Fake Saint of the Year
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Geli
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 58: The Fake Witch
As I stealthily waited on the rooftop with Leila, the culprit recklessly arrived with Eterna and the other captured students.
The culprit was a female student, as the turtle had said, but there was a strange form of darkness attached to her back.
From this darkness, tentacles spread toward Eterna and the other students, causing them to pass out.
Hou, tentacle play with Eterna?
… Good one!
No good though, it seemed that I had arrived too early.
I should have come after 5… no, 10 minutes later instead.
Regarding the female student who was the culprit… uhn, how do I say this, she looked really plain.
There was a time when I thought that all the girls in this galge world had to be bishoujos who were prettier than idols.
Well, in reality though, this was not the case. Rather, modern day Earth had a higher percentage of beauties compared to here.
This was inevitable as this world had poor agricultural conditions. Because of that, their nutrition balance was bad; there was also no research or information about what kinds of ingredients were good for one’s skin and beauty.
Also, nutritional supplements and cosmetics weren’t available. Well, there was a pervert that goes by name of Supple Ment though.
Compared to modern day Earth, where there were cleansing creams, moisturizing creams, and other easily accessible skin care products which could quickly be found online if one searched, it was obvious that this world would be at a disadvantage.
It was just that, in this world called Fiori, the differences in level between facial beauty were in such extremes. Here, women and girls who were beauties were so well-groomed to the point that they didn’t even need to use makeup or skin creams in the first place.
Leila and Eterna were examples of such extreme beauty.
I was also considered one… or rather Elrise was. Additionally, I used magic to cheat and beautify my skin and hair beyond what the technology here could offer. As such,it made my appearance look more beautiful by a few percent; this was how thoroughly prepared my facade was.
Because the inside of this body was scum, I couldn’t compromise on the façade.
It was just a case of applying gold plating repeatedly, and then adding more gold plating on top of that.
I was so thorough in my preparations that if one level of plating broke, I still wouldn’t get easily exposed.
It wasn’t easy to do this Saint role play.
Well then, regarding this Mob girl … I was obviously curious about the darkness attached to her back.
One would assume that it was something like dark mana, but I thought it was probably something else.
It was hidden well in darkness, so I couldn’t see it properly, but it looked to me like there was a more solid thing within it, I guess?
Anyway, I need to break that darkness off first.
… Or so I thought, but then Mob Girl steadily started shooting magic toward the athletic field.
What was this girl doing?
In the meantime, I reacted by shooting some light magic; it quickly caught up with the dark magic that had been shot prior before turning like a boomerang and repelling Mob Girl’s magic.
“!? Who did it?!”
Mob Girl had a demonic expression as she turned and looked around, but unfortunately for her I was still in stealth mode so she couldn’t find me.
With that though, she should’ve noticed that someone else was here.
Oh well, securing the hostages took priority over observing the culprit anyway.
Since there was no longer any need for me to hide myself, I dispelled it then took a step forward.
“Saint… Elrise…! No way, why are you here…”
Mob Girl took a step back and braced herself.
At this, the darkness on her back shuddered forcefully, and the tentacles attached to it started to flail.
Oh, what was this? You wanted to try doing tentacle play with me this time?
Stop that… no one would feel good looking at that.
No, seriously.
“You too, what are you doing here?”
For the moment, I responded to her question with another question.
I was here because the turtle gave me a spoiler about this event, but I didn’t think that I needed to tell her that.
The turtle’s cheat, Clairvoyance, was really a dependable weapon for our side.
It would be bad if I told them about it and the turtle ended up getting killed because of it.
“…Like you need to ask! In this world that has forgotten about its fear of the Witch, my goal is to let people taste this fear once more!”
She said something strange there…
She said to let people know about the fear of the Witch, was she the Witch’s follower?
No, she said “my fear” there; that was inconsistent.
“You speak as if you were the Witch herself.”
“That is indeed the case. I am Elizabet, the Witch you’ve been desperately searching for in this academy!”
…
……？
What is this girl talking about?
The Witch is Alexia, you know.
If you’re going to name yourself as the Witch, at least try to pretend that you’re Alexia instead.
Is she a fool?
Honestly, I wanted to sigh in exasperation and make a fool out of her, but I managed to hold it in somehow.
The Saint role play, that was more important.
“Fuhn. After pretending to be the Saint all this time, now you stoop to pretending as the Witch. What a disrespectful, hopeless person.”
Leila furiously placed her hand on her sword
Stay, stay. Stocco, Stay.
I really didn’t understand what was going on, so let’s ask about that some more first.
Also, if you knew something about this Mob Girl, then you should tell me about it.
“Leila, you know her?”
“She’s a fool who’s not worthy of Elrise-sama’s attention. I will cut her down here.”
“If you know something about her, then I want you to tell me about it…”
“…Elizabet Iblis. A 2nd year student. The 2nd daughter of Iblis Count’s House. It’s been decided that she is to drop out from the academy by this month.”
It seemed that Leila hated this Mob Girl.
Even though she was a common student, something unusual must’ve happened for Leila to hate her so much.
What happened? Did she steal Leila’s panties?
If she did, I would be happy if she gave it to me.
Ah — but if the Saint had the panties of her subordinate, it would probably ruin the Saint role play.
“What was the thing about her pretending to be the Saint?”
“I don’t think information is worthy of your attention…”
“Leila.”
“… This fool tried to imitate Elrise-sama and put herself as ‘the real Saint’; she is infamous for that within this academy. That bad looking flower accessory must be something she copied from Elrise-sama. But it wasn’t just that, she also falsely claimed that all Elrise-sama’s great deeds were hers, and claimed that Elrise-sama had merely stolen what was rightfully hers… If she was not a daughter from the Iblis Count’s House , I would have already cut her down ages ago. Such an ugly and disrespectful person.”
Ah, I see. So she was an Elrise impersonator.
Wasn’t that okay? It was common for one to imitate the appearance of who they idolized.
It was similar to imitating a famous athlete’s hairstyle or signature poses.
Rather, it didn’t seem like such a bad thing for her to admire me to the point that she started imitating me.
Well, it was a kind of self-projection… yea. I also did that kind of thing in the past.
I used to watch baseball athletes and I also imagined myself standing in the stadium and doing what they did while being cheered on. It was quite something.
Regarding the flower accessory on her head… Ah, she indeed had a white flower that looked a bit similar to mine. But it was a little withered.
By the way, the flower accessory I usually wore on my head was actually a real flower.
I used magic to prevent it from withering, and turned it into the sole “flower that won’t scatter” in this world.
Well, it was sort of like my wish. You see, this was the world of “Kuon no Sanka,” so it was meant to oppose that.
Also, this was not merely just for decoration, but also served as a reserve tank for mana.
The flower was named the Angelo, and its petals had an attribute that allowed it to carry a large amount of mana.
Each petal could store around 100 MP. Since it had 7 petals in total, I had 700 MP in reserve.
Basically, it was something that I wouldn’t really need, but prepared just in case.
By the way, it was totally unlike the flower on Earth that had the same name.
This white flower spreads its petals like a heptagram. And while it was popular for its mysterious appearance, it also had an inconvenient trait of quickly withering once it had bloomed.
This world believed that the heptagram had the capability of repelling evil; the number “7” was treated as an auspicious number.
This was because there were 7 magic elements in this world: fire, water, earth, wind, thunder, ice, light, and dark. This totaled to 8 elements, which was then subtracted by 1… In other words, after the dark element was omitted from the total.
Meanwhile, the flower on Mob Girl’s forehead… That one was not an Angelo.
It was actually called Lucifero, and it was a different flower that appeared to be similar to the Angelo.
The difference was that it had 8 petals, which represented bad luck.
It couldn’t store mana, and its petals actually contained poison instead.
It was a weak poison that couldn’t kill, but caused the victim to suffer from euphoric hallucinations. It made them unable to differentiate between reality and their delusion, so it was actually quite dangerous1.
It was actually treated as a component for some drugs in some countries of this world.
Unlike Angelo, it didn’t wither quickly. It was a tough flower that lived a long time.
I guess she was acting strangely because that flower had been placed on her head.
Well, it should be harmless if you didn’t inhale the poison though…
“And now, you are pretending to be the Witch… You are such a fool.”
Leila-san sure was harsh!
Just forgive her for imitating me.
It wasn’t like she did it to gain any kind of profit anyway.
But it was bad for her to pretend to be a Witch.
Especially in front of a Knight.
If I were to try to explain how foolish this was, it’d be like if you went to a police station with a realistic toy gun or knife, went up to an armed policeman and then said, “I killed people. You’re next.”
It wasn’t something that could be treated as a joke.
“Fuhn… so you don’t believe me. Then witness the Witch’s power!”
As Mob Girl spread her arms, several tentacles flew toward me.
So you did wish for tentacle play… but while I did want to see Leila do tentacle play, I didn’t want to partake in it myself.
I was more of a voyeur.
And so, I aimed with my hand to shoot out magic to repel it, but…
“I won’t let you touch Elrise-sama!”
Leila stood in front of me, then repelled the tentacle with her sword
Oi Stocco, you’re in the way!
On top of that, the Tentacle thrashed violently, and flung Leila back with her sword as she tried to guard from it.
Then the tentacle flew toward my direction once more, but I easily sliced through it using a sword made of light.
As I felt the resistance during the swing, I noticed something had fallen to the floor.
Once it was cut off, the darkness covering it dissipated, and what appeared was… a delicious looking octopus leg.
…Ah, I see. I understand what’s going on.
“So that’s what happened. I already know who you actually are.”
I had seen through everything!
It noticed that it got caught, and I used light magic to dispel the darkness.
What was revealed was a human-sized octopus that was clinging on to Mob Girl.
It was that. The Octopus that was in the penultimate boss fight before the Witch.
It was also the thing that tried to kidnap Vernell 3 years ago.
Basically, this thing had manipulated Mob Girl and had her name herself as the Witch.
The legs I cut off immediately began to regenerate; it really was eco-friendly.
If it was used as a takoyaki ingredient, then one could eat unlimited takoyaki.
“Demon…!”
“No, it is a Greater Demon. And I understand its plan. Most likely, it’s manipulating Elizabet-san to name herself as Witch, and trying to shift our focus away from the academy.”
The Witch’s true identity was Alexia.
So if anyone else named herself as Witch without calling herself Alexia, there would be no effect.
If one wanted to pretend, they needed to name themselves as Alexia or else it would be meaningless.
But that was information limited only to us, who knew that Alexia = Witch.
It didn’t know that we already knew the truth.
That was why it used someone else to name herself as the Witch. It did such a stupid thing.
From the Octopus’s point of view, there was no point in needlessly revealing information on Alexia (her identity) to us, who supposedly still didn’t have such knowledge yet.
However, that resulted in them forming this stupidly obvious scheme.
“To think you would say that… what else am I besides the Witch who commands this Greater Demon…”
Mob Girl… nah, Octopus who spoke through Mob Girl, still tried to continue its plan to make us believe that Mob Girl = Witch.
But for us, who already knew that Alexia = Witch, there was nothing it could do to make us believe such a farce.
Yet, it seemed that their side didn’t know that we already knew the truth about the Witch.
It would be easy to just say “We already know the true Witch true is Alexia,” but that would be stupid.
One would never knew if and when information was leaked, and one couldn’t guarantee there were no listening devices.
There was a chance there could be others who used magic to listen in… while I should be able to notice it, I couldn’t say the chance was 0.
It was a common trope in Manga, but saying unnecessary things when characters were convinced of their victory was a huge flag before losing.
Saying something like “I will tell you as your souvenir to the land of the dead” was something that often happened when one was captured, and the enemy was led on to needlessly reveal information.
I wanted to avoid that kind of thing as much as possible.
That was why this time I would say vague things that would misdirect the enemy.
“It seems you’re unable to hear it… that girl’s cries for help.”
I also couldn’t hear it though!
With that, I didn’t expose anything regarding Alexia, and made it Mob Girl’s fault instead
The reason I reached the truth was not because I already had information about the Witch.
It was because I heard the Mob Girl’s inner voice crying for help!
As I said that, Mob Girl’s eyes filled with tears. LOL.
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Octo sure has guts if nothing else. To not run away straight after seeing elrise is a worthy achievement.
It’s great that Elrise is so genre savvy
Thanks for chap
Moral of the story:DON’T DO DRUGS, else you’ll end up like her.
Imma guess the victim of the parasitic control still retains all their senses and knows what’s happening
Ah…so that’s the truth behind Elizabet Iblis. She was just a pure girl that loved Elrise, like everyone else, but was poisoned by her own youthful ignorance as she tried to imitate her favorite person. Really…as always, the truth is a lot more pitiful than what is outwardly shown. Well, drugs can only halcogen exasperate what is already there (to a certain degree), so perhaps that is not the full truth?
Anyway…”I can hear even the most silent cries for help.” Of course you can Elrise. Of course you flipping can… Yet another exaggerated “truth” myth about you will be passed down through generations now! After all, obviously, no one is going to think that’s a lie! Ahahaha!
Thank you for the chapter. I need to read the next one right away now!
This is absolutely hilarious. Such blatant bs and no one will even doubt it because ‘SASUGA SAINT-SAMA!’ Ah the perk of the Perfect Saint facade.
yeah, but she need to do all the deeds she had done to earn that, so it’s not as simple as it sounded.
Jajajajajaja Nice reference
The misunderstanding is strong on this one… talk no jutsu even activate without prior notice
she sometimes invokes it on purpose, but sometimes she also fell victim of it…
to be able to hear inner weeping of enermies or crying of inanimate object like swords and such.
are shounen protaganists telepathic of some kind?
at she just claimed that she is capable to, not that she actually could