"Let's go back."
"Yes, Sir."
As Finn confirmed the condition of the massive, scaly corpse and the glowing, crystalline lacrima, he didn't hesitate. With a wave of his hand, the air rippled, and the colossal remains of the Sword Saint Dragon were sucked into his spatial inventory. Leaving the desolate, wind-battered continent of Guiltina behind, he and his black-clad subordinates turned to head home. There was far too much work waiting for him.
As he walked away, the sharp scent of dried blood and sulfur lingering in the air, Finn caught from the corner of his eye a young man staring at him. He wore a traditional kimono and carried a katana. His eyes were wide, filled with a deep, agonizing pain, as if he had just watched his entire future be ripped away.
Finn simply ignored him. He knew exactly who that was: Suzaku, one of Georg's top followers. Without the corpse of Kurunugi to consume, Suzaku's path to becoming a Dragon Slayer was permanently severed. He would never rise to the heights he was destined for.
Wait a minute, was he planning to become a Dragon Slayer magician?
Finn scoffed internally. He had absolutely zero intention of becoming a Dragon Slayer himself. In this universe, the magic carried absurdly troublesome side effects. For one, he refused to suffer from crippling motion sickness every time he stepped onto a vehicle. And more importantly, there was the terrifying, looming risk of Dragonification—losing his humanity entirely and mutating into a scaly beast.
"But with my plan, I should be perfectly fine."
A few hours later, Finn sat in the dimly lit, heavily reinforced basement of his personal, official Magic Council airship. The low, rhythmic hum of the magic engines vibrated through the plush velvet of his chair.
He projected the image of the dragon corpse from his spatial storage, staring at it intently. The methods of becoming a Dragon Slayer in this world were all flawed: being raised by a dragon, implanting a volatile lacrima, creating one artificially, or eating the raw, bloody flesh.
Eating a dragon had worked miraculously for the Finn in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, but the laws of reality and magic were vastly different here in Earthland.
If he wasn't going to absorb the lacrima or eat the flesh—which was a shame, given the immense physical potential of a Sword Saint—what was he going to do with it?
He was going to forge it into a weapon.
It was an avant-garde, completely unorthodox idea for this world, but Finn had multidimensional knowledge. He thought of the DxD universe, where the God of the Bible crafted Sacred Gears—living artifacts forged from legendary beasts that evolved alongside their hosts. Combining that conceptual knowledge with the divine crafting abilities he inherited from the Arifureta Finn, he knew forging Kurunugi's soul and body into a weapon was infinitely superior to becoming a standard Dragon Slayer.
If a perverted high schooler like Issei could become a god-tier powerhouse just by wielding Ddraig in a gauntlet, Finn could do the same with Kurunugi.
It was the ultimate win-win scenario. He would gain the devastating power of a dragon without the motion sickness or the risk of losing his humanity. Furthermore, if he ever had a child in the future, he could pass the weapon down as an overpowered heirloom.
Thinking about his future, Finn couldn't wait to return to his estate in Hargeon.
Despite being the head of the Fiore Branch of the Magic Council, he had refused to live in Crocus, the kingdom's bustling capital. He preferred the coastal city of Hargeon. He loved the salty breeze of the ocean, and more practically, the port allowed him to keep a strict, watchful eye over his incredibly lucrative maritime smuggling and trade businesses.
"I really have come a long way..."
Finn closed his eyes, sinking deeper into the soft velvet cushions. His mind drifted back to his miserable past. He had originally wanted to join Fairy Tail, hoping to rely on their famous camaraderie. But reality was cruel. He realized his own limits. He was terrified of living in absolute poverty, forced to scrape and beg just to survive another freezing night.
In his darkest, most desperate moment, his magic finally awakened. Take Over magic.
It was the same magic used by the famous Strauss siblings. But unlike the voluptuous Mirajane—whose demonic Take Over forms barely contained her massive, heaving breasts, weaponizing her raw sex appeal alongside absolute terror—Finn had started at the very bottom. His first Take Over was a literal chicken he had desperately beaten up in an alleyway, just trying to get something to eat.
Even now, he kept a low profile. He exclusively took over avian creatures for their utility and flight. The moniker "White Devil" was bestowed upon him simply because his primary combat form was a fiercely fast White Owl.
It might have seemed weak compared to Elfman's towering beasts or Mirajane's seductive demons, but in this world, magic scaled with the user's mind and resolve. After all, the magicless fighters of Edolas had pushed Erza—the strongest female mage—to her absolute limits.
Frankly, Finn didn't have the insane, reckless confidence required to Take Over a powerful monster. The magic was inherently dangerous. If a mage's willpower faltered for even a second, the beast's consciousness would shatter their mind. He vividly remembered how Elfman had gone completely berserk, his mind broken, nearly slaughtering his own little sister in a blind rage.
Finn had no powerful sister to back him. He wasn't in Fairy Tail, who would hold his hand and preach about the "power of friendship." His relationships within the Magic Council were strictly, ruthlessly professional. Everyone was either a useful tool to be manipulated or garbage to be discarded.
It was a cold, lonely, and sociopathic way to live, but if he hadn't embraced the darkness, he would still be that starving boy in the alleyway.
Finally...
Finn clenched his fist, a dark smirk crossing his face. He was so incredibly glad he hadn't given up. His sheer ruthlessness had kept him alive long enough to connect with his alternate selves and awaken the Manager system. Everything was finally falling into place. The exhaustion of his political schemes washed over him, and he allowed himself to drift into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Yet, as he rested, the gears of fate began to aggressively turn.
Far across the dimensional void, entirely separate from Earthland, a certain female dragon whose lineage was deeply connected to Kurunugi suddenly snapped her eyes open. She laid upon a bed of treasures, her breathtakingly beautiful human form draped only in impossibly thin silk that clung desperately to her massive, heaving breasts and wide hips. A heavy, intoxicating scent of pheromones and ozone filled her chamber as she stared fiercely into the void, her predatory gaze locking onto Finn's distant presence.
Meanwhile, back on Earthland, the salty air above a specific patch of the ocean grew suddenly thick and suffocating. A violent turbulence of magical aura erupted from the sea.
The seven-year stasis was ending. Tenrou Island was returning.
The plot was finally about to begin.