“...Fortunes?”
I know! I know! I get how absurd this sounds out of nowhere.
Watching the middle-aged couple’s faces twist in confusion, Camilla swallowed the sigh that was about to burst out.
“Yes. May I take a look for you?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not particularly ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) interested in that kind of—”
“You’ve recently gone through a very sad event.”
“...Pardon?”
“A family member passed away.”
The middle-aged man’s face hardened. The woman also couldn’t hide her shock. Camilla drew out a few cards and held them out in front of the man.
“Would you pick just one?”
They were cards she’d gone out of her way to have made a few months ago.
It was a method she’d used often when she lived as Sia Lee—a tool she needed in order to naturally handle ghosts’ requests.
Ugh, my damn fate.
In the end, I’m using them here too.
They looked like tarot cards, but the contents were completely different. She wasn’t actually reading fortunes, but the pictures had to be vague and difficult to interpret so her words would roughly fit no matter what.
“A girl... Your daughter, I assume. She passed at night.”
“H–How did you—!”
“See this round object here? That represents the moon.”
Something like that. If they’d died during the day, that moon would’ve been the sun.
The moment she guessed from the first card that his daughter had died at night, the man’s gaze shook nonstop. After a moment’s hesitation, he drew another card.
“Your daughter was frail from the start. Asthma, anemia... She had trouble even walking properly.”
His eyes flew wide with disbelief, and in the end they grew wet.
“Yes... She passed away two months ago. If I’d known it would end like this, I would have at least let her eat all the desserts she wanted, instead of saying they weren’t good for her...”
All right, the groundwork’s laid.
“Please draw one more.”
This time, the man didn’t hesitate and picked a card. The one that came up showed a pitch-black background crammed with sharp shapes.
“Your daughter did not die of illness.”
“...What?”
“She was murdered.”
“W–What!”
“See the sword here? It signifies death at another’s hands. And at the hands of someone very close to her.”
That was exactly what the ghost had wanted to tell her father—that she hadn’t died of illness, but had been killed.
And the culprit was...
“What kind of nonsense is that! Dear, let’s go.”
That woman right there. The stepmother.
The first one to react to her words was the middle-aged woman. Her face had gone bloodless as she hurriedly tugged on the man’s arm.
He didn’t seem to be in any state to think clearly either; he let himself be dragged along by her grasp without resistance.
As he was being pulled away, Camilla whispered one last thing to him.
“Check your late daughter’s bookshelf. You’ll find the answer you’re looking for.”
She’d heard they hadn’t整理 her room since she passed, so everything should still be there.
There, on that shelf, were the diary and Recording Orbs the girl had left behind. The evidence she’d barely managed to leave before she died.
They contained the clear image of the stepmother mixing something into the medicine her daughter took.
[Thank you! Thank you!]
The girl ghost bowed her head over and over in thanks to Camilla, then hurried after her father.
“Hm.”
Watching them for a moment, Camilla slipped the cards back into their case.
Then she sensed a strange atmosphere and glanced behind her...
Shit.
At some point, every person inside the shop had turned their eyes on her. It seemed they had all watched the scene from start to finish.
Great. There’s going to be weird rumors going around again for a while.
Long sighs kept spilling out of Camilla’s mouth.
*****
“It would be best if you stayed away from the café for a while.”
At Chris’s words, Camilla let out a short sigh and nodded right away.
The café was absolutely overflowing with customers. There was even a line forming out the door.
The problem was that they weren’t there just to enjoy the desserts—they wanted to meet her.
“Congratulations. Word is you’re a very gifted fortune-teller.”
Chris, too, kept sighing in disbelief.
Thanks to resolving that girl ghost’s resentment, the rumor had spread everywhere. The owner of the dessert café was an incredibly accurate fortune-teller.
Damn it...
Her father had eventually found all the evidence. Not only the culprit who killed his daughter, but also the wife’s lover.
In the process, he also learned that his second daughter wasn’t his biological child, but the product of an affair with that lover—and that they’d been planning to seize his entire business.
“Business itself is doing very well.”
“Of course it is. Who else but me made that happen? Hahaha.”
“...”
...Fine. I get it. I’ll be careful from now on.
Chris especially disliked it when she showed this kind of ability in front of others.
From a businessman’s perspective, you were supposed to keep your cards hidden as much as possible. There was nothing good about showing off your hand like that; that was his stance.
Camilla agreed with that, so under Chris’s scolding gaze, she couldn’t say anything in her own defense.
“Mr. Angsois sent a letter of thanks along with a proposal.”
“Angsois?”
Who’s that? The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“Angsois Jeweler would like to sell our products.”
Ah! Angsois! The very Angsois with jewelry shops all over the Fable Empire!
“That’s good, but why would he...?”
Tilting her head, Camilla suddenly had a thought flash through her mind.
Wait, wait. No way...!
That middle-aged gentleman I read for the other day was Angsois?
Holy shit.
She had thought he looked like he had money, but he wasn’t just rich—he was an outright tycoon.
“You didn’t know? About helping him the other day.”
Seeing her blank expression, Chris gave her a puzzled look.
“...Of course I knew. It’s not like I do things with nothing in it for me.”
Nope. Not a clue. Wow. What a jackpot.
“What does the proposal say?”
“The terms are heavily in our favor.”
“Really?”
Angsois Jeweler was a very famous house with long tradition and history. You could say it was the favorite of noble ladies.
The Ghost Trading House’s Mana Stones were at the absolute top of the market right now, but when it came to jewelry, they were still basically newborn chicks.
For Angsois to be the one to reach a hand out to them first was clearly a gesture of goodwill.
“Go ahead with the contract.”
“Understood.”
There was no reason to refuse, so Camilla accepted on the spot. So our jewelry is going to be playing on a national scale now?
“And this is the final version of the contract we drafted.”
“Right.”
Chris handed over another document. It was a rewrite of the Gracia Imperial Family’s proposed terms, adjusted where needed.
All that was left was to take this with her, discuss the details on-site, and sign the contract.
“It would be best if I went with you, but...”
“Take good care of things here while I’m gone.”
Bringing Chris along would have made everything a lot easier, but someone had to run this place while she was away. She had no choice.
“The day after tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah.”
They would be leaving for the Gracia Empire soon.
*****
RIIIIING!
“T–That’s all for today’s class.”
Almost the instant the bell rang, the professor dashed out of the lecture hall.
But even after he disappeared, the students still seated at their desks didn’t so much as twitch, their eyes fixed on the podium.
This is insane.
It had calmed down for a while—why is he like that again?
Someone in the very back row was radiating black energy. That someone was Arsian.
“Shit... why is he... damn it...”
His muttering was quiet, but every student flinched.
He might as well just go back to napping like before!
For some reason, lately he had been actually paying attention in class.
Even while exuding that kind of aura, he never skipped a lecture, which meant only the people around him were being driven up the wall.
SPRING!
“...!”
When Arsian abruptly shot to his feet, everyone jolted. Turning his back on them, he strode out of the classroom.
“Whew.”
“I thought I was going to die.”
“What’s with him?”
“My neck’s all stiff.”
Only then did sighs and complaints burst out here and there.
“What on earth happened?”
“Seriously.”
The students who didn’t know why Arsian’s mood had sunk so low could only be puzzled.
“I’m jealous.”
“Huh?”
Only one person knew the reason: Petro. He shook his head lightly and let out a small sigh.
“I wish I could be like that.”
I wish I could throw a tantrum like that and say I hate that she’s leaving and that I want to go with her, just like he does.
“Petro?”
“It’s nothing.”
He just flashed his usual bright smile as he looked toward where Arsian had disappeared.
*****
“Arsian?”
As soon as class ended, Arsian walked into the room. At his sudden appearance, Camilla tilted her head.
“What brings you here? There’s no club activity today, and—”
Slide.
Camilla couldn’t finish her sentence. His hand had suddenly reached toward her face.
His cool fingers brushed lightly over her neck.
“It’s a Guardian Gem.”
“...A Guardian Gem?”
Camilla’s eyes flew wide as she realized what the necklace around her neck was. She knew exactly what a Guardian Gem was.
A Guardian created a gem imbued with its power only once in its entire life.
The effect only worked a single time, but whoever possessed that gem would be able to use the Guardian’s power.
“Why do you have this...?”
“I got it from the old man.”
For a moment, Camilla was speechless. He, who normally practically shuddered at the mere word Guardian, had brought this back?
From no one else but the Duke of Sephra?
“This too.”
His hand came toward her face again.
He took off the earrings she’d been wearing and replaced them with black gemstone ones he’d brought.
The cool touch of his fingers made her earlobes feel hot.
“What is all this... Arsian!”
After the earrings, he fastened a bracelet on her wrist—and then suddenly dropped to one knee, making Camilla call his name in a hurry.
He ignored her and kept going. Only after he’d clasped an anklet around her ankle did he look straight at her.
“They’re all imbued with defensive magic. Don’t take them off, even when you sleep.”
“...”
Excuse me. I’m not going off to war, you know?
Yesterday Ravi and Ludville had gone crazy trying to pack her with every protective item and weapon they could find, and today it was him. At this rate, she’d be the only one to come back from a battlefield in perfect health.
Camilla stared at him in mild bewilderment, then finally let out a small laugh.
“Okay. I won’t take them off. Ever.”
Only then did the stiffness leave Arsian’s expression a little.
He was irritated at the idea of dragging someone who had even been kidnapped recently along on a diplomatic delegation.
More than anything, he really hated the fact that the one in charge of this delegation was none other than Crown Prince Edsen.
