Magic Development Bureau

The king's study was more elegant than Riyao had imagined. Heavy walnut bookcases lined the walls, filled with ancient books bound in gold-stamped covers.

A wide desk in the center was covered with dark brown velvet. A small flame burned in a bronze brazier in the corner, filling the room with warmth.

Gilded candlesticks cast a soft glow over the pages, and the air carried the scent of ink and a faint hint of cedar. The room lacked the imposing grandeur of the main hall, but had a homely warmth instead.

When Riyao followed Arcadios into the study, King Toma E. Fiore was sitting in an armchair behind the desk.

He had shed his crown and heavy royal robes and wore only loose, off-white casual clothes, with the cuffs rolled up. His graying hair was slightly disheveled at the temples, and his face showed unmistakable exhaustion, yet he put on none of a monarch's airs.

He held a small portrait of ten-year-old Leo, gently stroking the paper with his fingertips, a wistful look on his face.

"Riyao of Fairy Tail, I've been waiting for you!"

The moment Toma saw him, he rose and took two steps forward to greet him. His voice was warm and earnest, with none of a monarch's aloofness.

"Thank you for coming all this way. Please, sit down!"

"You're too kind, Your Majesty!"

Riyao scratched his head, crumpling the bag of dried strawberries in his arms as he gripped it. His gaze kept drifting toward a gem-studded paperweight on the bookcase.

That thing looks even finer than the sapphire on the crown. How many limited-edition cakes could it buy?

Arcadios gave a quiet cough beside him, signaling him with a glance to mind his manners.

Riyao stuck out his tongue, quickly looked away, and pulled up a chair. He sat down and assumed an attentive pose.

Toma sighed and gently laid the portrait on the desk, his voice full of distress and concern.

"I asked you here for my nephew, Leo. He just turned ten and is my younger brother's only child. Half a month ago, he suddenly fell ill. At first, he was only listless and unable to eat, but who would have thought he'd get worse and worse? Blue-black markings spread all over him, and he's wasted away to skin and bones."

He rubbed his hands together, sounding at a loss.

"All the court's mages and physicians have examined him. We've tried everything we could: light magic, antidotes, priests' blessings, but nothing has helped. He's only gotten worse."

"I heard that Fairy Tail has a healing mage who's young but highly capable."

Toma looked at Riyao with hope in his eyes, his tone as earnest as any ordinary elder asking for help.

"Young man, I know this is a lot to ask, but Leo is a good, well-behaved boy. Please help him. Whatever the cost, we're willing to pay it!"

"Rest assured, Your Majesty. Let me see Leo first!"

Riyao patted his chest. His curiosity had long since outweighed his nervousness; the stranger the illness, the more it appealed to him.

Toma's eyes lit up at once, and he quickly gestured to the attendant beside him.

"Quick, take Riyao to the inner chamber!"

A cozy, elegant inner chamber adjoined the back of the study. A soft carpet covered the floor, and gauzy curtains hung around the bed.

A faint smell of medicine filled the chamber, mingled with a barely perceptible, eerie aura.

A pale little boy lay in the bed. It was Leo. His eyes were tightly shut, his cheeks were sunken, and sure enough, fine blue-black markings wound around his arms like vines, a horrifying sight.

Riyao put all thoughts of fooling around aside and hurried to the bedside. A faint green light appeared at his fingertips. It was Healing Magic bestowed by the goddess, capable of sensing the auras and abnormalities of living beings.

He gently placed his fingers on Leo's wrist, and the green light seeped into the boy's body from his fingertips.

The next second, Riyao's expression darkened.

"How is he, Riyao?"

Toma and Arcadios, who had followed him in, hurriedly pressed him for an answer. The king even took two steps closer, his voice full of urgency.

Riyao didn't answer immediately. Instead, he frowned and examined Leo carefully, the light at his fingertips flickering.

A moment later, he withdrew his hand and looked gravely at the king. "Your Majesty, this isn't an ordinary illness. It's a curse, and it's mixed with a rare, slow-acting toxin."

"A curse?!"

Toma and Arcadios cried out at the same time. Toma's face turned a shade paler, and he instinctively gripped the bedrail.

"How could it be a curse... Leo has never offended anyone! He's just an ordinary child. All he usually does is read or play in the courtyard. He's hardly ever even traveled far from home!"

"That's right."

Riyao nodded, the chilling aura he had just sensed still lingering at his fingertips.

"This curse has a powerful dark attribute. It's wrapped around Leo's soul like a net, while the toxin is eating away at his body. The two are intertwined. Ordinary Healing Magic can't break it, and light magic can only suppress it temporarily. It will actually make the curse rebound even harder."

He paused, then added:

"What's more troublesome is that both the curse and the toxin are contagious."

"Contagious?!"

Arcadios's expression tightened. He instinctively took half a step back and put a hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Don't worry, it doesn't spread through the air."

"It spreads through contact. When I examined him just now, I found that the curse's aura attaches itself to anyone who has touched Leo. For now, the dose is still small, so they won't show symptoms yet. But given enough time, those blue-black markings will appear on them too. They'll just develop more slowly than Leo's."

As he spoke, he looked at the maids and attendants standing by the bed and pointed at one of them.

"For example, miss, you take care of Leo every day, don't you? Look at the inside of your wrist. There's already a faint blue-black mark. It's not obvious, so you might not have noticed it yourself."

The maid hurriedly raised her wrist and saw an extremely faint blue-black marking on the inside, just as he had said. Her face went deathly pale with fright, and her legs gave way, nearly making her fall.

Toma stared at the marking, his lips trembling slightly, his eyes full of anguish and bewilderment. His fingers clutched the window frame so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

"Who could have... done something so cruel to an innocent child? They wouldn't even spare the people caring for him..."

He showed no rage, only deep helplessness and heartache, and his voice caught slightly.

"Young man, please, you must find a way. Whatever medicinal herbs or help you need, we'll do everything we can! As long as you can cure Leo and the people caught up in this, I'm willing to pay any price!"

Riyao rubbed his chin, a glint of sharp thought flashing in his eyes as his fingertips unconsciously tapped against his palm.

"The aura of this curse is very strange. It's not something an ordinary mage could cast. This combination of a curse and a slow-acting toxin bears strong traces of forbidden experimentation. It's more like... the work of a dark guild, or the remnants of the Magic Development Bureau from back then."

He recalled Makarov once mentioning that when the Magic Council wiped out the Magic Development Bureau a year ago, it had discovered experiments there involving forbidden curses and toxins.