I Don't Believe in Fortune Telling

The room was completely trashed, reduced to a wreck of shattered pieces because I refused to believe in fortune telling. Standing at its center, I took slow, deliberate breaths, trying to rein in the sudden burst of fury. Calm down. Just calm down. It didn't matter that I'd only just gotten accepted into the police academy after years of desperate longing. Or that I'd scraped together student loans and backbreaking day-labor wages, on the verge of escaping that godforsaken basement apartment. Or even that my younger sister—the one I'd raised by grinding through a high school equivalency exam while working extra shifts—had suddenly shoved me into her game. I'd lost control for a moment, sure. But I still needed to get a grip. I couldn't spend the rest of my life taking out my anger on these four walls.

I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, forcing my emotions back down, then stepped in front of the room's only mirror that had somehow survived mostly intact.

"...It's the same."

The mirror I'd managed not to smash in my rage reflected my real-world face exactly. Given the circumstances, it was obvious I'd been thrown into the game, so I'd half-expected to see some game character's appearance instead. At least that was a relief... Relief my ass.

What the hell was there to feel relieved about? Getting dragged into this mess in the first place was already complete bullshit. That crazy bitch I called a sister had finally done this to her own brother.

Fresh rage surged up again, but my slightly cooled reason barely managed to hold it back. The situation was utterly hopeless, but I still had to move.

First of all, where the hell am I?

Assessing the situation came first. I scanned the room carefully. Thick books lay scattered everywhere, along with a half-destroyed wardrobe, a cracked table, and a shattered water bottle. ...All my handiwork, of course. But the place was such a disaster that it was hard to make sense of anything.

I rummaged through the debris until I picked up one of the books lying haphazardly on the floor.

"'Basic Fortune Telling That Anyone Can Do'?"

The only things that looked remotely useful were the books that had fallen to the floor. Their sizes and shapes varied wildly, but every single one seemed to be about fortune telling.

My last class was Fortune Teller, after all.

I flipped through the pages, but they only contained random trivia about divination. Nothing that explained my current situation. If it had come to this... I had no choice but to look at that.

"...Crazy bitch."

The status window still floated in the air, glowing. The sight of my sister's insane message nearly sent my cooled anger boiling up through my gut again, but I somehow held it in. There was more content left in the window. Maybe it had answers.

With the faintest spark of hope, I scrolled down.

Goddamn it. The cringeworthy text floating in that unnecessarily shiny status window made me realize it all over again. I was trapped inside Romance Academy.

"You crazy bitch... I told you to write the quest scripts more normally..."

What the hell? Flower gardens? Hehe? A pathetic wordplay on Romance Academy? And why the hell is "romance" even in the academy's name? There are plenty of words that sound cool and impressive—why "romance" of all things? Was it because this is supposed to be a female-oriented dating sim? Seriously?

"Haa..."

A heavy sigh rose from deep within my chest. What was I even supposed to do in a world like this? If the only thing that had appeared was that pathetic quest, the future would've looked pitch black. But there was one line that gave me a sliver of pointless hope.

"Return... is possible."

I ruffled my hair instead of feeling relieved that this crazy bitch apparently wasn't trying to kill her family. This was basically telling me to reach the ending. To clear the game all the way through. The kind of thing I'd only ever read about in web novels had happened to me, and it felt... overwhelming. But an ending, huh?

If this were a normal game, there'd be no problem. But this trash game was a different story.

"...Job skill."

If I had to reach the ending, this skill was crucial. Romance Academy only let you learn three skills total, and the job skill was by far the most important. That's why the balance of a job skill—which essentially defined the job's identity—was so critical in the game.

And true to its trash-game nature, it was a complete mess.

Some jobs were so ridiculously overpowered that you could reach the ending with just that one skill. Others were so garbage that clearing the game was outright impossible. In the end, my future would be decided by how good the Fortune Teller's skill was.

"But why the hell did it have to be Fortune Teller..."

Had that crazy bitch forgotten how a cult fortune teller had destroyed our family when we were young? Or had she spent so much time calling me a goldfish that her own intelligence had dropped to goldfish level? Why did I apply to the police academy in the first place? It was to catch bastards like that fraud who had fooled Mom and Dad. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yet she blatantly made my job a fortune teller? When I first saw it, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I genuinely thought she'd lost her mind.

...I should've just picked Fortune Teller from the start.

Every single playthrough, I'd always skipped past the Fortune Teller job. Now it felt like karma had come back to bite me in the ass. Still, my hatred for fortune telling and my refusal to believe in it had nothing to do with the job skill itself. If I had to be precise, what I hated were the cult frauds who'd ruined my family—not every fortune teller in the world.

Wearing an expression like I'd just chewed on a bug, I tapped the job skill.

"............"

I didn't even care why the description for Fortune Teller included an explanation of astrologers, or why it was written so lazily. That was just how this game was. The real problem was the very last aptitude listed.

"Catastrophic aptitude for physical activity..."

What a load of crap. If my memory was correct, the word "catastrophic" only appeared when aptitude was close to zero. This was genuinely hopeless, wasn't it?

...No. Wait. So what if physical aptitude was catastrophic? Unlike skills, aptitudes could be changed. If I used every support item and skill available in the game, I should be able to raise even a catastrophic aptitude to average somehow. Whether I could actually pull that off was another question, but it wasn't completely impossible.

The real problem was the skill.

Please, just give me something that can help in combat...!

Combat made up a huge portion of Romance Academy. For a female-oriented dating sim, it shoved battles into all sorts of events. Important events, equipment acquisition, character relationships, exams, endings—the importance of combat couldn't be overstated. So please, let the Fortune Teller skill be combat-related. Though the job name itself was already a bad sign, there was still a chance!

"........."

Catastrophic physical aptitude. Magic only received bonuses for knowledge acquisition. And the job skill was literally just reading fortunes. Thanks to that crazy bitch, I'd learned that when a person gets too angry, they actually become calm. The irony.

Wait, but it was called Fortune Teller, wasn't it? Yet the accuracy rate for telling fortunes was only 10%? Even if I stacked the bonuses from tarot cards, physiognomy, and repeat targets, the highest it could go was 25%? One correct reading out of four?

"Goddamn it. I'm done with this."

That didn't mean I was giving up on returning. I was about to graduate, my student loans were almost paid off, and life was finally about to get easier. I'd worked so hard to get here. I absolutely refused to let my life end trapped in this trash game. Above all else, I had to catch that crazy bitch...!

"Fortune telling? Screw that."

Since my job was Fortune Teller, enrolling in Romance Academy would probably trigger a flood of fortune-telling-related events and job quests. I couldn't ignore all of them. Completing job quests was one of the conditions for reaching the ending.

I just refused to rely on this worthless Fortune Telling skill.

"I don't believe in fortune telling."

I had zero intention of praying to gods or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ancestors to reveal my fate, or drawing cards and leaving it to luck. I would become a fortune teller who didn't believe in fortune telling. I would clear the ending in a thoroughly rational and logical way, then return.

"I'm definitely catching that bitch."

I would make my sister pay. I nodded with firm determination.