「The power to see the future is very special. It’s a power that only you can use in this world.」

The girl was overjoyed.

The deity also smiled with satisfaction at the girl’s reaction.

The deity spent a little more time with the girl before returning to where it belonged. The girl became a little lonely but didn’t feel sad.

She still had many things to love.

“It will rain this evening. Go home before then.”

“The ring you lost, sir, is on the stairs leading down to the basement.”

She used her ability for those she loved.

People who were initially skeptical began praising her enthusiastically when things turned out exactly as she had said.

Later, when she saved the villagers from a major disaster, people began to extol her one by one.

Around that time, the girl passed into adulthood and became a woman, and she met someone she loved. After a lengthy courtship, she had a wedding ceremony amid many people’s congratulations.

It was the happiest time of her life.

The incident occurred shortly after that.

“Thief! Someone stole my bracelet from my house!”

A crime occurred in the peaceful mountain village.

Looking at the people filled with confusion, the woman stepped forward as if it were natural. Then she began to eliminate those who weren’t criminals one by one.

“The fruit shop lady stopped by the market that day and then went straight to pick fruits, so it wasn’t her.”

“That man over there spent almost the whole day in the mountains gathering medicinal herbs. It wasn’t him either.”

“That student went to the neighboring village today and came back. It wasn’t him.”

.

.

.

As everyone’s schedules in the village were revealed, it was easy to identify the culprit. The person who stole the bracelet was the woman living next door to the bracelet’s owner.

“Amazing as always!”

The villagers applauded, praising the woman.

But their inner feelings weren’t the same as their outward appearance.

Thoughts that hadn’t existed before arose in their minds.

If she can reveal everything like this, won’t she someday discover my secrets too?

……No, doesn’t she already know everything?

The seeds of suspicion slowly began to grow.

Incidents similar to the stolen bracelet were repeated several times.

What had been merely a sprout gradually grew and even bloomed.

At some point, the villagers began to avoid the woman.

When she asked if she had done something wrong, people waved their hands saying it was nothing.

But the woman wasn’t fooled by such words.

The villagers increasingly had more to hide from her, didn’t smile, and avoided any physical contact with her.

Sure enough, after some time, the woman had become a “witch” among the villagers.

The things the woman loved gradually diminished.

All she had left were her husband and the child in her womb. Just these two. But the woman thought that was enough.

Until that day came.

“Aaaaah!”

A plague began to spread in the village.

It was a disease where the skin rotted away and eventually led to death.

Villagers began to die one after another.

Neither the cause nor the cure could be found.

People called this a divine curse.

To break the curse, something causing the curse had to be eliminated. When she realized that people’s gazes were turning toward her one by one, the woman decided.

To leave with those she loved.

But even this small happiness wasn’t allowed for the woman.

Shunk.

A sharp blade pierced the woman’s shoulder.

On the day of her departure, the man whom the woman had once loved said with a maniacal laugh.

That he too had been cursed recently. That he could only live if she disappeared.

The laughter that pierced her ears was chilling.

Before the man could attack her again, the woman pushed him away and fled outside the house.

She heard the villagers searching for her.

Clutching her wound, the woman ran with all her might. Trying her best not to get caught, she eventually reached the large village at the foot of the mountain.

The woman sought out the largest house there.

And she went to the owner of that house and said:

“Lord Shortiras. Please…… protect me.”

To the owner who was about to throw her out immediately, the woman demonstrated her usefulness.

Fortunately, the owner was pleased with her ability.

The owner made a contract with the woman using magic.

It was a contract where he would protect her in exchange for her foreseeing what he wanted.

The woman thus found a temporary place to rest.

Watching her, the deity, with a sorrowful heart, issued an oracle. The woman who had been called a witch in the mountain village had somehow become a divine blessing. Soon after, news came that a cure for the plague had been found.

But the woman felt no joy at all.

The girl who had loved everything around her was gone.

The woman could no longer love anything.

This applied even to her own child.

“Ahhh!”

After time passed and the woman gave birth to her child, she screamed.

She saw that man in the child’s face.

That b*stard who had stabbed her with a hideous grin.

No. No. No.

The woman wailed in agony.

She didn’t want to be in the same space as the child. In the end, the woman decided to leave, but that was impossible.

Because the “precognition” specified in the contract was a power that only she could use. As long as this power existed, she couldn’t leave.

From that day on, the woman shut herself in the library.

And finally, she found a way to escape this power.

“I’d like to modify the contract a little. Make it continue through my descendants for generations.”

The woman went to the owner and said with a smile.

She would give this power to the bloodline she hated most.

Along with terrible pain.

* * *

The owner, who initially refused, released her without hesitation after confirming that the power he coveted had passed to the woman’s child.

The woman wandered from place to place without destination.

Never even looking at mountains.

Living for a very long time unlike ordinary humans because of the power given by the deity.

Occasionally, she heard news of her descendants bearing the surname named after her, but she ignored it. The thought of that face, identical to the man’s, made her nauseous.

Then, by chance, a high-ranking person discovered her treating an injury.

The woman went straight to the main temple and became the high priest.

She spent her time locked away in the main temple.

Wrapping up all traces of her revenge tightly.

Then one day, a letter arrived.

Your Excellency, Lucid wishes to meet you once.

It was a name she hadn’t heard in a very long time.

One that even the woman had abandoned long ago.

Suddenly, curiosity arose.

So she called,

“It’s my first time seeing you in person. I’m glad to meet you, Lucid.”

So they met.

“I am Ferdina Preston.”

The face of her descendant whom she met like this was…….

* * *

Melissa slowly opened her eyes.

Her head was spinning.

Because of the scenes she had just witnessed.

“So you really are…… Lucid.”

Melissa spoke, looking at the person standing before her.

A completely white space enveloped the two.

“Yes, I am your ancestor.”

Her voice trembled at the end.

Although she had expected this to some extent, facing the truth in reality was apparently a different matter altogether.

Melissa’s pupils shook unsteadily.

Ferdina, no, Lucid gazed at Melissa intently.

After a moment, her lips slowly opened.

“So this is what the unconscious is like. I had been curious about what my fear was, but to think it was showing you my past.”

Her voice that followed had no inflection.

It seemed calm, yet also as if she had grown tired after running for a very long time.

Seeing Lucid’s past, Melissa finally understood.

All the questions that had remained mysteries.

“……You had no choice but to hate the clan.”

“That’s right. I couldn’t stand the sight of them. If they were that man’s bloodline, they would surely become like him. Every time I faced them, the pain from that time would resurface.”

Lucid retorted sharply.

Melissa quietly looked at her and then asked:

“But why did you meet me?”

“……”

“You could have just let Metus get me. Why did you get hurt instead of me?”

There was no answer.

But Melissa continued to ask:

“I know you used transfer magic to move the power of precognition. I saw the pattern on your body. Why didn’t you erase it? With your level of holy power, you could have erased it long ago and had plenty left over.”

She asked because she already knew.

In fact, she knew the answers to all the questions she had just asked.

“You actually vaguely realized it, didn’t you? That passing the power of precognition to the clan and making them suffer wasn’t the right thing to do. That the clan and that man were different entities.”

“……”

“Do you regret it?”

“……I don’t know.”

Lucid moved her lips before answering.

Too much time had passed to think about such things now, making it impossible to make a proper judgment.

“But there’s one thing I can say for certain.”

“What is it?”

“That you don’t resemble that man.”

The voice that came out now was clear, unlike before.

“When I saw you come to the main temple…… there was truly not a trace of that man’s face left. Since when, I wonder. Have I been living in denial for too long?”

Or perhaps it was never there to begin with.

Lucid’s shoulders drooped weakly.

Her purple eyes turned toward Melissa.

“I told you before. That I could give you what you want.”

She slowly approached Melissa.

“The power of precognition. I can take it back. Give it back to me.”

“……So suddenly?”

It was too abrupt.

Melissa had entered this unconscious state not to eliminate the power of precognition but to save the high priest.

She hadn’t anticipated this development.

But Lucid didn’t seem to care what Melissa thought.