A City

The others in Jack's group, even Kenji, were a bit surprised by that information. From the way the man had put it, the things the fortune telling place provided was a trump card. Some of the listed tarot cards on the walls cost as much as ten 6's and three 7's, yet there were still people buying them.

Regardless, those kinds of purchases were too much for them as of now. Though having their fortune told appeared to be an almost free way to get one of them, even if it was presumably weaker.

Mia got hers as well, getting The High Priestess, Strength Reversed, and The Hermit.

Jack ended up giving one of his threes for Jessica to use, who was incredibly happy about it as though it wasn't like they just traded cards. She got The Tower Reversed, The Moon, and Justice.

Kenji got his as well, which were The Empress Reversed, Death, and Judgement.

None of them really understood what the actual meaning behind those cards was, but what they were wondering about wasn't that. Instead, they wanted to know what exactly would happen if they used them.

However, it wasn't something they could activate while in the hub. With that in mind, Jack wanted to go outside to try them, and with Jessica immediately agreeing with him, they were essentially forced to.

After making basic preparations for food, they went off.

It took substantially longer to reach the edges of the dome, and it appeared exits available had increased several times over as well.

They arbitrarily chose one, before being greeted with a fairly unfamiliar sight. Instead of a cave which they had been going through previously, this time it appeared to be a city. Albeit, one that was ruined, but a city nonetheless.

The dull gray sky appeared to continue on endlessly, despite supposedly being underground. Many of the buildings extended upwards to the point it was hard to see the top of most of them by the naked eye. Though the higher they went, the more cracked and dilapidated they appeared. It was to the point that some of them looked like jagged ends of a shank.

Jack looked up for a moment with his eyes widened in awe.

"Woah!"

Anything large and expansive was quite alien to Jack, considering the place he was raised in. Realistically, this kind of sight was quite familiar to the other three. In part because The place they originated from was a city that wasn't ruined, but its state of decay wasn't too far off.

The main difference was that one was populated with people and the other had monsters.

Compared to the bustling city, this felt eerily empty and silent for them. Though Jack couldn't help but get excited and rush ahead, running across the uneven road.

There wasn't too much in sight, other than the buildings. After running along for a short while, one of the buildings caught his attention. There wasn't anything that stood out compared to the others, but Jack found himself attracted to it nonetheless, entering it and prompting the others to follow after him.

Getting in was fairly easy, as where the door was supposed to be was only a hollow frame. The inside resembled that as well, with a series of empty rooms consisting of gray, with small debris and pebbles scattered everywhere among the cracks in the ground.

At this point, Mia spoke up with a bit of curiosity, she felt like they were going along with Jack's whims a little too much.

"Weren't we going to test out our tarot cards by the way? Should we do that soon to get an idea of what they do before going on forward?"

Jack pointed towards a staircase on the opposite side of the building while looking over his shoulder.

"Let's go there first! I feel like there's something fun this way."

Although this went against Mia's intentions, she wasn't too hung up about it. If it really came down to it, they could experiment upon meeting something hostile. The cost to activate her cards in particular was more expensive than the rest.

While there was mostly no restriction on the suit, she needed two 4's, two 5's, and a 6 of diamonds just to activate it. With her current cards, she would only be able to activate it twice. She couldn't imagine the costs of the tarot cards that were even more expensive past the initial fortune telling.

She reassured herself, believing that its effects must be strong enough to warrant such a cost.

While they walked up the steps, they saw something rather peculiar. With each step, the place seemed to be less decrepit and more organized. The cracks lessened significantly, and the dull colors turned white. Clear square patterns formed on the walls, almost like it was a bathroom, but it clearly wasn't one.

Upon reaching the second floor, they were greeted by an open set of doors, leading into a brightly lit and expansive room with those same white tiling everywhere. Although there wasn't anything wrong with that kind of design, the fact that it was white everywhere made for a rather jarring look, where it was too balanced considering that most walls looked at least somewhat different from the floors and ceilings, and sometimes even each other.

That is, for everyone except Jack, who couldn't exactly see it as strange since he didn't have a reference of normal. He walked in, looking around curiously.

Despite being lit well, there was no indication of where the lights were actually coming from, nor were there any shadows in the room. On top of that, the actual room itself was actually twice as large as the first.

Kenji muttered to himself.

"I never thought to check inside such ruined buildings... what is this?"

That much wasn't too clear when looking at a distance, but even Jack could notice that the size had changed while standing inside. Mia was rubbing her eyes, trying to judge whether it was simply her mistaking things. Though those things didn't concern Jack too much.

He looked left and saw in one of the walls what appeared to be a shop, displaying items through a glass case as though it were a restaurant. There were a variety of pastries that cost different amounts and types of 3's. It was similar to the hub.

However, Jack lost interest in that rather quickly. When he turned to the right, he saw an entirely new game.

Its title was a bit hard to read since it blended in with the tiling background. Though it wasn't unintelligible.

"The Eyes Deceive"

The rewards stated that it would be three cards out of five presented, with possible cards being 3, 4, 6, and 7.

As for the punishment, it was a 5.

Jack approached it, without thinking too much about it. Though as he got closer, the floor suddenly burst out of the ground. Or perhaps, more accurately, a monster disguised as the floor came out.

The fake skin that appeared to be white tiles melted off rather quickly, revealing a monster that appeared to consist of sludge. Other than having a large mouth and a liquid-like body, there wasn't much else to it.

For a split second, the monster appeared to hesitate after looking at Jack. However, it lunged towards him a moment later, while different parts of its body condensed into spikes and were shot at him like a rope gun.

"Jack!"

Jessica called out to him, the other two almost as panicked as she was. However, it was already too late for them to do anything. As for Jack, he casually looked at the monster. Though at the same time, he slid a 5 of hearts into his tarot card.

Suddenly, everyone in the room froze, including the monster.

The others couldn't see it, but Jack had an unnaturally wide grin on his face, to the point it hurt just to maintain it. However, rather than feeling some sort of emotion, he was feeling confusion.

He didn't understand what was happening.

A brief moment later, all the spikes reversed into the monster that it fired from while the jaw suddenly shifted with a frightening cracking sound, the top and bottom half reversing their position.

Despite its slime-like form, egregious amounts of blood were pouring out of it.

Jack's smile returned to a small one before he let out a giggle.

"I smelled you."

The monster didn't look like it was in good condition at all. It writhed and struggled, seemingly in more than just physical pain, but some sort of mental torment as well. Though in its death throes, it lashed out with a condensed hammer at Jack, seemingly knowing that he was behind the reason why its attacks suddenly rebounded into itself.

He simply responded by lifting his hand.

A crack resounded as Jack was knocked away, though he stabilized himself easily enough. Yet, despite appearing physically fine, there was a distraught expression on his face as he looked at the wound on his arm.