Chapter 4
"This is so good~" Minerva said, sipping on the smoothie she'd gotten with her breakfast. Alexander smiled at the very childlike expression of wonder on her face as, a moment later, she went back to her treat like she was afraid it'd disappear. Maybe she was, he guessed, bringing his own mood down.
"Glad you like it," he commented, then he turned towards Alice, who was looking at Minerva with a smile herself. "Thanks for letting me do this."
"Don't mention it," the woman replied, waving him off and chuckling. "This little one wouldn't stop asking about you. Who was I to deny her this when she's had a hard enough time as it is? No harm in allowing this, especially since we are right across the Rune Knight Outpost," she reassured him, adding that last part wryly, glancing towards the building literally across the street to one side.
"I guessed as much," he commented with a smile. What did he care if they were suspicious of him? He'd be more concerned if they weren't. He just hoped they'd be that serious when dealing with Jiemma. "Still, I appreciate it… So, how are they treating you, kiddo? Did anything fun?" he asked then, turning towards Minerva.
"Dinner was great, much better than the stuff we ate on the road," she said excitedly, having no mercy whatsoever. He could almost hear his poor heart breaking into pieces… Not really, but it did sting a little, even if it was also amusing. "And then Ms. Brinson and I played board games."
"In my defense, I never cared to learn how to cook more than basic things, let alone over a campfire," he said, giving the girl an amused look before looking at Alice and then back at Minerva. "And it sounds like you are having fun, huh?" he asked, getting a smile and a nod from the girl. "Someone will be forgetting about little old me in no time, I guess," he added jokingly. Instantly though, Minerva's eyes widened and her face paled a little.
"No!" she exclaimed, sitting straight and almost looking like she wanted to jump from her chair. That was certainly a more extreme reaction than he'd expected. Alexander could only look at her with his own eyes wide too. "I still want to stay with you, Alex! You-I-You can't-You said-"
"Minerva," he called, careful not to raise his voice too much. He didn't think raising his voice at her would achieve much other than trigger her more. It'd probably remind her of her father, he bet. She didn't seem to calm down, but at least she paused long enough to let him speak again. "Relax. I'm joking, ok? I'm sorry. I'm not going anywhere unless someone kicks me away, yeah?"
"You promise?" the girl mumbled, suddenly looking as fragile as the moment when she'd asked for his help. Alexander smiled softly at her.
"Promise," he replied, happy to see her relax as he did so. "So, any plans for the rest of the day?" he asked, turning towards Alice and hoping that he hadn't screwed up. It'd suck if he promised that only for the woman to decide that he wasn't good to keep around Minerva because of what had happened.
The expression on her face didn't exactly reassure him, but she didn't seem angry or annoyed, so that had to be good, right?
God, he hoped that was good.
"I'll just be keeping an eye on this little one," Alice answered, her voice soft and calm as she reached with her arm and pushed a strand of Minerva's hair out of her face. "We'll be playing a lot of games, I think, which is good because she seems to enjoy them. The Rune Knights are already working on her case too. Mage related issues are always a priority," she explained, with the tone of someone that was used to repeating a variation of that regularly.
"Can Alex come and play with us?" Minerva asked, turning to give the woman her best puppy dog eyes. Somehow, Alexander didn't think that'd be very effective with someone that probably had to deal with children a lot.
Sure enough, Alice just smiled calmly back at the girl.
"I'm afraid he can't. We can have some meetings like this, but he's not family or otherwise related to you in any way, so-"
"But he helped me!" Minerva argued, looking about ready to cry any second. Alice wasn't going to budge though, and Alexander could see that in the pain that flashed through her eyes. She wanted to, but she couldn't. 'Ok so, damage control time,' he thought to himself.
"Minerva," he called once more and she turned towards him, her lip wobbling and eyes shining. 'Fuck, how'd this woman stand that?' he couldn't help but wonder. "They are just doing their jobs, ok? She said we can have little meetings like this and, who knows, maybe we can see more of each other after all's over, yeah? If you don't get tired of me before that."
"Never," she mumbled, pouting at him for having the audacity to say that. It was honestly adorable, but also very touching. He just hoped that he'd actually managed to help. If he did, then he'd be happy.
"Can I ask, Mr. Jones…?" Alice started then, looking very glad that he'd avoided a messy situation. Alexander could certainly empathize. A meltdown sounded like something he'd rather avoid. "You are a mage, right? Minerva mentioned card magic but I wasn't sure…" she asked, trailing off then and he chuckled.
She was good, it seemed, because Minerva seemed to have calmed down with their previous talk and further with the topic change. Maybe she knew that the girl seemed to like magic, or maybe it was just a lucky guess. Ultimately, he could definitely play along.
"Yes, I do have Card Magic. It wasn't just tricks. I can show you if you want," he answered, pulling out his small stack of cards. Ultimately, he waited for her response to do anything. He hadn't looked at the legality of magic use just yet. It was in his to-do list though, because there were many blatant uses of magic in canon, but he wasn't sure if that applied to the world he was in or if what he knew about was just all special cases or if the situation was different somehow.
"Go ahead, so long as it's not too much," Alice replied. Alexander wasn't sure what she meant by that, but he already had something in mind that he was sure wouldn't be too much… And if it was, then he really had no idea how the world worked.
Ultimately, he looked for the right card and smiled.
"Spell Card," he chanted, a circle appearing on the front of the aforementioned object. "Switch," he finished, and Minerva's smoothie, which she'd just finished while waiting for him to cast as she calmed herself down, was swapped with his own, which was full. "How's that for magic? Enjoy, Minerva."
"Thank you, Alex," she exclaimed, looking like Christmas had come early. It said a lot that she was so happy with something so simple, but he had to keep telling himself that her life would get better from then on. The worst was over for her. It had to be.
"I see," Alice commented, smile on her face as she took in the sight of Minerva with her "new" smoothie. "You were speaking about plans before, weren't you, Mr. Jones? Any plans for the day yourself?"
"Well, other than asking if another meeting like this is possible," he commented, drawing Minerva's attention back to the conversation once more. "I'll probably be at the library. There's a few things I need to study and I don't have much to do while I wait for my documents to… Well, exist. I'll be doing that and little else until I get those and then probably visit the Rune Knight Outpost."
"Oh?"
"I heard there's jobs for mages there, like in the Mage Guilds. I might see if I can find something to do while Minerva's case is being worked on. I do need to make more money," he explained truthfully. His Archive card would grow more and more useful the more he fed it information, so he'd be doing just that.
He also needed to start working too, because the money they'd gotten would only last him so long. Besides, there were worse things than working as what was essentially an adventurer in a fantasy setting. Even if he only got the most boring jobs, they were bound to be more interesting than boring mundane jobs, he imagined.
"I see," Alice commented, although he wondered why she seemed to be actually interested in his answer. He'd been sure that she was just making conversation so that they could steer clear of topics that might upset Minerva. It seemed that he might have been wrong about that, however. 'Am I missing something?' "So, you've been an independent mage for a while?" Alice asked, and he groaned internally.
'Ok then, story time,' he thought wryly.
[}-o-{]
'This place is officially my best friend right now,' Alexander thought, back at the library.
He'd spent the rest of the day after leaving Minerva at the Rune Knight Outpost there, for one, trying to find all the information he'd need to establish an identity in Earthland. He didn't have one, after all, so that was bound to bring problems with the government and such, right? That was what he'd assumed, so he wanted to try and find some hole to poke his head through that wouldn't end up with it on the chopping block.
If worse came to worse… Well, he did have some ideas born of foreknowledge, but Alex wasn't too eager to jump to that. Besides, that wouldn't help much, considering it was likely that he'd be looked into by the Rune Knights soon due to Minerva.
Maybe that could have waited, but if he did wait, then that was less chances of things going well for the girl. His situation became more complicated, but what kind of person would he be if he put his own wellbeing over a kid's? His mother would have smacked him for just considering it.
Fortunately for him, he didn't need to try any criminal approaches or anything too out there either. Fiore wasn't a modern day country, after all. It was a fantasy kingdom and, while it was fairly advanced in some ways, it was also backwards in others. There were plenty of people that lived in small villages out of the way, there were even people that lived by themselves in the wilderness, even if it was completely mad depending on the place. It was, actually, not that strange for someone to just pop up from nowhere and join society.
Weird, but it worked in his favor, so whatever.
'I guess this is how the Dragon Slayers just time traveled into existence without problems?' he wondered to himself, reading through another book. The neat thing about Archive was that he didn't need to pay attention to what he was reading. He just needed to read it and it'd be saved. 'And Mystogan, probably. There's probably a bunch of other such characters that I'm forgetting or that might not even have been mentioned in the story.'
So, it had only taken him some research and some creative thinking to get a story down that would be believable and account for his actual lack of background. As far as the world knew, he'd grown in a secluded place and then been teleported where he found Minerva by some quirk of magic. In the words of the person he'd talked to "That could have contributed to him unlocking his magic", which had been a nice bit of serendipity. Alexander was just lucky that he was imaginative and a great liar… and that magic being such a prominent part of the world made it so that weird things were accepted fairly easily. He'd made up a lot of things that he'd have to remember, but he'd just have to write it down and lock the information down with Archive.
Not ideal, but it'd help.
Interestingly, he'd had to register his status as a mage and his magic. That last part had been a bit awkward, since even Alexander himself didn't know exactly how it worked, but it seemed that it wasn't too rare for people to have to figure out their magic. He was starting to wonder if the presence of magic made people care less about details. After all, magic didn't follow logic, so trying to keep a logical mind when a myriad of illogical things could happen due to "magic"... Yeah…
Shaking his head, he contented himself with the knowledge that he was getting registered as an actual person that existed and that it wouldn't get him in trouble or cause problems with Minerva. He still had to deal with the slight issue of starting to have an actual life instead of just drifting off. As he'd said before, he needed to start working and the easiest way to go about that was doing independent mage jobs. For that, however, he needed more information about the world. He didn't want to go in half-assed and mess up somehow.
Which was why he was learning as much as he could regarding mages and how they lived their lives. An interesting piece of information he'd come across while doing so was that people could use magic in public spaces or anywhere, really, so long as it wasn't disturbing anyone. It was, in summary, a matter of not being an idiot about the magic usage, basically.
Another bit was more stuff on independent jobs, which was useful too. The main difference between Independent Jobs and Guild Jobs was, for him at that very moment, that some Independent Jobs hadn't had the chance to be properly checked to make sure that they were what they said they were. There was a non-zero chance of the client having the wrong information or outright lying about what the job entailed, so people tended to stay away from anything with even a remote chance of being more dangerous than it sounded unless they were strong.
Nevermind the fact that they tended to pay less than jobs given to Guilds.
All that information was good to know. Alexander was pretty sure that he'd probably have fallen victim to the misinformation thing if he wasn't lucky. As it was, his magic had its good points, but it was nowhere near good enough to be out there fighting large monsters or doing complicated stuff. That Vulcan had been enough of a mess and he wasn't even sure if it was one of the difficult ones or not. He had vague memories of them being weak, but that could be because they'd be pit against the main cast and not someone more average.
All that was the kind of thing he was researching, occasionally sprinkling some other subject to keep himself from getting bored to death. Geography would be useful, for example. He needed to know cities, the general look of the world and, more importantly, have some idea of what the world was like. He also went through some books on animals and plants and other such things that he was likely to come across as a mage.
He was cramming really hard but with the Archive card in hand… He wasn't too worried. So long as he could use the card at any given time to look up the info that he'd likely forget, then everything would be fine. He'd get there eventually. Not like he could manage to know as much as a local in a matter of a day, his time trekking with Minerva notwithstanding.
'Lacrima,' he mused as he picked up the next book. Another piece that could be useful, he imagined. Maybe not, but he was pretty sure Lacrima were pretty important for whatever passed as tech in Earthland, so he wanted to know at least something about that. If he was right, it'd be like being in his old world without knowing the first thing about batteries.
'Lots to read and learn,' Alexander thought, but at least he didn't have to worry about remembering everything. Archive was quickly becoming his favorite card, because goddamn did it make studying easy. He was actually kind of having fun just reading, if he were honest. Once he had an ID and more money, he would probably get books to just read while sitting in a park or a cafe to pass the time.
It would probably be fun.
'Maybe I can bring Minerva too, if things go well,' he thought with a slight smile. She'd had fun reading her story books, after all. 'Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.'
[}-o-{]
"Spell Card," Alexander chanted, moving the now shining and "circled" card towards where he needed it to be. "Storage." A moment later, a box was almost perfectly in place, only needing to be adjusted a little. "And that's the last one, Mrs. Hunter."
"Thank you, Alex, dear," the old woman, owner of the shop they were at, replied with a kind smile. "You're a lifesaver," she added, patting his arm.
"Could say the same about you," he replied with a grin. "If you hadn't hired me, I'd probably be counting the money and being very frugal until my documents were ready," he commented, running his fingers through his brown hair. "So, I really should be thanking you."
Besides, it also allowed him to use his magic in a safe situation. He'd learned that magic could grow stronger with training, which was expected, but it was good to confirm it so that he wouldn't be an idiot using magic all the time for nothing. From there, working at Mrs. Hunter's store, moving around stuff with the Storage and Switch cards, sounded like a great way to get some money and training done, really. Both were things that he needed too, so that helped too.
"Nonsense," she waved off easily. "Now, I don't want to occupy more of your time, Alex," the woman added, passing him his pay. "If you want some more work though, a friend of mine from a little further down the street might need help too," she commented and he grinned.
"You, Mrs. Hunter, are an angel."
The woman's response to that was laughing. Still, Alexander had to check the clock hanging on a wall nearby just in case. He did have a very important appointment. Fortunately, he had time.
"Do you have somewhere to be?" Mrs. Hunter asked him, making him shake his head.
"I have, but not now. I have time," he answered, smiling and turning towards her once more. "So, where exactly do I have to go and what do I have to tell her so that she doesn't smack me with a shovel or something?" he asked and the woman started laughing once more. Once she calmed down, she patted him on his arm.
"It's a he and it'd be an axe, probably."
"Well, that's reassuring," he replied and Mrs. Hunter shook her head, looking like she had to hold back even more laughter.
So, that's how he went to Mr. Schaefer's woodwork shop where he spent some time moving around small and big pieces of wood, sometimes in boxes, sometimes by themselves. It was more work than with Mrs. Hunter, but it fortunately didn't take so much time that it made him late. He did have to rush a little to make it though, and he probably didn't look his best, but he got there. That was what mattered.
Eventually though, he got where he needed to be.
"Sorry for the delay," he said, grabbing the back of the free chair across from the table Alice and Minerva were sitting at. At any other moment, he might have straight out sat there, since they were there to meet with him and all. However, looking like a mess made him hesitate, leaving him standing there behind the chair. It felt wrong to join them just like that when he was barely presentable, if that.
"Alex!" Minerva greeted with a wide grin and looking like she couldn't care less what he looked like. That was probably the truth, he supposed, since they had certainly not looked all that good while traveling on foot. However, Alice's opinion was the one that scared him the most.
"Something came up?" the woman asked, raising an eyebrow but not really looking particularly displeased. It almost made Alexander sigh in relief.
"I was helping some people to earn some money while I wait for my documents," he answered, moving the chair and finally taking his seat after calming down. "Even with magic, it was a little more than I thought it'd be. Took more time and… Well," he explained before trailing off and gesturing to himself. "I thought I'd be late."
"It wouldn't have been the end of the world to arrive a little after the agreed time," she pointed out, to which he snorted and nodded towards Minerva. The girl was looking at Alice as if she had gone crazy.
"And disappoint the little one? I'd never dare," he commented, making the aforementioned child beam at him once more. "So, how was the board game afternoon?" he asked, taking one of the menu's set on the table and reading it with passing glances. He didn't want to ignore the two of them, after all. Especially Minerva, since she was basically the whole reason he was there to begin with. "You had a good time?" he added, focusing on the girl.
"We did," she nodded, looking content and kicking her legs back and forth where she sat. "Alice got me books like the one I read in the library. They weren't as good as the one with the dragon though."
"A dragon fan, huh?" Alexander asked, a little amused. People didn't think dragons were real, from what he remembered. Or, at least, they didn't think they were real anymore or something like that. He distinctly remembered people laughing at Natsu when he said his father was a dragon.
Then again, maybe he was remembering it wrong and it was because of the father part? That could be the case, for all he knew. It wouldn't be a surprise if both were true, admittedly. The only dragon that was still around was Acnologia and Alexander wasn't sure how well known his existence was.
It was kind of annoying, not remembering stuff about the series. It made him feel like he was working with faulty information, which he kind of was, and that meant that he could mess up very easily by doing the wrong thing. 'I might need to just go with the flow normally instead of trying to metaknowledge things,' he mused, smiling softly as Minerva seemed to go on a mini-rant about the dragon she'd read about. Most of that he'd already heard from their trip to the library, but Alexander didn't really care.
She looked happy, so things were good.
"If what I've been hearing is correct," Alice commented when Minerva's babbling was interrupted by the arrival of snacks and a very nice drink. "Then you might not have to worry about money as much as you think," she added, making him tilt his head after taking a sip from his cup of coffee. He wasn't usually a huge coffee drinker, but he felt like he needed some extra energy at the moment. Maybe he'd pushed himself too much through the day.
In his defense, he needed to get his feet under him as fast as possible.
"Why so?"
"Well, on top of what you've done with Minerva here, there's the matter of the bandit camp you informed the Rune Knights of," Alice said and he blinked. "If they are still there, then they'll be taken care of, and a small bounty will be given to you for giving key information like that."
"I thought the information would be added to a mage job or something," Alexander commented, because that was the kind of procedure he had read about in his research. Most of the time, issues were dealt by mages, unless they were urgent. The Rune Knights were stretched very thin, after all, being basically everywhere and acting as law enforcement in settlements.
"They had become more active lately, so they pushed for Rune Knight response," Alice said, sipping from her tea.
Alexander wondered though, if that was caused by Minerva and him raiding their camp when they were there. They hadn't taken too much from there but maybe they'd kicked the wasp nest or something. Ultimately, if the Rune Knights were dealing with them and he was getting paid… Then it was no longer his problem, he supposed.
"Well, I won't be saying no to some extra cash," he said with a wry smile. "I kind of need it."
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How's it going?
Things are settling down and Alexander is getting his feet under him. I know much of this sounds very convenient, but… Well, this is the way I imagine things going. I'm honestly trying to find ways to reduce Alex's luck, but either the Muse loves him or the Fairy Tail world does.
Hopefully you guys aren't too put off by the convenience of things and enjoy the chapter.
Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ
Random Question: Do you like any sports? I've been a casual fan of F1 for a while, but I've gotten much more into it as of late. Last race was crazy… wonder how many F1 fans are in my reader base… Anyway, yeah.
See you.