Would You Believe Me If I Said I've Reformed?
They called him the absolute master of spacetime magic, the man who had elevated the once-insignificant Ether school to the same prestige as the five great schools. The head of House Seton. At the same time, the Sage who had seized the Truth—the ultimate goal every mage desperately pursued—and ascended to the realm of transcendent beings. Despite achieving all of that, he was still only twenty-nine. Yet no one ever praised him.
Absolute evil. The fallen. Humanity’s enemy. The worst mage alive… A man who deserved to be called a villain. Rain Seton. I am the villain everyone hates.
“I never wanted a life like this either…”
I mutter words I could never say in front of others. The self-mockery is thick with regret.
A villain with a tragic backstory. The abuse, the human experimentation, the violence I suffered from my family since childhood shaped who I am today. But I know how ridiculous it would sound if I tried to sell sympathy by saying the villain who nearly destroyed the world had his reasons. So I won’t claim the world ruined me. I can’t. I won’t.
All I can do now is take responsibility for the world I broke and try to return it to something close to its original state. That’s it. Just take responsibility.
So…
“You came. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it.”
I turn my body at an angle and look behind me. A desolate wilderness. An endless horizon and a sky dyed orange by the setting sun.
“I’ll confess honestly.”
———And the girl.
“Sien Alencia, if I said I’ve reformed, would you believe me?”
I look at her with a bitter smile. I know. I know how insane it is for the man who ruined the world to talk about reform like it’s some kind of joke. I know, and I say it anyway.
Sien Alencia. The only person who ever looked at the villain named Rain Seton with honest eyes and tried to save him. The truly wonderful hero I acknowledged. To her—the one who kept trying to see me as a person until the very end—I offer an apology that comes far too late.
“…Only now?”
“……”
“You’re saying that only now?”
Her low voice. Violet eyes staring straight at me, filled with contempt. Clear tears welling up inside them.
“I gave you so many chances. I told you to believe in me… begged you to trust the me who kept believing in you, over and over and over…!”
No matter the situation, she had always kept a cold expression toward evil. But that mask is gone now. Anger, sorrow, disgust, disappointment, disillusionment, hatred… Emotions she should never have had to feel are tangled together, and even the peerless Sien Alencia has crumbled.
“…It’s too late, Rain. Everything is already too late.”
Once again, she looks straight into my sins without turning away. She faces them constantly so she won’t forget a single thing.
“Are you alone?”
“…I don’t do half-assed things like you.”
“Of course not. You’re…”
Unlike me, someone loved by everyone and capable of loving everyone back———. I stop the words before they leave my mouth.
“…Because you’re the most amazing person I know.”
Instead, I give her a wry smile, pause a little longer, and finally say what I originally meant to.
“It was definitely thirteen years ago when we first met.”
“……”
“You were shining so brightly back then. Not that you aren’t shining now, but…”
———I stole your smile.
“That smile you always showed no matter what, the one I thought was so beautiful—I took it away like an idiot.”
I’m sorry. Self-loathing rises in me for being unable to say those words. Her gaze, now hardened and filled with hatred for me after losing her smile, catches in my throat.
I never wanted to be a villain. I never wanted to live as one. So how could Sien Alencia be any different? A warm bouquet of flowers suited her hand better than a cold sword. A soft dress suited her body better than a stiff uniform. Her bright laughter was more beautiful and lovely than anyone else’s. She was stronger than anyone, yet more fragile than anyone… which is why she chose to use her power to protect and help others despite having the strength to hurt them. She was a tender-hearted girl.
That girl from back then now stands before me holding a blood-soaked sword, wearing a tattered combat uniform. She has forgotten how to smile. She has erased her emotions and stands here facing me. The tears I glimpsed earlier now slide weakly down her cheeks, as if telling me she’s exhausted.
“You can’t atone for your karma?”
Atonement was impossible from the start.
Tang—! Clang—!
The dagger-shaped aura Sien Alencia threw is deflected by the Coordinate Manipulation / Refraction spell I had prepared in advance and stabs into the ground. If I hadn’t layered seven defensive spells, that killing-intent-filled aura would have mercilessly pierced my throat, heart, and abdomen.
“I wanted to talk more, you know.”
“How can you still call yourself human…?!”
“I’m not. That’s why I’m regretting things I shouldn’t and hoping for atonement I don’t deserve. I really must be a villain to the bone.”
“And you’re proud of that…!!”
“———It really was a terrible fate, wasn’t it?”
I murmur quietly toward her roaring cry, then look at her with a clean, bright smile.
“Let’s end it now. This damned connection.”
I hope you never cry again.
———Zzt!
"Dimensional Manipulation."
"Labyrinth Without an Exit."
⟨ Transcendent Unique Magic — Rain Seton 2nd ⟩
"Singularity Creation."
"Event Horizon."
⟨ Transcendent Unique Magic — Rain Seton 4th ⟩
I activate the two transcendent unique magics I had prepared in advance at the same time. Keywords like Transcendent and Unique that only I in all of humanity can use. Most people would fall victim without even realizing a spell had been cast, but…
“If I can last ten minutes, I’ll call it a win…!!”
The person I’m facing is the strongest in the world, Sien Alencia—the one who had driven me to death multiple times. Even if I burned away half a year preparing for today, it’s still not enough to hold onto her ankles.
“…Hngh!”
I’ve barely completed one formation and a fifth of my mana is already gone. The consumption is hopeless both numerically and viscerally. My mana circles burn as if they’ll burst, and the pressure around my heart grows stronger.
I hold my breath, accepting death, and focus.
“Let me go! What the hell are you doing…?!”
Contrary to my expectation that she would last at least seven minutes, Sien Alencia is already beginning to leap across dimensions and escape the subspace. This is a unique magic created by a Sage who realized the Truth, yet she’s breaking out in less than four minutes. The situation is even worse than I thought.
———But I have no intention of stopping now.
“Stop it, Rain…!!”
“Since when does a villain listen to the hero? Besides, if I stop, you’ll cut me down with that terrifying sword.”
The only holy sword in the world, Laid. Most villains, even I, had only seen its blade three times, but that mysterious thing seems to have noticed I’m doing something impossible. It’s already gleaming with lethal sharpness, ready to kill.
The spine-chilling sensation of my life being threatened makes me burst into hollow laughter.
———Two minutes left.
“You really want to kill me that badly? It’s the first time I’ve seen you struggle this hard since Elian.”
“You. …You will definitely atone.”
“———.”
“I’ll make you pay for your sins for the rest of your life. I’ll seal your power, force you to properly face and understand the ugliness of what you’ve done.”
Killing intent. Yet her eyes remain so clear and upright.
“I’ll make you remember the names of every person you sacrificed for the rest of your life, and make you suffer the same pain as those left behind! No—more than that…!!”
Rage. Yet her voice is so calm and gentle.
“I’ll make you realize your sins, make you want to atone.”
“———.”
“Only then will you understand. How miserable and painful it is to want to apologize when there’s no one left to accept it. How great a punishment that is.”
A sorrowful expression that looks like it will collapse any second, as if she can no longer endure.
What’s clear is that she hates me very much. The fact that there is no one left to accept my atonement. People might say that letting a madman suffer eternal torture makes more sense than calling that atonement, but… while fighting Sien Alencia, I learned many things. What life is. What a person is. What love is. I’ve grown enough to say I now understand, at least faintly, what they mean.
Why did I only realize it now? Why didn’t I take the hand she offered? Why did I throw away every chance and drag everyone who should have been happy into the depths of misfortune?
And yet I shamelessly asked for a chance to atone… Why do her words, saying I won’t be able to atone, feel like such a comfort right now?
“As expected, not just anyone can be a hero.”
I laugh without meaning to.
"Fate Reversal."
"Inverse Destiny Return."
⟨ Transcendent Unique Magic — Rain Seton 5th ⟩
The completed magic circle flashes and reveals its majestic form. A circular array enveloping the vast wasteland. Dark blue light—the color of my mana—pours from the circle and rises toward the sky like soap bubbles.
“Rain…!!”
Sien Alencia, who has just broken both unique magics, pours mana into Laid to destroy the circle along with the spell. But my magic activates faster.
Click———.
A circular clock appears on the ground. A three-dimensional hourglass appears in the sky. As the second hand ticks, the minute and hour hands move counterclockwise… The brilliantly sparkling blue sand grains also float slowly upward as if time itself is reversing, passing through narrow gaps and rising against the current.
———Just like the two clocks running backward, the time of the desolate land returns to the golden past.
“That’s impossible.”
Slow yet fast, but unmistakably returning to the past. She stares blankly at the wilderness that seeks to reclaim the beauty it once held.
“Villains are selfish, you know. We’re the unlucky bastards who can’t rest until we do what we want.”
I smile faintly at her.
“Regression. I literally turned everything back. To before I was born into this world. To a world without me.”
“What are you———.”
“You’re so strong that you keep forgetting, but I am a Sage. If I put my mind to it, stepping outside of fate, causality, and probability isn’t that hard…”
Stagger—. Strength leaves me. A powerful dizziness hits and my body lurches forward. I barely stop myself from collapsing, but the world blurs like wet watercolor paper. To think I would experience mana rebound in my lifetime.
‘Ah, is this different in this case…?’
Obviously, what I poured into this wasn’t just ‘mana.’ Fate, causality, probability. To take control of the great system that binds the world and manipulate it, I had to offer something equivalent. My life, my future fate. And the Truth. By converting everything I possessed into energy, I was able to cast this final spell.
“Rain———!”
“Sien Alencia. This is how a mage… how a villain cleans up the water he spilled. What do you think? Pretty novel, right? It’s literally the very essence of a mage, isn’t it…?”
“Stop talking nonsense…! Do you really think you can atone with something like this?! What you’re doing now is…!!”
“I know. I know it’s running away.”
I barely catch my ragged breath and stand straight. I walk toward her. With each step, the sensation of my body disintegrating into particles isn’t as painful as I expected. In a way, it feels like too much of a mercy. The one who should suffer until the very last moment is me, not her… Because in the end, I will disappear, and she will remain.
“Doing whatever I want, then making it so it never happened… I’ve done all kinds of evil in my life, but this must be the worst atrocity of my existence.”
“If you know that, if you understand that…!!”
“Still, it’s better than doing nothing. You know that too.”
“———.”
“Looks like we finally agree on something after twenty-nine years, huh?”
The distance has closed until we are nearly nose to nose. Whether she cuts my throat with her sword, gouges out my heart, or pierces my abdomen—whatever she does to me, I walk toward her ready to accept it all with humility…
“You son of a bitch…”
“It’s an honor. To think I’m the recipient of Sien Aurora’s first curse.”
As if she has accepted this moment, Sien Alencia simply cries. Endlessly. Just endlessly, with eyes full of hatred.
“Sien.”
I was grateful I could burn her image into my eyes one last time.
———My world is swallowed by darkness.
“Among everyone I know, you are the kindest and most righteous person.”
With eyes that can no longer hold light, I look into her violet pupils.
“Among everyone I know, you are the most fearful, the most fragile, the most easily hurt.”
With a face that had forgotten how to smile, I draw the brightest smile I have ever made.
“Among everyone I know, you were the most suited to be a hero, and the least suited.”
A world where nothing can be felt anymore. A heartless world where the only thing I can sense is that the existence called Rain Seton has completely vanished from it.
“You really do look prettiest when you smile…?”
A truly pathetic confession that I can only say now.
“This time, be happy. Don’t cry. And———.”
There were more words I wanted to say, but they never reached her.
Click———.
The magic circle that had used my life as energy completed its casting… and my clock stopped right there.
“…But where the hell am I?”