Cough, cough
"This was a luxury café that I used to admire through the display window when I was a child, licking my lips at all the delicacies," I said, looking around and trying to avoid Mai’s admiring gaze. "And during my teenage years, I managed to get a job here."
"Later, I used the café for council etings when I conquered the city. And during the war that followed, I was given this café as a reward when they found out I had worked here. Since then, whenever I had free ti, I’d routinely co here to drink coffee and read books... since now I could, hahaha."
"So that’s why this is the center of your mind," Mai said curiously. "I settled here precisely because all your mories connect to this place."
Suddenly, Mai stood up.
"Follow ," she said, and I did. We didn’t go very far—just to a nearby door.
Click.
Mai turned the doorknob, revealing the inside of the room.
"Wow..." I murmured in awe, while Mai held my shoulder to keep from falling into the abyss.
The room had no interior—there was no ceiling or floor, only an infinite void stretching upward and downward.
However, at the center of the room, millions of threads were intertwined, filling the vertical infinity.
"These are your mories—or rather, this café is the mory palace," Mai said. "From here, the threads extend throughout the desert, creating scenes and people. And in the middle of them..."
Mai extended her hand. An invisible wave of power spread toward the threads, opening a path.
In the middle of the threads was a person with a slightly bestial appearance.
"Your soul rests among the mories..." Mai swallowed hard. "But understand this: you are neither the soul nor the mories. You are the combination of both. Lose one or the other, and you will no longer be you."
"I imagine this has to do with reincarnation," I said, and she nodded.
"Your mories should have been erased upon reincarnation. You should have died, and another being should have been born from your soul."
"So what went wrong?" I asked, and Mai shook her head.
"I don’t know. But sothing certainly happened that changed your destiny for no apparent reason. You shouldn’t exist, Kai. Your existence is a challenge to the heavens."
"..."
We stared at each other, but I soon sighed.
"You still haven’t offered a coffee."
"Oh..." Mai exclaid, imdiately blushing in embarrassnt. "You’re right. Where are my manners?"
Cough, cough
She closed the door, and we both returned to the table.
Clap, clap.
Mai clapped her hands, and footsteps soon approached us.
"Yes, milady?"
I frowned as I looked at the waitress.
A cute girl with pink mouse ears and a shy face.
"Please... don’t look at like that..." she said, hiding her face behind her clipboard. "Please..."
"Dad! Where are your manners?!" Mai shouted at before turning back to her. "I’m sorry about that. Bring a cup of very strong black coffee and strawberry cake with icing, please."
"Right away!" she said, hopping off toward the counter. From afar, I saw a young man with a similar appearance begin preparing the order.
"...What was that?" I asked Mai.
"You gave up your aura, rember?" Mai said, looking at the humanoid rats. "And in return, they gave you sothing."
"What the hell did they give ?" I asked, exasperated.
"Simply put, their very entity—along with their life, destiny, karma, dharma... basically everything. If you wish, I can kill them at any mont. All it takes is a thought."
She said it in a threatening tone.
BANG
"No! I don’t want to kill them!" I shouted, slamming my hand on the table and drawing attention.
"Eek! Please don’t kill us!" the girl scread from afar. "I’ll do whatever it takes! I promise to be a better servant!"
"We’re not going to kill you," Mai said calmly, making her sigh in relief. "At least, not yet." She smiled sadistically, frightening the girl, and then turned back to .
"It’s always good to instill a bit of fear. Otherwise, they might betray us," she whispered to .
Cough, cough
"Go on. What is all this?" I asked.
"Ah yes, back to the subject," Mai said with an amused smile. "We entities are beings born from your minds, and we are representations of many things."
Mai took a deep breath.
"We are symbols, capable of traveling beyond space-ti and interacting with immaterial things such as the mind and the soul. But more than that, we are also a force of fate, luck, and misfortune—karma, if you prefer."
"You can interfere with destiny?" I asked incredulously.
"Destiny doesn’t exist—but yes. What you call destiny, I can interfere with," Mai said. Then she raised her hand, and a golden coin appeared in it. "But everything has a price. The universe operates under laws of giving and receiving."
She took another deep breath.
"So far, your life has been a constant expense, financed by your past life," Mai said, making frown. "Your karma shouldn’t exist at birth, but it does because you are reincarnated. Now tell , Kai—how much luck do you think you’ve spent so far?"
I took a deep breath.
"Let’s do the math. I’m the child of a cosmic god with perfect genetics."
"That was very expensive."
"I’m a sacred being."
"That was also very expensive."
"I received help from the greatest powers on the continent."
"The expenses just keep growing."
"I trained in a ntal plane for decades..."
"We can stop counting here, right?"
"Okay, and what does that an?" I asked as my coffee was placed in front of . "Thank you."
"You’re welco... please don’t kill ..."
"Of course," I said, then focused on Mai.
"It ans your luck is about to run out. You had more luck than anyone else on the continent, but now it’s coming to an end. We’ll call this personal luck," Mai explained.
"You won’t be able to gain much personal luck in the near future, because that requires actions that impact the world. Those with great personal luck are the ones whose actions affect the fate of many people."
"And what’s the other type of luck?"
"King’s luck. Make others submit to you and take their destiny for yourself," Mai said seriously. "The fate of a king is the fate of his kingdom. Simply put. But it cos with a price—and it can end up becoming a curse."
"But it doesn’t require consent, nor good intentions," I said.
"Exactly. We could kill the rats here and now, steal their luck, and leave as if nothing had happened," Mai said, taking a sip of coffee. "And they could have done the sa to us that day..."
Her voice trembled.
"They sensed our luck, and they wanted to steal it..." She swallowed hard, rembering Sun Eater and the others. "They could have discovered the coordinates of our ntal world and taken everything for themselves..."
"...or at least enslaved ."
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