The fifth side story of Memory Records of Bastard Magic Instructor volume 1. Unlike the other four side stories before it. This story wasn't released in Dragon Magazine first and was made for the volume.
Summary
In a village, Celica is tasked with the extermination of a Lich and its thralls under orders of Queen Alicia VII after four other Imperial Court Mages became MIA. After telling her plan to the village chief, she goes to her place of stay during the mission. In there she meets a young orphaned boy called Glenn Radars who wants to get close to her, a "Magician of Justice". Despite her initial objections, the boy cares for her and succeeds at getting close to her which causes Celica to decide to adopt him after completing her task.However one day Glenn got kidnapped by the Lich. After making her way to the mansion and disabling all her traps. She seemingly succeeds at defeating the Lich and rescuing Glenn, but then he stabs her. It turns out that Glenn was a thrall the whole time and that the Lich turned out to be Henrietta Dool, one of the Imperial Court Mages gone missing. Henrietta reveals that this was all a plan to kill Celica, but before she's able to finish the job, Celica manages to muster enough strength to kill her and Glenn with her Extinction Ray.
Despite her victory, Celica is still wounded from the fight both physically and mentally. She even complicates giving up on life, but before that, she hears a voice calling for help. The voice turns out to be from a boy of similar age to Glenn. The boy lost his memories from Henrietta's experiments and is unable to remember his village or even name. Taking pity on the boy, Celica adopts and gives him the name "Glenn Radars".
Back in the present, Glenn had become an adult and they still lived together. Despite knowing that her time with Glenn would come to an end one day because of her immortality, Celica decides to just enjoy the moments they have now and start having dinner with him.
Tropes:
- Dead All Along: The villagers and the original Glenn Radars were thralls the whole time.
- Dead Guy Junior: It turns out the Glenn Radars we know is this and that also is the reason he doesn't share Celica's last name.
- Driven to Suicide: This nearly happens to Celica, but she managed to get out of this thanks to finding another kid she could take care of.
- The Ending Changes Everything: It's hard to look at the story the same way once it's revealed that the Glenn we got to know in the story isn't The Protagonist of the series.
- Replacement Goldfish: This story reveals that Glenn Radars is this to the original.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Most of this story takes place around a decade before the main story and shows how Celica first met Glenn.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: This SS doesn't mince words that it sucks to be immortal since it causes people to see her as a monster and even if she gets close to people, they will eventually die while she continues to live.
