A Fortune-telling Princess - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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‘Of course, it’s still too early to let my guard down completely.’
With Ravi and countless other threats lurking about, I couldn’t afford complacency.
“So that’s why I want to give you a reward.”
“A reward?”
“Tell me if there’s anything you desire. You’ve brought me something I’ve longed for all these years—I would empty my entire fortune to obtain it for you.”
‘My entire fortune!’
Of course, he likely didn’t intend to literally spend everything. Still, the message was clear: I should ask for whatever I wanted without worrying about the cost.
‘Should I really ask for money?’
Should I request a substantial sum?
I couldn’t help but deliberate. In a situation where the future remained uncertain, money was undoubtedly what I needed most.
To escape this place and settle elsewhere, funds were absolutely essential.
‘But I can’t just ask for money outright.’
That would look terribly crude. Worse, it could shatter the trust I’d painstakingly built up until now.
As I hesitated, something caught my eye as if by fate.
Beside the chair where Duke Sorpel sat, a small side table held stacks of documents.
And atop that pile lay a particular document…
“That one.”
“That one?”
Duke Sorpel’s eyes widened slightly. The document I’d pointed to was entirely unexpected.
“Camilla.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what that is?”
“It’s a mine, isn’t it?”
“…Indeed.”
“Have I asked for something too grand?”
At Camilla’s worried question, Duke Sorpel immediately shook his head.
“Of course not. A mine of this caliber is something I can easily grant.”
After all, I’d promised to sell my entire fortune if necessary to obtain whatever she desired. Yet the real problem lay elsewhere.
“The ore it produces has no practical use, you see.”
This was the very mineral Duke Jebillen had brought to me before, suggesting we research its applications together.
Initially purchased as a gold mine, it now yielded only worthless ore.
I’d even submitted it to the Magic Tower for evaluation, but they confirmed it held no commercial value.
And now Camilla was asking for this very mine.
Giving it away wasn’t the issue, but presenting such a useless mine as a reward felt awkward.
“I’ll give you a different mine instead. How about the ruby mine in the Northwest?”
“No, Father.”
Camilla quickly shook her head. Though I tried to appear indifferent, my eagerness made my response come too quickly.
Suppressing my anxious feelings, I forced a smile.
“I’d like to conduct research on it.”
“Research?”
“It’s a mineral without any current use. I’d like to try developing it.”
“Hmm.”
Duke Sorpel regarded Camilla with a slightly surprised expression.
So she hadn’t simply asked for the mine on a whim—she already knew exactly what kind of mineral it contained.
“Is that not possible?”
[Chirp?]
Duke Sorpel remained silent for a moment.
Shinsu, who had climbed back onto my daughter’s shoulder and was blinking at me, suddenly seemed to share a striking resemblance with Camilla.
“There’s no reason it shouldn’t be.”
Yes!
At his approval, Camilla silently cheered within herself.
* * *
“Wow!”
A fortune in stone.
Camilla grinned widely as she examined the mineral sample she’d received.
[Do you even know what that is to be so pleased?]
[It’s just a black stone, sir.]
[Ever since I got hurt… tsk.]
Hersel, the butler ghost Derin, and the cook ghost Perol all stared at her with bewildered expressions.
She’d been holding that black stone and grinning like an idiot since earlier—anyone would think her mind wasn’t quite right.
“What this is, you see—”
[Well, what is it?]
[Do you actually know what it is?]
“Hmm…”
Camilla only smiled more deeply at the ghosts’ urging, refusing to answer hastily. After a long pause, she finally spoke.
“It’s mana stone.”
[Mana stone?]
[That can’t be right. The Duke already inquired about this mineral at the Magic Tower.]
But the mana contained in the mineral was so insufficient that it was deemed unsuitable even for low-grade mana stone.
“That’s because they only inquired at the Magic Tower.”
[Pardon?]
[What do you mean? If the Magic Tower doesn’t appraise mana stones, where else would?]
“The Magic Tower doesn’t have any dark mages.”
Mages are divided into light mages and dark mages.
Those at the Magic Tower are all light mages—the kind most people commonly think of when they imagine a mage.
‘And then there are the dark mages.’
Because they manipulate mana in fundamentally different ways than light mages, there was once a strong atmosphere of rejection and ostracism toward them. Now, however, they were recognized as a major force driving magic forward.
But that was all it was. The Magic Tower still hesitated to accept dark mages as true members of their own.
As subtle rejection continued, the dark mages eventually created their own separate organization. They drew a line between themselves and the Magic Tower.
‘And that’s the problem…’
To properly utilize this mineral—the one I’d obtained from Duke Sorpel this time—I needed the unique mana that only dark mages possessed.
“It doesn’t react at all to white mages’ mana, you see.”
But the situation changed entirely with a dark mage’s mana.
‘It becomes a supreme-grade mana stone.’
It responded powerfully to the unique mana dark mages wielded, transforming into a mineral that exerted far greater power than any mana stone existing on the continent.
‘And if I purify it, white mages can use it too!’
Once purified by a dark mage’s power, the mineral would respond strongly to white mages’ mana as well.
In other words, with just a dark mage, this mineral would become the continent’s greatest treasure.
Ruby mines? Diamond mines? Forget about them!
“Ehehehehe…!”
[….]
[….]
[….]
At the sight of Camilla gazing at the mineral while releasing that eerie laughter, the three spirits quietly shook their heads.
“Oh, right!”
Moments later, Camilla recalled something she’d forgotten and lowered the mineral from her hand. Her gaze then turned toward where Hersel stood.
“Hersel.”
[Hmm?]
“Even while I was distracted, I heard something quite clearly.”
[What do you mean?]
Whoosh.
Camilla extended both hands forward respectfully.
“You said you had something to give me.”
* * *
[Argh!]
[I’m not supposed to die yet!]
This place was still the same.
The location Camilla had found was the National Cemetery—the same place where she’d come to meet Hersel before.
‘What could he possibly want to give me?’
Hersel had asked me to come here, promising to give me something in return for finding Shinsu’s egg.
Passing quickly through the cemetery where the wails of spirits still echoed, I made my way toward Hersel’s tomb.
[You came.]
“You could have come with me. Why did you come here first?”
We’d been together just this morning, yet seeing him arrive here ahead of me to greet me, I couldn’t help but give him a look of exasperation.
“Why did you ask me to come here specifically?”
Noble tombs often contained expensive items the deceased had cherished during their lifetime. Consequently, professional grave robbers existed who deliberately sought out and sold such treasures.
I regarded Hersel suspiciously, wondering why he’d insisted on coming to a graveyard just to give me something.
Surely he wasn’t planning to turn me into a grave robber?
[It’s over here.]
Hersel guided me toward the back where a tombstone stood.
[Dig here.]
“I’d rather not.”
This ghost was truly something else!
Though I’d been half-expecting it, when Hersel suggested digging behind the tombstone, Camilla immediately took a step back from him.
“No matter how wretched my reputation may be, I have no desire to be branded as a woman who steals from her ancestor’s grave.”
[What are you thinking?]
Hersel regarded Camilla with an exasperated look before exhaling a short sigh.
[I’m not asking you to dig up the grave itself—just dig here.]
Camilla glanced at the spot Hersel was pointing to. There was nothing there.
[Just dig!]
I shot a brief glance at Hersel, who was practically shouting in frustration.
How was I supposed to dig without a shovel? If he’d given me a heads-up, I would have at least brought proper tools!
With a short sigh, I removed my shoes once more and picked them up. These pointed heels had become surprisingly useful lately.
Thunk, thunk!
The earth was softer than expected, yielding easily to my efforts.
“Hmm?”
And I didn’t need to dig deep either. It wasn’t long before I discovered something peculiar.
“What is this?”
A seed?
By all appearances, it was unmistakably a seed.
Yet from this tiny seed, no larger than a fingernail, a faint luminescence emanated. Could this also be something like Shinsu’s egg?
[It’s medicine.]
“Medicine? This?”
[An antidote, to be precise.]
“Why would something like this be…”
Medicine buried near a grave? And an antidote at that? I couldn’t quite make sense of why such a thing would be hidden in this place.
[You know how I died, don’t you?]
“You were poisoned. At the Imperial Palace.”
[You speak of it so casually, right in front of the person involved.]
“What’s the point in being coy about it now?”
That aside.
“So what about it?”
[It was an extraordinarily potent poison.]
‘Of course it was.’
A poison that killed my master in one stroke—it must have been terribly lethal.
[My body continued to fight the poison even after death.]
“Pardon?”
That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I cast an incredulous gaze toward him. Hersel continued, his expression hollow.
[The vital essence of my body, once a master, fought that poison with remarkable fervor—all the way until it rotted away.]
You were watching that too?
Camilla shook her head slightly.
The mere thought of it was horrifying. What could she have been thinking as she watched her own body decay?
[And this is the result of that.]
Thump.
Camilla inadvertently dropped the seed she’d been holding to the ground. Since it came from a corpse, she felt an instinctive revulsion at touching it.
[Hey, you’re treating something so precious like that…!]
“What exactly is this?”
[It’s the crystallized result of all my vital essence, purified through poison.]
That only made it worse.
Camilla exhaled a short breath and picked up the seed-shaped crystal from the ground again.
“Is this medicine?”
[It has the effect of detoxifying virtually any poison. If you consume it beforehand, you’ll never suffer from poison poisoning for the rest of your life.]
“Ah, yes.”
Camilla’s expression remained unconvinced as she gave her response.
She had faced countless deaths throughout her lives, yet she had never once died from poison. She couldn’t fathom what use this was supposed to have.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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