“Th-that’s!”
The moment Dana saw it, he almost jumped out of his chair, but managed to suppress it.
However, he couldn’t stop himself from looking at Floria, who had brought it out, with a disapproving gaze.
Seeing Dana’s reaction, Floria burst into a chuckle.
“Calm down and take a good look.”
“Calm down, you say… wait, huh?”
Dana’s voice slipped out involuntarily, but as he looked anew at the water mirror placed on the table, he noticed something strange.
“This… is it a fake?”
“Calling it a fake is harsh. Surely there’s no such thing as a real or fake water mirror?”
If viewed as a divine tool, then the question of real or fake would arise, but of course, Floria didn’t say anything like that.
To add to that, a water mirror created by Kousuke could be considered a divine tool, but that’s beside the point.
Dana stared intently at the water mirror Floria had produced once more.
“And so, why have you brought out something like this?”
His voice was tinged with hostility, but he had resigned himself to it.
Given the timing of this being brought out, it was understandable from Dana’s perspective.
“Don’t glare at me with such a scary face. I simply want you to use this for a fortune-telling.”
“With this? But that’s…”
As Dana hesitated, Peach interjected.
“You might be being considerate of the previous water mirror, but that won’t do. Tools are just tools. Didn’t you learn that?”
“…And you are?”
Dana directed a suspicious gaze at Peach, who smiled sweetly at him.
“I dabble in fortune-telling myself.”
“I see…”
What Peach said wasn’t wrong.
It was true that there were tools that could be used for a lifetime.
However, on the other hand, because tools could break or become unusable, one shouldn’t become fixated on a single tool.
These two points might seem contradictory, but this was also a teaching of a fortune teller.
Of course, not all fortune tellers were taught this way, but at least Dana was.
As his master’s teachings flashed through his mind, Dana let out a sigh, as if making a decision.
“…So, what shall we divine?”
As Dana, still hesitant, reached for the water mirror, Floria smiled.
“Hmm. Actually, I’ve made this water mirror, but I’m struggling with how to use it. Can you divine for me what I should do from now on?”
“? Understood.”
Dana inwardly tilted his head, wondering why they would ask him to divine something they didn’t know how to use, but any request from a customer was a request.
He nodded for the time being and began the fortune-telling as instructed.
Soon after starting, Dana felt a sense of unease.
No, it wasn’t the fortune-telling itself that felt strange.
Rather, it was the *lack* of strangeness that felt strange.
The water mirror he was currently using was so seamlessly integrated as a tool for his divination.
Of course, it wasn’t as good as the stolen water mirror, but he quickly realized that it was far more compatible with him than any other tool.
“This is…”
Dana involuntarily let out a surprised sound, but then remembered that he was in the middle of a divination in front of a customer and composed himself.
He continued the divination, and the result surprised him even further.
“Eh…!? But, no way…”
“What is it? Did the result come out?”
Floria looked at Dana with a slightly smug expression.
Seeing Floria, Dana’s face became flustered.
“Th-that is…”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“…It’s me.”
“What?”
“It says that I am the one who should use this water mirror. B-but, that can’t be right! I’ll do it again!”
Dana said it as if making an excuse, but before he could resume the divination, someone stopped him.
It was Peach.
“You can’t do that. It’s a proper result, so you must accept it properly.”
“B-but, that’s impossible…”
As Dana repeated that he didn’t know why it said he should use it, Colette shook her head.
“There’s nothing strange about it. After all, this water mirror was made for you.”
“…Eh!?”
“Rather, I’m relieved that you’ve gotten a proper result.”
Peach nodded in agreement with Colette.
At Colette and Peach’s words, Dana looked at the water mirror, then shifted his gaze to Floria.
“…What do you mean?”
“There’s no ‘what do you mean.’ It’s just as they said. That water mirror was made by someone, for you, so that you could use it.”
Floria said this with a shrug, and Dana stared at her in a daze.
After a while in that state, Dana finally pulled himself together.
Then, he looked at the three of them in turn and asked,
“What on earth is going on?”
He didn’t believe they had gone to such lengths just to play a prank.
After all, creating the water mirror before him must have been a considerable undertaking.
Seeing Dana’s implied question, Floria began to reveal the truth.
In fact, they had gone to such lengths to deceive him precisely in order to explain everything from the beginning.
“Hmm. To explain that, I need to talk about the water mirror you used before.”
“Before, you mean the stolen water mirror?”
“Yes, that water mirror.”
As Dana winced at the word ‘stolen,’ Floria continued her explanation.
“That water mirror, you see, is a genuine divine tool.”
“Of course it is. After all, the clerics used it…”
Dana was about to say what an obvious thing it was, but Peach shook her head to stop him.
“It’s not about that. A divine tool is a divine tool in the truest sense of the word.”
‘The truest sense,’ Dana repeated to himself, then his expression turned to one of stunned realization of its original meaning.
“N-no way…”
“Just so. It is a tool that possesses god-like power. Under normal circumstances, it would either be a national treasure of some country or be ostentatiously displayed deep within a temple’s treasure vault.”
“Eh… but, it was something I found, it’s not that grand of a thing…”
Dana was about to deny it, but this time Peach shook her head and refuted him.
“Unfortunately, you are mistaken. I confirmed it thoroughly when you came before.”
“A-at that time…?”
Dana remembered when Peach had come for a divination before.
He didn’t know how she had confirmed it, but he started to think that maybe it was possible.
There was a reason for revealing that the water mirror Dana had been using was a divine tool only now.
If a customer came for a divination and was suddenly told it was a divine tool, they wouldn’t believe it.
It was only because Kousuke’s water mirror existed and Dana himself had performed a divination and gotten the previous result that they could make her believe it.
That was also the reason they had prepared a similar water mirror.
The reason Floria and the others had to explain this was partly due to Kousuke’s issue, but that was a separate matter.
For Dana, it was completely irrelevant and something he didn’t need to know.
In any case, they were able to present the water mirror made by Kousuke to Dana.
What Dana would decide from here on was up to him.
Simultaneously with the presentation of the water mirror made by Kousuke, it was revealed that the water mirror, which no longer existed, was a divine tool.
What Dana would do from here on is up to him.
