#106
“I…”
I hesitated and stopped mid-question. Looking to the side, Taro was staring at me intently with a curious expression about what I was going to say.
Should I say something like this in front of him…
Somehow it seemed like Bisang wasn’t an ordinary NPC, so it would be okay to say strange things, but it was awkward with Taro. He was the type who would openly ask if he thought something was strange, making it difficult to answer, and above all, anything said in front of him would flow to Carlisle.
As I hesitated, Bisang suddenly spoke up.
“You go out. Do what you want.”
He was talking to Taro. I sighed. Did he think Taro would listen just because he said so? Even though he looked like this, he was a kid who faithfully carried out his assigned duties. He wouldn’t listen unless it was Carlisle’s order…
“Oh, then can I go check out Seiz’s shop?”
But Taro jumped up as if he’d been waiting for this. I stared at him in disbelief.
Would that work? What was he going to tell Carlisle later?
But Taro, filled with anticipation as he looked down at me, was asking for permission with his whole body. His body already facing outside the tent was ready to run out the moment I said a word. What had happened to the curiosity he’d shown about the card reading just moments ago?
“Su…re.”
I nodded in bewilderment. The moment my answer fell, Taro really shot out like a bullet and ran excitedly toward Seiz’s workshop. I was staring at his disappearing figure with my mouth agape when Bisang spoke.
“There, now it’s fine. You have to be honest when getting a reading.”
My bewildered gaze turned back to Bisang.
What is this guy exactly?
My permission was just an excuse—it was definitely Bisang’s power that really made Taro leave. How could he handle a kid who strictly followed only Carlisle’s orders like a well-trained dog?
“What are you most curious about?”
Ignoring my bewildered expression, Bisang asked again.
“……”
Right, well. What could you expect from a virtual world? I’d suspected from the beginning that this guy was an NPC deeply connected to the system.
I straightened my posture and thought for a moment. What I wanted to ask was whether I could return home. Naturally, I meant my real home in the real world. But if I just said “home” here, they’d normally think I meant the flooded farm.
While I thought fortune-telling was just idle entertainment, and even if he had special abilities, what would Bisang, just an NPC in a game world, know… I carefully chose my question.
“Will I be able to safely return to the home of the world I originally belong to?”
I emphasized the important words especially when asking.
“Hmm…”
Bisang stared at me from behind his mask. I thought he might comment that it was a strange question, but Bisang just stared. Even though it was a mask where I couldn’t even see his pupils, so I wasn’t even sure if he was really looking at me, I strangely felt like I could tell his expression.
“Think about your question and draw one card.”
Bisang spread the cards smoothly across the table. It was the back side with geometric patterns. Feeling an odd tension, I drew a card. What appeared was a picture of a house by the water.
“Where do you want to go? You have two houses.”
Two places?
Since there was only one house visible in the picture, I asked in puzzlement, and Bisang pointed at the water surface with his fingertip. Come to think of it, the house’s reflection was floating quite clearly in the water. But a reflection was just a reflection. Did that count as a house too?
“Uh… to the real house? I said the home of the world I originally belong to.”
“Both are real houses though?”
“……”
What the hell. As expected, it was nonsense. I inwardly let out a hollow laugh and pointed to the house standing by the water. That would be the main body rather than the reflection. Bisang nodded, but the answer he eventually gave wasn’t satisfying.
“You can return and you can’t. It depends on your heart.”
“What kind of meaningless answer is that?”
When I criticized him in disbelief, Bisang shrugged as if it wasn’t his fault.
“That’s because you can’t make a decision.”
Can’t make a decision—what did that mean? My heart was firm. What would I do here besides returning?
“Draw two more.”
Since even my small expectations had disappeared, I drew two cards half-heartedly without much enthusiasm.
“Mm…”
The drawn pictures were quite complex. It was night, so everything around was dim, and a young man holding a wooden staff stood before several branching paths. He seemed to be hesitating about which way to go. He was also holding a lantern, but since his eyes were closed, it was unclear what use it would be.
The other card depicted a huge red moon. The background also showed the ruins of a broken tower, so this didn’t look particularly positive either.
“Look at this.”
Bisang pointed to the first card.
“Here too, he can’t decide which way to go.”
“Isn’t he hesitating because he can’t see?”
“He’s not unable to see—he’s not opening his eyes.”
“He must be visually impaired.”
“No. He’s not opening his eyes.”
I objected in a languid tone and Bisang stubbornly argued back. He tapped around the young man’s waist in the card as if frustrated.
“Look here. There’s a key here. It means there’s a solution. But he still won’t open his eyes.”
There was indeed a fairly large silver key hanging at his waist. When I stopped nitpicking, Bisang moved on to the next picture.
“The moon means confusion and uncertainty. When truth is hidden, misunderstandings arise. To prevent that, or even if it happens, you must trust yourself and deal with it wisely. Then you can do what you want.”
“……”
Confusion and uncertainty. That at least accurately described the situation I was in now.
But thinking again, didn’t everyone feel confused and uncertain during times like this?
Obvious nonsense…
But even though it was an expected answer, I couldn’t just laugh it off as I still couldn’t shake off some uncomfortable feeling, so I swallowed a sigh and nodded.
“Right. Got it. Thanks.”
Anyway, my card reading seemed to be over and I’d done enough. But Bisang grabbed my sleeve as I was about to get up again.
“I’ll also do a love reading for you.”
What love reading when I wasn’t even dating? Carlisle’s face briefly flashed by, but that guy wasn’t my boyfriend. I tried to shake off Bisang’s hand gripping my clothes.
“Don’t need it. I’ve done enough shilling too.”
“You didn’t shill. There are no customers.”
Come to think of it, that was true. Had a couple people peeked around and just disappeared? The area around the tent was still empty.
“Your interpretation is too clichéd. Anyone can say it depends on you, depends on your heart. You need to lay out more cards and do exciting storytelling for people to be interested.”
I reluctantly sat back down while grumbling advice. It was presumptuous talk when I didn’t even know much about fortune-telling, but Bisang nodded seriously.
“I’ll do it properly. People like love readings.”
Would they really, in times when survival was urgent? I had cynical thoughts but didn’t voice them.
“Exciting storytelling.”
Bisang said in a determined tone, gathered up the cards and put them away, then took out new cards and spread them smoothly on the table. This time it was a back side with red flower patterns. It seemed to be cards exclusively for love readings or secret cards he’d been hiding.
“Think of your partner and draw one.”
Partner. Anyway, the only one I could call a partner right now was Carlisle. Honestly, I did want to know what he was thinking, but since my expectations for ‘fortune-teller Bisang’ had completely disappeared from the previous card reading, I casually drew one from the middle and held it out.
But the moment Bisang flipped the card, I thought my eyes would pop out.
Ugh. What is this?
Two naked men were entangled on a grassy field. A man with a large build and solid muscles was embracing the thighs of a smaller, thinner man and penetrating him.
The man lying down being penetrated had his head thrown back as far as possible with his mouth half open, showing a face lost in ecstasy. His erect nipples were colored crimson, the elasticity and sheen of his buttocks were vivid, and most of all, the body fluids spurting from his erect genitals falling onto his stomach, chest, and even face were explicit.
The penetrating side was the same. The description of deeply furrowed brows and the taut muscles of stomach and thighs, the tendons bulging in hands and forearms was meticulously detailed. Most of all, the depiction of the penetration site was excessively detailed and explicit, and even high quality.
Meanwhile, the penetrating side was wearing something like a knight’s helmet, the receiving side had ribbons with bells tied around his ankles, and both had their eyes covered with white cloth. I didn’t know what this meant—it wasn’t even kinky play. Someone was secretly watching the scene from behind a tree, resembling the angel Eros in appearance but with horns and a tail like a demon.
I was shocked and covered the card with my hand, looking around first. Fortunately, there were still no people nearby. I leaned forward and whispered urgently to Bisang.
“Hey, is it okay to openly use cards like this? Kids might come.”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. If kids come, I hide this and use this.”
Bisang calmly showed a cute card deck with drawings of teddy bears, rabbits, cats, and so on.
“Then I’ll also use those rabbit cards instead of this…”
“Can’t do adult readings with these. Adults get adult versions. Children get children’s versions. Adults can’t covet kids’ stuff.”
Did that make sense?
Anyway, Bisang made the cute card deck he’d shown disappear somewhere and tapped the table as if telling me to focus again.
“Think about the future of you two and draw two more.”
“No, this kind of thing…”
“Hurry.”
Reluctantly, I drew two more. I was already nervous not knowing what pictures would come up. I looked around once more and checked the cards Bisang flipped.
“Mm…”
I clicked my tongue. As expected, it was another feast of dazzling flesh tones. This entire card deck seemed to be made up of such pictures. No, this wasn’t even an erotic art collection—where did such cards even exist?
One showed a scene against the backdrop of a collapsed castle tower, where a man with both arms tied to the branches of an old tree stretching out was being violated front and back by two men. The man hanging from the tree also had his eyes covered with white cloth. A medieval-style white shirt was half pulled off and fluttering, and his pants had disappeared somewhere.
The other two men had only pulled their pants down a little—one was sitting on a broken statue receiving oral, and the other was attached to his buttocks. The two men who looked different at first glance actually had similar faces when you looked closely.
Are they twins?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
