Nilou and Dunyarzad are both delighted—it's practically like watching a fellow-fan meetup.
There are plenty of stalls at the celebration, and among them Paimon immediately zeroes in on the food.
She's a little disappointed, though, because the "seven delicacies table" at the Flower God's Birthday Festival is entirely vegetarian.
Goodbye, Sumeru—this nation that never let me eat meat.
By the way, Paimon loves eating slimes—are slimes vegetarian or meat?
From an elemental creature perspective, maybe something like Red Bull, an energy drink?
Unclear. Anyway, in the story little Paimon suddenly has a wild idea: since the Dendro Archon's festival is all vegetarian, does that mean the Pyro Archon's festival is all barbecue?
The moment she thinks of Natlan as fire, how could there be no grilled meat or yakitori? Paimon immediately decides:
["Traveler, let's move up our trip to Natlan!"]
Logically, Paimon's idea is obviously unreasonable—nations don't eat according to their element.
The Geo Archon's people don't gnaw on rocks, and the Anemo Archon doesn't drink the northwest wind.
The Electro Archon did grill something with lightning, but the "doneness" was a bit over—Signora didn't even leave ashes.
But guess what? Though Paimon is a bit dim, she actually guessed right this time! Natlan's "festivals" really do offer unlimited free barbecue.
All one can say is: if you make enough predictions, one or two are bound to hit.
But if we classify this as a "prophecy," Mona would probably faint from anger.
Speaking of Mona—at the next stall there happens to be an alchemy fortune-telling booth.
Alchemy? Fortune-telling? What an odd combination—Mona is extremely interested.
What? This was invented by Lesser Lord Kusanali herself? Hmm… how much for Nahida?
Rich lady Mona could slap the money on the table right now, back and forth!
Too bad Nahida isn't for sale, but information about the alchemy fortune-telling she invented can be bought—it's not even a secret; there are dedicated books.
The general method is to alchemically combine any two items from the person, then interpret the future based on the result.
[Dunyarzad explains: "Yes… according to Lesser Lord Kusanali's view, all things in the world are interconnected, and everything can point to 'fate.'"]
The readers don't understand, but it sounds impressive.
Mona, on the other hand, seems to grasp something—she recalls a "youkai" Lucian once told her about.
Laplace's Demon—a hypothetical entity that knows everything in the universe, so the entire universe is nothing more than a simple equation to it.
It can even view time in reverse—"the past as effect, the future as cause"—the future unfolds before it like the past.
This alchemy fortune-telling has a similar flavor: by gathering "information," one calculates the future.
When Mona first heard Lucian tell that story, she strongly suspected he was fooling her.
But then she thought: Lucian always fools me—maybe this time he's deliberately not fooling me?
If I assume he's fooling me and ignore the information, wouldn't that mean I've been fooled anyway?
With this dialectical reasoning, Mona chose to believe it, then began highly suspecting Lucian might actually be this demon in disguise and nearly wanted to strip him to check.
Lucian wouldn't let her, so she settled for pinching his face and checking through his clothes for a long time. Result: he's human.
Master Albedo had already confirmed this result, having thoroughly "examined" Lucian top to bottom.
Albedo had no particular thoughts about the outcome, but Mona was disappointed—if Lucian really were a demon, it wouldn't sting so much.
A long time has passed; Mona searched for a lot of information on "Laplace's Demon" and found nothing. She thinks she might have been fooled by Lucian again.
Now Mona treats it as just a story—too fantastical, too absurd.
Who could know everything? Impossible.
But Nahida's viewpoint inspired her—you don't need to know everything. Since all things are connected, just collect the necessary "information," right?
"As expected of the God of Wisdom." A thirst for knowledge ignited in Mona's heart.
Once this story arc is over, she'll go find Lucian and have him introduce her—she wants to talk with Nahida.
Mona still doesn't know what awaits her in Sumeru; Lucian is worrying about not having found a successor yet.
By the way, Mona also realized something: Lucian hasn't actually tricked her this time. He really has been "teaching" her; she just hadn't noticed.
See, this "Laplace's Demon" is actually a metaphor—my bad for not understanding.
Lucian, I misjudged you. You're really good to me. I'm heading to Sumeru right now to cook for you!
Good thing Lucian doesn't know, or he'd say: Yeah, you misjudged me—Laplace's Demon doesn't exist at all. I was totally fooling you…
In any case, without Lucian himself realizing it, his prophecy book struck again—successfully fooling Mona once more. In extremely high spirits, Mona is even humming lightly as she reads.
And right on cue, she reaches the part where the Traveler in the book gets "fooled."
The Traveler isn't sure if the fortune-teller is scamming them either, but figures there's no harm in trying.
[Kimiya: "All right, just a moment… hmm… it's the 'Moon.'"]
The alchemical pattern is a crescent moon. Kimiya calls it "Moon." If Paimon saw it, she'd say it looks like a cookie with a bite taken out.
Mona ignores the foodie Paimon in the book and focuses on reading. Moon? What does it mean?
What does it mean? Kimiya doesn't actually know either—so it's up to master con artist Lucian to explain.
Ahem: As the saying goes, "Half like the sun, half like the moon—once bitten by a golden dragon."
What does it mean? It means Lumine has the bearing of an emperor! Great things await her!
Even if she starts as a Traveler with nothing, one day she will ascend the throne!
All one can say is: Mona should study well—Lucian's "divinations" are mostly bluff, but there's real learning in them.
But if we set aside Lucian's bluffing, what would a "professional" like Kimiya say?
[Kimiya: "Hmm… 'Moon' generally means… means… wait a second…"]
Kimiya can't remember and flips through a book on the spot—basically Baidu-ing while interpreting tarot for someone.
["Oh, I remember now—it means 'illusion' and 'lies.'"]
"Illusion" and "lies"? As expected of alchemy fortune-telling—truly impressive!
Mysterious and profound! Incomprehensible—and the less you understand, the more impressive it feels!
The readers have no idea what this "illusion" and "lies" refers to, but they're still happy to praise "prophecy arts" in general.
No helping it—they're reading a prophecy book themselves. Prophecies have already proven their worth; the people of Fontaine are panicking like muggles, desperately wanting to scoop up seawater with poop scoops every day.
===✧✦✧===
Character Voice Lines · Furina: About the Fontaine Prophecy
"The citizens are all very anxious, but fortunately everyone is willing to trust me. After I declared that everything would be fine, the pressure in the nation calmed."
"Mmm, everything will be fine."