Having burned the magic dolls to cinders, I let a wicked grin spread across my face.
Kukukuku.
Now I could push the conversation in my favor.
"All right, if you don't want to get burned to a crisp, come on out! I already know every last one of your hiding spots!"
Most of them, at least — not all, for certain. It would've been less hassle if they'd just come out on their own.
As if flustered by my words— "Yes! Yes, yes, yes!!! Right this moment, shamefully answering your summons!!!"
—a girl flew out from among the dolls. She looked like a tiny fairy with dragonfly-like wings sprouting from her back, adorable and no taller than thirty centimeters or so. Not a dwarf — more like something out of a storybook.
The one in front wore a dazzling, frilly, luxurious outfit, while several others in more modest clothing of a similar style fluttered behind her. Overall, they were dressed in dark hues.
"Ta-daaaaa! I am the great— ugh—"
She bit her tongue.
Should I butt in? It seemed she was so used to thought communication that speaking out loud didn't come naturally.
"...You okay?"
I raised a hand to stop her before she could respond.
"I am one of the Ten Great Demon Lords — the Labyrinth Fairy,
She declared this with her flat chest thrust out and her back arched. What was this irritating feeling…
Well, chop to the head it was.
"Owwie!!! What was that for?! You scared me!!!"
The tiny girl dodged and complained despite the blow. She was really something.
Should I smack her again? Should I?
But but but but— Those magic dolls did scare us pretty badly.
No good, no good. I'd get taken out!
She was so noisy. Her voice echoed right through my skull.
"Anyway, you — you're a cheater! Why doesn't 'mental manipulation' work on you?! It's been forever since I ran into someone as ineffective as you!!!"
She was fuming with anger.
So that's why I'd been feeling so irritated — I'd been resisting whatever "mental manipulation" she'd been casting.
But there was no way this fairy was a Demon Lord. Was she still trying to mess with me?
"Hey, if you're going to lie, at least come up with something better. There's no way a fairy like you could be a Demon Lord!"
"Don't talk back to me, brat! Seriously, how rude. What else could I be but a Demon Lord?!"
"Huh? An idiot? Speaking of Demon Lords, I've got a friend named Milim — wasn't that just made up? You can't even compare to her. You're way too weak!"
"Thaaaaaaaat's so stupiiiid!!! You stupid, stupid, stupid!!! You're the one who's stupid!!!!!!"
The fairy named Ramiris screamed at the top of her lungs, then doubled over, gasping for breath before composing herself.
Then she said: "Listen. When you say Milim, you're talking about the one called the unreasonable Demon Lord. She solves everything with brute force. Comparing someone like that to a cute, harmless fairy like me is beyond insulting! You'd better understand that right now or we're going to have problems!"
She was clearly indignant.
Then she continued: "Also, aren't you the one who's a little strange here? What even are you? Why can you use such ridiculous, dangerous techniques?! Do you have any idea how many special abilities you'd need to pull off what you just did?! Please stop doing reckless things. Anyway, whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if you were friends with Milim — so I'll believe you. And you'd better believe me too!"
It didn't seem like she was lying, actually.
Well, whatever. Now that they'd come out, they seemed pretty harmless.
I decided to sit down and hear them out.
For some reason, I ended up preparing tea and snacks.
A moment ago they'd called themselves "guests" — shouldn't it be the other way around?
Oh well.
The kids quickly hit it off with the fairies and were happily eating snacks together. Adorable.
Apparently, the whole plan had been to scare us with those magic dolls first, have some fun, and then reveal themselves.
They said they never actually intended to kill or injure anyone.
That was exactly why I kept getting complaints like: "Aaah… We finally finished assembling the toys we all gathered together, and then you went and ruined them…"
Still, what could I do? I thought they were going to kill us if I didn't kill them first…
"Anyway, that thing was incredibly high-performance! Earth spirits to control weight, water spirits to move all the joints, fire spirits to generate propulsion, wind spirits to regulate heat — the ultimate convergence of elements, the pinnacle of Spirit Engineering, and you just destroyed it…"
She was annoyingly persistent about it.
I probably should've just eaten them and made copies instead. Though whether that would've even worked was anyone's guess…
But the pinnacle of Spirit Engineering? That sounded like it could be connected to what
"Hey, is that the same thing as the magimech soldiers the dwarves and elves were going to develop together?"
"Bingo, biiiingoooo!!! You know your stuff! We couldn't build the 'Spirit Magic Core' — the heart of the thing — so it went berserk! But since the outer shell was just lying around, we brought it back and restored it! Could it be that I'm a genius? Pretty amazing, right?"
Annoying, but admittedly impressive.
Since Spirit Engineering was based on the power of spirits, it made sense that a fairy — whose power was close to that of spirits — would understand its essence.
Anyway, to summarize Ramiris's story: the plan had been to create operational magic dolls powered by the force of spirits.
Magicules would be circulated throughout the body like blood, and pressure applied hydraulically to drive the mechanisms. Weight would be controlled through magic.
It was completely insane.
Just making something jump five meters and then cutting the magic would already make it a weapon.
But depending on how you used it, it could become an incredibly powerful weapon.
She might seem like an idiot, but maybe she was actually brilliant.
"All right, I get that it's impressive.
So, given how impressive you are, I've got a favor to ask!"
I cut to the chase.
I explained the children's situation — honestly, holding nothing back. The children listened with serious faces.
"Oh, oh, oh — I remember now! Someone who came here before and passed the trials. It was Leon, little Leon! That brat actually went and became a Demon Lord. Well, I could take him out with one punch, no problem! Easy! Really…"
Clearly a lie.
Her eyes weren't just shifty — they were spinning in circles.
I listened to the story.
Apparently, Leon had come here when he was still a young boy.
Ramiris's "mental domination" hadn't worked on him at all.
In fact, she'd nearly ended up being controlled by him instead and had panicked.
Ramiris specialized in mental-type magic, specifically illusion magic, but none of it had worked on Leon.
"Anyway, same with you — illusion-type abilities are useless if they don't work! Once they fail, you're completely out of options! That's just how it is for poor little me! That's exactly why I needed those magic dolls as my hands and feet… I thought I'd finally be able to get back at those Demon Lords who laugh at me…"
She was still going on…
She didn't look particularly discouraged, but she kept grumbling anyway.
So Leon, still just a boy at the time, had thoroughly defeated her. She'd had no choice but to cooperate.
He'd apparently been investigating something, so she'd called forth a spirit that governed knowledge for him.
But he'd found no leads, and in a fit of frustration, he'd taken a superior fire spirit under his control and left.
She'd been completely dumbfounded.
"Apparently he made the most absurd request! He wanted me to summon a specific person from another world! Can you believe that? That's impossible, obviously! What an idiot! He looked like he was about to cry… No — he WAS crying! That's right, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he was crying!!! Serves you right!!! Crying like a baby yet still acting all tough — what an idiot!!!"
She worked herself up all on her own.
This was a Demon Lord? Thank goodness. If the first Demon Lord I'd ever met was this one, it was nothing to be proud of.
But wait — was she going to be okay with me bad-mouthing her like this? If she found out…
If I ever caught wind of someone talking about me like this behind my back, I'd have no problem wiping them out.
"Hey…
Were you just thinking something really rude about me?"
"Not at all?"
She eyed me suspiciously, but she was an idiot at heart, so I managed to brush it off easily.
Anyway, the conversation had drifted off-topic.
The point was that I wanted to use these spirits to stop the children's deterioration.
I couldn't expect much from this airhead, but I figured I'd ask.
"So, long story short, I was thinking that maybe spirits could stop the collapse. What do you think?"
At my question, Ramiris put on a serious face.
She flew around each of the children, studying each one's face.
I didn't know she could make an expression like that — one full of maternal warmth, completely unbecoming of a Demon Lord.
"Mm. You see, I'm not only a Demon Lord — I'm also a guide of the sacred. I bear the duty of bestowing the blessings of the sacred spirits upon Heroes. So rest easy — I'm fair like that! It is I — I alone — who maintain the balance of the world!"
And? What was she trying to say?
As I wondered, she turned back to me.
"All right. I'll help with the summoning. You'd better call forth something truly spectacular!"
And just like that, she made her declaration.
It was then that Ramiris gave me a lecture about spirits.
"Spirits are…"
*"When emptiness is filled with power — that is a sacred spirit. The great sacred spirits are nothing more than pure sources of power that simply exist.* *From within that void, two great spirits arose — Light and Darkness.* *It was the very moment the world was born.* *Yet the world was merely a drifting existence.* *Light and shadow, yin and yang — entities that could never intersect, no matter how they reached for one another.* *Then, one day, the great spirit of Time was born.* *It was the child of both Light and Darkness.* *And so, the world began to move.* *The moving world turned, spinning aimlessly without purpose.* *And within the unidirectional flow of life and death, the five great spirits — Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void — were born.* *The world interfered with itself, and eventually reached equilibrium.* *These were the Eight Great Spirits.* *Then the world was filled with light and shrouded in darkness.* *New spirits were born, and they perished.* *Life and death.* *Until the day the world finally reaches its end…"* "So in other words, the sacred spirits came first, and they gave birth to the world and the eight great spirits!"
It was… grand? It was essentially mythology, but these weren't gods. This was probably the truth of this world.
By the way, the great spirits were said to be masses of energy without any sense of self.
Superior fire spirits, for instance, were fragments of that energy that had been carved away.
Like monsters, they were beings in which a sense of self had emerged from those fragments.
Just as magicules could develop consciousness and become monsters.
In a word, it was a phenomenon beyond comprehension. I couldn't understand it, and frankly, I didn't want to.
But I did understand what she was trying to say.
In other words— "So you're saying I need to carve some off, right?"
Ramiris nodded vigorously.
To give birth to new spirits — or rather, to summon spirits that drifted aimlessly.
It wouldn't be easy.
Even just subordinating spirits that possessed willpower and had been born of their own accord would be difficult.
And there was the question of whether the children could even handle it.
But still.
I had no choice but to try.
Whether powerless spirits could neutralize the problem, or whether the spirits themselves could manage it — I'd figure that out after I summoned them.
I looked at the children.
Every one of them gazed back at me with serious faces.
"Will it be okay?"
"YEAH!!!"
What a stupid question.
All that was left was to trust and act.