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CHAPTER 21
NIGHTMARE REPEAT

A week had passed. The members of Team Natsu, who had been sent on a mission to destroy the Oración Seis, together with three other guilds, had safely returned to the guild some days ago, bringing good news of having successfully completed their task. They had also brought with them a young girl, called Wendy, and her cat companion, Carla, who joined the guild. That meant I was no longer the number one rookie! With the successful completion of the cooperative guild operation, and the addition of a new guild member, there had been a lot of partying in the guild, but things were slowly calming down again.

I was also getting closer and closer to needing to pay the rent for my apartment, and I still hadn't completed any job requests to earn me the money I needed to pay this month's rent. The last job I'd done was together with Natsu and Lucy, but unfortunately, our client was mysteriously murdered before we had been able to collect our job reward. Since then I had been busy with the whole guild mission thing of taking out the smaller Dark Guilds that had ties with the Oración Seis, which was one of the secondary objectives in the cooperative guild operation.

With all of that behind us now, it was time to get back to doing regular job requests again.

I was glad the guild hall was becoming more peaceful again after days of partying. These last few days, numerous brawls had broken out, and it had just been incredibly tough finding moments in the guild hall without constantly being in danger of getting hit by flying barstools or beer kegs.

After finishing my breakfast at the guild hall, which was the quietest it had been in a while, I went to the request board to see if there was anything interesting I could possibly do on my own. It was filled with more requests than I'd ever seen on it before. Barely anyone had been taking up job requests this week, due to the whole guild operation and all the partying that came after it.

Nearby were Mirajane with the newcomer and her cat. They also seemed to be looking for a job request to pick.

"Hello, Roth." Mirajane greeted me with a smile when she noticed me standing at the request board, too. "Wendy is looking to do her first job request. Why don't you go with her?"

What?

"She's so young, and still new at this, I think it'd be best if someone from the guild would assist her for now. What do you think, Wendy?" Mirajane looked back at Wendy, who was now looking at me. Her cat companion didn't look too happy about it, and clearly didn't approve of Mirajane's suggestion.

"Uhm. Would you like to come with me, mister…" Wendy shyly asked as she looked at the ground.

"The name's Roth." I said plainly. I wasn't sure about this whole thing. What was a twelve year old girl even supposed to do anyway? But I knew how difficult it was as newcomer, and I needed to go on a new job anyway. "… Fine. I'll come." I finally said after a short pause.

"Really?" Wendy looked up with a big smile, happy that she wouldn't have to go alone on her first guild job. Her cat, who stood next to her, refused to look in my direction.

"Yeah… So, what are you looking for?" I asked.

"I don't really know… preferably something easy."

"Then, that's the wrong part of the board you're looking at; it's all A rank jobs in that corner. Try here, there's a bunch of jobs ranging from F to D rank over here." I pointed out.

"Oh, how about this one?" Wendy took a small paper from the board and happily showed it to me and Mirajane.

Oh no, it was the exact same one I took as my first guild job, the one to work as cookie baker assistant. "I…I don't thi–" I wanted to change her mind about taking it, but I was interrupted by Mirajane.

"Oh! That looks like fun, Wendy! I believe it's similar to the one Roth did on his first guild job. Didn't you enjoy that one, Roth?" Mirajane said cheerfully.

"I… uhm, no – yes. Of course." I stuttered, and faked a weak smile. "But do–"

"Very well, you two should be on your way, then. And don't forget to have fun!" Mirajane was pushing us to leave, not giving me a chance to talk my way out of this disaster.

"Thanks so much, Mira! Are you ready, Roth? You're coming, too, Carla?" Wendy was so happy to start on her first guild job.

And so, we left the guild hall and made our way to the dreaded baker store.

"Say, weren't you member of some other guild?" I casually asked as we walked through the streets of Magnolia. I remembered hearing Wendy was part of the group tasked with taking down the Oración Seis, meaning she had to come from one of the guilds who was part of the main operation.

Wendy looked down with a sad look in her eyes and didn't seem to want to talk about it.

"Don't ask her about that! It's not something she wants to be reminded of now!" Carla, her cat companion, sneered at me. She seemed pretty protective towards Wendy, and it was obvious she didn't trust me very much.

"It's fine… Carla." Wendy said to her companion.

"I'm sorry. Well, it's okay if you don't want to talk about it." I already backed off. From her reaction alone, I could understand something bad must have happened between her and the guild she used to be a member of. I remained quiet for the rest of the walk.

"Oh, there it is!" Wendy said with a big smile as we approached the baker store where we had to be. "My first job, how exciting!" She ran the last few metres and entered the store before us.

"Oh, no. This simply wo– Oh, you! I remember you!" The shopkeeper said as I entered the store a moment after Wendy had gone in. "I'm very sorry, but I can't allow a girl this young to work for me in my store. But you, you did well last time you were here!" He pointed at me.

"Wait, what? I only came here to assist her on her first guild job." I said, trying to avoid sinking any deeper into this mess.

"Well, I guess you'll have to do the work this time, then." Carla said, clearly enjoying this turn of events.

"I'm so sorry, Roth. But we'll be with you and cheer you on!" Wendy apologised, but tried to make the best of the situation.

One of the slowest days I ever experienced followed. From morning to late afternoon I worked, cleaning the floor and windows, greeting customers, getting supplies from nearby warehouses and more. Shortly before dinner time, the store would finally close and we could leave.

"Thank you again so much for assisting me in my work! Fairy Tail truly is the greatest guild of all in Fiore!" The shopkeeper said, tears were showing in his eyes. "Here are fourty Jewel for all your hard work! I hope you will return again soon!" He said as he handed me over eight golden coins.

I was tired from all the work, but I was glad I could leave this nightmare behind me.

"Wow! You earned fourty Jewel, Roth? That's great!" Wendy said enthusiastically.

"Don't you think Wendy deserves to get some of that?" Carla said to me. "She has been with you all this time. That counts as something. Not to mention, she was the one to pick the job."

"It's okay, Carla! I really enjoyed being with Roth today! … And I know he did all the work." Wendy said with a smile, trying to appease her companion.

"No. She's right." I stopped, and put four golden coins in Wendy's hands. "We work together as a team. That is what Fairy Tail is about." It was painful to muster a smile after a day like this, but Wendy had indeed been very nice to me all this time, despite not knowing me at all. She had indeed tried to continuously cheer me up as I did my mindnumbingly boring tasks in that bakery store earlier.

"You know… even if it's been only a couple of days since I have joined…" Wendy said with a smile and tears coming from her eyes. "… I love this guild! Everyone's been so nice to me. Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Erza, Mira… you, too, Roth."

I knew what she meant. I felt exactly the same about Fairy Tail.

Back at the guild hall we were greeted by Mirajane, who couldn't wait to hear from us about Wendy's first guild job. I didn't really want to talk about it at all; all I wanted was a plate of food. I was starving. But I could still hear everything she was saying to Mirajane. From the way she talked about everything that had happened today, she made it sound like we had tons of fun and that it was over before she knew it.

If only… if only, I thought to myself and sighed. I was never going back to that baker store again I silently promised myself. I was going to need a lot of rest tomorrow.