Do not attempt to avoid fate. It is better not to know than to know and fear a future that has not yet come.
Fate is like a boomerang—no matter how much you try to reject it, it comes back.
Just like the old man who, terrified by the prophecy that he would die at his grandson’s hands, fled to avoid his grandson, only to be instantly killed when struck by a discus his grandson happened to throw.
If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better to accept it without knowing?
However, despite her advice, those who wished to know the future foolishly came to find Eurysis.
“You still want to know? Even now, if you don’t want to hear it, you can leave.”
Look. Even the god before her eyes now stood resolutely in this place.
Well, that’s why he came all the way here to find her.
“Fine, stubborn Seianes-nim. First, I’ll tell you the answer your father wants.”
As soon as her words ended, everything on the island that had been gently swaying and dancing stopped with a thud.
A quiet, cold silence descended upon the entire island.
Seianes, who had been still, felt as if her sigh passed over him like a cutting wind.
He couldn’t know what she, who felt the future with her body, was sensing.
One thing was certain: Eurysis was detecting with her flesh his father’s future that he did not know.
As if searching through everything, when the cutting wind that carefully swept over him disappeared, Eurysis’s voice was heard cautiously.
“The great surface makes the hero’s heart beat, and cold darkness descends upon the skin. Terrible revenge touches the skin and stings. The smell of revenge is in the air. The beating of a new heart is felt. But I cannot know what the God of Fate will do about this. Three forked roads are felt at the tips of my feet. Everywhere my flesh touches is warm, cold, and unaware—three sensations. The three sensations flow through the five senses. When I feel the things that tread the earth being buried in the soil, someone makes the heart of revenge beat. The desperate heart of one who has lost what they love becomes an arrow and painfully digs into the earth, and it hurts. Pain is felt from within the heart. Revenge begins again. O tragic fate, let me give you one piece of advice. If there is nothing you can do, then everyone should just wave their hands. Then fate will determine the answer.”
The girl’s soft, low voice filled the surroundings of the island. Sentences whose meaning was ambiguous formed one future. Eurysis whispered to Seianes the future she had learned at the cost of her own body.
“What I saw is up to here. This is all I can tell you.”
“……That’s all?”
“Yes, anyway, I think you’ll understand some of what I said.”
Looking at Seianes’s expression that had become complicated and subtle, Eurysis laughed merrily again. Mulling over the prophecy whose meaning he couldn’t grasp, Seianes opened his mouth.
“……Then this time it’s my question. I want my child……”
“Hehe. A story about love, right? Don’t worry. Heavy wings falling. Judging by the burnt smell, two crows will fall from the sky. At that time, judging by the shaking of two legs, the world will split in two. Until then, keep walking east, and you’ll feel a heartbeat there. Then you’ll naturally know…… And let me give you advice in advance.”
The moment Seianes was about to ask about Abrisius, Eurysis explained everything without listening to his words further, as if she already knew everything.
While admiring her ability, Seianes, who on the other hand felt chills, remained silent. After all the talk was over, she, who had paused for the last time, quietly whispered in Seianes’s ear.
“Beware of revenge.”
At the last words, Seianes’s expression, who usually didn’t do things that would create grudges, became subtle. She was repeatedly throwing around the word “revenge.”
If that included himself too, he couldn’t figure out what it could be related to no matter how much he thought about it.
“Now go. I’ve finished what I need to do.”
Eurysis said decisively, as if there was nothing more to say.
At that decisiveness, Seianes couldn’t ask further. It felt unsettling, but it didn’t seem like she would answer any more than this, so he slowly rose from his seat.
“……In any case, thank you. I’ll relay it well to my father.”
Of course, he would omit a few truths when telling him, but he didn’t bother to mention that.
Even at his words of gratitude, the goddess and island that had finished their task maintained their silence.
As Seianes, who was about to leave, moved one step at a time, fog once again thickly covered the entire island.
Finally, when Seianes went outside the island, the island covered again in thick fog hid its form once more.
Seianes stared blankly at the island beginning to drift aimlessly again and mulled over her words. What on earth had she been saying?
[The great surface makes the hero’s heart beat, and cold darkness descends upon the skin……]
“Does the heart beating mean…… Abrisius?”
Her ambiguous words were quite bothersome.
Perhaps because she felt the future with her sixth sense, Eurysis’s prophecy was incomparably difficult.
“But there was nothing anywhere that said Abrisius would be a threat.”
If the road split into three paths was a fortune-telling of his father’s future, he just needed to lead him to success.
“Deliver this prophecy to your father.”
Seianes, who had organized the prophecy he heard from Eurysis on a note, handed it to a small bird.
The bird that received the note containing the prophecy flew high into the sky toward Henelion.
Only after seeing the bird disappear beyond the sky did Seianes turn his steps to the east.
Since she said to go east, he would surely meet Abrisius.
Thinking only of Abrisius, Seianes headed east.
* * *
Abrisius, who had been playing hide-and-seek with Cairens in his villa, accidentally discovered a hole.
‘What’s this?’
Who would have thought there’d be a hole here.
It must have been covered by bushes, so no one knew there was a hole until now.
Forgetting even the fact that he was in the middle of hide-and-seek, Abrisius lay flat on his stomach. And he carefully examined the hole between the bushes.
‘If it’s this size, I think I could get in too?’
The unknown space he was seeing for the first time stimulated Abrisius’s curiosity.
What could be behind there? An escape route to leave this castle? Or a space connected to another place?
‘I’ll know if I check it out first.’
Thinking that, Abrisius slowly squeezed his body into the hole. As expected, the hole was passable enough.
“Squee?”
No, he thought he could pass through.
The past week.
Abrisius had lived more luxuriously than when he lived with Seianes—no, even more so. Even though he played around with Cairens, that time was short, and after playing, sweet and delicious food was always waiting for him.
Because of that, his bottom had become plumper than before.
‘Wait, why is this happening?’
Because of that, his bottom got stuck in the hole and showed no signs of coming out.
His face turned red with embarrassment for a moment.
He tried somehow to pull out his stuck bottom, but it wouldn’t budge. Even when he twisted his body and rolled this way and that sideways, his bottom, once stuck, had no intention of easily coming out.
‘Good grief!’
What an embarrassment. If Cairens saw him stuck in the wall unable to move like this……
‘No, I have to get it out somehow. He’ll definitely laugh looking at me. Then how can I live from the shame!’
Just imagining it made him furious inside.
He had to pull out his bottom stuck in the hole by any means necessary.
“Squee, squee, squeee!”
Even though he struggled desperately to get out of the hole, his bottom showed no signs of coming out.
“Squee……”
Abrisius, exhausted, gave up just like that.
“Waaaah……”
He was so miserable that tears flowed. Even when he cried miserably, perhaps because it was a deserted place, no one appeared.
“Caaaw–!”
After sitting like that for a while, the human who should come didn’t come, and instead two crows appeared nearby. The crows that settled behind Abrisius’s bottom chattered noisily for quite a while like that.
‘So noisy…… Won’t these things go away?’
To drive away the annoying crows, he moved his hind legs, tapping near the crows and shaking his bottom. However, despite his resistance, the crows didn’t run away.
Rather, as if annoyed, they sharply pecked Abrisius’s plump, fattened bottom with their beaks.
“Squawk?”
Soon he felt a clump of bottom fur become sparse. These crows had plucked out Abrisius’s bottom fur.
‘These birdbrains!’
When he suffered an unexpected bottom assault and attack of fur being plucked, fury surged.
“Squee, squeee!”
Go away, I said go.
He tried to chase away the birds while shaking his bottom, but the more he did so, whether the crows became stubborn too, they surrounded his rear and plucked out his fur. Moreover, they plucked it out in several clumps, so his fluffy bottom became cool.
“Squawk! Squeeeek!”
“Caaaw!”
“Squawk!”
And so unfolded the struggle of the crow flock trying to take the fur and the deer trying to protect it.
Abrisius shook his bottom to drive them away, but in the crows’ eyes, it rather looked like he was seductively swaying.
After doing the bottom dance for a while, he ultimately had to offer up his bottom fur to them. Abrisius, who gave up resistance, slumped down in place with his body stuck.
“Squeee……”
How did my situation become this mess? Setting aside his stinging bottom, tears came from the unfairness and embarrassment of the situation where he had transformed into a deer and couldn’t even take care of his own body.
When he was crying miserably for a while with his head deeply bowed—
“What is this sound? Oh my, a deer?”
With the sound of stepping on grass, some graceful and elegant lady appeared in front of Abrisius. The woman with wide eyes was looking down at Abrisius with curious eyes.
“A deer……?”
