Side Story: Fortune and Misfortune
It hadn’t happened the way I had envisioned, but I had fulfilled my dream of becoming a treasure hunter. One month later, I was walking through the capital, when I suddenly heard a voice.
“Ooh, isn’t this something? I’ve never seen fate pull so strongly on someone!”
The eerie voice brought me to a halt. I turned and looked in the direction it came from and saw a shady old woman in a purple hood. On the side of the road, she had set up a table with a crystal ball atop it. She had wrinkles set deep into her face and her bulging eyes were dead set on me.
Was she a fortune teller? I normally would have walked right by someone like her, but something about her grabbed my attention. My bodyguard for that outing, Lucia, cast a suspicious gaze at the old woman. The fortune teller’s job of divining futures and fortune required a different skill set from Magi. The two groups tended not to get along.
I shrugged and approached the fortune teller.
“Hm? You’re going to talk to her?!” Lucia asked.
“Nothing wrong with doing that much,” I told her.
I didn’t believe in fortune-telling or anything, but things hadn’t been going my way lately and I didn’t see any harm in having someone predict the future of our party. As I casually stood before the fortune teller, her eyes nearly leapt from their sockets. I’ll admit I was a bit excited. What had she meant when she mentioned fate pulling on me? It could’ve been just a sort of catchphrase, but maybe I was destined to become some sort of champion.
“Ooh, this is extraordinary. Truly extraordinary. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but, sir, you’ll meet your end before long.”
I just stood there, unsure what to say.
“What the hell are you talking about?!” Lucia cried, picking up the slack for me.
The fortune teller, however, was unfazed. She didn’t strike me as a fraudster and sounded genuine.
“Ooh, the tragedy. Fifty years of experience and a success rate of ninety-nine percent has led some to call me the Eye of God, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Not even that princess could compare. How cruel the divine can be. However, it would be unjust of me to leave you in ignorance. You’re a hunter, correct?”
“Uh, yeah, but I only just started—”
“Sir, that job isn’t for you. It’s your false calling.”
False calling. That was a new one, and ominous to boot.
“Sir, your fate is already a dark one, but becoming a hunter makes it infinitely worse. You walk a path that leads to hell. Before your lies one misfortune after another. A bad luck bargain sale.”
All my tension left was sapped in an instant. What a funny choice of words for a woman called the Eye of God.
“Why did you pick a job you have no aptitude for?!” she continued. “Your folly astounds me and your fate is black as night. That you still live is nothing short of miraculous. I’m tempted to say that all the world’s bad luck has coalesced around you.”
What a terrible thing to say. Except she was right about my lack of aptitude. In my defense, I had tried to quit, but I just kept getting swept along by the currents of my friends.
“Whatever your divinations tell you, I think you’re being incredibly rude!” Lucia barked. She gave the fortune teller a savage glare. “Do you have a grudge against my brother?!”
We hadn’t been hunters long, but she had already developed an evil eye that could cause me to shudder. But it didn’t seem to have any effect on the fortune teller.
“Listen to me. I take no pleasure in saying any of this and I won’t ask for your money,” the fortune teller said in a merciful voice. “But, as someone who can see the future, I’m doing the right thing by telling you to quit hunting. If you don’t, you’ll be sent to an early grave.”
Hm. Maybe I can use this to justify an early retirement.
I heard Lucia gulp.
“All sorts of misfortune will fall upon you, as though pulled by gravity,” the woman said hesitantly.
“What sort of misfortunes?” I asked.
I thought it was a very reasonable question. “All sorts of misfortune” sounded like an exaggeration. I wasn’t particularly talented or lucky, but I felt I had done my best in life. I couldn’t buy the idea that that would lead me to a premature death.
The fortune teller looked severe. “If you go out on hunts, you’ll be hit by storms, lightning will aim for you specifically. You’ll go out for walks and be assailed by bandits, but other times you’ll be mistaken for a bandit. If you go in search of treasure vaults, you’ll eventually find yourself faced with a phantom you’ll be hopelessly outmatched by.”
“Huh?!”
“You’ll never win the lottery, every hunting mentor will reject you, you’ll incur an enormous debt, and your friends will dirty their hands with evil deeds. And worst of all, you’ll always fall behind your friends. I’m certain of it. Oh, sir, all you can do is wait for death.”
“Anything else?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself, what she was describing was just too wild. In fact, I was starting to enjoy myself. Was this normal?
“Every prediction and projection you make will be off, creating frequent disasters. The desert, the forest, the ocean, you’ll find yourself stranded in all of them. You’ll walk into developing and roving treasure vaults.
“Hordes of monsters and phantoms will frequently attack you and criminal organizations will come after you as well. Man and monster alike will despise you and you won’t be able to escape. Oh? There’s even trouble with women? Sir, are you an avatar of misfortune?”
For some reason, Lucia was giving me a very nasty look. Trouble with women sounded a bit hard to believe. Outside of my little sister, the only women I was close with were Liz and Sitri.
“Even if you never go to battle, battles will come to you. Drugs and poisons will be hidden everywhere they can. Your superiors will deplore you. Every action you take will be at the worst possible time. Whether you act as a leader or a party member, nothing you do will have the intended result. Truly, a one-sided coin—”
“Wait, hold on! Stop, just a moment,” I said.
This beggared belief. There wasn’t a single bright spot in any of her predictions. It was like all the world’s bad luck was coalescing—oh, wait, she’d said that at the start. Still, I’ll admit I had no motivation or talent, but I felt like she was going too far.
“I get that I’m unlucky,” I said, “but isn’t there anything I can do about it? Like a good luck charm or something?”
Fortune tellers usually also taught ways to avoid the misfortunes they envisioned. But this old woman shot down that avenue.
“There’s nothing you can do. Your bad luck is a matter of destiny. That’s not something that a good luck charm can change. But if you quit hunting now, you might meet a less horrific end.”
Huuuh?
This was one irresponsible fortune teller. Just telling me my luck was bad wasn’t very productive. All she said was that I would die less horribly if I quit hunting. Hell, she probably wasn’t even a real fortune teller.
If I really was as unlucky as she claimed, I would have died on my first hunt, but I had been a treasure hunter for a full month. It was true that I had some bad experiences, some abnormal experiences, and had been hit by storms. But the fact was that I had overcome all of those, and I had never expected treasure hunting to be easy.
“But, I’m doing just fine,” I told her. “I haven’t gotten hurt once since becoming a hunter.”
The fortune teller looked puzzled. “That is very mysterious. With the bad luck that hangs over you, you should’ve died hundreds of times by now—”
“In other words,” Lucia cut in, “nobody knows what destiny has in store for us! Come on, brother, let’s not waste any more time with this third-rate fortune teller.”
“Yeah...” I said as she grabbed my arm.
The fortune teller let out a small groan and tilted her head as her glimmering eyes stared into mine. It seemed she really found me perplexing. Still, she had gone to the trouble of calling out to us. Even if her prognostics were off the mark this time, it didn’t change that she had decades of experience behind her. I didn’t see any reason to antagonize her.
“Well then,” I said in a deliberately cheery voice, “is it all bad? Is there anything good? Like do I have any strengths or something?”
“Oh?”
It was a shot in the dark, but everyone was good at one or two things, at least. I wasn’t good at physical or academic activities, nor was I particularly brave. I suppose the one thing I could brag about was that I had neat handwriting. If this fortune teller really was one of the best, then it shouldn’t have been hard for her to identify a talent that I had yet to discover.
The old lady looked at me through narrowed eyes. I waited for a moment, and eventually, she said, “Sir, you have excellent interpersonal luck. You are very fortunate in that regard.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure I believed my ears.
“What?” I eventually said.
Was interpersonal luck really a talent? That was just a form of luck. Sure, it was definitely better to be lucky than unlucky, and I knew how lucky I was to have the friends I did.
“It’s incredible,” she said fervently. “Just as you’ll have droves of enemies, you’ll have scores of friends. But don’t forget what I just said. Your friends—and your enemies—will be swept up in your misfortune and experience hardships. Your destiny isn’t satisfied to afflict only you. It defies understanding.”
So in summary, I’m an avatar of misfortune.
“There’s more,” the fortune teller continued. “Sir, your romantic luck is extraordinary. You’ll be admired by many for no clear reason. Young and old, men and women, and not just humans, you’ll be adored by all sorts. You’re predisposed to troubles with women, and anyone who gets close to you will be another victim of your misfortune. But if you live a long life, you may leave behind as many as one hundred descendants. It doesn’t seem as though you have the inclination to, however. Oh, I wonder and wonder just what sort of star you were born under...”
I wasn’t sure being adored by the same sex and other creatures was really good fortune. But more importantly, I couldn’t even remember having any luck of that sort. This woman was definitely just saying whatever came to mind. And that’s when I remembered that I had once heard that saying vague statements that could apply to anyone was a common tactic among shoddy fortune tellers.
“Come on now!” Lucia said as she pulled my hand. She did not look very happy. “There’s no point talking to her any further!”
“You too, young lady, have a dark future ahead,” the fortune teller said to her. “You pitiful thing.”
I guess I really am an avatar of bad luck.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login