Zeref

The following 2 days were uneventful for the most part. They went to Magnolia without interruptions and enjoyed talking with each other.

The only eventful thing was Kei and Precht sparring with each other again. Only this time Precht didn't continue to fight until he was unconscious. Precht wanted to get stronger so he challenged Kei once a day.

Although Kei also wanted to spar with Precht. The first time they fought Kei was too fast so Precht couldn't use his chains. Kei wanted to try to fight while Precht used his chains on him. He was interested in how to deal with a weapon like a chain. In the future, he might face weirder weapons so he wanted to get used to it.

Since Zera talked to Kei and Mavis about their feelings. Nothing changed between the three of them. Kei was focused on his quests. While Mavis and Zera were both dealing with their feelings for him.

Mavis accepted hers and wanted to figure out a way to tell him. But Zera was more stubborn and didn't know what to do with her feelings.

She was an illusion and couldn't physically interact with the world. Their relationship wouldn't even be able to advance further. On top of that, she would have to leave them soon. She knew that this journey would be her last. All she will do is bother him with her feelings if she told him.

"Hey look, Magnolia's coming into view."

Zera was brought away from her thoughts by Warrod's voice.

Everyone became excited until they saw a bone dragon on top of the cathedral. They kept going into the desolate town.

"This ain't good. It seems Blue Skull has full control of this town." Kei says.

"You should all leave this town."

A voice from behind them says. They turn and see an old woman walking toward them.

"Even if we want to, this is our destination." Warrod says.

"Elder, what happened to the town?" Precht asks.

"It's a dying town. Ever since Blue Skull came…"

Before she could finish her sentence Kei grabbed her and dragged her away. Once they moved out of the way a magic bolt came down and a small crater formed.

They were shocked that Magic was thrown. They looked up and saw 3 men with Blue Skull's guild mark. One of them looked angry and the other two were laughing at him.

"Hahaha, how did you miss the old lady!"

"Yea how pathetic!"

"Shut up! It wasn't my fault that brat moved her!"

"Yeah whatever you say, bro."

"Enough! I'll kill that brat and old lady. You guys handle the other 4!"

The three men jumped down to attack. Before they could, however, Kei jumps up by using the building and knocks them out with his sword.

The three Blue Skull members didn't even know what happened before they black out and hit the ground.

"Old lady leave fast!"

Kei tells the old lady and she nods. She runs away from the scene. Kei turns back to the rest of the group.

"We need to get out of here. This is their base and the whole town is controlled by them. We don't stand a chance."

They nod and rush to leave. However, that small commotion caused some members to go check it out so they had to rush.

"Mavis use your illusions to distract them. Precht, Warrod, and Yuri knock them out while they are distracted. Don't hesitate and keep on running." Kei orders them.

They rush the small group of wizards coming and knock them out. However, that caused a commotion and tons of Blue Skull wizards started coming out. Luckily, they were already on the outside so they ran toward the forest.

Once they were far enough into the forest they start catching their breath. They sit on the ground and sigh in relief. Kei starts to heal their wounds and restore their stamina.

He didn't just spend a year solely on his sword. Sure that's what took most of his free time but he also trained his healing magic. It took a while to be able to restore stamina but he was able to eventually do it. He could also use his healing magic on himself which was quite a feat considering normally it would just be one or the other.

Kei's healing was already beyond what a mage could do if they had healing magic. Along with his advancement in healing magic, his control became better. This will help him in any magic he learns in the future.

Kei looks around him and realizes they need to get the jade a different way.

"We need a new plan. They have too many wizards and we haven't even met their guild master yet. He will be troublesome to deal with."

"Yes, our best bet will be to sneak inside and steal it. We can't go into a frontal confrontation since they have too many people." Precht says

"I'll get some water."

Mavis walks to the lake looking a bit dejected. Kei sees this and follows her.

"I'll go make sure she is fine."

When Kei catches up to Mavis he sees her looking at her reflection.

"Hey, Mavis what's wrong?"

"I should have realized the type of enemy we were up against. It was an entire guild and yet I still believed we could win. If you haven't stopped the enemy fast enough and told us to retreat, then I am sure we would get injured, or even worse someone might have died."

Mavis berated herself for her lack of insight. She was so focused on the adventure she lost her sense of danger.

"Calm down. Remember when I told you to be more careful in situations that could injure you? Well, let me tell you something else. No matter what happens, don't beat yourself up on the what-ifs. Nothing good will ever come out of it. If you feel like you made mistakes then make sure that mistake doesn't happen again."

"Kei."

Mavis softly says his name and looks at him with wide eyes.

"Besides, this wasn't your fault. We all decided to go into town. We made the choice to go together, not just you. Now, all we need to do is learn from this experience and make sure we are prepared next time."

Mavis looked at him silently and hugged him. "Thank you." Mavis says in a small voice. Kei just smiles at her and pats her head.

*Splash*

They then hear the water being splashed and Kei moves Mavis away from the lake. He doesn't know why but his sense of danger is warning him.

Kei looks back at the lake, with Mavis in his hands, and sees a naked man pop out of the water. This surprised Mavis and covered her eyes while Kei was startled since he knew who this person was. He was Zeref. Kei wanted to run but remembered one of his objectives is to learn magic from him. He stayed still until Zeref started talking.

"Leave the forest now."

As Zeref said that he realized his mistake and apologized.

"I'm sorry, that's a bad habit of mine. I should be the one to leave."

Zeref got out of the water and put his clothes on. As he finished putting on his clothes all of the surrounding life died. The green forest, once dark green and beautiful, withered away and turned to ash.

"This is…"

Mavis was surprised by what she witnessed. She knew a curse that did this but couldn't believe he had it.

"Anything that comes close to me dies."

Zeref had a sad look on his face. He has tried to find a cure for this curse but to no avail. He has spent his time hiding in locations where there are no humans around.

"This is Ankhselam's black magic right?" Mavis says

This surprised Zeref she knew about his curse.

"It's an ancient curse that goes by another name, The Curse Of Contradiction. The more you value living things, the more death energy you put out. However, the less you value life, the less death energy you put out."

Zeref was looking at her in shock.

"Sorry, it slipped out." Mavis said apologetically.

Mavis hid behind Kei and peeked at Zeref's reaction. This was the first time she saw the curse in action so she just blurted it out.

"No, you don't have to worry. You're the first to guess my curse correctly."

"Have you always been here?" Mavis asked.

"No, I travel from place to place avoiding people. I also avoid touching animals since I will kill them."

Mavis looked sad, she can't imagine that kind of life. If she was forced to stay away from Kei and Zera she doesn't know how painful that would feel like.

"You don't have to look so sad."

"But aren't you lonely?"

"Perhaps… perhaps not. Still talking to you guys might be the first time I enjoyed myself in a long time."

He was enjoying interacting with them. It has been a very long time since he talked with another living thing. He quickly started to shake a bit and look down.

"But at the same time, I fear that I might wind up killing you, children. I don't want to kill anyone."

When Kei heard this, he realized Zeref from the past and the future is two different ones. The past Zeref hasn't been corrupted yet by his curse. He decided to do something to help ease this pain. He looked at Mavis and whispered to use her illusions to comfort him.

When Zeref started to leave, animals started to go near him. He told them to leave him alone but they wouldn't listen and kept on flocking toward him. He didn't know what was happening until Kei spoke up.

"Don't worry about them. They are just Mavis's illusions. You can touch them if you like. Well, you can't touch them." Kei told him with a smile.

Zeref reached his hand out to the illusions and felt warm for the first time in a long time.

"No, it's alright. I feel the warmth. Thank you."

As Zeref was touching the illusions Kei got an idea to help them and complete one of his quests.

"You must be an amazing wizard, right? Can you please teach me and my friends magic? We have someone we need to fight and right now we aren't strong enough." Kei asked with Mavis asking as well. Zeref agreed and we went back to the campsite.