Business as Usual

I knew that the fucking interview was a bloody mistake. I should have called it quits and be on my merry way. Fortunately, I had enough forethought to book a job from the Guild the day of the interview, so when the magazine was out the next morning, I was already on a train.

It was a tactical maneuver, I knew that the interview; that continued until way past midnight and were we chatted about very sensitive topics; was going to garner me some attention, but when I took one of the magazines from the train shop and saw myself in the centerfold page I almost choked out on what I was drinking.

It was a good thing that I was alone in the train´s cabin, otherwise, I would have showered my traveling companions with an epic spit take of coffee. I even created a rainbow in the aftermath.

Jason, that bloody bastard, has published an article about me; how, for fuck´s sake, did he manage to do that in the less than the four hours that he had before the next day number was sent to the printers I would never know, and that article was accompanied by a photo.

I don't know at what point did Jason managed to make the photo, but it was quite a good piece. It was intimidating and panties-dropping at the same time, I didn't even know that I could put such a good front; also, now that I see myself different than in front of the mirror of the bathroom, I have to admit that I was ripped as hell. And my red eyes were showing, oh bloody hell, that is going to bring some questions that I did not want to answer.

The photo was of me sitting in the chair of the local where the interview took place, I was leaning on the frozen wall behind me as it was an ice throne; wow, didn't really noticed that; with my muscular frame in light and shadows of the dim light of the room and my red eyes looking right at the reader with a smirk that spoke of amusement and overwhelming confidence.

More than one female around Fiore is going to nail that photo to the wall and use it for their "private" moments, I am pretty sure of that. Bloody hell, I made myself the source of several wet dreams for all the female readers of Sorcerer Magazine. And possible some males that swing the other way. In Fiore, sexuality is a "behind close doors" business, that being said, anybody that has game, usuallly flaunts it openly. On a side note, magic and female beauty seemed to be linked, as most of the female mages that I have know tend to be on the attractive side of things.

Still, the worse is going to be when I get back to the Guild; I am more than sure that a lot of the usual chumps in the guild are going to tease me about the bloody article for a long while. What I fear the most is not that, what I fear the most is that Mira will see the photo and will get in her pretty head that I should accompany her during her modeling jobs.

Not now, not ever, thank you. I don't really care about the fame, and I am not interested in posing for the eye candy of the masses. There are a hundred others in the Guild that could fill that role better than me, and I didn't really need the jewels. Jewels, the name of the coin of Earth Land, was a bit confusing when you are paying for jewelry with jewels, but the world developed that way and I just rolled with it.

Well, at least Fairy Tail will benefit from my good reputation and the sudden attraction of several females. I am pretty sure that more than one lady is going to try their hand and get a sample of what they saw in the centerfold piece. I pretend to give them the night of their lives, but being completely honest with myself, so far, I have not yet found the adequate lady to start a relationship with.

To be concise, among the ladies of the Guild, I was intimate with several of them in the past. Blame hormones and the fact that all of the ladies of the Guild are freaking hot. Technically speaking, Cana and I took each other virginity, I did all I could to made sure that Cana´s first time was something magical for her, and I think I managed to get it right. Despite that, I am not in any serious relationship with any of the fine lasses of the Guild. Between my obsession with magic and my constant come and go, it is hard to form any relationships.

That being said, I am not looking out for being someone like Guildarts, that is physically unable to stand in one place for more than a week. I don't even want to know how many children had sired the fucker all over Earth Land. That was one of the things that I would never do to my children, I will always be there; I know what it is to grow without a family and it is a fucked-up thing.

There is nothing that I can do about the blaster article by now, so I will focus on the job that I took before the interview. If everything goes according to my calculations, I will say that in half a week I will be back to the Guild, ready to face the music.

Because I am sure that the consequences are going to be a bloody headache.

The job that I took was something relatively common among the Guild jobs. It was monster extermination but with the twist that they are summoned beasts of some sort and by so, they are commanded by a powerful monster capable of using magic, or the usual rogue mage.

In normal circumstances, the Rune Knights would be dealing with this shit, but alas, the village that has requested the jobs was one of the frontier villages of Fiore, in the middle of nowhere and between the mountain borders with Seven. There was nothing of value there, just a small village of hunters, small mining operations, and the local garrison of frontier guards to deal with the local fauna. The Rune Knights had zero reasons to waste their time with anything there and by so, they left the job for the legal Guilds around Fiore.

The closest Guild to their location was Fairy Tail, so the job ended up there. I took it because it was the perfect chance to enjoy some peace and quiet in a snowy forest, and to hunt down some monsters that will fetch an excellent price in the market along resupply my alchemy cabinet with some fresh samples.

The train could only take me up to a point; if I am not mistaken, the last stop of the train was the town where the Guild Master meetings take place every now and then. Makarov never lost a chance to brag about how awesome his children are. Not that the old man did not have good reasons to brag, Fairy Tail is possibly the strongest Guild in Fiore.

Among the top Guilds, Fairy Tail, Lamia Scale, Mermaid Heel, Quatro Cerberus and Phantom Lord, the ones that stood at the top were Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord. Among all of them, only Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord had one of the Ten Wizard Saints as Guild master. The tension between the two guilds had grown in the last years, but none of us is interested in an open war as it would mean the disband of the Guild at the hands of the Magic Council.

Mind you, Phantom Lord was famous for being a bunch of assholes the best of days and for being a dark guild in all but name. Fairy Tail may have a reputation of being a bunch of reckless idiots but we are not assholes that would even threaten our clients to get more money, or, to leave the job half done to raise the prize.

Sooner or later, I am convinced that Phantom Lord is going to do something stupid and all of us are going to end in some deep waters with the Council. That being said, I am not entirely confident in the ability of my Guild to go toe to toe with Phantom Lord and walk away unscathed.

Win?. Aye, Fairy Tail will end up as the winner of such a confrontation but I am not arrogant enough to do not recognize that Fairy Tail will be mourning more than one loss after such a battle.

Phantom Lord had zero qualms in taking lives whenever they could get away with it; sure enough, if they saw the chance to take down one of us, they will take it and the two Guilds would walk away from the war weakened. With the amount of Dark Guilds on the rise, the Council will more probably disband the two Guilds and that would only fuck up the situation even more.

Even if I disagree a lot with the Magic Council and their Rune Knights, I am afraid that they are necessary, that the work they do is important, but as it always occurs with any organization, there were agendas hidden within the Council, and the Council that ruled today were way too busy being control freaks that they lost sight of the important things.

The Magic Council acted more on inner politics than in the interest of those that they would be protecting. Do not take me wrong, the Council is overworked these days and with half of their personnel working for all kinds of Dark Guilds, or independent parties, it was a nightmare to get something done. The Magic Council has become a bureaucracy of mages that were control freaks and paranoid the best of days.

More often than not, the Council sent up help too late or too little, and waste time in discussing who will take the blame for what. On the other hand, they always sent help, they do care and they have some of the most powerful mages of Fiore under their banner. It is a pity that the strongest mage of the continent is actually a complete asshole with a God complex. Powerful as hell, but God Serena is a delusional fool with way too much power.

Call it a hunch if you like, but I am one hundred percent sure that somewhere along the line, I am going to face the fucker and I have all the intentions in the world to show him why I was feared as a God-Slayer.

Speaking of that, [God Slayer] magic actually exists and it is along the [Dragon Slaying] and [Devil Slaying] magics in terms of power and rarity. Perhaps even more as the only known [God Slayer] magic know today is in the library of the Council. It was among my projects to try to get my hands in God Slayer Lacryma.

Pretty sure that it is going to be as easy as find the teeth of an owl.

The train left me at the station, and I just took my small backpack and walked right into the wilderness. I didn't have the need to carry around a lot of luggage, mostly because my Re-equip magic was up to snuff and I could hold entire warehouses inside of it. I do keep a small backpack with me, for appearance's sake mostly, and to keep some essentials with me at any moment.

When I become a Campione, I was camping in what later would be called Alaska, hunting down a dangerous beast that threatened my village. I ended up slaying a Slavic god of winter. No matter the time that has passed since then, I always liked to live in, or, near nature. That was one of the reasons why I kept my home near the forests of Magnolia.

As soon as I walked into the wilderness and out of the sight of the people in town, I stop pretending and start running into the forest at top speed. Among civilians, I restrict myself severely to do not hurt any innocent, but once I am in the wilderness, all bets are off and I ran wild. I am sure that right now I am sporting a maniacal grin all over my face. I was happy when I was free of the burdens of civilization and right into nature. Here, the only rule that matters was the law of survival and it resonated with my soul.

Right now, I was more beast than man, I ran, jumped and crossed the cold forest of the frontier like the king of the mountain, and in a sense, that was what I was. Due to my base as [Ice Make] and the training of Ur, the cold was something that bothered other people, when I refined and increased my domain over [Ice Magic] and several others, then several things started to inconvenience me no longer.

To kept my cards close to my chest, the vast majority of what I could really do is kept hidden and out of the sight of witness. That being said, I am not a murderer, a killer, yes, but not a murderer, there is a big fucking difference between the two. Jobs like this, hunting down monsters, that allow me to go all out and test the real limits of my different magics; all ice-themed, of course; were possibly my favorite ones.

The forest was a welcome sight, and at my current speeds, I would reach the edges of the village that commissioned the job by the first lights of the morning; I could go faster, but my night vision is not all that good unless I channel a magic that I prefer to keep in the back burner until the shit has really hit the fan. Anyhow, some light exercise would be welcomed after all the hours on the train, and to easy the bloody stress of reading Jason´s article.

The mountains all over the frontier between Seven and Fiore were surprisingly similar to the Alaska forest that I loved so much when I was a Campione. They shared the same cold wilderness beauty but with a lot of magical monsters of all kind roaming around.

The magical beast of Fiore is quite diverse, but all of them tend to be extremely dangerous as they are stronger than any natural beast due to the Ethernano enhancing their bodies. It was a good thing that magical beasts are as uncommon as mages, meaning that less than ten percent of the animal population is made of them. In a twisted reflection of mages, some magical beasts are even categorized as S-class due to their raw power.

Mirajane, Elfman, and Lisanna learn about that the hard way.

Some of the local fauna sensed my presence and made a run out of my way, my magic was strong enough to scare most of them but some of the more daring beasts decided to try their luck with the newcomer. The local predators had to deal with the intrusion in their domains and the magical beasts sense my magic and decided to go for a snack.

Just as I planned.

It was a massacre, the local predators felt the presence of the magical beasts and run out of their way and when the magical beasts; in this case, some kind of mixture between armadillo and dog; found me I ripped them to shreds with my [Ice Magic] and my [Ice Make].

On a secondary note, I lost way more time than I expected to deal with the aftermath of the "battle", to call it somehow.

For the average civilian, heck, for an average mage, a magical beast is a dangerous thing to face. These particular beasts had the armor of the armadillo and the speed and fangs of wild dogs, also, they hunted in packs, that made them as dangerous as other pack-hunting predators.

I froze their armors and smashed them, the ice shrapnel rip their inner organs to shreds, I stabbed through the eyes of several of them with ice spikes, skewering their brains, I cover my fist in unbreakable ice and smashed their bodies, not breaking their shells but reducing their inner organs to a pulp.

After dispatching a dozen or so of them, the rest made a run knowing when they are fucked and not really wanting to be exterminated.

If I remember correctly, the blood, meat, and shells of these beasts could reach a pretty penny and the lacryma inside of their bodies; kind of an organ that stores the magic that created them; would be very valuable for alchemy. I have to remember to speak with Elfman about these beasts, maybe he would be interested in [Take Over] one of them to increase his powers.

I stored everything of interest and left the rest for the forest and the vermin; they will clean up the remnants and their bodies will return to the forest and the Ethernano in the air. Such is the way of life, something that a lot of people in modern times seems to have forgotten.

Without a second glance at the place of the battle, I moved again, keeping my run through the forest; I even managed to make a profit out of my little training exercise, so all in all, everything was going fine.

Something that experience has taught me is that something always goes wrong.

In the jobs that are usually sent to the Guild, there is always a chance that it was a trapping job. It was something that the Dark Guilds did from time to time, to eliminate upstarting mages before they become a threat to them.

It was actually pretty clever.

A lot of small fries Dark Guilds had their base of operations in small settlements like the one that I was about to visit. These small villages are not important enough to have their own Guilds or to have a permanent garrison of Rune Knights to protect them from monsters and rogue mages. The local garrisons are there to protect the frontier, they did not care about the small settlements in the wilderness.

Even if the Dark Guild is made of small fries, a mage is more than capable to cause a lot of damage to unprotected civilians, so the pragmatism of these small villages is to become the support of the Dark Guilds. Once the base is settled, some Dark Guilds send fake jobs to attract young but powerful mages to kill them, or to enslave them, or to steal their magic.

Technically speaking, slavery was illegal in Fiore. In the Pergrande Kingdom, Bosco and Desierto, slaves are relatively common. For a young magician, in perfect health and with useful magic, a slave trader could get millions of jewels. It was a very profitable business, actually.

Discretely, I have inflicted severe harm to any slave operations that I have found in my travels through Earth Land. There is no proof of my interference as I always had a perfect alibi for those moments; [Thought Projection] for the win, along [Ice Doppelganger] with a little [Illusion Magic] to make it even more believable. I am half convinced that if I wanted, I could take over the criminal underground of Fiore, Seven, Iceberg and Bosco and no one would be the wiser.

Good thing that I am not interested at all in a criminal career; I did it once, just for the laughs, I believed I ruled the biggest criminal Empire of Persia before that wanker of Plutarch whine so hard about time paradoxes that I was forced out of the era.

Reaching a good vantage point of my objective; the village that had called for the job; I quickly climbed one of the tallest trees and took a position on the branches. I let the snow cover me when I climbed the tree, giving me a natural camouflage before I took out my binoculars from my [Re-equip] and took a look at the village.

It was a small settlement indeed, fourteen houses, a big building that I would bet is some kind of pen for animals, a town hall and a big warehouse at the side of what looks like a small mine. I look out for the telltales about the presence of mages, but without being close enough to sense the wards or the usual tricks, it would be hard for me to see if this is a trap.

At first sight, I would say that no. The town was exactly what it should be, with the only addition of the mine and the animal pen. I think I can see cows through the windows of the pen, possibly the source of leather, milk, and meat for the village. I did not sense any magic in the town, well, except the usual everyday lacrymas that provide light for illumination and that sort of things.

However, I was still cautious, the town has been supposedly attacked by powerful magical beasts and I do not see any damages to the structures of the town. So they must have a mage with magic helpful in reconstruction, or the entire place is a very elaborate illusion. Not the first time I see something along those lines; in Desierto, a Guild that specialized in traveling through the desert that forms the majority of the country's surface, had their main hall always covered in a [Mirage Magic] spell that made it undetectable for anyone except for those that live inside.

I look out for any clue about what could be happening around and I cursed under my breath when I saw the symbol of Phantom Lord in one of the houses. God damn it, Phantom Lord had a branch here, that spell problems for sure, although, why the heck would Phantom Lord had a branch here?. There must be something of interest in the town, something that made that the Guildmaster of Phantom Lord establishes a branch of his guild, but if that was the case, how did the job ended in Fairy Tail?".

I don't really want to give Phantom Lord the excuse to start a war against us, and me shattering any cretin stationed here along their building, would be enough to justify an attack over the Fairy Tail Guild Hall in Magnolia. Phantom Lord only wanted an excuse to get rid of the only real competitor they have for the Top spot in Fiore.

The presence of a branch in the village put me in quite the conundrum.

I had to complete the job, professional pride and the fact that it was my bloody job were the main reasons, but on the other hand, I did not understand why the heck has anyone in the city made that request to Fairy Tail and not to the branch of Phantom Lord directly on site.

Making some quick and wild assumptions, I would say that it is because the magical beasts that had attacked the town were way over the league of the mages stationed here. The mages on the branch made a call to the HQ for reinforcements and the HQ told them to man up or pay a fortune for one of the highest mages of the Guild. Considering the village, I am pretty sure that Jose Porla; the arrogant and greedy Guild Master of Phantom Lord, also a Ten Wizard Saint like Makarov; would have not set up shop here unless there was something of interest.

The only thing that did not fit my mental image of the village; villages like that are dime a dozen, I have traveled dozens of them up and down Earthland; was the mines. This place was not famous for anything, just another small village of the frontier. But the presence of the Phantom Lord banner indicated that they discovered something of value and made the big mistake of asking protection from Phantom Lord, that will provide the protection, sure, but at the same time will take control of whatever profitable business was on site.

Truth to be told, that M.O was exactly the same that several Dark Guild used, took control of small villages and use them as proxies to run a business without being annoyed by Guilds or the Magic Council.

Seeing the banner, I can not walk into the town. As soon as I will cross the door, the Phantom Lord minions will try to eliminate me or capture me to see what the hell was I doing in the middle of nowhere. I stared at the night sky, already turning into the first lights of the morning. Judging from the clouds, I would guess that tomorrow would be a cloudy but clear enough day, without any strong blizzards or rains. That was not in favor of a stealth operation, but beggars can't be choosers.

Anyhow, I had something to do first. I am not like Natsu or Erza, that would have rushed in, bash the skulls of the Phantom Lord mages, and then start questioning the locals about the beasts that must be slain. Not that I did not appreciate that "kick the door" strategies but this was a dangerous situation that could put our Guild in a very bad spot.

Leaving apart the good relations that Makarov had with the top guilds of Fiore, there are several other lesser know Guilds, like Titan Nose, that would smell the blood in the water and would start taking up the Guilds territories. Nothing personal, just business for all Guilds in Earthland.

Leaning against the bark of the tree; snow, the wood's hardness, and frostbite was something that only happened to other people; I continued watching the village from my perch, waiting for something that could give a clue about what was going on. This kind of villages worked with a solar clock, as soon as the sun was up, the village would start their business. I lived in one of these villages and I was sure that Gray was born in a similar one.

A quick mental note to myself, visit home as soon as I have a minute, it has being a while since my last visit.

My guess proved right and not even an hour after the dawn has come, the people of the town moved out of their houses and into their business. I calculated about a hundred or so individuals, I can see a lot of women and children moving into the animal pens and some teenagers taking up bows and arrows for some hunting. The adult males moved into the mines and that´s where the mages of Phantom Lord walked in too.

The presence of the mages was not welcome among the miners, especially when the two mages that accompanied them were drinking and eating without a care in the world, and once they noticed the glares of the miners, they replied back with insults, punches and the occasional burst of magic.

[Earth magic] and some kind of specter summoning of the sort. Those things are similar to the [Phantoms] that Porla is capable of summoning with his magic. That was another proof of the implications of Phantom Lord in whatever was going on here.

Knowing that my word against the word of a Wizard Saint would hold no weight, I recorded all the interactions and stored it into a Lacryma for later present it as a proof to the Rune Knights. Seeing that I needed to discover more, I jumped down the tree and prepared a series of spells to allow me to walk into the town completely invisible.

Everyone believed that [Ice Make] was my main magic, but in truth, it was just a weapon from my arsenal. [Ice Magic] was one of my favorites and one of the most varied and useful magics that I have ever learned. Ice was a strong resonance with me.

[Ice mirror], [Rune Magic], [Illusion Magic], and I was surrounded by my personal cube of light-reflecting ice that would muffle any sounds I make and that would make me invisible to all magical and physical eyes. It was a bit tiring to keep it up for hours, but the worst would be a headache.

Under my spell, I discretely infiltrated the place, looking out for what could be of interest in here, the mine was my best bet and considering that the mages had exited the building that was near the mines, I was pretty sure that the building that acted as branch of Phantom Lord would have the answers that I needed.

Taking the long route, as I was not in a hurry, I moved behind the buildings, careful of do not cross with any of the locals or any possible mage that could be on watch today. I am confident in my skills, but I will never assume absolutes when a hundred things could go pear-shaped in a bloody second. In a world where the ten percent of the population could flip the bird to logic and rationality whenever the bloody hell they wanted, being cautious was a necessity.

The building that the mages of Phantom Lord had chosen for their headquarters was nothing out of the ordinary. Wooden structure, solid if not a bit rustic, and with many clues about how maintenance and some reforms were really needed. The site had enough inner space for about five persons or even more if they do not mind sharing rooms.

Spying through one of the windows, I saw a couple of mages nursing tankards and playing a lazy game of cards. The discipline was strong in these ones, sarcasm completely intended. There is nothing on them that spoke about strength, in fact, I would have been convinced that this was the kind of branch where the people that have displeased Porla are sent, but they could still be useful for later use.

Taking advantage of the fact that there is only people in the building and the fact that the vast majority of the populace was attending their business, I would say that this was the perfect opportunity to dispatch these two idiots, interrogate them, and patiently wait for the others to come and be ambushed, however, I had something to do beforehand.

Taking a seat in a corner of the building, hiding under my ice mirrors, I took out a communication Lacryma and patiently waited for the other side to pick up. Judging from the position of the sun in the sky and the difference of time between Magnolia and the frontier, I would say that the Guild would be having breakfast now. That means that Makarov should be at the bar, before getting into his office to deal with the paperwork.

The beautiful smile of Mira saluted me and I smiled her back, Mira became the PR girl, and unofficial momma bear, after the tragedy that befall her and her siblings. The death of Lisanna was something that affected Fairy Tail deeply but I always found incredible suspicious that no corpse was found. I made some discrete inquiries, but even professional trackers informed me that the body just disappeared. That was something that unnerved me, even in a magic world like this, that shit was rare, to say the least, and there was always a reason behind those disappearances.

"Gray!", her smile widened at seeing me, "you sly dog, you. I didn't know you had it in you, you are the star of the most sold Sorcerer magazine number in years!".

"Hello, Mira", I smiled at the lady.

"Oh, gosh, that photo!", she giggled, "believe me when I say that you are going to be haunted by all the modeling agencies of Fiore, I didn't know you can clean up that good".

"It was not my intention, I assure you", I snorted, I knew that freaking photo would bring me problems, "it was an accident and Jason take it without me noticing, I think is the floating bird that he has, like the one that Miki has".

"That would explain some photos", Mira nodded, filing in that information for another time. "Anyhow, the Guild partied in your name all day, you have made us famous and cool at the eyes of the readers of the Sorcerer Magazine".

"Kind of the point", I chuckled before sighing, I had to change the topic of the conversation, I was in the middle of something important.

"Well, from now on, I know whom, among the Fairy Tail male mages, is going to accompany me to the modeling jobs", smiled Mira with one of her demonic smiles and I paled like a sheet.

"Nay lass, not even in a bloody joke". From time to time, my original accent and speech patterns filter through my mouth, a lot of people say that I spoke like someone from Iceberg.

"Oh, don't be so sure mister", Mirajane laughed and I swear to god that her eyes twinkled, "I always wanted a partner for those jobs and you have surpassed the sales of the mage from Blue Pegasus that is Mister Fiore!", announced Mira with delight.

"Wait, what?", wait, what?, I am that bloody popular for a single photo and a bloody interview?. I was convinced that people were wary of a silent, stone-cold bastard like me.

"Never mind, no, nay, I will not pose like a model", I told Mira and her smile told me that she totally believed that, "just, whatever, look, Mira, is Master Makarov around?. I am in a bit of a conundrum and I would like to ear his two cents".

"Something I can help you with?", she immediately asked, god bless her beautiful soul.

"How versed are you in politics?", I replied in turn and she frowned, her expression soured in an instant.

"I hate politics", she sighed in loud voice, "I will call Master Makarov".

"Thanks, sweetheart", I agreed, but it was something that I could not dodge in this situation and could lead to some big consequences for everyone involved.

Believe me, I would have loved to pull a Natsu or an Erza, but with the banner of Phantom Lord on site, I needed to play it safe and present a solid case to the Council, making Fairy Tail involvement in all this completely pristine. Fairy Tail antics had grown enough bad rep with the Council; those wankers were already more than ready to believe that we are the spawn of Arcnologia in the human form than any positive reports reaching their ears.

With the presence of Phantom Lord around, a Guild that had more than enough dark reputation on its own; one small slip and the Council would fall ass over tea kettle to sign the disbanding order and to hunt every one of us down with their Rune Knights.

Paranoid much?. Well, a paranoid is only someone that has all the data.

"Gray, what can I do for you my boy?", the old and wizened voice of Master Makarov came from the Lacryma and I focused my attention back to it. The small old man had his usual jester hat on him.

"Sorry for calling so early Guild-master, but I am in a situation that is like tossing Natsu into an oil refinery". That happened before, the fires burn for days, it was quite the spectacle but the repair cost was nightmarish enough.

"Oh my god", paled Makarov. "Please elaborate".

"The mission that I took was a dud", offered my report and my suspicions, "there is a branch of Phantom Lord here, a small branch with four mages, however, there is also a mine and I have lacryma recordings of the Phantom Lord mages entering in the mines and attacking the miners".

The expression of Makarov darkened. It was hardly the first time that legal Guilds with less than a stellar reputation tried some shady business like this. Small fry, usually, mages that lacked the drive or the raw power to grow up in the ranks, but that were more than enough to put a lot of civilians down and turn them into the forced conspirators and forced workforce.

"Are they enslaving the population?", asked Makarov with an icy tone.

"Not directly", shook my head, "I have not seen any collars or slave runes in the people around, I think they are running a protection gig more than anything else, with the mines being the real profit, I am still looking into what are they mining".

"But the jobs was for magical beast hunting", Makarov read the paper at his side, a copy of the leaflet that I had taken with the mission and the stamp of the Guild. "In fact, this place was seriously out of our usual territories, why to send it to us?", questioned Makarov in loud voice.

"My guess?", I shrugged. "Either some wanted one of us to be here and start something with the Phantom Lord, or, one of the locals smuggled the requisition to the Council with the Fairy Tail stamp on it".

"I do hope it was some of the locals making a distress call", grumbled Makarov.

"I would love if it is only just that", I agreed with the old man completely.

"What is your plan Gray?", the old man knew me very well.

"I will neutralize the local Phantom Lord branch", started to ponder in loud voice with several ideas already running in my head, crystallizing in a simple and straightforward plan. "Discretely, they will never see me coming, then look into the office and collect as information as I could and then slip into the mines during the end of the turn, to see and to collect whatever samples I could take without raising any suspicions".

"And the magical beasts?", seeing that I had all mostly covered, Makarov could just prepare the paperwork for the fake job and present a brick wall case to the Council.

"The only magical beasts I fought are wolfdillos", taking a piece of the armor from my Re-equip, I presented it to Makarov, "any decent mage would have been enough against them, especially from the walls of the village, if they ever attacked the village. Neither the walls or the buildings of the village shows any kind of damage from any magical beasts".

"God damn it", massaged his forehead Makarov, already feeling the headache of the paperwork and whining of the Council and that fool of Porla.

"Sorry for this child", apologize Makarov, tired and with a sad smile in his face, "it seems that you will have to work in the shadows again".

"Guild master, I thrive in the shadows", my smile mirrored the one of Makarov. "I will be back to the Guild as soon as I get the job done".

"We will be waiting for you", sighed Makarov, "although, I had to admit that you have provoked quite the uproar".

"Please Master Makarov, not you too", I clenched my teeth, "Mira has already informed me of how she is going to hunt me down to accompany her into her modeling jobs".

"That is just the tip of the iceberg", ice jokes, seriously Makarov?.

"Erza is determined to see if your strawberry smoothies are as good as you claimed, Loke is raging jealous of how your photo is the new idol of the young girls all over Fiore, Natsu is determined to fight you; well, that´s not unusual; Miki is going to chain you to the gym until you taught her all your martial arts, Laki wants to compare notes in woodcraft, Levi is going to interrogate about your runes, Elfman wants to test your manliness, and so goes the list on...you have become popular Gray".

A groan was my very eloquent response, of course, that only made Makarov laugh.

"Good luck, my boy", he said before cutting the connection.

Raising from my position, I stretched my muscles and stare at the Phantom Lord building; aye, these idiots are going to be the perfect punch dummies to vent some frustrations.