The Tragic Lullaby~

This was a desolate mountain range, utterly devoid of people. Just how desolate was it? Saying that there was no human presence and little vegetation might not quite do it justice, but put more simply, everyone should be able to understand:

Within a hundred kilometers of this place, forget people—you wouldn't even find a single hair! As for flowers, grass, trees, birds, beasts, insects, and fish, those were even more out of the question. Simply put, this was a dead land! A truly silent land of death!

Normally, in a place this lifeless, forget people—even birds wouldn't come here to relieve themselves. Yet today, that pattern had been broken by an uninvited guest! Though, this was merely an accident...

"Maybe this thing really does have something special about it! Otherwise, so many people wouldn't want it. . . ." In a corner of that silent wasteland, Achill sat crouched atop a huge rock, repeatedly studying the three-eyed skull flute in his hand—Lullaby. He muttered to himself, "Maybe I was using it the wrong way before..."

Why was Achill in this godforsaken place? Ah, same old story. Because he had gotten lost again.

He had originally planned to head to Clover first, then continue his investigation into the Tower of Paradise there. But reality was always cruel! Although he had regained all his old memories and even fully assimilated some lingering memories of this world, unfortunately—whether it was his past-life self from Earth or the previous Achill of this world, both were damnably directionless!!!

According to the basic principle that quantitative change led to qualitative change, and according to the unreliable rule that one plus one was often far greater than two, those two hopelessly lost traits had not only fused perfectly, but had also produced an even stronger trait! And that wasn't all. Add in the directionless trait from his amnesia period, and that made three forces joining together—damn it, was this the Three Kingdoms or something?!!

All that nonsense was simply meant to make one point clear: after recovering his memories, Achill had not improved in the slightest when it came to getting lost. In fact, he had become far worse than before!

For example, Clover had clearly been right in front of him, with barely any distance left to travel. What was more, he had been flying! But in the end? Achill had still somehow gone the wrong way!! Not merely wrong, either—he had gone spectacularly wrong!!! Damn it, this dead land was south while Clover was north! They were completely unrelated places!! How the hell had he even flown here...?

All right, enough nonsense. Back to the main topic!

"What method is it? What's the right way to use it?!" Grabbing a large stone, Achill began smashing it forcefully against Lullaby's green skull while muttering nonstop, "Do I need some other, more special method? What exactly is it?? Or am I not hitting it hard enough?!" Thinking of that, Achill swung even harder...

"Ah!!! I've had enough!!!" Finally unable to endure Achill's endless abuse any longer, the poor Lullaby finally snapped!!!

Breaking free and jumping out of Achill's hand, flames of fury blazing in its three eyes, Lullaby roared at him at the top of its lungs, "Can't you use your brain in a slightly more normal way?! Can't you use me in a slightly more normal way?! I'm a flute! Even if I look incredibly awesome, I'm still a flute at the end of the day!!! Can't you use me by blowing me like a flute?! Damn you, you bastard!!!!!! Don't tell me you don't even know how to play a flute!! Uh—" Before it could finish, it suddenly fell silent.

"Smack—" Achill stomped Lullaby into the ground and cursed viciously, "Damn it! You're just a worthless broken flute nobody wants! You dare act arrogant in front of me? Tired of living, are you?!" After saying that, he ground his foot down several more times, pressing the entire flute into the filthy dirt.

Ever since it had been created by Zeref, the legendary greatest black wizard, Lullaby had never experienced being violently stomped into the mud like this without so much as a word. Forget experiencing it—it had never even imagined such a thing! Whoever obtained it hadn't treated it like a treasure and served it carefully?!

Lullaby was filled with fury and grievance, and it was hard to say how miserable it felt! It had finally been freed from that sunless seal and was preparing to enjoy the pleasure of killing people with its cursed music. Yet before it could even take a few breaths of fresh free air, it had fallen into the hands of this hateful little devil! A tiger fallen to the plains, bullied by dogs!!!

"Mmgh—" Thinking of this, Lullaby let out an angry roar. But because it was buried in the mud, even the loudest roar could only turn into meaningless muffled groans.

"A flute? You dare call that ugly thing a flute?" Pulling Lullaby from the dirt, Achill sneered with a disgusted frown, "You look more like a stick to me! Yeah, a Korean stick!!"

"You're the stick! Your whole family is sticks!!!" Lullaby immediately flew into a rage. It struggled to jump free from Achill's hand, but this time Achill held it tightly. How could it possibly escape? Lullaby could only roar in a shrill voice, "Put me down! Put me down right now, you bastard!!!"

"Oh? Still daring to curse at me? You've got some nerve!!" Achill's brows rose slightly as he gave a sinister grin. "Looks like you need some reeducation..." He looked around, then picked up a massive rock from the ground.

"H-Hey, wait! What are you doing? What are you doing?!" Lullaby was instantly terrified, a dreadful premonition suddenly rising in its heart. It stammered out a loud protest, "We're civilized people! No violence! Reject violence!!!" By the end, even its voice had changed pitch. It had clearly been badly frightened by Achill's sudden action.

"Civilized people? Heh heh—" Achill's smile grew wider until his eyes nearly narrowed shut. "A mere stick dares call itself civilized in front of me?!!!" Without another moment of hesitation, he raised the huge rock and savagely smashed it down on Lullaby's ugly skull!

Bang bang bang bang bang—

"Ah—oh!—ya!!—stop it!!!"

Amid the dull sounds of smashing, miserable screams rang out again and again. About ten minutes later, poor Lullaby had been mangled beyond the shape of a flute, while Achill had already smashed three large rocks to pieces during his violent assault...

But the nightmare was far from over. Feeling that rocks were not satisfying enough and that they could no longer fulfill his urge to destroy this stick, Achill then set up a barbecue rack, tied Lullaby over a fire, and began roasting it. Unsurprisingly, Lullaby continued screaming miserably...

About another hour later, Achill finally gave up torturing Lullaby the stick.

"I couldn't tell, but you're pretty tough, aren't you? You didn't die even after all that?!" Achill held the nearly lifeless Lullaby before his eyes and examined it carefully. He could not help sighing sincerely. "Even if you're just a stick, you really are worthy of being something Zeref made with his own hands!"

"..." Other than gathering all its remaining strength to roll its eyes fiercely at him, Lullaby had no energy left to argue.

It could be said that aside from endless bitterness and terror, it had completely abandoned any thought of fighting this inhuman demon before it to the bitter end. During Achill's merciless torture, it had tried to resist. It had even transformed into a giant withered-tree form, hoping to kill Achill in one blow. But the result had been tragic. In less than a minute, Achill had beaten it back into stick form by force!

What truly drove it mad, however, was that its cursed killing melody had been completely ineffective against Achill?!! How was that possible?!!!! Lullaby screamed frantically in its heart.

If Achill had known what Lullaby was thinking, he would definitely have mocked it with utter disdain: I'm a real death god!! How could a true death god possibly be killed by a mere stick?!!!

"Huh? Right, didn't you say you were supposed to be blown?" As though he had only just remembered, Achill excitedly breathed a few times into Lullaby's mouthpiece, wiped it vigorously with his clothes, and brought it toward his mouth.

"Ah!!! Your breath stinks—" Lullaby, whose consciousness had recovered slightly, nearly passed out from the smell again!

"Get lost!" Achill's face immediately darkened. I only ate a bit more garlic this morning! Is that really so exaggerated? Thinking that, he breathed into his palm, and his eyes immediately rolled white—

Damn it! I should've known better than to eat garlic!!!

"Wuwulala bibidudugagagassikwangkwang—" Since there was no one else around, Achill blew the cursed killing flute—Lullaby—with absolutely no reservations, puffing out a breath of stale air.

Unfortunately, he possessed not the slightest musical talent. What came out was nothing but noise!! It was clearly only one flute, yet he somehow played the sounds of all eighteen kinds of weapons through it! Damn it, dozens of utterly unbearable sounds mixed together— even without Lullaby's power to kill, anyone who heard it would probably have been scared to death!!

"Bang—" Suddenly, a dull explosive sound came from Achill's hand. He froze, then instinctively looked at Lullaby. The once-intact magic flute was now completely ruined. More than a dozen massive cracks covered its body, its skull had split in half, and the three eyes that had once shone with divine light had long since lost all their luster. Clearly, it was finished. Completely finished. The terrifying noise Achill had blown out had utterly destroyed it, bringing its tragic life to an equally tragic end...

"Damn it, what kind of so-called terrifying magic flute is this Lullaby? After all that, it turned out to be a piece of junk that isn't even nice to look at—"

Meanwhile, in Clover.

"What?!!! You're saying Lullaby appeared?!! That terrifying legendary mass-cursing magic flute, Lullaby, has returned to the world?!! And someone took it away?!!!" Makarov roared.

"Erza, did that Lullaby really appear?" Bob, the guild master of Blue Pegasus, also asked Erza with a grave expression.

"Yes! And it was in the hands of Bleach Erigor. He originally planned to use Lullaby to wipe all of you out during this routine meeting of guild masters!" Erza said seriously. "But don't worry. Erigor has already been killed, so his plan has completely failed. The crisis has been resolved!" After the matter was over, she and Natsu's group had come straight to Clover and told all the guild masters attending the routine meeting every detail of the incident.

Without exception, every guild master was profoundly shocked!

"That isn't what I'm concerned about! I'm concerned about the mysterious person who killed Erigor and took Lullaby!" Makarov said with an extremely serious expression. "Even someone as strong as Bleach Erigor couldn't withstand a single move from that person?! Just who is that person?!!!"

"Don't worry, Master! If it's him, there's no need for you to worry at all! With Lullaby in his hands, it's practically no different from being sealed away again!" Seeing how worried Makarov seemed, Erza swore confidently. Her tone was filled with absolute conviction!

"Is that so?" Like Natsu and the others, Makarov and the other guild masters all looked at Erza in confusion. But seeing that she did not seem to want to say more, they did not press the matter. They simply buried their doubts in their hearts. On one hand, they trusted Erza's character and knew she would never lie about something like this. Therefore, there was no need to continue questioning her...

"Of course!" Erza promised with a smile. Then she silently added in her heart, Because that person is—Big Brother Nameless!!!