I Became a Fortune Teller in the Game My Little Sister Made – Chapter 216

At the moment when Namgoong Min, who had come back to life, shot the Emperor away.

Unlike the underground prison filled with blood and battle, the Crown Princess Palace was eerily quiet.

This stillness was because the Crown Princess, who had pierced a hole from the underground prison to the surface with a single punch, was in silence.

“…………….”

“………….”

An awkward silence lingered on.

Eun-ha led the way, with Kim Ha-neul trailing behind her.

In the still dark dawn, aside from the vibrations echoing from below, only silence pervaded the Crown Princess Palace.

But they were not alone here.

‘…Five in the garden, three on the ceiling, twenty surrounding us… Given my older brother’s position, it’s actually fewer than expected.’

I knew that Kim Sung-il, my brother, had also headed below. It was inevitable, given the involvement of Namgoong Min.

However, unlike her, Kim Sung-il was the next Emperor of the Daehan Empire, and naturally, sustaining any wounds could be a major issue.

Considering that, it seemed he had brought the Empire’s elite guards along… but even with the aura of <Royalty> scanning the area, I could feel only about thirty individuals.

Surely he had selected a carefully chosen elite force, but if he truly wanted to protect my brother, at least a hundred would need to be mobilized.

It was clear that my brother was pushing it.

And that meant…

‘…It’s a pointless consideration.’

Was it for my father, the Emperor? Or was it for her, my younger sister?

I couldn’t quite tell, but I was grateful for the consideration at this moment.

Whether it was his command or just a matter of his word, they were hiding only around the Crown Princess Palace; no one had entered the building itself, allowing Eun-ha to stroll through the palace.

“………….”

Everywhere was a memory, and everywhere was pain.

I recalled my childhood, when I didn’t properly understand <Desire to Kill>, playing tag with my mother.

That was a warm memory for her.

Yet, at the same time, the mother caught in ‘tag’ ended up breaking her arm.

Still, my mother, Kim Ha-neul, endured the pain and smiled. She had.

“…I remember it, right here, where I used to play tag with you often.”

“………….”

“I couldn’t tell you when you were little… but your hands really hurt.”

As if reading Eun-ha’s thoughts.

Or perhaps, sharing the same memories as Eun-ha.

Kim Ha-neul naturally began recounting that day’s memories.

“You’ve grown quite a bit, Eun-ha.”

“…………….”

“Really, really… magnificent.”

She didn’t turn back. Thus, Kim Ha-neul’s face was hidden from view.

She shuddered briefly but continued walking as if it were nothing.

Even without a response, Kim Ha-neul wore a benevolent smile.

…It just felt like it would be so.

“………….”

Passing through a small door. It was a door she was very familiar with. Just a while ago, she had entered the underground prison through that door.

Now it was just a dust-laden room.

That place had been the room where her younger self had lived.

Did Kim Ha-neul catch onto her gaze directed at the door?

She opened her mouth once more.

“It’s been a long time. Is the room still dirty?”

“………….”

“I had a tough time cleaning your room every day. I could have used a maid, but… still, it was my daughter’s room, and I wanted to clean it myself.”

She knew. Eun-ha was aware of this fact.

The little secret that the Empress cleaned her daughter’s room herself in this secretive Crown Princess Palace without involving any maids.

Was that something Kim Ha-neul, a branch of the royal family, could ever have known?

“……….”

The mother, Empress Kim Ha-neul, had been kind to the side branch royal family that shared the same name.

She frequently played with her and told her all kinds of stories, or so she heard.

Did that include the story of her personally cleaning the room?

Did the side branch royal family remember all those tiny details she heard in her childhood?

“………….”

She didn’t linger at the door. She merely glanced at it before unhesitatingly passing by.

She passed beyond memories. Beyond nostalgia. Beyond the past.

Though she acted as if everything was perfectly fine on the surface, inside, it was quite the opposite.

It was chaotic, complicated, dizzying; she felt curious and uncertain.

All of this fueled <Desire to Kill>, burning like firewood.

‘…Self-control.’

The blazing fire extinguished in an instant.

It was an impulse she would have been unable to bear in the past. She couldn’t grasp her own restraint regarding the primal instincts of breathing, eating, and sleeping—this <Desire to Kill>.

But now, she understood. Not just in her mind, but deep in her heart.

To accept <Desire to Kill> was to endure pain.

That moment might be satisfying, but she would have to live much longer in the agony of loss.

It was a fortuneteller who taught her that.

The person who supported Eun-ha from behind, the one she trusted more than anyone else.

Thus.

“………….”

Kim Eun-ha was able to walk while maintaining the contradiction of her turbulent inner world and calm exterior.

But that too couldn’t last forever.

Eun-ha was well aware of it.

And she had no intention to continue that way from the start.

With a thud.

“………This place.”

Kim Ha-neul murmured as if following behind.

Finally, Eun-ha’s footsteps halted in the largest area of the Crown Princess Palace.

Because it was the largest, it had become the most worn-down, with dust piling up in clear sight.

As you opened the main gate of the Crown Princess Palace, the first thing you’d see… was the entrance hall.

Decorated with an old chandelier, a variety of furniture, a marble floor, and grand staircases leading throughout the palace.

A massive portrait of a lady hung on the wall.

Though the two women standing here didn’t appear in the portrait, one claimed to be her.

The portrait of the Empress, Kim Ha-neul.

“It’s still… hanging there.”

“………….”

“I thought they would have taken it down for sure.”

Inside the portrait, Kim Ha-neul wore a gentle smile. It looked so much like the smile Kim Ha-neul wore while following her.

She possessed memories that Kim Ha-neul couldn’t possibly know.

She recounted stories that Kim Ha-neul couldn’t have experienced.

Kim Ha-neul recognized the grown Eun-ha instantly.

Kim Ha-neul had called it a fairy tale of memories.

But that… could it not be possible the other way around?

“………I was imperfect.”

“Eun-ha…?”

“I heard that I was weak when I was born. So, my mother infused <Desire to Kill> into me, and thanks to that, I survived, but I had to regularly kill someone to satisfy that desire.”

Bloody days flooded her mind.

In her childhood, killing people seemed entirely ordinary. She didn’t even realize it was a sin.

“…I’m sorry.”

“Father built this Crown Princess Palace and the underground prison, and my brother would come by to play occasionally… Above all, my mother showered me with so much love. Such wonderful maternal affection, yet I wondered if it might also be a guilt complex.”

“Eun, Ha?”

“Because with that choice my mother made, one life lived while dozens, if not hundreds of lives, perished. Even if they were prisoners who deserved to die, could I really rest easy?”

“I was… okay.”

“I’m not sure. I’m not my mother, and I had to take lives to survive… but <Desire to Kill> only grew stronger, while my mother descended into madness.”

Eun-ha quietly closed her eyes and thought.

When she realized a daughter could kill herself so easily at a moment’s notice.

Could a mother approach a daughter who once viewed slaughter as a game?

Even if she did, could it be overcome solely with a parent’s love?

She didn’t know. Eun-ha didn’t have a daughter, nor did she ever experience maternal love.

But.

The mother, Empress Kim Ha-neul… seemed to be different.

“In the end, my mother tried to kill me. Doesn’t it seem silly? If she hadn’t infused <Desire to Kill> into me at birth, it would have been enough. Then, I wouldn’t have had to spend a bloody childhood, and my entire family wouldn’t have had to suffer.”

“U, Eun-ha!”

“But it was my mother who died. I turned to kill my mother who came at me wanting to kill me, and only then did I come to realize.”

“I was an imperfect being from the very start.”

<Desire to Kill> was sealed away.

It had occupied a significant part of Kim Eun-ha’s identity, leaving her with an unshakable sense of emptiness and lack.

Her father’s gaze had changed.

He had previously regarded her as his daughter, but after she killed her mother, in the Emperor’s eyes, she became a reflection of regret, guilt, and faint hatred. From that moment on, Kim Eun-ha was not simply the Emperor’s daughter; she became merely a princess.

She was oppressed in every aspect.

Due to the fear that <Desire to Kill> might return, she had to endure surveillance and training of all kinds, and it was only natural that exiting the Crown Princess Palace was strictly forbidden.

She accepted it all. Because she realized that killing people was a sin, that it brought suffering.

Once she grew older, she could enjoy some freedom, but her father’s gaze and treatment remained unchanged.

Kim Eun-ha’s surrender of her claim to the throne was not a choice but a necessity.

“I thought I would live like that forever. This is a punishment, a mistake for having been born that way. That the original sin of killing my mother could never be washed away.”

“………….”

“Then, I met a fortuneteller at the Academy. An odd fortuneteller who was digging up flower beds with a shovel.”

The first encounter was during the entrance exam for the Special Class, and the next was when he was digging the flower beds.

He seemed to possess abilities, but he was a strange person. That was what she thought.

But during the entrance ceremony maze.

During the mountain hiking class.

During the assassination threats.

During the Survival midterm exam.

During the Great Lake trial.

During the summer vacation.

During Aida’s duel.

In Dream Within a Dream.

And then, in that underground prison.

The fortuneteller seemed to perform magic, resolving all of Kim Eun-ha’s concerns.

He unsealed <Desire to Kill> and taught her self-control.

He was someone who could trust her, support her, and help her at any time.

Not merely relying on the fortuneteller.

But enabling the girl Kim Eun-ha to rise and walk independently. So she could become the protagonist of her own story.

Until then, he had reached out a hand with a smile… that was Namgoong Min.

Suddenly thinking about it.

She had received so much more than he ever did for her.

Eun-ha unwittingly smiled.

“I’ve talked a bit too long. Well, I had a lot to say.”

“Eun…ha?”

Only then did Kim Ha-neul’s eyes, realizing everything until now had been a monologue, begin to tremble violently.

She lowered her gaze from the portrait and turned with a smile behind her.

There was only Kim Ha-neul… and Kim Ha-neul.

“I have resented you at times. I’ve screamed asking why you pushed me into such a pit. There were days I trembled from nightmares about the day I killed you.”

“What… what do you mean?”

“But, never.”

“What are you—”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever thought that I wished for my mother to return.”

As if a whisper in the breeze.

When did she come next to her?

Eun-ha, standing beside Kim Ha-neul at an otherworldly speed, whispered.

“I personally think you are indeed my mother.”

“Th, that’s true, Eun-ha, now…!”

“But at the same time, I think you also correspond to that arrogant side branch royal. It feels like the two coexist and have merged into two memories.”

At Eun-ha’s words, Kim Ha-neul momentarily found herself at a loss for words.

Kim Ha-neul too.

Another Kim Ha-neul.

They seemed to realize their mistake and attempted to respond, but Eun-ha’s smile made them instinctively shut their mouths.

So much like… a ‘junior’ fortuneteller’s smile.

“What, well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Eun-ha…?”

“Whether you are my mother or a side branch royal.”

The resolution had already been made long ago.

In the underground prison, when the image of her mother rekindled her trauma, after Namgoong Min supported her, she had made up her mind long ago.

Yet, she wandered through the Crown Princess Palace. She strained to recall as many memories and recollections as she could.

Perhaps the choice could change if she did so.

What Namgoong Min hoped would be… not a Kim Eun-ha who wavered at the words of the fortuneteller. But a selection crafted by Kim Eun-ha herself after much deliberation.

But, even standing before the portrait, her heart did not change.

So, now she could act.

“I am already complete… and my heart can’t pour itself into just one person.”

“E, Eun-ha!”

“Why are you so frightened? Did you think I was going to kill you?”

Leaving behind a terrified Kim Ha-neul, as if she sensed what was to come.

Eun-ha simply walked past her.

As if leaving no lingering feelings or heart behind.

With a fortuneteller’s smile.

“That can’t be, right? I won’t kill you.”

“Uh…?”

“But whoever you are, Kim Ha-neul, you will never be able to shake me again.”

What suddenly came to mind was.

The impression of a long time.

Her endlessly imperfect and confusing life.

How, before she knew it… she had become complete enough to make her own choices.

For ten years, she lived in blood, and for ten years, she lived in imperfection, and after meeting the fortuneteller, a year had passed.

That one year felt longer and more overwhelming than the past twenty years.

“Take care of yourself. Live as you wish, comfortably, and freely.”

After all.

“In my story, there is no longer a place for Kim Ha-neul.”

Perhaps Namgoong Min hoped for reconciliation.

To reconcile with the resurrected mother and achieve an emotional reunion.

But this was Kim Eun-ha’s choice.

The person Kim Eun-ha became during the year she spent meeting Namgoong Min.

Seeing the fortuneteller, who struggled to overcome the past while being bound to it.

Recognizing the futility of the past.

“Goodbye.”

Now, she just…

She simply wanted to see Namgoong Min again.

That was all.