Zachary’s eyes widened in shock. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. An older man in plain gray armor turned toward me with a surprisingly vivid motion and spoke.

  “My name is Montaigne de Bleary, and I am cleansing my domain of raiders. Your Highness, did you come to my lands” - his gaze locked sharply on me - “to lend a hand in freeing my people and our enslaved peasants, or to rescue the raiders and let them escape with their spoils?”

  “Y-Your Highness,” Zachary stammered, “may I introduce my father, Viscount de Bleary?”

  The viscount merely tsked, keeping his eyes fixed on me. He’d already introduced himself perfectly—why was this child talking?

  With my gaze locked on the older man, I exhaled slowly. What he’d said wasn’t wrong, and that put me in a bind.

  He had a large frame, almost a head taller than Zachary, dressed in heavy armor that looked old and well-used, yet well maintained. An obviously accomplished warrior. A mountain of a man.

  He and two of the men surrounding Alice—both towering over her—were somewhere around level sixty, probably his captains. The other two were lower level, about the same as Zachary, and from their resemblance I guessed they were brothers or at least close relatives. One was tall and thin, the other broader and shorter, but their faces, freed from their helmets, shared strikingly similar features.

  Just as I was scrambling for a way to explain the situation, my mana sensed a disturbance rushing toward me at tremendous speed. Someone was shooting from barely ten meters away, the sound of the blast hadn’t even reached me before I reacted.

  Bullets aren’t that dangerous for high-level individuals; it would have been like taking a punch to the head. Still, who likes getting punched in the head?

  It wasn’t a complete surprise, I had seen the idiot moving, as had many others, creeping forward and raising his weapon, but I hadn’t expected him to actually fire. In hindsight, that was stupid of me. Given how far I outclassed them, I simply couldn’t imagine anyone being that stupid.

  I didn’t even flinch. There was no need to move. The bullet melted in midair, dissolving into a puff of toxic lead vapor. Maybe I should’ve decomposed it completely, erased it from existence. Otherwise, with enough bullets, I might actually get a little dumber.

  As the sound and blast wave reached me, I was already scanning the group for further threats.

  The shot seemed to have been a signal. Farther back, someone loosed an incendiary arrow, but it, too, disintegrated in midair. Several people sprang into motion, and one warrior triggered a skill, almost gliding over the ground toward me with a terrible battle cry.

  The cry turned into a scream of horror for the briefest instant before it was erased completely—his body following the bullet and the arrow, disintegrating and vanishing into the air.

  It occurred to me that I’d been very wrong in my previous magical assumptions... not that that should surprise anyone who knows me or my theories. In my defense, I’m not a trained mage; I never learned formal magical theory. Okay, now I’m kind of a mage… but what I know comes from White Flower, and even that’s just bits and pieces. And she’d been an unorthodox, self-taught mage—an archmage, to be honest.

  If Flo is an archmage, what does that make me? An arch-arch-mage? Oh, right. Arch-demon.

  I’d long assumed my mana was intrinsically destructive. I used it to “disinfect” my friends and kill the little parasites that plagued them. But it wasn’t that my mana was inherently destructive, destruction was only one function it could perform. How had I been so stupid to misunderstand that?

  Just now, the viscount’s troops were inside my mana domain and yet they weren’t being harmed, aside from being weighed down by its density. If I’d wanted, I could have eliminated them as easily as I’d eliminated those parasites back then. It would have taken only a couple of seconds; the forest would have been thoroughly “disinfected.”

  As I glanced at the viscount, then at Zachary, I realized that “disinfecting” the area might be a little too extreme. Maybe I wasn’t ready for that. Zachary’s eyes were wide with shock and disbelief, while the viscount turned away from me, raising his hands. You don’t turn your back on an enemy unless you believe they’re not your enemy. He was probably trying to stop the attack—but judging by the hatred and determination in his troops’ eyes, I doubted he had any chance of success. Maybe their anger was even justified.

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  They’d likely planned to strike at Alice, and now they’d chosen to attack me instead. It didn’t seem like the viscount himself had ordered it, more likely some of his men.

  Why would a bunch of… well, several hundred men attack a dragon and expect to win? Their heroic determination was admirable in principle, but laughable in practice.

  True, the only way low-level fighters can deal with high-level ones is through sheer numbers, swarming them, hoping that relentless attacks will slow them down, disrupt their casting, and eventually deal enough damage to bring them down.

  And it works. Sometimes.

  But not when the scales are this uneven. You can’t tip the balance, no matter how hard you jump up and down with determination, when the other side weighs a ton and you weigh sixty pounds.

  I transformed the area into a burning inferno, because flames would be more gentle than caustically devouring them. In an instant, every man and beast was engulfed by raging fire. Weapons glowed red and melted; the bindings that held their armor burned away and gave out. The flames were so intense they devoured everything, including their mana. Mages gasped for air, and terrified horses reared and bucked, throwing their riders before collapsing. I didn’t want to melt the armor completely; that would’ve been a bit over the top.

  The dancing flames were a beauty to behold - my fire, hungry and alive, eager to consume everything: their armor, their mana, even their lives. Especially their mana, which pulsed like tiny intrusions within my domain.

  The power at my fingertips was exhilarating. The magic demanded to be used, and all the mana I’d kept coiled around me now expanded freely. I even used my newly learned mana-funneling technique to extend the area, covering their entire army. An unexpected military application of peaceful research.

  Jin’Sue would not be proud of me.

  At least I hadn’t pushed the fire against their flesh. Somewhere inside me, an alarm bell started to ring. Their lives?

  I closed my eyes, and the flames vanished instantly. Only a few embers flickered among the half-burned trunks before dying out. It had been only a few seconds—but men and beasts alike were down, utterly defeated.

  Grubber’s head lowered beside mine, his eyes bright with pride. I could feel his enthusiasm. He was proud of me.

  “No, Grubber. You’re not to finish them,” I said, placing a hand on his brow and disappointing him in the process.

  So only I got to have fun? This little dragon was all for teamwork!

  I shook my head and Alice reached out to scratch his neck, offering him comfort.

  How did she even know he needed that?

  I turned my attention to the humans scattered across the charred landscape. Did I go too hard on them? But they were still alive, I told myself, salvageable.

  I knelt beside Zachary and poured a few drops from one of my healing potions between his parched lips. His breathing was shallow, but steadying. His eyes began to regain focus as the potion took effect, and he lifted his head to look at me.

  “Take this potion and make them drink,” I said, pointing to the people around us. “Then gather the men and go back.”

  “But... but...”

  “They should be mostly alive. I didn’t strike to kill,” I explained. “Those three healers at the end of the column, I spared them. They’ll help.”

  I felt a flicker of pride that I’d managed to control my fire well enough not to burn the healers or their mana. They’d have plenty of work ahead, the poor devils.

  He didn’t seem convinced by my words. Rising unsteadily, he glanced down at his scorched clothes, then gripped the healing potion tightly and hurried to give some to his father.

  I sighed as my mana swept over them. One cannot burn armor without a bit of collateral damage.

  Slowly, people began to stir across the surreal landscape. Groans and wails broke the silence, followed by the creaking of charred wood beneath their steps. I’d cooled most of the area, the molten metal had hardened into dark pools, the embers were dying, but I hadn’t dared do it too abruptly, for fear of snuffing out what life remained or freezing them all in place.

  As I turned to leave, hurried footsteps sounded behind me.

  “What about the slaves?” Zachary called.

  I turned to face him, but he didn’t flinch.

  “They took many of our families,” he said, pointing behind him. “They took the Aertya... I fear there will be no Night of the Ear Marking this year.”

  Oh well. They’d been trying to save their families. That explained some of their stubbornness, their insistence on pushing past all reason. I sighed.

  “I’m looking for them. Give me time, Zachary,” I said, then shadowmelded to go speak with the orcs. Alice followed, fading into shadow in turn, then Grubber turned and leapt skyward.