Alex needs to find a job that can cover his plan to find Nirvana. But it's not easy to find a job in that specific location. After all, it's located in a forest quite far from civilizations, so there's no one that needs anything from there.
At least that's the case until he finds a job quest in May X779. It's a job to hunt some Mages who stole some precious treasures from the Fiore Kingdom. They were last seen near the mountains outside the forest where Nirvana is located.
This is a good chance for Alex to go there because those criminals will most likely try to cross the forest to escape to another country. That forest is known to be quite dangerous, so it makes sense for those criminals to hide there for a while.
Because of those Criminal Mages' power and the danger of the area, this job is labeled as an S-Class job. It's also an urgent job, so it needs to be done quickly.
The problem is, this job is most likely to be issued on every Guild in Fiore. The Kingdom also accepts everyone to take this job because they want to take their treasures back quickly.
So Alex might meet Mages from other Guilds later when doing this job. After all, this kind of job is like a race. Whoever gets the targets first will get the rewards.
Though capturing those criminals isn't Alex's goal anyway. So it doesn't matter even if other people catch them first. He only needs a reason to go to that forest without causing any suspicion.
But he still needs to show that he is serious about this job. So he quickly prepares his team and they go to the location as fast as they can. They use the train to get to the nearest town from the job location before continuing on foot as usual.
"How will we find them?" Cana asks on their way to a mountain.
"They were last seen in a small village 2 days ago, robbing the villagers for rations. Most likely for their supplies until they manage to cross to another country because they didn't take the villagers' money. We will start tracking them from that village. Their tracks might have been erased after 2 days, but it's the only lead we have for now."
Alex's team arrives in the village after a few hours of walking. There are quite a lot of knights there who are sent by the Kingdom to help the village. But these knights aren't trained to hunt and fight powerful Mages, that's why the Kingdom asked Magic Guilds to do the job.
Alex quickly tells the Knights that he is here for the hunting job and they send his team to their Captain. As he thought, they aren't the only ones who come for this job. There are already 2 Guilds that come here before them.
"Phantom Lord and Blue Pegasus?" Alex has thought that they would be big Guilds, but not those 2 Guilds.
"Yeah, they arrived last night and already left this morning."
"I see."
Alex doesn't know much about their current S-Class Mages, but those 2 Guilds are known to be powerful Guilds now. More Guilds might come soon, so Alex quickly gets all the info the Knights have and leaves.
"Do you have anything that belongs to those targets?" Alex asks the Captain.
"Hmm? Well, we have some. But I'm sorry, we can't hand them over because they are important evidence."
"No worries, I only need to check them for a moment."
"Sure." The Captain raises an eyebrow because he doesn't know what Alex wants. He shows a box filled with things like shirts, shoes, etc. Alex suddenly transforms into Mini Matatabi and sniffs on those items, surprising the Captain.
"Thanks, that's enough. We'll start tracking them now." Alex has already memorized their smells, so he can track them using their smells now.
"S-sure." It really surprises the Captain though because he never thought Alex would use smells to find those targets.
Alex's team leaves the village quickly. The longer they wait, the harder it will be to track the targets because their traces will disappear slowly. They are also competing with other Guilds, so they need to be fast.
Previously, Alex didn't really plan to capture those criminals. Originally, he planned to let other Guilds look for them. But everything changed now when he knows that Phantom Lord is participating in this job.
Last year, during the Guild Masters annual meeting, Makarov had a fight with Phantom Lord's Master, Jose Porla. The rivalry between their Guilds has happened for years because the reason Phantom Lord was built was because of its founder's hatred toward Fairy Tail's founders.
It won't be a problem if Blue Pegasus is the one who captures those targets. But if Phantom Lord does it, they will keep bringing it up from now on. Even if Alex doesn't care about them, he still won't let them embarrass his Guild.
"We need to be the ones who capture those criminals or at least we need to make sure Phantom Lord can't do it. There will be a Guild Master annual meeting soon and if they win this race now, their Master will use it to embarrass our Guild Master in that meeting." Alex tells Cana that they really need to succeed now.
"Yeah, I don't care about them. But I sure don't want to give them a chance to mock Master, no matter how small it is." Cana agrees with Alex.
So now they are taking this job very seriously. Alex puts aside his goal to find Nirvana. He can do it later after capturing those criminals. His Guild's reputation is more important now.
Alex and Cana find the traces of their rivals in this hunt soon after leaving the village. They follow the traces because the criminals' traces have started to disappear after 2 days. Maybe the Mages from Blue Pegasus and Phantom Lord have found some traces because they went in the same direction.
To move faster, Alex tells Cana to ride on his back while he is in his Mini Matatabi form. Cana keeps Meteor Destroyer in a Magic Card because the bear is heavy and can't move fast. Now Alex moves very quickly while tracing the smells with Cana on his back.
After running for a while, they finally cross the mountain and enter the forest. Alex starts smelling the criminal Mages' smells now, so they are going in the correct direction. But their rivals are also on the correct track so far, which isn't good for them.
They keep going for a while, until Alex suddenly stops. Cana asks why he stops, and he tells her that he hears some people's voices. She can't hear them, but he can hear them clearly because of his very sharp hearing.
"Sounds like the Mages from Blue Pegasus and Phantom Lord. They have been moving together and it seems they have an argument. Blue Pegasus accuses Phantom Lord of following them and vice-versa." Alex can hear what they are talking about from a very far distance thanks to his very sharp ears.
"Well, they are going in the same direction, after all, so it's normal to have such suspicion."
"Yeah, and maybe one of them really just follows the other group and plans to snatch the targets first."
"Heh, I have an idea." Cana smirks naughtily before whispering her idea to Alex. Her idea makes Alex smirk and both of them agree to do it while laughing evilly.
Sometime later, a small explosion suddenly happens far on the west side of the forest. The Blue Pegasus and Phantom Lord Mages almost can't hear it because it happens very far from their location.
"Hmm? What's that?" A man with black & white hair looks in the direction of that explosion. He looks at his teammates and nods before they run in that direction. This man is Totomaru, one of Phantom Lord's S-Class Mages who's also a part of Element 4 in the series.
Team Blue Pegasus also looks at each other before running in the same direction as team Phantom Lord. If Alex is here, he will be surprised to see one of them. After all, there's someone very famous among them, which is none other than Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki.
Both teams go to find the source of that explosion sound without realizing that it was a bait made by Alex and Cana. They placed an exploding Magic Card on a stone. Then Alex threw it as far as he could in Mini Son Goku form.
The Magic Card will explode after sometime and the sound will attract the other teams' attention. Surprisingly, it works well. The other teams think that the sound is caused by the targets who might be fighting something or someone.
They are too focused on being the first to capture the targets, so they are easy to be fooled. Now with the other teams being distracted, Alex and Cana can move faster to find the targets.
With Matatabi's very sensitive nose, Alex can follow the targets' smells easily. They erased their footsteps really well, but they couldn't mask their smells well enough.
If Alex and Cana didn't distract the other teams, then Ichiya would be able to follow the smells with his very sensitive nose too. That guy might be silly and eccentric, but his abilities are great. Ichiya would be a very dangerous Mage if he is much more serious.
Anyway, thanks to the other team being distracted, Alex's team can find the targets first. The criminals have made some fake traces to avoid detections. But they can't fool Alex's wild beast's hunting sense and now they are found hiding in a valley.
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Ch. 126. Back to Earthland