Ch.56XX Tina (1)

# XX Tina (1)

It was truly unfortunate.

Tina lived a childhood that matched the prejudices firmly planted in everyone’s minds, including Esmeralda’s.

She was an abandoned child who wandered the back alleys to survive.

She didn’t know since when.

She didn’t know her parents’ faces.

She just came to her senses one day and found herself as a pickpocket stealing from travelers’ pockets in the back alleys.

If there was anything fortunate, perhaps it was that she had talent?

Not the talent for thievery. The talent for choosing targets.

Yes, it was an innate sense.

“How about that person?”

“Looks broke.”

“Then what about that one?”

“…Seems dangerous if we mess with them.”

“Hmm, then whose pocket would be best to pick?”

“How about over there? He looks too drunk to run properly. Maybe he won a big sum from gambling? Perhaps he’s drinking to celebrate.”

“Ooh! Amazing observation, Tina.”

“No, it’s not observation, I just guessed.”

“Well, who cares? As long as I’m right.”

There were many children in her village who were in the same situation as her.

For such children to survive, they had no choice but to join forces and hide in the back alleys.

Occasionally, bad adults who tried to exploit them would appear, but while the Empire might forgive petty theft, it never forgave organized criminal groups.

When Tina secretly tipped off the guards about these malicious adults, the back alleys would quickly be cleaned up by guards eager for achievements, only for the cycle to repeat.

Well, it was unfortunate that they didn’t actually help the children.

They should be grateful that the authorities turned a blind eye to petty thieves like Tina and her friends.

“When will we become adults?”

“Right, if we could become adults faster, we wouldn’t have to do this.”

Even the children knew that stealing was wrong.

But there were no places that would employ young children. To survive, they had to resort to crime, and the imperial guards, knowing this, kept quiet about it—that was the current situation.

To escape this strange vicious cycle, the children had no choice but to grow up enough to do proper work.

“Tina, it seems like our saved money is almost gone. Shouldn’t we get to work soon?”

“What? Already?”

“Yes, Tena was sick recently. We spent a lot of money buying medicine.”

“Ugh…”

Tina was the leader of the children and was responsible for them.

It was natural since her abilities were the most outstanding.

“Then let’s get going. You know this already, but we shouldn’t target people from our village, right? We should only steal from people who won’t stay long, like merchants or travelers.”

“Doesn’t matter since you’ll tell us who to target anyway, right?”

“What are you going to do when I become an adult? I can’t take care of all of you, and if you keep stealing here, you’ll get caught by the guards.”

They only turned a blind eye to children.

If one continued to steal as an adult, they would be treated as a criminal exploiting children for money.

“Tina, you don’t look like you’ll grow up.”

“What did you just mutter?”

Tina gave a light knock on the head of the child who had spoken ill of her, then immediately got up.

When she eventually left, that would be then, but for now, she was also a member of this group, and to survive, she had no choice but to work hard.

‘Even if it’s hard work, it’s still stealing.’

Tina sighed at this strange situation and looked for targets. Merchants from outside, travelers, strangers who wouldn’t stay long.

The important thing was not to steal too much money.

They only stole amounts that people might be willing to give up due to their schedules.

If someone decided to raid the back alleys to catch the children, things could get troublesome.

So Tina was careful while committing crimes for survival.

Her life changed in a moment one day.

“Tina, how about that person?”

“…”

While looking for pickpocketing targets as usual,

Tina felt a strange sensation about a woman who looked ordinary in every way.

Her gait, expression, all outward information seemed normal.

She even looked somewhat absentminded.

A perfect target. That’s why another child asked Tina if they should target this woman.

But Tina found that ordinariness eerily unsettling.

There was no basis. But that woman was the most dangerous person she had ever seen.

“No.”

“Really? I thought she’d be a good target. Is there some problem?”

“No, it’s not that… Just, just something feels off…”

“Then I guess we can’t.”

Fortunately, the children trusted Tina’s instincts, so there was no problem.

But Tina couldn’t take her eyes off the woman even as she broke into a cold sweat. Dangerous. She didn’t know what was dangerous, but it was dangerous.

It felt wrong to have even noticed that existence.

Should she tell the adults? No, could the guards even handle this?

Moreover, she didn’t know what was dangerous or what kind of danger it posed.

Only her instinct pointed that way, and no one else would sense anything unusual about the woman.

“Heh.”

“Eek?!”

So Tina was watching the woman with anxiety, fear, and unease, not taking her eyes off her.

Suddenly, she found the woman standing close by, looking at her with interest.

She had been watching her just a moment ago, but when did the woman get to where she was?

“You, for a human, you have quite an interesting quality.”

The woman’s yellow eyes, seen up close, were not ordinary.

Vertical pupils like those of a predator narrowing its eyes for the hunt.

A sense of seeing through to the core.

“Follow me. I’ll teach you what you need.”

Tina could tell through her innate sense.

She had no choice.

If she didn’t follow, it wouldn’t just be her who would die. So Tina followed the woman she had just met.

.

.

.

.

“Where is this…?”

“Welcome. From now on, you will learn various knowledge.”

That’s how she was forcibly affiliated with <The Eye of Truth>.

And there was no explanation whatsoever in the process.

***

Learning knowledge was unfamiliar to her.

No, “learning” itself existed. But it was ironic that she was learning knowledge that seemed irrelevant, rather than knowledge necessary for survival or filling her stomach.

‘Instead of learning this…’

Shaking her head to dispel the thoughts that kept coming up, Tina steadily walked the path to becoming a scholar.

Her talent wasn’t particularly special. After all, wasn’t she just a pickpocket wandering the back alleys?

Basically, she was confident in detailed work and physical movements, but sitting still at a desk was difficult.

‘I haven’t seen that person since that day. No one knows when I ask.’

Despite following her prepared to die, the woman didn’t show herself after arbitrarily enrolling Tina in the Eye of Truth.

And the Eye of Truth, which she thought might be some secret organization, turned out to be mostly filled with bookish scholars when she looked closely.

“Ah, this problem… No, do I really need to know this too?”

Tina acquired basic knowledge.

Learning about movements for ruin exploration was the most fun, but she didn’t neglect learning other things either.

Of course, it was still just basics.

Knowledge insufficient to compete with the so-called geniuses.

But even with that basic knowledge, Tina could become a genius.

“Hmm, I think it’s this?”

“What nonsense… What?! It works?! How did you know?”

Her instinct for guessing based on basic knowledge could only be described as genius.

“W-well, I must have been lucky.”

“Ah, this seems like this.”

“No way?! How…? How did you solve this?”

“No, even if you ask how… I just thought it seemed right…”

Of course, she wasn’t considered a genius from the beginning.

If you can’t explain your answer even when it’s correct, people can only think you guessed.

But what if it happens repeatedly?

What if you have minimal knowledge?

Tina had the talent to guess the rest correctly if she could solve just 20% of a problem.

Since this “instinct” couldn’t be proven in any way, people thought it was the result of Tina’s genius.

Of course, isn’t that natural?

How could someone exist who guesses correctly 100 times out of 100?

They came to a rational conclusion.

That she was so genius that she couldn’t explain it.

There had been such geniuses in the past, and Tina came to be considered particularly outstanding among them.

“Do what?”

“Become the successor, they said.”

“Who said?”

“You did, Tina.”

“Why?”

“Because no one could match your genius. And you have achievements, don’t you? You’ve solved numerous difficult problems that scholars were racking their brains over, so it’s only natural for you to become our next representative.”

“No, um… I told you I was just guessing?”

“I know.”

Tina gave an awkward smile to the middle-aged scholar who was looking at her with a gentle smile.

Even if she had guessed, achievements were achievements. So if that’s why she became the successor, there was nothing she could do.

Of course, it was a bit different from what the middle-aged scholar thought.

‘Yes, I know. How could one explain such outstanding genius?’

The middle-aged scholar interpreted it as Tina’s own form of modesty.

***

With recommendations from many senior scholars, Tina eventually became the successor to the next representative who would lead the Eye of Truth.

Honestly, she just felt awkward about it.

Could coincidence really be such a coincidence? Tina wondered if what she thought was instinct might actually be luck.

If it wasn’t good instinct but good luck, it wouldn’t be strange for things to work out so well.

But she found out that thought was wrong after becoming the successor.

“Yes, you’ve finally come.”

“You are…”

“Haha, are you surprised? Well, you might be. Let me introduce myself first.”

The representative of <The Eye of Truth>.

A genius of unknown identity, also called the Chancellor among people.

She was the one who had affiliated Tina with <The Eye of Truth>.

It wasn’t something like luck.

All of it was just an experimental field designed and cultivated by the woman.

“I am… Well, for now, let me introduce myself simply as ‘La•Pa’.”

The woman looked down at Tina with her bright yellow eyes and said.

“The being you were originally supposed to call a celestial god. Call me whatever you prefer, Tanha.”

Facing the woman who introduced herself as a celestial god, Tina first…

“May you be punished by heaven. And my name is Tina, not Tanha.”

She corrected what needed to be corrected first. Who cares if she’s a god or whatever? Her own name was more important than a god she didn’t even know.

“Was it? Talking back over such trivial matters, our daughter must be going through puberty.”

“Since when was I your daughter…? Or were you the one who abandoned me?”

“That’s not it. Why is our daughter acting like this? I adopted you.”

“You call that adoption…?”

Not kidnapping?

This person is out of her mind.

They say genius and fool are separated by a thin line, and that certainly seems true.