“Thank you for your hard work, mages of Black Pheasant Legs.” “You did well.
Leave the rest to me now.” Even standing in the middle of lightning and howling wind, Chase’s calm, steady voice reached Ina and the other two without a word lost.
His dark red coat kept snapping in the wind behind him, and something about the sight of it, like a shard of dawn breaking through the abyss, cut straight through the despair the three of them had been drowning in a moment ago.
Somehow, the long coat he’d been wearing moments ago had become a sleeveless cape, sharp and dramatic.
He’d apparently swapped it out at lightning speed sometime during the fight.
In fact, Chase had wanted to hold off a little longer, see what the pirates would do next.
Terrifying as that giant demonic claw had looked, it hadn’t actually been close to killing Ina and the other two yet.
That lined up exactly with what he’d already suspected.
His client, Marshall, and this pirate crew are definitely running some kind of scheme together.
And whatever it is, it needs a lot of mages.
If the three of them had just been loud, empty talkers, and if Ina hadn’t said what she’d said earlier, guilds look out for each other, we’ll protect you, Chase probably wouldn’t have stepped in when he did.
He hadn’t been able to just sit back and watch three genuinely decent people drown in that kind of despair.
So even though what came next would get a little complicated, the actual plan boiled down to something simple enough.
Time to crush this whole crew of pirates.
“Mr.
Chase, please, be careful.” “I’ve seen that black claw magic before.
I’m certain of it.
It was that pirate captain…” With Bob’s help, Ina forced herself upright and pointed at the pirate captain, whose brow had knotted at the sight of Chase.
“It’s Cluney Barnes.
Guild master of the dark guild Swamp Abyss!” “The dark guild Swamp Abyss?” Chase blinked, caught off guard.
He’d actually heard of this one before.
Not part of the Balam Alliance, the trio made up of Oración Seis, Grimoire Heart, and Tartaros.
This one was an independent dark guild that had suddenly turned up active in Fiore about two years back.
Around the same time Chase had left on his ten-year mission, Swamp Abyss had gotten cornered by a guild alliance led by Blue Pegasus and vanished without a trace.
Apparently, instead of disbanding, they’d taken to the high seas and turned pirate.
“I see.
Not exactly useful information for me, but thanks for the heads-up anyway.” Back still turned to Ina, Chase waved a hand and looked up at the pirates circling overhead, poised to strike.
Ina’s lips twitched.
She’d only blurted the captain’s identity out of pure reflex, hadn’t expected it to actually matter much.
But for some reason, that response was infuriating.
That first part was completely unnecessary!
If she’d had the energy left, Ina would have loved to give him a piece of her mind about it.
“Hey, what’s he doing?” A low gasp from Bob cut through Ina’s own irritation.
She looked up to see Chase walking slowly along the wrecked, claw-torn deck, coming to a stop right at the edge, silently watching the waves churn below.
As the hurricane died down, the hovering pirates finally caught sight of what they’d missed, staring hard at the Fairy Tail crest on Chase’s bare arm.
“That crest…
so this guy’s the actual Fairy Tail mage?!” “Knew it!
Cough.
How’s a ship this size only carrying three pieces of junk cargo, though?” “Even better, though, isn’t it?
Grinding an actual Fairy Tail mage under our heels.
Just thinking about it’s got me grinning already.” For all their arrogant talk, a few of them nearly gave away more than they meant to, and every single pirate quietly triggered the circles beneath their feet, climbing to a higher, safer altitude.
Whatever this guy was, he’d blocked Captain Cluney’s magic without much trouble, which meant he wasn’t someone to underestimate.
Staying airborne, holding the advantage in the sky, felt like the only way to guarantee they came out on top.
Chase clocked the subtle shift in their formation, and a monster card materialized in his right hand, hanging loose at his side.
Air superiority?
Sorry.
That’s not a thing that exists where I’m concerned.
“I don’t much care what you think of me, but there is one thing I need to correct.” Chase chuckled, shrugged, and threw a thumbs-up back at Ina and the others behind him, his eyes sharpening as he spoke.
“They’re not junk.
They’re all outstanding mages.” The second the words left his mouth, Chase sprinted off the deck and dove straight into the sea in front of him.
“Mr.
Chase?!” Ina and the others cried out.
Before any of them could move to help, a sharp, hoarse roar tore across the entire sea.
The water below exploded outward in a burst of spray, and a deep yellow shadow shot straight up into the sky.
Bony wings snapped open against the wind, its spiked body flickering with a blinding red light along what looked like clustered energy nodes.
The pirates froze, stared, and their confidence drained out of them all at once.
Something with fierce, violent eyes and an aura of pure malice hung there in the air above them.
Curse of Dragon.
A five-star monster card, a dragon steeped in dark, malevolent energy.
Chase sat astride it, looking down at the pirates below with a wide grin.
“Well then, since you asked so nicely, let’s get this started.
I’ve actually been looking forward to this one.” “Curse of Dragon.
Crush them.” At the command, the Curse of Dragon roared skyward, its bone wings kicking up a violent gale, and shot toward the pirate formation at blistering speed.
In this world, dragons carried a weight nothing else quite matched.
Even a lesser, skeletal one like this was enough to short-circuit the pirates’ brains on the spot.
The nearest of them didn’t even have time to react before the Curse of Dragon plowed straight through, sending pirates crashing into the sea one after another like a volley of cannonballs, each impact throwing up a wall of spray.
Within seconds, more than half the pirates’ airborne strength had been wiped clean off the board.
“Damn it!
I don’t care what kind of monster this thing is, if magic made it, magic can kill it!” “Everyone, together!
Blast this monster and the Fairy Tail mage into nothing!” What was left of the pirates, faces twisted with hate, shouted themselves past their own fear of the bone dragon.
Just like they had against the merchant ship, they threw up a wall of spinning magic circles, all of it trained on the Curse of Dragon.
Wind, lightning, fire, everything, converging from every direction, sealing off any obvious escape route.
“You’re not the only ones with magic…” Chase gave the Curse of Dragon a casual pat on the back and grinned.
“Curse of Dragon, show these fools what real power looks like.” The dragon’s eyes blazed scarlet, and deep in its open jaws, flame spun and gathered and compressed into something dense enough to bend the air around it with heat.
Hellfire erupted outward, burning through the pirates’ combined magic in an instant.
That wasn’t the end of it.
The Curse of Dragon beat its wings, swung its head in a wide arc, and traced a line of unbroken flame straight through the sky.
Wherever it passed, pirates screamed and dropped, trailing smoke as they hit the water.
In one single pass, the entire pirate air force was wiped out.
Watching them fall one after another, the three Black Pheasant Legs mages stood frozen on the deck, staring.
“Summoning legendary creatures out of cards to fight for him…” Ina stared up at the man riding the bone dragon, breath catching fast in her chest.
“I remember.
I finally remember!” “He’s Chase Lynn Edgardon!
An S-Class mage of Fairy Tail!” Apparently this girl had some strange quirk where she just couldn’t place a person until she’d actually seen their magic in action.
“Whoa, that’s incredible!
So these really are Fairy Tail mages?” Bob’s eyes swept over the merchant ship, patches of it actually on fire now, and he let out a startled shout.
“Isn’t this maybe a little much?!” “Put the fire out!
Somebody get over here and help put the fire out!”