Chapter 7: When two copies meet, it's a trip to remember.

The lush green of the forest vibrated full of tranquility, beaming with energy and beauty for anyone lucky enough to witness its hidden secrets.

A shame that a certain swordsman didn't even try to hide his yawn, as he was completely bored out of his mind. Walking with the most silent group imaginable for the last twelve hours none stop was as monotone as it gets and only getting occasionally yelled at by the blood drenched maid when he apparently walked of the path kept him from falling asleep. She was also the one currently holding his hand, which it started to be a common thing for him.

Zoro was most of his live a loner and always preferred comforting silence over the screams of lunatics after finding some rare beetle or what not, but at the moment it was getting pretty dull. It gave him at least some time to think about a few things he did not fully understand just yet. So trying to break the silence the moss-headed turned woman pestered the teen of the group with his burning questions, all in an attempt to pass time.

"Hey, Kagu, can you explain to me how you managed to get inside that barrier? Last time I checked one of the laws of that barrier thingy was to not let anyone inside. So how did you do it?"

"Don't call, me Kagu! Mosshead!" replied an annoyed Kagura, increasing her grip to get her point across.

"Humor me. " said Zoro dismissively, ignoring the bloodied teens attitude completely. "I'm getting bored with all this silence so the least you can do is answer a few questions."

"…. Fine, but listen carefully! I'm not in the mood to-" but Kagura got interrupted by Zoro's outstretched arm waving up and down before her face.

"Yeah, yeah. You can stop with that and start getting to the good stuff, gore maid."

Not really in the mood to argue like children, Kagura faced forward, controlling her already strained temper and after a moment of silence released a sigh of annoyance, before starting the lecture for the swordswoman she was starting to hate the most out of the duo.

"…[Sign] whatever, the sooner you know the less you will pester me about it. Now runes are in theory extremely powerful, but they got a lot of weaknesses you can exploit if you understand the fundamentals. For runes to work properly they need to be placed inside a space which functions like a blank sheet of paper. The bigger they make it the longer they will need to bring it to life." Visualized the gravity mage using her hands. "Then there's the so-called law they create. The more complicated the more magic needs to be used in order for it to function properly. Pretty simple, but here's the thing that most people forget. Rune mages need to sustain the runes they placed and every time their runes are activated it drains its user of their magic."

"So what, you just banged on the barrier until they let you in?" mocked Zoro the teen, seriously hoping that there was something more to it.

"Not really, I was just getting to that part if you would've just let me finish! "irritated after being interrupted during her lecture she continued. " I didn't have time for something time consuming like that, so I opted for the second more foolproof option. Runes are still magic and as you know magic operates on a simple rule, the spell with more magic wins. For example the runes used by the Magic Council forces are strong, because their runes are overcharged using the magic of dozens of mages, making it almost impossible to break out unless your magic output was multiple times stronger than theirs. Glory String's law had only few wizards' maintaining it and from the look of it their third law of nullifying space magic was the strongest one supported, while the one preventing people from getting in was the least, so it was not hard to force myself in…. It still hurt, just so you know." Rubbing her shoulder without meaning to, Zoro could see how the material in that area was particularly more torn than anyplace else.

"Then why didn't they make a law that disabled all magic inside and just dropped meteors from outside the barrier?"

"I think I can better explain it to you, Roronoa." butted in Jellal and relieving the teen from teacher duty, while gaining her gratitude in the process. "You see when making those laws you have to specify each and every component of it and nullifying any type of magic is the hardest one to do. It's only possible if the caster itself understands how the very magic they want to practically disable works. Makes sense so far, doesn't it?"

"Yeah." nodded Zoro.

"Good. So if someone wanted to nullify all magic using runes, they would need to understand each and every one of them without exception, additionally to creating the specific runes, which combined makes for a law that is so complex and impossible to pull off, the Magic Council is still trying for the last ten years to bring such a formula into existence. And just so you know, you can't just copy an existing one and use it whenever you want. You need to make it up from scratch every time you want to use it, so you will generally not find anyone attempting or even succeeding in doing something on that scale. Simple, Isn't it?

" I guess so…" answered Zoro unconvincingly. "So overall the best answer is just to overpower their system with everything I got, correct?"

"...Yeah, something along those lines, but if that doesn't work you are basically screwed, unless you yourself can use runes and manipulate them faster then the people can cast them. Any other questions?"

"No, not real-" not looking where he was going, Zoro stepped into a particular deep puddle of mud, making him fall like a clumsy little girl face first. At least he didn't shriek like one, was his only comforting thought.

You would think someone with the ability to see into the future more or less would not fall prey to such a mundane thing, but life was full of surprises and even the mighty Pirate Hunter and First Mate of the Second Pirate King needs to watch out where he takes his steps and avoid the traps Mother Nature had placed everywhere, just waiting for one moment of carelessness.

Standing up and cursing his luck, Zoro's face became steaming red under the involuntary face mask he got free of charge, as Jellal unsuccessfully tried to hold his laugher, not able to stop himself after seeing the dumfounded expression of the always serious Erza. Kagura on the other hand turned her head slightly around and didn't even try to hide her satisfied smirk, as if telling the greenhead she deserved it.

"SHUT IT!" yelled Zoro, only for the laughter to continue, seemingly amused at his expense. Oh how the swordsman wished for the boring silence to never been broken, but on the other hand it was pretty much a nostalgic feeling.

Standing up with how little dignity remained, Zoro tried to get as much mud of him as possible and during it he came to an incredibly normal realization. Wearing white outdoors was not the best choice of clothing to wear, not that he had any other options at that time before being literally teleported into a random forest.

His whole outfit was completely ruined, as where once was a shining white texture, now was a brown stained mess that emitted a very interesting smell. The only thing that retained somewhat its color was his now, ironically called mud-green belly warmer.

"Ugh, you stink!" pointed out Kagura after clenching her nose and putting of a show just to annoy Zoro, as she put more distance between herself, and the mud ridden greenhead.

"Here, let me help you." offered Jellal after ending his rare laughing session, while creating a blue magic seal above Zoro's head before drenching his feminine form with a water sphere that defied gravity and remove all the excessive mud of his body. Unsurprisingly the stains still remained, alongside a somewhat muffled smell.

"I think you forgot a spot." taunted Kagura, after pocking the green head deliberate in the brown stained bandage like chest support.

"Knock it of!" snapped Zoro at her, trying to hold onto what dignity he still had left.

"I'm a Wizard, not a laundryman. "playfully added Jellal, wanting to enjoy the moment a little longer.

It ended quicker than anticipated when the sound of rustling bushes emitted behind his back. Not prepared in the slightest for a sneak attack, the young mage had only just enough time to turn around and face the unknown individual as he emerged from the bushes.

It was a tall muscular man towering each member of the trio. There was not so much to see, as his clothes were covered under a black thick looking tattered cloak with some sort of iron shoulder covering on top of it.

If you would've asked Zoro, what the most striking aspect of the man standing before them was, his orange hair pooping out in contrast to his plain attire was a close second, to the immense overflowing aura he emitted, who just so happened to look like a carbon copy of Red-haired Shanks of all people.

"GIiLD.. Gildarts-" was all Jellal managed to stutter as he was figuratively glued in place, after crossing eyes with the mage before him.

Surprised at tattoo face's stiffness, Zoro turned around to check his other companion's state. She was not doing any better, as she was too stunned to move, making one thing clear to Zoro. Everyone who rocked that look will be blessed with power and become a person for the whole world to fear. There was no other logical explanation how two people looking practically identical could radiate the same intensity of power in the timeframe of over seven hundred years.

'Unless… reincarnation is a thing'. Now Zoro was not a religious person, but he would be a fool to ignore such strong evidence of it…. That or they were just related, but that would be a boring conclusion, right?

'Either way, if it came to a fight, even I might not come unscathed out of it.' sweat started to form on the greenhead's forehead, while reaching for Shigure. Ready to strike, at any sign of hostility.


'Fuuuuuuck!' was all that crossed Jellal's mind. That one word summed up pretty much his entire situation right now. Before him stood possible the worst person imaginable called Gildarts Clive, also known as the Destroyer and unofficial strongest Wizard in Fiore, screw that, whole Earthland. He was stripped of his Wizard Saint title after the infamous 'Takaoka incident' and on top of it he is the number one wizard of Fairy tail and shared quite fondly their philosophy that could be best summed up in four words; 'Hurt friend? You die!'… well figuratively of course, but with him accidents might happen more often than one might think.

It took all of Jellal's willpower to remain standing and not piss himself when he looked into Gildarts eyes. From an outsider's point of view they looked neutral, kind of inviting even, but the young mage was sure that behind them was the fury of man that could change entire maps three times over, if he just so choose and double that for what Jellal did to one of his so called nakama.

"OH~ Siegrain! Didn't expect to stumble upon you out in the forest so far away from Era. I thought you would be pent up in your little tower and do tedious paperwork. " came the surprisingly genuine feeling greeting from the worst person he could run into…or so he thought.

Could it be that Gildarts doesn't know what has happened or what in particular he did to his guildmates? Did he not got the news of Jellal being a traitor to the Magic Council alongside Ultear? Could it be that Gildarts nomadic lifestyle…. prevented him from getting anything what was currently happening all around him and saved Jellal from total annihilation?!

Still pretty stunned, all Jellal could manage to respond was a weak 'Hey', to which Gildarts took great offence to.

"What is up with this pathetic greeting of yours. We don't see each other for three years and that's all you can manage to say." Shaking his head in disbelieve, Gildarts wrapped his massive arm around the blue haired smaller form, which did wonders to snap him out of his paralyzed state. "I expected better of you!"

"Sorry, I was just too stunned to met you here of all places." gathering himself, Jellal changed to his so called Siegrain persona and prayed to survive the oncoming minutes of pretend he will have to endure. "Weren't you supposed to be near the Holy MT. Zonia to finish that century quest of yours?"

"Ah that, hahaha," laughing for what felt like a full minute, Gildarts stopped before adding, "I was launched by it into Dinkle town and the people there were kind enough to save my life. I'm lucky that monsters aim sucked or else I might have lost more than my arm and leg."

"WHAatt!?" loosing his composure Jellal slipped out of the mighty wizard's arm, as he was in utter disbelieve hearing something like that from the most terrifying person he knows of.

"Yeah, it was a real mess, but let's not talk about it. I'm more interested with who you are traveling with- Erza?!" as the man eyed Jellal companion he stopped when his gaze met with the green haired variant of the Fairy Queen.

"I see the confusion, but this is not Erza." Interjected the young mage, while not having an explanation at hand for it at that precise moment.

Jellal was in utter panic, which he painstakingly succeeded not to show before the larger man, thanks to his overall experience. Now trapped in a corner the deceptive young man needed to make up an explanation on the fly, if he planned to see the other day. So he unconsciously used one that worked wonders in a similar situation.

"She's my half-sister Nora." Said Jellal gesturing at a surprised Zoro, having used a similar excuse when he met the real Erza as Siegrain and in hindsight it was admittedly not the best explanation one could give.

"Ah, I see." but it worked at least every single time, fooling even the experienced Gildarts, which was probably because the superior mage had no reason to distrust an official Councilmember. "So what are you doing here? You are a good distance away from Era and you don't strike me as the kind of person who just leaves his office and calls it a day, without a good reason."

"I was visiting," said Jellal a tad to early, before gathering himself and using all the brainpower available to come up with a sensible story. "Visiting my sister that is. I was feeling a little homesick and after all this time I decided to take some time off from work and surprise her. Unfortunate as you can see by our state, my stay was a lot more eventful than I could have hoped."

"I hope you two hadn't just a sibling fight." said Gildarts half-mockingly, wanting to lift up the mood.

"Hehe, I wish it was exactly that." chuckled Jellal politely. "Our village was attacked by a dark guild called Glory String. When I arrived my sister and her close friend here where the only survivors after I dispatched of the threat, permanently."

"I see... you have my condolence." The moment the Crash mage crossed glances with Kagura, she subverted her gaze to the side, not able to handle his intense aura as he looked at Kagura's bloodied state, which was obviously not hers. Gildarts probably misunderstood her appearance from having witnessed innocent people die before her as their remains splattered on top of her or something else along those lines.

"So what are your plans for now?" asked Gildarts, turning his attention to the blue haired mage, who didn't change his posture the entire time.

"First I will bring those two to the nearest town. Their safety is my highest priority right now. What I will do next, we will see." answered Jellal confidently, hoping for this talk to end any moment now.

"Good. Well then it was a nice talk Siegrain, but I have to get going. I need to show my guild that I'm still alive and kicking, before they get worried why they can't reach my destroyed lacrima." with that the terrifying man walked past them while holding his arm lazily in the air. "So see you lat-" before he stumbled with his left leg on an exposed tree root and caught himself from falling, which didn't stop the annihilation of a good portion of the forest to his right.

"Ah…crap, gotta get used to it..." grumbled the Destroyer, before dismissing his newest disaster and continued his journey back to home without a worry in his step.

Jellal thought his heart had stopped beating when the older man released just a portion of his power. The young mage feared Gildarts had seen past his lies. It was only when the crash mage was out of sight did Jellal notice how drenched in sweat he was, as his legs felt like pudding, read to collapse into themself. Kagura was in a similar state, but to his surprise Roronoa was standing strong and to be honest that scared Jellal a bit.


When that Shanks look alike destroyed part of the forest, Zoro's eyes widened in response to it, not because of what it did to nature, but what it reminded him of. This power had a striking destructive resemblance to the Tremor-Tremor fruit Blackbeard stole from Whitebeard himself.

It seemed the future had something more terrifying to offer than Zoro could have imagined. He thought combining Whitebeard with Kizaru's powers would be a pain in the ass, but never did it cross the swordsman's mind of witnessing a fusion of Whitebeard and Shanks itself.

Personally Zoro never met Whitebeard and has only ever seen the footage that was recorded during his rampage in the Paramount war, but even from that alone it was clear what kind of monster he was. Additionally Blackbeard was a great fan of displaying that specific power, so Zoro was more than once on the receiving end of it and just so you know, it was not a pleasant feeling in the slightest. So with new questions brewing inside his head it was time to ask Jellal a couple of new questions about that Gildarts person.

Continuing in their travel Jellal revealed quite a few interesting details and in all honesty, Zoro would be disappointed if that orange haired copy didn't have at least such an impressive repertoire of feats, even if he couldn't control his magic because of the insane amount he had.

"So what's that about that Takaoka incident?"

Gathering his thoughts Jellal pondered a while before answering rather professionally.

"The official version was that Gildarts lost control over his magic, which resulted in the entire destruction of the Drafle High security Prison killing everyone inside, including Eugene Takaoka, who was one of the richest men in Fiore, but the truth is an entirely different one. Now I don't want to give you an entire lecture, so this is the short version" Said Jellal before starting the history lesson. "One day Gildarts was visiting his sister in a secluded Village. He hasn't seen her for years, but when he arrived Gildarts noticed at a glance that she was under the control of some twisted spell I prefer not to reveal. In fact everyone there was under the same kind of spell, so Gildarts did the proper thing and rescued everyone while bringing the bad guys behind bars, who just happened to be Takaoka himself."

Nodding along Zoro gestured for Jellal to continue, while Kagura was listening passively while they marched through the woods with the sun having trouble shining through the thick trees giving of a rather mysterious atmosphere.

"Now he brought him to the closest prison, and everything was good until Takaoka was lifted of all charges and offered Gildarts a nice amount of money to buy his silence. Gildarts was of course insanely enraged and wanted that guy behind bars, but the corrupt personnel just played along Takaoka's flute and where about escort him outside. That's when Gildarts lost it. He didn't want someone like that criminal near his sister ever again and in a moment of weakness lost control of his infamous destructive magic and literally atomized the whole prison with everyone in it, criminal and guard alike. Leaving only him standing." Taking a deep breath Jellal continued, after making sure Roronoa was still listening. "The Magic Council's hand was forced and after stripping him of his Wizard Saint title, they put a lot of restrictions upon his travels, as he was deemed to dangerous to be left unchecked, like a ticking time bomb."

"Like what?" this time Kagura entered the chat, getting deeply and uncharacteristically interested in the story for some reason.

"He's not allowed to reside in any populated areas for longer than three days and needs to give a two-week advance notice before he can even enter it, unless it's an emergency and approved by three high ranking representatives of the Magic Council, who take the blame if anything goes wrong. The only exception is Magnolia of course, were he's allowed to stay for one week."

"That's all?" Zoro felt that there's something more to it.

"No, there's a lot more to it, but the only other thing that's worth mentioning is that Gildarts is only allowed to do decade quests and higher, making him wander from months to literal years to complete some of them, while he only gets a small percentage of the actual reward. The rest flows into the Councils pocket."

"I get the feeling they want to get rid of him, but at the same time he's also too useful, so they opted to work him to death instead." said Zoro, with a hateful look in his eyes. "He's no different than a slave."

"Basically, yes." confirmed Jellal, with a calm air around him. "It happened a long time ago, so most people have forgotten the rumors and accepted the official version as the truth."

After some time the trio finally arrived on the outskirts of the City in the middle of the night, which was littered with so much light and what not, Zoro didn't even need to enter the city itself to be blinded by its radiance. The city was of course guarded all the time, as noted by Kagura so they entered the city through a hidden tunnel that was dug underneath it when no one was looking by Legos himself back in the day, gaining them a trouble-free solution at least.

"First let's go change our clothes. We stick out like a sour thumb." suggested Kagura, while pointing at a shop more or less right next them.

"Yeah, that would be the right call." agreed Jellal while caressing his eye tattoo.

When they entered suddenly all the people inside slowly fell asleep, but one look to the right confirmed it was Jellal's doing, surely not wanting to be recognized by the public.

"Let's get that over with!" said Kagura while she skillfully picked clothes left and right, as if she already knew what she wanted to wear.

Jellal, being the only one which clothes were not completely stained with filth opted to instead cover himself with a blue cloak, a black bandana on his head and a white silver mask hiding the bottom half of his face, trying his best to cover his revealing and easily to distinguish eye tattoo.

Kagura opted instead to wear a black leather jacket, a pair of wrist high gloves and a purple frilled kneeling skirt combined with black tights and a sturdy pair of boots. She also changed her hair piece for a yellow one.

Zoro meanwhile opted to dress himself how he used back in the day and found mostly what he was looking for. He now wore a closed ocean blue colored thick coat going down to his feet, bound with a cozy yellow sash where his sword now resided. Underneath it he wore a new white sarashi, preferring that than anything else that shop had to offer, while his trusty green belly warmer that Cutter made for him was not getting replaced, not wanting to part with it just yet. It was still more or less clean thanks to Jellal, so there was no harm in keeping it. His legs were covered in normal black pants tucked into his new wonderful sturdy black boots he finally was allowed to wear. It was slowly becoming annoying to walk barefooted with his babylike sensitive feet, so this new addition was a much-needed change. And of course, the most important item of them all was his signature black bandana tied around his left arm. Without it how else could he give his all in a fight?

Now properly dressed, the trio ventured deeper into the city without paying for the clothes.

"Here, take them!" handing out Sunglasses rather forcefully, Kagura made sure that everyone had the right protective eye covering for their trip. "The city can be pretty bright on this time of the day", and she was not wrong.

The moment they walked onto the main road Zoro was met with countless billboards, flying, and flashing in hundreds of colors, promoting every imaginable ad one might think of, featuring hotels, bars, strip clubs, 'medical' stores and so much more. It seemed you could find everything here, as Zoro tried to fight against the stream of people pouring into each shop on the streets despite the late hour.

"I will go provide us with a wagon. Let's meet at the statue in one hour." Suggested Kagura pointing at the massive Monument of a wizard fighting against a dragon you couldn't miss even if you tried.

"Okay, in the meantime I and Ro-"unsurprisingly the moment Jellal turned around Zoro was nowhere to be found, having been lost in the masses of people when no one was paying attention. "That bastard..."

"[sign] you have an hour to find her. If you don't come in time, I will leave both of you behind!" said Kagura casually, leaving the young mage with an ultimatum he could not argue against.

'Roronoa, you brainless idiot'. With that in mind Jellal pushed against the masses in search of his responsibility.


"Mhmmm, who should I follow?" Was the dilemma a camouflaged young man had, hanging around on one of the many roof tops in the city, while observing a certain trio splitting up before him. It was not the most pleasant work, but Mark's life was on the line and he had yet to have the unpleasure to meet someone from Oracion Seis face to face.

"I guess Jellal should be the safest bet." murmured the guy under his nose.

"Are you sure? I would go after that green haired one that has disappeared from your view. You don't know anything about her."

"...Nah, I doubt Cobra would be interested in a no name."

"Haven't you seen how strong she was when she sliced up those falling meteors?"

"That's precisely why I want to avoid her the most, I mean have you not seen how she survived Maria's last attack without a serious injury!? That woman is a beast!"

"Was it really so impressive?"

"Of course, you-…"it suddenly dawned on Mark that he was supposed to be alone on the rooftop and in a split-second decision he spun around, his fist ready to crack open whoever sneaked up on him and decked the person a nice, enhanced punch to the face. Never did Mark regret his life choice more when it dawned on him who he just raised a hand against.

"Oh, is this how your young people are greeting each other now?" Came the voice of the green haired beauty who was not bothered in the slightest by the punch that was still steaming from the impact. "I guess it would be impolite to not return it."

She held her balled fist high and was about to unleash its power, when Mark got on his knees with his hands on the rooftiles in an instant, delivering an impressive dogeza he must have been practicing some time now right before the bootleg version of Erza.

"It was a mistake, I'M SORRY!" cried out the young man, hoping to escape at least with his life.

"So you hit people just for fun?" came the serious asked question. How Mark wished he wore brown pants instead, as he was sure he would shit himself at any moment. "But I'll forgive you, if you buy me a drink, so we can talk about what you were doing up here, in the middle of the night, observing us since the moment we left the village."

"Eh, ah that will…of course." it was not up for debate.

So with a defeated expression Mark brought the beauty into the closest bar, hoping she would get lost on the way there, like she did the dozens of times when he was tailing them, but that was not the case this time, much to his dismay. So with nothing coming to his rescue Mark spilled the beans, not even trying to lie before the intimidating beauty before him, while paying for each drink she ordered on a minute-by-minute basis.


For the last fifty minutes or so he had looked around the whole City, but to no avail. Roronoa was nowhere to be found, as if the ground itself had swallowed her. The beerhall before him was his last chance.

The smell that emanated from there was disgusting and if Jellal had to describe it to someone, the stench was like a combination of regurgitated alcohol, mixed with salty piss and puked guts. And that was to put it mildly, but the young wizard was ready to put up with it, when he finally found the idiot he was looking for.

She was happily drinking out of an oversized mug in the company of three towering middle-aged man all half naked and wearing for some bizarre reason loincloths, seemingly oblivious to the state all around them. People were in terrible shapes, as the whole beerhall was littered with unconscious bodies here and there, having drunk themselves to their limit and beyond.

"HOOO!" cried the quartet that was still standing, while bringing their new filled mugs high in the air, and after pouring it all in one go, one of the giants had enough for that day and passed out.

"And another one goes down. It doesn't look good for you." taunted Roronoa to the last two standing.

"Don'd gyet cocgy you gleenhorn, we ant not fnshd yed!" came the drunk response of the pink haired one, while the bald one was somewhat putting himself together, swinging left and right like a metronome in his chair.

Jellal was livid as he approached the remaining trio and made his presence known.

"NORA!" came his raised voice, making sure to use a made-up name when addressing Zoro, while making it look like he was the concerned older brother having been separated from his little sister. "Here you are. I was looking for you all around the City. Come now, let's go before Kagu leaves without us."

'Hey, Jel…Siegi." caught himself Zoro, playing along with this charade. "Sry, I made you worry. Well guys it looks like I gotta go. It was fun, while it lasted."

Pulling out a wallet, the green haired swordswoman left a stack of cash on the and left alongside Jellal, while the remaining duo collapsed in the distance when Zoro left the hall.

"Where did you get the wallet?"

"Got it from a guy named Mark, he was tailing us since we left the village. After telling me what I wanted to know, he challenged me to a drinking contest in order to save his life and as you can see, he lost." answered Zoro while tossing the wallet repeatedly in the air. "Then for some reason everyone wanted to challenge me and that's what happened in the last hour or so."

"That's all fine and dandy, but let's go before Mikazuchi's patience runs out and she leaves us behind."

"Got it, ah by the way. Oracion Seis is looking for you."

"[sigh]... Just great. I hoped they would act later, but it seems I was too optimistic, but we leave that matter for another day. Let's go!" with that Jellal grabbed Zoro's arm and both of them sprint across the city making it just in time.

"Good you're finally here." said Kagura, leaning against the giant monument with her hands crossed. "Let's go!" boarding the plain wooden wagon attached to a giant boar like creature, the group made its way to their next destination.


The rumbling of his lacrima woke the puke-stained man up from his hangover, as he crawled out from the mass of stinking bodies he was buried under. Without checking who it was he took the call.

"Yes? What do you want!?"

"You missed giving your last report." that voice brought a chill running through Mark's spine as he forcibly stood up, with adrenaline flowing trough his body.

"MaSter Leader Brain!" Mark was not in a favorable position.

"We thought you were already dealt with, but Cobra said he could still hear your pathetic being even from here and look at you now. Covered in puke inside a beerhall," clear disappointment present in his tone. "But I'm not some heartless monster. So tell me, Glory String representative, what do you have in your defense?"

Gathering all his remaining composure Mark prayed that what he managed to do last night would be enough to spare him the fate of becoming the new chew toy for Cobra's hungry snake.

"I... I was found out, BUT I managed to slip a magic tracker inside them, when I purposely lost a drinking contest and offered my wallet to them." Sweat was building up like crazy on his entire body, as he awaited his judgment from the Master of Oracion Seis.

"You did a good job straightening out your mistake. Send the data to us and as a reward don't show your face before us ever again, if you value your life that is."

"YEess!"

With that the call ended and Mark collapsed on the floor, having handled being fired of his job as a dark Mage better than most people would, that meant being left alive. After sending the data to track the group, Mark was feeling kind of purposeless. Despite his gained freedom he didn't knew what to do.

"What a fine mess this is!" said a middle-aged man entering the hall, holding a broom in his hand and observing the state of his building. "Hey, youngster! Aren't you by any chance looking for a job?"

Mark just looked at the older man and in a matter of minutes he was hired for his new job as a janitor.

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Ok, I need to work more on writing dialogs, because that brought me some problems. So this is chapter seven (my favorite number) and I'm happy to announce that I managed to write it in the desired time. And I'm never going to do write a story under a week again, unless I have a lot of free time. So how did you like that chapter? I hope it is not to 'exposition' heavy. I tried doing it in a way that wasn't boring you to death, but I'm not sure how good I manage to do that. Either way I hope this chapter was at least somewhat entertaining and I hope you all have a great day before you. In the meantime, I will go make myself a sandwich. See you next time whenever the next chapter comes out.

Chapter version v3 : 29.12.2021

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