A Fortune-telling Princess - Chapter 77

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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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Click!
Inside a small case placed beside the book lay a single, tiny tooth.
And attached to it was a small memo.
─ Our beloved son’s first tooth
Little memos were attached to each of the other items as well.
─ The first clothes my precious son wore….
─ What our son Heman loved most….
There were letters he had sent to his mother, and an abundance of toys he had cherished in childhood.
Even the test paper from when he first scored a perfect hundred was there. Many of the items had already faded from his memory.
Each and every one of those objects bore a memo filled with precious memories.
“I thought you’d thrown them away….”
I never imagined it. That Mother had kept all of these worn things.
After staring blankly at the contents of the box for a while, Heman finally noticed an inscription he had missed.
A small inscription carved into one corner of the wooden box.
─ My first treasure
“….”
Heman could not speak for a long time.
He simply read and reread that short inscription carved into the box.
* * *
[….]
“Is there something on my face?”
[No. It’s just… I thought it would change.]
“….”
[I thought things would be different once he realized how much I love him….]
Jihyun’s Grandmother gazed blankly at Camilla with somewhat disappointed eyes. Unlike when she had asked her to retrieve the box hidden in her personal space and deliver it to her son, her voice lacked strength.
A box containing items her son had treasured and loved in childhood.
It was completely opposite to her conviction that Heman would surely feel the love she had failed to convey once he saw it.
“Didn’t I tell you to source cheaper ingredients!”
“Cut back on expenses!”
“Why on earth are you buying such unnecessary things? Do you buy everything the children like? Is our budget really that abundant?”
Nothing had changed.
Her son Heman continued to preach frugality and was dismantling every policy she had implemented over the years.
[Sigh.]
Long sighs flowed continuously from Jihyun’s Grandmother’s lips. It seemed that leaving everything to her son and departing would indeed be difficult.
“How well do you know your son?”
[Pardon?]
“Watch him.”
[What….]
“Just observe him for a while.”
Jihyun’s Grandmother tilted her head in confusion.
Even as I watched myself sigh repeatedly, I found Camilla’s faint smile utterly bewildering.
* * *
Patter-patter-patter—thud!
“Ugh… waaah!”
A Young Boy who appeared to be around six years old came running and tumbled forward. His shoelace had come undone, and he’d tripped over it.
Heman, the Orphanage director who happened to be passing by, regarded the child with indifference.
“Uh….”
The child looked up at Heman with tearful eyes, clearly expecting him to help him up just as the other teachers would have.
The child gazed at him pitifully, trusting that this new director would soon wipe away his tears and comfort him.
“….”
But Heman did nothing. He neither helped the child to his feet nor told him to get up.
Nor did he leave the spot. He simply stood there in silence, staring intently at the child.
Eventually, the child wiped away his own tears and got to his feet.
Step.
Only then did Heman take a step closer to the child.
Whoosh.
He undid his own perfectly tied shoelace and began tying it again, very slowly. The child watched him blankly.
What is he doing?
Under that gaze, Heman untied the lace he’d just tied and retied it. He repeated this motion slowly, very slowly.
How much time passed like this?
“I want to try too!”
The child, who had been watching blankly, sat down on the floor and grasped his own loose shoelace with his small hands.
But as expected, his enthusiasm outpaced his ability, and he couldn’t quite follow the motions on his first attempt.
Rather than help the child, Heman undid his own shoelace again.
And just as before, he repeated the motion of tying the lace.
Even more slowly, slowly.
“Yay! I did it!”
Finally, after quite some time, the child completed tying his shoelace on his own. It was clumsy, but the bow was finished nonetheless.
“Now I can tie it myself!”
The child felt immensely proud of himself for having tied the lace for the first time.
Heman, who had been watching indifferently, finally left the spot.
Without a single word.
[Heman.]
His mother, who had witnessed the entire scene from beginning to end, regarded her departing son with a peculiar expression.
“Didn’t I tell you to turn off all the Corridor lights at night?”
“That’s….”
“Why are you keeping them so bright for no reason? Don’t you know that the more you use magical lights, the shorter the charging period becomes?”
“Ah, I understand.”
“You understand yet still do this? How much money do you intend to pour into the Magic Tower! Are you perhaps affiliated with the Magic Tower?”
“Ah, no.”
“Cut expenses! Cut them!”
“My apologies.”
One of the staff members hurried about the building, beginning to extinguish the magical lights that had been left burning throughout.
“Wait a moment.”
“Yes?”
“What happens if you turn off the lights on the Staircase?”
“But just now—”
“If the children wander about at night and tumble down the steps, what then? Won’t the medical bills be even higher? Keep the Staircase lights on.”
“Ah, yes!”
“Tsk, look here. Don’t you see this nail sticking out? You don’t see it?”
“I, I see it.”
“Instead of wasting time buying expensive furniture, properly hammer down nails like this! Don’t you know children get hurt on things like this? Where exactly do you expect the medical fees to come from?”
“I’ll see to it at once.”
Everyone was utterly bewildered. There was an unmistakable aura of miserliness emanating from him, yet he didn’t seem to be completely neglecting the children either.
They all regarded the newly arrived director, Heman, with peculiar expressions.
[….]
And his mother felt the same way.
* * *
“This was on his desk, you say?”
“Yes.”
Dorman and Reaper Habel, who had gone to fetch the box that Jihyun’s Grandmother had requested, had brought something else along with it.
She had instructed them to bring anything they found that might serve as leverage against the director Heman, and they had indeed procured something.
‘If all else fails, I’ll resort to blackmail.’
That was her intention—to force Heman to step down from his position as director of the Orphanage. After all, what Jihyun’s Grandmother was concerned about now was the Orphanage and its residents.
What Dorman and Habel had brought was a rather thick stack of documents.
“Hmm?”
As Camilla read through the stack of documents, she soon let out a soft laugh.
“This grandmother really won’t do.”
She truly knows nothing about her own son, does she?
The documents contained Heman’s meticulously detailed thoughts on how he would manage the Orphanage going forward. It was a sort of operational plan.
“He really does hate the Orphanage, doesn’t he?”
“If he hated it, wouldn’t he have handed it over to someone else?”
“That’s true.”
Now that she thought about it, the whole thing was deeply strange. It made no sense for him to personally take over and manage an Orphanage he so despised and was so sick of.
“Hmm.”
The plan certainly emphasized cost-cutting more visibly than before.
But when it came to areas truly essential for the children, he had made no cuts whatsoever.
He had been quite bold in trimming excessive expenditures, but to Camilla’s eye, it was a rational plan.
“Put this back where it was.”
“Understood.”
After skimming through the documents, I had them brought back to Heman’s desk.
A few days later, I could smile and speak to Jihyun’s Grandmother, who was looking at me with a hint of resentment.
Just watch for a bit. Trust your son.
When a week had passed like that.
[You were right.]
Jihyun’s Grandmother, who had come to find me, wore a smile on her lips.
[My son has his own principles.]
For a week, she had watched over him without hiding inside the bear doll, following only her son, and she couldn’t conceal her pleased expression.
Unlike herself, he wasn’t indiscriminately kind to the children or giving them affection carelessly, but he understood well enough what the children truly needed.
[Thank you.]
After offering her gratitude to me, she looked at Reaper Habel standing beside her.
[I’m sorry for the trouble.]
“You must leave now.”
[Yes.]
Jihyun’s Grandmother nodded obediently, no longer inclined to refuse his words.
She bowed respectfully to me one last time.
[Please continue to take good care of our children.]
“…What?”
[Then I shall….]
“Wait, hold on…!”
Why are you leaving the children with me?
Despite my call, Jihyun’s Grandmother simply smiled and vanished.
Reaper Habel also disappeared from that spot without another word, merely glancing at me once.
“Sigh.”
Watching the space where the two had vanished, I let out a short breath.
“Dorman.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“He’s not your superior, is he?”
“…Pardon?”
“The way he treats you is far too formal. Sometimes it seems like he even uses respectful speech.”
“My superior is simply very well-mannered….”
“….”
“…I apologize.”
Under my piercing gaze, Dorman finally lowered his head.
“Tsk.”
I clicked my tongue briefly and looked toward where Habel had disappeared.
“We won’t meet again, right?”
That would be fine. I’d sent off one soul properly, after all.
But a few days later.
“What are you?”
“It’s Habel.”
“I didn’t ask for your name! Why are you back again!”
“There’s another soul that won’t listen to me.”
“…And?”
“It means I’m asking for your help once more.”
“….”
“Wait, hold on. Don’t take off your shoes. Let’s just talk.”

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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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