"Customer? A customer's here! Please, sit—sit quickly!"
At that moment, the stall owner jerked awake at the sound, her soft, sweet voice drifting out from beneath a pitch-black hood. A suspicious slurping noise followed as she hurriedly pulled her guest toward the table.
Samael couldn't help a muted laugh. His gaze drifted away from the shelves and forward again, but a veil blocked his view, obscuring the fortune-teller's face in hazy mystery. Only a pair of bright violet eyes peeked through, blinking animatedly.
Well now—this wrapping style is straight out of the Arabian classics.
The Ancient Serpent even felt a faint illusion of returning to Mesopotamia. Amused, he rested a hand on the table and asked casually:
"Still open for business?"
"Open! Of course open! What would you like to divine, dear guest?"
Delighted to finally have a customer, the fortune-teller nodded rapidly and lifted the table cloth to reveal a circular oak board.
It was divided into twelve sections. Beneath each compartment a Greek numeral was engraved, and above it was a simple illustration—bull, sheep, crab, centaur, and other beasts and mythic creatures.
Each segment was further lined with three gemstones: from 1 to 12 they were garnet, amethyst, iolite, diamond, emerald, moonstone, ruby, peridot, sapphire, opal, topaz, and turquoise.
Samael brushed his fingers across it. The raised and recessed textures made him look more closely, where he faintly discerned markings for the sun, moon, Venus, and other celestial bodies, along with signs for various stars.
In the center groove rested a crystal orb the size of an adult's fist.
A Greek astrolabe?
Though the star symbols and zodiac layout were crude and had a few inaccuracies, the craftsmanship was still remarkably refined.
And those gemstones alone would multiply its value hundreds of times.
No wonder a single divination cost one gold Zeus—this star chart alone was worth the price.
"I want to ask something about this voyage—"
"You don't need to tell me. Just place your hand on the crystal ball and focus on the question in your heart. You'll receive an omen, and the diviner's work is simply to guide and interpret.
But before that, I'll need something from your body as an offering."
"Huh? Self-sacrifice? That sounds terrifying."
Samael's eye twitched as he glanced at the jars behind him, each containing preserved animal parts—and a few disturbingly human ones.
This witchcraft divination was a bit too sinister… too horror-themed.
"No, no! Just a tiny bit from you—hair, blood, nails, skin, even a small piece of flesh, anything is fine!"
Realizing her client had misunderstood, the witch quickly waved both hands and grabbed Samael as he rose to leave, her voice flustered.
"Ahem… my mistake."
The Ancient Serpent cleared his throat awkwardly, plucked a strand of his long hair, and handed it to the little fortune-teller before sitting back down.
Grateful beyond words to finally retain her first customer all day, the fortune-teller let out a breath of relief and placed his strand of hair into a crystal goblet she had prepared.
Determined to give her best performance, she then turned on tiptoe and reached for several jars from the shelf behind her, pouring their various colored liquids into the goblet.
As she sprinkled in different strange powders, violent reactions rippled through the mixture, bursting into shifting blue, red, and violet light. The lock of hair—its divine power drawn away—floated, dissolved, and blended into the mixture, forming a freshly brewed witchcraft reagent.
"Everyone's 'spirit' is different," she explained patiently. "Using something from your body lets the star chart align with the correct positions and deliver more accurate information."
She poured the now purple-black mixture into the astrolabe's central groove. One by one, the stars lit up, and divine patterns began to drift and shimmer.
"It's ready. Close your eyes, empty your thoughts, and ask your question!"
With the chart fully activated by the guest's unique spirit, the fortune-teller grasped Samael's arm with both hands and solemnly guided it onto the crystal ball.
Having more than satisfied his curiosity, Samael followed her instructions gladly, closing his eyes and concentrating earnestly.
Authentic shamanic divination from the Age of Gods—how could he not enjoy this properly?
Hmm… what was I going to ask again?
Right. For this voyage—will we be able to obtain the Golden Fleece smoothly?
"Good, you can open your eyes now. You may take your hand off."
A moment later, as the crystal ball began humming and trembling, the diviner softly called Samael back to awareness. His eyes were fixed on the center of the star chart, practically trembling with anticipation.
The crystal orb, having absorbed the divination mixture from the chart, now flickered with brilliant, shifting colors like a miniature star-strewn sky. Its shaking grew more and more violent.
Hummm...
As the vibrations intensified, waves rippled through the air under the pulse of divine power. The crystal ball rose slowly from its socket, levitating into the air.
"The result should be coming out soon, right?"
"The result… seems wrong..."
"Hm?"
"I've never seen this before…"
Hearing the client's question, the fortune-teller stared at the suspended orb, its brilliance growing blinding, and muttered with an increasingly embarrassed frown.
"Wait—wait, I… I'll look it up!"
Samael's faintly suspicious gaze made her panic. Flustered, she scrambled to fix the situation, pulling a metal-bound grimoire from the drawer beneath the table—the cover engraved with a crescent moon, its pages made of parchment—and rapidly flipped to the section on divination.
"Found it! This looks like a sign of magical overload, and the result is—"
Her delighted cheer cut off instantly.
As she read line by line and reached a certain keyword, her head snapped up. Her violet eyes locked onto the crystal ball overhead—now blazing with a radiance that lit the entire tent. Her mind blanked. She gulped reflexively, her voice dry and trembling.
"The result… is that it explodes!"
Crack!
A sharp shattering sound rang out as spiderweb fractures raced from the core outward, covering the entire crystal sphere in an instant.
It's over!
The immense surge of Ether pressed down on the diviner so hard she couldn't breathe. Her mind went white. Instinct took over, and she merely squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for death.
At the critical instant, Samael lunged forward, grabbed the shattering orb, wrapped it in divine power, and flung it behind him.
Boom!
The unleashed divine force roared out in a violent tide of Ether. The compressed purple-black currents, mixed with crystal shards, blasted outward in every direction.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Metallic strikes rang through the cramped fortune-telling tent.
When the dust finally settled, a massive golden egg—taller than a man—stood in the center. Its gleaming plates shimmered like flowing light.
With a soft, crisp rustle, the scales shifted, and a pair of magnificent metallic wings slowly unfolded.
Samael glanced toward the crater blasted into the ground where the orb had landed and let out a subtle breath.
A moment of curiosity had nearly caused disaster. Had he not dispelled seventy percent of its force the instant he intervened, several hundred meters of surrounding streets would have been flattened.
Thankfully, everything remained within bounds.
Tsk. Is fate tied to me really this sensitive? What a pain. Looks like I've lost yet another pastime.
After some internal grumbling, Samael steadied his thoughts, turned back, and gently patted the shopkeeper's shoulder to reassure her.
"All right, it's over… it's fine now—"
But the moment his gaze dropped to the face beneath the hood, he froze mid-sentence.
A flushed, youthful face.
Purple hair, violet eyes, pointed ears.
Single ponytail. Straight bangs.
No mistake.
So tell me—why is a priestess of the Hecate Temple sneaking out to run a fortune-telling stall?
This kind of neglecting your duties is very improper, you know…
Princess of Colchis!