The Boy Magician

"Ahahahaha!"

A girl's laughter echoed across the hilly terrain. Chasing after her was a swift horse clad in supple muscle.

"Come on, come on, try and catch me!"

She would stop every now and then, only to dodge away right in front of the horse's nose. The scene was almost like a painting… or was it?

"She's seriously playing tag with a horse, that Ojou-san."

"And without even using magic, no less."

Though only two years old, Matsukaze's running ability had already blossomed considerably.

Even so, the horse still couldn't catch up to Ria. It had been chasing her for hours now.

"Rather, I think it's more impressive that the horse can keep running like that."

"Is that thing really a horse? Maybe it's actually a unicorn with a broken horn?"

"Unicorns apparently die if their horns break, so I don't think so…"

When Ria played with Matsukaze, her mental age clearly seemed to drop.

"So Ojou can make that kind of face too, huh."

"She's like that when she's at Master Rufus's place, or outside the castle."

The party trudged along, crossing the hills and gradually making their way down a road where the trees grew dense.

According to the merchant's stories, the number of monsters flowing down from the north had been increasing. Normally they would travel with a caravan, but they had Ria with them after all.

They could move faster this way, and it was judged to be less dangerous.

Ria and Matsukaze went ahead, walking side by side along the road.

It was Matsukaze, with his wild hearing, who noticed it first.

He snorted roughly. Shortly after, Ria noticed it too.

On the road through the forest. Far ahead, out of sight, she could hear footsteps.

"Matsukaze, go back to those two."

With that, Ria shot off like a gale.

Far ahead on the straight road, she spotted a figure.

Chasing after a small child was an obvious humanoid monster. It was an Orc-san, the kind she had beaten to death countless times before.

The child fled from the orcs with an almost comically rapid leg movement, occasionally turning back to throw something. Each time, an orc would fall, their numbers gradually decreasing.

(A mage?)

That strange leg speed made sense if that was the case. However, even from a distance, she could tell from the child's expression that there was no composure left and exhaustion had set in.

Still, it was a lucky kid.

"Hang in there! Just a little more!"

When she called out, the child seemed to notice her. Still with those unusually rapid legs, the child ran desperately toward her.

Placing her hand on the katana at her waist, Ria ran past the child.

The magnificently built orc was holding a club. It raised the weapon to swing at Ria.

But before the club could come down, Ria slashed across the orc's flank as she ran past.

A thin red line appeared, and from there the orc's innards spilled out. It wasn't dead yet, but its combat capability was gone.

Ria moved on to the next orc. Their completely uncoordinated movements made them easy targets.

She cut off its leg before it could attack. After dodging an attack, she cut off another's neck.

Neither wound needed to be fatal. The point was just to take away their ability to chase the child.

She incapacitated over ten orcs with a single stroke each. The only one left at the end was an orc with a physique one size larger than the rest.

An individual called a High Orc or Orc Leader. Even facing an enemy with abilities superior to regular orcs, Ria didn't drop her relaxed posture.

"Got quite a bit of grease on it. This is why I don't like orcs."

She looked at her blade, averting her gaze from the orc. The orc had enough combat instinct to see this as an opening.

But not enough experience to recognize it as bait.

The orc swung its club with speed, but met no resistance. Ria had stepped back by mere millimeters, reading the attack perfectly, and silently thrust her katana through the orc's neck.

Even with their high vitality, orcs couldn't survive having their central nervous system destroyed.

All that remained was the simple task of granting swift deaths to the orcs lying and groaning on the ground.

"Th-thank you, Nee-chan."

The child, still breathing heavily, called out. About ten years old, perhaps. With a well-featured, intelligent-looking face.

"Yeah, glad you're safe. But more importantly…"

Ahead where Ria was looking, in the direction the child had come from, over ten orcs lay fallen with fatal wounds.

"That wasn't done with a weapon. Are you a mage?"

Those obviously fast-moving legs. They must have been enhanced with magic.

"Yeah. Orcs started building a nest near the village, so I tried to exterminate them, but I underestimated them a bit."

The child stared at Ria intently. Not with the eyes of someone looking at something beautiful, but…

"Nee-chan is a mage too… right?"

If they were both mages, the child should be able to sense Ria's magical power. But Ria hadn't used any magic at all aside from body enhancement before reaching the battlefield.

Resorting to close combat once battle began was one of Ria's bad habits.

"A magic swordsman. Though I use a katana, so I suppose 'sword' isn't quite right."

She wiped the grease from the blade clean, checking that the edge hadn't chipped.

"Even so, that was impressive. Being able to defeat this many orcs at your age."

Just as their conversation reached that point, Lulu and Carlos finally arrived, led by Matsukaze.

"Whoa～. Ojou, even if your opponents are just orcs, could you please fight a bit more carefully?"

"It couldn't be helped. I was saving someone."

"You're Nee-chan's companions, right? Thanks for saving me. I'm Serge. I live in the village up ahead."

"I'm Ria. That's Carlos, and the one with the staff is Lulu."

Seeing Lulu after she removed her hood, Serge let out an excited cheer.

"An elf! Amazing! It's my first time seeing one! Wow～, this is so fantasy～!"

Was it really that surprising? Ria surveyed the aftermath of the battle with a wry smile.

"Still, cleaning this up is going to be a pain. Should I char them with fire magic and scatter them in the forest?"

"Ah, it's fine. Leave it to me."

Saying that, Serge placed his hand on an orc corpse and began muttering something.

An instant later, the corpse had completely vanished.

"Oh?"

Ria couldn't help but voice her surprise. But Lulu's reaction was something else entirely.

"C-could that be space-time magic?!"

The highest difficulty of magic, used by a boy in this rural backwater. It was unbelievable to Lulu.

With a proud expression, Serge disposed of the corpses. It took only a few minutes.

"I'll bury these in a corner of the village later to use as fertilizer. Hey Nee-chan, could you give me a ride to the village? I used the acceleration magic a bit too much and I'm almost out of magical power."

While Lulu continued muttering "How can he use space-time magic…" in a daze, Serge made his request to Ria.

"Sure, no problem. Matsukaze, give this kid a ride."

Matsukaze nodded with a whinny.

But this time, it was Serge whose face showed surprise.

"Matsukaze?"

"Yeah, that's this one's name. What do you think? A fine horse, isn't he?"

But Serge's eyes went wide, his lips trembling with excitement.

"Could you possibly be… a reincarnator?"

The words that spilled from Serge's lips.

They were unmistakably in Japanese.