Before She Was the Saint
"Oh my, Ethan is amazing! He’s top again this time too."
"You crazy bastard! We were hanging out together yesterday—when did you sneak in all that studying?"
In the middle-school classroom of the Imperial Eltemir Magic School, the students were in an uproar.
Thanks to the magic school’s system, where test results were released immediately, the rankings were already public.
The young students’ eyes sparkled as they looked at the gentle boy with dark blue hair.
The middle school ran from Class 1 to Class 3, and Ethan, only a Class 2 student, had outranked even the upperclassmen across the entire middle school to take first place.
Ethan scratched the back of his head, smiling sheepishly.
"My specialty happened to be on the test. Guess I was lucky."
"This bastard’s starting to humble-brag now? Even Class 3 seniors major in spatial magic a lot, you know?"
"Damn it, you infuriating jerk. Anyway, congratulations. So next year you’ll be a high school senior, huh?"
At the promotion exam, taking first place came with the benefit of advancing two stages. Promotion at the magic school was as difficult as plucking stars from the sky, so almost every student studied late into the night.
It was competition without end. Talent from across the continent knocked at the school’s gates, but leaving through the graduation doors was even harder.
"Starting next year, call me senior. Heh heh."
Ethan felt as if he were floating on clouds, buoyed by envy and admiration. He had studied until his nose bled, sleeping less than three hours a day, but at this moment, he didn’t feel tired at all. The students, each busy with their own conversations, began heading home.
The promotion exam was over, and now a two-month vacation was beginning. He planned to go home and rest for a few days. He was in a good mood, but his body was exhausted from the fierce competition. He wanted to see his parents too.
If I tell them I got first place, they’ll be overjoyed, right?
He could already see the future unfolding. His steps toward the front gate felt lighter than usual.
"Son!"
A delighted voice called out from afar.
"Mom! You should’ve just waited at home! It’s a long way from here."
By the front gate, Ethan’s mother was waiting with a carriage. He had been planning to go home and boast about taking first place, but it looked like he’d end up telling her sooner than expected. Ethan smiled and quickened his pace.
But something felt wrong. A high school student from the magic school was standing beside his mother. Had something happened? Looking more closely, he saw that his mother’s expression was off too.
"Son! Run!"
BOOM!
A massive burst of fire erupted in front of Ethan.
Students returning home nearby screamed. Ethan shut his eyes against the scorching tide of heat. Then a blast of wind slammed into him, sending him rolling backward several times before he collapsed. But that wasn’t the important thing.
"M-mom!"
Ethan sprang to his feet and cast magic. Around him, enormous droplets of water began to fall. It was top-grade climate magic, condensing moisture from the air and forcing rain into being.
A blast of that magnitude should have left no survivors. For an ordinary person who couldn’t use magic, the odds of surviving were even slimmer. But Ethan kept desperately pouring magic into the spell.
When the flames finally died out, there was nothing left to see. Everything around the front gate had simply vanished.
Ethan sank to his knees. Today was supposed to become the happiest day of his life.
He would brag about his grades, eat a delicious dinner, and rest.
It should have been a happy time, a chance to spend the everyday moments they’d been too busy during the semester to share.
He shed tears without even feeling real enough to understand the world. He was too stunned to even resent the heavens.
...What’s that?
Near the blasted front gate, something black and slime-like was writhing. Before long, the slime began to transform into the magic school student who had been standing beside his mother.
Ethan’s tears kept falling. His fury now turned toward that grotesque creature.
Violet vines bloomed over Ethan’s hands. The vines shot forward at high speed and restrained the target. He stepped forward slowly. The bound student thrashed with his whole body.
"What the hell are you? Why did you kill my mother? What do you have against me?"
His voice was low, but every syllable was clear. His rage was cold.
The high school student struggled in a seated position and glared up at Ethan.
"Aren’t you the brilliant genius? It’d be weird if you didn’t know. What, can a genius just bind his senior like this? We barely survived that explosion too. Hurry up and let me go!"
The high school student shouted that Ethan was his senior. Ethan saw it then—he’d been secretly casting a spell beside his mother.
Ethan kicked the student in the face with all his strength. The high schooler’s jaw came loose at once. Black fluid spewed out.
"Kieeek!" the student shrieked. It was a voice no human could make.
Ethan formed a fireball in his palm and drove it into the monster’s head. Even then, it kept regenerating stubbornly.
"Student! Get back!"
A magic school teacher rushed to Ethan’s side. The teacher trapped the monster with mana, then shoved blue flames into it.
The creature let out a hideous scream and vanished completely after ten minutes. People gathered around to watch the magic at work.
"T-teacher. That thing killed my mother."
The teacher found it hard to look at the grieving student.
A monster had infiltrated the capital and murdered civilians. It was an impossible event, something that should never have happened.
"What was that? Why did it suddenly attack people? And it even spoke!"
"It’s a monster called a doppelganger. Its true power is weak, but it preys on negative emotions and parasitizes its victims. Leave the rest to the teachers. Go home now. I’m sorry about your mother."
A monster...? Why would something like that be here? Why, of all people, had it killed his mother?
Regrettably, Ethan was a mage.
He did not go home. Instead, he headed for the library. Along the way, people who knew him asked what had happened, but he didn’t answer. The magic school library was open to students twenty-four hours a day.
A mage was someone who explored phenomena and manifested ideals. Ethan knew nothing about monsters. To respond properly, he had to understand his enemy first.
His goal was no longer to become the greatest mage.
He randomly selected every book he could find on monsters—their types, how to deal with them, demons and monsters, monster ecology.
He had set his aim on eradicating monsters from this world.
After a little searching, he found a brief description of doppelgangers.
A parasitic monster that could imitate, to some extent, the memories and power of its host.
Because its own power was feeble, it was not a threat if handled properly.
That pitiful thing had killed someone precious to him.
Ethan buried his face in his arm as emotions exploded in his chest. His mother had died while coming to greet her son after he’d worked so hard.
Couldn’t he have stopped it? If he had tried harder, maybe she would have survived. If he had noticed first and fired off a spell, if only he’d been able to use anti-magic!
With regret flooding over him, Ethan stayed awake through the night with his eyes open.
---
Ethan watched the snow fall. There was no emotion in his eyes.
At the continent’s greatest academy, where students usually graduated at an average age of twenty-three, he had graduated at eighteen. He had skipped ahead by two promotion stages at a time and still passed the graduation exam in first place.
What the hell does that matter?
He still had a long way to go. Ethan had come this far in order to enter Scoti Magic Tower.
An organization the greatest mages on the continent looked up to with envy.
If he devoted himself here for years, he would certainly find a way.
A dimensional gate leading to the demon realm.
He had to rip out the root of humanity’s threat at its source. Someday, he would open a portal to the demon realm and slaughter every last existence there.
---
Ethan woke from sleep, muttering that it had been a damned dream. Since the tower was too chaotic for research, he was resting in his private villa. Even while resting, he had been thinking about how to pierce the dimensional barrier leading to the demon realm.
So much time had passed that it was already dark around him.
I don’t remember turning off the lights.
Ethan snapped his fingers to turn them on. There was a crack, and he cast magic, but the surroundings did not brighten. A bad feeling rose in his chest, so he teleported to the office in the magic tower.
His body trembled for an instant, but the spell did not activate. There was only one explanation for that phenomenon. Someone had deliberately cast anti-magic. But who, and how?
Ethan possessed a level of skill that made even most high-ranking mages bow their heads. Tension crept through him at the unknown phenomenon. With a chilling sense of dread, he drew on as much mana as he could and wrapped himself in a defensive spell. Fortunately, the barrier activated. Almost at the same moment, he heard the clash of metal against metal.
"Who’s there!"
Ethan turned around. The intruder looked at the dagger and the barrier, apparently surprised that his attack had been blocked. The intruder’s skin was dark, and the figure was unmistakably female overall.
The Shadow Assassin! I heard she was raging on the front lines—why is she in the rear?
The Shadow Assassin smiled faintly.
"Not bad, kid. I don’t have any personal grudge against you."
She vanished from Ethan’s sight. Her position was above him. The dagger she held reverse-gripped slammed down with a thunderous crash as aura tried to tear through the barrier. The sight of that weapon boring through the layers of defense made Ethan feel fear for a split second.
"Hellfire!"
A huge, blazing fireball erupted upward toward the assassin. She dissolved into smoke and disappeared.
With a deafening boom, the ceiling of the villa exploded. The surrounding area was suddenly flooded with light.
"The mages will be swarming here any second now. You’re finished."
"Pff. Is that so?"
The Shadow Assassin, the Reaper of Silence, smiled. A moment later, she turned to smoke and vanished. Had she fled? Ethan stayed on guard, scanning the area.
Thick smoke began appearing from all directions. It filled the surroundings so completely that not even light could leak beyond the barrier.
Everything was swallowed by darkness. Ethan broke into a cold sweat from the pressure.
BOOM!
With a tremendous impact, Ethan staggered. On the left, a crack spread across the barrier. He hurriedly replenished the mana, but smoke seeped through the gap little by little.
"Tch!"
Is that miasma? Damn it! My mana’s dropping like crazy.
The steeply falling mana made it painfully clear how strong his opponent was.
Teleport! Bind! Light! Detect! Paralyze! What the hell!
His mind grew hazy as his mana kept draining away. Teleportation still wouldn’t activate. Since he couldn’t see the enemy, the other spells were useless too.
"You were so full of confidence a moment ago. Looks like it’s over now. Still, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a mage hold out this long. You should be proud."
From all directions, invisible attacks began again.
Ethan despaired. He knew instinctively that this would be the last moment of his life.
Damn it! What have I been living for all this time?
No amount of magic or research meant anything before an enemy too monstrous to fathom. Before long, the barrier vanished completely.
In the darkness where even light could not slip through, the assassin’s silhouette appeared before his eyes. She had come right up to him. Feeling his mana completely empty out, Ethan closed his eyes with bitter resignation.
Mother...
If he could see her again, he wanted to hold her. He had done everything he could for revenge.
Would she tell him he’d done well? That he had been a good son?