"I saw the future… and she is the one I loved there."

Now, yeah, this is one of the worst things a transmigrator with future knowledge could ever say, at least, according to the novels.

I mean, it was one of the most overused tropes back in my old world, and I had read enough of those stories to know how it went:

The main character never reveals his knowledge as if the universe throws a tantrum and destroys everything if you do

But, come on, most fantasy worlds are full of freaks with all kinds of power and if one of them is seeing the future… Why would that be a problem?

Honestly, it would be more suspicious if no one had the power to peek into the future.

Morvana's expression grew dumber by the second.

Yeah, sure, there were people who could see the future but they were rare.

Hell, they were called Oracles and practically worshiped by every race.

You see, I had come prepared with two solid plans for this exact situation.

Plan one was to manipulate her emotionally, get her sympathy and sell the "I saw the future" scam for some divine-level pity points.

Plan two was to use cold, hard political leverage and make her realize how damn useful it would be if Arza and I came together.

But looking at her and remembering that damn toad joke she pulled on me, yeah, that made me a little mad.

Okay, fine. Very mad.

My ego shot straight through the roof, broke the clouds and started orbiting the damn moon.

So I thought… Why not use both?

If she had the guts to pull that frog stunt with me, she should better be ready to get scammed twice over.

I was gonna show her just how far jokes can go and how painful they can get when I'm the one delivering the punchline.

"What do you mean?" Morvana stammered slightly this time.

See? This is what I meant by making them predictable. She had already asked that question two… no, three times since we started talking.

That's the power of shock, to give someone something insane to think about, and their brain just loops, making them predictable like a dog wagging its tail.

"When I completed my Awakening Trial… the world rewarded me."

I paused.

"It gave me some of my future, my life with her… with Arza, our home and… our children."

My voice softened, like I was reciting a memory that actually hurt. I even focused on one eye to make a fake tear roll down from it.

"…before it was all destroyed. Because of you. Because of your greed, Ms. Morv—" I stopped, letting my lips tremble just a little. "No. Mom."

As soon as the words left my mouth, mana erupted from her body.

For a split second, I thought,

Did I mess up?

Did I go too far?

But the mana didn't come for me. Instead, it surged outward, wrapping the room in a dome of energy that seemed like a seal.

A soundproof barrier.

…Was there someone outside?

Meh, who cares.

If Morvana hadn't acted yet, that meant whoever was out there was either a loyal servant or someone she trusted enough not to eavesdrop.

Or maybe there wasn't anyone at all and she was just being cautious.

Either way, it didn't matter because if she was this defensive already, then my words had hit exactly where I wanted.

Throughout our entire talk, I had been using Arza, not out of affection but as bait to tug at the one weakness even monsters like Morvana couldn't hide.

Maternal instinct.

Don't get me wrong, Morvana was terrifyingly strong, the kind of woman who could probably snap my spine mid-sigh… but she was still a mother and that was the one thing I could exploit.

Yeah, I know. I was being a jerk.

Honestly, I didn't even have this whole "future-seer tragic lover" plan before that. I was planning to go the diplomatic route and talk about politics, mutual benefits and power dynamics.

But no.

She just had to pull that amphibian stunt on me and since she decided to make me marinate inside a glorified teleportation stomach, well… she also gave me enough time to think.

So really, she has no one to blame but herself for the monster she just made.

Still, I didn't snap out of my act, I doubled down on it, the perfect tragic lover.

"You… only if you hadn't done that," I began, my voice breaking as I forced every ounce of pain I didn't actually feel into it. "Arvana and Arael would've still been alive. They were your grandchildren!"

I slammed my hands on the table, the sound cracking through the silence.

"So tell me, dammit, why did you open that cursed Book of Primordial Kings even after all those warnings!?"

The chair behind me fell over as I leaned forward, breathing hard and glaring straight into her violet eyes.

My voice was trembling with fury I didn't have but played like I did.

"Answer me, Mom!"

—

Just outside the principal's office, a girl with pure white hair stood silently with her serpentine crimson eyes blinking once.

Arza.

She had come here to retrieve the box of chocolates her mother had confiscated but before she could enter… she heard a familiar voice.

"It showed me a glimpse of my future, my life with her… with Arza, our home and… our children."

Future? Life? Children?

Her heart didn't react but somewhere, buried deep beneath that frozen stillness, curiosity stirred slightly.

The same curiosity she had felt when she met the boy for the first time on the day of the exam. The moment he had made her last piece of chocolate fall from her hand.

She had wanted to kill him for that until he offered her another chocolate… one more delicious than anything she had tasted before.

After the exam, she went to find him… to ask where he had gotten those chocolates. Instead, he had smiled and offered her more, if she would stay by his side and become his bodyguard.

Was he doing all of that… because of this "future" he just mentioned?

She didn't understand.

She had read about emotions in hundreds of books since childhood, trying to learn what they felt like.

Some of them were romance stories where princes died for their princesses but she never understood the reason.

Why would anyone want to die for someone other than themselves?

She read them again and again, searching for the logic behind the madness and when she found none, she stopped.

But now… someone was claiming to be that kind of prince for her.

Why?

Why would she have a prince?

And most confusing of all, why did he sound so angry about her death?

Just then, the voice cut off completely.

Arza felt a wave of her mother's mana flare around the office as if a warning.

Leave.

Even after hearing all that, even after those strange, heavy words that should have meant something… Arza still felt nothing.

She turned silently, her steps echoing down the corridor.

Her hands slipped into her pockets, brushing against the wrapper of the chocolate she had eaten only minutes ago… the same one that boy had given her.

Then, without a word, she walked away.

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