The Ones Who Wait for the Dragon's Return

Cana landed beside Noah, folding away the cards she used for flight, and circled him with a strange look.

"How are you completely fine again?"

Noah's expression shifted as he stared at her with dead fish eyes.

Under his gaze, Cana realized she'd misspoken and awkwardly raised her bottle. "Look at my mouth, I'll punish myself with a bottle, don't be mad."

Punish herself with a bottle?

More like a reward, if you ask me!

Noah stared at Cana for a long moment, until the tipsy girl felt a chill run down her spine, but he still couldn't figure out where she'd pulled such a huge bottle from.

Cana looked around. This valley was well-hidden; without Doran telling her the location, she couldn't have gotten here so fast.

On the ground lay a broken sword that might as well be scrap metal, faint traces of sinister darkness flowing along its blade. Not far off, a dozen Dark Magic Cult soldiers lay unconscious.

Directly ahead, the ground had been blasted into a massive crater by some terrifying magic.

Cana could still feel the tremor of magic particles in the air—only destructive spells could churn them up like this.

"Noah, what happened here? Where are the two Dark Magic Priests?"

Noah blinked. "Dark Magic Priests? Aren't they all just branch members of the Dark Magic Cult?"

Their eyes met, and looking into the girl's eyes, Noah understood.

So those two guys who got blasted to bits by the Dragoon were the Dark Magic Priests, on par with S-class Mages!

The impression Jerome and Haomen gave Noah was that they had strength, but not much of it. With a decent magic weapon in hand, even without activating the Dragoon, he could have beaten them himself.

Cana caught the shift in Noah's expression. Though he said nothing, she had a strange feeling that this new guild member had run into those two Dark Magic Priests.

"Noah, where are those two?"

Faced with Cana's question, Noah didn't know how to explain, but finally looked up at the sky and summed it up in one sentence.

"Everywhere."

Cana jumped, pulling out her cards and scanning the area warily. Sounded like magic that blended into the environment—if so, those two Dark Priests would be a real pain.

Not understanding why Cana was on edge, Noah let out a breath and slowly finished his sentence.

"Relax, they've turned to ash."

"Huh?"

Cana's mouth fell open, utterly incredulous.

Those were S-class combatants, dangerous figures wanted by the Magic Council and every nation, and they didn't even leave ash behind.

What kind of powerhouse had taken them down?

She never once thought of Noah. A newcomer who couldn't fight with magic and relied on magical tools—how could he possibly take on two Dark Priests and grind them to dust?

"Some passing expert must have saved you! Lucky you, Noah." Cana figured some reclusive master had rescued Noah and left after dealing with the bad guys.

The tipsy girl's guess was close to the truth, the only mistake being that there was no reclusive master—because the "Dragoon" wasn't human.

But with Cana's self-hypnotizing imagination, Noah could take the opening. He just needed to fabricate a nonexistent person, and this whole thing would blow over.

"That's right, a man in a black robe saved me. His face was covered, couldn't see it. He used a staff and wiped out those two Dark Priests with one spell."

Mysterious, black robe, staff.

Those three elements were the classic gear of a hidden master in Edolas's popular novels, and Noah borrowed the template without a second thought.

Cana believed it without the slightest doubt.

As Noah secretly congratulated himself, he had no idea that Cana, based on his description, had thought of someone else. That person also wore a black robe, was equally mysterious, and fought with a staff.

Most importantly, that person was also a member of Fairy Tail, and this year, in the guild's S-class exam, he'd beaten her to become the guild's fifth S-class Mage.

If he had acted, instantly killing two Dark Magic Priests wasn't impossible.

Cana looked at the huge crater on the ground with mixed feelings.

In the exam, you took me down with just sleep magic... you're terrifyingly strong, Mystogan.

Noah had no idea what Cana was thinking and just called her to explore the exposed cave together.

"Cana, I heard those two Dark Priests say this cave is the nest of a dead 'Iron Dragon.' Let's go check if there's anything good."

Noah rubbed his hands together like a fly. From the look of the "Dragoon," he knew that four hundred years ago, when his ancestor created it, the terrifying existence they'd imitated was a dragon.

Now, seeing a dragon's nest—even if it probably didn't belong to that "terrifying dragon"—Noah was still excited.

Cana was curious too about what a dragon's nest might hold, but she stopped Noah. "Better wait for old man Doran and the others to get here. Those Magic Blacksmiths gathered at Iron Furnace Ridge because of the 'Iron Dragon.'"

Noah raised an eyebrow, a little surprised, but chose to wait.

Half an hour later, two groups came down from a mountainside of ore toward the valley.

One group was soldiers stationed at the market; the other was a motley crew.

Rough blacksmiths carrying hammers, tailors with needles and thread, equipment maintainers with monocles... they all shared one title: "Magic Blacksmiths."

The Magic Blacksmiths moved fast, leaving the soldiers far behind. Doran, at the lead, strode briskly, pulling away from his clansmen.

"Hey! Old man Doran! Over here!"

Even without Cana's call, Doran had already spotted them. Seeing that both Noah and Cana were safe and sound, the weight pressing on his heart finally dissipated.

As long as they were unharmed, that was what mattered.

Watching Doran come to a stop without even a hint of labored breathing, Noah realized this blacksmith was no ordinary man. How many old men could run freely through an ore mountain shrouded in scorching heat?

Cana recounted what she believed had happened in the valley, embellishing the story in her own way as she described it to Doran.

"Old man, so, how are you going to compensate us?"

"I'm telling you, the mental damages for me and Noah—less than five... no, less than ten thousand, and we're not talking."

After being verbally cornered by Cana's haughty attitude once again, Doran knew he was in the wrong and readily agreed, even promising to gift Noah a Magic Weapon.

Once Cana finished her haggling, Noah spoke up: "Senior, I heard from Cana that you have some connection to the dragons that once lived here?"

Doran gazed at the massive cave now exposed by the "Dark Sword" looming overhead, and nodded heavily.

"Boy, do you know about the Human-Dragon War four hundred years ago?"

Clearly, Noah did not. And not just him—even Cana only knew that the war had ended with the extinction of the dragons. The details of the process had never been made public.

Doran sighed and continued, "It's fine if you don't know. Over four hundred years ago, the dragons were split into two factions over their attitude toward humans."

One faction despised humans, while the other, a minority, believed they should coexist peacefully with them.

The humans-hating dragons started a war, and at the time, humanity could barely resist—it was almost a one-sided slaughter.

Fortunately, the friendly dragons stepped in to help. The friendly dragons were the minority among dragonkind, but their leader was one of the 'Three Dragon Kings'—the Fire Dragon King, Igneel.

Although the leader of the evil dragons was the Dragon King of Flight, also one of the 'Three Dragon Kings,' his fear of the Fire Dragon King's power slowed the war's pace, giving humanity a chance to catch their breath.

The friendly dragons sheltered humans everywhere. Doran's ancestor was saved from the evil dragons' claws by the Iron Dragon, Metalicana, and later settled near Iron Furnace Ridge, living under the Iron Dragon's protection.

After nearly eight years, Dragon Slayer magic emerged, sounding the horn for humanity's counterattack. However, two years later, the Iron Dragon suddenly and forcefully drove Doran's ancestor's tribe away.

According to the tales passed down by Doran's ancestors, a terrifying black dragon had sought out the Iron Dragon, and since then, the Iron Dragon had never appeared in the world again.

Doran's ancestors refused to believe that their tribe's benefactor had simply vanished, so they passed down the command for future generations to return to Iron Furnace Ridge and await the Iron Dragon Lord's return.

About a hundred years ago, Doran's father, following his ancestors' wishes, endured countless hardships to finally gather the scattered clansmen and bring them back to Iron Furnace Ridge in batches, where they made a living crafting Magic Tools.

No one would have guessed that the highly skilled Magic Blacksmiths in the market had gathered beneath Iron Furnace Ridge solely to await the return of a dragon.

Having been saved once, they had spent four hundred years waiting for the Iron Dragon's return. Noah couldn't help but feel a surge of respect for Doran's tribe.

"Senior, may I know the name of your tribe?"

Doran let out a hearty laugh. "In this day and age, who still calls themselves a tribe?"

After leaving Iron Furnace Ridge, Doran's ancestral tribe was dragged into the war due to their excellent craftsmanship in making Magic Tools, forced to scatter and conceal their identities.

A hundred years ago, the reason Doran's father was able to reunite most of the clansmen was their family name.

Redfox.