Waking up early from the Fairy Tail Guild dormitory, Ezreal didn't like alcohol. Even as the guest of honor at yesterday's welcome party, he only had one glass of milk (infused with some kind of fruit, he wasn't sure) with the enthusiastic guild members, chatting and getting to know everyone.
Yesterday was his first day at the guild. Under the arrangement of Master Makarov, Mira, who currently serves as the Master's assistant, waitress, accountant, cashier, HR, cleaner, and a bunch of other part-time roles, temporarily led him to stay a night in the guild dormitory.
The guild has some rooms available for rent to its companions, and the rent is considerably cheaper than rooms in Magnolia City.
Furthermore, if a member stays in the guild for a long time, or completes many high-value requests, they can even be assigned a free room after review.
However, members who meet these conditions usually buy their own properties early on. Although Magnolia is a very developed port city, the actual housing prices are not expensive.
Ezreal guessed that this might be because the overall resident population isn't that large, and the land area of this magical world of Earth Land is extremely vast. An ordinary person could easily buy a two-story house with a garden after working for seven or eight years.
However, the existing members of the Fairy Tail Guild have basically filled all the rentable guild dormitories. Therefore, new members have to rent a house outside or wait for someone to save enough money to move out or buy a house before a room becomes available.
Last night, Ezreal actually slept in Gray's room. Gray is the guild's Ice Make Mage. He was out on a request and wouldn't be back for a few days.
After a day of observation yesterday, Ezreal found that the people of Earth Land have a completely different sense of relaxation compared to people on Earth.
Perhaps because both prices and housing are relatively low, they usually don't save much money unless they truly need to. They spend money as soon as they get it. Most people only save two or three months' worth of their annual salary, spending the rest.
Mages earn higher rewards than ordinary people for completing requests, so they spend even more lavishly. And with the personalities of the Fairy Tail members, the concept of saving money simply doesn't exist in their minds. The only Celestial Spirit Mage with a slight awareness of saving money, Lucy, hasn't even joined the guild yet.
So, if nothing unexpected happens, Ezreal won't be waiting for an opening in the guild dormitory.
This means Ezreal is facing a housing crisis. Penniless, his first priority is to earn money. He needs to secure food and shelter, then rent a house, to establish himself in this world.
Even characters in a hot-blooded slice-of-life anime need to eat and sleep!
Ezreal folded the bedding, smoothed out any traces of his sleep, and seeing that the sheets weren't dirty, he nodded in satisfaction.
After changing into his own clothes, Ezreal left Gray's room and went to the guild hall.
It was still early, eight in the morning. Most of the guild members hadn't woken up yet, especially those who drank a lot yesterday. Their figures probably wouldn't be seen until the afternoon or evening.
The entire guild hall was unusually quiet for a brief moment. Only a pretty figure in a black waitress dress was diligently cleaning the floor with a mop.
"Morning, Mira, are you already working so early?" Ezreal asked, a little surprised, greeting the busy white-haired girl.
"Good morning, EZ. Some clients come early, and they might be scared away if they see the guild in a mess," Mira replied, turning her head with a playful smile.
"Ah... that's true."
Spilled wine, crushed cakes, shattered tables and chairs—looking at the mess, Ezreal felt Mira was absolutely right.
"Did you rest well last night?" Mira asked while working, her mop moving so fast it almost left afterimages.
"Not bad," Ezreal replied with a smile, then asked, "Do you need my help with anything?"
"It's wonderful to have help! Could you pile all the unusable tables and chairs outside the door?" Mira didn't stand on ceremony, pointing to the scattered tables and chairs.
"No problem. After we clean up, do we need to go out and buy a new batch? It looks like we don't have any usable tables and chairs left..." Ezreal didn't mind working, but at a glance, it seemed all the tables and chairs in the hall were completely ruined; he doubted they could even make a complete set from the intact ones.
"No need. Laki will be here soon. She's a Mage who uses Wood Make magic. She'll just make some new ones," Mira dashed back and forth in front of Ezreal with her mop, her black sandals with slight heels tapping rhythmically on the floor.
Laki? The bespectacled girl who likes to wear a big red bow on her head? So she's such an important character!
With the astonishing rate of damage from the Fairy Tail members fighting every day, if it weren't for Laki's magic, replacing tables and chairs every year would probably be an astounding expense!
"Alright, that sounds like really convenient magic," Ezreal said, feeling a touch of envy. This magic would definitely be excellent for making money. If she ran a furniture store, she'd surely make a steady profit.
Both worked efficiently, and in no time, the chaotic guild hall was cleaned up. They sat at the front desk, the only intact table in the guild, drinking water and resting.
After moving over a dozen sets of tables and chairs, Ezreal didn't feel the slightest fatigue. The strength of this body was stronger than he imagined, and he could feel a kind of warm, gentle energy constantly originating from his heart, circulating throughout his body with each heartbeat, following his blood.
According to Earth Land's description, this should be the 'magic power' that Mages use to cast spells.
In contrast, Mira, although also a Mage, was already sweating on her forehead and breathing heavily while drinking ice water, just from cleaning the guild floor.
If he remembered correctly, in the original anime, Mira had just become an S-Class Mage, and her immense power had bred arrogance. She took an S-Class request called 'Subjugation of the Beast King' with her younger siblings, which ended in failure.
During the request, Mira was severely injured. To protect his sister, Elfman forcibly used Take Over magic, attempting to take over the Beast King, but unexpectedly failed to take over and lost his sanity. In front of the heavily injured Mira, Elfman personally knocked his sister Lisanna off a cliff.
Lisanna, who fell off the cliff, was coincidentally teleported to Edolas by magic, but the siblings believed she had died, so both were deeply traumatized.
In Earth Land, the power of magic is extremely subjective. Makarov even said later, 'Magic is the power of the heart'!
So after this incident, Mira, the former Fairy Tail S-Class Mage, internally resisted Take Over magic and rarely even used her magic power, becoming an ordinary person. She performed what work she could at the guild to earn a living, essentially abandoning magic training.
Her younger brother, Elfman, who was originally a powerful Mage, also suffered a significant decrease in strength after this incident.
He couldn't even fully perform Take Over magic to transform, only able to use partial Take Over magic, usually transforming into beast claws to fight, barely taking on simple guild requests, and the siblings used the money he earned together.