Distinguishing Fortune-Telling from Fraud
The mace came down with a sickening crunch!
"What a pitiful soul you are."
"......"
The Saint shook the dust from his hands after driving his weapon into the center of the table draped in a purple cloth. The table, now split halfway through, wobbled but somehow stayed upright.
"Repent."
"...You have a rather twisted sense of humor, Saint."
No. This wasn't humor, or a threat, or anything so simple. I could feel in my bones that the man before me could actually kill me. The terror that had shot through me the instant the mace struck the table still lingered, ice-cold.
...Surely the reason no fortune tellers ever appeared in the game wasn't because this fanatic had smashed all their skulls in, right?
I straightened my posture without thinking and studied the Saint.
"Was it really necessary to demonstrate your power like that?"
"It was not a demonstration. I was simply following the Lord's will."
"......"
What kind of bullshit is this?
Still, it wasn't as if I had no idea what he was getting at.
"Is it because I hate fortune-telling...?"
"Correct. A fortune teller who despises fortune-telling. That is divine punishment, not the mark of a wicked heretic."
The Saint's eyes were gentle, as though he had never done anything wrong in his life. If anything, I caught a flicker of pity in them when he looked at me.
In the end, all my paranoia, all the calculated power plays, all the violence; none of it compared. Only a true religious fanatic could embody real madness.
"Do you know? Every soul in this world sins. Even I cannot escape it."
Yeah, that much I could believe.
"But humans cannot judge every sin. We live beneath the justice of law and morality. The only thing we may judge is when that law or morality is broken."
"...So you're saying there's something more?"
"Of course. What about the sins of a previous life?"
Oh, this fanatic bastard.
"Who can possibly know the sins of a previous life? What law could define them? What morality could judge them? It is impossible. Utterly impossible for humans."
"............"
"But the great Lord who dwells in the heavens above is different."
The Saint continued to radiate a pure, brilliant light from his entire body. His expression said his thoughts were flawless, that they were the only truth worth knowing. He had been a Saint from the moment he was born.
"You are being punished. You committed a sin in your previous life, and so you were born a Fortune Teller yet walk a path that forces you to despise fortune-telling. It is a cruel punishment indeed."
"...You're saying this is the punishment?"
"It is. You are already receiving divine punishment. Therefore a mere human like myself cannot possibly judge you."
Honestly, I understood what the fanatic was saying, but it still gave me a headache. So my current situation was God's punishment, and since I was already serving my sentence, the Saint himself wouldn't interfere. Was that the idea?
I narrowed my eyes.
"I don't believe in God."
"Nevertheless, God exists."
"I don't believe in fate, either."
"Nevertheless, fate exists."
"My life is not some divine punishment."
"It is a punishment."
The conversation was going nowhere. The Saint's mind was already filled with his own unshakable beliefs, sense of justice, and worldview. No ordinary attempt would even scratch that ironclad mentality.
No matter how much I spoke of atheism or disbelief, the Saint didn't waver in the slightest. For him, religion had long since stopped being part of his life. It was his life.
"......"
No matter what I thought, talking to a fanatic who had already decided exactly what I was turned out to be far more unpleasant than I'd expected. Maybe it was because it reminded me of that cultist bastard who had arbitrarily declared my entire life a punishment waiting to happen. The words were too similar to what that son of a bitch had said to my parents.
...Fuck.
But at the same time, this was an opportunity. Now that I knew this fanatic could actually kill me, my top priority was surviving his grasp. And if the conversation ended here, the Saint probably wouldn't touch me. After all, he believed I was already receiving divine punishment.
With that in mind, I spoke again.
"However, Saint, something feels a little strange."
"What do you mean?"
Let's prod him. Just a little. Right up to the dangerous line.
You said my life is divine punishment. But is your own life really so different?
"I don't only read tarot. I can also read four pillars of destiny, tojeong bigyeol, the eight trigrams, and physiognomy."
"You learned all of it while despising every part. What a truly profound punishment."
"I examined your physiognomy, Saint."
"Oh? And what did you see? An ordinary fortune teller I would ignore, but the words of a tormented sinner may be worth hearing with at least one ear."
"You do not believe in fate."
"......"
The Saint looked down at me with the same eyes as before. Was it my imagination, or did his posture suggest he was reaching the end of his patience?
"I can see the place where you were born, Saint. I see a baby born in the filthiest corner behind a glittering city."
"............"
Raphael Martina, the Saint. You spoke as if you understood everything about me, but I know you too. How much can you tolerate this 'fortune-telling' that digs up the past you desperately want to forget?
"The baby was born in filth, yet it shines with light. I can see it. I see people adorned in splendor approaching to take you away. I see the woman who gave birth to you screaming until she faints."
".............."
"The baby grows up revered as the one and only Saint in the world. Five years after the baby's birth, I see a child being pushed by the hands of adults and sent on a pilgrimage."
"........"
"The child is crying. Torn from a life of worship and suddenly thrown to the ground, the child weeps bitterly. His feet blister, his body becomes covered in wounds, his throat grows hoarse, yet still the child cries."
"..............."
"He cries because he knows people will come running when he does. But this time, no one comes. The child spends the entire day like that on the road."
"...Stop."
"Only after five days pass is the child forcibly placed back on the pilgrimage path. And in the first city the child reaches───"
BANG!
"──Stop it."
This time the table completely shattered. The Saint gripped his mace, looking ready to smash my skull at any second. Yet unlike before, I no longer found him frightening.
"Why are you telling me to stop? I was merely telling your fortune."
"Do not commit fraud. I know about physiognomy. I also know it is impossible to extract such detailed information from it."
"What does physiognomy have to do with anything?"
"...Pardon?"
"Regardless of how I knew it, what matters in the end is whether what I said was true or false, isn't it?"
The Saint was by no means a flawless being. He was simply a human who had been born with the class of Saint. Revealing that truth was both his character event and the only hidden event in Romance Academy.
"Saint, do you believe in fate?"
"......"
"You answered my earlier words by saying, 'Nevertheless, fate exists.'"
"...I did say that."
"While believing in the existence of fate, aren't you trying to go against that very fate, Saint?"
"............Ha, haha."
The Saint laughed. The moment I heard it, I knew instinctively: that was not the laugh of a Saint. It was simply the laugh of a human named Raphael Martina.
"What a cutting remark. Truly."
"You flatter me."
"It has been a long time since I last spoke of the old days......"
Raphael Martina sat down in the chair across from me. With the shattered table between us, the fortune teller and the Saint faced each other.
Honestly, I hadn't expected him to react this way... and I felt a little embarrassed for having spoken so emotionally.
"I apologize for earlier. The memories of that city are extremely unpleasant and repulsive to me."
"It's fine."
"My words must have been unpleasant for you."
"......"
"I am not a fool, either. How could it not be unpleasant when I declared one man's entire life to be divine punishment?"
Raphael spun his mace once and gave a small chuckle. It was surprisingly frivolous compared to his earlier demeanor. Yet he continued without concern.
"Nevertheless, I still believe you are receiving divine punishment."
"...Why?"
"Because I have experienced it myself."
It was closer to a confession than a story. The confession of sins from the human called Raphael Martina.
"Do you know? No fewer than five hundred and thirty-eight people lost their lives to this single lump of steel."
"They were heretics, frauds, criminals, and trash... but they were human, too."
"As I said earlier, every person lives committing sins. I am no exception."
"If so."
Raphael clasped both hands and lowered his head. It looked like a solemn prayer.
"Who will judge me, who has committed the sin of murder?"
"...You're saying it won't be a human?"
"Haha. You already know the answer, don't you? It has been a while since I last saw a fellow sinner bearing the same punishment... so I spoke too much."
The solemn air from moments ago vanished. Smiling once more, Raphael rose from his seat. He looked down at me with the same eyes he had shown at the beginning.
"Still, this has made one thing clear to me."
"...Clear?"
"Do not approach Aileen Teddybear."
The Saint murmured quietly. It was as if everything we had discussed until now had been erased, returning us to his original conclusion. But he wasn't finished.
"This is more for your sake than for that girl."
"For me?"
"God is perfect, but the humans who serve Him are not. Are they not the ones who snatch babies from their parents' arms?"
The Saint toyed with the cross hanging from his neck, then gripped the mace tightly once more.
Creak.
This time he didn't bring it down. He simply crushed the steel mace little by little with raw grip strength.
"I do not wish to show the shame of the Church to you... someone who may be even closer to God than those who receive divine punishment."
"The shame of the Church."
"It is also the fate I am trying to defy."
I pulled the Saint's character event from my memories. The event that took place inside the Vatican had been quite special, as expected of a hidden event. It was a side route that let you see the ending immediately.
"I will speak with Instructor Charles Teddybear, so please return for today."
The Saint pulled back the blackout curtain. It was as if he had known the way out from the start.
"Ah, one last thing."
"...What is it?"
"Please... continue to cherish that heart which despises fortune-telling."
"If you do not."
"I will have no choice but to come and kill you myself. Fellow sinner."
The curtain fluttered.
"......"
Leaving only words that would linger uncomfortably, the Saint disappeared beyond the curtain. He was probably already back at Aileen Teddybear's side, protecting her.
The shame of the Church.
The 'illness' that plagued Aileen Teddybear was chosen randomly each playthrough. Sometimes it was nothing more than a common cold. Sometimes it was a rare disease that required bombarding her with every rare item imaginable. And sometimes it was an incurable illness with no possible cure.
Among those possibilities, there was one unique case that involved the Saint character.
In that route, Aileen wasn't sick at all.
It was her class.
When the Saint became involved, what tormented Aileen was her class itself.
"I had a bad feeling the moment I saw the Saint in Aileen's room..."
Unlike a simple illness, when the Saint was involved you had to complete a rather long event chain before Aileen could be saved. Since it was an early-game event, cooperating with the Saint wasn't particularly difficult.
But my own fate had other plans.
Because my class was Fortune Teller, everything had gone sideways. If my class hadn't been Fortune Teller, the Saint wouldn't have swung his mace at our first meeting. He would have asked for help after a short conversation, and simply following his instructions would have cleared the event.
What should I do now?
"...First things first."
I needed an ally. Someone who would help me but would never take the Saint's side. Someone with outstanding ability, preferably skilled in combat. And someone who wouldn't pry into the details of my relationship with the Saint.
There was only one person who met every condition.
*
"...Yes?"
"Help me out, Lane."
".........Hic!"
Lane began hiccupping the moment I suddenly entered the infirmary and commanded him with a grave expression and serious tone.