Yukino Yukinoshita looked down on this self-absorbed man.
He was even inferior to the "fake" superhumans she had seen recently. He completely lacked the heavy, oppressive "mystery" that a true superhuman should possess. Instead, he seemed more like a cheap clown in a traveling troupe.
Miko Yotsuya's curious yet disdainful expression further proved this. Yukino knew that Miko's eyes were highly unusual. If even Miko felt nothing but disgust, then this person was undoubtedly a charlatan.
"Excuse me," Yukino uttered a cold refusal. "If possible, please don't disturb us."
"Oh? You really don't need help? Ladies, you should be able to... see spirits, right?"
This sentence made Yukino frown. She realized that this person might not be a simple clown after all. Perhaps he had something real to offer beneath the tacky magician aesthetic.
Miko looked at the man who called himself Rom with even more suspicion.
'No. You can't possibly really be an exorcist...'
Seeing the shift in their demeanor, Rom revealed a confident smile.
'Sure enough,' he thought smugly. 'Young people, especially young girls, have absolutely no resistance to this kind of mysterious hook. If you use this kind of occult cold-reading to pick up girls, you'll succeed almost every time.'
Of course, this only applied to naive young girls. Mature and charming women wouldn't easily believe in these parlor tricks. They needed something more practical.
So, Rom simply sat down uninvited opposite the two girls and took out a well-worn bundle of tarot cards. The tarot deck consisted of twenty-two Major Arcana cards and fifty-six Minor Arcana cards. The person who drew the cards handed them to the diviner, and the physical direction in which the cards were handed determined whether the diviner would interpret them upright or reversed.
"Please, draw a card." Rom was very confident in his method.
Yukino, curious, obliged by drawing a card.
Yukino's card was *Temperance*. The direction in which she handed the card back to him required a reversed interpretation. The general esoteric meaning was that this poised, long-haired girl was actually very unrestrained and loved indulging in a certain carnal or obsessive act. She was almost obsessed with it every single day.
When Rom read the interpretation, he didn't think much of it. 'Students, after all. It's normal to be secretly obsessed with video games or a crush.'
But Yukino almost blushed furiously and wanted to kill someone on the spot.
'Nonsense! Liar! This man is a complete liar!' she screamed internally. She wasn't obsessed at all! It was clearly that arrogant God who insisted on dragging her into his bed to be intimate!
Fortunately, Yukino maintained her icy facade, knowing that such degenerate things couldn't be spoken aloud in a public café. So, she simply looked at Rom with the chilling eyes of someone examining a repulsive insect.
Meanwhile, Miko Yotsuya's drawn tarot card was The Hierophant, which was also handed back to be interpreted reversed.
Reversed Hierophant: False information, malicious advice, being tricked, interrupted aid, unfulfilled wishes, being used, being abandoned.
'This… this luck is truly terrible…' Even Rom instinctively frowned at the spread. It was only slightly better than a straight death omen. He forced a polite smile and relayed the reading, but he was very tactful, even offering several words of fake comfort. He just hoped she wouldn't take the grim reading to heart. This was basically cursing the young girl to her face.
But to his utter astonishment, Yukino and Miko didn't seem angry at the horrific reading at all. Instead, their expressions shifted to show genuine surprise and deep doubt. It was as if they thought he, as a "professional," was indeed quite knowledgeable about the supernatural hell they were trapped in.
'Strange…' Rom smiled amicably on the surface, but inside, he was confused. Something felt… slightly off. Was it just his imagination? He carefully observed the two girls' micro-expressions. He couldn't discern the source of the anomaly, ultimately concluding they were just simple-minded and easily deceived by the cold-reading.
However, Yukino genuinely felt this man might possess real divinatory skills. Having learned her lesson from the Onmyo-ryo incident, she secretly texted Seiran Minazuki under the table, only to receive a casual, dismissive reply.
She understood immediately. Seiran was backing her up; he found this amusing. Since she didn't need to worry about her safety or spiritual stance with a God watching over her, Yukino was inclined to play along and see what this charlatan was really after.
"Let's continue this conversation tomorrow," Yukino said, standing up.
Rom was adept at playing hard to get and quickly agreed. He was completely unaware that he had just been marked by a mastermind playing a much higher-stakes game. After agreeing to meet at the same coffee shop the next day, the two girls left. Rom didn't regret missing the chance to record the conversation; there would be plenty of prime video opportunities tomorrow.
Just as he was packing up his deck to head back to his studio, he was approached by a gentle, striking young woman carrying a wooden sword case. It was Saeko Busujima. She claimed she had also become interested in tarot cards after overhearing his reading.
After a brief, polite conversation, Rom had Saeko draw a card as well.
The Chariot, handed back to be interpreted reversed.
Reversed Chariot: A failed argument, conflict, obstruction, violation of rules, resort to violence, a stubborn man, and sudden, catastrophic defeat.
'Reversed again?'
Three consecutive reversed interpretations made that subtle, uneasy emotion in Rom's heart flare up. 'How could this be…?' he thought, staring at the card. This time he had specifically used psychological sleight-of-hand to suggest she hand the card back upright. Yet, the purple-haired girl still handed it back perfectly reversed.
Watching the girl who had inexplicably approached him leave the café, Rom couldn't help but fall into deep thought.
He sat back down in the booth, lost in thought, gazing at the gloomy, overcast sky outside through the glass doors. The afternoon crowds were sparse now. The quiet of the café gave Rom ample space to ponder the statistical impossibility of the draws.
'No clue…' He couldn't figure out what that creeping, strange feeling of dread was. Frowning silently, he gathered his coat to leave.
But suddenly, as if struck by a bolt of lightning, a terrifying flash of insight crossed his mind.
For a specific period of time, the tarot cards people draw within the same spatial vicinity possess certain occult connections.
[A person is not just himself.] As long as he lives, he will inevitably influence the karmic threads of those around him and connect with more people.
Granny Mitsue's old, strict teachings echoed heavily in his memory like the tolling of a funeral bell.
Lost in thought, he recalled those ancient rules, his gaze fixed intensely on the tarot deck in his hands.
'Connection. Connection… Could it be…?'
A dry, nervous swallow escaped his throat. Rom suddenly felt a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. 'This shouldn't be… It should just be a mathematical coincidence.' He had played around with tarot cards thousands of times for his stream. But never before had the readings felt so… heavy. So strange.
[You should remember one thing: nothing can be achieved on the first try. When you finally divine the truth, remember that terrifying feeling; it will be your lifelong treasure…]
Silence. Rom stared blankly at the table.
Then, as if desperate to prove his own paranoia wrong, he sat back down and frantically spread out the tarot cards in a specific, advanced spread Granny Mitsue had taught him.
Temperance. The Hierophant. The Chariot.
He hastily drew the corresponding Minor Arcana cards required to bridge these three Major Arcana readings.
For Temperance — Nine of Swords, Page of Swords.
For The Hierophant — Ace of Cups, Knight of Cups.
For The Chariot — Pentacles...
After arranging them neatly in the karmic web, Rom's eyes widened instantly. He meticulously unlocked the esoteric interpretations in reverse order, weaving the physical and spiritual connections between the three completely unrelated girls who had just sat in this café.
Ultimately, following the threads of the cards, he arrived at an utterly absurd, terrifying conclusion.
'This... This is...'
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