"…"
Shane drew a deep breath, feeling like his heart was bleeding.
Without another word, he turned on his heel and headed straight for the request board.
"I'm going to work."
"Hold it."
Makarov called after him, waving a poster in his hand.
"In a couple days, the guild's got another event. We'll be using the wyvern scales you brought back as tokens. You're coming too, right? No harm in running the race before you go back to work."
Shane paused and turned around. "Is there prize money?"
"Uh…" Makarov choked. "Putting up prize money for a friendship-building competition kind of misses the point…"
"But… we can negotiate a punishment for last place."
"I'm going to work."
Shane repeated it with a blank face, this time walking off even more decisively without looking back.
From today on, Fairy Tail had one less happy kid, and one more emotionless work machine.
That was the tragic conclusion Shane arrived at.
…
The days that followed were brutally "fulfilling."
To pay off that enormous debt, Shane went into full grind mode.
One request after another, with almost no breaks in between.
Erza wanted to stay with him the whole time, but Shane figured the debt was his problem and didn't want her suffering alongside him, so he temporarily disbanded their team.
They only teamed up occasionally for high-difficulty jobs that suited them both.
For efficiency's sake, Shane picked the simple, direct, high-paying kinds of requests: exterminations, crackdowns, captures.
With Lancer's ultra-mobile mechanical dragon wings, his speed was ridiculous.
He'd be arresting bandits in the southern forest in the morning and hunting monsters in the northern snow mountains that same afternoon.
On his craziest day, he completed three cross-city requests in one go.
That level of activity made his reputation explode.
Outside the guild, people began to realize Fairy Tail didn't just have Erza—the rising star—they also had a powerful new talent with terrifying efficiency.
Before long, the nickname "Dragon-Wing Shane" started circulating in the industry.
Shane himself hated it.
"Way too blunt and cringe. Zero aesthetic."
He never imagined the first thing to make him famous would be Lancer's wings, not his forging or his archery.
He complained about it for days—people really did care more about flashy, memorable appearances than the craft behind them.
So he never acknowledged the title in public.
Even when Erza teased him with it on purpose, he'd just pretend he didn't hear, wearing a cool, indifferent face.
On top of that, the painful debt experience drilled the importance of money into him all over again.
"Paying it back through requests alone is still too slow…"
In the gaps between jobs, Shane's mind started working again.
He began wondering if he should revive the "sell forged weapons" plan he'd shelved earlier out of sheer laziness.
Forging might be a craft, but with Muramasa's skills, producing a few premium weapons was nothing for him.
He started paying attention during missions, looking for merchants suitable for deeper cooperation.
If he was going to sell his skill, he intended to go high-end—custom, boutique work only.
Mass production would be a terrible trade-off in both effort and profit.
…
Time flew in the middle of all that busyness, and before he knew it, it was December.
The early winter wind swept through Magnolia, laying a thin layer of frost over the city.
"Hoo…"
Shane pushed open the guild doors and headed for the counter as usual, ready to turn in the request he'd just finished.
After more than a month of insane grinding, he'd already repaid roughly eight million of the debt.
To be fair, "Dragon Wings" plus his top-tier combat ability didn't just add up—it multiplied his earning power.
If the guild didn't run out of extermination requests faster than he could clear them, he probably could've doubled that repayment amount.
Just as he was about to head back to the request board to pick his next "prey"—
"Wait, Shane."
Makarov's voice stopped him.
The old man's expression today was unusually serious.
"I've got something important to announce. Pause your work for a moment."
"Something important?" Shane turned around, puzzled—and only then noticed the atmosphere was off.
Normally, people would already be sloppy-drunk at this hour.
Today, everyone was sitting upright. They were holding mugs, but nobody was drinking.
And there were more people than usual.
Erza, Natsu, Gray—sure.
But even Laxus, who normally showed up like a ghost, was leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed, looking cold and detached.
Even Gildarts—who'd vanished the moment the Harvest Festival ended—was here too, standing beside Makarov and waving at Shane.
Everyone who should be here… was here.
Shane's heart stirred. He could already guess.
"Don't tell me… it's that time?"
"Correct!"
Makarov hopped up onto the newly replaced bar counter.
Clap! Clap!
He looked around and slapped his hands loudly to draw everyone's attention.
"Based on what I've observed and considered these past weeks… the candidate list for this year's 'S-Class Mage Promotion Trial' is confirmed!"
The room instantly held its breath, eyes locked on Makarov.
And it wasn't just Shane who'd been pushing himself.
Any member aiming for S-Class had been grinding requests and training mana like crazy for the past two months after the Harvest Festival—because those slots were limited.
The hall went so quiet you could hear people breathing.
Makarov surveyed the room, satisfied the tension had peaked, then announced in a clear voice:
"Per Fairy Tail tradition, after careful consideration, there are four candidates for this year's S-Class trial!"
He raised his first finger.
"First—Laxus Dreyar!"
"Tch."
The blond teen at the pillar clearly hated being called by his full name in public. He looked away and clicked his tongue, but didn't object.
"Looks like he's all grumpy, but he actually shows up for group events pretty seriously," Cana said, somehow appearing at Shane's side while enjoying the spectacle. She carried a faint smell of alcohol—clearly she'd been sneaking drinks again.
"He won that '24-hour endurance road race' a while back, you know."
"You should've seen it—he basically blasted through the whole thing in sparks and lightning. His drive to win is terrifying."
"Huh…" Shane raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised.
He'd assumed the lone-wolf Laxus would look down on anything that felt like a 'for-fun' contest.
"And just so you know," Cana added with a wicked grin, "the punishment for last place in that race was… running three laps around South Gate Park without clothes on."