Previously on Black Dragon Slayer
Ichigo and Acnologia had returned from their two year long training trip. They meet up with their guild, Fairy Tail, to join the First Grand Magic Tournament held at Crocus, Fiore.
And today, it is time for the Second Portion of the Tournament, the Mob-Dungeon Raid...
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second day of the First Grand Magic Tournament!"
The cheers and shouts that followed the announcement rocked the stadium. Sand shifted lightly, and the very air seemed to jump with energized tension.
"Previous day, we had the twenty participants come up, and show us their magic at the mightiest ... and we recorded them," the announcer, Game Judge Mato (the pumpkin head), spoke after the cheer died down. "And today ... we have the score."
There was a hush as fans and gamblers as well as the rest of the stadium watched in anticipation as multiple ethereal screens popped up in front of the entire audience.
"I am pleased to announce to you that ... the number 1, strongest magical might of yesterday's participants was -!"
With a slide of his hands over his head, he turned to the audience.
Names began to appear faster than eyes can follow, and name of all first part participants appeared within two seconds.
"-Evanjala de Franc of the Celtic Blue Fire Guild!"
There was a roar of approval and cheer as a woman entered the arena. Unlike many of the female mages, she wore heavy metal armor like a knight, although the armor did fit her form well. There were no skin exposed beneath her neck, but she gave off an aura not too unlike a beloved queen. There was a tiger skin cape fluttering behind her, and her red and white armor glistened in the sun.
She waved her hand to the audience with a sincere smile. She was as natural as a long reigning monarch -or a celebrity- cold be with the audience.
"In second place, I would like for all of you to welcome ... Laxus Dreyar!"
For some reason, the following cheers sounded much more feminine than the previous one.
'I wonder why,' Acnologia thought to herself as she sat next to Ichigo. The two of them were inside the waiting area for today's participants, the Dungeon Competition.
She was pretty lax about it, but the others in the room weren't.
There were perhaps a total of eighteen people in this room. Most of them were dressed for battle, and Acnologia could see that they had prepared themselves well.
Unfortunately, what they were worried about was not what they were going to face but what was before them right here, right now.
Particularly, Ichigo.
Acnologia had done her best to seduce the man for some night fun, but all her attempts were rebuff rather easily. In fact, it only seemed to annoy Ichigo.
In the end, Ichigo didn't get to sleep much, if the dark circles under his eyes were anything.
It was weird though. She had fallen asleep somewhere pass midnight right next to him, but he hadn't. Why kept him up?
She wanted to think about it later, though.
So ...
Why were these humans scared of Ichigo?
She looked around. It was hard to tell. Many of these men and women were veterans on the field, and had participated in this portion of the tournament because they knew they could manage it.
Then she had it.
"Ichigo," she called.
Ichigo turned his head slightly to her -his left. "Yes?" he asked.
"What are you glaring at?"
Ichigo grumbled.
"Speak up."
"I wasn't glaring."
"But you are glaring."
"No, I'm not."
It was right here, just when they were about to start one of their no and yes argument that Laxus returned to the waiting room.
"I think I'll stay out of tournaments after this one," Laxus said as he walked forward while looking back.
Acnologia looked up to see her sla- apprentice and frowned. "Why?"
Laxus stopped in front of the Black Dragon slayer duo, and scoffed. "The cheering is too much on my ears."
She smirked. "Aww, is the little lightning dragon sensitive with his ears?"
Laxus only grunted. "I was surprised I only got second place."
Acnologia immediately glared at him. "Did you even try?" she snarled. During the time that Laxus had taken part in the training trip, he had been tossed around by Acnologia more than anyone can count. By the end of the first week, he learned pretty well that Acnologia hated to fight against others who did not put in their all in the fight, even if the fight was supposed to be a spar to master a single technique.
Laxus flinched. "Wait, wait. I'm holding myself back until the One-on-one competition," he quickly replied as he held his hands up in a placating manner. "You told me that revealing all my hands right off the bat was not a good idea, right?!"
Acnologia growled for a little more before quieting down. "I suppose a monkey like you can learn."
Ichigo scoffed. "What does that make me?"
"Dead dragon monkey?" she replied without hesitation.
Smack!
"That hurts!"
"You deserved it, Acnologia."
It was finally time for the second portion of the Grand Magic Tournament, the Dungeon Raid. Mato had taken a long time exalting -again- the participants and the Magic Council.
Ichigo actually believed that he saw several members of the council look like they wanted to kick him off the field.
He wasn't surprised by that though.
While it was not widely known, the Magic Council held significant interest in the trade industry. After all, it was they who taxed on any trade related to magical goods.
Then he came along with his S-grade essences spilling out like its nobody's business. He changed the market flow of goods and money. He upset the system that had been working for years which depended on small number of S-rank essences in the trade with large amounts of E-rank essences.
By upsetting the system, not only did he reduce the flow of taxes into the Magic Council, but he also got them in trouble for not regulating the inflow of S-rank essences.
One must understand that an S-rank essence can be broken up. For example, an E-rank essence can be used to make 1 beer. A S-rank essence can be used to make 10,000 beers from the same quantity.
As a result of Ichigo's constant sale of high rank essences, he more than quadrupled the supply of S and A-rank essences in the market. There was too much supply and not enough demand to match the supply. Prices fell dramatically and because taxes were dependent on the price (due to the latter being measured in percentage of profit), Magic Council had a year and a half of deficit budget that they were still trying very hard to fix.
Also, it led to an inflation.
And because their budget is linked with the fiscal budget and economy of Kingdom of Fiore, the king was ... well, not happy. He was very unhappy, especially at the inflation portion.
Only reason Ichigo himself knew this was because one of the council members came and explained to him.
He would have gone with lowering the sale of his essences ... had the goddamn councilor not piss him off.
They called him a "dark mage" for associating with demons -by killing them- and selling their essences -which he never did; they were his to devour. All of the essences he sold were from places he visited, not the demon fortresses that have been building up their forces to destroy the Overworld.
And he didn't even get a thanks before the man began spouting off about the "dark" side.
However, Ichigo's involvement in Fiore had reached beyond just a market impact; he had at one point saved the princess of Fiore, Hisui E. Fiore, from dark guild mages who sought to seek vengeance for whatever reason. With the favor of the king on his side, the magic council could not declare him a dark mage without facing the king's iron wrath. They also didn't have good evidence to do so, and half of the council was not even convinced of his "dark mage" status.
That and the fact that if Ichigo really chose to do so, he could completely stop his sale of essence -he would just eat them for himself, of course- and that would bring the market down. Hard.
He made sure to let the councilor know that.
'Imagine. A whole market dependent on a single producer. If the producer says nope, the prices skyrocket and a recession enters Fiore's economy.'
The king would have the Magic Council's heads for that.
"...And let me introduce to you, the Black Dragon Slayer, Ichigo Kurosaki!" Mato shouted at the top of his lungs. Thankfully, the mike was a bit far from his face.
Ichigo raised his hand up and waved.
The crowd went wild.
He must've missed the entire introduction for others or something, because Mato went on to explain to the audience how the Mob-Dungeon Raid was going to work.
Something about levels among the "mobs" that they were going to introduce into the arena.
Acnologia was glaring at him.
"What?" he asked, though most of it was lost to the sound of Mato's mike-enhanced explanations.
"Remember the deal," she shouted to him. "Physical only. No reiatsu or magic or anything like that. Swing your sword all you want."
He sighed. "Aye, aye."
"And first up is Ichigo Kurosaki!"
Just his luck.
Mato was excited.
...
Let me correct that.
Mato, the disguised King of Fiore, was excited.
He had met the man standing with him in the arena scant a year ago. The boy extremely rude, even to him, and was completely unconcerned about rewards for saving his precious daughter.
The day after he came to Crocus, the Lightning Dragon of Fairy Tail, the tall beauty, and he were gone, nowhere to be found for another year.
But this was not about thanking the man. No, this was about seeing how powerful he was.
While he was thankful to the boy and owed him few favors, he had been convinced by the moderates of his Magic Council and his mundane Council that a man capable of supplying four nations' worth of S-rank essences must have power to back them up. They needed to gauge his power level to see what kind of a threat level -if he was a threat- he was on.
That and few more suggestions from his Entertainment Department led to the creation of the Magic Tournament that he and the Magic Council financed.
He snickered.
The Magic Council did not want to support the Magic Tournament, no matter how much positive publicity it got them. They thought it "beneath" them.
Well, this was their punishment for mismanaging the essence trade. Oh, he knew why the economy went into an inflation in the first place, but he was angry with the Magic Council regardless. They should have been prepared for anything that came at them. That was the reason why they were even given the authorization to create the Rune Knights: to combat large scale magical incidences.
But no... They got complacent.
So they were now funding this Tournament... from their own pockets.
He snickered again.
Well, it was time to watch his daughter's savior in action.
Ichigo watched as the others left the field and unto the stands. He was left alone on the arena grounds, and even the judge left after a while.
...
'Okay, so I have to defeat whatever they throw at me, but what was I supposed to do again outside of that?' he thought to himself as the first mob appeared.
The mob in question looked like a white, furless dog. It was bigger than your average dog, and those teeth promised some pain.
Ichigo grabbed its neck when it jumped at him, and crushed its neck by merely tightening his hold.
He raised an eyebrow. 'This is way too easy.' Then he heard a small siren go off as more dog-mobs were introduced into the arena. What's more, this time, there was a mob bigger than him designed after ... a zombie? That's what it certainly looked like to him.
He sighed. "So it doesn't get any harder?" he muttered to himself in disappointment.
From the stands, it looked like a massacre.
Mobs flooded into the arena by the dozens. By now, the mob level had passed over 10. Monstrous mobs were coming out now. Some were bigger than three men put together.
And yet, Ichigo took them down without a fuss nor shed a sweat in exertion.
He stood in the middle of the arena surrounded by hundreds of "dead" mobs. They piled up, and he stood on top of them like a demi-god.
When his fists swung, one of the mobs went down without a head. Every time he pulled, a mob lost a limb -or head.
By level 20, huge mobs were coming out. They towered over men and women with sheer size comparable to that of a wyvern.
It didn't matter to him.
He merely jumped and sped faster than eyes could track, and tore the wyvern-mobs apart with his hands.
Yajima watched as the man in the arena jump into the air to grab a fleeing wyvern-mob. Then to his surprise, the mob was dragged down to the ground despite the fierce beats of its wings as if the man was too heavy. When the man touched the ground, he immediately slammed the wyvern to the ground before tearing its head apart with a single punch.
In his opinion, it was terrifying and wondrous to watch, really.
The magical scans around the arena showed no signs of magic being used. And yet, the man before the entire audience took to tearing apart monster machines with ease of plucking a leaf.
With sheer strength and speed.
No one was able to keep up with the man's speed as he jumped and tore across the arena like a vengeful, black lightning. Anything that came close ended up as scrap metal.
He was powerful.
And he hadn't even used the sword on his back yet.
Most intriguing and terrifying, indeed.
He watched the man grin as he grabbed a dragon-sized mob before -.
Yajima felt his jaws drop when the man grabbed the dragon-mob's tail and lifted it up with strength alone. Those calm veins on the man's arm showed little exertion even as the man in question slammed a mob-dragon to the ground again and again and again.
Natsu gawked.
He saw a mob-dragon the same size as Igneel being manhandled as it was slammed repeatedly into the ground by Ichigo who held it by the tail.
He gulped.
He was not the only one to gulp, though.
Gray was shivering at the sheer display of might.
Laxus was trembling, remembering some of the demon fortress raids where Ichigo used only sheer strength to rampage when magic made the raids "too easy" for him.
They watched as the dragon-mob let out one last wail before slumping to stillness.
Ichigo stood tall and unscathed.
"Is that it?" they heard the orange haired man ask outloud.