WE ASKED A GOD ABOUT UNLUCKY YEARS
Today was a day off at Halkara’s factory. Halkara herself was at home, flipping through a book, when she suddenly heaved a sigh.
“I see. That explains it. It all makes so much sense now…”
I was in the kitchen washing dishes and could hear her muttering to herself. Her tone of voice didn’t give me the sense she was dealing with a particularly big problem, so I figured it was safe to pretend I hadn’t heard.
“Yep, yep. I’ve had the strangest feeling that everything’s been going wrong lately, and now I finally understand why. Mystery solved. Now I just have to deal with it, so this issue’s basically halfway resolved already.”
She’s saying all this loudly enough for me to hear on purpose, isn’t she? That’s definitely not a normal talking-to-yourself volume.
She hadn’t actually addressed me, though, so I kept focusing on my dishes and pretended not to notice.
A moment later, Halkara stepped into the kitchen.
“Um, Madam Teacher, didn’t you hear me? Aren’t you curious what I was talking about? You’re curious, right?”
“So you were trying to be heard.”
“Well, here’s your answer! Ta-daa!”
Halkara held out the book she’d been reading, which had the following words printed on it:
ELVEN AGES OF CALAMITY
BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER YOUR UNLUCKY YEARS
“The concept of unlucky years is a thing here?!” I exclaimed.
“Well, of course it is!” said Halkara. “Elves live for so long that we go through an awful lot of them, too. It looks like last year was an unlucky year for me, and that bad luck’s supposed to have carried over into this one, too!”
She made it sound like all of this was the most ordinary thing in the world.
In Japan, people traditionally believed that certain years in a person’s life were naturally unlucky. And as one might guess, I could see that the tables in Halkara’s book for elves listed ages in the triple digits, and even some in the thousands.
“Do you really think this is an unlucky year, though…? Your work’s been going great, hasn’t it? You even opened up a museum recently!” There’s no way she’d have decided to start up a project like that if her business had been going through a rough spell.
“Oh, my work’s going just fine, yes! But you know, misfortune doesn’t necessarily have to hit you in the workplace. In my case, I think I’ve been having a period of bad luck when it comes to my health.” As Halkara spoke, she strolled over to a shelf and pulled out a bottle of booze.
“I THOUGHT I’D BEEN DRINKING MYSELF SICK MORE OFTEN THAN USUAL LATELY, AND NOW I KNOW WHY! IT’S BECAUSE THIS IS AN UNLUCKY YEAR FOR ME!”
“That’s not the year’s fault! You just drink way too much!”
If you start blaming your bad habits on the year, it’s liable to curse you for real! Talk about shifting the blame!
“Oh, no, I’m not saying my being a bad drunk is all the year’s fault, Madam Teacher.”
“So you’ve got at least a little self-awareness, huh?” How about trying some self-improvement next?
“The thing is, up until recently, I only went on a drinking binge about two times a month. This year, though, I’ve been doing it up to four times a month on average! The only reasonable conclusion is that my bad luck’s been getting the better of me.”
“Or maybe you’re just getting worse at controlling yourself…?” Everything you’re saying to me right now sounds like a big, fat load of excuses.
“If losing control was a recent development for me, I might accept that explanation, but I’ve always been terrible about limiting my drinking! My bad habits haven’t changed a bit! I’ve never had self-control! As such, I have to assume my luck is the problem!” Halkara shouted, pumping her fist—still clasped around the neck of a bottle—into the air.
Don’t chew her out, don’t chew her out… “I think you might be able to fix this little problem of yours if you just tweak your drinking habits a little,” I suggested. “Maybe the gods are sending you a message about cutting back?”
Halkara nodded vigorously. “That’s right! I’m convinced this must be the work of some higher power—maybe even a god! Fortunately, I have a solution: I need to conduct a ceremony to ward off the bad luck plaguing me this year!”
“O-okaaay… I mean, I guess I can see how a message from the gods and a misfortune-warding ritual are kind of in the same universe…”
Halkara’s logic was starting to make a little sense to me—but only a little. At any rate, she was dead set on blaming her habit of getting blackout drunk on the year.
In my opinion, the sort of purification ritual she was talking about felt like it should be the last resort for this kind of situation—one that you turned to only after everything else had already failed. If someone dumped a bunch of trash into the local river, you wouldn’t start by praying to the gods for a miracle—you’d first wade in and try to clean it up yourself. It was just like how people who prayed to pass their entrance exams without bothering to study always wound up failing.
As the head of the household, I decided it was my responsibility to tell Halkara clearly that she needed to get her drinking under control.
“Look, Halkara—,” I began, only to be instantly cut off.
“Lady Azusa! I’ve realized something terrible as well,” Laika shouted as she dashed in from the dining room. She was holding a book, and after a quick glance at its cover, I had a bad feeling I knew where this was going.
“What’s wrong, Laika?” I asked.
“I’VE CONSULTED THE DRAGON CALENDAR, AND IT SEEMS THIS YEAR IS SUPPOSED TO BE TERRIBLY UNLUCKY FOR ME…”
“Dragons have unlucky years, too?!” I exclaimed.
“Ugh… And now that I know, I’m doomed to worry about it for the rest of the year… This has crushed my drive and ruined my focus. I see I still have much to learn…”
Laika looked incredibly troubled as she laid her book down on the table. She was the sort of person who readily believed in fortune-telling and the like, so it didn’t surprise me that this sort of thing bothered her.
What should I do about this…? It’d be easy to write it off as the two of them being overly suggestible, but if telling them that was all it took to make them stop worrying, this wouldn’t be a problem to begin with.
“I think you should just try not to think about it for now, Laika,” I said. “Find something else to focus on! Take your mind off it!”
“Wait a minute, Madam Teacher!” shouted Halkara. “That’s nothing like what you said to me! Where was that sympathy and compassion when I was the one complaining?!” She wasn’t wrong, to be fair.
“I gave you more specific advice because there’s a real way for you to work on your problem, that’s all. Your bad luck isn’t exactly an act of god.”
“I’m pretty sure it would take an act of god to cut down on my drinking, though!”
Okay. Now I’m getting irritated. “Look, Halkara, this isn’t even an unlucky year for you, is it? It’s the year after one—all you have to worry about is its lingering aftereffects! If the unlucky year itself is where your misfortune peaks, then everything should be well on its way to getting better. If anything, your luck’s improving. You just have to take it one day at a time, and it’ll all work out!”
“Oh! Good point,” said Halkara. That, at least, was logic she could accept without question. “I guess that means I can keep drinking myself silly without worrying.”
Is cutting down on alcohol consumption the one absolute deal-breaker for her…? In that case, what would even be the point of a ceremony?
Just then, Rosalie poked her head into the kitchen—by phasing through the sink.
“Sorry to pop up in such a weird spot,” she said. “Ghosts like chilly, damp places, that’s all.”
“Uh, right. Sure. Makes sense,” I said. “Anyway, what’s up?”
“THE TRUTH IS, THIS IS AN UNLUCKY YEAR FOR ME, TOO, ACCORDING TO THE GHOST CALENDAR!”
“Who decided on all these stupid unlucky years?!”
I didn’t understand how such things even applied to those who were already dead. But seeing as ghosts were real, I figured they had to have some conception of luck.
On the other hand, isn’t it contradictory for a lingering spirit to be lucky? If they were really lucky, wouldn’t they stop being a ghost and move on…?
That was when Flatorte came strolling in from the hallway, laughing her head off. I had a feeling she’d been following Laika.
“‘Unlucky years’?” she said. “Of all the stupid things to be worried about! No way are those a thing! You might look smart, Laika, but the truth is you’re a big dummy deep down!”
“Quiet, you…,” Laika snapped, her face bright red. “I can’t help but worry about it. I’m not irresponsible and carefree like you are!”
The fact that she was blushing proved that she also realized she was being silly. She probably knew it was all in her imagination, but still couldn’t help fixating on it. That was how things like fortune-telling went. (And yes, I know that unlucky years and fortune-telling are different things, but they fall into the same broad category in my mind, and I tend to lump them together.)
“Okay, then,” countered Flatorte. “If unlucky years are real, then there must be a bunch of statistics and stuff about how people get hurt way more often during them, right? Only there aren’t, because they’re not a thing!”
“…Ugh. That’s…true, I suppose…,” mumbled Laika. She couldn’t think of anything to disprove the argument, and fell silent.
Amazingly, Flatorte had hit the nail on the head this time. She’d probably never opened a textbook in her life, and in terms of pure academics, she was far from the sharpest tool in the shed. If I’d never been to a certain town, I would have no way of knowing what special products they were famous for unless I looked it up. That kind of knowledge was completely beyond Flatorte.
When it came to thinking things through, however, she was remarkably quick on the uptake. She could be quite rational as well, when she wanted to, and the fact that she didn’t fuss over petty details meant she often reached the correct answer faster than anyone else.
“If unlucky years worry you, you’d be better off not learning about them in the first place! It’s not like knowing helps you. Looking into something that only causes you problems is like going out of your way to find a pit to fall into!”
“Just stop, please! Quit assaulting me with reasonable arguments!”
Laika’s face was once again beet-red. This had turned into a bigger problem than I’d anticipated.
I could relate, of course. If I got a fortune that predicted I’d have terrible luck, I’d be a little worried, too. I’d probably blame any small blunders on my bad luck.
Of course, no matter what kind of fortune I got, I’m sure I still would’ve worked myself to death… If you want things to get better, you have to focus on improving your base situation however you can.
If unlucky years were a problem, then they were a problem driven by feelings, not actual luck. That was why it didn’t help to have someone tell you not to worry. Some people, like Flatorte, genuinely didn’t believe in unlucky years and thus had no problem with them. Depending on the person, either extreme was possible.
Of course, since a few of us really are worried about this, we’ll have to find a real solution.
I finished washing the dishes, then clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Okay, then! Let’s go make sure this unlucky year won’t be a problem, shall we?”
“Are you sure?” asked Halkara. “An unlucky year for elves can only be ceremonially warded away in elven territory, you know?”
“And I would have to return to my homeland to cleanse a draconic unlucky year,” added Laika.
“Ghosts have to go to a famous spooky site,” said Rosalie. “Won’t you be scared, Big Sis?”
I’m not going anywhere haunted, that’s for sure! “Why deal with all of your years one by one when there’s a place we can go to take care of them all at once?”
I set out with the members of my family currently fretting over their unlucky years—and Flatorte, who came along because she was bored—and made my way toward the Goodly Godly Godness Shrine in Flatta.
“Are you going to get a new virtue stamp card, Madam Teacher?” asked Halkara.
“No, I’m gonna ask Godly Godness about unlucky years,” I explained.
We arrived in front of the shrine and were instantly whisked away to an otherworldly space that reminded me of Nintan’s at her own shrine. We found Godly Godness waiting for us within.
“Hello, hello! What’s on your mind, everyone? Have something that’s been bothering you? I’m all ears!” said Godly Godness. She could be pretty irresponsible, as far as gods went, but at times like these, she was quite proactive, which was helpful.
I gave Godly Godness a quick summary of why we were here. I explained that my family members had been anxious about their luck this year and asked for her opinion on the matter. We had a direct line to an actual god, so it made sense to just ask her.
If Godly Godness said, Unlucky years? Those aren’t real. It’s all in your head, then that would solve the problem in an instant. A claim like that from her would surely stop Laika from obsessing over her supposed misfortune. After all, someone who thought unlucky years were important would put even greater weight on the words of an actual god. It was a problem-solving strategy that only people with divine acquaintances, like me, could pull off.
Unlucky years have gotta be something us lower beings came up with, right? At the very least, I’m pretty positive that the gods don’t make those unlucky year calendars and pass them on to their priests or whatever. This’ll work for sure!
My plan didn’t end up playing out how I’d envisioned, however.
“Unlucky years, huh?” said Godly Godness. “Hmm. That’s a toughie, all right.”
Huh? That’s weird. It looks like I managed to put Godly Godness on the spot, for once. “I was positive you were going to say Unlucky years are just a superstition and refute the whole idea with a single sentence…,” I said.
“I’d love to, but I’m a pro when it comes to this sort of thing, you know? That means I can’t just brush questions like this off. It’s like how if you ask a scientist a science question, they never give you a concrete answer. When you’re a pro, you understand that there are a bunch of possible alternatives you can’t just ignore.”
Something about a god using scientists as her go-to example felt a little off to me, but I understood what she was trying to say.
“How about you ask a god with more expertise?” Godly Godness suggested—and the next thing I knew, Nintan was standing beside her.
I’m sure gods can move around freely, but that sure was abrupt! Sheesh…
“You cur! Cease dragging Us away without warning!” Nintan shouted. “We are a god, and We demand the courtesy befitting Our station!” Unsurprisingly, she was furious.
“Come on, it’s no big deal! Anyway, blah blah blah, now you know what’s going on.”
“You cannot just say ‘blah blah blah’ and expect Us to understand the circumstances! You must actually summarize them!”
I decided this would be much easier and less likely to go wrong if I explained in Godly Godness’s place, so I stepped in to do just that. It wasn’t a particularly long story in the first place.
“Oh? Unlucky years, is it? Yes, We see,” said Nintan.
Hmm. That’s not a very direct response, is it? I’d been hoping she would say Those are but a symptom of mental weakness, or something, but apparently, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“This is getting kind of freaky! You’re not suggesting unlucky years are real, are you…?” Rosalie asked apprehensively, the color draining from her face.
“The idea that members of a certain race will universally experience sudden misfortune when they reach a certain age is not true, no,” said Nintan. “Were that the case, unlucky years would be a matter of clear and established fact, feared by all since ancient times, not the ambiguous and uncertain concept that they are.”
Right? That’s what I thought, too. It’d be even weirder than literal magic existing.
“That means unlucky years are just a stupid myth after all, right? So there’s no problem,” said Flatorte. She didn’t worry about politeness even in the presence of the gods. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in them, though—she just didn’t think they were a big deal.
Nintan shook her head. “Not precisely. Although unlucky years are not real in the manner they are most often conceptualized, well…there is truth to the idea of fate. Furthermore, it is indeed possible that a significant number of individuals meet terrible fates during their so-called unlucky years. Some people might even experience double the misfortune of regular years. As such, We cannot completely dismiss them offhand.”
“Wait… Fate is real…?”
I was so shocked, I had to double-check. If that was true, then wouldn’t it imply that our futures were preordained?
“Oh, it’s not as bad as it probably sounds to you, Azusa!” said Godly Godness. “It’s not like everything you’re going to do from now on is set in stone or anything. We gods are way too busy to preordain precisely when every single person in the world is going to fart or yawn or whatever.”
I appreciate the reassurance, but I really wish you could’ve picked an example other than farting and yawning. Anyway, does that mean destiny isn’t real, and how things turn out is just the product of coincidence? Judging by the way those two are acting, I don’t think it’s quite that simple.
Godly Godness turned toward Nintan and asked, “Does this world have a god in charge of that sort of thing?”
“Yes. There is indeed a god of fate.”
Now that’s a powerful-sounding god if I’ve ever heard of one…
“Establishing and adjusting the mechanisms of fate is her jurisdiction.”
Seriously…? Fate has actual mechanisms?
“Although We are unfamiliar with the specifics, things such as random number generation and lottery jackpots would fall under her purview.”
This is all starting to sound a bit sketchy.
“In any case, it seems very possible that she is involved in determining how unlucky years function. As such, neither We nor Godly Godness can provide you the answers you seek.”
It feels like our question’s getting blown way out of proportion.
“Thus, We recommend you pay the god of fate a visit and ask her how unlucky years work.”
“I had a feeling that was where this was going!”
That’s a pretty scary prospect! I had no idea what sort of person the god of fate was, or what her personality was like, so the idea of paying her a casual visit was a lot to stomach. What if the moment we met her, she said something like Oh, you’re going to die tomorrow? That would be terrifying!
At the very least, we should wait until after these supposedly unlucky years are over before we ask the god of fate whether they’re real. That way we won’t have to worry about what she says.
“You will find the god of fate here. Go and meet with her yourself,” Nintan said, pointing to a piece of paper she produced with what looked like a map on it. “She is not the sort of being one can meet at a moment’s notice, but this paper shall serve as a letter of invitation. Present it, and she will see you.”
Agh! Now it’s like we have to go!
“Be sure to tell me what she’s like after you meet her, okay, Azusa? I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her before!”
You’re making it worse, Godly Godness!
Somehow, Laika’s expression looked even graver than mine. “Ummm… Lady Azusa?” she said. “I deeply apologize. I never imagined this would turn into such a serious undertaking…”
“It’s not your fault, Laika. How could you have known we’d end up visiting the god of fate…?”
“What if she tells me I’m going to drink myself into the grave tomorrow…?” moaned Halkara.
“If you’re worried about that, then maybe start by drinking less.”
At least Halkara could solve all her problems on her own, if she’d only put her mind to it.
The next day, Laika, Halkara, Rosalie, and I set out to meet with the god of fate. Flatorte would be staying behind this time to mind the house. She wasn’t interested in any of this from the start, and more importantly, I was terrified of what would happen if she did something stupid and upset the god of fate.
I doubted that would happen, but I couldn’t totally rule out the possibility that the god of fate would say You have irritated me, and as such, I have fated you to die tomorrow. It seemed like a god with free rein over fate could pull something like that off, so I figured a little extra caution was in order.
Eventually, we arrived at our destination: a perfectly ordinary stretch of land by a perfectly ordinary river in a perfectly ordinary province. The only notable feature was a rather large boulder a short distance away from the riverbank.
“I bet this must’ve been washed down the river in a flood,” Rosalie speculated as she drifted over to the boulder. That seemed like a reasonable enough theory to me.
“All right, everyone, this is our starting point!” I said. “I’ll be counting steps out loud as I walk, and the rest of you should count in your heads so you can let me know if I mess up.”
Everyone nodded, and I stepped forward, calling out “One!” as I did. “Two, three, four, five!”
First, face away from the river and walk fifty-five paces forward.
Those were the first instructions on the letter of invitation Nintan had given me. Laika was directly behind me, with Halkara behind her. The three of us walked at close to the same gait, so I figured they would be able to match my stride fairly well.
“Fifty-five! All right—nobody lost count, did they? Are we still okay?” I asked, looking up at Rosalie, who was keeping track of us from above.
“You’re doing fine!” Rosalie called down to me. “Keep fighting, Big Sis!”
I’m not sure this counts as “fighting,” but anyway, next step! “Let’s see—we’re supposed to face directly north next and walk thirty-eight paces.”
I turned northward.
“One, two, three! Four, five, six!”
I had a feeling that even if I didn’t lose track of how many steps I’d taken, I was liable to wander off course little by little and end up moving in a totally different direction… But I did my best not to worry about that and simply follow the instructions to the letter. The gods, after all, tended to gloss over that sort of thing. The scale of their work was so huge that they didn’t usually fuss over the little details.
Besides, if we asked anyone but a god about unlucky years, they’d only provide us with vague, questionable answers. It wasn’t the most convenient option, but asking a pro would be the quickest, surest way to get the answer we wanted.
“Next, turn slightly right and walk 1,483 paces forward. Then recite the necessary incantation (see second sheet of paper)—oh, come on, as if I could walk that far in a perfectly straight line! There’s no way I’ll wind up where I’m supposed to be!”
“There, there, Lady Azusa,” said Laika. “We should at least give it a try, don’t you think…?”
“Yeah, no point in giving up and turning around,” I agreed. “We came all the way here, after all. It’s just this ridiculous number… It’s not impossible, but it’s not very convenient…”
This time, I decided to have Laika and Halkara wait at the starting point and then follow after me, counting their own steps. That way we’d be able to compare where each of us ended up to determine how much we were diverging from the intended path.
I set out first, while Laika and Halkara rested in the shade of a nearby tree. I made it about seven hundred steps into the trip when suddenly, a slime bounced out in front of me.
“Sorry, but you’re in the way. Later!” I said. The slime had hopped right into my path, so I crouched down, picked it up, and hurled it off into the distance.
“Ooh, great throw, Madam Teacher!” Halkara shouted from her shady resting place.
“Right? I guess I had a good grip on it or something,” I shouted back.
All right! Now that I’ve got a clear path, time to get back to—
…Oh, crap.
I felt the color drain from my face as I slowly turned around to face the others.
“So, um… Does anyone know how many steps I’ve taken? I was so distracted by the slime, I totally forgot.”
Nobody remembered, of course. An air of misery descended upon us.
“Wh-why not try marking the ground every hundred steps next time?” suggested Halkara. “They say that failure is the mother of success, Madam Teacher! It’s the same way with medicine—it takes tons of clinical trials to figure out the right dosage for new concoctions!” I probably looked really torn up, judging by how weirdly positive she was being.
“Thanks, Halkara… But that whole clinical trial comparison was kind of horrifying.”
And so my first attempt was tragically cut short by a wayward slime. On my second try, however…
“One thousand four hundred and eighty-three!”
…I managed to reach my goal and immediately drew an X on the ground.
Now I just have to pray that I didn’t swerve too much while I was walking.
Laika and Halkara counted their steps in the same manner I had and wound up stopping in dramatically different locations. Laika walked quite a bit farther than I had, while Halkara stopped a bit behind me.
“Yeah… I had a feeling it’d turn out like this,” I said. It would’ve been pretty remarkable if we’d all ended up in the same spot, considering the directions we were working with.
The variation in our results was bringing both Laika and Halkara down, and I had no reason to believe I’d somehow ended up in the right place, either.
“Hey, Rosalie, how did this look to you from up there?” I asked.
“All of you walk at a slightly different pace,” Rosalie replied. “It’s not that different over just a few steps, but at this distance, it adds up so much that you end up in totally different places.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Well, I guess it can’t hurt to try reciting the incantation anyway.”
I took a look at the second page of Nintan’s letter of introduction, where the incantation was supposedly written.
“You all have your copies of the incantation, right?” I called out. The note was pretty short, so I’d written out separate copies for each of us earlier.
““Yes,”” Laika and Halkara answered from either side of me.
“Okay then, we’ll all read together! Maybe one of us lucked out and wound up in the right spot. Ready?”
Once again, a pair of yeses rang out.
“Hanselia vanselino oseley ruruuan!”
I recited the incantation, expecting nothing whatsoever to come of it—and then, without warning, I was whisked away to who knows where!
I found myself in a space rather similar to the one where I usually met with Nintan. That told me in an instant that wherever I was, it was related to the gods.
“Huh? Did I actually manage to stop in the correct spot?” I muttered to myself. “That’s practically a miracle.”
“Oh, so you really did show up. You must be the human Nintan told me about.”
A voice rang out from behind me, and I turned to find someone sitting—and seemingly working—at a desk piled high with clay tablets. She had long reddish-brown hair tied back in a ponytail, and her face was attractive in an androgynous sort of way. I only really knew she was a she to begin with because of the slight bulge of her chest. She gave a very stylish impression, all around, which was enhanced by the slight yellow and black accents of her clothing.
“Are you the god of fate…?” I asked, a little apprehensively. This wasn’t my first time meeting a god, but I was still nervous every time it happened.
“I am, yeah,” said the woman. “I’m the god of fate, Caven. Nintan told me to meet up with you, so I made it happen.”
The god of fate—Caven, apparently—wasn’t looking at me. She kept reading her clay tablets, even while she was talking. Apparently, I’d decided to visit during her working hours.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I wasn’t warned you’d be coming,” said Caven. “So what did you want to ask me? I’ll have it figured out before you know it.”
Maybe I just hadn’t met enough gods yet, but it felt like the ones I knew were all vastly different types of deity, this new acquaintance included. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but if I had to take a stab at it, I would say that Caven didn’t seem very interested in people. That wasn’t a problem or anything, but there was one issue: I was the only one here. My getting the location right, it seemed, hadn’t automatically brought the others along with me.
“Um, so…the truth is, the people who actually need an answer from you don’t seem to have made it here,” I explained. I could always act as their stand-in and ask about unlucky years myself, but if at all possible, I thought it would be better to have the ones who cared about the answer hear it directly.
“Oh, that? Not an issue. There’s just a bit of a time lag, that’s all.”
The very instant those words left Caven’s mouth—
—Halkara’s face appeared directly in front of me!
“Gaaah! Too close, Madam Teacher! Are you trying to give me the wrong idea?!”
“Why the heck would I do that?! And you’re the one who showed up right in front of me out of nowhere!”
I took a big step backward…
…and this time, Laika appeared directly in front of me.
“Eek! E-excuse me, Lady Azusa… It seems I chose a poor place to stand…”
“Nah, that’s fine. These things happen… Don’t worry about it…”
Laika bashfully backed away from me, and I stepped aside as well.
Okay, but that still leaves one person missing. They say that what happens twice will happen thrice, so if I just wait…
Rosalie, however, did not appear in front of me like I’d been expecting.
Maybe she’s lagging even further behind then the others. Or maybe she showed up somewhere totally different. And why do my insides feel weirdly itchy all of a sudden…?
“Sorry, Big Sis. Looks like I appeared inside you.”
Rosalie’s voice sounds so close to me! It’s like listening to one of those binaural recordings! “Okay, I see what happened here! I’m really not comfortable with this, so please get out of my body, thanks!”
Rosalie vacated my body right away, and thankfully, the itchiness subsided immediately as well.
“Okay. That should be all of you, right? Everyone must have counted correctly. The number’s what’s important, not the distance. You can’t end up here by standing on the right spot accidentally—if you don’t count the right number of steps, nothing happens. That’s how the event works.”
“The event”…? She’s being kind of meta about this, huh?
“Anyway, not to repeat myself, but I’m the god of fate, Caven. Okay, question time. What have you got for me?”
Even now that all of us were present, Caven was still glued to her clay tablets. I was sort of surprised by how busy she seemed. Out of all the gods I knew, she seemed to be the hardest worker.
Halkara, Laika, and Rosalie were all exchanging glances with each other. It looked like they hadn’t decided on who should ask the question—which, considering they’d be asking a god, was an understandably nerve-racking prospect.
“A-all right… I’m the one who brought all this up to begin with, so I’ll be the one to ask,” said Halkara, settling the matter voluntarily. “Um, Miss God of Fate? To make a long story short: Are unlucky years real?”
For once, Caven looked up from her tablets. She turned to Halkara for just long enough to say “Yep, sure are.”
“I—I knew it! Of course they are! I need to schedule a ceremony right away!” Halkara shouted. She was flying into a panic. Hearing her worst fears confirmed by the god of fate had clearly hit her pretty hard.
Maybe now she’ll actually make an effort to get a handle on her drinking.
Laika and Rosalie weren’t taking this news very well, either. Both of them looked fearful and bewildered. I was taken aback, too, to be fair. I’d never imagined unlucky years would be of such importance.
“Um, I am Laika, of the red dragons,” said Laika, stepping up to ask the next question. “I was wondering, well…what should one do to minimize the effects of an unlucky year?”
That’s certainly the most natural question to ask, now that we know they’re real.
“Effects? There aren’t any,” Caven curtly replied.
“W-w-w-w-wait, what?! What’s that mean?! Are unlucky years a thing or not?!” I asked, bewildered. We seemed to be dealing with a rather arrogant god, at least in some ways, so it felt like a good idea to get all the details we could.
“I meant what I said,” replied Caven. “First, the elf asked me if unlucky years are real. Considering she was aware of the concept, and considering she used the words unlucky years herself to ask me the question, they’re obviously real, so I said yes.” The god of fate rested her elbow on her chair and pressed her face into her palm. “Then I said that unlucky years don’t have any effects—which is true, because they don’t. Nothing I said was contradictory.”
In other words, the concept of unlucky years is real, but they don’t actually affect anything?
“Oh, is that all?” said Halkara. “That must mean unlucky years are just a silly superstition! What a relief!”
“They’re not a superstition, no,” Caven said, once again casually refuting Halkara’s words.
“Huuuuuuh?! Which is it, then?! Make up your mind, please!” Halkara wailed.
Yeah, I was just wondering that myself… If Halkara hadn’t asked, I would’ve done it for her.
“Well, the concept of unlucky years has existed in your society for ages, and despite how vague it is, people do believe in it. You can’t write something like that off as just superstition—it’s an established cultural custom. And like all cultural customs, it has an effect on your lives in all sorts of subtle, multifaceted ways.”
“O-okaaay… I guess I can’t deny that,” said Halkara.
Watching their exchange, I’d come to understand something about how Caven operated.
This god’s a humongous pedant!
One meets people like this every once in a while. It was easy for such behavior to come off as cringey or irritating, but her attitude was a good match for her slightly odd, androgynous appearance. In a sense, her looks were salvaging her personality. If Fighsly or Misjantie tried to pull off an argument like that, I probably would’ve found it about five times as obnoxious.
“I’m not exactly a brainiac, so I might have this all wrong,” said Rosalie, “but are you trying to say that unlucky years don’t inherently bring misfortune? If so, then that’s nice to know.”
“Yeah, the ghost summed it up nicely,” said Caven. “Basically, unlucky years are just another framework that someone dreamed up out of nowhere one day.”
“A…framework?” Rosalie repeated, apparently confused by Caven’s odd turn of phrase.
“Right. Using frameworks like that makes it easier for people to understand the world they live in. As long as you’re using the frameworks as tools, there’s no problem. When the frameworks start using you, though,” Caven said, pausing to heave a sigh. “Well, then you’ve lost sight of your priorities, haven’t you?”
She’s a bit pompous, isn’t she…?
“Basically, what I’m telling you is that you should think of unlucky years, good luck charms, and fortune-telling as nothing more than tools to navigate a world driven entirely by coincidence. As long as you never forget that you’re the one using the tool, and not the other way around, things should work out just fine.”
I get what she’s saying, but boy, is the way she’s saying it obnoxious… Then again, maybe this is just how gods are. Nintan’s pretty conceited, too, in a different sort of way, so maybe being a god just makes you like this. I’m starting to think meeting Godly Godness first might’ve warped my idea of what a god is supposed to be…
In any case, we’d never find a more dedicated specialist when it came to unlucky years. This seemed like the right time to ask her all the questions we could throw at her.
“I’m Azusa, the Witch of the Highlands,” I said. “I was wondering—does what you just said mean there’s no such thing as fate in this world, and everything’s just a matter of chance?”
“Well, you just used the word fate yourself, which means it—”
“Right, you’ve already made that point, so we can just skip it this time, thanks! I figure you were about to explain that the concept of fate is a tool that was created to help us give meaning to coincidences, right?”
“You’re pretty quick on the uptake, Witch of the Highlands,” Caven said with a chuckle.
“I’m honored by your praise,” I said. “Anyway, the point is I understand the theory.”
Her explanations were needlessly long-winded, but basically, it seemed that she was saying fate wasn’t real and nothing was inevitable. Slap a coat of pretentious paint on that concept, and it could’ve come straight from Caven’s mouth.
“Yes, use of the word fate makes it real as a concept, but in the end, the things you call fate are nothing more than coincidences arbitrarily chosen and labelled as such.”
I told her not to bother, but she’s saying it anyway.
Caven looked me straight in the eye.
“I know what you’re thinking right now, Witch of the Highlands. You’re thinking that I’m being super long-winded, right?”
“W-well, yes…,” I admitted. I’d already been called out, so there was no point in trying to hide it.
“Mind if I give my spiel anyway, though? It’s gonna bother me if I don’t get it out.”
“At least you’re honest about your motives.”
“Thanks. I’ll try to keep it as quick as possible,” said Caven. She looked visibly relieved.
I had a feeling that people like me were hard for her to deal with. Laika and Rosalie, on the other hand, were hanging off her every word, while Halkara had checked out the instant she’d learned that unlucky years weren’t real after all.
“Here’s an example,” said Caven. “Each of you recited the incantation Nintan gave you in the locations you individually walked to, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” said Laika. Caven immediately turned to face her.
I guess it’s easier to explain this stuff to an active listener.
“You each ended up in different locations, and yet all of you wound up here with me. Tell me, dragon-girl: If you had come here on your own, taken your steps, recited the spell, and been successfully transported, what would you have assumed?”
“I—I would have assumed I’d been standing in the correct spot,” said Laika.
“Exactly. You would’ve been convinced you’d found the one specific spot that worked. While I’m at it, you also would’ve assumed that since the incantation brought you here, it was special and specific as well.”
“I would, yes. Wait…huh? But that’s not what happened. We were all standing in different places, so why…?”
“Not to spoil the mystery, but the truth is that I just check everyone who attempts to go through the process to get here and decide if I want to let them in or not. You could’ve miscounted your steps, and it still would’ve worked just fine. All you really had to do was make a point of trying to count.”
I figured it had to be something like that. Nobody would ever reach this place if it was really that specific a process…
“But still, the moment the process works for you, it becomes established in your mind as definitively correct. That’s what I mean when I say that what you see as fate is cloaked in coincidence.”
“I—I understand now!” Laika said with a vigorous nod. For just an instant, the trace of a smile crossed Caven’s face.
Seems she likes to impress people. Also, looks like receiving Nintan’s letter was the only real hurdle to getting here. No wonder the instructions were so vague and sloppy.
“So yeah, that’s about the size of it,” concluded Caven. “There are nothing but coincidences in this world. Even if a convenient method with high odds of success ends up spreading far and wide, it’s still just a convenient method with high odds of success—never an inevitability. People are simply rationalizing away coincidence by fitting it into a framework of logic.”
She really likes calling things frameworks, doesn’t she?
With that, the god of fate’s long-winded explanation was over. Regardless of how she presented her argument, I had to admit it was pretty convincing.
Now then, seeing as we’ve resolved the unlucky year problem, I think it’s time for us to get out of here. I’m afraid that if we stick around to ask any more questions, we’ll be listening to her explanations for an eternity…
“Okay, I think we should be heading home now. Thanks for your time,” I said with a polite nod.
“Um, if I may—what exactly does your work entail, Miss God of Fate?”
And then Laika went and asked her another question!
I have to admit, I am pretty curious about that. If the god of fate tells you nothing’s inevitable, you have to wonder what she’s actually in charge of managing.
“This world is awash with irrationalities and inconsistencies,” said Caven. “My job is to compensate for them.”
She sure said that in just the right way to make her sound like a huge poser…
“What sort of work does that involve, specifically?” Laika asked.
Laika’s completely stepped into the question-asker role, hasn’t she? Also, Caven sure looks happy again. Don’t think I missed that smile!
“A fair question. Let me answer by way of example: Imagine a game in which your character died, and you got to roll a six-sided die to see if you came back to life. If you roll an odd number, your character is revived, and if you roll an even number, they remain dead.”
“So your odds of success are fifty percent,” Laika said with a nod.
“And yet somehow, it always seems like the true odds are closer to eighty percent that you’ll roll an even number and stay dead, doesn’t it?”
It really does! I agreed internally.
Caven heaved a theatrical sigh.
“Well, whenever that happens, it’s because I temporarily increased the odds of failure.”
“But why, though?!”
I just had to question her. I couldn’t help myself…
“For what it’s worth, I don’t want to,” said Caven. “So long as I remain the god of fate, however, I have no choice. Surely you’ve found yourself in a situation where all logic and reason suggests you’ll eventually succeed, yet you try a hundred times without pulling it off even once? Well, someone has to make sure things like that keep happening.”
“No they don’t! All that does is irritate people! And it’s really mean-spirited, too!”
“It’s a necessity. Fate is, after all, irrational at its core. And that brings us to this,” Caven said, standing up and pulling out a board with a messy series of numbers scribbled on it.
“This is the dartboard I use to decide who ends up having bad luck on their unlucky years.”
“Okay, make that intensely mean-spirited!”
“Here, I’ll throw a few darts now. Where they land will determine who ends up particularly unlucky.”
“That’s awful! Just terrible!”
What kind of monster would do something like that?! I thought. Though on the other hand, it did seem like something that a god of fate would get up to. Toying with humans was probably second nature to her.
“All right, let’s give it a try! Who’s going to meet a terrible fate this time? Only one way to find out!”
Caven started lining up a dart. She looked totally serious about throwing it, and I had a terrible feeling that whoever got struck with misfortune wouldn’t be long for this world. Having a god specifically pick you out to be cursed with bad luck seemed like a pretty big deal. Maybe you could get off with just a hole in your sock or something, but I doubted it.
“Oh no… Oh no… I always end up getting picked at times like these… That’s the one sort of bad luck that always seems to get me…”
Halkara was shaking in her boots. Thinking back, she might be right about that…
“What if it hits me?” said Rosalie. “What’ll I do if I get over all my regrets and can’t stay as a ghost anymore…?”
That sounds like good luck, Rosalie! You’re making this confusing!
Laika, meanwhile, was petrified with a look of bewildered terror on her face. The god of fate was effectively choosing someone to die right in front of us. In a sense, she was about to commit a murder, and that meant the right choice, without question, was to try and stop her.
On the other hand, if that choice was part of the god of fate’s duties, then did we—a group of non-gods—have any way of stopping her? Did we even have the right to try? I wasn’t afraid she’d retaliate or anything. I simply wasn’t sure whether stopping a god from carrying out her duties was a good idea, period.
Knowing Laika, she’d probably already come to all those conclusions on her own. She was thinking furiously about what to do…and wasn’t coming up with any good ideas. The fact that Caven was a literal god complicated the issue immensely. If she told us this was just part of her job, then we’d have no logical argument against it—so all Laika could do was shrink away from her in silence.
“I still have so much to learn…,” said Laika. “As I am now, I can’t find an answer.”
This really is the ultimate choice, huh?
“Okay, here goes! Who’s it gonna be? There are so many unlucky years out there, it could be just about anyone!”
The god of fate could throw her dart at any second—but what was I supposed to do about it? Needless to say, I didn’t have an answer, either… But then I looked at Laika once more. I could tell in an instant how conflicted she was.
Oh. Of course.
And just like that, I had my answer.
The god of fate threw her dart—and I leaped forward, snatching it out of the air before it could hit its target.
“This is my answer!”
I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“I may be breaking some sort of taboo right now, but I don’t care! My disciple’s in a fix, and it’s my job as her teacher to step in and take action in her place! The way I see it, nothing’s more irrational than you putting Laika through all this stress and misery!”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I chose to prioritize removing one of my disciple’s worries. If that ended up making everything worse for us, then, well, I’d cross that bridge when we came to it. Fortunately, I was in the good graces of other gods, so I had some powerful connections who could back me up. I was ready to fight back to the bitter end, if that’s what it came to.
“L-Lady Azusa!” Laika said, her voice stifled with emotion.
“Well, well. You’d stop me bringing misfortune on someone in their unlucky year, would you? How very brave,” said the god of fate as she cracked an ever-so-slight smile.
Oh, she is just the worst! “In my book, going out of your way to bring misfortune on people one by one is plain irrational. Maybe it’s a necessary evil from the perspective of the gods…but from a human perspective, if someone’s about to die in front of you, and you’re in a position to save them, then nothing’s worse than standing back and doing nothing.”
The way I see it, you have to step in and put a stop to such things. I simply can’t believe that letting someone die is the right choice to make.
“Plus, I can’t bring myself to tell Laika that we’re helpless or that there’s nothing we can do to stop you,” I added, glancing at Laika and flashing her a grin.
No teacher with any self-respect could ever do a thing like that.
“Lady Azusa… I was truly blessed to call myself your apprentice!”
“Why the past tense?! You’re freaking me out! Stop it!” You’re making it sound like I’ve doomed myself! I mean, maybe I have, but still!
So, god of fate, Caven—what’s your next move?
“…I think I owe you an apology. This whole thing was just a joke. I hope you’re not too offended,” said Caven, raising her hands in a “please forgive me” sort of gesture.
“Huh? A joke?” I repeated. If that was all a joke, then what am I supposed to do with all this righteous determination I’ve worked up…?
“I don’t decide who experiences misfortune during their unlucky years,” admitted Caven. “Stuff like that is just a cultural tradition, and the gods have nothing to do with it. That’s the complete, unvarnished truth.”
“Okay, but then what was all that about?!” I shouted. I am super not okay with this!
“Honestly, it was just meant to be a stupid joke. But, uh…you were taking me so seriously…and I couldn’t find a good moment to walk it back… I’m sorry. I really mean it.” Caven apologized with all her heart and soul.
“Okay, no, that crossed a bunch of lines! Maybe a normal person could pull off a bit like that, but how are we supposed to assume it’s a joke when it’s coming from a god?! That was so tasteless!”
“Yeah. You’re not wrong about that. This was completely my bad…”
Well, I can’t ask for anything more than an earnest apology, can I? I guess I should probably just let it drop …
“Um, Lady Azusa?” Laika said after Caven finally finished apologizing. “You were incredible just now… I want you to know that I’ll keep doing my best to learn from your example and continue applying myself as your apprentice!”
That’s nice to hear, but it’s also really, really embarrassing…
“That was amazing, Madam Teacher!” said Halkara. “I’ll follow you for life! I’ll stick with you even after I’ve destroyed myself with alcohol poisoning!”
“You really should’ve stopped after the first half of that, Halkara!” I shot back.
“I’ll follow you for life, too, Big Sis!” said Rosalie.
“Coming from you, that sounds more like you’re promising to haunt me, Rosalie!”
I hadn’t meant to show off, but it seemed I’d unintentionally done just that, and now I was reaping the uncomfortable rewards…
“Anyway,” I continued, “You got your answer, right, Halkara? Unlucky years aren’t a problem, so it’s time for us to go! We’re heading home! Chop-chop!”
Yep, I’m choosing to beat a hasty retreat! No need to overstay our welcome!
That said, I noticed Caven looked a little sad to see us go.
“O-oh, okay,” she said. “I guess we’ll meet again, if fate brings us together. Feel free to come back if you ever have any other questions for me, though. I’ll hear you out any time, as long as you don’t mind me reading my tablets while I listen.”
Is it me, or is she just starving for someone to talk to…?
I was starting to get the feeling that Caven was simply a poor communicator. Saying that to her face would’ve been rude, though, so I said my good-byes and went on my way instead.
Coming back to our usual world was a relief, but unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the end of my troubles. I had to endure a chorus of people saying “You really are a wonderful person, Lady Azusa!” and other similar comments throughout the trip home on Laika’s back. All those compliments made me really restless, to say the least. Being held in too high esteem was a problem of its own.
Maybe meeting the god of fate and going through all this embarrassment was inevitable from the very start… Ugh… And the fact that I know Laika means every word she says makes dealing with her compliments even harder!
Later that night, Halkara made a declaration.
“It’s time for a celebration! Here’s to knowing that unlucky years don’t mean anything—bottoms up!”
Then she drank herself into a stupor.
One thing’s inevitable, all right: If you drink yourself silly, you’re gonna pass out!
Sometime later, I found the chance to ask Nintan a question.
“So about the god of fate. She, um…doesn’t have many friends, does she?”
“She is very particular when it comes to maintaining her persona…which We imagine explains much of how she conducts herself,” said Nintan. “So long as she maintains that persona, she will be unable to proactively seek out the company of others.”
So it’s pretty much exactly what I was imagining…
“Although she can be troublesome, We do not believe she means any harm. We would be much obliged if you would keep her company from time to time.”
“Yeah, I think I can do that.”
Next time someone looks bored at home, I’ll task them with paying the god of fate a visit.
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