Prologue
There is a story about a lone two-eyed person among a crowd of one-eyed people.
Under ordinary circumstances, having two eyes might be considered normal. But if everyone else in the world has only one eye, then the two-eyed person inevitably becomes the outcast.
Perhaps it is a satire of a twisted society where good and evil have grown indistinct, and common sense and absurdity have become hopelessly entangled.
Whether the story is meant as a satire and condemnation of the world, or whether it means that the two-eyed person must ultimately assimilate into the world of the one-eyed, depends on how it is used.
But if the world is filled with one-eyed people, then the two-eyed person has no choice but to adapt.
Not to the life of someone with two eyes, but to the life of someone with one.
Such is the life of a prophet who, unlike the other one-eyed people, can see the future through his second eye.
And so, he has no choice but to live like a one-eyed person rather than someone with two.
Hiding the fact that he possesses two eyes and living as an ordinary part-time café worker who casually reads tarot cards for customers.
***
The story of the two-eyed person among the one-eyed rests upon a single premise.
Both the one telling the story and the one being described identify themselves with the two-eyed person.
They look down upon the society of the one-eyed—a collective label for those who are wrong, dim-witted, inadequate, or simply disagreeable.
A society of one-eyed people is, after all, no utopia.
The normal one, the one closest to perfection, is the two-eyed person.
It is “me.”
That is why “I,” standing on higher ground, have no choice but to descend a step and stand alongside them.
There is a sense of superiority behind it.
Isn’t that only natural?
After all, I possess two eyes.
I am different from those insignificant one-eyed people.
Only a superior being who can move freely upon the higher steps can lower himself and meet those beneath him at eye level.
I am the one making the concession.
I can yield a single step and accommodate them.
It is only one step.
The story tells the two-eyed person to assimilate while wielding arrogance and pride as a shield—the belief that he can afford to compromise precisely because he is superior.
That is the kind of story it is.
Then what would the two-eyed person who had successfully assimilated into the one-eyed society think?
Would he believe that he had become a splendid one-eyed person himself?
Of course not.
Ultimately, he would still regard himself as someone with two eyes, different from everyone else and superior to them.
He would merely believe that the difference between them was small enough for him to concede.
Because that was the easier way to live.
......But what if the difference went beyond that?
What should someone do if he was not a two-eyed person in a village of the one-eyed, but a three-eyed one?
What if even the two-eyed people appeared beneath him?
“What do you think, Mr. One-Eye?”
“......What? What are you talking about?”
“I could overlook the difference between me and the customers who visited the café as merely one extra eye. But that isn’t possible here.”
They felt too distant.
Their culture and civilization might have been built upon entirely different foundations, but he still couldn’t help finding them backward.
Even more so when he watched fools who knew nothing of their own futures hurl themselves toward death like moths flying into a flame.
Kardi Vine’s lips curled as he stared at the one-eyed man sprawled before him, twitching on the ground.
“Th-That isn’t what matters!”
“Is that so?”
“I told you! You said my luck was good!”
“To be precise, I said it wasn’t bad.”
“You said I’d return safely!”
The adventurer was covered in wounds.
Blood seeped through the bandages wrapped around his injuries, staining the clothes he had only just changed into red.
In that state, the adventurer writhed.
Unable even to stand properly, he lay on the ground and struggled desperately.
“You said it! You definitely said it wasn’t bad!”
“I have no interest in this fortune-teller game, but go ahead and spout your nonsense.”
The adventurer’s eyes trembled.
“That was what you said, so I gave you an answer. The Five of Swords. I couldn’t call your fortune in battle good, but it wasn’t bad either.”
“Then why? Whyyyyy?!”
Kardi Vine tilted his head as he watched the adventurer scream.
“What are you so dissatisfied about?”
“Th-They’re all dead!”
“All?”
“All my companions are dead! Every last one of them......! N-No! They might still be alive! Please!”
“Hmm.”
Kardi took a deck of cards from inside his clothes and idly played with it in one hand.
He saw the adventurer’s trembling eyes follow the cards.
Smiling at that, Kardi Vine gently admonished the ignorant one-eyed man.
“The card reading you received there was merely a quick and casual one. I drew a single card from the Kingdom Cards and made a rough interpretation from that.”
He had substituted this world’s popular playing cards for the more complicated tarot deck.
“More importantly, it was merely an experiment.”
Could these card readings prove effective—or perhaps useful—to someone who normally glimpsed the future through an entirely different method?
Drawing unnecessary attention would be bothersome, so he had offered a single card to each of the countless adventurers entering the labyrinth.
This adventurer had simply drawn the Five of Swords.
He was nothing more than one of numerous test cases meant to help Kardi calculate the accuracy rate and determine the method’s usefulness.
It had never been particularly serious.
“In any case, you returned safely from the labyrinth, so the card appears to have been accurate. I’ll use this as valuable data.”
“They’re all deaaaaad!”
A shriek resembling the howl of a beast escaped the adventurer.
His body was already so badly damaged that the sound lacked enough volume to carry beyond the alley.
“You seem to be misunderstanding something.”
Kardi recalled what had happened then.
When he had offered to read their fortunes, only the adventurer before him had drawn a card while mocking him.
“What?”
“Your fate and the fate of your companions are separate matters.”
“Then......”
“Whatever happened to your companions, you returned alive, didn’t you? I don’t believe anything I said was particularly inaccurate.”
“D-Don’t make me laugh! Then—then if you’d read everyone’s fortunes, we could’ve prepared......!”
“Why would I?”
Kardi Vine gathered the cards while watching the writhing one-eyed man.
“I have no obligation to do so. Nor do I have any reason to read the fortunes of countless adventurers individually and help every one of them. Most importantly, I had no reason to go out of my way to examine and help those who mocked and insulted me.”
“Uh, ah......”
“More importantly, you aren’t worth it.”
An ordinary Iron-Badge adventurer like him was nothing special.
“Please......”
Kardi had expected curses and hatred in return, but the adventurer pleaded instead.
“Read the cards. Please read them. My companions—some of them might still be alive......”
“Hmm.”
“Please tell me whether any of them are still alive. Whether they can be saved. Please......!”
It wasn’t a bad proposal if he treated it as additional data.
Even so, there was no need to give the man an affirmative answer.
“That isn’t something I intend to do right now.”
“Why......?”
“Because you’re going to die here. There’s no need for me to tell you anything more, is there?”
“......What?”
“You were a fairly decent test subject in several respects. You gave me opportunities to make a number of choices. In consideration of that, I’ll forget about you pouring beer over me.”
“I-I’ll apologize, so please! For mocking you and everything else......”
“I came because I was curious about how you would die. I’m glad I did.”
“Ple......grrk, krk......!”
His pleading transformed into a strange cry.
It sounded as though his human vocal cords were twisting into something unnatural.
The clothes that had been stained red with blood gradually began turning black.
His trembling brown eyes steadily became red, while their corners stretched and narrowed.
Unidentifiable scales pushed through his clothes.
“D-Die...... grrrk!”
“Did some of the resentment you felt while alive remain? It appears you want to kill me.”
“......It’s hardly surprising.”
Along with that sigh-laden voice, a long sword plunged into the neck of the adventurer transforming into a grotesque creature.
The circumstances differed from what Kardi had already foreseen, yet the ending remained the same.
The transformation stopped the instant the adventurer ceased breathing.
Kardi Vine clicked his tongue as he looked at the adventurer, whose body had transformed halfway into a hideous monster.
“That isn’t a particularly pleasant sight.”
“As far as I’m concerned, nothing about this situation is pleasant, you damned bastard.”
A vicious-looking man covered in scars, with long, narrow eyes, growled at him.
Kardi Vine smiled at his “companion” as the man pulled his sword free, grumbling while blackened blood ran down its blade.
“I owe you one, Mr. Two-Eyes.”
“......What kind of bizarre nickname is that? I’ve never lost an eye.”
“That isn’t what it means.”
It was merely Kardi’s arbitrary designation.
Ignoring the man’s confusion, Kardi looked down at the motionless corpse.
“I only started this to check the probabilities, but I seem to have caught something strange.”
“You can say that again. Damn it. What the hell is happening in this city?”
“I don’t know. As I’ve told you several times, I don’t know everything.”
This was closer to an unexpected stroke of luck.
“Says the bastard who acts like he knows everything.”
“There are many things I don’t know. For instance, I have no idea when you’ll finally succeed in proposing, Mr. Pell.”
“Shut up!”
Ignoring the adventurer’s furious roar, Kardi began handling the cards again.
After watching him lightly shuffle the deck, the adventurer’s expression relaxed somewhat.
“......You’re going to read them after all?”
“It appears this might provide useful data as well.”
“What a troublesome bastard.”
Despite the sarcastic remark, his tone had grown noticeably gentler.
Keeping that in mind, Kardi drew a card.
“The One of Swords.”
He shuffled the deck again and drew another.
“The One of Swords.”
And again.
“The One of Swords.”
“......You aren’t cheating, are you?”
“Why would I go through the trouble?”
“......That party really was cursed with abysmal luck.”
“The...... Three of Swords.”
The number on the final card was different.
The prophet and the Gold-Badge adventurer both stared at it.
A battle fortune of three.
Three out of a deck in which thirteen was the highest possible card.
It was two steps above the absolute bottom.
It wasn’t the worst possible result, but neither was it particularly hopeful.
This was merely a rough reading, so there was no way to know how much faith they could place in it.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. The person in question isn’t here, and I only performed a rough reading. I can’t say whether it’ll prove accurate.”
“Then?”
“It might still be worthwhile as part of the experiment.”
“To use as that data thing or whatever?”
“Yes.”
The fierce-looking adventurer clicked his tongue.
“I’ll round up the men.”
“I’ll leave it to you.”
Despite his irritated attitude, Pell swiftly gestured, and the people waiting in the distance hurried over.
A cloth was spread over the corpse on the ground, and Kardi heard them discussing who would enter the labyrinth.
They intended to search for the single adventurer who might still be alive.
Moving so many people to search for one person whose location they didn’t even know seemed wasteful. Still, it likely meant something entirely different to Pell and his subordinates, so Kardi had no intention of stopping them.
There was always a possibility that they would obtain some other useful result, so he merely gave his motivated companion a subtle push forward.
‘We do need information.’
The most important question was why this adventurer had transformed into such a grotesque creature.
If they went to the place where it had happened, there was a chance they would find a clue. In that sense, the search was necessary.
That was all it meant.
He felt nothing else, nor did he need to.
Watching the cloth gradually cover and conceal the corpse, Kardi Vine spoke quietly.
“Farewell, Mr. One-Eye.”
That marked the end of his sentiment.
He walked past the corpse without another glance.
If this became the clue that led to the resolution of something he had arbitrarily decided to call a quest, he might offer the man another small measure of mourning when everything was over.
Letting that meaningless thought drift away, the three-eyed man continued forward.
He could only hope to return to the world of the two-eyed as soon as possible.
With that wish in mind, he walked deeper into the world of the one-eyed.
Into a labyrinth city in an unknown world.
All the while praying that he would someday escape this place and return to the world from which he had come.
***