Chapter 39
This Fortune Teller Does It For Free (5)
『 Translator – Divinity 』
“At the highest tower, the lowest and most humble… haah.”
Sweat dripped down, and his legs trembled.
Manderick, who had already run around the academy several times, collapsed onto a random bench in exhaustion.
“What does this even mean…?”
It had already been a day since he had his fortune told by Namgung Min.
The first evaluation for the Martial Artist class would begin in a few hours, but Manderick still hadn’t grasped even a clue about the advice.
He regretted not heeding the fortune teller’s warning, but there was no turning back now.
“Should I at least train from now on…?”
He had visited the fortune teller with the mindset that it was his last resort, but that’s how fortune-telling was, wasn’t it?
It was ridiculous to believe in something like fortune-telling in this day and age, with all the advancements in science and magic, not in the past or medieval times.
He probably wouldn’t have even spared a glance at it if it weren’t for the fortune teller— Namgung Min’s display at the entrance ceremony and Eileen’s recommendation.
Wouldn’t it be better to honestly train rather than rely on such luck?
Manderick let out a deep sigh.
“But even if I train now… it would be the same.”
However, if it were something he could achieve through effort, he wouldn’t have visited the fortune teller in the first place.
He had been training every day, even sacrificing sleep, but he wasn’t any better than his classmates, and he couldn’t even feel himself improving.
Stagnation.
That thought was gradually eating away at Manderick.
‘It’s only been a week…’
At this rate, would he be able to graduate from Romance Academy?
He recalled the days he spent desperately training to enter this place, and his parents, who even put their house up as collateral to support him financially.
…Yes. He couldn’t give up.
‘Somehow…!’
He would do whatever it took to get his diploma and return home with his head held high.
Manderick, having regained his weakened resolve, slapped his cheeks and stood up.
“Alright. Let’s think from the beginning again.”
[At the highest tower, the lowest and most humble place.]
First would be the beginning of the advice.
The highest tower.
‘It’s easier said than done…’
This Romance Academy was a sky city larger than most islands.
How many towers were there in the city, and which one was the highest?
I had spent a day looking around all the tall towers, but I couldn’t be sure which one was the highest, so I just wasted time without being able to search properly.
“What should I do…?”
“Hey! Manderick!”
“…Hmm? Ah, Leila.”
Manderick, who had been racking his brains with his eyes closed, turned his head at the voice.
A blue-haired girl was waving at him from across the street.
“Seems like you have a lot on your mind.”
“Of course I do. What about you?”
“Same here.”
Leila. She was in the same Martial Artist class as Manderick, and like him, she had visited the fortune-telling shop after being introduced by Eileen—
“What was your advice?”
“[In the tales of hunters, four birds. Two are already soaring in the sky, but two have yet to spread their wings on the ground, so feed them poison and water to make them take flight.]”
—A fellow student who also chose the ‘advice of the black card’.
“…I think mine is better than yours.”
“Really? Did I ask something too abstract…?”
He heard that Leila had asked the fortune teller about ‘how to read the most interesting book in the world’.
It was a question befitting her, who spent all her time in the library despite being a <Martial Artist>, and the advice was just as difficult to understand as the question.
“Are you going to keep searching?”
“Of course! It’s the most interesting book in the world! I have to find it no matter how long it takes!”
“…Yeah, I envy you.”
“…Ah.”
But no matter how pedantic his words were, Leila didn’t seem to mind.
Well… unlike Manderick, it was a question that she could leisurely interpret and search for without any problems.
Leila, who knew his worries, covered her mouth as if she had made a mistake, sensing Manderick’s slightly gloomy mood.
She was the one Manderick first confided in about his worries, and she couldn’t give him a proper answer.
“O-Oh! Can you show me that advice? I haven’t seen it yet!”
“Uh, uh. Sure.”
Realizing the somewhat heavy atmosphere, Leila deliberately spoke in a cheerful voice and clung to Manderick to make up for her mistake.
He, showing a reluctant response, handed her the notebook where he had written down the advice.
“Let’s see… Huh?”
“How is it? Do you understand it?”
Manderick, with a hint of expectation, looked at Leila, who was deep in thought.
As if she had a clue, Leila looked away from the notebook and started looking around.
“…Ah, over there.”
“Over there!?”
“Did you check there too?”
“…Don’t tell me you’re talking about that?”
The place Leila pointed to with her finger.
The place Manderick also looked at with hope— there was indeed a tall tower.
But the problem was that it was an abandoned transmission tower on top of a mountain.
“You said the highest tower, right? That transmission tower is the highest, isn’t it?”
“That… usually, when you say the highest tower, don’t you mean the height of the tower itself?”
“I thought about it as simply as possible. And if you’re right, it’s strange that you haven’t found it yet, isn’t it? Haven’t you looked around all the towers?”
“That’s… but.”
Manderick had been searching for the highest tower without even sleeping.
As Leila said, he had looked around all the tall towers in the academy, so he hesitantly nodded.
Although he was anxious because he hadn’t thoroughly examined any of them.
“Then let’s go! If we go now, we can make it to class on time!”
“… .”
“Manderick?”
Is that tower really the right one? Even if it’s a transmission tower?
Wouldn’t it be better to look around the memorial tower in the center of the academy or other towers?
There wasn’t much time left. If he went all the way to the transmission tower on the mountaintop, there wouldn’t be time to go anywhere else.
What was the right answer—
“…Leila?”
“Sorry, Manderick. I shouldn’t have said anything strange…”
—Suddenly, one of his hands felt warm.
Manderick, stopping his thoughts at the warmth, looked at Leila, who was holding his hand with her head lowered.
Leila, his first friend at the academy, a friend he could truly open up to.
‘…Yes. I’ve been everywhere I could go.’
It was right to follow his friend’s advice.
Even if it was meaningless… thinking that Leila would comfort him and cheer him up with her words,
It seemed okay.
“Alright, let’s go!”
“Manderick?”
“You’re not wrong, and it’s right to follow a friend’s advice! Let’s go!”
“…Yeah!”
Thud.
Having made up their minds, they didn’t want to waste any time.
Manderick and Leila ran straight towards the transmission tower on the mountaintop without hesitation.
They passed through the shopping district, the outskirts, and entered the mountain.
With the superhuman physique unique to job holders, they jumped over streams and ran tirelessly, heading only for the transmission tower.
And finally,
“Haa… haa… we’re here.”
“Whew, we are.”
Even for <Martial Artists>, they were a bit out of breath by the time they reached the transmission tower.
‘But it’s huge.’
From afar, it was just a skeletal tower made of steel frames, but seeing it up close like this was quite overwhelming.
Even when he raised his head all the way up, he could barely see the top, and it was a lone tower standing without any connected wires or other transmission towers.
He heard it was operated until 20 years ago and then abandoned.
‘Looking at it like this… it really is the highest tower.’
Climbing to the mountaintop, he could see the whole of Romance Academy, and even the other towers that seemed so tall before looked small.
When he heard Leila’s story, he was unsure, but not now.
This, it seemed like this was really it…!
“Manderick, what was the next part of the advice?”
“[At the highest tower, the lowest and most humble place.]”
“Then it’s obvious! That basement!”
“Yeah.”
The giant transmission tower wasn’t standing directly on the ground, but on a concrete platform.
And in the middle of that concrete base, there was a small door.
It was obviously a door leading to the basement, and it perfectly matched the [lowest and most humble place] in the advice, but…
‘…Is it okay to go in?’
It was an abandoned transmission tower from 20 years ago. The inside wouldn’t necessarily be clean or safe.
And it would be locked, wouldn’t it? Would it even open?
Creak.
“Let’s go in!”
“Uh, okay.”
It opened.
Leila, who was more excited than Manderick himself, perhaps finding the situation interesting, opened the basement door and jumped in first.
Manderick also followed her into the basement. It would be foolish to choose not to enter after coming all the way here.
After a moment for their eyes to adjust to the darkness, they looked around with the help of the sunlight coming through the basement door.
“…It’s cleaner than I expected inside.”
“It is.”
Naturally, the basement of the transmission tower, which they expected to be full of dust and bugs, was surprisingly clean.
Of course, there was dust and cobwebs here and there, but it was clean enough to walk around and explore without any problems.
Manderick, who found the only door in the space below the basement entrance, wiped the dust off the nameplate attached to it.
“Duty room?”
“When they were using this transmission tower, they must have managed it by eating and sleeping here.”
“I guess so.”
Wait, wasn’t the next part of the advice [Yet, it is an indispensable place, embracing warmth]?
Would there be warmth in the duty room?
While recalling the still enigmatic advice, Manderick grabbed the doorknob of the duty room and turned it.
Click.
‘This is also open.’
Wasn’t it normal to lock a closed place like this? Well, whatever.
Maybe this was also part of the fortune-telling.
If it were a space locked by the academy, he wouldn’t have been able to visit, so it wouldn’t have appeared in the advice.
“Is anyone there~?”
“There’s no way anyone would be.”
“Just setting the mood.”
Creak.
The space inside the door, which opened with an unpleasant sound, wasn’t large.
An old sofa and table, a clean bed, a dusty bookshelf, and an old TV.
It was exactly the scene you would imagine for a duty room.
“What should we look for?”
“Something that embraces warmth… or a child shedding hot tears?”
“…A crying child?”
“Yeah, that’s what the advice said.”
But warmth or a child in this small duty room? If there really was a child hiding here, wouldn’t that be terrifying?
Manderick, who was searching with Leila in the dim sunlight, sighed.
“There’s nothing here. Leila, how about you?”
“Same here. Just old stuff.”
“Is that so… It must have been wrong.”
He thought it was matching the advice perfectly, but was he just forcing it to fit?
Being stuck at the last part made him feel as disappointed as he was expectant.
“Let’s go back. We should get going soon so we’re not late for class—”
“Huh, Manderick? This is… warm.”
“—Huh?”
The place Leila touched was a closet with a wooden door.
Manderick, hearing her words, also placed his hand on it.
“It’s warm.”
“It is, isn’t it? What’s beyond this?”
“…It seems like a boiler room.”
Manderick muttered as he looked at the letters faintly carved on the wooden door.
Since there was a duty room, it made sense that there would be a boiler room.
But the boiler of an abandoned duty room from 20 years ago is warm?
‘Wait, come to think of it, only the bed was clean.’
The fact that the basement was somewhat tidy, that only the bed was clean,
And even the boiler was still working.
‘Don’t tell me…?’
“Let’s open it! There must be something inside!”
“W-wait. Leila, we have to leave—”
Creak.
Click.
“—Huh?”
“…Huh?”
“Huh.”
***
“…And so, it’s all thanks to you, teacher.”
“Um, Mr. Manderick? I’m also a classmate, so you don’t have to call me teacher…”
“No! I was foolish to doubt your fortune-telling, teacher!”
“So you don’t have to use honorifics…”
“I will actively spread the word about this fortune-telling shop!”
“Please, call me teacher as much as you like.”
The day after giving Manderick advice(?).
Manderick, wearing black half-gloves with teardrop patterns on both hands, repeatedly bowed to Namgung Min with a surprised and grateful expression.
Namgung Min reacted with a troubled look at the excessive treatment, but…
‘Just as planned.’
Glancing at the black half-gloves Manderick was wearing,
He smiled a sly smile inwardly.
The real fortune-telling shop was just beginning.