X773.
This year, both Kurosaki and Laxus turned twelve.
After Laxus begged again and again, Makarov finally relented and agreed to let him take jobs. But he set two conditions.
First, Laxus had to team up with Kurosaki.
Second, the job site couldn't be too far from Magnolia.
Kurosaki himself didn't have much obsession with taking missions. Money wasn't something he urgently needed, not when he was still living at Makarov's place and eating for free. Before this, he and Laxus had gone hunting in the woods and made some cash selling pelts and meat. Kurosaki used that money to buy himself a few new outfits, and he even had enough left over to buy Makarov a set of clothes too.
...
Hakobe Mountain.
Even in the height of summer, blizzards still raged across its slopes. The mountain was home to many gorilla-like monsters called Vulcans. Snow wolves lived there too, along with blizzard beasts and even white, snow-winged wyverns.
There was also a rare magical herb that grew in the mountain. It could restore stamina and magic power in a short time. But it was extremely delicate. The moment it was brought somewhere warm, it would wither almost immediately.
This time, they had taken two jobs.
One was to gather that herb.
The other was to hunt snow wolves and obtain their pelts.
Snow wolf fur was popular among wealthy women, so the reward was generous. Of course, the pay wasn't high just because of the wolves. Hakobe Mountain had year-round snowstorms, countless monsters, and almost no people. The danger alone raised the difficulty.
Kurosaki was already planning to slack off and coast through most of it. He wasn't the one excited about missions, and he knew that in the end Laxus would split the money anyway.
...
"Hey, hey. With you looking like this, you still want to talk about doing missions? I'm going to be too busy protecting you."
They decided to go to Hakobe Mountain by carriage.
More accurately, Kurosaki decided it on his own.
Laxus protested fiercely, but it changed nothing. Right now, Laxus was sprawled inside the carriage, looking listless, half-dead.
Kurosaki reached out and poked him lightly.
"I don't know what's going on. I suddenly started getting motion sickness lately, urgh…" Laxus's face was purple. He clamped a hand over his mouth, speech broken and weak. "If Grandpa didn't force you to come with me, I'd rather die than let you see me this pathetic, urgh…"
Kurosaki already knew.
This was a Dragon Slayer mage's classic side effect.
Motion sickness with vehicles.
And as their bodies grew closer to a dragon's nature, the symptom would only get worse. The reason was simple. A dragon's vision and a human's didn't line up the same way, so Dragon Slayer mages were prone to nausea on moving vehicles.
"Hahahaha." Kurosaki doubled over laughing, completely fearless. "I should've brought a camera. I'd take a picture of you like this and show it to Cana."
"You… urgh… dare…" Laxus raised a trembling finger at him, barely able to breathe through the threat. "I'll rip you apart, urgh…"
"Alright, alright. I'm done." Kurosaki stopped teasing and helped him sit up, turning his face toward the window. If Laxus threw up inside someone else's carriage, cleaning it would be a nightmare.
Then Laxus suddenly narrowed his eyes.
"Wait. I just realized something. Don't tell me you knew I get carsick and did this on purpose, just to watch me embarrass myself. Otherwise why insist on a carriage, and then claim it's to enjoy the scenery?"
After they got out, the cold wind seemed to clear Laxus's head. He looked a little better, and his thinking became unusually sharp.
Kurosaki smiled lazily.
"You guessed it."
"Bastard!" Laxus clenched his fists, lightning snapping around his body. "How did you even know I get carsick?"
"Haha. Secret." Kurosaki interlaced his fingers and rested them behind his head as he strolled toward the mountain. "Can't tell you."
"You freak. Did you stalk me?"
"You're overthinking it. I'm not into anything weird."
"Once we're done, we fly back. If we can't, we walk. I'm never getting in a carriage again."
"Yeah, yeah." Kurosaki nodded, brushing him off.
He knew it well.
Laxus couldn't beat him anyway.
Kurosaki had inherited all of Unohana's sword arts, the first Kenpachi's legacy. In terms of combat power, he was already far ahead of Fairy Tail's younger generation.
The biting snow and wind slapped into their faces without mercy. But for two boys who trained like fanatics and had bodies well beyond ordinary, this was nothing. It was basically routine.
For Kurosaki, it mattered even less.
For certain reasons, he had gained power from the Digital World, and alongside it, he had unlocked Unohana's constant-temperature spiritual pressure, extreme physique control.
Now, his spiritual pressure automatically formed a barrier around him, cutting off the cold completely. No matter how violent Hakobe Mountain's blizzard became, it couldn't affect him at all.
That level of physical dominance was unmatched among the mages of Fairy Tail's world.
So the two of them moved forward across the snow-covered slopes. The mountains ahead were stark and beautiful in their own way.
"Here." Kurosaki spoke as he pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. Then he handed another pair to Laxus.
Laxus stared at them, confused.
"Why would I wear sunglasses?"