As for what kind of complicated emotions were going through Makarov's thoroughly battered little heart right now—that could wait.
In any case, Jason left the guild completely satisfied, notebook stuffed to bursting—
and carrying away a pile of "explosive material" that made the old man anxious in every possible sense.
After seeing off the over-energetic reporter, and reminding him again and again to make sure the great hero Arash's legend was written with proper emotional weight, Shane turned back toward the guild hall.
The moment he stepped inside, he saw Mira crouched beside Natsu with absolutely no concern for appearances, staring unblinkingly at the little blue flying cat.
"How strange…"
She reached out and poked Happy's soft little belly with a finger, her face full of fascination.
"Aye!"
Happy swatted her hand away in annoyance, the tiny wings on his back fluttering twice.
"Quit playing around."
Shane walked over and grabbed Mira by the arm.
"This cat's going to talk like a person in the future, and he's a real chatterbox. There'll be plenty of time for him to annoy you later."
He knew very well how sharp Happy's future commentary skills would be. That mouth of his was practically dipped in poison.
"Whatever it is can wait!"
Mira shook her arm impatiently, all her attention fixed on Happy. She couldn't tear her eyes away.
"…"
Looking at the girl who forgot all serious matters the second her playful side took over, Shane felt a headache coming on.
This idiot student of his already spent her days doing whatever she wanted and picking fights with Erza, and on top of that she never listened.
Handling one Mira was already enough suffering for him. He honestly had no idea how Ur had survived back then with two students.
"Hah…"
Shane took a deep breath and restrained himself from exploding on the spot.
He remembered Mira proudly claiming just now that she'd been gone so long because she had been "getting stronger."
Sure, she was usually unserious, but her talent was real. Maybe—just maybe—she'd secretly mastered some trump card and wanted to surprise him.
Clinging to that last shred of hope, Shane focused his thoughts.
An invisible ripple swept across Mira as Companion Verification activated.
A few seconds later, the corner of Shane's mouth began twitching uncontrollably.
Mira really hadn't let him down!
On the page of Path of the Sacred Flame, aside from the addition of a playful new portrait of a silver-haired girl sticking her tongue out at him, the rest of the page might as well have been dead still—utterly unchanged.
"Of course…"
"I really shouldn't have expected anything unrealistically hopeful from this idiot!"
"So you really didn't get any stronger at all!!"
At that point, Shane's patience snapped.
Bang!
He strode forward, forcefully spun the girl around, and smashed his forehead directly into hers with a solid headbutt!
"Ahhh—"
Caught completely off guard, Mira cried out in pain and was knocked backward by the blow, falling flat onto the floor with a thump.
Her pale legs, exposed beneath her shorts, splayed inelegantly apart.
The toned, supple flesh of her inner thighs—shaped by constant training—quivered slightly from the impact like rippling waves.
Clutching her rapidly swelling forehead, she glared furiously at him.
"You bastard, Shane! What was that for?! That hurt!!"
The pain was bad enough that she couldn't even be bothered to call him "Master" anymore.
"For doing what a master is supposed to do!"
Shane glared back at her irritably, showing absolutely no intention of going easy on her.
He grabbed her wrist like he was picking up a cat and started dragging her straight toward the quest board.
"What kind of master just ambushes his cute student like that?!"
Mira absolutely refused to cooperate, digging both heels into the floor like a stubborn child throwing a tantrum and refusing to move.
"…"
Looking at her acting like this, Shane felt a deep sense of helplessness.
At some point, all the dignity and authority he had worked so hard to establish as a teacher had completely vanished in front of this rebellious girl.
Now Mira not only had no fear of him at all—her whole attitude had become brazenly, shamelessly unrestrained.
"…Looks like I really do need to retrain you."
Shane ground his teeth, his gaze gradually turning dangerous. The D+ rank Strength he had just gained erupted in full.
"Up you go!"
"Eh? Ehhhhh?!"
Without transforming into Satan Soul, Mira had absolutely no way of resisting raw physical strength like that.
Her protests meant nothing. Her feet scraped two long marks across the floor as Shane dragged her bodily all the way to the quest board.
"Look at this."
Shane planted her in front of it and pointed at the densely packed request sheets.
"Gray and Ur have already left to train for the S-Class exam."
"We can't afford to fall behind either."
"Ur?"
Rubbing her wrist, Mira froze at the unfamiliar name.
"Who's that?"
She hadn't been at the guild these past few days, so she knew nothing about what had happened recently.
"Ur is Gray's master."
Without turning around, Shane kept sorting through the requests as he explained casually,
"Just think of her as… a woman who's much stronger than even Erza is right now."
"She's entering the S-Class exam too. So unless you want to lose in a really humiliating way, you'd better start preparing yourself mentally."
"Stronger than Erza?!"
Mira's eyes widened. Instinctively, she turned to look at the quiet red-haired girl standing a short distance away.
Erza's expression remained calm. Hearing that, she didn't argue at all—if anything, she even gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.
"So even Erza admits it…"
A sense of pressure instantly settled over Mira.
"In short, she's definitely stronger than you are right now…"
Shane turned to look at Mira's slightly shaken expression and did his best to keep a stern face, trying to recover at least a little of his dignity as a teacher.
"If you're feeling pressured, then stop fooling around all day and laughing everything off."
"Tch…"
But after that brief moment of surprise, Mira quickly slipped right back into her usual carefree self.
Grinning, she leaned in again and even bumped his shoulder with hers.
"Just because Erza can't beat her doesn't mean I can't."
"That confident, huh?"
Shane arched a brow and looked her up and down.
He genuinely had no idea where this girl's bizarre confidence came from.
If not for the results from the Book of Heroes check just now, he might actually have been bluffed by that confident act.
"Enough nonsense."
Shane couldn't be bothered to listen to her boasting. He reached up and tore a request sheet off the board.
At the same time, he shoved the girl away without mercy, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"In any case, the special training plan we settled on before officially starts now."
No matter what attitude Mira took, the final link in Long Chain Trial II was currently stuck at her strength bottleneck.
Whether as her teacher or for the sake of unlocking new functions in the Book of Heroes, he could no longer let her keep wasting time and squandering her talent.
"Tch… it's not like I said I wouldn't train."
Mira pouted, but shamelessly acted as if she hadn't noticed Shane's disgust at all and leaned in again to peer curiously at the request sheet.
"Let me see… what kind of mission is it?"
Though she was complaining, she wasn't nearly as resistant to Shane's "hell training" as she had been before.
Sure, every time it nearly killed her—but the improvement in her strength had always been obvious.
That feeling of getting stronger wasn't bad at all. In fact, because she hadn't experienced it in so long, it made her both excited and nostalgic.
"Extermination of the rising dark guild… Eisenwald."
Mira read the name off the request slip, frowned slightly, and looked unconvinced.
"That doesn't sound impressive at all. Does a tiny guild nobody's even heard of really have any training value?"
"No, look more carefully."
Before Shane could answer, Erza had already stepped forward.
She pointed at the wanted poster attached beneath the request sheet.
In the picture was a grim-faced man holding an enormous scythe.
"The leader of this guild—Erigor."
Erza's voice was steady.
"He only accepts assassination-type jobs, and so far his mission completion rate is one hundred percent. He's a dangerous man known as the 'Grim Reaper.'"
"Grim Reaper?"
Mira froze for a second, then gave a dismissive snort, clearly unimpressed by the name.
"That's an awfully arrogant title. He actually dares to call himself that?"
But while she sounded disdainful, a spark of excitement flashed in her eyes.
A "Grim Reaper" versus a "She-Devil" kind of story…
That really was right up her alley.
Watching her suddenly strange excitement, Shane's expression grew even more peculiar.
Could this girl… have actually secretly trained something after all?
After a brief moment of thought, Shane waved a hand and interrupted her private excitement.
"Anyway, if you don't have any objections, go get your things together."
"Erza and I will wait for you at the guild. We're leaving today."
"Oh."
Mira answered carelessly, then had just turned to go when she suddenly froze.
"Wait… Erza?"
She whipped around and pointed at the quiet red-haired girl.
"She's coming too? Why?"
"Of course."
Shane nodded as if it were obvious.
"With her beside you pushing you, your improvement should be much faster. It's what people call the catfish effect."
Erza nodded as well.
She was still thinking about what had happened the other day. Besides, practice was practice no matter where she did it, so since there was nothing else stopping her, naturally she would be going with Shane.
"Then I'm not going!"
Mira's face fell instantly. Her silver ponytail swayed as she flat-out rebelled on the spot.
"I refuse to travel with Erza! Why should I have to go out with this violent woman? Just looking at her face kills my appetite!"
"…"
Shane pressed a hand to his forehead.
Aside from occasionally acting like a proper older sister in front of Elfman and Lisanna, this girl had completely regressed into a spoiled little brat whenever she was with him.
"Fine."
Shane nodded without getting angry.
"If you're not going home…"
"Then I guess that means you don't need to pack, right? Great. Saves time."
"We're leaving right now, then."
With that, he completely ignored Mira's protests, shot Erza a look telling her to register the job—
and then grabbed Mira directly by the back of the collar, dragging her toward the door like oversized luggage.
"Let go of me!! You bastard master!!"
Mira's protests echoed through the entire guild hall.
As they passed by Natsu's group, Lisanna—who had been standing over there the whole time—saw what was happening and, instead of looking worried, pumped her fist excitedly.
"Go, big sis!!"
That only made Mira even more depressed. She honestly had no idea whose side her little sister was on anymore.
When they reached the guild entrance, Shane suddenly stopped.
His eyes once again landed on the little blue cat perched on top of Natsu's head, cheerfully laughing along with him.
Bzz—
Whether it was just his imagination or not, the faint magical aura coming from Happy felt strangely familiar to him, as though he'd come across it somewhere before.
But no matter how hard he thought about it, nothing came to mind.
"Forget it."
Getting nowhere, Shane shrugged it off as probably just lingering familiarity from having encountered Happy before in Time of Memories.
Right now, the real priority was raising the useless student in his hands up to S-Class strength.
"The last place the Eisenwald Guild was active… was near Onibus."
Shane ran through the information in his head.
It wasn't too far from Magnolia. Half a day by train, more or less—which thankfully meant he wouldn't have to fly there carrying one problem under each arm.
Hopefully this man named Erigor is actually as tough as his title makes him sound, Shane thought to himself.
If he was too weak, he wouldn't put enough pressure on Mira. And if that happened, Shane would have to go through the trouble of finding a new opponent all over again.
~~~
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