Hello readers! Jun here with this month’s short story translation.

The second one is up here! Both of them are pretty strange, but funny in some parts. I hope you enjoy them both, or at least one of these. This one was pretty difficult to translate since it had a lot of enormous sentences, which was written in a way that’s difficult to digest in english. I may have some things translated wrongly here too, so tell me if anything sounds strange.

 

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Tl: Jun

ED: Jun

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When I chant ignite, black figures next to me would strike a match

Author: Morokorosu

A.N. I like Shinkenger
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Having died in an unfortunate accident, I, in accordance to the cliche, encountered God in a white world. “I will allow you to reincarnate into a world of magics,” is what he announced cheerfully. “How wonderful, an amazing reincarnation to another world,” I said as I gave my thanks to God innocently, received extraordinary magic powers and reincarnated. It’s been three years now since then.

Being born as a noble’s child seems cliche, but without such luck, I was born into a typical commoner household that’s nevertheless not troubled over food and I had turned three years old without having any illness-like diseases. And as of now, I am at my wits’ end.

Magic power you know, what we call magic power is something like, you know, blood that’s filled inside your body you know. Something like that isn’t it?

Before my eyes were my father and older sister, sitting at the neat dining table in our not-so-spacious house.

And then, black figures were standing by behind each of their seats.

Black figures? Those kabuki black figures? Or so they look. They’re black figures. Even though they weren’t there, or should I say I couldn’t see them, until yesterday. (T.N. 黒子 can be translated as black figures, but also stagehands. Those guys who are dressed in black and moving things and such you know)

I looked behind me. No, I didn’t have to look behind me. Because the were enough figures standing around me to overflow the room and those who could not fit in, overflowed from the entrance to the road in front of our house.

“Welcome back, how was the magic power revelation ceremony?”

My father gently asked the question, but frankly, since multiple black figures were being loud as they noisily went left and right to find a place to stand, my father’s words didn’t enter my ears. While I was thinking about it, the entranceway opened and, saying “move closer, move closer” while looking around, the black figures rapidly increased. I would like you to imagine a crowded train filled with black figures. That was the situation a three year old child was tossed into. My cold sweat did not stop from the danger of being crushed to death.

“Dear, it’s amazing, this girl. They said she has too much magic power for the church’s crystal to measure”

My mother, who took me to the church and was supposed to be standing behind me, was surrounded by black figures and naturally I could not see her. However, my father, mother and sister didn’t even show any behavior that the black figures existed and continued their conversation as if there were only our family here.

“Wow, that’s amazing”
“Miary is amazing!”(ミャーリ;miyaari)

My father was surprised and my sister Tiary shouted delightfully (ティヤーリ;Tiyaari)., I was poked by the black figures who continued to move rickety to match my father’s movement and then my sister’s. And due to the black figures exerting useless effort to open up a path along the route where my mother was walking, it felt like the pressure was steadily swelling up. Ow! Someone actually dared to step on my foot.

“It looks like this time they will come all the way to our house with a much larger crystal”
“I’m looking forward to it”

When my father stood up and approached my mother, the two lightly kissed. My sister, while hiding her face with her hands, perfectly saw that through a gap and went “Kyaa,” looking like she’s enjoying it, but I finally suffocated and collapsed as a result of being continuously pressed tightly by adults, or should I say black figures, who were by far taller than me. Probably because I couldn’t endure it emotionally.
★★★

“Ignite”

I faced a candle stand that was put before my eyes and recited the magic word that would ignite it. Upon doing so, the black figure standing beside me slowly approached the candle stand, struck a match and put the fire on the candle that was standing on the candle stand.

“Amaazing! Miary, you can already use magic isn’t it!”

Magic? Without minding me tilting my head, my sister held me in her arms and turned round and round, giggling and saying “amazing, amazing.” She made sure to take distance so as to not hit the burning candle and candle stand. She was an attentive sister for a six year old.

Outside the city, I would practise magic. Because of the magic power revelation ceremony that was held yesterday, I became able to use the magic power dwelling within my body, so I started my practise. Yes, since yesterday until the morning, I was actually really looking forward to my magic practice.

I looked around me. Today there are no more than around ten black figures. Moreover, one among them did not haunt me, but my sister. That word is correct. The other black figures were scattered around the whole city, or should I say they listened when I requested them “Please, don’t gather together around me. Scatter around the whole city and wait for orders.”

Aah~, the “extraordinary magic power” is the number of black figures haunting you. That word is correct.

I still didn’t know if this phenomenon is just “we recognize magic power as black figures,” or “the magic in this world is the result of the black figures doing their best in various things,” but I was thinking; wouldn’t it be the latter, considering the definition of magic power and my left foot that’s still hurt from being stepped on yesterday? If it was the former, then it would’ve ended with just my head being in jeopardy though.

“Even if we call it magic, it’s not as if we can do anything. It’s just at the level of being convenient, you know”

My mother had always been warning me like that as I pester her about magic and actually they couldn’t do anything but things that can be solved through human effort; that fact seems to be written in any magic book. They even assert human effort.

I decided to try my own magic after my sister had let me down.

“Hellfire”

This time I tried to recite a different magic word. By the way, it wasn’t like I learned the magic words from anyone in particular. I just say suitable looking words to a black figure while pointing at the target object.

Upon doing so, one black figure began to splash the candlestick with a liquid with an irritant smell, from a plastic container he held in his hand. Plastic container?

No, now is not the time, that’s bad news. In hot haste I pulled my sister’s hand and went far away from the candle stand. My sister made a curious face as her hand was pulled by me.

When the black figure finished applying the liquid, he went about as far away as we did from the candle stand and then he struck a match and threw it around the candlestick.

The gasoline covered candlestick burned very, very well. That plastic container and such you know, that gasoline and such you know, where in the world did he take that from? My sister was dumbfounded by the flaring black flames and I was dumbfounded about where he brought in a thing like that.

Afterwards, they said “What will we do if it became a fire” and we got scolded very much. The black figure who used the plastic container stood beside me while assuming ignorance, so I felt quite angry by that.
★★★

My sister, mother, family and the people of the church were surprised that my spells were out of the ordinary, but what I was surprised about was, where in the world do these black figures take out their gasoline, fireworks, pliers, drills, saws, brooms, steam towels and calculators from? Do they have a direct connection to a hardware store?

Ah, there is also something else I want to say about the steam towels, you know.

“Purify my body”

That day when my mother recited those magic words. It’s the clean spell that’s often in cliches isn’t it? I was trying to circulate it at first though.

I nearly shouted when suddenly, the black figure who haunted my mother -Yes I’m telling you, the word is correct- when that one suddenly began to strip my mother off her clothes in the middle of the town. My mother silently accepted that too. Well, I guess they can’t see the black figures and such though.

The appearance of the black figure wiping every nook and cranny of the body, which was my mother’s stark naked body, after taking out several steamed towels was indescribably erotic. The black figure’s way of doing it was indescribable. The black figure haunting my mother appeared to be a woman according to her figure though.

Meanwhile, the people in the city passed through without concerns of my mother or the black figure and ignoring the whole sillines of this as if nothing happened here, but there were around half of the black figures, who were haunting the people of the city,  staring fixedly to my mother, who had her completely nude body wiped in an erotic way in the middle of the city. I don’t approve of this.

The towels disappeared before I realized after she was done wiping the dirt. Where did she hide it? Or her act of redressing her was also erotic. Or there are black figures who fell down after watching them in admiration you know. I had plenty of things I wanted to say.

I decided I will never use that magic word. Once again, I gathered my black figures outside the city, declared that I won’t use that kind of magic word and threatened that I would expel them if they look at strange parts of other people’s nakedness like before. I was full of anger. I didn’t know whether they heard it or not and I don’t know whether I can expel them either, but the black figures bobbed their heads up and down, so I was done being angry.

I appealed to my family and had my mother and sister, while weeping, accept not to use it except inside the house. I don’t care what happens to my father. There’s nothing to be worried about him being nude in the middle of the city either way.

Afterwards, I had caught sight of every men and women naked in steam towels, but I learned to ignore them through strong self-restraint.
★★★

I welcomed my age of five favorably. On a certain morning. I was the one who pushed my way alone through a forest where monsters were rumored to appear, but in truth dozens of black figures were close to me in groups before and behind me. The black figure teams divide the labor with vanguards clearing the thickets and grass that are about to fall down and the rearguards installing signposts. I had nothing to do. It was the black figures who gave me plastic bottles when I say water and portable toilets when I say toilet. Convenient.

There seems to be monsters in this world, but my magic, who will face them, are black figures. That is to say it’s different from all the much heard light novel protagonists. In short, I’ve decided to defeat the monsters through human-wave tactics. This is bad, this is bad. In the case that all the black figures would perform that kind of reaction, then, huh? Am I going to die instantly? Sort of.

And so, I decided that I need to observe reasonable monsters and came to this rumored forest where monsters seemed to be appear for some reason. There were no rumors of people who had been eaten and had died by the monsters. Only people who were surprised by the monsters and ran away persistently. If it wasn’t like that, then I wouldn’t be coming to a place like this alone, you know. I wasn’t alone though.

“Ah, found it”

After walking for at least an hour, the black figure put his finger to his mouth and pointed to a certain direction with his other hand. What came into view after I calmly followed his direction and looked that way was the monster I saw for the first time. I saw it and reflexively raised my voice.

It was a stuffed toy. Or was it more like a ventriloquist doll?

A green child-like doll with a horn grown on it. There was a black figure there who had put that doll in his right hand and went *squeal squeal*. Eh? Monsters are like that?

“Do it”

On my signal, one of the black figure rushed out and put in a kick to the knee of the black figure who was manipulating the monster doll. The monster doll was blown away, and the black figure manipulating the monster held his knee. I then picked up the collected monster doll. The black figure who was manipulating the doll saw that I picked up the doll and ran away in a hurry, but he ended up being caught by the scruff of his neck by my black figure.

It’s a doll no matter how I look at it, but when I brought this out of the forest, a person who was lying in wait near the place I went to after leaving the forest, was

“A brat like that hunted a monster!”
“This is serious!”

Making a racket like that, so it seems the so-called monsters really are these kind of things. On top of that, the black figure who was manipulating the monster had safely turned into my black figure.

I held that aftertaste and kept hunting when I heard rumors of monsters not limited to the forest. The ventriloquist doll types. The marionette types has types where they’re suspended on a thread from above and types that move with sticks from below. There were also cases that the black figures directly manipulate stuffed tiny monsters dolls with their hands. Is this a kid’s game of make-believe?

When I wasn’t collecting black figures but subjugating monsters while I was investigating this and that, my black figures doubled before I knew it. My magic power was rapidly increasing. To be exact, my black figures did. It had gone over three hundred you know.
★★★

When I got carried away in hunting monsters, I seemed to have earned a reputation as an excellent spellcaster and now the one who is working on the extermination of a dragon, which is closing in on the city, is me. I turned ten. I have enough black figure subordinates to exceed or not exceed one thousand. Which reminds me, don’t you wonder what happened with the black figures’ meals?

While I say dragon, in truth it wasn’t really flying high, seeing that black figures are moving it. Especially in this world. There was one black figure moving the head of the dragon, which was fixed to a pole, in zigzag, the forelegs and hind legs each have a black figure and around three black figures are supporting its torso. There’s also one for the tail. The nine black figures was going this way while moving the dragon with their utmost effort. It felt like I was looking at a school arts festival. No wait, from its size, it’s more of a low-budget theatrical company I think.

“This is bad! It’s a dragon!”
“We have to get away!”
“Uwah! I don’t wanna diee!”

The warriors in hide armor and club were raising voices of despair, but I was utterly shocked at the clumsiness of the coordination of the black figures moving the dragon and couldn’t say anything. Though it may appear this way, dozens of dead seems to have been left in the wake of that dragon. How in the world can people even be killed by that, I thought oddly though.

“The three on the torso, ignore the head and feet”

I said that, and around ten black figures around me started running towards the dragon. After slipping through the black figures who were moving the dragon by moving the hands and feet with all their might, and giving them a kick while they were at it, my black figure team persistently attacked the tender points, like hands, knees or the midline among other things, of the black figures who were moving the torso.

When the three on the torso suffered damage, the dragon naturally fell on the ground by the body’s mass. The remaining black figures could forcibly pull it up, but I don’t give them the free time to do something so sluggish. I can just give the finishing blow to its head, tail and each of the legs with each of my black figure team attacking them.

“A-amazing! She instantly killed even a dragon!”

The warriors raised voices of admiration. I’m sure that I’m seen as an excellent spellcaster, as long as they don’t see the black figures that is.

To me who can see the black figures, that’s like, could I call it playing a game of toppling down the enemy’s pole with human-wave tactics? To be frank, it’s like soccer with one the enemy playing with ten people and my side playing with hundred people. Like playing a game of toppling down the enemy’s pole with thousand people against ten.

Hmm~ Something’s wrong about this.

“That’s my Miary for you!”

My sister Tiary, who was watching over me from the shadows of a pillar, anxiously whether I was hurt or not, rushed out and jumped towards me. Letting my sister do what she wanted, I was held up in her arms, spun around and kissed on the cheek. That was more tiring.

After making merry for a little while, Tiary’s black figure lightly wiped her face with a steamed towel, and I accepted and drank a sports drink after requesting it from the black figure. Then I saw the warriors pulling the dragon’s corpse this way. Of course, the nine black figures who were manipulating the dragon were caught by the scruff of their neck and pulled into our black figure team. At this point, I still have a thousand black figures even if they’re increased by nine.

I didn’t remain in anybody’s attention. I raised my hand to the thousand black figures standing in a row before me and nodded. The black figures perceived that as a sign to breakup and each of them separated themselves into people in the security of my home, people in the security of the city, people in the security and exploration of the road from the city to this place, people remaining for my security and people who assembled a party to head to observe the enemy movements at the direction the dragon came from. I have so many black figures so there’s inevitably not much to do, so I just gave them duties I came up with on the spur of the moment though, like observation from information, which we gathered nearby, to neighboring countries.

I was surprised when they photographed with digital cameras and handed in a report from a printer, but the contents of the reports, the black figures won’t be able to report anything as is, do they? They’re black figures after all. That’s right, I should apologize to them.

As an excellent spellcaster, I wanted black figures assisting me in bringing the thousand magic power together. While I urgently wished for that, I was well on my way in the process of being recognized by the surroundings as a very young demon king.

Hmm~ I think there’s something wrong about this though.

 

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