A sparkle lit up in Mia’s eyes. Something had dawned on her; she triumphantly clenched her fist.
“I will be overseeing this town! As the first step towards world domination, I’ll make it into my ideal town!”
First the town, then the country, and then the world! She could just slowly broaden the scope of the territory she oversaw. If she kept at it, someday she’d conquer the world! Happy with having finally set a concrete goal, Mia set about observing the town from above.
“Huh? What is that?”
There was a large river that flowed through the town. Once the fishing season started in early summer, its banks came alive with fishermen casting their hooks for sweetfish, and people convening to have barbecues. It was a famous gathering spot in town.
However, it was still just the very beginning of spring. The sweetfish wouldn’t bite, and it was way too cold to be enjoying a barbecue. Despite that, perhaps because today was a holiday, there were several boys and girls making a racket, dancing and singing merrily to the music they had been loudly blasting from their speakers all morning. Not only that, they had littered the vicinity with leftovers and packaging from their food and drinks.
“How dare they?! This is a very grave matter. I will not allow them to further defile the beautiful sights under my protection!”
Rushing forward and cutting through the air with a whoosh, Mia landed on top of a sunshade. The boys and girls who had been living it up just until a moment ago were astonished at the sight of a girl suddenly descending from the sky.
“Hey, you lot! Explain yourselves right now!” Mia shouted at the gobsmacked group from atop the sunshade.
“Huh?” came the oh-so-intelligent reaction from one of the boys in the group.
“Putting on music so loud this early in the day; didn’t you stop to think about how it would bother the people living around here? And throwing your garbage away wherever you please, aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? I shall not tolerate such travesty in a public area!”
“Whatever… So, did you, like, drop from the sky or something?”
“Why yes, for I am an evil sorceress, and that’s what we do!”
Tossing her cape back crisply, she struck the signature pose she had practiced for nights on end. Oh, it was a daunting pose fit for a Supreme Ruler of Evil all right, with her arms stretched out over her head for maximum intimidation.
“What’s up with this girl? She’s saying she’s an evil sorceress, so is she, like, saying she’s bad?” one of the girls asked, putting a painted fingernail to her chin.
“Maybe she’s not all bad—it’s just her brain that’s gone bad…”
“Ah, that kind of bad, yeah…”
“Wait, didn’t she come out of the sky?! Was she flying?”
“Argh, will you listen to me for a moment!” Mia pointed accusingly at the group merrily discussing her without reserve. They paused. “Good, and now you will clean up this mess you’ve made. Be sure to put all the garbage into garbage bags. And don’t forget to sort it either!”
The boys and girls seemed to grow irritated with Mia trying to boss them around.
“Kinda annoying, ain’t she?”
“Not only is she stupid, she’s grating on my nerves too!”
“We’re comin’ back from karaoke night and we’re feelin’ dope! We’ll go home after we sing it out, ‘kay, missy?”
“Listen up you lot,” Mia demanded, “if you won’t obey me, I’ll put you on my list of subjects to purge! You can’t hold me responsible for any harm that comes your way then!” When she menacingly tapped her wand on her palm, the group burst into laughter.
“What is she doing? Is this cosplay?”
“She’s wearing a cape or something; I think she’s just cuckoo.”
Mia was offended. “Wha-?! I’m the Supreme Ruler of Evil, I’ll have you know! Which means I won’t hesitate to cause you bodily harm if I must in order to fulfill my ambitions!” Mia exclaimed loudly, only to be guffawed at.
“Get this, she’s the Supreme Ruler of Eeeeeevil! Bwahaha!”
“It’s so cold outside, what could’ve possibly caused her brain to fry like that?”
“Why you! …I’ll sacrifice you plebeians upon the cornerstone of my glory! …Rage, o winter sea!”
She poured her will into the words and twirled her wand. Suddenly, something resembling thick white mist softly enveloped the group ridiculing her, accompanied by a loud rumbling. When the mist dissolved, the boys and girls were soaking wet—then an ice-cold wind blew vigorously, biting them and chilling them further.
“C-C-C-Cold! I’m s-s-so c-c-cold!”
“What the heck is this? F-F-Freezing!”
Mia crossed her arms, coolly regarding the shivering bunch from atop the sunshade. “I trust that you are now duly aware of the extent of my powers, muhahaha!”
By the way, ‘muhahaha’ was a traditional manner of laughing, passed down in the Oonari family since ancient times. Mia had learned it from her father as he learned it from his.
“You witch! You are so gonna regret this!”
“I’m c-cold! Go and turn on the heat in the car, quick!”
“I want a nice hot bath!”
Shaking and shivering, the boys and girls who’d partied too hard on the riverbank hightailed it out of there.
“Pft, this was too easy!” Mia smirked with profound satisfaction. Smirking was, again, something Supreme Rulers of Evil did. She’d made sure to practice her evil smirk as well.
After standing on the sunshade for a while, basking in her glory, Mia abruptly realized something—they hadn’t taken their trash with them.
“Curses. Hey! If you are going to flee, why don’t you first clean up after yourselves and then run away, huh?!” she reflexively screamed aloud, but the group she was addressing had already fled the scene by car.
Mia sighed heavily. “…Well, I guess that leaves me to deal with this mess. Let this become yet another stone added to the foundation of my world domination scheme.”
She briskly jumped down from the sunshade and turned off the speakers first. Then she armed herself with the convenience store bags the group had left lying around and began collecting the scattered trash.
“Argh, I can’t sort the garbage here! I guess I’ll have to take it home with me to sort…” Mia was muttering under her breath while putting trash into the bags when she heard someone’s voice from behind.
“Huh, so you’re the new Supreme Ruler of Evil, eh?”
Mia, suddenly called by her alias, whipped around. “Who are you?!” she barked towards the source of the voice, which turned out to be a young man grinning down at her.