The Magic of a Fool

"Pop."

"All done! Now you're officially a member of the guild. From now on, we're comrades as close as family."

Looking at the pale blue guild mark stamped on his forearm, Eleven felt his Spiritual Power stir slightly. He discovered that the mark actually contained a faint trace of Spiritual Power, which formed threads connecting it to every guild member. It immediately gave the mark a sacred air in his eyes.

"Comrades! Hee hee hee, like family. That's wonderful."

Fairy Tail's revelry was boring for a child. Only at the beginning did everyone gather around Eleven to drink and celebrate. Later, as they drank more and more, some started boasting and others started fighting, and no one paid little Eleven any more attention.

Bored out of his mind, Eleven looked around and spotted someone different from the rest.

A blond boy was lying on the floor, supporting himself on both hands and moving up and down. The boy looked about the same age as Gouzi, which made Eleven feel especially close to him.

"What are you doing?"

Eleven ran over to the blond boy and squatted beside him. After spending a week around people, Eleven had learned that if he wanted to make friends, he had to take the initiative and talk to them.

The blond boy glanced at Eleven but ignored him and continued exercising on his own.

Seeing this, Eleven edged closer to him, grinning from ear to ear.

"My name's Eleven, and I'm ten. How about you?"

"Tch."

The blond boy made no attempt to hide his disgust and moved away from Eleven.

When the boy ignored him, Eleven copied him, lying on the floor with both hands propping him up and trying to lower himself.

Splat~

Eleven's little arms had no strength at all, and he fell flat on his face.

The blond boy frowned at Eleven, then pushed himself to his feet.

"You're an idiot, aren't you? Stop getting in the way of my training!"

His tone was extremely impatient, and he walked away without looking back.

Eleven struggled into a sitting position and rubbed his nose with a rueful smile. He hadn't expected such a simple-looking movement to be so difficult. Training the body really wasn't easy!

"Don't mind Laxus. He's just like that, but he doesn't mean any harm."

A sweet, youthful voice came from behind him. Eleven tilted his head back and saw a little girl in a dress sitting on the bench behind him. She was looking at him, a handful of cards in her hand.

Eleven quickly turned around to face the little girl and greeted her very solemnly. "Hello, my name is Eleven, and I'm ten years old."

"Pfft~ What kind of childish introduction is that?" The little girl giggled at Eleven's serious introduction.

"But I am a child," Eleven replied confidently.

"Haha, all right, kid. My name's Cana, and my age is a secret." Cana covered her mouth with her cards, a smug smile on her face. She was clearly pleased with her mature answer.

"Eight?"

"How did you know?"

"I-I guessed..."

"Hmph! Asking a lady her age is so rude." Cana turned her head away angrily and stopped talking to Eleven, going back to fiddling with her cards.

Eleven scratched his head, then shamelessly ran over and sat down beside Cana.

"Cana, what are you doing?"

"Hmph!" Cana turned her little face away with a haughty air.

Eleven looked at Cana and pondered for a moment. Then he understood, and a sad expression appeared on his face.

"Is it fun playing cards by yourself? If you don't have anyone to play with, I'll play with you. I'm not very good, but I'll be your friend!"

Cana: ...

Eleven kept looking at Cana, his eyes full of encouragement. He understood the taste of loneliness better than anyone.

"Idiot, these aren't playing cards! They're tarot cards, for divination, not for playing!" Cana's face turned red under Eleven's gaze, and she loudly explained this basic fact to him.

"Oh, is that how it is?" Eleven looked enlightened.

He stared at Cana like that for a while.

"Then is it fun doing divination by yourself with tarot cards?"

"You... really are an idiot, aren't you?!"

When he returned to the orphanage that evening, Maria asked Eleven what he had done that day. Eleven scratched his head hard and thought and thought. It seemed that, apart from discovering he was apparently an idiot, he hadn't done anything all day.

"Uh, I got dumber today."

Maria: ???

Early the next morning, Eleven ran off to the guild on his own.

After a whole day and night of revelry, the guild hadn't grown quiet today. On the contrary, it had been noisy since early morning.

Guild Master Makarov was still sitting on his own special throne at the bar, dozing with a bottle of liquor in his arms.

Eleven clambered onto the bar on his hands and feet, grabbed Makarov, and shook him hard.

"All right, all right, stop shaking me. You're spilling the liquor." Makarov stopped Eleven, looking regretfully at the half bottle he had left. "You say you want to take a job and go to work?"

"Mm-hmm!" Eleven's eyes sparkled. He had made up his mind the night before to start working and earning money. That was why he had joined the guild in the first place.

"No, no! I won't let you work until you can use magic proficiently." Makarov gave a drunken burp, his eyes bleary.

"Magic? But I don't know how to use magic. Miss Maria kept talking about mages too. How do you become a mage, anyway? Can't I work if I can't use magic?" Eleven was full of questions. He had actually wanted to ask before, but had never had the chance.

"Hm, you didn't realize you'd used magic?" Makarov sobered up a little. After pondering briefly, he held out a hand to Eleven.

"Come on, give me your hand."

Eleven hurriedly placed his little hand in Makarov's palm. Makarov's hand wasn't large, but it was strong. For some reason, that rough palm, so different from Maria's hand, made him feel safe.

"Feel it with your heart. This is magic power. Find your own magic source."

Eleven felt a warm current of energy flow into his body through Makarov's palm. It flowed through him, making his body warm and comfortable. Eleven tried to reach out to the warm current with his Spiritual Power. As though suddenly startled awake, his Spiritual Power instantly grew active, and the warm current followed it straight toward his brain.

Eleven's Spiritual Power turned and followed the magic power all the way until it rushed into a new world. This space lay within Eleven's mind, and even he didn't know whether it was an illusion or real. The space was filled with energy similar to Makarov's, and soon that tiny trace of Makarov's energy was assimilated into it as well.

Is this magic power?

Eleven wondered, curiously reaching out to it with his Spiritual Power. To his surprise, the moment the two touched, they began to boil as though undergoing a chemical reaction. The magic power rapidly began to assimilate with his Spiritual Power, and vast amounts of both spilled out and fused with each other.

"Buzz~~"

A tremendous surge of spiritual magic power poured out of Eleven's mind and spread in every direction. The previously noisy guild fell silent in an instant, and every gaze turned toward Eleven.

Eleven felt his Spiritual Power spreading in all directions at an incredible speed. It soon covered all of Magnolia Town and continued expanding outward.

Ten kilometers. Eleven could give that distance with great precision. Only after spreading to a range of ten kilometers did his Spiritual Power slowly begin to withdraw. The entire area within a ten-kilometer radius was actually within his perception, as though a small island with a town on it had been recreated in his mind, every detail vividly lifelike.