The Reason For Helping
“She’s living at a place like this huh”
I, who hid and followed behind the young girl after parting with her, am now overlooking an empty house where the young girl appears to be living in. Before I know it, the sky has turned dark and night has fallen.
Perhaps the house, that I finally arrived amidst that, hasn’t been used for several years, there are holes here and there, and the roof has parts that have collapsed as well. Just looking from the outside, there are spider webs, and rats running around. It’s a fairly pleasant place.
Into such an empty house, the young girl entered, and in a corner, she sat down. I slipped through the wall and went inside as well, making sure she doesn’t notice.
When I killed my presence and approached the crouching girl, I could hear sobs from her. It can’t be helped. Judging from her appearance, she’s 9 or 10 years old. It’s, still an age where she yearns for her parents after all; although our parents died before we’re old enough to understand what’s going on around us and we’re raised by our uncle, there were several times where my younger sister cried because our parents weren’t around.
“……Uuu……Otou-samaa……Okaa-samaa”
……It’s useless. It just overlaps my younger sister no matter what. Her age was also right about this age after all. Even though they aren’t alike.
As I’m looking at the young girl from a distance for a while, I hear the sound of a wall being broken through. When the young girl hurriedly raised her face and ran towards the sound, men who appear to be the companions of the men in the afternoon were standing there.
“Oi, you guys. Catch her!”
“Kuu, Aqua Shot!”
The young girl casts a ball of water at the men who try to get close to her. Although it’s amazing that she can nimbly cast magic at this age, it’s a bad matchup for her. The men are probably used to going up against Magicians as well. They nimbly avoid the ball of water that flies over.
And then, two men grab the young girl’s hands from both sides. The young girl struggles but she doesn’t even budge in the face of an adult man’s strength. A leader-like man touches the young girl’s body. It appears that he’s not lusting after the young girl but searching for something. Come to think of it, she appears to be protecting something too when I met her at the back alley.
“Kuu, let, let go! Don’t touch me!”
“What a noisy brat”
“Kyaa!”
Irritated by the young girl’s struggles, perhaps, the man strikes the young girl’s cheek. It seems the young girl cut the inside of her mouth, blood is quickly flowing from the corner of her lips. Her eyes are tearing up from the pain, but she’s glaring at the man stubbornly. However, in the next instant, that expression of hers crumbles.
“Aniki, this is it”
“Aah!”
The man, who’s grabbing the young girl’s right hand, took something out from the young girl’s bosom. The young girl, who saw that, raises a tragic voice. That’s the thing that’s being targetted huh.
“With this, the objective’s achieved. Kill that brat”
“Re, return it! Return Otou-sama’s precious thing!”
“A brat who’s gonna die now doesn’t need it!”
The man, who’s grabbing the young girl’s left arm, draws a knife out from his waist and thrust it towards the young girl. As one would expect, I can’t disregard that. I too, take out a magic crystal from my bosom and toss it by men’s feet.
In the instant that the men reacted to the sound, a monster that’s dyed crimson in its entirety was standing at the spot where the magic crystal fell.
“Do it, Crimson Reaper!”
It reacts to my voice and slashes at the man who’s holding the knife. Without even the leisure to react, the man was decapitated. The blood that sprays from his neck gets on the girl, but it’s not the time for that.
I close in on the man who’s grabbing her right arm on the other side and use Drain. In the blink of an eye, the man withers and a magic crystal remains in my palm.
“Wh, what’s with yo……uh……?”
In the instant that the leader-like man noticed me, a sharp claw pierced his neck. Crimson Reaper swung the claw that’s pierced in the man’s throat downwards as it is.
The man’s corpse that’s in pieces falls backwards and something that shines in blue falls out from his clasped hand. I couldn’t quite tell from afar, but they were targetting this huh.
A necklace with something that appears to be a jewel that shines in blue attached to it. An absurd amount of magic power, incomparable to a magic crystal, is contained inside. Indeed, it’s understandable that this would be targetted. It’s effective just by holding onto it, this Magic Tool. No, it can’t be lumped with the Magic Tools that can be created by the hands of humans huh.
Although it’s an item that I’m very curious about as a Magic Tool progenitor, I’ll do what needs to get done first for now. Firstly, I have to kill the remaining men.
I instruct the Crimson Reaper and have it attack the men. Although the men ran about trying to escape, they were cut down by the Crimson Reaper’s sharp claw one after another.
As I ignore the screams and cries that are audible from behind and turn around, the young girl was standing there with a pale face. She may have been hostile towards those men, but it’s probably the first time she sees them dying. Her body’s trembling and frozen.
“Here”
In front of such a young girl, I hand over the necklace that I picked up just now. Although the young girl jumped and trembled, she looked at the precious thing that’s before her eyes and timidly raised her face. Over there, she saw my face for the first time.
“You, you are the one in the afternoon……”
“Here, it’s something precious, right?”
“……Thank you”
The young girl who timidly takes her precious thing from my hand. I’m thinking, ‘you didn’t have to be that frightened’, but if I take into consideration what’s happening behind even now, she’s going to be frightened huh.
“For now, let’s leave this place. We can’t be sure that those fellows won’t come again”
Rather, they’ll certainly come. If the fellows who came here ends up not returning.
“……Erm, why, are you helping me?”
When I was about to pull the young girl’s hand as I did in the afternoon, I heard such a voice from behind. Why am I helping her, huh. As I thought
“I guess it’s because your desperate figure resembles my young sister?”
I can’t exactly say why either though.
