The Dungeon Child

I was seated in a small chair made of some sort of hard, artificial material. As soon as we arrived at the school, the Mother had practically dragged me in and put me in a small room, then told me to stay here and went through a door. I don't know what she's doing, but I'm completely alone for once, and I'm going to take full advantage of it.

I got off the chair and turned, examining it. It had rounded corners, a smooth seat, and fat cylindrical legs. I'm more interested in the material itself, though. I extended my mana from my chubby little hands and studied the makeup of the material, my vision funneling. It's a huge relief that I can still do this - it's one of the few things that I discovered I could still do, but there were few opportunities to use it without alerting the Mother of my actions.

At any rate, the structure of the foreign material is fairly simple compared to the cell designs of the creatures I ruled in my dungeon, and I wonder if I can use it in some way.

I extended a hand in front of me and concentrated, using more of my pitiful mana reserves than I'd hoped. A small ball of the substance slowly forms in my hand, the exact same color and texture of the chair. My limbs are so weak that my hand actually lowers from the weight. How pathetic.

Out of curiosity, I increased its density, then decreased it significantly. It's not a difficult process, as it really just involves adding or removing the structures in large amounts while moving them closer. With a sigh, I get rid of it, thereby eliminating the potential evidence. It's not the first time I've had to build something and then destroy it, though it's the first time I did it with something this small rather than a six-hundred foot monster that doesn't fit in my halls, no matter how effective a three-headed lightning-breathing rhino dragon would be.

I was distracted when the Mother left the room with another woman, talking to her happily. "...glad you're all right with the late start. I didn't know you started the year early, but I assure you he's very smart."

The other woman nodded pleasantly. "Of course. We encourage differences and interests without any bias against background, so he can pick his career as early or as late as he wants."

She spotted me and her face stated, though the smile stayed fixed on her face. She's clearly had practice. "Why do his eyes look like that?"

Mother laughed and patted her back. "Yes, that was quite the surprise to us too. He was born with an extremely rare type of aniridia that affects the whole eye."

The woman seemed a little worried still. "Won't the other children be scared of him? It's a rather intimidating effect."

The Mother gently pushed her, clearly irritated. "Don't say that in front of him! He's still developing his self-esteem. Besides, it's just a disorder, nothing more. If they can't get over the color of his eyes, then that's their fault."

I caught on to the woman's statement. I have a threatening appearance? Whatever it is about my eyes that others find scary, I need to improve on it as much as possible. In the meantime, I should definitely convince my current opponent that I am nothing to fear. It worked with incredible efficacy for my slime underlings, as their primary tactic was to lull the enemy with their appearance, then melt them with acid at the first chance they got.

Walking over to the school woman, I plastered the biggest smile I could on my stupid face and said loudly, "Are you gonna be my teacher?"

By all the thrice-blasted system glitches, my voice was hideous. It was perky and upbeat and overwhelmingly positive, with no hint of depth or menace in it. I needed to fix it at the earliest possible convenience and make it more terrifying.

Despite my hatred of the sound, the woman was immediately placated and got down on her knees, cooing happily at me. "Aren't you just the cutest little darling?" Her eyes flicked up to mine for a moment, but she was incapable of looking at them for some reason. I made a mental note to improve on the aspect as soon as possible, keeping up the smile while hating myself. I despised that I had to suck up to others in order to survive, but the 'kindergarten' that the Mother had described sounded like an excellent opportunity to increase my general knowledge of this world, along with the system they use. For whatever reason, I seemed to have been locked out of it, to my immense irritation.

While maintaining a fake smile, I asked her, "Can I learn math?" Gah, I hate this.

She smiled hugely and stood up without answering my question, instead opting to speak to the Mother. "His words are really well defined - how long has he been talking?" Mother answered happily. "He's only been talking for a few months. We were worried about him at first because he took so long, but I guess he wanted to do it right the first time."

The woman smiled at me again, and told me, "Well, you're a very smart little guy, aren't you?" I grinned again, the expression easy since my teeth are gritted. "Yes."

Somehow, she detected the annoyance behind the word and brushed her skirt off, turning serious. "I must let you know, it's going to be difficult for him, smart or not. He's already behind several classes."

Mother put a hand on my head. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

I couldn't agree more. If anything, the class should be worried for their own safety.