The trip back the next day was unusually peaceful.
Other than Mira staying visibly annoyed the whole way because of Erza's earlier "surprise attack," nothing else happened.
With its steady, rhythmic rumble, the train smoothly rolled into Magnolia Station.
The moment they got off, the three of them headed straight for the guild.
Not only did they successfully turn in the request to take down Eisenwald, Shane also didn't hide anything. He reported the strange activity surrounding the underground factions in Onibus to Makarov in full detail.
"So they're trying to unite the dark forces…"
Perched on top of the bar with a wobbling stack of glasses balanced on his head, Makarov frowned deeply when he heard the news.
"I understand."
The old man nodded, his expression turning especially serious. If not for the acrobatic tower of glasses on his head, he actually would have looked pretty imposing.
"I'll contact the Council and have them focus on digging into that part when they interrogate Erigor."
It wasn't just Onibus.
Lately, other guild members returning from jobs had been bringing back similar rumors too.
Criminal elements all over seemed to be growing restless, as though several invisible hands had agreed to stir up the mud at the same time, trying to set something in motion.
"I can't shake the feeling… that a storm is coming."
The old man sighed, forced to admit the unease in his heart.
"By the way…"
Once the serious talk was over, Shane finally looked at the little old man balancing the glasses on his head and couldn't hold back anymore.
"Master… what exactly are you doing?"
"A stage performance?"
"You brat!"
Makarov shot him an annoyed glare. He got so agitated he nearly lost control of the glasses on his head.
"Who do you think left me so strapped for cash, huh?!"
"Master Makarov, that was a wonderful performance. Here's a tip."
Just then, a regular customer who often came to the guild for drinks walked over with a grin and tossed a few coins onto the bar.
"Oh! Thank you so much! You're far too kind!"
The old man who had looked so severe a second ago instantly changed faces, beaming as he grabbed the coins. The wrinkles on his face practically bloomed into a flower.
"…"
The corner of Shane's mouth twitched.
A member of the Ten Wizard Saints. Master of Fairy Tail. And now he'd fallen so low he was stealing tips meant for the barmaids in his own guild?
Looks like the bill for that destroyed guild assembly hall finally arrived, Shane thought, holding back a laugh.
After a moment, he pulled out the payment pouch from this latest request and gently set it on the bar.
"If that's the case, then you can just keep this mission's reward."
"Take it and use it to support the household, Master. Think of it as… compensation for your emotional suffering."
"Hm?"
Makarov paused and looked at him suspiciously, his eyes full of distrust.
"You're being this nice? Did the sun rise in the west today?"
"Listen to yourself! Easing the burden on the Master is the duty of every guild member!"
Clutching a hand to his chest, Shane put on an exaggerated expression of wounded sincerity.
"And you dare doubt the sincerity of my devoted heart!"
"Hmph… at least you've still got a little conscience, brat."
Even though his instincts told him this definitely wasn't that simple, the old man was so broke right now that he could only grumble and accept the money pouch anyway.
"Wait!"
At that moment, Mira—who had been standing behind them—suddenly thought of something.
She grabbed Shane and dragged him into a corner, lowering her voice and glaring at him sharply.
"That money… don't tell me you're using it to pay for the street you burned down in Onibus?"
"That was our mission money! We haven't even split it yet!!!"
"Tch."
Even after being exposed, Shane showed not the slightest bit of shame. If anything, he just looked annoyed.
Who would've thought this girl, who was normally so careless, would suddenly become so sharp when it came to this?
"That abandoned street may have burned because of me, but we all did that mission together! And besides, this special training was mostly for you. I worked that hard for your sake, and you still want a cut of the money?"
"Obviously!" Mira glared.
"There were gentler ways to handle it, but you were the one who got lazy and decided to burn the whole street down!"
"That damage was caused by your own impulsive decision! Why should everyone's money be used to cover it?"
"We split the money! We absolutely split the money! If not, I'm reporting you to the Master!"
Her attitude was abnormally firm.
There was no helping it. Mira spent money recklessly in daily life and could never keep any savings.
On top of that, she still had two younger siblings—Elfman and Lisanna—to take care of. There was no way she could afford to be generous.
"Fine, fine. I surrender."
Badgered into a corner, Shane let out a helpless sigh.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, didn't even bother counting how much was inside, and stuffed the whole thing into Mira's hands.
"Take it, take it! It's all yours, alright? You little miser!"
"That's more like it."
Mira took the wallet and weighed it in her hand before finally giving a satisfied snort and letting him go.
Honestly, if you really did the math, a dark guild extermination reward was usually worth over a million J as a baseline, and this time there had even been someone like Erigor involved.
Mira was absolutely getting the short end of the deal.
But the girl was easy to satisfy. As long as she could pluck a few feathers off Shane, she was perfectly happy.
Meanwhile, Erza hadn't said a word the whole time.
At this point, money meant very little between her and Shane.
Back when Shane owed the guild a mountain of debt, he hadn't hesitated to ask this little rich girl for money to eat or buy materials.
Now that he had money, if Erza ever needed anything, all she had to do was say so. There was no real need for this kind of formal division.
"Speaking of which…"
After dealing with Mira, Shane turned to Erza, leaned close to her ear, and softly told her a number.
It was the amount of wealth he had accumulated during his recent business with the blacksmith.
"Hm?"
Erza tilted her head, not understanding why Shane had suddenly brought up his savings.
"You should probably start ordering other kinds of armor too, right?"
Shane smiled.
"Relying only on the Flight Armor and Black Wing Armor isn't enough. Different battle situations call for more options."
"Okay."
Tilting her chin slightly, Erza thought it over for a moment. She didn't reject the gesture, but calmly accepted it instead.
She gave a small nod, a soft smile curving at the corners of her mouth.
"Then I'll leave that to you."
…
"By the way… why does the guild feel so empty?"
Now that the money had been split, Mira was in a good mood again, tossing the wallet in her hand as she looked around the noticeably emptier hall.
"Not seeing those noisy idiots is one thing, but why isn't even Cana here?"
It had to be said, even though Cana was a bit malicious sometimes and loved messing with people, she was genuinely good at dealing with others.
Even someone as troublesome as Mira got along just fine with her.
"Gray and Ur are still out training."
Wakaba, who was off to the side puffing away on his pipe, said this with a look of regret.
Shane seriously suspected that what he regretted most was missing out on the "benefits" of Ur being around.
"That idiot Natsu heard Gray was off doing special training and couldn't take it anymore, so he ran off too, taking that blue cat that just hatched with him."
Macao picked up where Wakaba left off, his expression turning a little odd.
"As for Cana…"
"She said she wants to enter this year's S-Class exam too."
"So these past few days, she's been going out and working as well."
"What?"
Shane looked genuinely shocked, as if he had just heard wrong.
"Cana wants to enter the exam too? Since when did she become that ambitious?"
"And… does she even have much combat ability?"
In his mind, Cana had always been a laid-back alcoholic girl with no real drive who just drifted through life.
He knew she used card magic, sure, but he honestly couldn't remember ever seeing her fight seriously.
"Who knows?"
Macao shrugged carelessly.
"Maybe it's just that she's hit her rebellious phase and wants to prove herself… as for me, I gave up on the dream of becoming S-Class a long time ago."
Even after a full year, he still hadn't fully recovered from the trauma of being instantly annihilated by a heavily injured Erza.
"That just means everyone is working hard in their own way. Isn't that a good thing?"
Erza, on the other hand, seemed to approve.
"No matter who it is, as long as they have the will to rise higher, that deserves respect."
"Tch…"
Mira curled her lip.
Erza's righteous, earnest attitude in every situation really did leave her speechless.
In fact… she was almost starting to get used to it.
"That's right!"
Hearing those words, Shane suddenly lit up like he'd been shot with a dose of adrenaline.
He grabbed Mira, who had just started counting the money, and dragged her toward the request board without a second word.
"If everyone's working hard, then we can't afford to be lazy either!"
"Come on! Next mission! More training!"
"W-wait a second!"
Mira had not expected the fire to suddenly land on her head again and started struggling wildly.
"I haven't even gone back to see Lisanna yet!"
"There'll be time for that! Besides, you're ignoring Elfman!"
Shane didn't give her any chance to argue and just kept dragging her.
You had to be kidding.
All the troublesome guild brats were out right now!
If he stayed behind too, then when the bill from Onibus arrived in a couple of days, the only person Makarov would have left to grab and yell at would be him!
If he didn't run now, when else would he run?
Naturally, the only correct move was to get out of there as fast as possible!
And besides…
He was still looking forward to seeing whether Long Chain Trial II would unlock any new permissions for him once it was completed.
…
And so—
even though there were still several months left before the S-Class exam at the end of the year,
under the influence of a handful of hopelessly overachieving maniacs, all of Fairy Tail somehow entered a fanatical guild-wide state of competitive grinding ahead of schedule.
The request board, which used to be packed full of mission slips, would often be updated in the morning and then stripped completely bare before noon, as though a swarm of locusts had passed through.
And as more and more high-difficulty jobs were completed, Fairy Tail's reputation snowballed more and more.
Its strength and destructive power spread by word of mouth, until people gradually started calling it the number one guild in the Kingdom of Fiore.
And among all those newspaper headlines and tavern rumors, the brightest stars were naturally the so-called monster team made up of Shane, Erza, and Mira.
The name Azurefall had already become famous thanks to the way guild masters and the media had been hyping it up.
Now, with Shane taking missions at an almost insane pace and causing a huge commotion every single time, the whole Kingdom of Fiore—whether in the underworld or the upper world—truly came to understand just how terrifying this boy was.
He shone too brightly.
So brightly, in fact, that even though Mira and Erza were both performing incredibly well themselves, they seemed almost dim by comparison.
When people mentioned Fairy Tail, the first person they thought of was the black-haired, black-eyed boy who seemed capable of anything:
Shane "Azurefall"
That didn't mean the others were standing still, though.
Erza's already absurdly solid fundamentals improved yet again. On top of that, she commissioned several new sets of specialized armor—
fire resistance, lightning resistance, oceanic-type armor, and others suited for different situations.
Her flexibility in battle increased tremendously.
As for Mira, under these months of brutal special training, the silver-haired "She-Devil" underwent a near-complete transformation.
Under Shane's supervision, not only did her magic reserves steadily rise, but her compatibility with Satan Soul reached a level she had never achieved before.
That once-unruly, violent power had now been tamed until she could command it as easily as moving her own arm. She had even developed several new techniques from it.
And her fighting style had changed dramatically.
Gone was the old, purely instinctive savagery.
In its place was something calmer, more experienced, more mature.
Like a true demon.
Cold. Precise.
Even the current Erza could no longer confidently say she could suppress Mira easily during their normal sparring sessions.