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

Chapter 8
The Enigmatic Fortune Teller (1)

『 Translator – Divinity 』

What is the most important thing in self-employment?

The type of business? Location? Sales strategy?

Of course, all of that is important to become a successful self-employed person, but…

“As expected, the most important thing is capital.”

You need money to choose a good business type, a good location, and a good strategy, right?

But I, Namgung Min, was penniless, without even enough money to buy dinner, let alone capital.

What do you need in this situation? Naturally, a kind person who will generously give money to someone in need!

“So, would you give me some money?”

“…What?”

So ‘give’.

Give me money.

“…Namgung Min, I think I misunderstood something.”

“Oh my, what kind of misunderstanding?”

“You asked for money so naturally that I thought I had borrowed some from you.”

The kind person, Liu Yan, who was suddenly confronted with “Give me money” by Namgung Min, muttered to herself.

Inside Romance Academy, in the office she had already chosen, Liu Yan was facing an unexpected guest.

Namgung Min, who had somehow found out where she was, came to visit with a bright smile as if it was nothing, and was demanding money from her as naturally as if he was collecting a debt.

Liu Yan was beyond dumbfounded; she was flabbergasted.

“Ask for? From me? Money?”

“Of course.”

“…Ha, haha.”

Perhaps because of Namgung Min, who answered with a bright smile.

Liu Yan, who smiled along with him, brushed her long, straight hair back and opened her mouth.

“Name is Namgung Min, 20 years old this year. Birthday is July 17th. Born into a middle-class family in Seoul, the capital of the Unified Korean Empire, and has the job of ‘Fortune Teller’. But after his father’s business failure, his family was shattered, and his parents committed suicide around the age of 12. After that, he was placed in an orphanage and raised there until he was 18. At 19, he took the high school equivalency exam and entered this year.”

“………….”

“Anything else to say?”

Smirk.

Liu Yan finished speaking with a sly smile. Well, it must be refreshing to finish investigating the suspicious guy and then reveal it all to him.

Her suspicions probably weren’t completely cleared yet, but knowing that I wasn’t a hidden instructor from the academy or a lackey of someone who was hostile to her would probably lessen her doubts.

Uh, hmm. Right. If I had to say something after hearing that…

“Hmm, as expected, you’re fast?”

“…What?”

But that was a bit problematic.

Liu Yan’s excessive suspicion was a problem, but her suspicion decreasing was an even bigger problem.

She only suspected those who could ‘harm’ her, so if her suspicion of me decreased here, there was a high chance I would be dismissed as ‘just an idiot who can do some accurate fortune-telling’.

‘I thought about it many times in the game too… but she’s really troublesome.’

Despite her beautiful appearance, she was a truly troublesome woman. First, she suspected without asking or questioning, and if you turned out to be harmless, you were treated like an idiot, and if you had something, she suspected you even more intensely.

The fundamental reason for this was that she unconditionally categorized people as either idiots or suspicious bastards… and there was no middle ground between those two.

No, even Lucas Arthur, who had been her childhood friend since she was young, was constantly being suspected, albeit to a lesser extent.

Honestly, the character event where her paranoia was cured was quite amazing.

But fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it wasn’t that difficult to raise her suspicion again.

“Then you must also know that I’m an only child, right?”

“Ha! Of course.”

“Then that’s all I need.”

“………….”

I just had to act like I had something up my sleeve.

Liu did a background check and revealed it all in front of me, but after hearing it, I just shrugged and said I understood?

Her suspicion circuits would overheat and burst into flames. She was probably suspecting the possibility of the background check being wrong, or it being misinformation, or hidden information, and so on.

‘Honestly, I didn’t expect her to do a background check so quickly.’

In the game, there was a ‘suspicion level’ unique to her, and when it reached a certain point, an event would trigger where Liu would do a background check on the player.

But that was a game, and in reality, forget about suspicion level or whatever, she investigated my entire life within 2 hours of meeting me? It was natural to be intimidated.

I was even more flustered because that life was similar to my real life.

‘There’s no mention of that cult bastard.’

Liu only said that my parents committed suicide after a business failure, but there was no mention of the shitty fortune teller who controlled my parents in the process.

Since my job was ‘Fortune Teller’, if she knew that it was ‘another fortune teller’ who drove my parents to suicide, with Liu’s personality, she would have definitely used it as a provocation.

But the fact that she didn’t mention it meant that Liu didn’t know.

‘The great billionaire Liu Yan investigated and didn’t know? That probably means that cult bastard didn’t approach me in this world.’

In other words, even with a background check, all she would find out was a life story similar to mine.

Shouldn’t I be grateful that she kindly told me all this, even though I didn’t know my own past?

‘More than anything, I’m an only child?’

I had a younger sister, Namgung Jisu, who, although a damn bitch, was full of complaints, and extremely picky, was still my blood relative.

If I had a younger sister here, I would have been a bit intimidated… but thinking about it, she was the developer of this game, so there’s no way she would be here.

‘There’s nothing to be intimidated about even if she does a background check.’

Go ahead and investigate all you want. There’s nothing more to find anyway.

The more she does, the deeper Liu’s suspicion will become.

“More importantly, would you give me some money?”

“…You keep going on and on about money, money, money, but why on earth should I give money to a bastard like you?”

“Well, you had your fortune told by me, didn’t you?”

“So what.”

“Then you have to pay me.”

Liu stared at me with a blank expression as I continued to smile and made a money gesture with one hand.

Honestly, seeing her like this from the front, she was really pretty. The problem was that her huge flaw, paranoia, overshadowed everything else.

“Pay… you?”

“Of course. As a Chinese person, you should know about this, right?”

Fortune-teller’s fee. Money given to a fortune teller or diviner after having your fortune told.

In the East, the birthplace of fortune-telling can be said to be China. This is because Eastern fortune-telling is fundamentally based on theories like Yin-Yang, the Five Elements, the Eight Trigrams, and the Heavenly Stems, and the birthplace of these theories is China.

Even Confucius, one of the four great sages, studied the I Ching, a form of divination, and based on this, the famous Four Pillars of Destiny appeared.

China, which can be considered the origin of Eastern fortune-telling, has developed fortune-telling to a great extent, and as such, the concept of fortune-teller’s fees is well known.

Of course, even in present-day Korea… no, in the Unified Korean Empire, it’s basic to pay a fee after having your fortune told, whether it’s through tarot, physiognomy, or the Four Pillars of Destiny, but the fortune-teller’s fee I’m talking about now has a slightly different meaning.

“Are you not going to pay, by any chance?”

Fortune-telling is fundamentally a question and answer. The client asks the fortune teller a question, and the fortune teller answers.

However, if that’s all there is to it, the client gets an answer to their question, but the fortune teller gains nothing.

That’s why the fortune teller says to the client, ‘If you don’t pay a fair price, I’ll take away your fortune’.

In the East, fortune tellers were close to being agents serving supernatural beings like gods or ancestors, so they could demand payment using their authority.

‘So, having your fortune told and not paying the fee means ‘I don’t care if disaster strikes me~’.’

In the West, the meaning is a bit different… but since Liu Yan is Chinese, it’s hard for her to escape this notion.

If she refused? Since I didn’t actually do any real fortune-telling, there wouldn’t be any real problem if she didn’t pay the fee, and my plan would be completely ruined.

But I wasn’t really worried.

“…No, I’ll pay.”

“Thank you.”

With Liu Yan being a severe paranoiac, it was highly likely that she would come to the conclusion that she should just pay the measly fee.

If she paid the fee, it was a natural transaction between a client and a fortune teller, but if she didn’t, she would have to suspect me even more, wondering what I might do.

Liu Yan wasn’t stupid enough to choose to increase her already numerous suspicions.

“How much do you need? 10,000 yuan? 20,000 yuan?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not much.”

As expected of a billionaire, was this it? It was fascinating to see her casually mention 10,000 yuan (about 1.8 million won) and 20,000 yuan (about 3.6 million won) as if she were taking out coins.

Of course, it wasn’t 10,000 or 20,000 yuan, but the amount of the fee was already decided.

“So, how much do you have to eat like a pig to be satisfied—”

“1 million yuan.”

“───What?”

“No more, no less, 1 million yuan will do.”

I answered casually and shrugged.

1 million yuan, roughly calculated… about 180 million won?

That was the appropriate price I had in mind for the fee from Liu. It was a large sum, but it wasn’t that much money for Liu.

So, if I just received the money and went straight to the shopping district…

“Are you out of your mind?”

“…Hmm? I don’t understand what you mean.”

But contrary to Namgung Min’s expectation that she would casually take out 180 million from her wallet and throw it at him, Liu glared at him, her face flushed red with anger.

Oh? She’s being quite bold?

“1 million yuan for a child’s play of guessing what’s inside?”

“If it ended as child’s play, then 1 million yuan would be a joke, and 100 yuan would be enough.”

“Then that’s settled.”

“But it didn’t end as child’s play, did it? You used me.”

“……….”

“You didn’t actually think I wouldn’t know, did you?”

…Did she really think I wouldn’t know? If so, I’m a bit disappointed.

With a somewhat disappointed look, I turned my head towards Liu’s left hand, which had stiffened in surprise.

There was no ring on her ring finger.

“You showed me the ring you were originally wearing on your ring finger… and I told you there were several small jewels inside.”

“……….”

“You took out all the jewels inside and sold them, didn’t you? Not only that, you showed me a magically sealed box where you couldn’t see what was inside, a broken pendant that wouldn’t open, and other things to confirm their value and dispose of them, didn’t you?”

“…….”

“If you add all that up, it would be 3 million yuan, but I was being conscientious and only asking for 1 million… You’re deceiving me too much.”

If you earned 3 million yuan, roughly 600 million won, thanks to my fortune-telling (not really), shouldn’t you return some of it as a matter of business ethics?

But since I also cheated using game knowledge, not real fortune-telling, I was being conscientious and asking for 1/3 instead of half.

“You’re being too stingy for a billionaire.”

Grind. Grit.

“Then, I’ll ask you again.”

Grind. Grit.

I was a bit disappointed by Liu’s stinginess… but everyone deserves a chance at redemption, right?

I smiled as innocently as possible at Liu, who was making strange noises with her teeth.

“Would you give me some money?”

Grind. Gnaw.

Grit. Gnaw.

Grind.

***

“…Come out.”

The sun had set, and only the moonlight faintly illuminated the office.

In the middle of the office, which was in a chaotic state with things scattered and broken everywhere, Liu Yan muttered with bloodshot eyes and ragged breathing.

Creak.

As soon as she finished speaking, the door to the next room, which had been tightly closed, opened.

“…You called?”

“Find out.”

“…Yes?”

“That fortune teller bastard. Namgung Min. Find out everything about him.”

“…Are you saying you want another background check?”

“No.”

Liu Yan tilted her head towards the other side of the door. Her bloodshot eyes gleamed in the dark office.

Eyes overflowing with viciousness, madness, and suspicion.

“Approach him. Coincidence, friend, lover, friends with benefits, whatever. Approach him and find out everything about him. His past, personality, speech patterns, background, job, habits, everything.”

“……….”

Leaving aside habits and background, why would she ask me to find out his past, job, and personality again, when she had already learned enough through the background check?

But the person beyond the door made the wise decision not to ask and remained silent.

“If you do just that, I’ll clear all your debts. You’re a Romance Academy student too, so you should be able to do it, right?”

“…Understood.”

Click.

With only a short reply, the door to the next room closed, and an eerie silence filled the office.

With only the faint moonlight and silence as her companions, Liu focused her red eyes on one place.

Namgung Min’s profile, obtained by bribing an academy official, and the results of Namgung Min’s background check, which she had commissioned from idiots.

Staring intently at his picture placed between them.

“………….”

Liu Yan, as usual,

Started to doubt, and doubt again.