“Forgive me, I have spent most of my life within the confines of our village, and I am not clear about matters beyond. Might I request that you provide some proof of your identity?” inquired Avril, addressing the elderly rabbitkin.
“Ah, I see… and how would you like me to prove myself, dear goddess?”
“Um… well… there was once a young man named Banning in Ira Village. Can you divine who his beloved might be?”
Gathering her courage, Avril took a bold step. Despite her usual introverted and shy demeanor, she could be quite brave when the situation called for it.
“Oh my, such youth… Hehehe. Not a problem, leave it to me!” The rabbitkin granny was quite amiable. She sat down, legs crossed, and began humming a tune with no discernible lyrics – a melody both familiar and eerie.
As the melody played, several small clay figures emerged from the ground around her: little clay tigers, deer, and various other two-legged animal creatures. They stumbled and wobbled about, utterly endearing.
Suddenly, without warning, the clay figures shattered into dust and vanished.
— (Hmm? Is that the end of the divination?)
Avril, unversed in such mysteries, watched in silence.
The rabbitkin granny, however, wore a look of utter astonishment and disbelief as she rose to her feet.
“Impossible… How could this happen again? Could there be more problems than just ‘that thing’?” She muttered to herself for a moment before remembering the “goddess” at her side and hastily providing an explanation.
“I apologize for disappointing you, Goddess. The divination was unsuccessful…”
“Unsuccessful…?”
Avril struggled to understand the implications. In the stories she had heard, Nevina, the fortune-telling divination rabbit, was the strongest diviner in the world, an infallible oracle. Could it be that the rabbitkin granny before her was an imposter?
“Yes, I don’t know why it failed. Let’s try this – ask me to divine something else, anything at all, and I will prove to you that I am indeed Nevina, the divination rabbit.”
Moved by the rabbitkin granny’s earnest gaze, Avril decided to grant her another chance.
This time, Avril asked her to divine her own identity – her name, age, and her current purpose and destination.
The rabbitkin granny repeated her previous ritual, and this time, the clay animals successfully performed their clumsy dance, tracing ethereal constellations upon the ground before burrowing back into the earth and vanishing.
With a mere glance at the patterns, the rabbitkin granny provided her answer.
“Goddess, your name is Avril, you are 16 years old, and you are journeying to Sunnytown for personal growth and to seek out a young man named Banning.” Her confidence was unwavering, and this time, she was indeed correct.
Nevertheless, Avril remained apprehensive, so she requested the divination rabbit to foresee the number of trees in Ira Village’s orchard, what Granny Kana had eaten the night before, and so on.
Rabbitkin granny accurately predicted everything without any mistakes, and only then did Avril believe that this rabbitkin granny was indeed the divination rabbit, Nevina.
“Little did I expect that you truly are the renowned divination rabbit. I heard that the divination rabbit is elusive and difficult to encounter.”
“That’s correct! If I hadn’t come to seek you out, you would never have met me.”
Having established trust, the divination rabbit formally explained her purpose to Avril. It turned out that not long ago, the divination rabbit made a prediction error for a particular client and is now being pursued by them, forcing her to flee in all directions.
The divination rabbit had never made a mistake in her predictions for clients before. To verify whether the client was causing trouble, the divination rabbit deliberately divined again, only to be astonished that she could no longer predict events she had previously foreseen with ease.
“Just like before, the little clay figurines won’t draw for me. It’s been a long time since this has happened.” 𝒐𝗏𝑙ℯxt.𝐜𝑜𝔪
Since this client was fierce and aggressive, the divination rabbit, in order to protect herself, cast a life-saving hexagram for herself.
She learned that her only chance of survival was to arrive at a specific location in the northern wilderness of Ira Village on “June 8th, 187, at 2:16 PM” and join a passing girl as her companion.
“That’s why I address you as Goddess, my lady. As for why being with you can save my life, I do not know.” The explanation from the divination rabbit left Avril perplexed, let alone Elle.
However, the divination rabbit’s contemplation had just begun.
Proficient in the art of divination, the rabbit knew that her encounter with Avril undoubtedly held some meaning, such as the recent divination failure, which might conceal an important “message.”
— (Prior to this, the prediction of “that thing’s” whereabouts failed…)
— (Now, the prediction of this young man “Banning’s” beloved failed…)
The divination rabbit realized something. She asked Avril to wait for a moment while she cast six hexagrams in a row:
Predicting “that thing’s” current location, successful.
Predicting “that thing’s” location one year from now, unsuccessful.
Predicting “Banning’s” current location, successful.
Predicting “Banning’s” location one year from now, unsuccessful.
Predicting who “Banning’s” future wife will be, unsuccessful.
Predicting when “Banning” will die, unsuccessful.
(Interesting… truly interesting…)
The divination rabbit took a breath and, after some contemplation, arrived at two conclusions.
The first was that Banning’s future is unpredictable.
The second was that the future location of “that thing” has a strong connection with Banning and, therefore, is also unpredictable.
So, why can’t Banning’s future be predicted?
In her ninety-plus years of life, the divination rabbit had only encountered this situation once—when predicting her own future. The rabbit could indirectly use divination outcomes to change her future, such as this time when her divination question was: “Where can I find someone to save the life of the divination rabbit Nevina?”
The result she received was:
“On June 8th, 187, at 2:16 PM, in the northern wilderness of Ira Village, on the road east of a bush with thirteen white flowers, join a passing girl as a companion, and the life of the divination rabbit Nevina can be saved.”
Through this method, the rabbit could change her own fate.
Since her fate would change with each divination, the rabbit could not predict her own death or future.
From this, the divination rabbit made a bold guess:
Perhaps Banning, like her, could foresee and change the future, which is why predicting his future fails.
The divination rabbit never expected to gain such crucial information upon meeting the girl from her divination. She now firmly believed that this girl named Avril was the goddess who could help her.
.
━━━━━━━━━
〖Prison Star Calendar〗
〖Year 187, June 10〗
〖5:33 PM〗
〖Countdown to Confession Death: 10 days〗
━━━━━━━━━
Bathed in the lingering glow of the setting sun, Tyler finally arrived at Sunny Town, two days ahead of schedule.
During these days, he had accumulated over four hundred points of skill proficiency on the road, raising his “Deceiver” skill from level 5 to level 8, and reaping new rewards.