"Yoh Hector, is my order ready yet?" I spoke up to the space in the back of the shop and was rewarded with the usual crashing noise and muffled curses.
The sound of shuffling and the occasional crash of something metal hitting the ground echoed before he came into view, a disgruntled look on his face. It didn't look like he was very happy to see me.
"Can't you ever wait for me to call you like my other customers? Every time you put an order in you show a week later, on the dot, and ask me if it's done!"
"That should just show you how much faith I have in your smithing abilities Hector. Besides, maybe if you actually cleaned up the back and didn't knock all your shit over whenever you got spooked you wouldn't be so averse to my visits. How the hell do you get any work done around here?"
Hector chose to ignore my digging at his hoarding habits and instead reached under his counter before pulling out a bundle of cloth that looked like it had multiple items within itself. From the top, the tips of sword handles could be seen, the only indication of what it carried.
"That will be 250,000 jewels."
In the process of reaching for my wallet I paused and then did some math in my head before growing a bit frustrated at my smith.
"The hell you mean 250,000 jewels! Eight swords should only come out to 160,000 and we had agreed that I would pay 130,000 after I did that job for you! I can't believe after all we've been through together you would screw me over like this. I thought we were friends and you said I would get discounts for supplying materials for you, not over charge me by 120,000 jewels."
I could feel my face grow red with anger at the audacity that Hector would do this. Fire boiled in my veins and I opened my mouth to unleash the venom of my hate, the divine retribution that this insult deserved before Hector dropped a molten pile of metal on the counter and my anger turned to confusion.
"What the fuck is that ugly piece of junk?"
"These are the tools that I had to use in order to fill your damn order."
"…"
I was beginning to see where this conversation was going.
"Those damn special properties you wanted on those swords destroyed most of my smithing tools. I have had hammers melt; water barrels explode and one of the swords caused my damn forge to freeze over into ice! Your damn right I'm going to charge you for all the equipment that's been broken so you can have your precious swords. You ever, ever, give me an order like that again and I will have you blacklisted from all the smithies in Magnolia. Now give me my damn money."
I decided to follow sword user rule number six and not anger the person who made my equipment by reaching into my wallet and paying the price he asked of me. I didn't think my latest attempt to have more variety in my weapons would do this to the poor man.
Snatching the money, Hector shoved my package into my hands and kicked me out of the store. While motioning for Sif to follow me from where she had been waiting outside the store, I began to explain my new gear to her.
"Remember how I told you that I wanted to have a sword made based on someone I had heard about?" My ever-faithful companion nodded her head before sending a look to the package I was holding.
"That's right, the rest of those weapons are all based on those, which gives me an idea of which weapons caused the damage that Hector was yelling at me about, considering that only three of them do any type of elemental damage. But the main one that I really wanted was this one here."
Reaching into the bundle, I grasped a rust red handle and pulled out one of the blades I had commissioned from Hector.
The blade was orange, and blunt if one was to run their finger across it, with a curvy black pattern near where the hilt met the blade, while the handguard pointed down towards the grip at an angle. One of the most frequently used forms of the Ten Commandments blade by Haru Glory.
"This is Explosion and unlike most swords this one is more of a blunt weapon than a slicing one. If Hector made it right, and he always does, then whenever I pump magic power into the blade and strike something it will set off an explosion. I had this sword explicitly in order to counteract my over reliance on technique-based fighting. What do you think?"
"Graugh!"
"Yeah, I thought it was a good idea too."
Pretty soon, the two of us where in front of the guildhall and entered the building after storing my new weapons into my requip space. Almost immediately I was set upon by the bane of my existence.
"Zeph, fight me!"
"No thanks." I caught Natsu by his face before tossing him behind me onto the street, swiftly kicking the door shut behind Sif and I.
"He didn't even have chance, did he?"
"Aye!"
"Morning guys."
"Morning Zeph!"
Taking my place at the table that my little friend group had claimed, I looked over the fliers that they all had arranged on the tabletop, each one ranging in difficulty from B-class to A-class and varying rewards like jewels to magic items.
"What are you guys trying to do? I thought none of you had gotten approval from Master to start taking jobs of this difficulty yet."
"We asked him earlier and he said as long as we went as a group than it should be fine! Besides, we all need to catch up anyway."
"Catch up to who?"
The simultaneous head turn towards me and malevolent aura let me know that I had just asked a stupid question.
"We have to catch up to you! Not only are you the first of our generation to become an S-class mage, but you earned the rank at the age of fourteen! That's the youngest in guild history! You've pretty much set the precedent for the rest of us to follow."
Thinking on it, I realized that they were right. I had set the bar for the rest of my friends on becoming S-class and was now the goal line for the rest of them as well. But the problem was that while they were all stuck doing lower ranked missions, I had been consistently taking S-class jobs for the past few months that I had the title, which only made my strength grow even more. I had been making amazing progress on my skills and recently been given my own moniker, but it hadn't occurred to me that the others would feel like they weren't able to keep up with me.
Actually, I hadn't been around the guild all that much anymore. All the new ideas and weapons I wanted to make and use required immense amounts of money and in order to fund this I had been taking jobs pretty much back to back with only a little rest in between and as a result my friendships had been pretty much been put on hold. Although now that I thought about it…
"How about I take an A-rank job with one of you guys while the rest take a different mission? That way you won't have to split the reward between the four of you. I probably need a break from the tougher missions anyway."
"Wait really? How do we decide who gets to take the job with you then?"
"Rock, paper, scissors?"
The three that were present all glared at each other as Natsu rushed over to the table again when he came back in, all of them raising their fists in unison.
"Rock!"
"Paper!"
"Scissors!"
"Shoot!"
Alternating who said what line, they all through their hands forward on shoot, where there were three rocks and one paper.
"Ha! My fortune was right! Paper would lead me to a good opportunity!"
"No fair!"
"Fight me for it Cana!"
"You two stop fighting!"
While dumb and dumber got their heads knocked in, I smirked as Cana grabbed the highest paying A-rank job from the fliers they had all taken and rushed over to Master, getting it approved.
"All right! Let's go and make some money."
"Okay, let's go Sif."
The three of us quickly left, passing a knocked out Natsu and Gray who had lumps on their heads, and made our way through town until we made it to the train station.
"By the way, what type of job did you grab?"
"Oh, nothing to bad. There have been some recent disappearances over by Thyme and the mayor wants some mages to investigate and possibly stop what's going on. I thought my fortune telling would be able to help us find the cause."
"Hm, that's a pretty good idea."
We quickly bought tickets and boarded the train, passing the time by talking about what the two of us had been up to lately before Cana said something.
"This is a familiar scenario, huh?"
"What do you mean?" I asked her but she just laughed and shook her head at me.
"I mean that this is the same as back then, when we met Sif. I wanted to get stronger, so I dragged you on a job with me without even getting your permission. Now, the only difference is that you're the one who offered to take me, but now you're so far ahead it feels like you're a different person."
A pang of guilt went through me when she said that. I had only ever really thought of how to make myself stronger recently and never gave a thought to how that would affect my relationship with the people in the guild. Especially Cana, who was pretty much my best friend aside from Sif.
"Ha! I really am the worst, aren't I?" Cana seemed confused and opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off.
"I've been so busy trying to grow stronger that I ignored what Master always says truly matters in the guild, our friends. I'm sorry that we haven't spent a lot of time together recently and that you feel that way, it was never my intention to cut you out like that. From now on I'll make more of an effort and we can take more jobs together like we used to."
"Really?"
"I promise."
"Well," Cana started and seemed to get nervous, "there's actually something I've been meaning to ask you lately."
"Oh, what is it?"
"Well, when we get back after this job, would you like to form…"
"Attention all passengers, we are now arriving in Thyme, please wait for the train to stop completely before disembarking."
"Oh, looks like we made it! What were you trying to say Cana?"
"It's nothing. Let's find the mayor and start the job."
She walked off before I could say anything else, Sif and I giving her a weird look before she made a huff sound.
"I know right!"
Luckily for us, Cana seemed back to normal when we found her waiting for us at the entrance to the town, along with a boy around our age with blond hair and green eyes.
"Hey guys! This is Alex, he offered to show us to the mayors house."
"Oh, you didn't tell me that your friend was a boy."
"Is that a problem?"
"I find them distasteful; I request that if he is to accompany us to remain at least ten feet away from me."
I'm sorry… what?
Beside me, Sif began to growl at his attitude, taking a threatening step forward while I went to give him a piece of my mind before a hand was shoved in both our faces.
"Don't argue, it'll be quicker to just go along than having to keep asking for directions."
"You can't seriously be agreeing with this asshole! I'd rather waste a little time finding the place than have to spend any amount of time with this guy!"
"Well I'm the one who picked the job, so I say that we do it my way."
"Splendid! I'll take you right to the mayor."
I didn't get any chance to argue before Alex took Cana's hand and led her away from me, the sight making a burning rage course through my body. Who did this dick think he was? I motioned to Cana and the playboy before whispering to Sif.
"If he so much as looks at her the wrong way, maul him!"
She gave a bark of agreement before running in between the two and forcing Alex to let go of Cana's hand. When he went to grab it again, she growled and nipped at his fingers.
"I'm going to get that wolf anything she wants after this, such a good girl."
After that, it was fairly uneventful up until we reached a red brick house a little way from the center of the village. A fat jovial man was at the door speaking to what looked like a magic knight before looking in our direction and smiling.
"Well hello there, children! How can I help you?"
The prick who had overstayed his welcome went to speak, but my aggravation had boiled over and I walked up and stepped in front of him.
"My name is Zephyr Halliwell and these two are Cana Alberona and Sif the wolf. We're mages from Fairy Tail here for the job about the abducted townsfolk."
"Oh? Zephyr Halliwell as in the S-class mage known as Sword Saint? That Zephyr Halliwell."
"Last time I checked I was."
The mayor didn't seem the slightest bit offended at my abrupt answers and laughed good heartedly before stepping aside and motioning to his house.
"That's splendid! Please follow me inside and myself and Captain Rinehart can explain the situation in further detail. We'll help in any way we can if it means the safety of our townsfolk."
"Then please let us know all the details. Don't leave anything out."
My group and the Mayor, along with the magic knight, left our guide outside and walked into the house, sitting down on the couch while the situation was explained.
Over the course of the past three weeks, young women between the ages of fifteen and twenty had been abducted off the streets. The only indication that something had happened was people reporting screams and signs of struggle the next day. So far, there had been about six kidnappings in varying areas of the city with seemingly no correlation between them such as the marketplace, the storage warehouses and the factory district. All of these areas were on opposite parts of the town and had two kidnappings each.
Captain Rinehart pulled out a map of the town before showing us the red circles he had placed to mark where each of the abductions had taken place and I observed it while Cana attempted to do a fortune reading on the missing peoples location, but something clicked in the back of my head while trying to piece the information together.
"Captain Rinehart, pass me the marker please… thank you. You said that there was no correlation between the three areas that the crimes that had taken place, but that isn't true. All of these areas are equal distance from the residential area of the town. The mastermind behind this string of crimes probably has a base within the city to operate out of in order to rest and plan their next kidnapping. The residential area is also in the center of town, making it the ideal location."
"But that makes no sense! Why would a criminal hide their instead of somewhere like the slums or on the outskirts of town?"
"Because those were the first places that you thought to look. Criminals may be the scum of society, but sometimes the most frightening monsters are the ones you can't tell apart from everybody else. This person has probably been here in the town for a while in order to make themselves a known face, but not long enough to come to mind easily, so within the last six months to a year they moved here and began to play the part of a newcomer. They've probably built up a rapport with the townsfolk or have an ally that can act as an alibi for the times the kidnappings took place, but they also probably bought someplace with a large basement to keep their victims. Can you bring me the records of houses purchased or rented within that time period as well as any items that the victims might have dropped at the scene?"
The two both nodded before running off, leaving me with Cana and Sif, the former of which who was still trying to divine where the victims might be.
"Find anything yet?"
"Only that the missing people are still in town somewhere. Fortune telling isn't an exact science, it could say that it I'll be lucky before only finding a single jewel on the floor. But on another note, I don't think I've ever seen this methodical side of you before."
"Well, there's never really been a reason for me to try and deduce anything like that before. Let's just hope that I'm right about this before we lose any chance of finding those girls alive."
"Hm!"
The silence that descended after that was awkward and we struggled to come up with anything else to talk about, the only sound being Cana shuffling her deck to try and get a fortune again. At least until I realized something.
"Oh yeah, what was it that you wanted to ask me back on the train just before we arrived in town? You were going to say something but got cut off by the PA system."
"It was nothing. Was a stupid idea anyway."
"It's not stupid if it was important! I want to know."
The silence crept up again while Cana looked deep in thought, shuffling and placing cards before frowning and starting over again. She finally opened her mouth to speak before there was a crash and the mayor and Captain Rinehart rushed back into the room, ruining any chance I had of getting Cana to tell me what was wrong.
"I found the list! These four houses met all the specifications you designated, purchased within the last year to six months and have large basements. Captain Rinehart was also able to find some of the girls' items that got left behind during the attacks, but why did you need those?"
"For this. Sif, track!"
My companion walked over to the captain and began smelling the items and memorizing the scents which would hopefully lead us to our targets if the trail wasn't too old.
"Once Sif has the scents locked in her memory we can begin with the rest of the mission, so while she does that is there anything else you could tell me about this case that could help us in the investigation?"
"Hmmmmm… Oh, yes! I also have the names of the people who purchased the houses but for all we know those could be fake so I'm not sure how much it could help."
"No, that would be a huge lead if we can find anything else on the names. I'll call my Master and see if he can get anything on them like if they've been used before or criminal records and the like."
Having a guild master who was also a member of the Wizard Saints came with perks like that, even if the magic council was always riding our asses about property damage and the like. Master would pull through this type of high-stakes job.
Thanking the two for their time and cooperation, we headed outside where I pulled a communication lacrima from my requip space and went to call Master before some called out to us.
"Hey Cana! If your done with your meeting how about we go get some lunch?"
Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding. The asshat had really waited for our meeting to be over so he could spring himself on her!
"Oi! Get lost, we have work to do and you're getting in the way, Cana and I don't have time to deal with you." I could feel a vein popping out on my head from the aggravation this guy was causing e by showing up around every corner.
"I wasn't talking to you, you ugly creature. I was talking to the lovely Cana, who would much rather accompany me than work with you obviously."
The red-hot rage that had boiled in me before came back with a vengeance and I lifted the asshole off the ground by his collar, before violently shaking him.
"Listen here you little shit! We don't have time to deal with you and your playboy attitude right now, so if I so much as see you breathe in the same direction as Cana again, I'll gut you."
Work done, I set him down before grabbing Cana's hand and walking towards the residential area of the town, Sif sniffing the ground ahead of us to get a scent.
"You okay Zeph?"
"I'm fine!"
"Really? Because you seemed to get a little heated back there."
"I said I'm fine! That little asshole just got on my nerves for some reason. Nothing to worry about."
"If you say so."
I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, but she seemed happy with how angry I got at the punk when he asked her out, which contrasted with how she was acting earlier. Wait… was she trying to get a reaction out of me?
Putting that thought on the back burner, I pulled out my communication lacrima once more and dialed Master.
"Ah, Zeph! What can I help you with my boy!"
"Hey Master, I need you to do me a favor and run some names through the council's database. Cana and I are working on a missing person job and need to see if these people have any prior records or anything out of the ordinary."
"Sure thing, just give me a few minutes and I'll call you back."
The lacrima cut off the call as our group continued walking through the streets of the time, Cana started tapping on my shoulder.
"What's up Cana?"
"Well, I know you wanted to get away from Alex in a hurry, but I don't think we need to hold hands anymore."
"What?" I looked down to my hand which still hadn't let go of hers before immediately releasing her.
"Sorry."
"It's fine, I didn't really mind it too much."
"What?"
Before we could continue the conversation, my lacrima began glowing to indicate that I was getting a call which I answered.
"Did you get anything helpful Master?"
Our guild master frowned before showing me a piece of paper with a list of properties that one of the names on our list had purchased, ranging from houses to businesses.
"This one name has a bunch of properties, which wouldn't be so bad on its own, but look down to the bottom of the list and tell me what you see."
I did as Master bade, only to freeze when my eyes met what he wanted me to see.
"They own a brothel in Bosco." Bosco, as in one of the countries in Ishgar that allowed slavery and freely sold other human beings for the enjoyment and pleasure of others.
"Shit! I'll talk to you later Master!" Without waiting for a reply, I cut the call and began sprinting through the streets towards our destination.
"Zeph, why are you sprinting!"
"This person who owns one of the houses also owns a brothel in Bosco! That means that if we don't find these girls soon then they'll be sold as pleasure slaves and we won't be able to bring them back into Fiore! We don't have time to take it slow! I'm going ahead, Sif, show Cana where to go!"
Taking off with a new burst of speed, I rushed off in the hopes that I wasn't too late.
~x~x~
Phew, new arc set up. In all honesty, this is probably going to be the last major arc before we get to canon, mostly because I want to start writing it and also because I wanted a ten-chapter prologue. So, this arc will only be taking up chapters seven and eight, or possibly nine as long as I have the last chapter to finish off the prologue section of the story. In other news, this is officially the longest chapter of SSFT so far with a whopping 4,048 words without including the authors note compared to my usual 2,500 to 3,000-word chapters. I'm going to try and make them progressively longer and longer as the story goes on to stretch my writing muscles and hopefully, I'll get them to be consistently at my goal length of around 8,000 words. Other than that, favorite, follow and review with constructive criticism and until next week!