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CHAPTER START---
---August 23rd X771…
Stepping into a Magic Shop somewhere along the northern edge of Fiore, Virgo holds her clipboard close and scans the shelves for anything interesting while walking to the counter. She sees an older man behind the counter and immediately presents a pleasant smile to him.
"Virgo, here to collect a package for Si— For Oberon Alkwan," she says.
"He's sending his guildmates now, huh?" the man says before walking through the door behind the counter.
Virgo takes the moment to walk around the small shop, searching for anything of particular interest, mainly Celestial Spirit Gate Keys. Eventually, she stops at a glass case, holding a few books. Most of them he has, but one bestiary within is foreign to her.
With simple telepathic communication, she confirms that this book isn't in his collection and adds it to the transaction.
Minutes later, she steps out of the shop, Storage Card safely tucked away, and walks through the town, enjoying the setting sun. She confirms her progress with Oberon while walking toward the train station, heading back home to Magnolia.
---Southeast Fiore, Margaret Town, Lamia Scale…
Aries sits across from Jura in his office while the man reads her request. He frowns at the list, pinching the bridge of his nose as it's seemingly endless.
He sees almost no empty space on the page, then flips it over to see that the other side is much the same. As are the next three pages.
Jura sighs and relaxes into his chair. "Some of these books won't be a problem. But many of them are restricted. That means even if Master Aven agrees to give him access, he'd have to go to Bosco and study them within the monastery library. Taking them away is forbidden, even for me."
Aries remains silent for a moment, then relays Oberon's message. "He understands and thanks you for being patient. He's excited to meet Wizard Saint Aven and visit your home."
"I'm glad to hear it. But why is Oberon sending you instead of coming himself, or just using the Lamia Scale Communication Lacrima?"
"Sir Oberon is out of range at the moment. But telepathy between him and us has no range or dimensional limits, so it's usable. Although he's had our gates open for quite some time now, almost two days since he left."
"Virgo as well?"
Aries nods. "She's collecting items he ordered from around Fiore."
"So he hasn't been in Fiore for at least a day. That means he missed this," Jura fishes around in his drawer for a moment before dropping yesterday's issue of Sorcerer Weekly on the desk. "Take a look, I'm sure this'll really annoy him…"
Aries takes the magazine and begins reading, and she's already on the wave of annoyance Oberon will respond with after merely glancing at the cover.
The cover of the magazine has a bold headline. 'The Ultimate Magic!' with a picture of Oberon performing the Fairy Tail Salute, his arm showing off the new permanent Fairy Glitter Emblem in the same black as his Guild Mark on his inner forearm.
Looking at the bottom of the page, she sees two much smaller pictures of Jura and Ichiya, leading to articles deeper in the magazine. "How did they get this?"
Jura shrugs. "The Magic Council has Memory Magic. It can only extract memories that are willingly given, so some of the people we arrested must have given up info. I'm not too surprised it leaked. Honestly, I suspect the Magic Council did it intentionally.
They've been looking for a figurehead for all their propaganda. Who better than Fairy Tail's golden boy? His guild is leading the charge for the legal changes with Master Makarov, and now he's famous and has Fairy Glitter. Yeah, they definitely leaked this themselves…"
"Sir Oberon will the happy that more clients will request him. Mainly, the more exclusive and wealthy clients. But he will gripe about being famous for some time…again."
"Well, at least you have to deal with him," Jura says as she continues reading the magazine, thoroughly enjoying it. "Where is Oberon anyway?"
---Open Ocean, West Fiore…
"Have you made any progress yet?" Captain Karit asks as she enters the captain's quarters of this captured ship.
Within she sees Oberon hovering in place while dozens of large maps float around him, the Reading Magic of Gale Force Glasses and Super Archive working in tandem to read and process all the information from them into his mind.
After learning the enchantment, he's not since needed the Magic Item itself, allowing him to passively scan and store data with ease. Glancing between some of the charts, he sets them aside, keeping the enchantment running while turning to her.
"What's that?" he asks, nodding toward the large book in her grasp. She tosses it toward him, and with a thought it floats toward him, relinquishing the information within. Seconds later, most of the book is scanned and processed. "It's a ledger. But its encoded, I'll need time to break it. I assume none of the crew can read it, right?"
"No," she looks around at all the charts and sheets, including many sealed messages between criminal organizations. "These people are paid to smuggle intel, not read it. Anything useful outside of what we're looking for?"
"A lot," Oberon says. "I'm sorting it and storing the information for the Magic Council. They'll know what to do with it."
"We could go rob them ourselves."
"Most of them exist beyond Fiore, and I can't just leave so easily. But the letter you want isn't here," he says while descending to the floor, leaving all the books, charts, and sheets on a nearby desk. "Did we get the wrong ship?"
"Lets go ask them," Captain Karit nods for him to follow before leaving the room. She leads him down the short hallway, through the main kitchen and out onto the main deck. There they see a dozen men cuffed and chained on their knees with small bruises on them.
Captain Karit's crew oversees them, weapons at the ready, but the men don't have any fight left in them. Even less so as Oberon steps out onto the deck. Oberon looks up at the midday sun, receiving updates from his three Celestial Spirits while walking to the railing.
He looks over the side to see a large shadowy figure move deeper into the sea water, and rolls his eyes before turning back to Captain Karit. "We should make this quick. I have some new things waiting for me back home."
"Playing with more rocks?"
"It's part of Cosmic," Oberon mutters as she walks over to the captured men.
"Alright," she draws her blade and points it at one of the men. "There was something on this ship when you left port, and now its gone. What happened?"
The men share scared glances, then turn to the corpse of their friend on deck. One of them swallows his pride and looks up at Captain Karit. "There was a strange drop off. Out in open water, about a hundred miles south-east of here. A little cove on a island, secret place. They met us there, looked to have a storehouse there too."
"Anything else?"
"That's all, I swear." They all nod in agreement, and Captain Karit sheathes her blade. "Then that only leaves one more thing, what do we do with—"
The trapdoor on the deck slams open, and two of Captain Karit's men walk out, furiously stomping over to her. They whisper in her ear, and a look of disgust and rage dominates her face.
Oberon is confused, but moments later half a dozen beautiful young women are led onto the deck, wearing fine dresses with scrapes and bruises on their bodies.
"Seems you have a side hustle, and the worst kind at that. Oberon, you wanted to take them to the Rune Knights, what do you say?"
"I try not to kill people unless I absolutely have to, especially not on a Job. Making everything personal isn't a good habit."
"And if I disagree?"
Oberon shrugs. "Not my sword, not my problem. And I'm not going to step in to defend these things. Do what you want, I'll find where they were talking about…" He opens a display using Super Archive, sorting through the maps they found to locate the aforementioned cove.
Moments later, Oberon has his back turned to the deck as some semblance of justice is served, gazing out at the ocean while manipulating Super Archive when Captain Karit steps into place beside him.
"Found it?" She asks, and he enlarges the window before moving it for her to see. She studies the small marked island and nods. "That's probably it. If it's not there, will you stay out a bit longer?"
"I have to get back to Fiore, the Magic Council has already been asking for me. Staying away any longer would be bad."
"And you're dying to play with rocks."
"Well if I tried Comic on your ship, you'd all be dead."
"Scary Magic," she turns around to her men. "Take everything, we'll drop the ladies in Hargeon when we take Oberon back there. Then burn this ship, can't have them knowing we're after them."
"Aye Captain!" they salute before getting to work.
"Can you send him ahead?" she asks Oberon. "It would be a real pain if they sailed off before we got there."
Oberon nods, sending the mental commands, and moments later the ship gently rocks side to side. She sees Oberon sigh, then he apologizes. "Sorry about this, he's a show off…"
A moment later, Dorado, now a 40m -120ft- long, giant, armored swordfish, leaps over the ship and splashes into the water on the other side, soaking the deck and rocking the vessels back and forth.
After the water settles and they see the massive sail fin disappear into the distance, moving faster than any ship could sail, Captain Karit ends her death-grip on the railing.
"Not to sound ungrateful, but most Celestial Spirit Wizards have a little snowman thing as a pet, but of course I'd be friends with the guy who has a pet sea monster."
"And Caelum, but he's too flashy so we can't sneak up on anyone."
She chuckles. "Yeah, that ones my favourite…"
CHAPTER END---
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