A Fortune-telling Princess

“The primary purpose of sending Miss Sia Lee and Lady Camilla back to the past each time was to give you time to recognize each other. But there was also the hope that each of you would experience and grow accustomed to the world you would later return to.”

“...”

Sia Lee.

It was certainly her own name, and yet now it felt somehow unfamiliar.

“Fine, but does it normally take this long to recognize each other?”

“I didn’t expect it to take quite this long either. But I didn’t have that much authority to intervene...”

Donna let out a long sigh.

“Fortunately, Lady Camilla, who was here, recognized Miss Sia Lee in the other world properly at the very last moment, and we were able to end this long cycle.”

Recognized me at the last?

“Ah!”

A scene flashed up.

The day she met eyes with Camilla, whose neck had been severed. That day she’d had an accident herself—no, she must have died. The chandelier fell... Wait.

“That ghost back then...”

The ghost hanging from the chandelier, the one that looked exactly like her.

“...It really was Sia Lee.”

“If you mean the soul you last saw that day, yes.”

Guessing what Camilla was thinking, Donna nodded and continued.

“Had we missed that timing, the two of you would still be living repeating lives. In that instant when one of you perfectly recognized the other—there was a perfect gap between the two worlds, and at last we could return you both to your proper places.”

Watching Donna look proud as if she had accomplished something great, Camilla’s grip tightened on the heel in her hand.

“And you think that’s something to brag about.”

Just because we’re back now doesn’t erase what we went through!

“I ought to just—!”

Donna flinched, raising both arms to shield her face, and a sigh slipped out of Camilla on its own.

“You’re small-framed, too...”

Donna had a petite build for a woman. If she were at least big, Camilla could beat her to her heart’s content!

“Are you dissatisfied that I’m small?”

Hearing Camilla’s mutter, Donna clapped and smiled. In that instant, her body went blurry.

“Huh?!”

Then someone else suddenly appeared before Camilla. The tiny Donna vanished, and in her place stood a tall, slender man.

With long lavender hair tied back and glasses on, he bent his head with a gentle smile.

“Allow me to introduce myself properly again. I’m Dorman.”

“Dork-man?”

“No, Dorman...”

“...”

“This is my original form.”

“You’re Donna?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a man, no matter how I look at you.”

“Beings like me do not put much stock in gender, but if I had to say, then yes.”

“Why did you deliberately turn into a woman?”

“To serve Lady Camilla more closely, a woman seemed more suitable than a man.”

“You even attended me in my bath, didn’t you?”

“As I said, for a being like me, gender isn’t particularly—”

“Shut up.”

“Yes.”

Past exasperation and into sheer disbelief, Camilla kept letting out hollow laughs. Watching her face, Donna—no, Dorman—spoke again.

“At any rate, because of the mistake of putting the souls in wrong, I was dismissed from office, and I’ve lost much of my ability. I can no longer even see souls.”

His expression drooped again.

“Do I see ghosts because my soul was switched?”

“That isn’t it. You were born with that ability.”

“Tch.”

She had planned to take it out on that, too.

As Camilla clicked her tongue in disappointment, Dorman exhaled a small sigh of relief and continued.

“If the two of you complete your lives safely to your allotted lifespans, then I’ll be able to be reinstated.”

Talking about reinstatement—unbelievable.

“So, all that hell we went through, and the constant dying, was all because of you.”

“If you insist on putting it that way, yes, but...”

“Call them.”

“P–pardon?”

“Your superior. Call them.”

“W–why, all of a sudden...?”

“When the underling messes up, the superior takes responsibility!”

You don’t even know that basic common sense?

“W–we tried to take responsibility in our way...!”

“What responsibility? What effort! What did you do!”

The more she spoke, the hotter her temper ran.

“E–each time you died, returning your souls to the past wasn’t something we were allowed to do lightly. We tried to ensure ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) you could recognize each other while causing as little harm as possible to each world—!”

“Not my concern.”

“M–Miss Sia Lee was born with much. A brilliant mind and outstanding acting. And a beautiful face besides! On top of that, all we could give was a little good fortune.”

“Good fortune?”

“So that everything you did would go well...!”

Every drama or film she chose had blown up big. So that was because of the luck they gave? Not because of the information she squeezed from ghosts?

“What about Camilla?”

Fine, say Sia Lee over there had that. What about me? The me here? No matter how she scrubbed her eyes, she couldn’t see any benefit.

“Me.”

“What?”

“I’ve been stuck close, serving you.”

Dorman beamed, pointing to himself.

“You?”

“Yes.”

“You’re my benefit?”

“That’s right.”

“...”

Should I just kill him.

“Phew.”

In the end, Camilla hurled the shoe and drove out the “helper” Dorman, then changed out of her wet clothes alone, letting out a long sigh. Her body heat felt much lowered; even her breath felt a little hot.

‘So you were watching me.’

Then, the reason Donna had appeared as if waiting for her the moment she jumped into the lake was that he had been watching her all this time.

He insisted to the end that it wasn’t surveillance but worry that made him follow, but like that makes a difference.

After the term began, he had watched in secret for a while; seeing that she seemed to handle school life tolerably, he had briefly taken his eyes off her. Then, after the clash with Juid and his lot, he had started watching again.

And just then he saw her jump into the water and, assuming she was attempting suicide, jumped in to save her—that was his explanation.

‘How very kind.’

So kind it made her grind her teeth.

“Damn.”

He had jumped in to save her, but she wasn’t grateful in the least. Jumping into the water aside, all his “looking after her” had been for his reinstatement.

If Donna hadn’t shown up at the lake in the first place, she would have come out without any problem. It had happened because she was so startled her breathing faltered.

“Ugh...”

It was a relief to have solved the question of why she was in this wretched world.

“My mood is filthy.”

Maybe because of that filthy mood, her body kept feeling leaden.

Camilla looked at the Guardian’s egg, which she had set carefully to one side. At least it was a relief she had retrieved that safely.

“Then let’s go.”

Camilla took up the Guardian’s egg. There was no good in keeping such a thing for long. It would only invite needless misunderstanding.

Click.

Camilla left the room at once, keeping the Guardian’s egg safe in her pocket.

But...

“Dorman! Carry this for me.”

“Yes, understood.”

“Dorman, come by later for a snack.”

“I’ll definitely come.”

...What was that? That level of familiarity?

The moment she stepped outside, the scene she faced made Camilla unable to hide her puzzlement.

People of the ducal house were speaking to Dorman—who stood in his original form, not as Donna—with perfect naturalness.

“Ah! Lady Camilla!”

Dorman spotted her and scampered over.

“What is this?”

“Pardon?”

“Why is everyone acting so natural?”

“Ah...”

Realizing what she found strange, Dorman smiled.

“It’s what little ability I have left.”

“Ability?”

“Even if I appear out of the blue, people accept my existence naturally. I induce a muddle in their memories so it feels like we’ve known each other a long time. It was essential to stay stuck at your side, Lady Camilla, so I was lucky not to have that stripped away.”

“You don’t need to be stuck.”

“Eh?”

“It’s not like having you stuck to me kept me from dying.”

What help did sticking around do? Taking her side at the end? Crying harder than anyone when she died?

‘That’s right!’

He probably cried because his reinstatement had failed again.

“In that case, you could have just told me everything beforehand.”

If he had said in advance that her soul had been switched and that this was the situation, that she needed to live quietly or she would die again—would she have died so easily every time?

“Then I could have at least lived hard with the small hope that it would be all right once the souls went back.”

“That wasn’t within my authority.”

Dorman pulled a woeful face, as if to say he was the one being wronged.

“It was prohibited to reveal the truth before the souls returned to their places. With even a small shock, an unstable soul is easily shattered.”

“So.”

“P–pardon?”

“What exactly did you help with?”

“...Tea? Shall I bring you tea?”

“...”

“I’ll, I’ll clean your room right away.”

“...”

“Laundry, too...!”

“Useless.”

“Y–you’re too harsh.”

Feeling that any further conversation was pointless, Camilla moved on.

“Huh?”

As she reached Duke Sorpel’s study, Camilla happened to see Butler Rube just about to enter, carrying tea.

At her appearance, the hand that had been about to knock stopped.

“My lady.”

“Father is inside, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He is in conversation with a guest.”

“A guest?”

“His Grace the Duke of Jevillan is here.”

“Ah.”

Because she had headed straight to her room earlier, she hadn’t heard that a guest had come to the house.

“Are you all right?”

Butler Rube’s eyes went to Camilla’s hair, still faintly damp.

He had already heard not only that she had come back drenched, but also that she had given orders that no one was to enter her room. Only, because a guest was present, he had not yet reported it to Duke Sorpel.