“Luqa, wait for me.”

Lucia made her way beside me as I walked towards the village square. Today, the marketplace was open and bustling.

We had done more magic training this morning. The two of us were now learning useful non-elemental magic, such as defensive barrier spells, sense-enhancing spells, and healing. I also continued building up my repertoire of elemental magic, now tackling the intermediate spells.

Lucia, being of wind affinity, focused on learning mostly wind magic when it came to elemental magic. She seemed to be talented at it; my mother herself said so. This morning, she had successfully created a tornado.

What a scary pair of six-year-olds we made.

“So, what do you wanna eat today?” I asked Lucia.

“Delicious meat-skewers.” She responded to my question confidently and promptly, with a sparkle in her eyes. This girl certainly knows what she wants.

“We had that last time, though didn’t we? You don’t want something else?”

“No. It was delicious last time, so this time, it’ll be delicious today too.”

What flawless logic, no arguing with that.

We reached the marketplace, full of stalls peddling various goods and produce.

“C’mon, c’mon, let’s go.” Lucia pulled me forwards impatiently by the hand, towards the stall selling grilled meat skewers.

“Hey! How you doing, you two? The usual for ya?”

The vendor of the stall selling grilled meat recognized us as regulars as we stepped forwards to get our food.

“Yes! Two of those skewers, please,” I said while handing him a couple of copper coins. I admired the two skewers he passed to me. Fatty chunks of meat alternating with grilled, fresh vegetables and mushrooms. Giving one of them to Lucia, we began walking back. But before I could enjoy this heavenly food, before I could even take a single bite, an annoyance reared its head.

“Well, well, look who it is. The two freaks.”

Two rugged boys, a few years older than us, blocked our way. This wasn’t the first time I saw these two, who intended to torment us.

“What are you half-blood mutts walking around here for?”

The two of them made mild threats to us, the stockier of the two getting close up to my face.

Sigh. What a pain. Let a man eat his meal in peace.

I kept sighing, contemplating how to deal with this.

“Hey, so scared you can’t even say a word, huh?”

Bystanders around started to look towards us. I reflected upon my possible choices. If I took my reaction too far, it would have the opposite intended effect. I didn’t want the whole village to be wary of me.

“Huh?! Huh?!”

He put his face a few inches away from mines, grunting what he probably thought were intimidating noises. He was definitely succeeding in revolting me across all fronts, though.

What now? If I’m too passive, it’ll be turning a blind eye to the problem as well, practically encouraging them to be no-good troublemakers amusing themselves by picking on the helpless. No, my strategy needed to meet a golden ratio between two extremes.

“You goddamn deaf or something?!”

The stocky boy shoved me on the shoulder.

“Shut the hell up, I’m busy thinking.”

I responded with a stronger shove, causing him to stumble over, falling flat on his ass with a surprised expression.

What a god-damned loser. Thinking he’s strong, acting hot shit, and then being nothing more than a weakling with only a big mouth in the end. Something about that really, unreasonably ticks me off.

I glanced over at Lucia behind me, silent this whole time. Her eyes meeting mine, she shrugged and started to eat her skewer.

“You asshole!” The taller of the two went up to me, with the ferocity of a kitten. “And you! Stop eating your food in the middle of this!” He turned towards Lucia. And slapped the skewer out of her hand.

Oh. No. Now you made it worse. Thanks a lot.

The moment her delicious skewer hit the ground, she started to tremble. Her green eyes became cold as she stared at the two who dared to ruin something precious to her.

“Hahaha! She’s gonna cry,” The stocky yelped, picking himself up from the ground.

You two don’t understand what’s coming to you, don’t you?

“Spirits of the wind, wanderers of the weldin…”

“What’s this weirdo whispering?” The tall boy stared puzzled at her.

Is she casting [Tornado]?! Was she trying to kill them?!

“Hey, hey, Lucia, that’s enough, isn’t it? I’ll buy you another skewer, so let’s stop that,” I begged.

A dark future flashed in my head. Lucia and Luqa, deemed as criminals by the village of Wehrau. Kicked out for destroying half of the village and taking the lives of two innocent children. Wandering as refugees, stuck with taking care of this meat-skewer-obsessed girl.

“… shake the earth…”

Yep. There’s really no easy way out of this.

I placed my palm atop Lucia’s head — and delivered a pulse of mana to her to distract her spell-casting.

“…with the fury of your tempe— Oooww!” Lucia flinched, her focus and intent to use wind magic dissipated. “Why’d you stop me? They’re meanies who need to be punished.”

“…Fine. Will this satisfy you then?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I turned back towards the two boys and waved my hand at them. A wicked grin appeared on my face as I anticipated my sweet, sweet retaliation. Suddenly, the earth swallowed them whole, leaving only their heads above the ground. I squatted down in front of them, a deathly grave expression on my face.

“Tell her you’re sorry, please.”

“Aaaah, let me go, let me go, you freak!” cried the tall boy. The stocky boy just opted to stare at me in fear.

I’m sorry you two, I swear this is for your own good. Definitely not because your incessant talking and insufferable nature ticked me off just a tiny bit.

I dropped a large ball of water on their heads.

“Tell her. You’re sorry.”

“No, never!”

A continuous stream of harshly-cold water was now falling upon their heads, while the earth entrapping them slowly tightened its grip around them. Now, it was just a matter of waiting until their spirits broke. Or until they somehow drowned. Or until they’re crushed to death.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have messed with you…” The tall boy eventually relented not too long after.

The water stopped and the earth loosened its grip around them.

“Cool, be on your way now, boys.” The earth spat them back up. They immediately ran as fast as they could away from us. I looked back at a slightly less miffed Lucia.

“Happy now?” I asked while patting her shoulder.

“No.”

Are you kidding me?

“My food… buy me more!”

The things I went through to protect the world from this monster in the mantle of a little girl.

***

“Gyahahahaha! Are ya kiddin’ me?” Tavarius heartily laughed as I recounted what happened earlier with the two so-called bullies at the marketplace. “But still Luqa, don’t you think you went a bit too far?”

“Yep. Totally realized that.” Some of the villagers had given me dirty looks during that whole incident. My frantic apologies to the bystanders were mostly met with a chilly reception, unfortunately, though it made sense why. They saw a kid with an evil smile abusing his power to torment two poor boys. Though those two poor boys weren’t exactly blame-free.

“But if I didn’t do what I did, this thing here could’ve caused a tragedy,” I said, pointing towards Lucia sitting beside me. All three of us sat by the riverside. She paid dutiful attention to the not just one, not just two, but three skewers in her hands.

“Yea, ever since Lucia’s been learning wind magic, she’s gotten even scarier. I wouldn’t want to see her in the forest alone at night,” Tavarius said with a shiver. Underneath the joke though lay a problem.

Lucia had truly been out of control. If she didn’t change that behavior, who knows what could happen in the future. Worse yet, no one reprimanded her for it yet. She had almost used her power to harm someone weaker than her. That didn’t sit right with me.

But then I realized. I was much, much worse than her. I myself didn’t just threaten to use my power, but I also just straight up used my power to torment someone weaker than me. My hypocrisy laid itself before me.

“Lucia. In all seriousness, what you did was wrong,” I said in a firm tone while I looked into her eyes. “Trying to use such powerful magic against someone weaker than you. That’s something you should never do.”

She went silent. “…But you did the same thing though, right?” the girl asked weakly.

“Yes, you’re right about that. In the end, I did something bad, too. We should both never do what we did again, okay?”

“Why did you do it then?”

That was a bit difficult to answer. The truth for why seemed stupid now that I thought about it. I didn’t have to put them through that weird magic torture I did, as aggressive and mean-spirited as the two boys were to us.

If I had to blurt out an excuse, it was that they really pissed me off earlier for some reason. But logically, I shouldn’t have done what I did.

I hurt him simply because I wanted to? To show him his place? To see his insufferable face twist in pain? I’m… terrible. What’s wrong with me?

I could have just dragged Lucia away and reprimanded her like I was doing now. I could have dealt with the situation in a way that didn't involve hurting someone unnecessarily. I messed up and that was the end of it.

“I don’t know why I did it, to be honest,” I responded. “I’m… really sorry. I did something really bad. It was a mistake and I shouldn’t have dealt with it in that way. Magic should be used to defeat strong monsters and to defend your friends… not to harass people and show off how powerful you are.”

Ever since I was born into this world with this… sense of awareness, I’ve felt that who I was, was set in stone. I had a common sense as well as a mental intelligence probably beyond my age, for whatever reason. I felt that I wouldn’t make mistakes, that all the actions I chose were born out of the mechanical gears of intelligence. How stupid of me.

Who knew a boy smacking a stick with grilled meat down to the ground would cause me to realize that I wasn’t infallible and that I could make mistakes and misjudgments? Life is weird. But in a sense, it made me relieved.

I could make mistakes, but I could also realize I’ve made a mistake.

I could turn back before I go too far on the deep end.

Welp. I still obviously have some growing up left to do. Good thing I have some years left to do that.

“Okay. I’m sorry, then. I promise I won’t do something like that again.” Lucia broke me from my thoughts, facing me with sincere remorse. “But you keep your promise too, or I’ll hate you for being a liar.”

“Yep, I’ll keep that same promise dear then. I won’t do anything bad like that anymore. I’ll use magic only to do good things.”

“What are you, her new dad?”

Tavarius suddenly interjected.

“No, where did that weird comment come from?”

“Nu-uh, you’re wrong Big Bro Var, Luqa is Luqa, while Daddy is Daddy.”

Lucia and I responded simultaneously.

“Man, look at you two kids get along,” he said, refusing to answer my question or elaborate. “Well, time to head back for training. By the way, you start packing yet for the journey in a few days?”

Ah. I forgot about that in the midst of today’s incident. Ersham had offered to take Tavarius to explore the areas outside the village on a mini-adventure. According to the chronicles I’ve read these past few years, the demonlands that we lived in were home to some of the continent’s most dangerous creatures.

That made adventuring here an especially dangerous occupation, but also incredibly lucrative if one could rise to the challenge. If a lucky adventurer with rare monster parts could make the treacherous journey from the demonlands to the human nations, fortune awaited them. If they could get past the discrimination from humans, of course.

When Ersham made the offer to Tavarius during a training session, I immediately asked if I could accompany them, and in turn, Lucia asked to come as well. Surprisingly, Ersham accepted.

“Nope, I’ve honestly forgotten about it till now. Thanks for the reminder.”

“Don’t forget it! If you turn up the morning of the day we leave unpacked, you’ll definitely be left behind in this village!”

Duly noted.

“C’mon Lucia, let’s head back. My mother’s probably waiting for us.”

“Yes.”

A journey outside. I had lived my six years here naive to what the world was like outside of this quiet sanctuary. I had learned though, through the countless books on my mother’s shelf, that outside this small paradise, there was a land ravaged by the Great Demon War three centuries ago.

My curiosity burned with anxious desire. What was the world truly like outside this village?

***

Two young demons were hanging out as they did as usual. Though, something about them today was different, despite how much they tried to pretend that nothing had changed. They were wary. Scared. Anxious.

And then they saw it. The source of their fear.

A white-haired boy, a few years younger than them. The half-demon that terrorized them yesterday.

“I-It’s him!”

“U-Uh, let’s get out of here, man.”

The boy came running after them. Their fear gave way to complete terror. Why was he after them again? Would he make the earth completely swallow them whole this time?

“Wait, guys! I’m not here to hurt you.”

“He’s n-not?” “Is he serious?”

The boy sighed, bashfully scratching his head while pausing, as if focusing to remember the words he would say.

“I’m… I’m sorry for what I did yesterday.”

The two were completely confused now.

“I shouldn’t have hurt you guys like that. Even if you guys were being complete jerks to me and Lucia, I went way too far. I promise I’ll never do anything like that again.”

The two looked at each other, dumbfounded. They wouldn’t have to live the rest of their lives in this village terrorized by this force of nature for picking the wrong fight?

“…though if you do come back to bully me or Lucia again, you won’t come out completely unscathed. Though no crazy magic again, okay? Sorry again.”

The boy wore an easy and innocent smile.

“…and, by the way, we half-demons aren’t as bad as you think. Though Lucia and I probably make for really bad examples. Tell you what, if you need my help with something, you can ask me to use my magic. Hell, I’ll even heal you if you get injured if you want. Think of it as an expression of my apology. Don’t be shy.”

The boy turned around, walking away, before he turning his face back at them to say one last thing.

“And one more thing. No more bullying others, okay? Don’t grow up to be rotten adults. Peace~”

The two, silent this whole time, stared at the boy with a mixture of fear, astonishment and awe. What was this boy’s deal?

And as the white-haired boy walked away himself, he carried a satisfied expression and a genuine smile.