“You called me aside, so I assume it’s something important, Johan.”
“……”
Lobelia was threatening me with a smile.
She was always dumping all the trouble on me, and now she was calling me petty for this? Unbelievable.
“Well, is there something you’re curious about, Your Highness? I’ll answer anything.”
“Didn’t you say you had something to talk about? So go ahead and ramble on about something appropriate.”
“……”
Something appropriate.
The worst kind of request.
It gave me a tiny bit of sympathy for the imperial chefs.
I had to carefully pick and choose information that would be useful to her.
Some things were more dangerous if known too early.
And some were just too complicated for me to explain.
If I wanted to explain who the Ex Machina’s scriptwriter was, I’d first have to explain what a computer is.
And even if I did, it’s not like Lobelia would fully understand.
Seeing is believing, and it would probably be easier if she experienced it herself.
Honestly, at this point, I don’t have much I can share openly.
Now that the identities of Kult and Vidar have been revealed, the only enemies whose identities Lobelia still didn’t know were the Scriptwriter and the Judge.
And I was reluctant to tell her about the Judge Tillis.
That lunatic would absolutely kill her and me too if she found out Lobelia knew who she really was.
There were only a handful of people who could stop her if she went berserk.
As for the Scriptwriter, like I said, it was too complicated to explain, so that’s on hold for now.
Which leaves me with only a few pieces of quality information I can give her.
I had to choose one of them.
“Oracle.”
“Hmm?”
“Aren’t you curious about the real Oracle?”
This was probably the piece of information Kult would be most eager to get his hands on. Of course, I didn’t actually know where the Oracle was right now. The oracle barely appeared in the game, after all.
But I do remember where they first appeared.
Yes, what I was going to tell her was when and where she could meet them.
“That certainly is interesting. After all, the Oracle standing before me is talking about another Oracle.”
“Could you please stop with that, Your Highness?”
“No can do. And you, don’t forget what’s clearly stated in the contract. You signed it, didn’t you?”
“…Anyway, before long, the real Oracle would reach out to you.”
“When exactly is ‘before long’?”
“‘Before long’ is just that. Before long.”
“You’re asking for a beating.”
Lobelia raised her fist and clenched it. I heard the sound of something getting crushed inside her grasp.
“…Before the first semester ends and shortly after Your Highness would have a confrontation with the demon worshippers of Lemegeton outside….the Oracle would show themselves.”
“That’s a little better.”
Only after I gave her a relatively accurate timeline did Lobelia finally unclench her fist.
Something unidentifiable and badly mangled fell from her hand.
What even was that…? I couldn’t begin to guess its original shape.
“And?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t tell me that’s all. You could at least give me a description.”
“I don’t know…”
“That could be a problem.”
Yeah, a big problem…
I really had no idea what the Oracle looked like. All I knew was that they were some shady NPC.
But Lobelia wasn’t willing to accept that.
I had to squeeze something out.
“Well, they’re wearing a hood. So their appearance can’t be seen.”
“And?”
And?
That was the conclusion.
“Uh… I think they wear a circlet with a blue gem on top of the hood. So their face isn’t visible.”
“Like that person?”
Lobelia pointed behind my back.
And when I turned around without thinking, there stood someone exactly matching the description I had just made up.
A black robe, a hood pulled low, and a circlet with a blue gem.
A figure standing there with no presence, like a shadow.
“Since when were they…?”
Why were they watching us?
Could that really be the Oracle?
My mind turned into a tangled mess. There was someone here who shouldn’t be. Or maybe it was because the future had changed…whether I liked it or not?
I had no idea where or how the butterfly effect had started.
But one thing was certain…
“They don’t look friendly. I can feel hostility.”
And it wasn’t aimed at anyone else; it was directed at me.
But why?
…Then again, I had sold out a lot of information about the future and certain people just to survive.
The biggest issue, of course, was that I had saved Ariel.
If changing the future had triggered the Oracle’s wrath, then their hostility toward me was more than understandable.
“Why don’t we try talking to them first? I mean, if someone was talking behind my back like you did, I’d be pissed too.”
“Wait, Your Highness…you’re the one who asked…?”
“You said it was important information. I didn’t say anything.”
She was right. Now that I thought about it, this was different from the past.
Up until now, I’d only shared info about criminals who totally deserved to die. But the Oracle wasn’t a criminal to begin with.
“So you’re the one who acted on your own and brought disaster closer.”
A delicate voice came from beneath the hood. In that moment, another piece of information clicked into my mind.
“You’re a woman. Huh, that’s surprising.”
Lobelia looked genuinely shocked, probably because she’d been dead set on thinking the Oracle was a man.
Must’ve been due to all the times she teased me about being the Oracle. Some unconscious bias had taken root in her head.
I didn’t know either way, but I wasn’t nearly as stunned as she was.
“You impostor.”
“Cut the bullshit! I’ll admit to all the other baseless accusations, but that one is seriously unfair!”
I had never, not even once, claimed to be the Oracle!!
I always denied it, but those bastards never believed me!
“To start swearing just like that… what a vulgar man.”
“Your Highness, that’s the enemy.”
“That’s a judgment clouded by personal feelings. She may be hostile, but I doubt she wants to kill me. So how about we try talking it out?”
“This is all because of—!”
“Are you suggesting it’s my fault? That it’s because of me, Lobelia Vicious von Miltonia, the third princess of the Miltonia Empire?”
“…Of course not.”
The empire’s future looks dark.
And mine was already dark.
“Impostor, I’ll give you a chance. Let’s settle this. We’ll decide who the real Oracle is through a duel.”
With those words, the Oracle pulled something from her robes with a snap!
I couldn’t say for sure, but it looked a lot like tarot cards.
How ridiculous.
“What now? You want to bet on who’s better at fortune-telling?”
Boom!
Something whizzed past my face and shattered the rock behind me into pieces.
Drip.
Blood ran down my cheek.
The card that had been in the Oracle’s hand was now gone.
As if nothing had happened, she calmly pulled out a new card.
Ah, so she fights like that?
A duel really means a duel, huh?
“…I give up.”
“Isn’t that giving up a little too fast?”
“How am I supposed to win? Your Highness, she just broke a boulder with a card.”
What is that thing?
Even with my sword and magic, I couldn’t pull off that kind of destruction.
“Typical of a low-grade impostor to give up so quickly. If you’ve learned your lesson, don’t go around impersonating others again.”
“Wait a second. Just who told you that? I’ve never claimed anything of the sort!”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t even need to hear it to know the truth.”
“Don’t give me that crap! If you didn’t hear it, then how the hell is it impersonation?!”
Are you seriously accusing me of being an impostor based on circumstantial evidence alone?
“Hold on, I’m not convinced you’re the Oracle. If you ask me, Johan seems a lot closer to the real one.”
“…….”
Just then, Lobelia casually tossed fuel on the fire.
She was escalating the situation by suggesting the real Oracle might be fake.
Does this woman actually want to see that lunatic kill me?
“Do you have any proof that you’re the Oracle? Johan predicted the future, after all.”
Ah. I see it clearly now.
Lobelia was trying to extract information from the real Oracle.
Looks like she expected the Oracle to disappear soon. And before that happened, she was hoping to get whatever she could.
“Lobelia Vicious von Miltonia.”
“That’s right.”
Whether it was because she fell for Lobelia’s provocation or simply chose to take the bait, the Oracle began to speak about the future she knew.
“You will fail.”
“In what way? I’d like a detailed explanation.”
Even when told she’d fail, Lobelia didn’t so much as blink. She just asked for specifics.
I already knew, but… she was no ordinary woman either.
“A burning palace. Hallways lined with corpses. An audience chamber soaked in blood. Emperor Abraham will behead you.”
“Good. That’s a lot more credible than what I’ve heard before. Especially the part where His Majesty kills me.”
“…….”
“But when people talk, they usually show their face, don’t they?”
“There’s no need for you to know right now.”
“Mystery can be attractive, but too much of it becomes suspicious.”
Lobelia clenched her fist.
Was she thinking of capturing her? A red electric current flared to life above her hand.
But at that very moment—
Craack—!
A crack spread outward from the Oracle at the center of our gaze.
A strange scene, as if we were peering through a window into another world.
Crash!
The crack that had begun from the Oracle eventually swallowed her whole body, and once it did, it shattered. And she vanished just like a reflection in a mirror.
“Well, that was something strange…”
Lobelia, a bit too late, tried to catch one of the fragments that had broken off, but before she could, the shards scattered and vanished as if melting into the air.
“Huh…”
Lobelia brought a hand to her forehead, then sank down to the ground.
“Are you all right, Your Highness? Did the Oracle do something to you? Can you stand?”
“…It’s the first time I’ve seen you this worried about me.”
“If my guardian collapses in the middle of a dangerous forest like this, I’ll be in danger too, won’t I?”
“That does sound like you. Haha…”
Lobelia lowered her hand from her forehead and looked up at the sky.
Was she actually unwell?
“It’s just… a lot of strange things have been happening lately, different from the usual. I guess I’m a bit tired. And most of them have been because of you.”
“I object to that.”
“Keep objecting.”
There was Kult, the tension between Ariel and Yuna… and now even the Oracle had appeared.
Unlike before, too many unpredictable things had happened all at once.
There hadn’t even been time to react.
If it had just been a straightforward terrorist attack, she could have fought back. But this wasn’t that kind of situation.
“Mind letting me borrow your shoulder for a moment?”
“…Is it really that bad?”
“Just help me up, that’s all.”
“Well, I suppose…”
I lifted Lobelia by placing her arm over my shoulder.
She was lighter than I’d expected.
No, was that to be expected? It wasn’t like there was a big difference in build between Lobelia and Ariel. Maybe I had just imagined her as being more imposing than she really was.
As I helped Lobelia to her feet, she let out a sigh and said,
“Just thinking about what’s ahead is giving me a headache.”
“Same here.”
“Hearing that, it feels like we might actually have something in common.”
“Not at all.”
Don’t try to casually lump me in with you.
But Lobelia didn’t care. She smirked and continued speaking.
“No, I think you’re surprisingly—”
—or rather, it would be more accurate to say she tried to continue.
Mid-sentence, Lobelia closed her mouth and stared straight ahead.
And only then did I, still holding her up, turn to look in the same direction she was facing.
“Ariel, this is a misunderstanding.”
“…Yuna, I don’t know what you’re about to say, but could you just… not and stay quiet?”
There stood Ariel, staring blankly in our direction, and beside her was Yuna, wearing a devilish smile as if she’d just discovered something truly entertaining.
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