1.
Fuck.
What the hell is that bastard?
The golden pattern engraved on the black die glowed.
Whether it was looking at me or not, the die clicked as it rotated, and the thing stroked its chin.
Could you even call the bottom of a die a chin?
Lord Nanook, I trusted you!!!
I was even willing to serve you as your new master!!!
Sometimes in life, you meet people you absolutely should not mess with.
Like those insane bastards who go on gambling trips in Indonesia with a pistol shoved into the back pocket of their pants.
That kind of person.
A being you must never get tangled up with, no matter what.
"How did you get in here?"
"I walked in through the door like I owned the place. It looked like a bar, so I opened it."
I spoke while staring straight at the die-head.
Confidence was important for this sort of thing.
"...An interesting mortal."
Since the head was a die, I couldn’t read its expression, and that made it a perfect poker face.
If I could see a face, I could at least get some idea of what it was thinking.
But with a die for a head, that was impossible.
Whoosh!
The white suit fluttered as the die-head smoothly vaulted over the bar.
Its body swayed like a blurred afterimage, and in an instant it was right in front of me.
A red hand came up to my face.
The die staring at me spun rapidly.
Like a safe dial turning, the die kept rotating over and over before suddenly stopping.
"Interesting."
"...Thanks for the compliment?"
"Truly, interesting."
A hand slowly reached out.
The hand touched the area around my eyes, then sliced through the flesh and plucked out my eye.
"...Huh?"
I couldn’t react.
No, that wasn’t it.
Shit!!! Fuck!!!
"Aaaagh!!! Hey!!! You crazy bastard!!! What kind of lunatic just rips out a person’s eye like a claw machine prize!!!"
"Oh?"
"Oh? My ass! What kind of bartender does this to a customer who came to drink!!!"
Like playing with clay.
It toyed with my eye, still connected by blood vessels, rolling it around like a bouncy ball.
I couldn’t react at all.
As if it were impossible to avoid, as if cause and effect had already been fixed, I couldn’t even doubt the man’s actions.
"Did Aha send you?"
"Fuck!!! It hurts!!!"
"You’d better answer."
"You goddamn bastard!!! I came here because I wanted to get stronger, why else!!!"
Before the red hand could pluck out my remaining left eye too.
I had no choice but to tell the truth.
Sticky blood poured down like tears, leaving streaks behind.
I could see the die-headed bastard reaching out his red hand toward me again.
"Hmm."
"...Shit."
Are there no normal bastards among the strong?
Are they all just complete personality disasters?
"What do you think of Aha?"
"I want to beat the hell out of them."
"...That’s the truth."
The words came out without the slightest hesitation.
Aha, you fucking bitch.
That bastard who smashed the spacetime prism to pieces.
Honestly, I just didn’t like this bastard because he gave off the vibe of hating his own kind.
Snap!
With a crisp finger snap.
"...Huh?"
My right field of vision was restored, and the pain vanished.
I fumbled at my face and pressed around my eye, and there it was, my right eye, back where it belonged.
"I thought you were sent by Aha because you’re loved by Elation... but you’re just a candidate for ■■ who doesn’t even know it yourself."
"I don’t need the love of some crimson clown."
"Same here. I wouldn’t want that kind of love either."
What candidate?
The noise and static made it sound like the words had been mosaicked out.
And I didn’t need any love from Elation either.
"And you, what is your name?"
"...Adrian Servet."
"Now that I’ve heard your name, I should introduce myself as well."
He removed his top hat and brought it to his chest.
It was a polite greeting.
Then came a mocking laugh, as if he were bowing with a ridiculous grin.
"Asat Pramid. You may call me Asat, if you like."
"That’s a pretty unusual name."
"It’s rude to call someone’s name unusual the first time you meet them."
Fuck you, ripping out someone’s eye on first meeting is fine?
"So, what brings you here?"
"I think I already said. I want to get stronger."
I armored myself with honesty.
If I lied, I felt like he’d see through it.
"...What do you follow?"
"I follow Lord Nanook’s guidance, na-men."
"Cough, pfft!"
Even with a die for a head, it seemed he could still cough.
Now I was curious where his mouth even was.
"Truth? Truth, you say?"
Asat rolled the die in his hand with a baffled look.
"Do you know who I am?"
"You’re a man with a serious case of self-importance. How would I know who you are?"
"You said you came here following Nanook’s guidance, didn’t you?"
"Don’t answer a question with a question. I really did come here following Nanook’s guidance."
Without saying another word, Asat stepped over the bar.
With practiced movements, he pulled out various ingredients from behind it.
Base spirits, syrups, juices, soda, garnishes... ingredients I’d never even heard of.
On the outskirts of Neon City, cocktails were a very luxurious drink.
Back in the old days in Korea, they were something I drank often, but things were different now.
"Do you have a cocktail in mind?"
"Can you make exactly what I want?"
"Yes."
Cocktails were what I drank most often when playing hold’em or poker.
After thinking about what kind of order would be the most annoying, I threw out something abstract.
"A large rocks glass, lots of ice, with the flavor marked as extremely intense and something that makes me feel deeply uneasy. Include a three-layer color gradient too."
"..."
"I’ll try making a five-word acrostic with the syllable ro."
Even without a visible expression, it was obvious he wanted to smash my head in with the bottle he was holding.
I’d just acted like a total nuisance and almost got my skull caved in by Asat.
"A five-word acrostic? Go on."
"...Give me one more chance."
"Crazy bastard."
Asat chuckled.
He set the ingredients on the bar, mixed them in sequence, and started shaking.
The ingredients he used were....
Intense Dream Jam?
Awakening Soda Water.
Starlit Champagne.
They were ingredients I’d never heard of. That only made me more excited. In the past, I liked alcohol enough to go out of my way to drink it, after all.
New experiences and new flavors—weren’t those always exciting?
"It’s called a cocktail of a shocking moment. Try it."
"That sounds like something you just made up."
"It’s a real drink in Penacony."
I drank it without mixing it first.
Holy moly, this is fucking good?
It was exactly what I’d asked for. A very intense taste, sweet to the point of making me feel extremely uneasy. It had been a long time since I’d tasted such a high-end drink, so I downed the whole thing without stopping.
"Ahh, that’s good."
"I’m glad you enjoyed it."
After scraping up the last drop, I looked at Asat.
Now it was time to get to the point.
"There’s no way that was all you wanted to talk about."
"You didn’t come here just to drink."
"Getting stronger is the real point, then...."
Asat Pramid liked me.
He’d given me a free drink and was listening to the words of a lowlife who could have his throat ripped out with one hand.
"In negotiations, the weaker side has to show its hand first. Wanting to get stronger can’t be all there is."
"...I’ll admit that. But there really isn’t anything else besides wanting to get stronger."
All the causes and effects in my life came from my own weakness.
There were too many things that wouldn’t have happened, and too many things I could have solved, if I’d been stronger.
"..."
Asat’s die stared at me.
I stared right back at Asat’s die.
"Pass."
"Really!?"
"I think teaching you would be fun. I was mourning a world that no longer laughs, and yet something like this happens."
"Yippee!!!"
I did a perfect aerial somersault and celebrated, and Asat let out a snort of laughter.
I’d finally gotten myself a master and escaped being a total scrub!!!
And if I used my special advantage too, I could literally cosplay as a genius!!!
In the usual grammar of the genre, the master-disciple relationship was inseparable.
What if there was actually a ridiculously pretty tomboy girl inside that die-head?
"You’re the first person I’ve ever seen with this much aptitude for the Path of Elation."
"More praise? Damn, that feels great."
"Even when I first began my own journey, it wasn’t like this."
Huh.
Was I, the Lv. 9 trash of Neon City, actually a genius of Elation?
My confidence surged like crazy.
"If your aptitude doesn’t match, you can’t handle a Path at all. Even if the Aeons die, the Paths remain. Just as there are people who inherit the will of the Trailblaze even after the Trailblaze Aeon died."
"The Trailblaze Aeon died?"
"..."
"Did the Trailblaze Aeon die?"
Asat’s hand trembled.
"Yes, it died."
His tone carried a strange edge of anger.
It seemed best not to bring up that topic anymore.
"Then if my aptitude doesn’t match, I won’t be able to handle any other Path either?"
"Correct. If your aptitude doesn’t match, you can’t handle the Path. From the looks of it... you’re already walking the Path of Elation."
"I had no choice. I had to survive."
"I’ll check something else too. Rarely, there are those who walk two Paths. Go further than that and, though it’s truly rare, if their convictions change completely, they may abandon one Path and step onto another."
"Can’t I abandon Elation?"
"...Put a hand over your chest and think about it."
Shit, Elation and I really didn’t suit each other at all.
Asat came closer and placed a hand over my heart.
I could hear my heartbeat as the die rolled.
"I’ll see whether there’s any possibility besides Elation."
"Please! Something else! Something good!"
Is this where I make a clean break?!
Asat’s die rolled.
It kept spinning rapidly before stopping.
Stopping, rolling, stopping, turning, stopping, spinning.
After dozens, then hundreds of rotations.
"...You."
He pulled his hand away from my heart and, for the first time, looked flustered.
2.
The possibilities of a human spread wide like branches, but they do not loop endlessly like reflections in a mirror.
Just a moment ago, when he had placed his hand over Adrian’s heart.
The brief glimpse Asat took, to confirm even a sliver of possibility and limit it, was.
Thousands upon thousands of paths splitting apart in an instant.
It was extremely rare for someone to have aptitude for two Paths.
It was rarer still to have aptitude for three, even if you searched the entire universe.
Four, five, six.
Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
A total of eighteen.
"...What in the world is this impossible thing."
Trailblaze, Destruction, Hunt, Erudition, Harmony, Nihility, Preservation, Abundance, Voracity, Elation, Remembrance, Beauty, Propagation, Mystery, Equilibrium, Immortality, Order, Finality.
The human standing before him now.
Had aptitude for every Path.
Impossible.
A mass of errors that should not exist.
A strange being that somehow remained alive until now.
"Why won’t you say anything? Don’t tell me my only possibility is Elation?"
"..."
Asat looked at Adrian, who was grinning foolishly.
And he could not bring himself to speak.
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