Chapter 56: Bad with children

"They seem to be doing really well."

It occurred to me that if I'm always doing all of the fighting, my companions will never get the chance to grow, so I'm going to stay out of this one for their sake. Just so we're clear, I'm not doing this just because I don't want to get close to that clown, if it looks like there's any danger, I'll jump in immediately.

Not that it looks like they need me. Ranna just joined the fight and she summoned a small army of frogs, including many of the ones with bodies that look like muscular men, those are just terrifying...

Mari is amazing! Not only is she great at cooking but she's also able to fight clowns! And it looks like she's winning!

And Arana is casually directing her spiders to capture the demon soldiers. She doesn't look like she's taking this seriously at all...

"Well, if nothing else, it's nice to know that they can defend themselves even without my help... uh? Is someone here?"

Someone is tapping on my back... no, wait, it's not a person. It's a skeleton animated with a 'corpse puppet spell'. And it's not tapping me, it's trying to stab me with a spear, but it seems like it broke.

"Who animated you? They should be somewhere around here..."

Following the faint thread of mana used to control the skeleton leads me to a large rock nearby, someone seems to be hiding behind.

"Hello."

"Ah! How did you find me?"

He looks like a really young boy of around seven years old. Or maybe eight? He has a pair of short horns, sharp teeth, silver hair, and gray skin. A gray demon, if I'm not mistaken. Even though the top of his head only reaches to my belly, he's still looking up at me defiantly.

"Stay away! I'm not afraid of you!"

"Why should you be afraid of me?"

His skeleton is still trying to stab me with its broken spear, but it doesn't have any strength at all. This kid doesn't seem to be any good at using magic.

"You shouldn't play around with skeletons, you could poke somebody's eye out."

"I'm not playing! I'm a real necromancer of the gray demon tribe!"

Aw, he thinks that he's a real mage, what a cute kid.

"If you want to become a mage, maybe you could try to find someone who can train you."

"I've already been trained by my big sister! I'll show you what I can do!"

'Shadow bind'

He tries casting that one spell I tend to use a lot. But he only manages to create a single rope, and it turns into dust before reaching me, not because of my stats or because I did anything, he just cast the spell wrong.

"I-I won't give up so easily!"

'Shadow bind'

This time the rope actually wraps around me, but he fails to tie it up and it simply falls to the ground.

"Huh."

He looks like he's trying to hold back his tears.

"Ah, don't worry, you tried your best."

He looks so adorable that I cannot help but ruffle his hair a little. I know I shouldn't but there's no way I can resist.

"D-don't touch me! What are you trying to do!? I told you that I'm not afraid of you!"

He says that, but he looks really scared.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything bad to you."

I try to reassure him by giving him a gentle smile, and as soon as he sees it, he starts crying.

"I'm sorry! I was lying! I'm really afraid! Please don't hurt me!"

Huh... it looks like I've still not been able to master the art of the gentle smile. That's too bad... I like children a lot, but I'm really bad with them...

"Please don't cry. I promise that I'm not a bad person."

"M-my sister is the high necromancer of the gray demons! If you kill me she will avenge me!"

"I said that I won't hurt you... and what does 'high necromancer' mean?"

"The gray demon tribe has the best necromancers among all of Kalroth's followers, and she's the best of them! There's no way you can beat her!"

Mmm, a female gray demon necromancer who's one of Kalroth's followers... why does that sound familiar?

Oh! I remember! I met someone who fit that description some time ago. I think that was just before I fought that annoying ant monster.

However, that cannot be this boy's sister. He says that she's the best necromancer around here, but the one I met was rather mediocre, so she must be a different person.

"So why are you here anyway? This place is dangerous, some people are fighting nearby."

"That's why I'm here! I came with the soldiers to defeat the people those fairies brought with them. Aren't you one of those? That's why I attacked you."

Did he attack me? I'm not sure if what he did can be really considered to be an 'attack'...

"Don't lie. You're too young to be a soldier."

"I'm not lying! Even if I'm young, I'm strong enough to fight!"

"No, you're not. What you were doing cannot even be called real magic."

I don't like to be harsh with children, but if he thinks that he's strong he might get himself into trouble.

"Then what is real magic supposed to be like?"

"I can show you if you want."

'Corpse puppet'

I use my mana to take control of the same skeleton he had been using and I reinforce it a little. Then I make it punch the rock that the kid had been using to hide and it cracks in half.

"W-what? But that's impossible... a normal skeleton cannot do that..."

"Well, if you cannot even do something like that you shouldn't be playing at being a soldier. You could end up getting hurt you know."

He was probably lying, but if those guys really let a child this young join a battle I'm going to have to give them a scolding later.

Speaking of the battle, are they still not done? Well, as far as I can see from here, at least Mari has already beaten the clown and now she's stepping on his head. He won't start moving again if I get close, will he?

"Mmm, now that I think about it, this might be a good chance to test my 'fight stopping' magic."

"'Fight stopping' magic? What are you talking about now?"

"You see, some time ago I was able to stop a battle by scaring everyone with a really strong spell, but I don't think that I should use something so destructive every time I want to stop a fight. So I came up with another spell that looks even more impressive but is actually not dangerous at all."

"That's dumb, a real soldier won't be scared by a spell that doesn't even do anything."

Yes, that's what I thought as well, this is probably not going to work is it...

"Well, at least I should give it a try. Wait here for a bit, I'll be back soon."

I grow my wings and go flying to the battleground. There's not a lot of soldiers left but it should be good enough for a test.

'Scary spectacle'

I should probably think of a better name for this spell, if they heard that, they would probably laugh instead of being afraid...

At least the spell is working. The sky is obscured by a swirling vortex of dark clouds and most of the surrounding light is being sucked into it, causing the entire area to be covered in a blanket of darkness.

Everyone looks up at me as I stand at the center of the vortex. The dark mana above me descends in the form of black lightning, but it's so weak that it dissipates before reaching the ground. As I thought, this looks way too silly to be intimidating...

"Listen! That's enough fighting. You should all... er... drop your weapons!"

My magic also increases the volume of my voice and makes it sound more powerful, but I got nervous and it ended up sounding dumb instead... I bet that they're all going to laugh at me...

"We surrender!!!"

"Please spare us!!!"

Oh! It looks like I lost that bet. They're actually dropping all of their weapons and surrendering. Arana's spiders are tying them all without any resistance, I guess that my experiment was a success after all!

Well, since it looks like this has been solved, I'll go back with the kid for now.

"Sorry to make you wait, now we can go to... huh? What's wrong?"

"You... I... no..."

He's sitting on the ground with a blank expression, and he looks like he's too terrified to even be able to speak...

There's no way that he got scared by my spell, right? I told him that it was not anything dangerous, and he himself said that a soldier would not get scared by a spell that didn't do anything.

"You don't need to be afraid, nobody is going to hurt you."

"Sis... save me... please..."

And now he's calling for his big sister, he's crying a lot and I have the feeling that if I get any closer to him it will only get worse...

Also... huh... now that I look at his pants it seems like he just... hopefully, someone will have a change of clothes for him.

I'm really bad with children...

forli

I wonder how many people remember the necromancer that Luna mentioned. Sometimes I like to introduce character or concepts that will become relevant later, but that might not be a good idea for a web novel since people might forget.