Faced with the two sleeping figures, the Fairy Tail members had originally planned to wait until they woke up and then return to Fairy Tail together. But after waiting two days without seeing any sign that the egg would break, they reluctantly gave up at Makarov's suggestion and headed back to Magnolia first.
That was the prevailing view among the people of the continent. A few still held out hope for Fairy Tail, but they were the rare handful who had truly witnessed and experienced its former glory. As mentioned before, time was merciless, and people were always quick to forget. They only ever cared about what lay before them; yesterday's brilliance was destined to become nothing more than a fleeting memory. The return of Fairy Tail's core members after seven years gave them something to discuss over dinner, but stirred no deeper response.
Many sighed over this, of course, while others secretly breathed a sigh of relief. A prime example was the New Magic Council, which had kept Fairy Tail under close observation from the moment it returned. After all, convinced that Achill was dead, they had taken quite a few actions against him.
Only after their investigations through various channels led them to conclude that Achill and Mirajane, Fairy Tail's former S-Class Mage, had indeed perished together on Wolf Island beneath Acnologia's roar did they finally heave a great sigh of relief in private.
Here was the complete statement they had gathered from Fairy Tail's core members: because of Acnologia, Achill and Mira had fallen asleep...
Yet they probably never would have imagined, even on pain of death, that the "sleep" everyone spoke of really was nothing more than sleep... Once they heard the word, their own imaginations had immediately interpreted it as death.
Time passed quickly. To