Chapter 271
Chapter 271
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 271
Chapter Title: Autumn's Entrance #7
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Juno's priest, Mandell, said to me as I tried to draw a card to divine my fortune.
"Hold on, Samaritan. You need to draw two cards."
I had a strange feeling about that.
The attributes of the five elements weren't supposed to be something a single person could have more than one of, right?
"Two cards? Is something wrong?"
"It's not wrong. There are occasionally people like that. Your energy is probably so heterogeneous that you need to draw two."
Was it because I was an Earthling that it was messing with my mana or karma? I touched the cards spread out face-down here and there.
Zing, zing—.
A subtle sensation, like electricity flowing, came from the back of what looked like an ordinary metal card. It felt like it was rejecting me.
"The feeling is a bit weird."
"That means the card doesn't match you. These forty cards lined up here were each made by infusing them with mana from their corresponding material, so just pick the one that feels most drawn to you when you touch the back."
A drawn feeling.
I ran my fingers over the forty cards. When I flipped over one that caught my eye at random, two images caught my attention.
One was a card with a shining gold coin.
The other was a card depicting a grave with earth piled up high.
Juno's priest, Mandell, said,
"Metal and earth. Those can be seen as your attributes. Wow, how did it turn out like this—."
But Mandell's expression didn't look good at all. She shuffled the cards and suggested I draw again.
"Draw again."
Even when I drew two more cards, it was still metal and earth. Juno's priest Mandell neatly put the cards back into the deck and spoke. The generous, relaxed expression she had worn now had slight wrinkles.
"This is the first time I've seen such a terribly incompatible marriage divination. The compatibility between the young lady and the young man is downright disastrous."
"No way! Wood and wood and earth! I don't get metal, but wood and earth should be compatible, right?"
Luna asked back as if she couldn't understand. Wood and earth. It did seem like they could get along. But Juno's priest, Mandell, shook her head.
"Trees root into the earth and suck up its nutrients. If someone with the wood attribute is next to someone with the earth attribute, they'll naturally become dependent and cause bad effects."
"Ugh, ughhh—."
Luna seemed extremely flustered. Even as a resident of this world, she could easily grasp the rule that trees absorb nutrients from the earth.
"Then, what about wood and metal?"
"Metal can become the axe that chops wood. If a man with the metal attribute lives with a woman of the wood attribute, the woman often meets an early end."
"So neither one matches with me…!"
"That's why I said it. The young lady and young man's compatibility is utterly the worst. It's not good. If you two stay together like this, you'll definitely meet a bad end. I'm certain."
"Bullshit, this is all bullshit. I don't believe in divinations like this! It's all superstition!"
Luna shouted as if she was really angry.
In this world, Luna—who firmly believed that writing a name in red letters would curse someone, and who divined the day's fortune with split stones—was dismissing a priest's marriage divination as superstition.
It was like denying Knox, the goddess of superstition, who could be called the foundation of Luna's being.
It was as absurd as a squirrel refusing nuts or paranoia saying it hated candy.
"I don't believe in divinations like this! It's a scam—!"
Of course, the fortune's content was that shocking.
I'd thought this Mandell priest was just a cozy event character who gave lovers pleasant readings and nice words, but who would've expected such sharp criticism?
"Hurry up and say it's a lie!"
"I'm sorry, but my divinations are among the most accurate even among Juno's priests. If things continue like this, your relationship is doomed to destruction. It's fate."
"No way. No way."
Luna started to sob again. We'd just been conversing well with Luna and creating a mood of reconciliation, only for this obstacle to block our path—who wouldn't want to cry?
Luna, who looked like she would burst into tears for a while, hardened her expression.
"There's no such thing as fate! The future is up to us!"
"Do you really think so?"
"Yeah! We overcome anything with effort!"
"Hmm—."
At Luna's resolute declaration, Juno's priest Mandell let out a slight groan.
She shuffled the cards thoroughly, then laid out the forty cards face-down neatly in front of Luna and me.
"It's not that there's absolutely no way. Originally, we're drawn to each other precisely because of the parts that don't match the most. To have such incompatible parts means your meeting might have been truly inevitable."
"There is a way?"
"It depends on your joint efforts. The two of you working together is what's important. Would you like to hold hands?"
At Juno's words—no, at Mandell's words—Luna and I glanced at each other's eyes. Suddenly holding hands? Was it okay to do something so embarrassing in front of others?
So both Luna and I hesitated awkwardly. Mandell added,
"The man should place his hand over the woman's hand and interlock fingers like this."
In the end, I placed my left hand over the back of Luna's right hand. Interlocking fingers between her slender ones made it look sturdy, like wearing a massive gauntlet.
Luna's hand, touching after so long, was truly small.
It felt strange.
Luna also blushed and said nothing. Mandell nodded at us and spoke.
"Now, you'll search for the cards together. I don't know how many there will be. Just pick the ones you both like and flip them."
At those words, Luna and I slowly moved our hands. The feeling of moving as one was incredibly subtle. On one hand, it felt quite sensual, so I broke quite a sweat calming myself down.
What the hell were we doing?
It felt exactly like being at a couple's fortune event in some event cafe. No, it was the exact same situation.
Who would've thought I'd experience something like this in my life.
As my head filled with such thoughts, Luna moved her finger to point at a card. A zing—like electricity—transferred to my hand.
"That one doesn't seem right."
"Then this one?"
"That feels a bit off too."
"Honestly, me too. It's weird."
Luna and I kept fiddling with the backs of the cards, hands clasped together.
Forgetting what we were even doing and just focusing on doing something together made it pretty fun.
Right then, Luna's finger brushed the back of something. Strangely, no tingling feeling came; instead, a smooth sensation spread from my arm to my chest.
"That one feels good?"
"I think so too!"
"Then, give that card to me."
Mandell snatched the card under our hands. Seeing it, she let out a strange "Euhung—" laugh.
"Is that it?"
At my question, Luna's hand moved again.
And what we found was another card. Two out of the forty in total. The remaining thirty-eight all tingled with that weird feeling.
Mandell, taking the cards from Luna and me, muttered to herself, "As expected—." What the hell was the point of all that?
As I felt a slight doubt, Mandell glanced at the cards in her hand and explained casually, like flowing river water.
"You both have overwhelmingly strong influence over your own attributes. So we need to neutralize them a bit."
Srrk—.
On one of the cards Mandell flipped was a depiction of flowing river water.
"Water. Water is an essential element for growing trees. And droplets forming on tempered metal is easy too."
After suddenly explaining water, Mandell flipped another card. On it was a burning flame.
"Fire. Trees can make fire burn even more fiercely, and fire leaves behind ash and earth, cycling everything."
"What are you trying to say?"
I took the water and fire cards from Mandell. Wondering, I asked, and she explained in a calm voice.
"Use artifacts, accessories, or lucky charms related to water or fire. That should help contain the energies you possess."
From what I understood, it was like inserting other things between our clashing attributes to act as a cushion. That seemed right.
"Hassan, you can use aura, right? Seeing how sensitively you detected the energy in the cards, it seems so."
"Ah, yes. More or less. I'm not fully accustomed yet…."
"The more proficient you become with aura, the stronger your attribute manifestation will be. Then, accessories or charms might not be enough to suppress the energy. After all, the best thing is people."
"Pardon?"
"For people like you with strong attributes, having someone complementary by your side is best. Fire and water. Of course, I've never seen karma as bizarre as yours, so I don't know where such people are."
What?
As I furrowed my brow slightly, trying to understand and think it over, Luna beat me to it and asked.
"If you don't know where they are, how are we supposed to find them?"
Mandell laughed at that.
"As you two stay together, they'll naturally come along. The cosmic order governed by the lofty Hypnos is meant to complement each other."
*
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"Total con artist—."
As we exited the temple, Luna freely vented her true feelings about Juno's priest, Mandell.
"I don't believe in fortunes. This stuff is all superstition. Even Juno's temple is complete bullshit."
Luna doesn't usually badmouth gods. Even as a believer in Knox, the goddess of night and superstition, she had always shown proper respect to Hypnos's other deities.
The marriage divination result must have hit her hard, enough to deny even the foundations of her beliefs.
"I should've known from the start—a goddess of family who can't even manage her own household, just butting into others'!"
"Good heavens—."
I was truly shocked. Did Luna have this much resentment and combativeness toward the gods? And this was Juno's temple, no less. Badmouthing Juno in her own temple. Even to me, with no particular religion or faith, it seemed highly irreverent and dangerous.
"Good heavens, Luna, where did you get ideas like that?"
"I learned from Nemea! Nemea said Juno's a hypocrite who can't handle her own family but sticks her nose into others'. I didn't get it then, but now I see she's right. Nemea was spot on!"
"Nemea?"
I recalled the alchemist witch Nemea who ran a workshop in the west gate district.
I knew Luna was learning various things under Nemea, but I hadn't imagined she'd absorb such ideological indoctrination.
Come to think of it, Nemea held negative views on this world's religions and gods. A truly irreverent witch.
Wait a second—.
Suddenly, a thought flashed through my mind.
In the abyss where I'd gone to save Elfride's party, wasn't Augheias's signature on the summoning circle?
A dimensional gate judged to be made by Gnostics, with Augheias's signature. And Nemea, who seemed like Augheias's colleague or friend.
Gnostics who saw the material world itself as evil and its creator gods as devil-like, and Nemea badmouthing gods to Luna.
I didn't know if I was overthinking, but it seemed reasonable to see a connection.
However, discussing this with Luna right now would have issues. I should go see Antiope, who seems knowledgeable about the Gnostics, and ask around.
With that in mind, I asked Luna, who seemed thoroughly pissed.
"So, you're not going to look for people with water and fire attributes?"
"No, we should! You never know…. But where do we even find them?"
Luna sounded at a loss, but I at least knew who had the fire attribute.
Shit.
So where the hell was Paranoia?
Thinking it was time to head back with her, I looked around—and was truly shocked.
"Cultist! Bad guy! Why won't you fall! You should fall if I hit you! That's the rule!"
"You can't beat this hellish border guard Paranoia with such weak attacks—!"
I saw Paranoia bawling while knuckle-rapping some boys on the head.