Chapter 52: Chapter 49: A Poor Imitation
Right after I'd launched the search for Eterna, I made my way to the pond behind the school. Sure, I could've wasted my time looking through the entire school...but why would I bother with that when I knew a much more convenient method?
I approached the pond. The area was incredibly quiet, as though no one was there. I rested my palm on the surface and poured some mana in. After a couple of seconds, a turtle's head surfaced.
"Why, hello. Did you have business with me, Ellize?"
"Yes. I need your help."
"Sounds like something happened."
The turtle I was currently engaging in conversation with could see everything that happened all over the world. However, she only had one brain and obviously couldn't process all of that information at once. Thus, she was only aware of the events she actively observed. To give you an example, if she were to observe New York, she wouldn't know what was happening in Tokyo at the same time. Another good way of putting it was to think of places like they were TV channels. As a viewer sitting on your couch, you were free to put on any channel you liked—you had access to all of them. However, once you picked one, you couldn't simultaneously watch all the others. You could either watch the game or the TV show you liked, but not both.
That was also why the witch's teleportation ability was so tricky to handle. Even if the witch put up a barrier, Profeta could technically still find her. She simply had to look for a place she couldn't observe. Besides, our resident turtle was good at making predictions, which could help her figure out where the witch was. The issue was, predictions and estimations weren't infallible—far from it. In the event that Profeta failed to guess where the witch had teleported, she'd have to check the entirety of Fiori until she found a spot she couldn't observe.
Anyway, my point was: the turtle's abilities were very handy, but not all-powerful. Profeta wasn't omniscient.
As it turned out, Profeta had been looking at some place other than the academy. She would've known exactly what had happened otherwise.
"Yes. I'm afraid we have a missing person situation on our hands," I said.
"I see. I shouldn't have been watching Turtalyn and Turtleo's lovers' quarrel."
What in the world are you looking at?! This is so not the time for that crap! Besides...isn't it pretty messed up to snoop on other peop—erm, turtles'—marital issues?
Whatever. Profeta's twisted personality wasn't my business. I just needed her to use her clairvoyance for something more useful.
"You know who Eterna is, right? Could you help me find out where she is at the moment?"
"All right."
As expected, Profeta didn't need me to explain who Eterna was. She already knew I was a fake, which meant she most likely knew who the real saint was as well.
The turtle closed her eyes, and after a few moments spent "looking," she opened her mouth and spoke. "I found her. Something strange is happening, though."
"Something strange?" I repeated.
"She's at the school, but...she's stuck in a weird place."
A weird place, huh? Did she get stuck inside somebody's locker?
"She's in...a hidden passage? Yes, that's what it is—an empty space in the outer walls of the academy. Eterna's locked up there. She's not alone. Several students are trapped with her."
A hidden passage? I didn't even know there was one. I guess it's yet another modification that Dias made while abusing his authority as the headmaster.
I thought Eterna was the only one missing, but as it turned out, other students had disappeared too. I had absolutely no idea why they'd been abducted, but I could figure that out after catching the culprit. Even if I didn't manage to get their objective out of them, I still had to rescue the students.
"Do you know who's responsible?"
"There's...a girl shrouded by some strange darkness. She seems to be the culprit."
"Is it Alexia?"
"No. Alexia is still in the basement."
A girl shrouded in darkness, huh? I was obviously inclined to believe that was the witch. In fact, without Profeta, I would've assumed she was Alexia. I'd never met her, after all.
I'd seen her in the game, of course, but colors never quite looked the same in real life. As long as her hair color and outfit were similar enough to the illustrations, I probably would've mistaken her for Alexia.
I mean, I'd even thought I was Eterna for a while even though our hair color is nothing alike.
"Oh," Profeta said, "she's on the move. She's using the secret passage to head toward the rooftop. She's grabbed the other students with tentacles made of darkness. She's going to take them with her."
I had no clue what the culprit was trying to achieve, but if she was going to the rooftop, she wouldn't be hard to find.
Perfect. I'll just follow her there. No, wait—I'll arrive before her and conceal myself with my light magic!
"Thank you, Profeta."
"You're going to them, aren't you? You probably don't need me worrying about you, but be careful, Ellize."
After thanking the turtle, I flew toward the rooftop.
Sorry, but I'll be solving this case before you get to do anything, Miss Culprit.
◇
A female student was walking toward the rooftop. The name of the young girl Oct had chosen to stand in for the witch was Elizabeth Ibris. She was no beauty, but she wasn't ugly either. She was an ordinary girl with unremarkable monolid eyes and an unremarkable nose—neither particularly big nor small. Her face wasn't quite symmetrical, and her teeth were crooked. Her light brown hair went down to her hips, and she wore a flower that looked very much like the one Ellize always had in her hair. Hers was already withering, though.
Elizabeth looked up to Ellize. She both adored and hated her, for she was jealous of her. At first, Elizabeth had only envied her. She'd met her for the first time at a ball. The young girl had been eleven then, and she hadn't been able to take her eyes off Ellize. She'd wanted to become just like her.
And so, the girl had started imitating the way Ellize spoke. She'd grown her hair out and decorated it with a flower. At first, it had been truly innocuous—a child playing pretend. There was a saying: "fake it 'till you make it." The girl had tried to become like Ellize, so she'd decided to imitate her appearance first. It wasn't all that weird, especially not for an eleven-year-old girl.
However, as she grew older, Elizabeth's hair—which had been blonde when she was a child—gradually darkened until it became a light brown. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't see Ellize anymore. It shouldn't have come as a surprise—she wasn't Ellize, after all. Different people had different appearances; that was a matter of course.
Most kids would have taken this reality check in stride, realized that they were their own person, and discovered that things were just fine that way. Elizabeth, however, did not react that way. Her admiration had long since turned into a twisted feeling she couldn't ignore.
The little girl who'd first wished to "become just like Ellize" now thought it was unfair that she wasn't Ellize herself. Everything would've been better if I were you, she'd think.
This twisted feeling had only grown after she'd started attending the academy in an attempt to get closer to Ellize. She could feel her heart break whenever she looked at the saint.
Why aren't I you? she'd think. If I'd been born to different parents, I might've been you.
Elizabeth started convincing herself that the only reason she wasn't Ellize was that she'd been born in the wrong place. Ellize's beauty could have been hers. No, it should have been hers.
The worse she felt, the more her mind twisted reality to bring her some sort of comfort. She hid in her delusions to avoid facing the truth. She dreamed about a world where she had been born as Ellize. The applause and adoration were hers. The glory was hers too. Whenever she lost herself in her reveries, Elizabeth was truly happy.
Eventually, her delusions started going too far, and the line between reality and daydream blurred.
I'm the real Ellize, so why is she being revered as the saint?! She stole my glory! My name! She's a crafty snake! I'm the real deal! She's nothing but a fake imitating me!
Astonishingly, Elizabeth had started believing that she was the real Ellize. It was completely illogical, but she was adamant. Elizabeth had become completely unable to distinguish between her fantasies and reality.
She behaved like she was the saint, and she'd somehow convinced herself that she looked just like Ellize. She also spent a good chunk of her time spreading rumors about the "fake" saint. She greeted her classmates with her angelic—according to herself, at least—smile every day, and assured them she would protect the world for them.
Needless to say, her classmates all thought she was a disrespectful clown. Her "angelic" smile was more of a creepy grin and her way of speaking—a poor imitation of Ellize's—didn't suit her in the slightest. She was the picture of hubris. No one wanted to be friends with someone like her. The Training Institute for Magic Knights of Alfrea was an institution created to train knights who'd serve the saint. Insulting the saint all day obviously did nothing to make you popular with that kind of crowd.
Elizabeth had ended up isolated—a nuisance, as far as everyone else was concerned. In fact, word of her outrageous behavior had even reached the ears of her parents. They'd sent a heartfelt apology letter to the school and had requested that their daughter be allowed to drop out. The school had immediately accepted, and Elizabeth was to be formally expelled at the end of the month.
Elizabeth's father had also sent a letter to his daughter, where he'd told her in detail how ashamed he was in a very colorful way. Elizabeth's mind had only become more twisted.
Why won't anyone understand me, even though I'm Ellize? Even though I love this world and everyone in it so much...
Elizabeth had started to hate everyone around her. Although it might have sounded quite contradictory, it most definitely wasn't. Elizabeth had only convinced herself that she loved everyone. She did not. In fact, she'd never really considered the world as a whole. She'd simply thought that Ellize would likely love everyone, and so she must too. Even though Elizabeth herself was no longer aware of it, it was all an act.
I'm so jealous. I hate her so much. If only Ellize didn't exist... Then I would be Ellize. I'd be the one basking in glory.
The very premise of her reasoning was mistaken, but that did nothing to stop Elizabeth from despising Ellize. It went without saying, but Ellize's position and glory wouldn't have fallen into her lap, even if Ellize were to suddenly disappear...or if she had never existed, for that matter. Elizabeth Ibris wasn't Ellize. She was an entirely different person.
If—and it was a purely hypothetical if—Elizabeth had been born as Ellize, would she have basked in fame and glory? If Fudou Niito, the irregular, hadn't wandered into this world, and Elizabeth's soul had been the one to enter Ellize's body, would she have been as loved and respected as the current Ellize?
Obviously not. She would have gotten drunk with power. The fake saint's every whim would be satisfied—she got to be as selfish as she wanted. Elizabeth would have grown arrogant and twisted, and she would have surely turned into the worst saint in history. She would have dirtied the name of the saint until people lost faith and hated her. She would have wasted her natural beauty by indulging herself. Her guards would have given up on her. Eventually, she would have been overthrown by Verner and Eterna...and died a dog's death.
Naturally, Elizabeth couldn't see that. How could a girl who couldn't even tell the difference between her fantasies and reality assess herself accurately? All that made Elizabeth the perfect target. Besides, she was supposed to leave the academy as it was.
It was all very convenient for Oct. No one would think it strange if that girl was revealed to be the witch. She wasn't quite threatening enough, but Oct could fix that. He simply had to help her look the part. The most important thing was that she had no friends and that everyone despised her. She'd also been bad-mouthing the saint every chance she got—a nice perk, as far as Oct was concerned.
Everyone must've wanted that girl to disappear. She always disrespected their dear saint, after all. Oct was certain that most of them secretly hoped that Elizabeth was an underling of the witch. It would've given them an excuse to take her out and shut her up for good. Surely, that thought could easily shift to become, I wish she were the witch so I could kill her.People were always eager to believe convenient new pieces of information that fit with their worldview, even if they weren't logical. Even if a little voice inside their head were to tell them that Elizabeth couldn't possibly be the witch, they'd be inclined to believe it regardless, just as long as they wanted it badly enough. Oct knew that before long, the students—no, the entire school—would simply think, I knew it. In fact, getting as many of them as possible to think that was his job. Humans were weak toward mob mentality. They'd easily discard their own doubts to fit in with the group.
Ellize was smart. She'd surely figure out that something was up and understand that such a weak girl couldn't possibly be the witch. But would she still be able to stand her ground if everyone around her was convinced of the opposite? If everyone thought that Elizabeth was the witch, Ellize wouldn't be able to ignore her. And, before long, the group's perception would alter Ellize's own. A thousand fools could make a sage doubt himself.
Therefore, Oct's goal was simple: he needed to put on a perfect show and get everyone to believe. He'd bring Elizabeth to the rooftop—where everyone could see her—and display dark magic. He'd use his tentacles to bully the poor students he'd brought. Hell, he might even kill one or two of them for the sake of credibility.
Then, he'd run away with Elizabeth before Ellize could get there and leave her to handle the outrage. They'd surely push her to go after the witch, and Ellize would be forced to leave the academy.
To carry out the first step of his masterful plan, Oct went to the rooftop. If he wanted people to look at Elizabeth, he'd need to do something eye-catching. And so, Oct unleashed a blast of dark magic toward a group of students training on the sports ground.
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