Chapter 157: An Empty Council

Then, he looked toward Dario.

The guy was still eating normally.

Marek was speechless. Seeing the reactions of Kellan and Nadia, he thought it was that spicy, but the guy seemed immune to it. “How are you eating that?”

Dario shrugged. “It’s good.”

Rhovan looked at Marek and asked, “You’re not eating?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Marek pointed toward Kellan and Nadia. “Do I look stupid?”

Kellan glared at him while still drinking cold water to pacify the spiciness in his mouth, while Marek did not give a fuck about his glare.

Their days were mostly filled with things like that.

They trained, explored the city, ate unfamiliar food, learned how Courtspire City worked, and occasionally argued about things that weren’t really important. Moreover, Marek had started noticing the small things people did when they had no important things to do.

During one of their visits to a public market, he noticed several people gathered around a table with cards in their hands. Another card had been placed in the middle, and unlike the others, it only carried the symbol of one of the Zodiac Houses.

Marek slowed down when all four players placed one card face-down in front of them at almost the same time. It was quite different from the usual card games he knew that people played on Earth.

“What are they playing?” he asked.

Rhovan followed his attention toward the table. “Oh… it’s a card game called Twelve Seats.”

“How does it work?”

Apparently, the card in the middle represented one of the twelve recognized Houses, while the cards in each player’s hand had a House and a value from one to three. Everyone secretly chose one card before revealing them together, and whoever played the highest value won the Seat.

And there was one additional rule, that was, if the House on a player’s card matched the Seat in the middle, its value increased by one.

Marek watched as the players revealed their cards.

The Seat in the middle was Libra.

One player revealed a Libra card with the number two, while another revealed a three belonging to Sagittarius. Marek initially assumed the Sagittarius card had won until the Libra player reached forward and took the Seat.

“Wait. They both counted as three.”

“The matching House wins if they tie,” Rhovan explained. “That’s another rule to mind.”

Marek nodded after thinking about it for a moment. “So you don’t necessarily need the strongest card. You just need the right one for whatever Seat appears.”

“Hmm… More or less,” Rhovan replied, nodding.

The next Seat was revealed before Marek could ask anything else.

Taurus.

Everyone at the table chose another card. This time, two players revealed threes from different Houses, while neither of them had Taurus.

Nobody took the Seat.

Instead, the players left it in the center and revealed another Seat beside it.

Marek frowned. “Why didn’t either of them win?”

“If the highest cards tie and neither one matches the Seat, nobody gets it. The Seat stays there until somebody wins the next round.”

“And they get both?”

Rhovan nodded. “That’s called an Empty Council.”

Marek looked back at the two Seat cards sitting in the middle of the table.

For a game that children apparently played throughout the Prime Continuum, it was much easier to understand than most things he’d encountered since arriving there.

He watched another round before noticing something else. There were twelve different Seat symbols. None of them belonged to Ophiuchus. Marek didn’t ask about that. He did not need to, because he already knew why.

Compared to everything that happened back on Earth, Marek actually found everything they had been doing peaceful, except that incident… but peaceful might be overstating it. He was still looking for his father. Mara left him completely. And his mother… he had no idea how to find her. After all, although he knew that she was an Aquarius Astrant, him trying to find her at the House of Aquarius would be stupid.

His mother, Amara, wouldn’t do that. Otherwise, it’d be easier for him to find her. She specifically said that she would find him, not him finding her. If she didn’t want to be found, there was nothing he could do.

His Ophiuchus Sunblind Period was also approaching fast. Still, for the first time in quite a while, he was doing things that didn’t involve fighting for his life. This kind of life they had, he liked it… but it would’ve been better with Amara and Mara. Alas, his strength was still limited, so he could do nothing at all.

Marek continued practicing Spatial Parallax whenever they returned to Goldwake House.

Sometimes, Rhovan joined him. Other times, Marek trained alone.

His control had improved compared to when he first learned the Technique, but moving references were still difficult.

He could maintain two stationary references with much less effort now, while moving one of them no longer caused him to lose everything immediately.

However, whenever several things moved around him at once, his attention would sometimes return to himself again.

Rhovan told him to keep practicing, and he even said, “Although constant practice doesn’t make it perfect for you, at least your mastery grows over time. Practice breeds mastery. Not perfection. Even the masters could make mistakes, so you don’t have to pressure yourself to strive for that perfection.”

Marek merely nodded at Rhovan at that time. He just continued his training.

One afternoon, another request regarding Tomas arrived at their doorstep. He quickly opened it, but nothing useful was on it. Even if he only read it once, he knew at first sight that it was all just useless information.

Normally, he would have started another search after seeing it. However, this time, he didn’t.

Rafe had sent him a message earlier telling him where everyone else was, so Marek left Goldwake House and went to meet them instead.

They were waiting at one of Courtspire’s larger transportation hubs.

Dario was still eating. Marek could recognize that he was gaining weight. However, due to training, those gains actually did him good, as it made him even bulkier and stronger it seemed.

And he wasn’t even surprised anymore.

Kellan and Nadia were sitting near one of the public displays, while Eren and Silas were nearby. Rafe was looking at another map. Rhovan was buying something from one of the nearby stalls. And Marek just sat down.

A few minutes later, the program on the large display changed.

There was an enormous ceremonial scale on the screen.

Marek recognized it. “Nonsense Court?”

Nadia looked at him. “Yeah.”

They had seen the program before during their first days in the city, but none of them understood Thesarin at the time.

Now, Marek finally knew what the program was actually about.

Apparently, two people would bring some ridiculous disagreement in front of a large ceremonial scale while a host questioned both sides.

The current episode involved a married couple arguing about dessert.

Marek waited for the serious part.

However, he waited for nothing.

The wife claimed she didn’t want dessert. Her husband ordered one for himself. Then, she ate almost half of his.

“I only tried some,” the woman said.

The scale suddenly moved downward on her side.

The entire audience laughed.

The host stared at her. “How much is some?”

The woman hesitated.

Her husband was already smiling.

“Maybe a little less than half…” she answered, actually hesitant.

The audience laughed even louder.

Nadia started laughing as well. “So this is what the show is about?”

Rhovan had already returned and sat nearby. “More or less.”

Eren explained that the scale wasn’t some kind of magical lie detector or judge.

There was apparently a specific Reference established before the program started. The scale only measured things related to the argument they agreed to bring into the show. If someone contradicted something, exaggerated, deliberately left out important information, or tried hiding behind technically correct wording, the scale could react.

Marek looked at the screen. “So the House of Libra made a comedy show using arguments?”

“Yes,” Rhovan answered.

Marek nodded slowly.

For some reason, that made complete sense.

The woman eventually lost the case and received a punishment requiring her to buy dessert for her husband during several future outings.

Kellan looked disappointed. “That’s it?”

Nadia looked at him. “What did you expect? Prison?”

“No! I just thought the punishment would be worse.”

“It’s a show about stolen dessert. Why would the punishment be worse?”

Well, Kellan had no answer to that.