PrologueIt was two in the morning when everyone was fast asleep.
A small light raced across the night sky.
If any resident of this world had looked up at it, they would have known immediately what it was. It was not a shooting star, a bird, or a flying machine. It was the mana luminescence of a magic user’s flight magic.
A black-haired woman wearing a luxurious long coat tore through the freezing air. The sweat on her stiffened cheek flowing backwards and flying off as a mist showed that her tense expression was due to more than just the chill of the night.
A silver symbol glowed on the chest of her long coat. The symbol depicted a snake with an apple in its mouth coiled around a double cross. Those known on this continent as black magicians chose to wear that symbol.
A small hand appeared from within the coat and began playing with the symbol. The woman was holding a baby.
While soothing the baby with one hand, she glanced over her shoulder. Flying without stirring up mana was impossible, but she would have detected a presence if she was being pursued. However, she detected no such presence. Then again, her flight was greatly stirring up the mana around her, so any pursuer would be able to track her location from afar.
“I only need to keep them from knowing where this child is,” she muttered.
In order to hide her presence, she landed before reaching her destination and walked through the darkness without even using light magic. While in the air, she had seen a small town at the end of a small road through this forest. She was unfamiliar with this land, but from the layout of the town’s buildings and the symbol carved into the town gate, she knew this town would suit her needs.
The town was perfectly silent. It likely had a few hundred residents, but the church near the entrance was quite large and likely had the facilities required to perform a baptism. The child needed to be baptized no matter what. Fortunately, the main G.o.d here was Ko Ro. That sect’s primary doctrine was one of unconditional love. It was the perfect place to leave the child.
When the woman reflected on the fact that she would be leaving the child here, a feeling similar to relief finally budded within her. She would be leaving their child, that child on whom such great hopes were held, to a better place.
“I pray you will remain safe. And that you will have the strength required for the day you realize your destiny.”
As she chanted those words of a cla.s.sic prayer, she removed her long coat, wrapped the child in it, and gently placed it before the door.
“You are our hope.”
And as she ran away from that church, she turned back towards the baby. Her eyes were those of a mother worrying for her child. However…
“!”
Her expression changed as she instantly realized her failure and she returned her gaze to the path ahead.
The source of the failure she felt lay in the eyes of the baby that were clearly visible in the darkness.
The baby was not crying; it was staring back at her. An obvious expression could be seen in its eyes that did not befit a child of less than a year old. It was the sulking, resigned look of a fainthearted man in his twenties after a woman broke up with him.
—There’s no helping it. I am the one at fault here…
That’s what the baby’s eyes so eloquently said.
“Your destiny may be different from the one we expect… No, that may actually be precisely what we want…”
The woman muttered to herself to fight back her unease as she disappeared into the forest.
That frighteningly mature baby stared up into the night sky and wondered why it had been left behind.
Ten years had pa.s.sed since that day.
That baby that had stared up at the stars had grown into a boy who was now blankly staring up into the noontime sky. This boy named Akuto had a difficult personality. He was a perceptive child who had realized he had reached his mental peak at the age of 5. While he was 5, he had seen the orphanage teacher checking the children’s schedule for that day and baffled the teacher by asking, “Will you get mad at us if we do not follow that? Do you have to supervise us with that because we are weak?” While on a trip, he had climbed a scenic mountain and pulled out the bento that was much nicer than the usual ones provided. While eating it, he had realized that he would never receive anything more luxurious than that as long as he remained in the orphanage. He was thankful for the blessings others provided him with despite him having done nothing for them, but he realized he would never receive anything more unless he began working for the sake of others. He had shed tears at this realization.
Akuto had obediently spent his time at the orphanage. He was a difficult child to control, but he had a powerful desire to not bother others and to be an overall good person. He would occasionally take some crazy actions, but never enough to lead to a major incident. However, when he was 10 and midway through elementary school, a slight commotion occurred just as he was to leave the orphanage due to a foster home being found for him. A girl of about the same age arrived at the orphanage to replace him.
She had done nothing but cry. This was unsurprising for a child sent to the orphanage because her parents had died and she had no other relatives. Akuto had stopped in his tracks when he saw her. No one had come to see him off at the entrance despite this being his big day. He realized this was because they were spending all their time dealing with that girl. The orphanage teachers comforted the girl as they always did. There was no formalized method, but they were used to this and knew the best way to do so without hurting the child’s feelings. They spoke kindly to her and tried to have her play with various stuffed animals. Those superficial words tended to work better than ones spoken with one’s whole heart in it. Akuto had long since learned that due to a few different experiences, but with his personality, he could not help but find it unpleasant. And he found the orphans who all began smiling when they should have responded with deep sorrow to be even more unpleasant. However, Akuto finally realized that this girl was no normal child. Even when she took a toy accessory, she only gave it a small amount of interest before crying once more.
Akuto decided he would put an end to her tears. He had borrowed a large suitcase that he would return to the orphanage after transporting his luggage, so he left that suitcase in front of the orphanage before walking to the shopping district in the center of the town, entering the town’s sole small jewelry store, buying a jeweled hair decoration with the money he had been given for his immediate living expenses (enough for an adult to live several months on), and returning to the orphanage. The girl was still crying and the teachers were obviously fl.u.s.tered.
Akuto slipped past the teachers, crouched down in front of the girl, and tugged on her hair to raise her head. The shocked teachers rebuked Akuto’s actions, but he wordlessly held the hair decoration in front of the girl’s eyes.
It took her some time to realize what was happening, but the unexpected situation made her stop crying all the same. Her round eyes, that were red from crying, looked blankly at Akuto.
She had round eyes on a round face. Each time she rubbed her eyes with her round hand, the few tufts of hair standing up on her head would shake. Her hair was a burning red, so it almost looked like flickering flames. Any girl of her age was cute, but her face made one think she would continue to look youthful even after growing up.
Akuto looked away from the girl and forced the hair decoration into her hand. She did not resist, but she looked up at Akuto with a frightened look when she noticed the jewel set within the eye of the bird-shaped silver hair decoration. Even a child could tell it was real. This was of course not something a child should own. While still looking away from the girl, Akuto told the teachers to make sure no one stole it because it was expensive, and he told the girl not to give it to the teachers even temporarily.
“Th-thank you,” said the girl in a blank voice as she looked back and forth between Akuto and the hair decoration. She was acting like he had placed an explosive in her hands.
“I am leaving so I can go work. I do not need the money I was given. You can sell this for money when you leave the orphanage or you can keep it. It is yours now. But I want you to remember that it is something as simple as receiving a gift from someone that stops people from crying. Then again, you only stopped crying for something expensive, so you may be a truly amazing girl. You could probably take on the demon king.”
With that said, Akuto returned to the suitcase and put on the long coat that he could finally wear without it dragging along the ground behind him.
“Where are you going?” asked the girl.
“I am leaving this place.”
“Wait. We might be able to be friends.”
“That is a shame, but I think you will only have to stay in this orphanage for a few years. If you do not get rid of that hair decoration, I will recognize you. We may meet again someday. Bye.”
And Akuto took his first step out of the orphanage without waiting for the girl to reply.
Five more years pa.s.sed.
He had been accepted into the household of a normal knight. It was standard for a knight to take in orphans, so Akuto was received in a businesslike manner. That businesslike manner made living there easy for Akuto, but he quickly realized it also created a difficult atmosphere for discussing anything with his foster parents. That atmosphere and Akuto’s own personality made his five years there a difficult time. Every day, he would wake up before dawn to deliver milk, work at a café after school, and teach himself at night so that he could pa.s.s his entrance exam. Akuto had grown into the kind of pretty boy that any girl his age could not help but notice, but his daily schedule and his personality made him nigh unapproachable. During his middle school years, he never had a romantic relationship with a girl or even a single close friend. Whenever a girl was drawn in by his pretty face, he would tell her, “People should not introduce favoritism into their relationships with others, and entering into a special relationship with someone inevitably creates a form of discrimination. However, I cannot get along with everyone and for some reason I feel frustrated when I see someone else getting along well with a pretty girl. Nevertheless, I feel it is wrong to get along with that pretty girl myself for no other reason than to rid myself of that frustration. What do you think?” It was understandably difficult for any middle school girl to like a boy who spoke such worries to them and the boys did not want to be friends with someone who acted like that to the girls.
Obviously, nothing could be done about his personality and he had a reason for living the kind of life he lived. For high school, Akuto intended to attend the prestigious national Constant Magic Academy to become a nationally certified magician. That school gave scholarships and he needed one to attend. As this dark and friendless period of his life continued, his personality grew even worse, but he viewed becoming a nationally certified magician as worth it.
The top cla.s.s national magicians were undoubtedly the ones who ran the country of j.a.pan. In a society just past the year 3000 CE, the core of the government was made up of those top cla.s.s national magicians. Only they were bound by no restrictions in their use of magic to serve society and they worked in a variety of fields.
Akuto’s reason for wishing to become a national magician was purely so he could help society and serve the people. He could be argumentative, but he was fundamentally a good person. This was all thanks to his powerful desire to help others that he had gained through his upbringing in the orphanage.
And finally, the day came that he was accepted into the school. Akuto almost jumped for joy. Once he was accepted, he could enter the school’s dorm. Due to the scholarship he had earned, he could finally completely leave behind his life of being supported by others.
Akuto believed he would be completely reborn in this new stage in his life. And that is precisely what happened.
However, it happened in a way he had never imagined.