Sometime after Alex's team defeats the Etherious demon, a Magic Council squad arrives at the Dark Guild's base with a Magic Airship. Cana has contacted them to report the completion of the job and they decided to come here after hearing that a Demon from the Book of Zeref is involved.
"Are you the S-Class Mage from Fairy Tail that take this job?" A middle-aged man suddenly approaches Alex while asking with a doubt in his tone.
"That I am. If you are expecting for someone older, then I'm really sorry for betraying your expectation." Alex answers calmly while sitting on a rock.
"Master Makarov did say in the letter that you are young, but I didn't expect you to be this young. Well, doesn't matter. We're here for the demon you reported. I am the Investigation Squad Leader of the Magic Council." The middle-aged man turns out to be the leader of these men.
"Alex, she's my teammate Cana, and this bear cub is Meteor Destroyer." Everyone is speechless when hearing the bear's name, but they brush it off immediately.
"Is this the demon? She looks like a Dragon-woman instead of a demon woman." The middle-aged squad leader approaches the unconscious demon that is tied with a Magic Sealing Chain.
"That's just her physical appearance." Alex answers while still sitting on a rock with his tattered clothes that got ripped in the fight.
"Seems so. What about the Dark Mages?"
Cana shows the cards she uses to capture the Dark Mages. The Squad leader tells her to take them out and then his men handcuff them with Magic Sealing Handcuffs to prevent them from using their magic.
Alex tells the Squad Leader about the experimented beasts in the underground room. He also hands over the big lacrima crystal that was used in the experiment. The tube was broken during the fight, so the lacrima crystal was dropped from it.
But the lacrima crystal barely has any Ethernano in it. Alex has absorbed most of it. He also has absorbed the experimented beasts' magic power, making them very weak now. Though he isn't sure if it will remove the effects of the experiment that makes them violent.
"So they infuse a kind of unknown magic into the beasts' body to make those beasts violent?" The Squad leader asks while looking at the lacrima crystal.
"Most likely. Remember the demonized human in Fiore's Capital? It might be a similar case. Maybe they try to demonize these beasts." Alex tells the Squad Leader about his speculation.
"How did you know about that?"
"I was the one who defeated that demonized human."
"Ah! So that was you. What a coincidence. Well, we'll investigate this place further. There should be more information we can dig from this place. I'll sign the job completion letter, so you can leave this place now."
"Alright. Just be careful inside there. The cave almost collapsed because of our fight with the demon. I've reinforced it, but it wasn't much because I almost ran out of magic power. So it'll be better if you reinforce it again."
"No problem." The Squad Leader gives Alex the letter as proof that they have completed the job. So now they can go back to accept the reward through the Guild.
Alex's team doesn't waste time and quickly leaves the scene. They want to rest because the job is very tiring. It's actually a very good thing that the Magic Council sends a team here because now they don't have to go all the way to the Magic Council HQ to make a report.
The town is far, so the team chooses to rest in the forest. Alex sets up a simple hut using rocks to prevent animals from attacking them. They sleep inside the hut on their sleeping bags after eating their packed food and drinks.
When they return to the Guild the next day, they celebrate the success of their 1st S-Class Job with the whole Guild by buying drinks for everyone. It's a good start for Alex's career as an S-Class Mage, after all, so it's worth a celebration.
After the celebration, Alex reports everything that happened in the job to Makarov. This is a very important job, after all, as it also involves the Magic Council and there's even a demon involved in this.
"Tartaros, huh? This matter is bigger than what it seems. We've suspected that Tartaros is behind many Dark Guilds that are parts of Zeref Worshippers and this only strengthens that speculation."
"How come the Magic Council still doesn't wage a war with Tartaros? Their threat is real. A group composed of Demons from the Book of Zeref is not an easy opponent. Won't it be better to crush them as soon as possible before they grow bigger?"
"You aren't wrong, but it's not that easy, Alex. First of all, we don't even know where they are. We suspect that they always move, making it very difficult to track them."
Alex now remembers that Tartaros really has a moving base. Most big Dark Guilds also keep moving around to avoid detection, but Tartaros's base is basically alive and can move everywhere they want at any time.
"I myself think that they are a very dangerous threat, but not everyone agrees. Tartaros themselves aren't active with the crimes they are involved with. They mostly use their subsidiary Guilds to do their deeds. It makes the higher-ups in the Magic Council think that Tartaros is afraid to show up and they think it indicates that Tartaros is weak, so they don't see that Guild as a very dangerous existence compared to other big Dark Guilds."
"..... Do those important people leave half of their brains in their mothers' wombs?"
"Hahaha, I would think so too. But maybe it's also because there are other problems in the continent that they need to take care of. Though I also agree that the Magic Council has many problems inside their bodies. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about it. What we can do is make sure our loved ones will stay safe when the problems that the Magic Council fails to solve suddenly explode."
Alex knows that Makarov just doesn't want to make him worry too much about the Magic Council. Well, the old man is right anyway. There's not much Alex can do about the Magic Council with his current position, so he shouldn't bother with it too much.
That evening, Alex returns to his dorm after finishing everything related to the job. He lies on his bed and takes out a folded paper from his pants pocket. He opens it and looks at the content very seriously.
On the paper, there's a drawing of something that looks like a spider with 4 legs. But it's not an animal, it's a magic item that Alex has been looking for, Nirvana. There are many things written around the picture too.
Alex finds this paper in that underground room after they defeat the demon woman. He and Cana looked around to investigate the room while waiting for the Magic Council Squad to arrive and he found this paper, so he took it and hid it because he has been looking for information about Nirvana all this time.
There isn't much written on the paper. The demon seemed to be interested in Nirvana because that magic item's function is "turning darkness into light" and vice-versa. It can change people's negative emotions into positive emotions and the other way around, which makes the Demon interested because it might help them with developing their Curse.
But it seems the demon was only interested in its concept. She wasn't interested enough to find Nirvana because it never looked for it in the series. Instead, Tartaros's ally, Oracion Seis is the one looking for it.
Or maybe, that demon woman actually wanted to find it, but she couldn't. She didn't appear in the series, most likely because she died or was captured even if it wasn't because of Alex's team in the series. Then maybe the information about Nirvana fell into Oracion Seis.
After all, there is information about Nirvana's location in this paper. Yes, the information that Alex has been looking for, Nirvana's location. So maybe the demon woman was already trying to find Nirvana, but she never had the chance to do it, not now or in the story.
Now that Alex has a lead in Nirvana's location, he needs to prepare a plan to go there. He needs to be quick because he doesn't know what will happen if he waits. Many things have changed and the order of how things go will be different from the story too.
Brain or Zero of Oracion Seis might already plan to get Nirvana now. If that guy is faster, then his plan to absorb Nirvana's power supplies will fail and it will take longer to break the Tailed Beasts' seals. So he needs to be fast.
But he can't just leave to look for Nirvana. He needs a reason to go to Nirvana's location or he will be suspected of a crime. After all, Nirvana is a very dangerous weapon and it can affect the whole continent if it's used to its full potential.
Alex doesn't want to be a criminal and gets labeled as a Dark Mage just because he wants to absorb some energy. So he needs to plan this carefully. He needs to make this all seem like a coincidence.
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Ch. 125. Prince Jellal