A Wizard's Work

"Yo! Gildarts! So you're here?" Makarov's gaze settled on a red-haired, middle-aged man.

Eleven followed the master's gaze.

At the other end of the bar sat a man who looked to be in his thirties. With his rugged face, bulging muscles, and black cloak, he looked exceedingly manly. If he hadn't been leering as he flirted with the young woman behind the bar, Eleven would surely have made him a role model for the future.

Only when he heard the master call him did Gildarts reluctantly leave the young woman, whose face was scarlet with embarrassment, alone. His lecherous expression turned righteous in an instant.

"Yo! Master! You're looking energetic as ever!"

"Mm-hmm!"

Pretending he hadn't seen a thing, the master walked calmly over to Gildarts. Eleven trotted along beside Makarov and greeted him.

"Hello, my name's Eleven."

"Oh, yeah, I heard about you! You're the monster newcomer who went up against that brat Laxus just a few days after joining, right?" Gildarts slapped a big hand on the table, looking quite interested in Eleven.

"Gildarts, I have a job for you." Once the two had met, Makarov got straight to the point.

"Huh? Master, I only just got back! At least let me rest for a couple of days!" The moment Gildarts heard there was work, his face twisted in dismay.

"Ho ho ho, it's nothing troublesome. It'll be over quickly. I want you to take this brat on a mission and show him the ropes."

Bang!

The bar beside Gildarts suddenly shattered into tiny cubes that scattered across the floor, startling Eleven into hastily conjuring a barrier in front of himself.

"Ah! My hand slipped..." Gildarts looked surprised himself and quickly used magic to restore the bar.

"Master, you want me to look after a brat?" Gildarts stared at Makarov in surprise.

"Mm-hmm! I'll leave him to you, then, Gildarts." Makarov raised a hand with a smile, giving Gildarts no chance to bargain. Having fulfilled his responsibility, he went back to drinking.

Gildarts scratched his head, looking troubled as he watched the excited Eleven in front of him.

"Uncle Gildarts, what kind of magic was that just now? It just went bang and broke apart!"

Eleven had seen plenty of magic from the wizards of Fairy Tail over the past three months, but he had never seen anything as straightforward and violent as Gildarts's. And he could even put things back together after breaking them. It was amazing.

"Un-Uncle?" Gildarts suddenly realized he was starting to dislike children!

Without answering Eleven's question, Gildarts rested his chin in his hand and began seriously considering what mission to take him on.

"Uncle, what kind of magic was that?"

He didn't like the brat calling him uncle, but since the master had asked him to do it, and this was the brat's all-important first mission, he still had to give it careful thought.

"Hey, hey, Uncle, tell me, please?"

"Hey, Uncle..."

(｀д′)💢💢💢 Bang!!

A smoking lump rose from Eleven's head as he lay on the floor with his backside in the air, quiet for the time being.

"Hey, brat, you came from the Cathedral Orphanage, right?"

"Yeees..." Eleven answered weakly from the floor.

"Hehe, in that case, I happen to have a good mission to take you on!"

"Master, Gildarts and Eleven have set out." The guild staff member in charge of registering missions held up a mission sheet as he reported to Makarov.

"Oh? What mission did they take?"

Makarov swayed as he took a sip of wine, paying it little mind. He had every confidence in Gildarts.

"Um, well, it's an S-Class Mission..."

Pfft!! A mouthful of wine sprayed out!

"That idiot Gildarts!!"

At that moment, Gildarts and Eleven were walking through mountains shrouded in wind and snow.

"Big... Brother Gildarts? What are we supposed to do on this mission?" Eleven no longer dared call him uncle. Rubbing his still faintly aching head, he asked the question cautiously.

"Just call me Gildarts." Gildarts was somewhat at a loss with Eleven, too.

"Our mission is to wipe out a dark guild—the Fangs of the Teng Snake." Gildarts pulled up his cloak to shield himself from the wind and snow as he answered Eleven's question seriously.

"Why do we have to wipe out another guild?"

"In this world, besides officially recognized wizard guilds like Fairy Tail, there are also many dark guilds that aren't recognized by the state. They're the dark side of the world."

"Do we have to kill them just because they're a dark guild?" Eleven frowned. He couldn't say why, but something about that kind of work made him uncomfortable.

Seeing Eleven's expression, Gildarts smiled. "First of all, our mission isn't to kill them, but to destroy their guild. Its members will be handed over to the Magic Council to deal with. And the reason we're going to wipe out their guild isn't just because they're a dark guild. Take a look at this."

With that, Gildarts pulled a stack of documents from his cloak and handed them to Eleven.

The pages were covered in dense, messy handwriting, probably Gildarts's own. Eleven stumbled through them, reading about the crimes the Fangs of the Teng Snake had committed over the past year.

There were countless cases of robbery, murder, and other crimes, but the most chilling fact was that nearly a thousand cases of missing and kidnapped children in that single year were connected to them. They hired or coerced idle people to kidnap children, mainly targeting places like orphanages and remote mountain regions. They were none other than the largest child-trafficking organization in the Kingdom of Fiore.

"This... this..." Eleven looked at Gildarts, trembling. He couldn't even imagine why such evil existed in the world, and he couldn't understand at all why these people would do such things.

"Could it be... the orphanage before..." Eleven suddenly remembered what had happened three months ago, and a belated wave of fear swept over him.

Gildarts didn't answer Eleven's question directly. Instead, he looked solemnly into his eyes. "Remember this, Eleven. Wizards work to earn a living, but that doesn't mean you can do anything for money. It's not just criminal activity like this. There are some areas in this world you must never touch. Once you do, there's no going back."

A large hand landed on Eleven's head and vigorously mussed his hair. Gildarts thumped his right fist against the Fairy Tail guild emblem on the left side of his chest and grinned. "Never forget that you're a wizard of Fairy Tail. Never do anything that would make your comrades cry, and never fall into darkness lightly."