The words brought the guild, which had only just started settling down, roaring right back to life.
Everyone in the room, Natsu and Gray included, wore the same look of disbelief.
They might not have liked it, but there was no arguing with it either: Chase’s S-Class title was earned, plain and simple, no exaggeration anywhere in it.
And a mage like that hadn’t been able to finish a ten-year mission?
“Really?
Even you couldn’t do it?” Master Makarov looked just as thrown as everyone else, his expression tight.
“What in the world happened out there?” By any reasonable measure, Chase might not have had the strength to walk away from the job without a scratch on him, but finishing it should have been well within reach.
It would just take longer than most jobs did.
That had been the whole reason Makarov sent him out there in the first place: better a mission that kept him busy for a decade than a guild that kept paying for the damage.
Chase let out a slow breath and dropped himself onto the bar counter.
“Everything went by the book, right up to the very end.
Then we got unlucky and ran into a dragon, red from head to tail, and enormous with it.” His tone stayed level and unbothered, like he was describing something perfectly mundane.
The words landed like a bomb going off in the middle of the guild hall.
“A Red dragon?
Wait, Chase, you don’t mean the actual legendary monster?
Not just some title someone slapped on it?” “Dragons are real?
How strong does something like that even get?!” “Hold on, so you’re saying you actually got away from it?!” The crowd surged in around Chase, all talking over each other at once.
Lucy, still new enough to find any of this shocking, clapped both hands over her mouth and just stared.
“Everybody, shut up!
Chase, was it Igneel?
Was that the dragon?” Natsu shoved his way through the crowd and skidded to a stop in front of Chase, eyes burning with something close to desperation.
Chase gave him a slow once-over, the kind of look that seemed to cut straight through magic itself, all the way down to the Fire Dragon King Igneel’s presence buried somewhere inside Natsu.
“That thing could breathe fire too, as it happens.
But no.
Its name wasn’t Igneel.” Natsu’s face fell for half a second, then lit right back up.
“Hey!
Did you hear that?
Dragons are real!
I really was raised by the Fire Dragon King Igneel!” His guildmates believed him well enough.
They just weren’t reacting to the name Igneel much anymore, not after years of turning up nothing looking for this “father” of his.
But the news Chase had brought back was exactly the shot in the arm Natsu needed, and his determination to find Igneel came roaring right back to full strength.
“So, Chase, did you actually fight it?
Are you hurt?” Mira’s face had gone worried.
Chase’s expression clouded for a second, some memory of a fight that had nearly killed him passing behind his eyes, something quieter moving through before it cleared.
“That wasn’t really a fight, strictly speaking.
It breathed once and wiped out the entire monster army I’d summoned in one go.
I never stood a chance.
Only got out of there at all because of a card.” Then his tone shifted entirely, and he looked at Mira with total seriousness.
“But I am hurt, if you want to know the truth.
My heart’s fragile these days.
Badly shaken.
I think I need to go on a date with a pretty girl to help it recover.” Mira’s shoulders eased at hearing he wasn’t actually hurt.
Then she lifted a finger and pointed it at Lucy, still folded up small in her corner.
“What a coincidence.
Lucy’s a top-notch beauty, face and figure both.” Lucy jolted upright, eyes going wide, dragged into this without any warning at all.
I’m new here.
I barely register as a person yet.
How did I end up in the crossfire?
Mira, are you seriously selling me out right now?
“She’s a bit silly,” Chase said, nodding along seriously, “but as a date, I’ll allow it.
Barely.” Lucy’s lips twitched.
A bit silly?
You’re the silly one.
If you can’t even talk right, don’t talk at all.
“Barely, huh.” Mira straightened, folding her hands gracefully at the hem of her red dress.
Her smile got brighter.
Sweeter.
And somewhere underneath it, unmistakably more dangerous.
“Ha, well, now that I think about it,” Chase said, backing off fast and laughing as he scratched the back of his neck, “just being back at the guild again already fixed me right up.
All better.” Lucy’s eyes narrowed, flicking between the two of them.
Whatever indignation she’d been building over being volunteered for a date vanished, replaced by something far more interested.
Are they…
together?
I need to ask Natsu and Happy about this later.
“Alright.
Good, everyone made it back in one piece.” Makarov kept his eyes low, his expression carefully casual, and waved Chase over.
“But Chase, I need the details on this mission.
All of them.
Come up to the second floor.” The ten-year mission was dangerous enough on its own, but failing it meant more than that: broken trust with the client, a dent in the guild’s name, a mess of compensation and review work still to come.
None of that seemed to be what he was in a hurry about, though.
Whatever he wanted to hear first clearly had more to do with the dragon than the paperwork.
Before Chase could answer, someone bolted past him and made straight for the stairs.
Natsu was so eager for more dragon talk that he’d completely forgotten the guild rule: only S-Class mages set foot on the second floor.
Sure enough, the second he broke into a run, a shadow fell over him: a fist the size of a building dropped out of nowhere and flattened him in one hit.
“Natsu!
You’re not qualified to be up there yet!” Makarov’s voice cracked through the hall, without a shred of mercy in it.
Conversations like this one stayed upstairs for a reason.
Dragons weren’t something to drop on the guild’s younger members without warning, not when it might rattle them enough to set them back for years.
Natsu, of all people, would’ve been fine hearing it.
He’d been raised by one.
But rules were rules.
Knowing him, even if he couldn’t follow them up, he’d wear the truth out of Chase eventually, one way or another.
That was a problem for later.
“Work hard and maybe you’ll make S-Class one of these years, little Natsu.” Chase stepped over him with a grin, clearly enjoying every second of it.
“Damn it!
I’ll be S-Class by the end of this year!” Natsu ground his teeth but thought better of trying to force his way past a guild master who wasn’t in a negotiating mood.
He backed down, and the rest of the guild, curious as they were, took the hint and drifted back to their seats to keep drinking and gossiping among themselves.
Not everyone fell back in line, though.
One figure peeled off and followed Chase up the stairs without so much as a pause, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Makarov glanced back once, then looked away and said nothing.
Mira’s personality had changed for good after everything that happened that year, mellowed out until she was just the guild’s harmless poster girl these days.
But her S-Class rank hadn’t gone anywhere, and that alone was enough to keep him from saying a word about her tagging along.
“Hey, Happy.
What’s the deal with Mira and Mr.
Chase?” Lucy watched the two of them disappear around the bend of the staircase, and her curiosity finally got the better of her.
She elbowed Happy, who was floating right beside her.
“Does Lucy want to know?” Happy’s eyes darted side to side, and he held up one paw with perfect calm.
“One whole box of dried fish, and it’s yours.” “A whole box?
I can’t even cover my own rent!” Lucy clutched at the wallet on her waist like it might get up and leave without her.
She’d only just joined the guild.
She hadn’t taken on a single real commission yet, didn’t have two coins to rub together, and was living about as frugally as a person could.
Where am I supposed to get fish money for this useless cat?
“Aye.
Well, guess I’ve got nothing to say, then!” Happy turned his head away with a grin that was entirely too pleased with itself.
“You damn cat!”