At ten o'clock the next morning, Statiw, well-rested, strolled lazily into the guild.
The guild was already bustling; Erza and Mirajane were engaged in their usual rivalry, while Lisanna, Levy, and Cana chatted happily together.
Elfman sat beside them, quietly listening to their conversation.
Gray, at some point, had stripped off all his clothes again and was wandering around the guild in just his underwear.
Seeing Statiw push open the door and enter, Gray raised a hand in greeting, "Yo, I heard you're already a C-rank Mage? And your magic is really good for finding things?"
"Who told you that?" Seeing Gray raise his hand to greet him, Statiw also raised his hand. Hearing Gray's words, he paused and asked.
"Everyone's saying it," Gray replied casually.
Just then, Elfman, hearing their voices nearby, turned and called out, "Hey, Statiw."
It was only because Statiw had spent a lot of time with Elfman over the past six months that he immediately recognized his voice.
After bidding farewell to Gray, he walked over and said, "What's wrong? Is something up?"
"I told my sister about our mission yesterday, and this morning she told everyone in the guild about your magic," Elfman said with an apologetic look.
"Don't worry about it." Statiw didn't blame him, nor did he even care.
Seeing that Statiw didn't mind, Elfman breathed a sigh of relief, "It's good that you're not angry."
"What's there to be angry about? It's not like it's something to hide. Everyone will find out eventually; it's just a matter of sooner or later." Looking at Elfman's relieved expression, Statiw found it hard to imagine his future state as a thoughtless brute.
As the two chatted, Natsu suddenly ran in from outside, carrying an egg almost as tall as he was.
He loudly declared to everyone around that it was a Dragon Egg, then ran straight to the guild counter, joyfully asking Master Makarov, who was sitting on the counter, "Master Makarov, quickly use magic to hatch the dragon inside."
However, although Master Makarov didn't know what the giant egg in front of him was, in order to teach Natsu the preciousness of life, he firmly tapped Natsu's head with the stick in his hand and said, "Idiot, life is the most precious thing; there is no magic that can desecrate life. If you want the egg to hatch, you have to find a way yourself."
Natsu didn't think too much; he didn't mind the tap on his head, only focusing on how to hatch the dragon.
So, he asked, puzzled, "Then what should I do?"
At this moment, Lisanna, whose attention was drawn by Natsu's commotion, walked over, a pure smile on her face, and said, "Raising an egg sounds interesting. Natsu, can I help too?"
"What, Lisanna, you want to help? That's great!" Natsu's attention was always focused on hatching the Dragon Egg, so he happily agreed when he heard Lisanna wanted to help.
Then, he suddenly asked, "But how can I hatch this egg?"
"It's simple." Lisanna snapped her fingers, and a magic circle instantly appeared in front of her.
In a flash, her Take Over magic activated, and Lisanna transformed into a large bird.
Then, covering the egg with her wings, she explained to Natsu, "Just like this, use your body to provide warmth to the egg…"
Before Lisanna could finish speaking, the impatient Natsu snatched the egg from her and said, "Warm it up? I'm best at that, watch me!"
With that, as a user of Fire Dragon Slayer Magic, Natsu blew a Fire Dragon's Roar onto the egg.
This scene immediately caused everyone else to gasp in alarm.
Gray even kicked Natsu away and used his Ice-Make magic to cool down the egg.
At this point, Erza and Mirajane, who had stopped their confrontation, came closer.
After learning what had happened, Erza swung her fist and landed a hard punch on Natsu's head, saying, "Idiot, using such high temperatures directly will cook the egg!"
Natsu clutched his head and replied with a wronged expression, "How was I supposed to know? Lisanna told me that warming the egg would hatch the dragon inside."
"Lisanna said to warm the egg with body temperature, not to roast it with fire." At this moment, Elfman, whom Statiw had dragged along, heard Natsu's words and immediately spoke up to defend his sister before Mirajane could react.
"That's right, we heard it very clearly, Natsu." As a very serious person, Erza certainly wouldn't wrongly accuse anyone.
However, she also understood that this was due to Natsu's lack of certain common sense, so she continued, "This is a good opportunity for you to learn about the preciousness of life."
At this time, seeing everyone scolding Natsu, Lisanna immediately suggested to him, "Natsu, there are too many people here, let's go to the park to hatch the egg?"
"Okay! We'll leave right away!" As soon as Natsu heard about hatching the egg, he immediately disregarded everything else, picked up the egg, and left with Lisanna.
At this moment, Statiw watched the two walk away, a faint smile on his face.
He knew in his heart that the egg didn't contain a dragon.
Before long, Happy, the silly cat that would bring endless joy, would be born.
With the main characters of the egg-hatching gone, everyone else naturally went back to what they were doing.
Just then, Mirajane saw Statiw and pulled him over, saying, "Hey, Statiw. I heard Elfman say yesterday that your magic is very useful for finding things. Later, come with me on a mission."
Statiw was stunned, and asked, confused, "The missions you take are usually combat-oriented, right? My magic can't help at all, so why are you asking me to come along?"
"What? You don't want to?" Hearing Statiw's words, Mirajane immediately narrowed her eyebrows, leaned her head close to his face, and asked with a fierce expression.
"That's not it, I just don't understand why you'd call on me." Seeing her like this, Statiw immediately responded cautiously.
The current Mirajane was not like her future self; she was completely a fiery girl, a tomboy.
Although kind-hearted, she was very strong-willed and hated it when others disagreed with her ideas.
"So that's it." After Statiw explained, Mirajane's expression softened slightly.
Then, with her arms crossed, she explained to him, "The mission I'm taking this time is to collect a magical herb in the forest. This herb is a hassle just to find. Since your magic makes finding things easy, once we locate the herb, we can go directly there, saving us from having to wander around the forest, which is too troublesome."