The Eve (1)
The gate raid would begin at exactly 7 a.m. on August 29th, 2025.
It would be the 26th day since the S-Class gate over Taesan had first appeared — three days before it finally ruptured and broke open.
The day the gate had been awarded to them: the 17th. The first meeting with Seolwon: the 19th. The day he'd exchanged views with the Director of the Technology Bureau: the 20th. His visit to the Association: the 22nd. His trip to Seolwon: the 25th.
And today was the 28th. Thursday. 8 p.m.
Less than twelve hours remained until the raid.
So, at this crucial juncture — what were the two of them doing?
"Whew…."
"…Boss."
"I know I do this every time, but my hands still shake a little."
"You'll be fine."
Pat—
What Lee Jun held in his hand was… a deck of tarot cards.
The two of them were, for fun, drawing an omen for tomorrow's raid.
Yes. For fun.
"The Fool."
"Hmm. Looks like tomorrow's raid will go fairly smoothly."
The card Lee Jun had drawn was the Fool.
Arcana number zero. The Fool.
"Forgive me for saying this, but… the Fool reversed isn't a particularly good sign, is it?"
Seo Yoon wasn't an expert, but she knew her way around tarot cards well enough.
The meaning of the Fool reversed was… recklessness, and foolishness.
Granted, the Fool upright wasn't much better, but the reversal made it worse. That was how she understood it.
"Well, this could be… an ill omen, then…."
But Lee Jun didn't seem particularly rattled.
After all, this was just for fun.
Yes. Strictly for fun.
"Tarot means whatever each person interprets it to mean. The universal meanings of the Fool reversed do include things like wandering, hesitation, frustration, isolation — but the reading I do is a little different from that."
Lee Jun always drew tarot before a gate raid.
It hadn't been his habit from the start. It was an infection he'd caught from a certain card fiend.
"Besides, the Fool is the card that symbolizes me. If it comes up… you could say this raid has pretty good luck behind it."
The rule of his card reading was very simple.
You win if you draw the card that represents yourself.
Of course, pulling one predetermined card out of a deck of twenty-two meant… you'd have to call that excellent luck by any measure.
"I was always on the unlucky side of things. The omens look good this time."
"Do you think so? Then that's a relief."
Seo Yoon said this while staring intently at the scattered cards.
Apparently her interest had been piqued.
"Would you like to draw one too, Seo Yoon?"
"I beg your pardon? Me as well?"
"Sure. You've signed on to the same boat as me now — no harm in doing it together."
With that, Lee Jun gathered the cards up and began to shuffle.
With a hunter's dynamic vision, memorizing the order from watching a shuffle wouldn't be impossible — but Lee Jun's hands moved faster than her eyes could follow.
Seo Yoon found herself almost hypnotized by the cards flashing through his fingers.
Shhhrrrip—
"There. Go ahead and pick one."
Before she knew it, the cards were spread in a fan across the floor.
All she had to do was choose one.
"Hmm…."
She deliberated with the gravity of someone divining her own destiny.
At last, she chose a card.
"I'll take this one."
The card she had selected after such long deliberation was…
"……?"
"Huh?"
Seven of Pentacles.
A card of the Minor Arcana.
"…That's strange. I took the Minors out."
He turned to examine the stack of cards set off to the side.
Fifty-five cards in total.
Apparently one had slipped into the mix.
And of all cards, that stray had to be the Seven of Pentacles…
"…Pentacles means coins. Together with Wands, Swords, and Cups, they make up the suits of the Minor Arcana, numbered one through ten. Add the Page, Knight, Queen, and King, and each suit runs fourteen cards."
Lee Jun didn't put blind faith in the meanings held within tarot cards.
He'd only started doing it for fun in the first place, and the person who'd taught him had told him never to trust the cards too much.
But in a case like this… he suspected this card was actually fairly significant.
A card that simply falls out mid-shuffle is enough to split fate in two — a card chosen this way had to be a perfectly legitimate method.
"Well, since it turned up, let's call it your card, Seo Yoon. Hmm… the Seven of Pentacles is advice concerning worry. It means you have plenty of options but can't see one clear choice — and that if your deliberation drags on too long, you may miss your moment and hit a plateau."
"A… worry, you say."
"Yes. Do you have anything weighing on you these days?"
"Not particularly… but I will give it some thought."
Her attitude was more serious than he'd expected.
Was there something on her mind?
"You don't have to take it so seriously, Seo Yoon. Tarot readings are just for fun."
"Is that so?"
"Of course. I only do it out of habit. I don't put much stock in it."
Tarot, after all, doesn't prophesy the querent's future.
Its purpose is to project the querent onto the cards.
That's also why he gave such deliberately ambiguous interpretations of readings like this.
A single tarot card inherently contains both positive and negative aspects, and can be freely interpreted to fit the situation of the querent — the Seeker.
When he'd explained all of this, Seo Yoon nodded as though she understood.
"So if you simply offer the definitions, the querent works out the interpretation that fits their own circumstances. I see."
"Something like that. People always see what they want to see first, after all."
With that, Lee Jun began gathering the spread cards.
Then he drew five at random from the twenty-two Major Arcana and laid them out in the shape of a horseshoe.
"Now, this is a five-card spread. It's a bit different from the three-card or single-card draws."
He began flipping the cards over, left to right.
"The first is the querent's present. The Fool again, I see. But this time it's upright. The Fool upright means adventure, and a new beginning."
Lee Jun had set down the title of Vice-Chairman and embraced a new beginning called management.
It would be fair to say the first card matched that well enough.
"The second card. This one is said to point the way forward."
The second card Lee Jun drew was… the Hanged Man.
An Arcana signifying sacrifice, devotion, and enlightenment.
"Devotion on the path ahead. This could relate to how I abandoned my own path as a hunter and founded a management agency to train successors. Interpreting it in my own way, it probably means something like: devote yourself to raising the next generation."
Lee Jun twisted the card's meaning and bent it to his own ends, interpreting it as he pleased.
That's what tarot was for, after all.
He wanted to say as much to Seo Yoon, too.
"The third represents obstacles. This one is Justice reversed. Upright, Justice means balance and fairness; reversed, imbalance and injustice. But beyond that it can also carry prejudice, confusion, delays, and the like."
Quite an unfavorable result.
But in such moments, it's all in how you fit the pieces together.
Justice reversed can mean difficulty in resolving problems, inner turmoil, or judgments that are unfair and clouded by bias.
"In this case, it's probably… prejudice or distrust toward management itself. People never trust anything new."
That, too, was a deflected meaning.
He'd shifted the negative interpretation from the inside to the outside.
"And the fourth. The Chariot."
The fourth card can be read as the means of pushing through the matter — or the wisdom needed to resolve the situation.
The Chariot is a card that symbolizes advance and victory.
It would have been nice if it had appeared last, but even now it wasn't bad.
"Then, the last one. The outcome of this situation."
Four cards had been turned face-up; one remained face-down.
Seo Yoon, meanwhile, was gazing at the cards with extraordinary concentration by now.
She'd even forgotten that her glasses were sliding down her nose.
She revealed little emotion, but by now he could read her to some degree.
She looked like someone who wouldn't believe in superstition — and yet she seemed quite intrigued by this sort of thing.
Lee Jun gave a small smile at the sight of her.
"Go ahead — you turn this one over for me."
"Are… are you certain, sir?"
Lee Jun answered only with a nod.
"…Yes. Then I will."
She gripped the card with a nervousness that seemed out of all proportion.
Gulp—
In the stillness of the room, the sound of her swallow rang out loud and clear.
"Turning it over… now."
"…You really don't need to be so tense about it."
Lee Jun chuckled and watched her fingertips.
And then—
The card turned over.
With the reading concluded—
Lee Jun looked at Seo Yoon's noticeably brightened expression and smiled warmly to himself.
Yes. This was why people read tarot.
Even if it had no real power, a good omen simply put you in a better mood.
Watching her, he brought the reading to a close.
"Ah — do you happen to have a hundred-won coin?"
"A coin…? Here, I have a five-hundred-won one."
Seo Yoon dug through her pocket and produced the coin.
Who carried loose change anymore these days? He'd only asked for form's sake — if she had none, he could've simply taken the fee by bank transfer.
He hadn't actually expected her to produce a real coin.
"That'll do for the fortune-teller's fee. There's a saying that free readings attract bad luck, you see."
Lee Jun slipped the coin she'd handed him into his Pocket.
Watching him, Seo Yoon spoke up carefully.
"You put a lot of faith in superstition, sir."
"When genuine gods walk the earth, superstition is worth believing in, wouldn't you say?"
The world had long since been turned on its head.
A world where things once dismissed as fake had become real.
So keeping up small customs like this could hardly hurt.
"Also — you were watching awfully intently just now, weren't you?"
"……."
The corners of her mouth twitched slightly, and her pupils dilated by roughly five percent.
Subtle, but… that was embarrassment.
"Not that there's anything to be embarrassed about."
"…I'll be going in now. Please rest well too, sir — for tomorrow's raid."
Tap— tap— tap—
She vanished in a flurry of frantic slippers.
Click—
Before long came the sound of a door closing on the second floor.
And a complete silence settled over the living room.
"……."
Lee Jun studied the cards still spread across the desk.
Among them — the very first card he'd drawn.
The Fool, reversed.
Its detailed meaning was…
A state of hesitating before a new beginning, unable to move toward one's goal.
Or doubt in one's own abilities.
A fear… of change.
"……."
Lee Jun hadn't expected the reversal either.
Lending real weight to a reading like this was, in the end, a path that led straight to self-fulfilling prophecy…
"But it's never been wrong. Not once."
He'd told Seo Yoon it was all in the fitting — but the one-card spread had been right every single time, all along.
For three straight years.
Not once had it ever failed.
Then am I… hesitating right now?
Lee Jun's gaze drifted, without his meaning it to, toward the robot sitting beside the TV.
The Director of the Technology Bureau.
That guy had loved tarot too.
One more draw… should I?
"……."
But he stopped himself almost immediately.
It was all pointless now.
This ritual was nothing more than a routine — a simple warding off of bad luck.
For Lee Jun… tarot had lost its meaning.
"Whew…."
He steadied his breath and began to gather up the cards.
Then he took out an old memento of the comrades he still carried with him to this day.
An iron pendant engraved with the Fool.
Chosen for him by someone — the symbol of who Lee Jun was.
"…I really don't want to go into another gate, though."
He slipped the pendant back into his Pocket and shoved the tarot cards into a corner of a drawer.
"……."
Tomorrow.
It'll be all right.