Hodrian's Departure

"Magic? Sure, but tomorrow. This old man's sleepy." Hodrian stretched.

"Um... Grandpa... then... I'll go to bed first..." Mira said.

But when Mira turned around, Hodrian suddenly smiled. "I remember... didn't you say you disliked fighting? Why did you decide to study magic with me?"

"I..."

"Is it because of that boy?" Hodrian asked with a faint smile.

In the firelight, Mira's pretty face reddened slightly, but she didn't try to brush the question aside. Instead, she nodded firmly.

"Keeping up with him... that's going to be a little difficult..."

Hodrian said slowly, "I don't know much about ninjas, but it's obvious that boy is quite talented as one. He even dared to replace the energy used in the body-tempering method I created. He's an absolute genius when it comes to sensing energy, too. It's a shame he won't learn magic. Otherwise, he'd be a rising genius in the world of magic."

Mira gritted her teeth. "I want... to be able to help him..."

"It's good that you feel that way, young lady, but don't push yourself too hard. First, you need to make sure that boy knows how you feel. After all, he doesn't seem too bright when it comes to romance," Hodrian said.

"Who doesn't seem too bright?" By then, Chiba had finished digesting and returned. He saw the old man talking to Mira and asked.

Mira's pretty face instantly turned bright red. She stammered, clearly not having expected Chiba to return at that moment.

"Nothing. I was saying the young lady doesn't seem too bright," Hodrian said calmly.

"Oh, give me a break. You're the one who looks so smart." Chiba rolled his eyes at the old man in disdain, then said to Mira, "What are you doing out here? Did we wake you up?"

Mira shook her head. "I just woke up suddenly, and then I saw the firelight outside, so I came out to take a look."

"I'm going back to sleep."

"Okay, go ahead."

Once Mira had returned to the tent, Chiba leaped up and lay down in the treetop.

Below him, Hodrian slowly put out the fire, then said leisurely, as though sighing, "So many beauties love idiots, and so many idiots don't appreciate them~~~"

Chiba: "???"

Damn it, where had I heard that before?

The old man was implying something!

The next day.

Early in the morning, Chiba and the others packed up and went home, only to find Alili already waiting outside his house. When he saw Chiba return, he was so excited that he would have been less thrilled to see a beauty in a swimsuit.

But Chiba noticed that after he had beaten the guy up twice, Alili really did seem much better behaved. He didn't know how Alili's mindset had changed, but he figured the beatings had shut him down.

Chiba had said he would teach him magic, but he still left it to Hodrian. Yet although Hodrian was supposed to teach him, he actually left the books to do it. After all, books were the ladder of human progress. Yes, reading was the way to go.

According to Hodrian, however, Alili's magical talent was really nothing special, and he was fairly old too. Normally, the highest he could reach in his lifetime was B-Class mage.

That was only because Alili trained so hard.

Mages were divided into D-Class, C-Class, B-Class, A-Class, and S-Class. Although the original work had only mentioned S-Class, in the real world of Earth-land, there were distinct differences in rank among mages.

As always, Chiba sensed his wind-natured Chakra and kept cutting. After spending most of the day trying to grasp it, he still hadn't turned his wind-natured Chakra into wind.

But he wasn't in a hurry. He had only started training in wind yesterday; he couldn't possibly master the nature transformation today. At the very least... it would take until the afternoon.

Alili told Chiba something he had learned from his cousin, Father Bobbit: the group of mages had been hired from a mage guild to exterminate the monster on the mountain behind the church. That was why Bobbit placed such importance on those people.

When Chiba heard about exterminating the monster, he was slightly tempted.

Could that monster be the one Mira would take over in the future... the one that awakened her magic? A demon?

But... wasn't it a little early now?

There were still more than two weeks until the depths of winter, and roughly another month before the next year, X777. But in the original work, Mira hadn't joined Fairy Tail until X778, the same year she left her home. Could his arrival have changed the original chain of cause and effect?

But after spending several months together, he had developed fairly deep feelings for the girl who was the first person he saw when he opened his eyes. And knowing how Mira would be shunned after her magic awakened, Chiba was somewhat reluctant to let her magic awaken.

Suppose his arrival hadn't disrupted the original chain of cause and effect in this world, and now a team of mages had appeared to hunt down the monster. If the time had not yet come, then the mages' mission was bound to fail. Otherwise, the demon wouldn't have been absorbed by Mira.

So he made a decision.

He would destroy the demon!

He was bound to take Mira out of the village in the future, but he didn't want them to be driven out amid the villagers' curses.

Then another week passed.

Chiba quickly grasped the trick to transforming wind-natured Chakra into wind. He then learned the "normal mode" (pirated) Gale Palm in a single day, before spending another two days learning the "enhanced mode" Gale Palm.

He had marked out most of his body for the body-tempering method. He estimated that in another week, he would be able to use Chakra to temper his physique.

And Hodrian didn't seem stingy with his exclusive secret method. He had already taught this body-tempering method to everyone, Alili included. For now, though, Elfman seemed to have grasped it most thoroughly.

But the little boy was still rather timid by nature. Even with such talent for Taijutsu, Elfman wasn't keen on fighting others.

Ever since Mira had asked to study magic with Hodrian that night, she still hadn't learned any proper magic. But after a few days of condensing her magic power, it had shot up like a rocket, reaching a D-Class mage's level and closing in on C-Class.

Chiba himself trained in Chakra. With different systems of cultivation, there was no way to compare them.

After all, a mage's magic power accounted for most of their combat strength plus their mana, while a ninja's Chakra accounted for a small part of their combat strength plus their mana.

Magic power was bearing pressure it shouldn't have had to bear at its age.

Although there was no way to compare them, from what Hodrian had said, Chiba could conclude that he should now be able to take down a weaker B-Class mage.

But Mira's magic power had risen so wildly that Chiba sometimes found himself wondering, Why does it feel like she's the one using cheats instead of me?

Damn it, could it be that I didn't spend as much money as she did?

Then Hodrian told Chiba and the others that he had some things to take care of, and left.

Yes, he just left...