Norma Selner

Past middle age, Norma has skin of a dark tone, black hair worn in curls, and turquoise eyes that catch the light. The first time she appears, a broad hat sits atop a cream-colored jacket, while a blouse in white and a skirt cut for business round out the ensemble underneath.

Warm and well-mannered, Norma reads as easy to approach, and a fondness for cake is hinted at. Her devotion belongs to her nation, which is why she spent years happily aiming her uncommon talents at drawing foreign S-Rank Hunters into the American government's fold.

Telling fortunes was how Norma earned a living in the days before the Rulers opened any gates. When she awakened, two rare powers came with it, upgrading and precognition, and once officials learned of them she was placed in the Bureau, where a decade went toward enticing strong foreign S-Ranks to the United States with promises of added power; Hwang Dongsoo accepted on the spot. After Jinwoo single-handedly conquered Jeju Island's S-Rank Gate, Deputy Director Michael Connor tried to lure him stateside with an upgrade from Norma, yet her gift not only failed against him but showed her something within his soul that left her petrified. With Jinwoo gone, she informed Michael that his power knew no limits and her ability would never take hold.

When the Monarchs swept into North America, Jinwoo requested her, and her sight told her the man before her had changed; the darkness once merely lodged inside him had fused with him entirely, though he insisted he was unchanged. He asked her to read his future, and clasping his hand she broke into tears, perceiving his intent to give himself up and bear the world's weight alone, a destiny she judged too cruel for one soul. Taking her grief as confirmation of his success, Jinwoo thanked her and slipped away through Shadow Exchange. As the Monarchs ravaged America, she observed the fighting from a distance with David, who fell into despair while she reminded him that hunters of every rank had assembled from across the world, and that hope remained even should many of them die. Her powers are not made for combat, so she counts as no hunter, yet they stand nearly without equal: her upgrading can lift a hunter's strength some twenty to thirty percent over its natural ceiling, working through three gradual stages, draining her mana so badly she manages only three or four hunters a year, and taking effect solely on those whose power comes from an external source, which is exactly why it failed on the limitless, inward-sourced Jinwoo.

Once the Rulers turned the Cup of Reincarnation one final time at Jinwoo's request, Norma forgot the old world and reverted to an ordinary fortune-teller, though his power somehow magnified hers, returning her precognition and making her a legend whose visions always came true. In the fresh timeline she helped spare Thomas Andre's life and the pair grew close. When rock beings invaded the American desert and Jinwoo repelled them, CIA Director David Brennon arrived at her home for information; with her grandson and Thomas there, she offered nothing solid, claimed her sight had gone since meeting the God of Death, urged him to abandon the inquiry, and sent him off with homemade cookies. Decades later, following the Great Cataclysm, she somehow recovered her gifts once more, now as a publicly known seer rather than a state secret. In the Pyramid arc she foretold a tomb able to raise the dead, alerting Thomas just before the Pyramid Field surfaced in Egypt. Later still, her visions marked Sung Suho as essential to clearing Facade Island's Glacier Dungeon, so she dispatched Thomas to Korea to recruit him, passing on that, somewhere inside, the dungeon hid a lead on Cha Hae-In, the mother he had lost.