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CHAPTER START---
---Azalea Town…
Stepping off the train at the Azalea town train station, Oberon is wearing a blue jacket with a green shirt beneath, and a pair of blue pants.
He has a small pouch at his back beneath the jacket, attached to his belt, and a simple watch on his left wrist.
He walks through the train station, following the signs into the main street of the town, almost twice the size of Magnolia, and quite similar in style.
"I'm early," he says after checking his watch, seeing that it was 9 AM, he'd just barely caught the 7 AM train, the first train to leave Magnolia station.
He walks through the town following the signs, eventually asking some of the townspeople for directions, and is directed to a certain section of the main street.
"That must be the place," he says as he reads the sign two buildings away. "The Shimmering Chimney, weird name."
As he gets to the two-story building he tries to walk in, only for the man sitting on a stool at the entrance to step in his way.
The man was very tall and brawny, looking down at Oberon, more confused than threatening.
"No kids allowed, come back when you're sixteen," the man points to a sign on the building to reinforce his point.
"But I'm a Wizard, I'm meeting my client for a job, he said to meet him here," Oberon says.
"You, a Guild Wizard,? Nice try kid," the man scoffs and moves to sit back down.
"Look," Oberon raises the right sleeve of his jacket, showing the man the black Fairy Tail Emblem on his inner forearm. "See, they're waiting for me inside."
The man raises a brow at this, then scrutinizes Oberon for a moment, "What's your name?"
"Oberon, Oberon Alkwan," he says.
The man gives him a weird look, "You're in Fairy Tail, and your name is Oberon, really?"
Oberon sighs, "Yeah, everyone thinks it's funny…"
"Wait here," the man says. "Seriously, wait here, I'll go ask if anyone is expecting you."
"Thank you, sir," Oberon says as the man enters the building.
Oberon waits for a few minutes, getting some odd looks from people passing by, awkwardly tapping his foot as he looks around, taking in the new sights.
"Ok, your client is inside," the man says, snapping Oberon out of his distracted state.
"Are they coming out or—"
"Side entrance," the man nods to the alleyway on the left side of the building.
"Thank you," Oberon says before he walks off toward the alley.
As he's walking through the alley a door at the side of the building opens, and a beautiful woman in a tight-fitting white button-up shirt and black pencil skirt waves for him to follow her.
"Follow me, and don't stray," she says while leading him through a kitchen area, where he sees many beautiful women dressed exactly like her taking food out to the main area.
She leads him through a few side doors and up some stairs, and they quickly arrive at one of the private rooms, at which point she opens the door for him to enter.
"What would you like to drink?" she asks him.
"Uh, lemonade?"
"I'll bring it up right away," she says before ushering him into the room and closing the door behind him.
He enters to see two men sitting at a table with a box of cigars in front of them, and an ashtray with two half-smoked cigars crushed into it.
"Wow, you really are a kid," one of the men says as they both get up. He was slender, and plain-looking, while the other man was more muscular and slightly taller. "I'm Rahul, this is my friend Wayne."
Oberon shakes both their hands, "I'm Oberon Alkwan, of Fairy Tail," he says as the man gestures for him to take a seat across from them.
"I hope you don't think me rude but, I assumed the Wizard that got approved for this job would be a bit, uh—"
"Older?"
The more muscular man, Wayne, speaks up, "We know better than to judge Wizards by appearance, especially considering your Guildmanster is Makarov Dreyar, a Wizard Saint who is even shorter than you, it was just a bit of a surprise considering the nature of this Job."
"It's ok, I understand, but don't worry, I've been dealing with Magic Creatures, regular dangerous animals, bandits, and even a few Mages, for a while now."
"Really?" Rahul looks at him curiously. "How long?"
"Five weeks."
"How long have you been a Guild Wizard?" Wayne asks.
"I joined Fairy Tail six weeks ago," Oberon says.
"Uh, how old are you exactly?" Rahul asks.
"Eight, well, eight years and ten months, I'll be nine in January," Oberon says, excitedly. "But I can handle this, and if you don't trust me, trust my Guild Master, he wouldn't send me here if he didn't think I could handle it."
Both men look at each other and shrug.
"He's right, so let's get down to business," Rahul says.
"So, what do I need to know?" Oberon asks.
"First things first," Rahul takes out a carefully rolled-up sheet of paper and slides it over to Oberon. "Standard confidentiality contract."
"Right," Oberon says as he opens it and takes out a pen, he reads the contract, and then signs it.
"Wait, something is wrong," Wayne says, glaring at Oberon. "What did you just do?"
"Me?" both Oberon and Rahul are confused.
"You signed the contract, but…your Magic somehow didn't connect."
"Oh, sorry about that," Oberon says. "Uh, my Magic is a bit weird about invasive Magics, like the Body Link Magic of contracts like this, but I did sign it."
Wayne looks at Rahul, who just nods.
With a wave of his hand, Wayne commands the contract to duplicate itself, taking one copy and leaving the other with Oberon.
"I suggest you never break your word, otherwise doing business may become extremely difficult for you," Wayne says. "If Magic Contracts don't work, people need some measure of assurance."
"Yeah, that's what Master Makarov said too," Oberon says.
"Alright, now that we've got that sorted, let's get down to business—"
Wayne raises his hand, nodding toward the door, and seconds later the same woman knocks, enters, places a tall glass of lemonade in front of Oberon, then leaves.
"Ok, now we can talk," Wayne says.
"Right, the reason I hired you is quite simple, just as the Job Request Form said, it's a simple capture and retrieval mission," Rahul says. "My family specializes in making Magic Weapons."
"Cool," Oberon says, eyes shining at the thought of that.
"Oh it is," Rahul says. "But the thing is, we make both Magic Guns and Magic Swords, but Magic Guns have never been in demand by Wizards. The simple reason is Magic Guns use a Lacrima Crystal within to convert the Magic Energy of the user into a shot of Magic Energy that can either explode, punch, or pierce upon impact with the target.
But the amount of energy even the most basic Magic Gun uses makes them difficult to sell, especially when Magic Swords are much more efficient in terms of Magic Energy, and can be much more versatile in their enchantments.
That's why we decided to double down on the advantage Magic Guns have over the standard Magic Sword, which simply converts Magic Energy into slashing power."
"What advantage is that?"
"Range," Rahul says. "Which is why we created a Magic Sniper Rifle. People with Guns Magic can create special bullets with different effects, but people who simply use Magic Guns as is don't have that option, so giving them more range is better.
So with this in mind we created a longer-range high-powered rifle. It can punch a hole through rock at 800m -2600ft-."
"A Magic Weapon doing that without anything but regular Magic Energy being poured into it does sound nice," Oberon says. "So did someone steal it?"
Rahul sighs. "The person we hired to test it out for us," he places a picture on the table. A voluptuous caucasian woman with short brown hair and light brown eyes. "She stole what we believe to be the final model."
"Ok, so I need to retrieve her and the gun, got it," Oberon says. "What can you tell me about her?"
"She's dangerous, very dangerous," Wayne says. "She's a top member of the Solo Hound Mercenary Guild. She was the best choice since Wizards don't often take super long-term contracts like the one we needed, plus she's pretty famous in our community for being good with Magic Guns.
She's dangerous at all ranges, especially with this weapon. With the previous models, she was able to fire over thirty shots to max range without them diffusing into the atmosphere, even with the amount of Magic Energy each one requires.
She also has her own Magics.
Guns Magic lets her craft her spells into bullets and fire them for minor effect. Sticky webs, elemental shots, mud, that kind of thing.
One of the two advanced forms of Requip, hers is called The Gunner. Like regular Requip, it lets her store and withdraw items from a personal pocket dimension.
But the Gunner lets her do that a lot faster, not to mention she can also swap items directly, and into her hands at that, merging the previous two steps, and allowing her not to lose any momentum in battle.
And just like Requip: The Swordsman, it creates a Magic imprint of the item the first time she stores it, so when it goes back to her pocket dimension she can choose to let her Magic Energy slowly repair it over time. Luckily she's only limited to Magic Guns, just like The Swordsman is only limited to melee weapons."
"So she's a walking arsenal of guns," Oberon says.
"She has one more Magic," Wayne says. "Some kind of Magic that adds a homing effect to her shots, so once she spots you, it's over."
"Now I hope you understand why we were a bit apprehensive about sending a child for this mission," Rahul says.
"I understand, but I'll complete it either way," Oberon says. "So, where is she?"
"I can lead you to her," Wayne says. "She's not too far from this village, in the forest. When she broke her Magic Contract with the company it activated a tracking feature that allows us to find her anywhere she goes, and she has no idea we can find her."
Oberon drinks some of his lemonade, then shrugs, "Ok, let's go, if we finish this fast enough I'll get back in time to check out the Magic Shop in this town before heading back to the Guild."
"Meet me at the Royal Knights station when you're done, they will be questioning her for us," Rahul says, earning a nod from Wayne as he gets up.
Oberon quickly finishes his lemonade and gets up, "Alright, we'll be back in a little while, thank you for the drink," Oberon says before following Wayne out of the room and back out through the alleyway.
"What a strange little boy," Rahul mutters. "But if he can get this mess sorted out, then what does it matter if he's a child or an adult…"
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]