"Look Meredy look! We have matching hair clips! Mystogan made these for us!"
I smiled as I watched the girls gushing over the gifts I had made for them. It is not easy to make a magic tool that small and seemingly innocuous but thankfully, I had succeeded. With this, Wendy's and Meredy's safety is basically guaranteed as long as they have the hair clips with them when disaster inevitably strikes.
It's been about a month since Wendy and I decided to settle down here. As the only capable mage living in this backwater town, there were naturally many people who came to me to help them solve their problems for a small fee. That is my main source of income. Wendy and I live in a small cottage not far from where Meredy lives with her parents and they find each other to play everyday.
Upon Malcolm's and Mary's insistence, we joined them for dinner every night. I don't want to further impose on them but they were surprisingly persuasive. However, I put my foot down and insisted on sharing the cost for the meals because they are not well to do to begin with. Feeding an extra two mouths must be hard for them and I do have the financial capability to support me and Wendy. It's only fair for me to help foot the bill.
Now, all that is left is to find the materials necessary to create similar magic tools for Malcolm and Mary that can guarantee their safety. There are two main ways one can harvest lacrimas, and that is to harvest it from magical beasts or mine it from a lacrima mine. I am contemplating if I should go and hunt for magical beasts to harvest the lacrima within their bodies because it does not seem like there is a hidden lacrima mine around here. Purchasing pure untainted lacrima can be very expensive, so the only choice left is to go find one myself.
"Can we go? Please? Pleaseeeee?"
"It's dangerous, Meredy. Stay here with Wendy, okay?"
"I can protect Meredy!" Wendy proclaimed with determination radiating from her voice. I cannot help but smile. How she had grown.
I looked around. Malcolm and Mary are out working, leaving the girls alone and trusting them to not get into any trouble while they are not around. I usually help to babysit them if I'm free. If I'm not available, I trust them to be able to take care of themselves. They are obedient and mature enough to warrant such trust from us even when they are this young but fact is, they are still children. There are certain things that they are naturally curious about.
Like seeing me hunting a magical beast.
Wendy had seen me in action several times but this is the first for Meredy. She had heard Wendy telling her stories of our adventures and what we do out there but nothing beats seeing the entire process with her own eyes. I can understand her desire to see the real thing happening right before her eyes.
In the end, I relented and gave in, but not before making them promise that they will listen to every single word I say out there and only if Malcolm and Mary allowed Meredy to follow. To Meredy's delight, they agreed.
And so, we embarked on our short trip outside town. I had heard that there are Warp Moose living around this area. They have this rare ability to teleport themselves to flee whenever they sense danger and as such, are extremely rare and difficult to hunt. Their innate magic is space-time magic, which makes any lacrima harvested from them a highly valuable one and they are often highly prized in auction houses or in black markets.
However, this is nothing too difficult for me. The most challenging part merely lies in locating them and approaching them undetected. Combat wise, they have nothing much to write home about.
"Over there."
I pointed ahead with a soft whisper, allowing the girls to catch a proper glimpse of the rarely seen Warp Moose. We found one which is leisurely grazing near a riverbank after three hours of combing through the forest. Just our luck.
The capture process was in contrast, a lot duller. I merely silently retrieved a stave from my back and activated my Sleep magic, causing the Warp Moose to collapse in a deep sleep without even knowing it had been targeted.
I will skip the gory and bloody details of how I harvested the lacrima and other parts of the Warp Moose that I know will sell for a high price on the market. Wendy and Meredy aren't as affected as I thought they would be. Wendy had seen me gutted and skinned many animals before when we were out travelling and hunting for food. As for Meredy, she had seen how animals are being slaughtered before being sold on the town's market. Despite having magic to aid them, this world's technological advancement is surprisingly stagnant and backwards. Many things are still done as though the world is still stuck in the medieval age.
"This is what we were looking for." I held out the lacrima harvested from the Warp Moose for them to see, which they observed in childish wonder. It is a rather large lacrima considering the size of the Warp Moose. We had a great find today.
"It's so pretty."
"It is." I agreed before carefully storing it away in an interspatial ring that I created myself, also made from a space-time lacrima. With this ring, travelling around becomes so much easier because I could use a knock-off version of Requip.
"Let's go back before the sun sets, shall we?"
We slowly made our way back home with the excited chattering of the two girls filling the silence. Children should act like children, to be carefree and have fun with smiles on their faces.
Hopefully, I will be able to protect their smiles with what I am trying to do.
Every hope I have about a happy ever after ending was dashed even before we reached home.
The town we live in is located in a wide valley. From where we are above we can see the entire town in flames even before the town came into view, the dense horrid smoke was easily visible from miles away. We can hear the terrified screams of the townsfolk who had lived alongside us before they went silent.
"D-Dad, M-Mum!"
I grabbed the girls before they could run in there and pulled them back with me. I didn't let go even if they were struggling in my hold and only stopped when I pulled them out of sight behind a rocky wall.
"Meredy. Meredy! Meredy!"
I had to give her a light slap on her face to get her to focus on me. I don't have much time to waste. Any time wasted here is time I could use to possibly rescue Malcolm and Mary out of there.
"Listen, Meredy. I need you to be strong for me and for your parents as well. I promise I will do my best to save your parents, so I need you and Wendy to promise me to do your best to help us as well, you get me?"
Meredy can only nod mutely. She is obviously still in shock. I turned to Wendy and took out a letter that I had prepared long ago ever since I decided to protect Wendy and have her follow me. Back then, I had no idea how long I could protect her so I had made preparations and contingency plans after contingency plans should anything unfortunate happen to me.
To sum it all up, my plan is for Wendy to go to Fairy Tail if anything were to happen to me. The necklace that I had given her is one of my masterpieces. Like the hair clip I had given Meredy, it allows me to teleport the holder to one specific place at the cost of exhausting all the magical power stored in it. As to where that place is, it depends on where the other half of the corresponding magic tool is currently at.
That corresponding magic tool is the amulet I had given to Mira. Mira is one of the few in this world that I can fully trust. I know she will take care of Wendy in my stead if I am no longer around to do so.
I pressed the letter into Wendy's hands.
"Listen to me, both of you. I will teleport you to where Mira is. Hopefully she will be in her guild at this moment. Get Mira to help you find help and send them here as soon as possible. Get Master Makarov if you are able to. I will try to hold the attackers back for as long as I can. Okay?"
"I-I-I don't want you to-"
"Wendy." I cut her off and forced a smile on my face before engulfing her in a big hug. This may be my last goodbye to the little girl that had stuck by me ever since I decided to explore this vast and lonely world all on my own. She is precious to me.
"Remember our promise?"
"T-That y-you w-won't leave me no m-matter what."
"I will uphold it, so I need you to be a strong girl and endure it until then, alright? I'm just going to save Malcolm and Mary, kick some ass, and then I will be back, alright? You are a strong girl, can you do this for me?"
Wendy nodded as she rubbed the tears away from her eyes using her arms. I let her go, stood up, and took a step back. I have no time to waste.
"Two layered magic circle: Gate of Paradise"
I slammed the base of one of my magic staves against the ground and a magic circle came to life beneath the girls' feet immediately.
"Y-You have to come back, Mystogan!" Wendy cried out as the light from the magic circle glowed brighter and brighter.
"I will." I promised with a smile, a promise that I hope won't turn out to be a lie because even I am unsure if I can uphold that promise, but I have to send her off with a smile nevertheless. If this really is our last time seeing each other, I want her last memory of me to be me smiling at her.
The girls disappeared in a flash of magical light. They should be with Mira now.
I turned around and ran towards the town as fast as I could, summoning all my magic staves as I leapt right into where the cries and screams of the innocents are the loudest. I spotted a very familiar figure immediately, one that I recognised was once a fictional character from a book. Once upon a time, I might have been impressed by the power he wields.
"Stop right there!"
I fired an attack from my staves that prevented him from continuing his maniacal killing spree, my staves hovering around me and buzzing with power as I placed myself in between him and the people behind me.
"I will hold him back. Run while you still can."
The townsfolk behind me took the hint and quickly scrambled out of the way. Zancrow fired another huge blast of flames to prevent their escape but I'm quicker, easily blocking his attack with my brand of magic before reflecting it back at him.
"Heh, finally a challenge. Better than those useless shits I had killed so far."
I clenched my fists as my body trembled. My eyes had taken in the sight of carnage around me. People that I had once talked to, laughed with, ate together with, helped me and Wendy settle in, they are all dead and this guy has the balls to disrespect them in front of me. Old man John from the bakery, the tailor Diana, postman Keith, the five year old twins Will and Wayne.
All of them are dead.
"Is this all you have to say?" I gritted out from behind my mask, wanting nothing but to rip him to shreds right now.
"What else do you want me to say?"
"LOOK AROUND YOU! PEOPLE ARE DEAD!" I roared out in fury, my free arm gesturing to the sight of death and destruction around us. "DOES THIS MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?! DOES HUMAN LIVES MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?!"
"Oh they meant something alright." Zancrow replied with a deranged smirk as he cocked his flaming fist back while I grabbed a stave hovering beside me in mid air and wielded it with a stance.
"They are necessary sacrifices for us to reach Lord Zeref!"
Black flames and magic from another world clashed as I have to use all of my willpower to not let my anger cloud my mind. Attacking in a mindless rage would do me no good now, I need to keep calm. I have to stall Zancrow long enough for the surviving townsfolk to escape.
"C-Can… Can I s-stay with you? N-No matter h-how far y-you go, h-how l-long it takes, I w-will wait for y-you so d-don't g-go, o-okay? Don't leave me alone!"
I also have a promise to keep. I cannot die here.
Grimoire Heart. I won't forget this.
They can bloody count on it.