The Girl Who Looted Tomorrow

Thorn began describing the extraordinary item he wanted commissioned.

“It should work like this... then do this... and after that...”

But halfway through, he suddenly hesitated.

“I’m sorry, Miss Euphemia. I just had a new idea. Could we start over and write down a different design?”

“Fine.”

Euphemia pursed her lips, put away the half-written letter, and took out a fresh sheet of paper. After recording Thorn’s new requirements, she summoned her messenger right in front of him and sent the letter away.

Seeing this, Thorn patted his chest confidently.

“Good. Leave the Mind Research Society side to me. I guarantee I’ll get the remaining Rank Two through Rank Four potions for you as quickly as possible. Oh, right. You only need one bottle of each, correct?”

Euphemia nodded and glanced at Freya.

“Yes. She’s the only one who’ll be drinking them. I’m already on the Scholar Path, so I can’t drink Mind Path potions. Should I return the bottle you gave me?”

“No need,” Thorn said. “It’s only a Rank One potion. Everyone receives one as a membership gift. Keep it and decide what to do with it yourself.”

Once the deal was complete and the two girls were preparing to leave, Thorn gave Freya one final reminder.

“Although you are only members in name, Miss Freya, you’re still welcome to spend time at the Mind Research Society whenever you’re free. If we have patients, you can help treat them. [Frequently Using Your Abilities] can itself accelerate potion digestion.”

“And once you discover the deepest desire in your heart, you may return here. We can provide a sufficiently safe environment for you to act on that desire.”

Freya nodded to show that she understood, then left with Euphemia.

The moment they stepped outside the [Mind Research Society], Euphemia could no longer hold back.

“It wasn’t convenient to ask inside, so tell me, Faye. Was the Mind Path potion instantly digested? How many Ranks can you advance directly?”

“Well...”

Because they were currently inside a simulation, Freya had no way to summon Life Freya. Naturally, that meant she could not examine her own condition.

“I’m not sure yet. No matter what, let’s secure the remaining potions first.”

“Eh?”

Euphemia looked surprised.

In her understanding, Faye’s strange ability always activated with perfect timing whenever it mattered. Yet this time, it had apparently failed?

Freya, meanwhile, was thinking that if she ended the simulation now, she could have Life Freya examine her digestion progress in reality.

But honestly, whether or not she could instantly digest the Mind Path potions did not change much. To investigate the [Countless Blessings] and [Countless Resentments] attached to her, she would need to advance some distance along the Mind Path regardless.

She might as well continue letting time pass inside the simulation and secure the Rank Two, Rank Three, and Rank Four potions first.

It was almost time for their meeting, so Freya and Euphemia immediately headed to the place where they had agreed to wait for Victor.

A short while later, Victor approached while waving at them.

“Freya, Euphemia! I found out where the Mind Research Society is!”

Euphemia gave him a helpless look.

“Thanks for the hard work, but... we just came out of the Mind Research Society.”

At that moment, looking at Victor in front of her, Freya suddenly had an idea. She decided to test the extraordinary abilities she had just gained.

First came [Mind Reading].

As the ability activated, she clearly sensed some of Victor’s surface thoughts.

That glass of Crimson Oak whiskey was fantastic. No wonder it’s an Imperial specialty. I need to take a few bottles home when I return and drink them slowly.

Perhaps because Freya’s Rank was too low, she could not sense anything deeper.

Then she tried [Hypnosis].

After thinking about what effect to test, Freya decided to make Victor temporarily forget that he had just seen her and Euphemia.

The ability activated.

Victor visibly froze. He looked around in confusion, then saw Freya and Euphemia standing in front of him.

“Freya, Euphemia! I found out where the Mind Research Society is!”

A question mark practically appeared above Euphemia’s head.

“Wait, what are you doing? Why did you repeat that?”

Victor looked equally confused.

“What do you mean, repeat it?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

At that moment, Freya secretly used [Hypnosis] again. Just like before, she made Victor briefly forget what had happened over the past few seconds.

Victor froze once more.

Then he said, “Freya, Euphemia! I found out where the Mind Research Society is!”

Euphemia stared at him.

“?”

After a short silence, she could not help asking, “What is wrong with you?”

“Pfft~”

Freya burst out laughing.

“Sorry, sorry! It was me. I only wanted to test my ability a little. I didn’t expect it to be this funny...”

Once Freya lost control and started laughing, the effect of [Hypnosis] began fading. Victor immediately remembered what had just happened, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

Freya pressed her hands together and lowered her head slightly, looking entirely sincere.

“I’m sorry!”

After those two tests, Freya more or less understood how [Hypnosis] worked.

It was similar to the hypnosis techniques she had known about before, except hers was an extraordinary ability. It required no preparation and took effect much faster.

There was one more issue.

After using [Hypnosis] only twice, Freya could feel that nearly half her spirituality had already been consumed. She did not know whether her spirituality reserve was simply too small or whether this ability was unusually expensive.

This was the first time she had experienced what it felt like to run low on spirituality.

Victor was not angry at all. Or perhaps his skin was simply far too thick.

Euphemia’s insult felt no more painful to him than a light scratch. Not only did it fail to upset him, he even thought she looked rather cute.

What Victor cared about was something else.

“Was that a Mind Path ability just now? You already drank a Mind Path potion?”

Freya nodded.

“Yeah. Not long after we separated, while you were gathering information, Effie and I wandered around and happened to see the Mind Research Society’s sign. We went inside for a while, made a simple deal with the branch director, and secured Mind Path potions from Rank One through Rank Four.”

Freya had delivered the sentence casually, but the amount of information inside it was ridiculous.

The corner of Victor’s mouth twitched.

“So this is what luck looks like? I worked hard to investigate the information, while you found the place just by wandering around.”

“Wait. What do you mean you secured Rank One through Rank Four Mind Path potions? What kind of deal did you make with that branch director?”

Freya waved her hand dismissively.

“That isn’t important. The important thing is, weren’t you looking for that noble young master? How about we go back to the Mind Research Society with you and ask about him? You never told us his name or what he looked like, so we couldn’t ask for you earlier.”

That was a lie.

In reality, Freya had completely forgotten about it.

Euphemia froze.

“Eh? That was a thing?”

In any case, after reuniting, the three of them headed back toward the Mind Research Society.

Along the way, Victor deliberately moved a little closer to Freya.

The sight made Euphemia’s eyebrow twitch.

“What are you doing?”

“Something unexpected happened while I was gathering information, and I used up some luck,” Victor said. “I’m replenishing it now.”

Freya asked curiously, “What happened?”

“I’m telling you, it was completely absurd. I was having a great conversation with people in a tavern when a crazed practitioner suddenly barged in. He kept shouting, [This desert is way too hot!] Then he grabbed a drink from the next table and poured it over his head.”

“The people at that table cursed at him, so the practitioner tore one of them in half with his bare hands. Damn, I completely froze. I immediately boosted my luck and ran without looking back...”

By an extraordinary coincidence, the moment Victor finished speaking, a series of crashes came from the second floor of a nearby building. It sounded as though someone was smashing and throwing things.

Then a flowerpot flew out of the window and struck Victor squarely on top of the head.

Smack!

Victor’s entire body jerked to a stop. Several vivid streams of blood appeared on his forehead.

He swayed for a moment, then managed to steady himself.

That impact had not been light. Someone with a weaker body might have passed out on the spot.

Victor did not even remove the soil and plant leaves from his head.

“This... isn’t right...”

Sure enough, fewer than five seconds later, an iron pan flew from the same window and headed straight for Victor.

This time, Victor was prepared. He immediately stepped back and narrowly avoided it.

Clang!

Absurdly, after striking the ground, the pan bounced back up.

Unsurprisingly, it bounced directly toward Victor.

The rim of the iron pan struck him precisely in the knee.

Thud!

Freya and Euphemia, who had witnessed the entire scene, both showed expressions of lingering fear mixed with sympathetic pain.

Freya was frightened because the flowerpot and pan had passed very close to both girls. They had nearly been hit as well.

As for Euphemia, both taking a flowerpot to the head and an iron pan to the knee looked unbearably painful. She almost felt the impacts herself.

“Hiss!”

Victor sucked in a sharp breath and immediately deactivated [Luck Storage].

Sure enough, the misfortune stopped.

A furious-looking woman stuck her head out of the window from which the flowerpot and pan had flown. She glanced down at them, said absolutely nothing, and slammed the window shut.

Euphemia frowned deeply.

“What is wrong with that woman? Does she have no manners at all?”

Victor’s attention was clearly not on the woman upstairs.

He looked at Freya and murmured, “Miss Freya, your constant luck... seems to have disappeared.”

“Eh?”

Freya froze, then turned to Euphemia.

“Effie, do you have any dice?”

Euphemia looked helpless.

“Who carries dice around with them?”

The moment she finished speaking, Victor pulled a colorful die from his pocket and handed it to Freya.

“I carry one around.”

Euphemia fell silent.

“...”

After handing over the die, Victor took a roll of bandages from an inner pocket of his coat. He began cleaning the soil from his head and wrapping the wound.

Freya tossed the die high into the air.

When it landed on the ground, the number facing upward was three.

It was a perfectly ordinary result. There seemed to be nothing unusual about it.

But for Freya, that was not normal at all.

She should have rolled a five or six.

Freya rolled several more times.

Two. Four. Five. One.

Every possible number appeared.

Her luck had truly returned to “normal.”

Freya immediately realized the likely cause.

Had drinking a Mind Path potion directly made her good luck disappear?

Victor and Euphemia had both seen the results of her rolls.

While wrapping the bandage around his head, Victor said, “It looks as though whoever granted you that good luck wanted you to enter the Fate Path. But you deliberately chose another Path, so that being stopped paying attention to you, and the luck disappeared with it?”

“I told you. Why didn’t you choose the Fate Path? What a waste!”

Freya herself, however, felt no sense of loss.

They were inside a simulation right now. The disappearance of this luck was nothing more than [A Piece of Information] to her.

[Performing a certain action will lead to a certain consequence.]

Victor sighed again.

But before he could continue, Freya said, “Now that we’ve confirmed the luck is gone, let’s keep moving. We still need to return to the Mind Research Society.”

Victor froze.

How should he put it?

Whether one was an ordinary person or a practitioner, this constant luck was an incredible gift. It was like possessing a black card with no spending limit, one that could be used to buy anything without restraint.

Normally, if someone suddenly discovered that their black card no longer worked, they would feel miserable and devastated.

Especially in Freya’s case. She had personally done something that caused the “black card” to become invalid. She should have felt regret and frustration.

But the truth was... she felt none of those things.

Freya was extremely calm and perfectly rational, as though she did not care about the luck at all.

That suddenly reminded Victor of something Freya had said before.

“Do I look like an idiot to you?”

“I have my own judgment. Just trust me.”

At that moment, Victor suddenly realized that Freya’s confidence had never come from her constant luck.

It came from something else entirely.

Her composure quickly affected him as well. His dejected expression vanished, and he answered somewhat blankly, “Uh... right. Let’s go.”