Everyone Had a Bright Future
The atmosphere stalled for a moment. Demonized, Mira let out a breath and silently talked herself down. Hughes is badly hurt. If I keep fighting him, something might happen! I'll remember this and get even for all of it when he's old and past his prime!
When she and Laxus arrived at Xiluo'er Village, she heard that Hughes had entered the Clover Grand Canyon alone. So worried that she immediately activated her full-body Take Over, she raced along the markings Hughes had left, not daring to waste a moment.
And now this bastard was actually complaining about her!
"I'm joking, just joking. Go get me a few bottles of the medicine Granny Porlyusica prescribed from my pack." Hughes raised a hand and pointed to the right. Before fighting Satan, he had tossed his pack aside to keep the things he carried from getting damaged.
The medicine inside was worth twenty million J. If he accidentally broke it, he would cry himself to death.
Now that his Devil Fruit had reached Initial Awakening, Hughes's head had started hurting again. That was also why he had joked around with Mira. Without some amusement, the pain in his head was truly unbearable.
Mira's expression shifted. She gave Hughes a serious, worried look, then hurried over to search the pack.
Soon, Mira carefully handed Hughes the bag of medicine bottles.
As the saying went, one bottle granted immortality, two let your fists suppress the heavens, and three cured any illness.
But Hughes poured four bottles of medicine into his mouth in succession before he managed to suppress his mental illness.
Seeing the pain on Hughes's face ease a little, Mira stopped worrying and began to reproach him instead. "We agreed on this. I would go to the guild, and you would stay in Xiluo'er Village just in case. But look at you, acting on your own while I was away..."
Seeing that Mira was about to go on and on, Hughes, who was lying on the ground with a helpless expression, hurriedly raised a hand to interrupt her.
"If you keep nagging, I'll probably have to pour another bottle of medicine down my throat in a minute!"
Mira obediently shut her mouth and glared fiercely at Hughes. Unfortunately, it had no effect on him.
He couldn't be blamed for this! Who knew the Flame-Flame Fruit's Initial Awakening would increase the strain on his mind?
He glanced at [Fruit ability: Flame-Flame Fruit · Initial Awakening (Awakening level: 30%)].
Hughes wasn't smiling. Really, he wasn't happy at all. The corners of his mouth had lifted on their own; it had nothing to do with him!
When Mira saw how smug he looked, she couldn't help rolling her eyes at him again.
Laxus: ...Being treated like air was really infuriating...
Feeling much better, Hughes tried to get up. After struggling for a while, he looked at Mira, somewhat helpless. "Mira, help me sit up!"
Mira had wanted to tell Hughes he would be better off lying down, but she couldn't sway him, so she could only carefully help him sit up.
"Mira, pick up a big rock and throw it at that demon!"
Mira: (⊙_⊙)?
...Oh no. Hughes had picked up the same bad habit of throwing rocks as Lisanna.
"What? You can throw rocks at me, but I'm not allowed to throw them too?" Hughes asked in surprise. He'd never heard of that rule applying to transmigrators!
"Oh!"
"Bang!"
Satan had died silently quite some time ago. When the big rock hit his demonic body, his feet jerked upward.
"He should be dead, right...?" Mira reminded him. The demon inside her could no longer sense the demonic aura it feared.
"Let me tell you, some crafty bastards love playing dead to bait people. Keep throwing!"
"Smash his head!"
"Throw one at his eyes!"
"Smash the spot a few inches below his lower abdomen!"
Under Hughes's direction, Satan's grave mound was built just like that!
Hughes gave Mira a look, telling her to drop the rock the size of a human head. Satan was probably really dead.
If he still wasn't dead after that, Hughes would accept it. He didn't believe anyone could endure being smashed so many times a few inches below the abdomen.
No male creature like that existed!
"Mira, go see if you can take Satan over!" Hughes wasn't sure himself when he said it. After all, the original story had never said Take Over Magic couldn't be used on corpses.
It was worth a try. What if it worked? Satan was dead anyway, so even if it failed, Mira wouldn't lose control and go berserk.
With Mira's current strength, she probably couldn't take Satan over, but given her magical talent, it was hard to say.
Hearing this, Mira flattened the grave mound and dug Satan out. She covered both hands in magic and placed them on his body.
An intricate black magic circle appeared in an instant, radiating a deep, dark light that enveloped Mira and Satan.
Under Hughes's gaze, the light grew increasingly dazzling, finally blazing bright as the diminutive Satan Mira slowly appeared.
Her white hair stood on end like a broom. Her unremarkable figure paired with her revealing, dark-purple demon outfit looked strange. Bat wings grew from her back, and a long demon tail hung down to the ground.
Hughes compared Mira's current appearance with how she would look in the future and nearly burst out laughing.
It hurt his eyes, hurt them too much!
After another flash of light, Mira returned to normal, panting. "No, with the magic power I have now, I can't use Satan's abilities at all!"
Hughes: ...Listen to her! If she could use them right now, what did that make of the way he'd been beaten to a pulp just now, unable to fight back at all?
"Mira, you were incredibly lucky to take Satan over at all. If you could use his abilities right now, even the master would have to get on his knees and beg you to do your missions properly, then take this year's S-Class Exam!"
With Mira's current strength, successfully taking Satan over was already a miracle, yet the girl still wasn't satisfied.
All she lacked now were the necessary things like magic power. After training for a few more years, she would naturally be able to use Satan's power to its fullest.
But could a demon's corpse really be taken over?
Having discovered a whole new world, Hughes softly called out a few words to the dazed Mira. "Pack up. We'll go back to Xiluo'er Village and tell them the details of the mission, then return to the guild."
Mira came to her senses and shook her head, putting aside some fanciful ideas. She walked over to Hughes, squatted down with practiced ease, and reached out to hoist him onto her back.
Hughes: (・-・.)
Was this girl reckless or brainless, or did she want to send him down to keep Satan company?
"Mira, have you considered that it might be more practical to make a board for me to lie on, put a few logs underneath as wheels, and then pull me along on it?" Hughes said through gritted teeth.
Mira's body visibly stiffened.
"Oh!" Mira answered Hughes in an extremely quiet voice. Lowering her head, she hurried away.
Laxus, who had come along with Mira and was standing off to one side: ...Was his presence really that easy to ignore, or were these two treating him like air??
"Creak... creak..."
Lying on the wooden board, Hughes turned his head to look at Mira, who had become a beast of burden. The girl had the rope padded over her shoulder and was dragging him toward the station in Clover Town.
Half an hour ago, Hughes had explained everything to the head of Xiluo'er Village and told him to send people to the Clover Grand Canyon to inspect the results.
There were too many beast corpses in the canyon for him to take back. After he promised to give all the corpses to them, the old man happily settled the mission commission.
Mira had taken over Satan, Hughes had received a full five million J in mission fees, and Xiluo'er Village no longer had to worry about beast attacks.
They could also make a fortune selling the beast corpses in the canyon, especially the tusks of the Beast King, the Wild Elephant King, which were worth at least two or three million J. Everyone got something out of it, and everyone was happy!
...No, that wasn't right. He seemed to have taken a bit of a loss. He had drunk seven bottles of mental medicine on this mission, worth seven million J.
Considering that the Flame-Flame Fruit's Awakening level had already reached 30%, Hughes decided to put that little unpleasantness behind him.
Satan? You said Satan hadn't gotten anything?
Who was that? He really didn't know him...