“Master, didn’t you promise yesterday you’d clean up after me?” Faced with a furious Makarov, Chase’s confidence wavered, and the words came out closer to a mutter than an actual sentence.
“You call this a mess I can clean up?
You blew a hole clean through two kingdoms and you want me to just wave a hand and fix it?!” Just talking about it made Makarov angrier, twin plumes of something that sounded suspiciously like dragon fire practically rolling out of his nostrils.
“Well, technically, the culprit who destroyed the town was that fire dragon.
I’ve always been a law-abiding citizen, personally.” “…Okay, fine, it was me.” Chase scratched his head, apologetic, and explained, low and serious, “But finishing that ten-year mission meant the town had to go.
There wasn’t a version of it where that didn’t happen.” As a commission difficult enough that no one had managed to finish it in ten years running, its danger and scale had never been comparable to an ordinary job.
The mission Chase had taken on turned out to be even more complicated than he’d expected going in, complicated enough that leveling the town wasn’t a side effect.
It was a requirement.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, whether it counted as bad luck or good, things had gotten a lot more complicated than planned.
He’d accidentally stumbled onto Ignia, deep in self-imposed isolation, and everything after that had followed from there.
Makarov, still in his giant form, stared down at Chase, eyes wide and hard.
After a long moment, the pressure bearing down on the whole guild finally started to ease.
His enormous size shrank back down, fast, until he was just a short old man again.
As the patriarch of this whole unruly family, Makarov knew Chase well enough by now.
The man loved causing trouble, sure, but he wasn’t the type to act without any real sense of where the line actually was.
So Makarov let the details go and simply chose to believe him.
No conditions attached.
“Regardless, this time we’ve really gone too far.
Two kingdoms are involved now.
This is going to be a genuine headache.” Makarov bent down, picked the thick stack of documents back up off the floor, and brushed the dust off them, worry written all over his face.
“Master, if the Council has a problem with it, I can go talk to them myself.” Chase patted his own chest, confident.
“You think demolishing towns across the Kingdom of Ogaso wasn’t enough for one week?
Now you want to tear down the Council chamber too?” Makarov shot him a disdainful look, tucked the complaint documents away, and turned around, hands clasped behind his back.
The moment his back was turned, his expression sharpened into something else entirely.
“Don’t worry.
I’m not so useless that I’d throw one of my own kids out into a storm to fend for himself.” “With me standing here, let’s see which of those Council bastards dares to get cocky about it.” Within the family, he could scold without mercy, even throw a punch if the moment called for it.
To outsiders, though, he was ferociously protective of every single one of his people, and he would not stand for anyone laying a hand on them.
Looking at the small figure wrapped in the cloak of one of the Ten Wizard Saints, Chase went quiet for a second, then smiled, calm.
“As expected.
You really are reliable, Master.” “Oh, shove it.
If you’ve got that much free time to stand around, go pick up a commission and make yourself useful.
You’re an eyesore just standing there.” Makarov’s whole demeanor flipped in an instant, and he turned his head to spit off to the side.
“Understood!” Chase nodded, emphatic.
“Speaking of commissions, Chase, there’s actually one today that’s specifically for you.” Mira appeared right on cue, grabbed his arm, and steered him toward the request board.
Makarov watched them go, shook his head, and made his way slowly up to the second floor.
The tension hanging over the guild only fully let go once he’d vanished around the bend of the stairs.
“Hey!
Chase, you actually destroyed half a town?!” “That’s incredible!
Now even Guiltina, all the way across the sea, knows Fairy Tail’s name!” “Now that’s a man!
Living up to the title, king of destruction!” Chase’s friends swarmed him in an instant, every face lit up with excitement and something close to admiration.
It made for a sharp contrast with good old reliable Makarov, hunched over in some corner of the second floor, quietly nursing a headache.
“So you’re all idiots, is what I’m hearing,” Cana said, rolling her eyes at the lot of them.
She’d only just sobered up, and was already back to chugging straight from the wine barrel like nothing had happened.
Unlike everyone else’s grand ambitions, Cana’s whole reason for joining Fairy Tail could be boiled down to five words.
Is my father out there?
Over by the request board, Chase glared off the small crowd that had started to gather, then turned to Mira.
“So, which commission is it?” “Right here.” Mira smiled and pulled a form out from her collar.
Chase took the still-warm sheet, more than a little surprised, and unfolded it.
He understood, reading it over, exactly why they’d asked for him specifically.
Sorcerer Weekly, the magazine wrote, had heard that Mr.
Chase had finally completed his long journey and returned to Fiore, and would like to invite Miss Dark Magician Girl to appear as the cover model for their next issue.
The fee on offer: twenty million Jewels.
“Twenty million?
That’s a serious amount of money,” Chase said.
Compared to an ordinary commission in Fiore, that kind of payout was on par with what Macao had gotten for that whole business with the Snow Gorillas: a subjugation job, and a genuinely dangerous one at that.
“Well, of course.
Dark Magician Girl’s been sitting at the top of Sorcerer Weekly’s ‘most anticipated returning mage’ list for a while now.” Mira held up a hand, flawless fingers on display, and smiled.
“A few fans even sent letters to the guild about it this morning.” She wasn’t especially interested in modeling commissions for Sorcerer Weekly herself, and only ever picked one up now and then, mostly for extra spending money on clothes.
She just happened to know a lot more about the situation than Chase did.
Hearing Mira mention rankings jogged something loose in Chase’s memory.
“Wait, what about the destruction rankings?
Am I still on top of that one?” Mira propped her chin on one hand, thought it over, and said, entirely serious, “Natsu and Gray have pretty much split that one between them these days.” “Damn it!” Chase’s fist clenched in frustration.
“…That’s not really a ranking to be proud of, though.” Mira gave him a look somewhere between exasperated and apologetic, her smile going a little strained at the edges.
“We can’t afford to get complacent.
I have to reclaim what’s rightfully mine.” Chase’s mind was made up.
He looked down at the commission form again.
“As for this, I’ll need to check with Dark Magician Girl first.” The second he said it, he pulled a card from thin air and summoned her.
Light burst out, dazzling, and Dark Magician Girl stepped through it, wand in hand, striking an entrance pose that could only be described as adorable.
“Sister Mira!
I missed you!” The moment she spotted Mira, Dark Magician Girl’s whole face lit up, and she launched herself across the room, wrapping Mira in an enthusiastic hug.
“Hey there, Dark Magician Girl.” Mira didn’t pull away at all, just wrapped her arms right back around her.
“It’s been over a year.
I think you’ve actually gotten taller.” The two of them clearly had a close relationship.
Maybe it was because of everything that had happened with Lisanna, but Mira had always treated Dark Magician Girl, close enough to her in age, like a little sister of her own.
Once the two of them finished their reunion, Chase held the commission form up in front of Dark Magician Girl.
“Got a cover commission from Sorcerer Weekly.
What do you think, want to take it?”