceed this way.
There would have been several necessary procedures to maximize the divination.
However, given who her client was, the diviner quietly answered Jutiya’s questions.
“But that image… the head…”
“Dead? With only the head severed?”
“……”
The diviner did not answer.
Instead, she merely stared silently at Jutiya with faint bewilderment.
But Jutiya, surprisingly, smiled languidly at the diviner, as if amused.
“If you look closely, my tongue is probably pulled out too. I always knew Jinwa would decide my end that way.”
“That’s—”
“It seems you really are the real deal. It wasn’t for nothing that this city has been managing your safety.”
With those words, Jutiya brushed her hands together and stood up.
“It’s dangerous, so let’s stop here. I just wanted to confirm that the ‘fixed point’ of the future you saw has been released. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“……For several years now, after a divination ends, I completely forget the contents of the reading myself.”
“Good, next!”
Jutiya said that, patting Lennok’s shoulder.
She leaned close to Lennok’s ear and whispered with a twirling smile.
“That person. Won’t live long, will she?”
“……”
“She was born with excessively outstanding talent for an ordinary person. For a case this rare, there are probably quite a few Transcendent beings who would want to extract only her brain.”
“……She probably knows that herself, which is why she relies on the City Council to give readings.”
Lennok shook his head.
“It’s not for us to intervene. I’ll go next.”
“Hmm, alright.”
Leaving Jutiya’s amused sigh behind, Lennok sat at the table.
Perhaps because he was a client accompanied by a Central Noble, the diviner asked in a considerably more polite tone.
“If you are ready, may I begin?”
“There’s no need to disregard formality like Jutiya. Let’s follow the established procedure.”
“……Please come closer to the crystal ball.”
Listening to the strangely intimidated diviner, Lennok reached out his hand.
When Lennok had previously received a reading from the diviner, he hadn’t obtained any results from the divination.
He had merely confirmed the shocking truth, through the cards the diviner showed him, that an Outer God was attempting to peer into this place.
If he repeated the same action without any measures or alternatives, he would only face the same outcome.
However, Lennok was confident he could elicit a different reading this time.
‘The Outer God I met in the Demonic Realm indirectly perceived my existence by exploiting my Targeted Resistance.’
With his hand extended towards the crystal ball, Lennok fell into thought.
‘If it also perceived this place in a similar manner when I had the reading before, then what I need to do is—’
—simply to loosen his Targeted Resistance for this moment of the reading.
Simultaneously, an image slowly began to form within the diviner’s crystal ball.
“……This can’t be.”
The diviner’s voice, as she stared blankly at the sight, trembled faintly.
It wasn’t because she saw the eyes of an Outer God again, or because the reading itself was completely invisible.
It was simply because the landscape reflected in the crystal ball existed in a realm beyond her common understanding.
The diviner’s expression, as she looked at Lennok with surprise, held pity rather than awe.
“It is full of pain and hardship… It seems you have lived a very, very agonizing life.”
“……Is that so?”
“Inside… there are very high and massive walls…”
The diviner closed her eyes.
“Having overcome many trials throughout your life, those hardships have become part of your very self… such desolation exists within. Your life itself has been your trial.”
“……”
For a moment, Lennok stopped speaking.
He had expected the reading to be different from before, but the diviner’s answer had more nuanced implications than he anticipated.
Even Jutiya’s expression standing nearby had subtly changed, but the diviner, with her eyes closed, didn’t notice and continued.
“Living itself was painful… You must have wished to end it at any moment.”
“……”
“For a very long time… you seem to have endured for something other than yourself. Am I reading this correctly?”
“……Continue.”
Lennok, who had been silent, nodded.
“As I said, I’ll follow the procedure. There should be a set order, shouldn’t there?”
“Order… I’m not sure what meaning such a thing holds for a worn-down being like you.”
The diviner’s eyes, which had been strangely timid, were now faintly half-open and emitting a mystical light.
A subdued tone, as if deeply engrossed in Lennok’s reading and having forgotten the current situation.
As if she didn’t even realize what she was saying, she asked blankly,
“A reading is meant to reveal what one does not yet possess or cannot possess… Yet, haven’t you already let go of everything you once held?”
“……”
“Although I do not know the method or principle behind it, I know that it is meaningless. However…”
The diviner’s hand slowly reached for the cards on the table.
“Nevertheless, if you wish to start anew in an utterly ‘ordinary manner’.”
“……”
The diviner he had met before said that the form of cards or crystal balls wasn’t particularly important for a reading.
She said it was merely choosing a means to effectively express the reading she saw, regardless of its form.
If so, was her taking the cards instead of the crystal ball also a process to give Lennok an ordinary reading once more?
The diviner slowly shuffled the cards, turned them face down, placed them, and spoke,
“First, I will look at your fortune for wealth. Please flip over one card.”
“Very well.”
“All the gold and treasures of the land will be contained within. You once obtained immeasurable wealth and honor—huh?”
At that moment, the diviner’s subdued voice flipped over as if suddenly waking from a deep sleep.
The diviner’s eyes widened as she confirmed the image on the card in Lennok’s hand.
A bizarre drawing of a beggar riding atop the gold and treasures depicted in the card.
“A-a beggar? Ha, not a single penny? This kind of card usually appears for homeless people or slaves, but…?”
“……”
“Pfft, ahahahah!!!”
A momentary silence fell, and Jutiya, standing nearby, couldn’t hold back her laughter.
“A-a beggar, she says. This man is a beggar…!!! Is this like poverty in abundance or something?”
“I, I, I apologize. No, this can’t be…”
“I think I roughly understand why that is, so let’s continue.”
Recalling his factory days, Lennok said with a wry smile.
“Shall I flip the next card?”
“Ah, yes. The next card is your career fortune. It will probably be a very venerable yet strict… card of a heavenly judge or arbitrator—”
In a way, the diviner’s words weren’t wrong.
As soon as the card was flipped, a blood-soaked judge appeared in the drawing.
A fiendish figure, holding scales and a sword in both hands, with countless corpses piled at its feet.
“……Yes. It has appeared.”
The diviner stammered with a pale expression.
“However, the fact that a m-murderer’s card came up mixed in means, well, uhm…”
“Wow, this is really something else, isn’t it?”
Jutiya, standing nearby, looked at the card with an expression of admiration and said.
The noblewoman was watching with far more excitement and engrossment than when she had her own reading.
“Even if it’s not exactly the same, it sees people quite accurately. You really were a great diviner, weren’t you?”
“Th-that, no, that is the reading I saw, but…”
Despite Jutiya’s praise, the diviner’s expression became half-tearful, unable to sit still.
Since only half of her reading was accurate, and the other half comprised universally ominous results, it was difficult for her to respond.
“I’m not asking you to make excuses, so don’t worry about it.”
Lennok turned his gaze away, leaving Jutiya behind him, still unable to stop laughing.
“Let’s continue. What’s next?”
“Ah, yes. Next is… your fortune for romance. Many who come to me for readings often skip this one…”
“No, absolutely don’t skip it! Let’s open it right now!!”
“What?”
Jutiya, her eyes sparkling, leaned forward as if she were about to sit in Lennok’s chair herself.
At Jutiya’s insistent urging, more enthusiastic than Lennok himself, the diviner stammered and turned over the card.
All three of them, seeing the image drawn on the card, were rendered speechless.
“……What is this?”
Before a wide goalpost reminiscent of a soccer field.
A fluffy fox with pure white fur proudly guarded the goal, like a goalkeeper.
“……”
“What on earth is this—”
“No, let’s just move on.”
It was a strange feeling, as if they had seen something they shouldn’t have, though they didn’t quite understand its meaning.
As the diviner and Jutiya tilted their heads, Lennok quietly covered the card.
In the confused dark room, Lennok calmly changed the subject.
“What’s next? Fortune for family?”
“……Yes. From what I saw in the crystal ball, you probably don’t have any family…”
This time, the astrologer quickly changed her words after seeing the flipped card.
“You do have family. Two very close individuals, in fact. They seem almost indistinguishable from yourself…”
“……”
“A cross and a bullet… that’s unusual. Such powerful symbols almost never appear in a family fortune reading. This is like—”
—it’s closer to symbols representing gods, not humans.
The diviner, who was about to say that unintentionally, quickly pressed her lips together.
Because even the diviner could now vaguely perceive how unique a being the customer before her was.
Based on her experience giving readings to Transcendent and Ascendant beings, one should never speak carelessly in such situations.
“……Let’s look at the fifth reading. This is for your fortune in aptitude, meaning related to talent—”
“Ah, that won’t do.”
Thud.
Lennok said, stopping the diviner by covering the card she pointed to with one hand.
“From here, it gets dangerous. The divination itself could be broken.”
“……What?”
“Let’s stop here.”
Lennok spoke as if reading the pale diviner’s thoughts.
“As I sensed last time, you truly are a remarkably skilled diviner. Today’s reading isn’t bad.”
“That’s…”
“You may not realize it yourself, but precisely because of that, your readings have a strange way of piercing to the essence.”
Lennok, leaning back in his chair and deep in thought, said,
“So, let me ask one last thing before we conclude.”
“……Please speak.”
“I am facing an important task and wish to divine its success or failure. I want to know if what I intend to do will succeed or not.”
“……”
“Even a simple clue or hint would be fine. Can you give me some kind of divination?”
The diviner, staring fixedly at Lennok, silently placed her hand on the crystal ball.
It was as if she was listening to Lennok’s words through the crystal ball, then reflecting the stars to glimpse fate.
She asked,
“You do not wish for your endeavor to succeed, do you?”
“……That’s right.”
“Do you wish for your endeavor to fail?”
“That depends on your perspective.”
The diviner, her eyes closed, nodded.
“There is a major Branching Point……”
“What does that mean?”
“You cannot prepare for it, but if you know, you will recognize it at that moment…”
The diviner’s voice was now deeply submerged, as if intoxicated by a dream.
An endlessly vague and ambiguous tone, as if faintly divining a distant fate through the crystal ball.
But perhaps because of that, at this moment, it might be touching upon the essence more than any other method or means.
“If you succeed, you will lose yourself. If you fail, you will abandon yourself…”
“……”
“When you reach the end of the ritual, you will ultimately choose one side…”
The diviner’s final words, after a long silence, were something even Lennok would have found hard to predict.
“……You will kill a god to achieve your desired outcome.”