Over four days, we had knocked out four major missions and a handful of smaller ones. Two of the big ones were extermination jobs involving lots of weak monsters, nothing fancy, your standard necro-beetle type deal. The other two were bounty hunts. First, Erza and I busted a ring of ten fraudsters posing as mages who had set up their own "magical academy" which, unsurprisingly, had exactly zero licenses and not a single permit from the Magic Council to speak of. The second job was a Wind mage of particularly unhinged ingenuity: the guy had figured out how to magically amplify his own flatulence and was sneaking around at night, letting rip into lit chimneys and blowing up people's furnaces. As for the rest of the jobs, those were basic courier runs, taken purely to cover travel expenses and squeeze out a little profit on top.
After this much time working in this world, none of it felt especially thrilling anymore, feeling more like a typical Tuesday. What was interesting, though, was getting back to training. My magic had started growing faster again, and that was worth paying attention to.
During the extermination jobs, I had deliberately stepped up to fight a few of the nastier monsters one-on-one because real danger does wonders for pushing magic forward. The stronger the emotion, the more fuel the magic has. And if setting entire city blocks on fire was never in the cards for me and still isn't, my body enhancement and spatial magic had come along considerably. Turns out the key wasn't some screaming panic of Ahhh, run, I'm losing it! which is the kind of thing fire magic feeds on. No, what worked for me was something colder. A focused, bone-deep I will end you, with the emotional charge that comes with actually meaning it. In that short a stretch, that alone pushed my magic ten percent stronger. This happened mostly in Space, with a little less in body enhancement, but it was progress regardless.
So, with just over two million jewels to our names, Erza and I were heading back to the guild. I was running on fumes after our extended trip. Erza, on the other hand, had eyes that kept lighting up every few minutes, already mentally spending money the moment Era came up.
We arrived toward evening, ready to report in. The guildhall was in its usual state of dignified chaos, with half the mages sprawled drunk under tables and treating the floor like a free hotel. Our attention snagged on Makarov, which was where we were headed anyway.
The old man was talking to three kids: a girl a bit younger than us with a short crop of hair, a boy a little older and considerably bigger, and between them, a girl roughly our age in a black hooded cloak. What stood out first was that all three shared the same white hair, practically broadcasting family. But what really caught your eye and kept it was the older girl's arm. One of them wasn't right. It was twisted and demonic.
"That's Take Over magic, one type among many. You haven't been possessed by a demon, you've claimed a demon's power as your own," Makarov explained, sitting on the bar counter like it was a perfectly normal place to hold a lecture.
"What's going on?" I asked, directing the question at the old man and the girl.
She was staring at her own arm. She didn't answer. She just tucked the arm into her cloak, turned around, and walked away at a pace that wasn't quite running but made its intention clear.
"Mira, wait!" the boy called after her, and then the other two followed.
"What's their deal?" Erza asked. She had seen the arm, sure, but between years of missions and just living in this world, it barely registered for her. Weird stuff happened. You moved on.
"How should I know?" Makarov shrugged, watching them go. "How'd the jobs go?"
"Better than well," I answered, then turned to look back at the door. "Take Over magic. It's an advanced form of Transformation. She's either got serious natural talent, or someone taught her. Either way, the ability's there."
"Found yourself a new magic to fixate on?" Erza asked, though the smile on her face made it rhetorical.
"Already mastered it, actually. Just never got past the early advanced tier." I turned to her, my expression shifting into something suspiciously warm. "Sis, would you handle the mission report for both of us? I need to step out for a bit."
She didn't deliberate long. Her hand landed on top of my head in a proprietary sort of pat.
"Fine. But for the rest of the day, I'm calling you 'little brother,' and when you get home, my favorite cake had better be waiting."
"...Fine," I said, sacrificing my dignity, though honestly, it didn't bother me even a little. I then headed for the door.
The truth was, beyond genuine interest in the magic, there was something else at work, which was straightforward, non-malicious pragmatism. The girl had a lot of magical energy, and I could feel it. She had the potential to become someone significant. Prying her secrets out of her to master Take Over at some absurd level was never really the play. But she clearly had a problem, and earning the goodwill of what could easily become an S-Class mage down the road was a strategic investment that mattered. Not that I was planning to exploit someone I had just met. I was simply nudging the relationship from a random encounter to something deliberate and mutually beneficial.
And besides, the kids were in trouble. Helping them wasn't hard. So why not?
"Yo. I'm Elian. Noticed you all looked pretty rough on the way out. Something happen?"
I caught up to them and stepped into their path. The older girl answered me with a look from under her hood, the kind that said back off without wasting syllables. The younger one was friendlier.
"I'm Lisanna. That's Elfman, and this is our big sister Mirajane. We, yeah, something did happen, but we didn't want to drag strangers into it. We just asked the guild master for advice. That's all."
She said it with a glance at her sister.
"Mm. Got it," I said, reading them immediately. Then, with a flash of magic, a pair of devil's horns appeared on my head. All three of them stared.
"You were scared people would hate her for that arm, right? That's why you're not talking about it." I looked at Mirajane. "But that's not how it works here. Not in Fairy Tail."
"W—" Mirajane made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a question.
"If you don't like how your arm looks, give it a different look. Power is never just one thing."
"I..." she faltered, uncertain, then said something quieter, almost to herself, like an old thought she'd nearly buried: "I don't want this power. It's only ever caused harm."
"You sure? Give me the short version."
It was Lisanna who filled me in. In the village where they had grown up, a demon had taken up residence in a local church. Mirajane, who went by Mira, had used her magic to make it disappear, protecting everyone. But after that, her arm ended up like this. And the villagers, being what they were, decided that made her the threat. They called her a witch and told her to get out. They even claimed she had become possessed herself, and that she was behind all their misfortunes, including illness, misery, and general bad luck.
"Crowds of ignorant people have a gift for screaming nonsense and calling it truth. That's just what they do." My tone shifted, and something warmer slipped in as my gaze drifted toward the evening sky. "But your power wasn't useless the moment you used it to protect Lisanna and Elfman. They didn't turn their backs on you. They didn't leave."
"We'd never leave you!" Elfman confirmed, raising a fist.
"Never!" Lisanna wrapped her arms around Mira.
"Guys..." Mirajane's eyes filled. Something shifted in her expression, with understanding finally settling in.
That moment held for about ten seconds. I stayed quiet through it. Something about the three of them reminded me of Erza and me.
Then I kept going.
"Magic has a thousand uses. My reason for wanting it, the thing that drives me, is something as simple as freedom. Power. Control. Call it what you want." My easy smile flipped into something cockier, which suited the horns. "You had enough magic to protect the people you love. That's the whole point. Magic can be turned toward anything."
"Could we learn the same kind?" Lisanna asked.
"Naturally. And Mirajane, you can absolutely make that arm look human again. Both arms." A book on Transformation appeared in my hand, and I held it out to her. She took it carefully. "Good luck. If you run into questions, you know where to find me."
"Wait," she said, just as I had already turned to go with a wave. "Why did you help us?"
"When I first came to this guild, and after, too, a lot of people helped me out. Think of it as the cycle of kindness." I glanced back. "No pressure. But if you've got nowhere to go, this place is genuinely good."
And on that note, like every self-respecting protagonist walking away at the end of a scene, I disappeared into the sunset. This meant I went in the direction of the nearest pastry shop, because obligations are obligations, especially when a beloved little sister is the one who set them.
The impression I had made and the nudge in the right direction both apparently landed. This was confirmed the next morning, when I got my book back.
"Thank you so much!" Mirajane pressed the book into my hands with both perfectly human arms, bowing deep.
"And now we can do it too!" Lisanna announced, her hands and feet shifting into white cat paws, a tail curling out behind her, and ears popping up on her head.
"Now we can go on missions as a team!" Elfman thrust his arm into the air and watched it transform into a bear's.
Pure, unfiltered enthusiasm. It was honestly kind of adorable.
I took the book back and stood there genuinely surprised. Transforming limbs into animal forms was advanced-level magic. These were kids, and given that they hadn't been able to fix Mira's arm before this, they had never touched Transformation magic in their lives. The fact that in a single evening they had hit the advanced tier, which was the same level I was at and arguably better in some ways, said everything about their raw talent that words couldn't.
"Oink," said Lisanna, losing her grip on the magic, shrinking into a small pink piglet, and dropping to the floor.
"Wh—" Elfman blinked, finding that his bear arm had quietly become a giraffe leg.
Okay. Maybe advanced was a generous grade for where they had landed. But that was only for now.
"Guys..." Mirajane's face crumpled, fresh tears rolling down.
"Mira, don't cry in front of everyone. If you keep this up, I'm finding a boyfriend before you do," Lisanna informed her, using the tone of someone who had issued this exact warning before.
Elfman said nothing, acting tactically.
"Ahem," I stepped in before this became a whole thing. "Anyway. Happy for all of you. Keep the book, just return it to the guild library within nine more days."
The book migrated back to the trio.
After another round of thank-yous, I slipped away.
"Not bad. But if they'd figured it out on their own, they'd have been stronger for it," Makarov remarked, from his usual spot on the bar counter.
"Felt to me like it would've taken a month. That's a lot of suffering for a girl to carry over something this fixable."
"Do what you think is right," the old man shrugged.
Truth be told, he had his principles, which were stricter ones than you'd expect, at least by twenty-first-century standards. Once he had covered the basics of a roof and food, he probably would have left them to work it out for themselves for the exact reason he had named. But I did what I wanted.
"It's a guild rule," I said, with a smile.
The next couple of days were reasonably uneventful.
Erza and I were getting ready for the trip to Era. The Strauss family, which was the surname of the trio, was settling into the guild fast. Unsurprisingly, they had been welcomed in without much fuss.
Mirajane warmed up quickly once she understood that all the hatred directed at her and her family had come from a bunch of ignorant villagers, and that here, in Fairy Tail, nobody cared because there was nothing wrong with her magic to begin with. The local crowd of mages wasn't exactly the gold standard of civilization, but they were a cut above that. Probably.
And so, hauling half a cart of Erza's things, we arrived at the station.
"You sure you need all of this?" I asked.
She responded with a very dignified nod.
"Obviously! Look, a tent, in case we end up without a roof. Strawberry costumes, if we get cold. Two fans, if we get hot. And several outfits for different occasions."
There was a lot of stuff. Our spatial pockets weren't bottomless. Mine handled my things fine. Erza's situation, though, had evolved. Once we started making real money, she had developed an enthusiasm for shopping, specifically for clothes, and it had only been building since. By now we had moved from a one-bedroom into a four-room apartment, with one room entirely dedicated to Erza's wardrobe and a second one already half-occupied. At this rate, I was genuinely starting to wonder whether we'd need to rent a warehouse, or perhaps a hangar. The woman could scale.
Sigh. I gave in and helped her load everything into the secondary compartment we had bought out specifically for the occasion. It wasn't that much of an inconvenience, really. If it made her happy, fine.
We settled into our own compartment, got comfortable, and the trip began.
Erza spent a long time thinking through what she actually wanted to buy. After some joint deliberation, we had landed on magical armor as the best option. Given her raw strength, enchanted armor suited her perfectly because it would give her significant boosts in specific areas without requiring her to develop advanced magical skills. So she started sketching out what she wanted, and I watched.
She worked at it for a good half hour, wrestling with lines in a swaying train car. Then, with the air of someone who had just won a decisive battle, she presented the result.
"Look, Lian. I want little angel wings on the helmet, cool spikes in the back, and the armor should be made of leaves and flowers. There has to be a sword, and a small shield, also plant-themed. And it should all fit me well. Oh, and leave a little room to grow," she said, tapping the slightly optimistically proportioned chest on the figure in her sketch, which appeared to represent a future adult version of Erza.
I maintained a carefully neutral expression with everything I had.
The page was messy. Multiple erasures had left it looking like a battlefield. The lines were just completely chaotic. I'll say it: it was a genuinely terrible drawing. Everything was lopsided and jagged, with anatomical principles applied loosely at best. A five-year-old might have done better. But I wasn't about to hurt her feelings.
"So? What do you think?"
"It's... detailed. Very detailed, actually. Really communicates what you want," I managed, which was technically true, mostly because she had helpfully labeled everything.
"Yes! I hope the craftsmen will be able to work with it."
"Uh... yeah, they'll manage. But let's add a little clarity while we're at it."
One more reason magical armor had made sense as a purchase was that it overlapped with one of my areas of expertise. In my previous life, I had had a solid working knowledge of what this world called artifacts. And while studying the craft here in Earthland had expanded that, my current skill level wasn't quite enough to forge proper magical armor from scratch. There was too much specialized knowledge I didn't have yet, plus the practical experience was still lacking. What I could do was make sure Erza didn't get conned into buying glorified junk dressed up as something mythic. I could also draw a decent set of reference sketches, which was exactly what we got to work on.
It was genuinely puzzling, for the record. Erza had excellent fine motor control, allowing her to swing various weapons with real precision. How she had managed to produce something this catastrophically bad remained a mystery I suspected would never be solved.
By the time the long journey wound down, we had eaten several times and produced three usable sketches.
When we stepped onto the platform, Era unfolded before us.
The city spread out on both sides of the square, and at its heart rose a mountain. At the top of that mountain stood the massive headquarters of the Magic Council, which looked like something between a castle and a fortress, complete with walls and towers reaching high into the sky. Beyond the city limits, a dense forest stretched out, and past that stood mountain peaks tipped with snow.
We walked through it all with unabashed tourist energy, then looped back to a nearby rental office and returned to the train car in a magic-powered carriage to collect Erza's luggage. There were models that drew energy from the driver's own magic, but we had paid considerably more for one that ran on lacrima instead.
"I didn't know you could drive one of these. Though I suppose you did study artifacting," Erza said, watching me at the wheel.
"Hm? I can't."
"Wait, but when you told the rental man—"
Her eyes went wide.
"Don't worry, we're tough," I said, with a smile.
"Lian, lying is wrong. It's dishonorable."
I shrugged at her puffed cheeks, and we kept rolling through the streets. Once Erza's mountain of luggage was checked into the hotel, the two of us headed up the hillside to knock out Makarov's errand first.
To my own mild surprise, I parked the carriage without incident. We were about to walk toward our destination when a pair of Rune Knights stepped into our path, representing the Magic Council's military arm. They were two men wearing light robes with no sleeves, large crosses on the chest bearing the Council's seal, and combat staves with sphere-shaped pommels.
"Good afternoon. State your purpose," said what appeared to be the senior of the two.
"Delivering uncertified alcoholic goods for Councilor Yajima," I answered honestly. The two exchanged a look.
"They don't even bother hiding it anymore," the second knight muttered.
"Understood. We'll escort you," the first one said, with the expression of a man who had stopped being surprised by his job a long time ago. Our little group of four made its way up the wide cobblestone road toward the building.
On the way, we reached Makarov through a lacrima. He had already contacted his friend, so our arrival was expected.
Inside, after a fair amount of corridor-wandering, we found him. He was a short old man, though still considerably taller than Makarov. He was white-haired, naturally, with large bushy eyebrows and a little mustache like Hi… Charlie Chaplin's. He wore a three-pronged hat and an orange shirt with black stripes.
"Good day," I greeted him. Erza gave a polite bow. "Though with what we've brought, your evening is going to be considerably better."
The long, heavy box, with contents known to everyone present, passed into the old man's hands.
"New faces from Fairy Tail? I've heard about you," he said quietly. A smile appeared when he took hold of the package. "Elian and Erza, if I remember correctly. You, boy, there've been quite a few complaints about your conduct. Clients don't appreciate that sort of thing."
"Occupational hazard. Rudeness and effectiveness are often the same word."
Yajima's role, to put it plainly, was to be Fairy Tail's man on the Council. He was a longtime guild member who ran interference between his old family and the people nominally in charge of magical law and order. The reason our various antics rarely resulted in formal punishment wasn't because nobody was paying attention, but because in a world where magical chaos was essentially the baseline, our guild had serious friends at the top of the organization officially responsible for containing it.
"You're not entirely wrong," the old man said, something distant in his tone, like he was remembering. "Sometimes sheer nerve is the only key that fits. A shame it's in short supply sometimes. Though there's such a thing as too much of it on the other end. Don't cause trouble unless you have to."
"We'll do our best," Erza said, with a respectful nod.
I, personally, was already doing the other thing.
"I've heard the Council's library is renowned for its magical knowledge. Would it be too great an imposition, for a member of the esteemed Magic Council, to arrange a temporary visitor's pass for us?" I said, smiling, hands clasped, laying it on thick.
"Lian," Erza tried to rein me in, because yes, apparently pestering important people was frowned upon.
"A pass must be earned, young people," one of the guards cut in.
"Let them," Yajima said. "They're not bad children, really. Cause far less trouble than some others I could name... Ah, the time. Escort them out, I'm afraid I have to get back. It is a workday."
And with that, the old man used his magic to flatten himself into an impossibly thin shape and slid through the gap between the floor and the wall, gliding off through the building.
The Rune Knights, having presumably made peace with the fact that their superior's dignity did not preclude secret alcohol deliveries, simply led us to the library without further comment.
"You don't get anything by not asking," I remarked with satisfaction, hands on my hips, once we were inside.
"Shhhh!" the librarian hissed from somewhere nearby, the sound carrying enough force to make the shelves rattle. "Shhhhhh!!!"
"Ah, sorry—"
"SHHHHH!!!"
I met her eyes, nodded slowly to show I understood to be quiet, and that was that.
Erza, who had been quietly reconsidering my philosophy, shook her head.
And then the two of us drifted into the stacks, picking through the shelves for whatever knowledge caught our interest.