The wizards still had to focus on work. After fooling around, the strongest team set out to take a job.
Seeing how Natsu, Gray, and Erza had destroyed the pool table in no time, Lucy couldn't help feeling nervous about suppression requests. All the money she'd worked so hard to earn last time had gone to compensation.
Seeing her worry, Mira immediately recommended a daily commission that wouldn't cause damage.
There was a theater manager who hoped a mage could use magic to help the playhouse get popular.
The commission location was Onibas, a commercial city more prosperous than Magnolia. It was also the city where half the train station had been wrecked by the strongest team during the Lullaby incident.
Lucy accepted with pleasure.
With the guild's loudest critic and its two noisiest idiots out the door, the temporary work area suddenly felt much quieter.
"It got quiet so suddenly, I'm not used to it…"
Chase sat at the bar and looked around. Only a few people were scattered about.
"Everyone's been active lately. The Harvest Festival is next month."
Mira sat opposite, propping her fair face in her hands. She blinked, gaze fixed on Chase. "Chase, are you really not taking any jobs?"
"It's not interesting. I can't take S-Class."
As he spoke, Chase's eyes lit up. "Mira, how about you "
"You're the one the master specifically told me to keep an eye on."
Mira instantly guessed what he meant. She raised her hands, crossed them, and said solemnly, "So secretly pulling strings would be like that, da~!"
It wasn't that Makarov doubted Chase's ability. He was worried that once that door opened, certain blockheads in the guild would be tempted to sneak S-Class requests.
The new hall wasn't even finished. As guild master he had a mountain of arrangements and no time to handle that kind of emergency.
"Ahem."
Chase sighed. "Do you have the builders' contact?"
Since he had nothing urgent, he decided to keep up with the progress on his new home.
Although he had promised to help Lucy with rent and the two of them were close enough not to fuss over it it was still a girl's place. Not very convenient.
"Oh, we're building a new house?" Mira asked.
Seeing Chase nod, she brightened at once and reached into her burgundy dress.
"Ta-da! Not only do I have the crew's contact, I even designed the blueprints for you!"
Mira smiled, spreading out a still-warm drawing on the table, her big eyes full of expectation.
Chase was a little surprised.
From the Trinity Raven hit order to the Tower of Heaven battle, Mira had been with him almost the whole time.
In other words, she had rushed these plans out overnight.
The thoughtfulness was touching, but the cute, pink, childlike style was… hard to praise.
"Ahaha, that's so you. Can you walk me through the specifics?" Chase scratched his head. The previous guild plans he could reverse-engineer from memory of the original, but he really couldn't make sense of this house layout.
The boomerang from that pretentious act smacked him clean in the back of the head. "No problem!"
Eager to share, Mira laid the design flat on the table.
Limited by the bar's width, she scooted closer and leaned in.
Two generous obstacles took over for her free hands, flattening oddly against the tabletop.
"First, let's start with the ground floor. As soon as you enter, you'll naturally see a wide living room. Off to the side is a separate, dedicated gym. For someone like Chase, training is essential, right?"
Mira, leaning over the table, scooted close to Chase, her pale fingers tapping the spots on the cute drawing one by one.
"Across from the gym are the kitchen and dining area, and behind them are the toilet and the bath."
"For the bath, I definitely want a huge tub. It'll be so comfortable in winter."
"Then on the second-floor wall facing the street, we put in floor-to-ceiling windows for great light and a view."
By the end of her walkthrough, Chase was more confused than before, even a little shocked.
As a civil engineering graduate, he had never expected that this doodle of Mira's no, this design plan actually packed in so much.
The world of magic was truly magical.
"They're all good ideas, but…"
Chase pointed to the end of the blueprint. "What's this big-headed little guy on the roof for?"
"That's a cute statue of Chase. It's the highlight of the whole house!"
As she said it, Mira's eyes turned bright and expectant, like a child waiting to be praised.
"It's ugly. That's the one thing we don't need." Chase refused without thinking.
"How can you say that? It's the part I'm most proud of!"
Mira's expectations collapsed on the spot. She covered her face and began to sob.
"Everything except the statue is perfect. The design is excellent. Let's build it exactly to your plan."
Chase panicked and hurried to comfort her.
More than fighting, he hated a girl's tears even if Mira's hidden mischievous streak meant she might be "faking."
Sure enough, Mira's teary eyes cleared in an instant and she smiled. "Really?"
Chase was already used to it. "Just to be clear, there's no design fee."
"No way. Then my work would be for nothing."
She answered seriously at first, then her eyes flicked and she said playfully, "In exchange,
I want to be the first one to see your new home."
"That's fine." Chase nodded.
Over in the drinking area, an idle old-timer caught sight of the two talking so closely.
"Damn it, how are they moving so fast? They're already designing the love hut," Macao muttered through gritted teeth.
"I was wondering why someone as strong as Chase 'accidentally' blew up his own house. So it was all part of the plan," Wakaba puffed on his pipe, eyes wide with sudden enlightenment.
"I think I even heard something about a baby room. Do I really have no chance? It hurts, it hurts so much."
"Don't pout, you, the one who already has a kid. My pain is worse."
"Oh yeah? You still have a wife you haven't divorced!"
Boom!
A beer barrel slammed onto the tabletop, cutting off their pointless back-and-forth.
Cana, cheeks slightly flushed, snapped, "Didn't I tell you two to get to work! You're interrupting my drinking!"
"A drunk like you has no right to lecture us!" Macao and Wakaba sneered.
"No, no, no, I was just delayed by something important."
Cana wiped the wine from the corner of her mouth and took another sip.
"Haha! 'Something important'? You mean drinking so much the Council has to foot the bill?" Macao couldn't help laughing.
The three of them were old hands in the guild, well aware of each other's bad habits.
But this time, Macao and Wakaba had it wrong.
"Haha, I'm not the same as before."
Cana shook her head, then, once she'd centered herself, flicked out three cards with a mysterious smile. "This is a rare chance, so I'll show you a few tricks."
"My recent training results!"
Buzz.
As Cana cast all three cards, magic circles flared in three different directions.
A heartbeat later, radiance flashed. Long blades, sheathed in dazzling light, slowly formed and hovered in the air.
"Hey, you're kidding!"
"Isn't that Chase's magic?"
Seeing the three familiar light-swords, Macao and Wakaba so dismissive a moment ago were suddenly stunned.
Even Mira, mid-chat with Chase, peeked over curiously. "Oh, did Cana simulate Swords of Revealing Light?"
"Though it doesn't carry the true binding seal of Swords of Revealing Light, it's got its own twist," Chase said, seeing through the core of Cana's spell at a glance.
"That's right!" Cana snapped her fingers.
The card circles on the floor rotated again, and the three lightsabers shuddered.
Thick iron chains, woven from Light Magic, burst from the blades' glow and lashed around Macao and Wakaba before they could react.
Horrified, the two struggled hard, but couldn't break free.
"I get it. You hid a Light-binding spell inside the card to recreate the restraint of Swords of Revealing Light,"
Mira said, suddenly enlightened. "That's a great idea. The magic output's strong, too."
By contrast, Chase remained much calmer.
Strictly speaking, Cana Gildarts' own daughter had deep reserves of magic. Otherwise she wouldn't be capable of Fairy Glitter, the strongest single-target spell among the three Fairy Magics.
Her lack of big moments came from failing the S-Class promotion several years running.
Shaky mentality was part of it, but the bigger limiter was card magic's lower ceiling.
"Hey, there's more!"
Cana raised both hands. With a twist of magic, she trapped Macao and Wakaba inside blank cards, then spun the cards playfully between her fingers.
The two old pervs sprinted around in panic through the pure white space.
In the original tale, Cana learned this card-sealing technique from Sho, but Chase had explained the basics to her long ago, so it wasn't surprising she'd mastered it by now.
"Not bad, Cana. Your activation time and card flow are way smoother than before," Chase praised.
As a card mage himself, he naturally noticed more than Mira did.
"Heh, it's okay, it's okay. Still miles worse than a monster like you," Cana said, grinning as she wiped her nose.
"That's true."
"Hey!"
Cana's smile froze. This idiot has zero sense of diplomacy!
"But thanks anyway. Without your magical pointers and the Book of Secret Arts, I never would've had a breakthrough like this," she added with sincere gratitude.
Beyond raising her maximum magic output, the book's contents on spellcraft had given her a flood of ideas and insights.
"Finally, there's hope for S-Class this year!"
Cana clenched her fists, eyes sparkling.
With that, I'll be worthy to face that person and stay in Fairy Tail forever.
"That's assuming you don't run into Chase," Mira added with a smile.
At that, Cana's soaring confidence deflated in an instant.
One stabs with words, the other smiles with a dagger hidden what a vicious pair!
....
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