Pets and Divination

That afternoon, Lorne sat alone in his hotel room, at something of a loss.

"So everything's fine now?" He lowered his head and examined his completely unharmed body.

The entire day had passed without incident, and he had received no warning from fate.

"No, this is only the beginning. It's only been half a day. With how fast steam trains travel, that Silver-Haired Woman might already have reached Tingen."

"What should I do now?"

Lorne had wanted to go somewhere else to hide, but abandoned the idea when he remembered that he knew neither the area nor anyone in it.

He decided to stay at this hotel for the full week before doing anything else. At the very least, he couldn't waste the money he had paid for the room.

"Mrow~"

Lorne held the Orange Cat in his arms and stroked her absentmindedly.

"Just look at you. I'd already fed you, so why were you still so greedy? You even went looking for something to drink. Of all the things you could have drunk, you had to pick a Potion."

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused me?"

Lorne spoke to the cat dejectedly, though rather than a conversation, it was more like he was talking to himself.

"Meow?" An utterly innocent feline face stared up at Lorne.

"Ah, well. Why am I arguing with a cat?"

"But since I've decided to adopt you, I should give you a name. I can't just keep calling you Cat."

Despite what he said, Lorne really only wanted to distract himself by coming up with a name.

"What should I call you?" Lorne sank into thought.

Kitty, Little Yellow, or Little Meow?

Forget it. Those sound far too Chinese. They don't fit this world at all.

"If I use one of those names, I might end up exposing the fact that I'm a transmigrator." Lorne rejected his initial ideas.

But a purely Loen-style name didn't feel quite right to him either.

"Mrow..."

"Stop squirming!" Lorne looked unhappily at the Orange Cat wriggling in his arms. "I finally got you clean. Don't go getting dirty again."

After bringing her back, Lorne had been so preoccupied with the Potion that he had forgotten to bathe her. By the time he realized it, he already had fleas on him.

Without even noticing, he had spent two days petting an unwashed stray cat.

Neither he nor the original owner of his body had ever seen such things before. Encountering fleas for the first time across two lifetimes, Lorne had nearly broken down when he scratched one out of his hair.

The thought that this cat had even licked his face while he was asleep gave him goosebumps.

He had immediately taken her to the washroom and given her a thorough "scrubbing."

Only then had he discovered that she was female.

"Look at you. Before your bath, you looked like something picked out of a garbage heap... Well, you were a stray, so I suppose that's about right."

"Anyway, what should I name you?"

"Garbage..." Something suddenly occurred to Lorne.

Laji... Laqi... Lucky.

Lucky-as in fortunate! Lorne's eyes lit up.

Should I just call her Lucky?

No, I should tweak it a little...

"I'll call you Lucky." Lorne decided to transliterate "lucky," making a little homophonic pun.

As it happened, the resulting name also fit surprisingly well with Loen naming conventions for pets.

"Lucky. That's your name, understand?" Lorne stared into the Orange Cat's eyes and spoke solemnly.

"Meow~" The Orange Cat simply looked at him and gave a slight nod.

"Never mind. You'll probably get it once I've called you that a few more times." Although the Orange Cat had made a rather human gesture, Lorne didn't believe she could understand him.

A cat was a cat. Even if she had drunk a Potion, she had merely become a Beyonder cat.

"A Beyonder cat? Not a bad idea. If I ever really start copying books from my old world, perhaps I could put that concept into one." Lorne nodded, quite pleased with his flash of inspiration.

"Lucky, I hope you'll live up to your name and turn my luck around." Having settled his pet's name, he returned to the desk.

"It's not like I have anything else to do."

Lorne took out the materials he had previously bought from the Eye of Wisdom. He hadn't finished reading them on the train, and now that he had time, he intended to study them further.

Over the next few days, Lorne remained in the hotel, living in a state of sustained anxiety that greatly reduced the efficiency of his studies.

Even so, he learned quite a lot. What interested him most was divination.

Lorne was no stranger to the word "divination," though he had heard "fortune-telling" far more often.

Before transmigrating, Lorne had been persuaded by a roommate who liked mysticism to try Tarot Card readings a few times. He had also tried more Chinese-style methods, such as palm reading and face reading.

Back then, he hadn't felt much pressure, so he had even had the energy to learn a few tricks from that roommate.

But as for their accuracy? Rather than calling them extraordinarily precise, it would be fairer to say they had absolutely nothing to do with reality.

"We even used my roommate's pet turtle once to try turtle-shell fortune-telling." Recalling his former life left Lorne feeling wistful.

"Mysticism really exists in this world. Divination might actually work." Reading the introduction to divination in the materials, Lorne felt tempted.

The description of divination in the materials made it sound incredibly versatile. From simply determining whether something was right or wrong, to identifying objects, to foreseeing all sorts of future events... Divination seemed almost omnipotent.

"But if divination really is that accurate, this world shouldn't have stocks, bonds, or gambling games that depend on luck."

His reasoning wasn't unfounded. Even in a world with supernatural powers, the actual effectiveness of a method that was so versatile, so easy to master, and so widely known was certainly open to question.

But if divination truly worked, perhaps he could gain a clear understanding of his situation and stop living in fear every day.

"I don't have any of these things!" Lorne looked at the Pendulum, Astrolabe, and Tarot Cards listed in the materials. He didn't own a single one.

The only method that required no tools was something called Dream Divination. But the materials didn't explain it in much detail, and it sounded far too arbitrary, with nothing concrete or clearly recognizable.

Lorne doubted its accuracy.

"Come to think of it, does palm reading work in this world?" Lorne recalled the palm-reading skills he had learned from his roommate before transmigrating.

"If mysticism is real, palm reading should count as mysticism too, right?" Lorne wasn't quite sure whether, in this

Western-style world, Eastern mysticism would work at all, but he still held out his hand and examined it closely.

"The lifeline's a little short. No wonder he died so suddenly."

"The career line looks good. Looks like there's money to be made.

"But the love line's rather messy. Looks like the makings of a womanizer. I remember the original owner of this body had never even been in a relationship, right?"

Lorne used his amateur fortune-telling knowledge to analyze his new pair of hands.

"But does this even count as my own fate?" Lorne wasn't sure. After all, he had transmigrated, and these weren't his own hands. Could a palm reading still be accurate?

"No, this isn't something I can disprove." No matter how much Lorne thought it over, he couldn't reach a conclusion.

"Looks like I'll have to consult a professional fortune-teller after all."