In the middle of the first night on the boat, as both Jax and Sara had already fallen asleep with the help of the waves, the sound of someone stepping on dirt and small stones travelled to Jax's ears as he woke up instantly. Wearing his shirt back on, he walked close to his door while listening to the sound.
Listening to the intruders walking on his earth magic, he could confirm that there were three different persons, and by listening to their whispers, Jax could tell they were three men. He continued to wait as he wanted to confirm that they were indeed here for the young lady and not just because they wanted to explore the ship late at night, which was quite weird but still possible.
He amplified the sound in the corridor and the room and made a small sound barrier around the door so that he would be able to open it without making any noises if necessary. Waiting for a moment, he heard the three men starting to break the lock of the young lady's door with magic. As such, without waiting a second further, he opened the door, put a sound barrier around the two cabins and the alleyway to block the noise and make it impossible to spread.
He then released a bit of water magic to get them wet. He released his lightning magic simultaneously, rendering them unconscious instantly due to the pain they felt upon receiving the shock. As he took them down quickly, Jax frowned slightly, wondering what to do with the three men. He obviously couldn't let them loose as they could spread the information about him escorting his client, and it would make the job harder. On the other hand, he couldn't keep them locked as they were on a ship, and there were no such things as a cell.
As Jax was thinking about the two last options, killing them or throwing them overboard, which would probably kill them but give them a chance of survival, Sara opened the door, still in her pyjamas as she had perhaps heard the scream of the three dark mages. She was wearing pink pyjamas with birds printed on them. The bottom was stopping at the middle of her tights and her top, which exposed her belly.
"What happened here?" She asked while crossing her arms under her chest and looking at Jax, who was the only one awake.
"Those three were trying to break into your room with magic. So, they are dark mages who came after you and considering that they are on board this ship only means that you were already targeted back on Divide island and followed us on board. You go back to sleep. I'll deal with the three of them." Jax said with a dark look as he decided on how to deal with them.
As Sara heard what happened, a frightened look appeared on her face for a brief moment before she answered him. "Alright, I'll go back to sleep, be sure to deal with them rapidly."
Upon finishing her sentence, she turned around immediately and closed her door. With enhanced senses, Jax could tell she had locked the door and verified a couple of time before going back to bed. Smiling slightly, he knew that she was uncomfortable, knowing that there were indeed dark mages on the ship after her.
Bringing back his attention to the three men, Jax knew he had to get rid of them somehow. He couldn't let them on the boat when there could be other dark mages. The silver-haired boy had to have them leave the ship, and the only way was to throw them overboard. He could throw them out alive. However, considering that they were in the middle of nowhere, he was 99% confident that they would die. In other words, they would simply suffer before dying. As such, Jax firmed his eyes and decided to end them himself.
Mages were allowed to kill other mages in three different circumstances. The first one was when the enemy was a dark mage. The second one was when the person had a bounty on his head from the magic council. And finally, in self-defence. Such cases were rare but still existed nonetheless. Jax knew that as a mage, he would eventually have to kill not only beasts but also an enemy mage. Such things were everywhere in the magical world. Often, they would have to fight other mages, and they couldn't be lenient in a battle as this would mean their death. As such, fighting with your life on the line was dangerous, and you had to fight to kill when necessary because your enemy wouldn't have mercy upon you.
Searching the bodies to look for their job request or other essential things, he discovered the abduction request on the young lady with a price of 500,000 Jewels. Jax frowned slightly as this would never only be a weak group of dark mages who would take this job. It would be at least B rank mages. More importantly, the job had said it was for D rank mages as only weak dark mages would take the job. In other words, the abduction request had changed, and the price had increased drastically, highly increasing the difficulty of the job.
Pushing this matter behind, he figured he would clear the three guys before thinking about it. He continued looking through their belongings and collected the three men's wallet, which had a total of 28,600 Jewels. Considering that his purse had shrunk to 34,800 Jewels due to the train's price, ship to Divide island, hotel and the two items he had bought, this amount made him richer than he was before leaving the guild.
Continuing to look through the three men, Jax found something which made his heartbeat quicker. Four silver celestial gate keys. With a happy smile, he collected the four keys and, confirming that there was nothing of worth on the three men, Jax used air magic to slightly levitate them in the air as he made his way to the railings. He couldn't use air magic to fly in the air due to the high consumption of magic power and inefficiency at this level. However, transporting something at a low height was possible for short distances.
As he stopped next to the railings while using his dark magic to make it even darker in the surroundings and sound magic to block the sound around him and at the bottom of the ship due to the splash the bodies would make, Jax hesitated slightly before pushing away his worries and hesitation as he broke the neck of the three men one after another.
Feeling their necks breaking one after another, Jax felt disgusted, and he put his hand near his mouth to not vomit since he still had to throw them overboard. Using his air magic to help him, he lifted them and threw them out of the ship before immediately leaving the scene. He wasn't scared that others would see him since he used all of that magic to impede the others from noticing, but he had to go back to his cabin to vomit.
Arriving at the cabin, the first thing he did was go to the toilet and start vomiting everything he had in his stomach. Tears gushed out of his eyes as he thought of the three men he had just killed. Even if it was customary for mages to kill someone, Jax had difficulty accepting it. One could say that he was unlucky as under normal circumstances, the first time a mage killed another person, they would be accompanied by another mage with more experience to help them go through this hurdle. However, due to the circumstances of this job, he was forced to go through this alone.
Thankfully or not, it didn't take long for Jax to go back to normal due to what he had experienced in the past. He had experienced the countless threat of dying, and he had seen friends and cell neighbours disappearing forever. He was used to death, but it was the first time he had taken a life himself.
Thinking back to his cellmates who used to tell him, 'When you are sad, you have to change your ideas. Come here. I'll teach you how to write.' Smiling slightly at the only good memory he had from back then, Jax took out the four new silver keys he had found, and he dived into the research of those four keys.
Slowly, Jax got more immersed in identifying the silver keys, and the matter of the three men disappeared from his mind. Not that he forgot what he did, but the young boy slowly gave it less importance, and he focused on the crucial things such as the four silver keys in front of him.
As such, Jax continued to research those four keys with his book until morning. As the sun rose and the sun started to shine on the ship, Jax finally confirmed the identity of the four silver celestial gate keys. They were the gate of Nata, Tarida, Halitra and Situla key. Taking a box, he stored them inside with the other three keys and with a smile, he closed the box.
Dressing up, he inserted the box on the inside of his clothes and went to knock on the door of Sara on the other side. Although the keys attracted him, he hadn't forgotten to put his sound magic and earth magic back in the hallway since he still had to protect the young lady.
--- Author note
There was no such thing as killing in Fairy Tail as much as I know, but from all the punching or cutting with a sword, I'm surprised none died, and it was because it wanted to stay open for a younger public. So, yeah. Killing will be possible. I mean, if dark mages don't kill, why are they dark mages? Anyway, that's all.