“…”

Licht remained silent.

As a skilled mage belonging to the Tower of Foresight, he wasn’t engaging in a battle of wills with this suspicious fortune-teller… he was just dumbstruck by the woman in black’s beauty.

For this graduate student-like product who had spent most of his life buried in books and experimental equipment, the stark contrast of white skin and black veil before his eyes was too intoxicating.

As the beautiful eyes of the woman in black frowned at the continued silence, the green-haired maid standing beside her quietly laughed.

“Huhu, it seems you’re at a loss for words. Here, have some tea first.”

“Ah, um, t-thank you. The taste of the tea, no, the aroma is quite nice.”

Only after a teacup was placed in front of him did Licht realize the disgrace he had shown so far and hurriedly tried to manage his expression.

Given that he tried to evaluate the taste without even drinking it and belatedly changed his words, it wasn’t very effective.

If it were the usual Licht, he wouldn’t have put an unknown drink from a mysterious shop to his lips, but now he didn’t have the capacity to think that far.

As Licht gulped down the tea he didn’t even know the taste of as if it were water, the woman in black said, “I’ll ask again. What are you curious about that made you come here?”

A mage of the magic tower held a position equivalent to nobility in other countries. Yet, the woman spoke casually.

What was even more strange was that it seemed so natural that somehow it didn’t feel unpleasant to hear.

Licht cleared his throat and said, “I heard you can see the past, is that true?”

“A useless question.”

“What?”

“If I say it’s true, will you believe everything else I say? If I say it’s false, will you be satisfied and go back thinking it was indeed false? I don’t think so.”

“…”

“Judge for yourself what is right or wrong. Licht Glaubig. Isn’t that the ideology put forth by the Tower of Foresight?”

This time, Licht’s eyes truly widened.

He hadn’t breathed a word about his identity.

Normally, one would think she had done some preliminary investigation about him, but the flow so far made Licht think of another possibility.

Could it be real? Can she really know the past?

“This is a waste of time.”

The woman lowered her eyes languidly, as if bored.

“Alright, if the question is difficult, I’ll start on my own.”

Between her half-closed eyelids, a red radiance overflowed.

“—You’re looking for your lost parents. You said you didn’t care for your adoptive parents, but you’ve been keeping them in your heart all along. But you only have vague memories as clues, and even those memories are fading as days go by. That’s why you’ve delved into magics that can obtain information.”

Licht unconsciously let out a gasp.

He asked in bewilderment, “C-could you possibly know where they are now!?”

“Magic isn’t omnipotent. The fragments you can hold in your hand are just pieces. You should know that too, right?”

“Even the tiniest clue is enough.”

The woman in black stared at him intently.

Seeing her unique gaze that made it impossible to know what she was thinking, Licht unconsciously gulped.

“Alright, then close your eyes. Don’t open them until I say it’s okay.”

Licht, already completely overwhelmed by the atmosphere, closed his eyes as instructed.

And the next moment, an enormous pressure descended upon Licht.

Huk!

For a mage, the ability to sense and manipulate surrounding mana at will was a kind of basic skill.

But now Licht couldn’t feel anything from his surroundings.

With his vision blocked and unable to feel mana, extreme anxiety enveloped Licht’s body.

In such a state, the woman’s words reached Licht’s ears.

“…Go to your adoptive parents’ house. Second floor study. Between the books shelved at the top right of the bookcase, you’ll find what you want to know. You can open your eyes now.”

“This way for your departure, sir.”

Even as he was guided by the green-haired maid, Licht couldn’t shake off the feeling of being enchanted by something.

And exactly half a day later.

Licht, who discovered records of investigations about his birth parents in his deceased father’s study, let out a sigh.

“It’s true, it was true…!”

***

“Thanks to the fortune-teller, I was able to find my lost brooch! It was a gift I received to commemorate entering the magic tower, so it was really precious to me!”

“I was able to reconcile with my friend thanks to her. It turned out that some of the letters we sent to each other were missing, which led to misunderstandings.”

“Me? Nothing much happened. She said I don’t have any karma that needs looking back on right now.”

“The code! I finally found the code I’ve been agonizing over for 10 years!!”

“Catherine was secretly meeting another man? And for quite a while now? No, no!! I didn’t want to know this!”

“It’s not a scam! That’s real!”

Stories about the fortune-teller who set up shop in front of the Tower of Foresight spread faster with each passing day.

Even the mages who initially showed indifferent reactions couldn’t help but become interested as their colleagues from the same tower would talk about it whenever they gathered.

It got to the point where the two girls in charge of guidance had to create separate lines for mages and ordinary people to manage, as the magic tower’s mages kept getting free passes to the waiting line.

Of course, as was often the case with such things, negative public opinion also followed.

“Everyone, calm down! What kind of disgraceful behavior is this for members of a historically rich magic tower!”

“The information provided by that fortune-telling house seems too biased. It’s not normal to go there wanting to hear about content A, but they ramble on about something completely different, B.”

“To be honest, I found it a bit creepy. Isn’t it like my past is being completely seen through just by looking? There are quite a few among the magic tower’s mages who know confidential information, so how are we supposed to deal with the aftermath if such information gets out?”

The commotion became controversial, the controversy led to debate, and the debate ignited into a heated verbal battle.

It was somewhat befitting of the magic tower’s dignity that they were fighting only with words, without throwing punches or pointing fingers.

“You fools! It’s obviously just a business tactic! It’s a scam! I’m ashamed as a member of the same magic tower that so many are falling for such a thing!”

“What are you talking about? Hey, you bastard. When clear evidence and problems are presented right in front of you, you deny it without even properly examining it? And you call yourself a scholar!?”

“That fortune-teller’s ability is too dangerous! We must capture them immediately to protect the magic tower’s secrets!”

“What nonsense are you talking about? Did they kidnap our mages or something? You went there out of curiosity yourselves, and now you want to kidnap the one who gave you a fortune-telling? What kind of absurd logic is that!?”

“This is a conspiracy! It’s a grand scheme by other magic towers to divide our Tower of Foresight!”

“Shouldn’t we first identify who they are and what their purpose is, rather than anything else? They’re not just fortune-telling there for no reason, having fallen from the sky, right?”

Then one day. A bomb dropped that would instantly quell their controversy.

“Hey, Valem. Why do you look so dazed? Did the fortune-telling not go well? I told you not to have too high expectations. They say that place is quite good, but the effectiveness varies from person to person, so don’t be too disappointed…”

“…It’s been restored.”

“What?”

“The magic book that couldn’t be used because half of its content had weathered away. They told me all of its content there! Oh! Heavens! To give me such luck!!”

They could know the past of objects, not just people!

Moreover, they say the past of objects was even more accurate than that of people!

The Tower of Foresight.

Its main task was to collect, organize, and restore all kinds of magic existing in history.

But in the long history of magic, the period when magic began to be systematized and detailed as it was now wasn’t very long, and originally, magicians mages the type to easily share their magic.

While there was sufficient data accumulated for magic created after the establishment of the magic tower, it was even rarer for magic from earlier eras to be passed down intact.

If there were many fragments left somehow, one could at least infer the missing parts through the remaining content, but for magic where more was missing than remaining, even the possibility of restoration was slim, so they had just been piling them up in storage saying, “Maybe we can recover them someday.”

But now they could confirm even some of that content additionally?

Moreover, it wasn’t just written records, but they could also find out how unidentified magic tools were used in the past, or obtain information about their production process?

Like PC users whose eyes light up at news of internet archives and damaged hard drive recovery, the eyes of the mage’s from the Tower of Foresight began to spin.

***

https://ko-fi.com/genesisforsaken