The warm sunlight filtered through the trees, brushing aside the shadows of leaves. A group of young men and women appeared in the scene.
Two boys, clearly fresh from a scuffle, now lay flat on the ground with massive lumps swelling on their heads, unmoving as if knocked senseless.
Not far away, a blue cat with a small bundle on its back sat fishing with a crude wooden rod. A dried stick served as the float, and he stared intently at the calm water's surface.
Against the trunk of a tree leaned a scarlet-haired girl clad in iron armor, arms crossed, her gaze slowly drifting far away.
Across from her, a blonde girl scribbled notes into a notebook. Floating before her was a milky-white, slime-like orb—Papaī—the two of them locked in quiet conversation.
"Mm… old man, the outside world is really curious about your opinion of the Council. Back then, the Council stripped you of your title and only restored it long after. Do you have anything you'd like to say about that?"
"That doesn't matter. It was always just a meaningless title. Having it or not changes nothing."
Lucy · Ordinary Mage · Heartfelt Reaction: "…"
In her mind, a few mental images played out:
At a crowded train station, a blonde girl squeezed desperately into the packed carriage, nearly dropping her luggage several times. Not far away, a famous male mage-star, handsome and glamorous, strolled effortlessly down a red carpet into his private, decorated carriage. His expression, however, was less than pleased—as though the train's quality wasn't worthy of him.
Opposite a tall, luxurious restaurant once featured in Sorcerer Weekly, the blonde girl devoured food at a budget buffet, determined to eat her money's worth. At the same time, delivery trucks hauled in the freshest, highest-grade ingredients for the mage-star's private selection, cooked by master chefs just for him.
In a bustling opera house, the blonde girl, dressed as a maid for extra cash, served juice, wine, and desserts to the front rows and private boxes. Meanwhile, backstage, several crates of money sat untouched—mere appearance fees for the celebrity mage.
And in each scene, the words "Without Value" manifested three-dimensionally and crashed down onto the blonde girl, flattening her face-first to the ground. A ghostly soul drifted out of her mouth as she collapsed in defeat, utterly KO'd.
Lucy forced a smile, straining to suppress the overwhelming urge to explode in sarcasm. "Old man… You are broad-minded."
"By the way, may I ask… what do you look like? Can I take a picture?"
"A picture? If you have some way to record my appearance, I won't object."
With that, Papaī drifted to the center of the lake, merging slowly with the ever-turning sphere floating there. A radiant figure cloaked in light emerged—serene, focused.
Lucy instinctively reached into her bag for her Celestial Keys, ready to open a gate and have a spirit bring her camera from the Celestial World. But as soon as her fingers brushed the keys, she froze. "Huh? Who's that? …Why am I about to take a picture of him? Wait—where's the old man?"
Compared to Lucy, Erza was far shrewder—she hadn't even tried to look at Papaī's true form from the start. As for Natsu and Gray, they were still unconscious.
"This is one of the side effects of my ability—it causes cognitive interference. In this world, almost no one, nor any magical device, can record what I look like. Even I don't know my appearance." A new plump orb reformed in the air and spoke calmly.
The rotating sphere closed around Papaī once again.
Lucy blinked awake as if shaken from a dream. Even now, when she tried to recall, all she could picture was a glowing blur. No matter how she strained, she couldn't connect that radiant figure with the little ball floating in front of her. Logic insisted they were the same being, but her mind simply refused to accept it.
A shiver ran down her spine. She patted her chest and forced a stiff smile. "Old man, let's just forget the photo. We'll move on to the next question."
"Alright."
"What do you usually spend the most time doing?"
"Squaring the circle. Calculating π."
Lucy had just enough math knowledge to catch on quickly. "Because it keeps your attention focused endlessly, right?"
"Correct."
"What do you like?"
"Nothing."
"What do you think of Fiore as it is now?"
"No feelings."
…
"Mm… then, old man, do you have any thoughts of leaving here someday?"
She jotted down answers one after another, half expecting the conversation to end soon. That last question was an idle one, really—it hardly mattered. Papaī had stayed here for so long, voluntarily. If he'd ever wanted to leave, he would've already done so. No way he'd suddenly change his mind now.
But to her shock, Papaī gave a firm answer: "Yes. I do have that thought."
Lucy blinked, startled, uncertain she'd heard right. "Eh? Old man, you mean… you're planning to leave soon?!"
Even Erza looked up, surprise flickering across her face, though little else. She didn't fully believe Papaī's outward explanations anyway—after all, Fairy Tail had Gildarts, another walking disaster whose presence required special town protocols.
Magnolia had developed entire systems just to deal with him.
Surely those would work on Papaī too.
"Old man? You're going out there?" Natsu suddenly sprang to his feet, his bruises fading before their eyes. Beaming with delight, he shouted, "The Master will be so happy when he hears this!"
After Natsu, Gray staggered up, clutching his head. He still eyed Natsu with annoyance, but when he heard Papaī's words, even he couldn't help but grin.
Fairy Tail was about to get even livelier.
"No, no, no. I think the Master's just going to get more headaches…" Lucy thought privately. Fairy Tail was already full of problem children, chaos magnets one and all. At the top of that list was Natsu, whose destructive antics landed them in the Sorcerer Weekly headlines almost every time, alongside an avalanche of complaints.
Thankfully, Makarov's authority as Master still kept things somewhat under control—though not without plenty of stress.
But if they added another elder into the mix…
Lucy pictured the scene: Papaī causing havoc, Makarov standing before him—lower in seniority, maybe weaker in strength—too constrained to scold him, too exasperated to let it go, his face twisted in pain and despair as he reluctantly cleaned up the mess.
The thought made her chest ache.
Poor Master. First, a guild full of disaster-prone kids, and now, a troublemaking elder on top of that…
"That's all it is—just a thought. The outside world remembers me again. I want to see for myself what's happening, why I can suddenly be remembered, and compare it to before—to search for the root cause."
"You can't stop yourself from being forgotten?" Lucy realized belatedly. And the moment she asked, mixed feelings stirred—perhaps Chaos Magic wasn't as all-powerful as it seemed.
There is no such thing as omnipotence.