For the next few days, whenever Riyao had free time, he would dive into the mountains and valleys surrounding Magnolia to look for a stray Dragon Slayer underling. He didn't even find a single dragon scale or hair, so he completely gave up on the idea of picking up an underling and simply holed up in the guild to slack off and pass the time.
On this day, he crouched down and tiptoed over to Cana, who was hiding in the corner of the bar, playing cards and drinking. He covered his mouth and leaned in to whisper in her ear. With such a sneaky posture, someone who didn't know better would think they were conspiring to pry open Makarov's retirement fund hidden at the bottom of a wine barrel.
"Cana, get me a dress, will you?" Riyao nudged Cana's waist hard with his elbow, winking and looking full of excitement.
Cana was in the middle of calculating her cards. She was nudged so hard that half the juice in her glass spilled out, soaking half her cards. She immediately glared at him sideways. Just as she raised her voice, Riyao clamped his hand over her mouth. After struggling to break free, she asked in a shocked, hushed tone, "What are you doing?! Why would a perfectly good Mage want a dress?"
"Don't you think my pretty face would look beautiful in women's clothing?" Riyao let go and self-satisfiedly leaned over to the fogged glass of the bar to check his reflection. He reached out to touch his chin, looking so smug that his tail was practically wagging.
Cana put down her cards, crossed her arms, and slowly scanned him from top to bottom three times. From his dizzyingly bright, high golden ponytail to his broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted physique, she looked him over before raising an eyebrow and asking, "Then why don't you go buy it at the store yourself? What's the idea behind using me as a tool?"
At the mention of this, Riyao's face fell instantly. He slammed his hand on the bar with a "bang," making the row of glasses on the counter jump and clatter. "I snuck over to the store entrance three times! I went in to ask, and although the proprietress didn't kick me out directly, she politely refused. Don't you think they're being unreasonable? I just want to buy a dress to try on!"
Cana nodded very seriously and said in a low voice, "Unreasonable."
Riyao immediately nodded along, his head bobbing like a rattle drum, "Right? Right? I knew it!"
Before he could finish, Cana lifted her glass, took a big sip of ale, and slowly finished the rest of her sentence with an incredibly calm tone, "I meant that you are unreasonably perverted, and they were completely right to shoo you away."
Riyao was just rolling up his sleeves to argue with Cana, "This handsome guy is daring to break through aesthetic shackles, that's not perversion! This is called the pursuit of beauty!", when he heard a loud "Boom! Crash!" at the guild entrance, shaking the glasses on the bar so hard they danced.
The guild gate, which had been battered for years by this group of demolition maniacs and already had most of its health bar depleted, instantly lost another 10 points of HP. The already crooked door hinge wobbled three times, looking as if it were about to fall right off the door frame and lie flat.
A gust of wind blew in through the gap. A teenager with short cherry-pink hair and an air of the wilderness about him rushed in, his fists clenched tightly, his shoulders shoving aside two kids who had crowded over to watch the excitement.
Standing in the center of the guild hall, he shouted in a loud voice that could be heard clearly throughout the entire guild. His fearless, impulsive energy hit everyone square in the face: "Have you seen Igneel? He is my old man, and he is a giant fire dragon."
The words Riyao had on the tip of his tongue about snatching an underling were stifled. The entire guild instantly fell so silent that you could hear a pin drop. There was a full two-and-a-half seconds of silence; even the hands playing cards froze in mid-air, and those drinking held the ale in their mouths, forgetting to swallow.
The guild was silent for two and a half seconds~
A roar of laughter exploded, almost blowing off the remaining half of the guild's roof. Macao, biting on his pipe while leaning against the fireplace, laughed so hard his pipe fell onto his feet. He clutched his stomach and shouted, "Kid, are you not sleeping right? Do you know what you're saying? A giant dragon is your old man?"
Wakaba leaned on the gambling table, shaking with laughter, and replied slowly, "Where did this wild mountain kid come from? Giant dragons disappeared hundreds of years ago."
Gray had been leaning against the bar with his arms crossed, watching the fun, and chimed in, his voice loud enough for the whole guild to hear, "You stupid coal-head! What kind of nonsense are you spouting!"
Cana leaned against the liquor cabinet and remarked coolly, "Gray, your clothes~"
Gray looked down and his face turned beet red instantly; his entire upper body was exposed. He immediately started spinning around like a headless fly, frantically searching for his clothes. His embarrassment caused the roar of laughter to grow even louder.
Natsu didn't care what these people were laughing at. His cherry-pink hair was practically standing on end with anger, his fists clenched so tightly they cracked, and his brows were knitted into a knot. He shouted at the top of his lungs, full of defiance, "Impossible! Just a few days ago, I was eating and hunting with Igneel! He only disappeared a few days ago!"
Makarov, the professional child recruiter, saw his eyes light up immediately. He cast aside the fact that Riyao had angered him just now, put his hands behind his back, and slowly waddled over to Natsu. His face was filled with an overly sugary, kindly smile, and pink bubbles of "Come to my guild, we provide food and housing, and you can demolish the place as you please" floated around him. He directly activated the skill [Child Recruitment: MAX] and spoke gently, stabbing right to the heart, "Child, I'm not lying to you; dragons have indeed been gone for hundreds of years."
Riyao "whooshed" out from behind the bar, jumped over Makarov, and rushed directly in front of Natsu. He grinned broadly, opened his arms, and prepared to be a father, "Be my son! Ohahaha!"
Makarov's face turned so black it could drip ink. Without a word, he raised his hand and delivered a full-power Fist of Love to the back of Riyao's head.
Like a cannonball fired from its chamber, Riyao flew off with a "whoosh." With a "boom," he smashed through the partition wall leading to the guild's backyard, embedding himself firmly into the wall gap, leaving only his round, plump butt sticking out into the hall, which was exceptionally eye-catching.
On the other side of the wall, a stray kitten that had been hiding in a pile of junk, stealing leftover dried fish, was so startled by the sudden appearance of a full-grown man that its fur stood up like a little hedgehog. Riyao poked half his head out of the hole, covered in dust and grime, and squeezed out a smile at the bristling kitten, greeting it in a soft, thin voice, "Meow meow meow~"
The bristling kitten wasn't buying his attempt to get close. Clutching the half-eaten dried fish, it let out a cry and pounced, its pink paw pads equipped with sharp little claws. It unleashed a combo of "meow-meow punches" squarely onto Riyao's face. After scratching him, it didn't wait for him to yelp; it snatched the fish and "whooshed" out through the backyard gap, disappearing in the blink of an eye. All that was left was Riyao, sporting a face full of light pink cat-claw marks, rubbing his face and cursing at the empty opening.
Back in the hall, after Makarov's "Fairy Tail is your home" spiel, the sweet talk left the pure, naive Dragon Slayer cub who had just come down from the mountains dizzy, and he nodded and agreed to join the guild without a second thought.
Makarov stroked his white beard, his eyes crinkling into slits with a smile, little knowing that he had just happily acquired the future number one demolition leader of Fairy Tail.
Riyao squirmed for a while and crawled out of the hole in the wall; staying on the wall the whole time felt like some kind of weird play.
After Riyao climbed down, he saw that in the center of the hall, the new pink-haired kid Natsu and Gray, who had just found his clothes and fastened his pants, were somehow at each other's throats. In their urgency, the two leaned forward until their faces were pressed together, nose to nose. They were so close they could count each other's eyelashes. Their gazes collided, sparking and crackling, and the "I didn't like you from the first moment I saw you" gunpowder smell was strong enough to make the hanging chandelier in the guild wobble three times.
The surrounding guild members, who had originally gathered to watch the fun, instantly and tacitly took three big steps back. They clattered as they pulled out small chairs and bottles of booze, their eyes shining like electrified light bulbs, just waiting to watch these two hotheads go at it—they knew exactly what they were doing.