IDLOCFT 07

Chapter 07

I rang the bell and called for Benji. Just like before, she approached with a polite demeanor.

“I will guide you through the Imperial Palace.”

Benji spoke in a blunt voice that wasn’t entirely cold and moved as if to leave the room with me.

“Ugh—”

At that moment, I grabbed my head and staggered. I let my face turn pale as I recalled the day before yesterday when I had stood before the Emperor.

And if I added a little hyperventilating to the act—

“Lady Rani! Are you all right?”

There was no way she wouldn’t fall for it.

I had stumbled toward Benji, but as a seasoned maid, she quickly caught me before I could fall.

“…I’m fine. I just remembered something for a moment.”

You simply have to say that with a face that looks anything but fine. I frowned as though my head were throbbing.

Completely deceived by my performance, Benji helped me over to the sofa.

“I’ll call a physician. Please wait here a moment.”

‘No? You can’t call a doctor!’

It seemed my acting had worked a little too well. I broke into a cold sweat in panic.

I grabbed Benji’s wrist just as she was about to step away.

“No! It’s fine. I just need to rest a little. More importantly, sit here for a moment.”

I made Benji sit beside me. Her expression grew even more serious.

“You’re even breaking out in a cold sweat. I really should call a physician—”

‘This sweat is from panicking.’

I answered her in my head and grabbed her again as she tried to stand.

“I’m really fine. A prophecy just came to me for a moment.”

“…A prophecy?”

Benji’s expression turned distinctly serious. Matching her mood, I glanced around to make sure no one was listening and then tightly held her hand.

“Benji, it’s about you.”

“…You can see the future of someone like me?”

Doubt flickered across her face. Yes, it sounded absurd. But you’re going to believe me.

At times like this, what matters is confidence.

“When one sees a prophecy, what does status matter? If it did, someone as lowly as me—the lowest in the Empire—could never have seen one in the first place.”

At my words, Benji’s face softened slightly. Then she returned to her composed, elite-palace-maid self and spoke politely.

“…Lady Rani, you are not the lowest in the Empire. You have been granted the position of Imperial Palace Diviner.”

At her words, I smiled bitterly to myself.

‘Right. Why did I receive a position in the palace…?’

But—Lady Rani?

I tilted my head at the unfamiliar word before realizing it was my name.

‘My name is Rani?’

I was shocked to realize I hadn’t even known my own name until now.

Outwardly, however, I offered a calm smile.

“Thank you for saying that.”

“It is simply the truth.”

“More importantly, Benji—do you have someone around you who is ill?”

At my words, Benji’s expression stiffened ever so slightly. It was clear she had someone in mind.

She hesitated, lips twitching as though debating whether to speak, then confessed honestly.

“…My mother is ill.”

I hardened my expression upon hearing that—of course, it was an act.

“Benji, listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”

She still seemed doubtful, but as I squeezed her hand and spoke, she listened for now.

I took a deep breath, speaking haltingly as though regretful to deliver such unfortunate news.

“Your mother… within the next two months, she will stand at death’s door.”

“…What?”

Benji’s face darkened instantly. She bit her lip anxiously.

“It’s true that my mother’s condition hasn’t been improving. But it’s not serious enough for her to die!”

“Not now. But in two months, her condition will worsen rapidly, and she will be at death’s edge.”

“…Then what should I do?”

She asked with desperate eyes. For a moment, my mother from my previous life overlapped with her image, and I shut my mouth.

My stomach churned. What I was doing now felt no different from the fraudulent shamans who had scammed my mother out of her money.

“Diviner?”

Benji called me again, snapping me back to my senses.

“Oh, right. A way to cure her? Of course there is.”

‘Pull yourself together. The difference is that I’m actually going to help her.’

I consciously pushed away the dark thoughts chasing each other in my mind.

Soon I became calm, as if splashed with cold water, and continued.

“You must stop your mother from going to the blacksmith’s forge.”

“The forge?”

The reason Benji’s mother’s condition had suddenly worsened was because, after contracting pneumonia, she kept going to the forge where Benji’s father worked, believing it would drive out the illness.

In the Kardisel Empire, medical science had only recently begun to develop.

Until not long ago, serious illnesses were thought to be caused by demons or evil spirits.

As a result, all sorts of superstitions and strange folk remedies were rampant.

One such superstition claimed that if a patient was taken to a forge and the blacksmith pretended to strike them with a large hammer, the demon would be frightened away and the illness cured.

It was an old belief and not widely followed anymore—but Benji’s mother firmly believed in it.

That belief had become poison to her.

A person with pneumonia and weakened lungs could never recover while inhaling toxic fumes and metal dust all day at a forge.

“Just humor me and trust me. Exactly two months. If she stops going to the forge, not only will she survive, but I guarantee her condition will improve within that time.”

“…All right. Since it’s the Imperial Palace Diviner’s words, I’ll trust you.”

“And have her drink at least one cup a day of tea mixed with honey and lemon. Make sure she boils the water herself.”

Drinking warm tea and inhaling the steam from boiling water would at least ease her pneumonia symptoms.

‘The best thing would be proper medicine, but that’s difficult.’

Benji still seemed unsure whether my words were true, but she didn’t look like she completely disbelieved me.

More than that, I nearly choked at the overly burdensome title.

“Benji, just call me Rani.”

“I will, Lady Rani.”

She nodded readily.

For now, I had cast my first bait to Benji.

To give the clearly confused Benji some space, I left. In truth, I fled the room because I didn’t know how to wrap up the situation smoothly—but still.

To clear my head, I headed toward the garden Benji had just told me about, only to feel the piercing gazes of those around me.

“That’s her, right?”

“Yes. The Imperial Palace Diviner!”

“An Imperial Palace ‘Diviner’? How irreverent.”

“What on earth is His Majesty thinking?”

“Hush, it’s the Emperor’s will. He must have his reasons. Let’s go back to work.”

‘Reasons? The Emperor must have gone mad from lack of sleep.’

I silently supplied the response I couldn’t say aloud to the palace maids.

I wondered how the rumor had spread so quickly in less than half a day.

‘Then again, if such an entertaining piece of news didn’t spread quickly, that would be stranger.’

The whispers and sharp stares continued.

At first I tried to ignore them, but as it went on, I found myself walking faster, staring straight ahead.

And then—I got lost.

“Where am I?”

No matter how I looked around, it was unfamiliar. Benji had definitely explained the way earlier, but my terrible sense of direction remained unchanged.

As I stood there at a loss, I heard footsteps approaching from the opposite direction. I turned toward the sound with relief.

‘As long as it’s not the Emperor, anyone is fine!’

That thought was shattered in an instant.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the Emperor. But as if fate were mocking me, someone even less welcome appeared.

“Who might you be?”

It was Duke Bordi.

‘Never mind. I’ll include him too.’

The moment I saw Duke Bordi, I couldn’t control the twitch of my facial muscles.

It was my first time seeing him in person. He was likely Perion’s greatest enemy at the moment.

Suppressing my unease, I bowed politely.

“I am Rani, the Imperial Palace Diviner.”

“Ah, so you’re the famous Imperial Palace Diviner?”