Chapter 7 - Arthur Joins Fairy Tail!

(Arthur's POV)

After leaving Roseyard village, Gildarts and I camped out in the woods for the night.

That night I couldn't really fall asleep for a while until both the physical and mental exhaustion took over and I did fall asleep.

In the morning, Gildarts had prepared some breakfast for me but it wasn't actually very good.

Even still I had not eaten in nearly two days so I ate it anyway.

"How far is Magnolia from here?" I asked Gildarts

"I'm not sure, you did teleport us miles and miles away from our original location so I no longer know where we are…

Don't worry though, after we get to a town we'll be able to get some sort of transportation to Magnolia."

"Okay then."

"Arthur, since you've lost your dominant hand I think you should get yourself a prosthetic. I know a really good place you could get one if you want."

"A prosthetic you say? Hmmm… no, I don't think I'll need one."

"Are you going to stay with one hand then?"

"No?"

"Huh?" Gildarts was visibly confused at my reply.

"Well, I think I've regained most of my magic power now so I should be able to… {Heal}!"

After I said the magical word nearly all of my magic power disappeared and my wounds started healing immediately, my arm also began regenerating itself!

Needless to say Gildarts had his jaw hit the floor while looking at this spectacle.

"Y-y-y-you can even use healing magic?! On that scale no less?!"

His surprise was self-explanatory. Healing magic was rare in Earthland. Very rare, it is classified as a 'lost magic' or magic that has been lost to the waves of time.

(A/N: Correct me if I'm wrong. It might just be really rare and not lost magic. Pretty sure it is though but i might just be thinking of Sky magic ~>Wendy said something like this I believe...)

"*pant* I guess *pant* I technically can… But I can't use it on other people but myself. As is the nature of my magic. *pant*"

That was seriously exhausting!

"Are you okay?" Gildarts was concerned since I looked like I ran a marathon just now.

"*pant* Yeah… *pant* I'm fine, it's just that healing something like a lost arm is really taxing for me to do, so most of my magic power is gone right now…"

"You know I've been meaning to ask you… What is your magic anyway? You can create portals, restore ashes to living trees and plants and even heal yourself?"

Well… I see no reason to hide it from Gildarts, he is my benefactor after all! The least I could do is tell him about my magic.

"My magic is called Word Soul magic. It allows me to manipulate my surrounding via speech.

It cannot affect people other than myself with neither positive nor negative effects.

That means I can't just say 'Die' and kill someone for example."

"I see! So that's the case then… That's an amazing magic you have there, kid." Gildarts grinned at me.

"Thanks."

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After around one day of travel we reached our destination.

"So this is Magnolia huh?" The town was relatively big and had a huge building in the middle called Kardia Cathedral, in the northernmost part of the town stands Fairy Tail's guildhall!

"Yeah this is it. Come on, let's go to the guild hall. You're going to be meeting the master."

After Gildarts said this the town started moving and changing shape…

In the end a clear and straight path was created leading to Fairy Tail's building.

This is the Gildarts Shift!

"Wow! That's amazing!" Seeing something like this in real life is incredible!

"Pretty cool, huh? They made it for me to be able to make my grand return with style! Hahaha!"

"That's… nice… I guess…" I said that, knowing the actual reason is because everything he touches gets obliterated and when he's not paying attention he walks through houses and wrecks them…

"Here it is Arthur! This is Fairy Tail."

We stood in front of the original Fairy Tail building! Wow this thing is bigger in person!

"Let's go see the master now." Gildarts says this and…

*BOOM* walks straight through the wall right next to the entrance…

Okay, but why though?

"Yo! I'm back!"

"Oh! Hey look its Gildarts!" A young looking Macao exclaimed.

"Welcome home! Come and have a drink with us!" The young Wakaba invited him for a drink.

No one has a problem with him breaking the wall?!

"Maybe later, I've got to see the master first. He's here isn't he?"

"Oui, he's over at his office right now. Why? Did something happen?" a very thin Reedus asked him while drawing a painting.

Probably of Gildarts entering through the wall…

"Nah, I'm just gonna vouch for a new member to join is all!"

"Ohhh? The great Gildarts is vouching for someone to join? I'm interested in this person now. Where he at?" Macao asked Gildarts

"He's right here." Gildarts points towards me and everyone exclaimed loudly.

"A KID?! YOU HAVE A KID GILDARTS?!?!"

"What? No! I found him in the woods! He has nowhere to go so I-"

"BULLSHIT! Like we'd believe that, you womanizer! I knew you'd come back with a kid one of these days, hahaha! Macao you owe me a drink!" Wakaba apparently won a bet with Macao over this…

"Damn… Fine I'll buy you your damn drink! Here!"

"What's all the ruckus about you brats?" A very short old man wearing a weird getup appeared and everyone stopped talking.

This must be Makarov! Damn he's about as tall as me! No wait, I'm actually taller?

"Oh, you've got a kid Gildarts? Congrats I guess." Makarov takes a sip of his drink after congratulating Gildarts.

"As I was saying he ain't mine…"

"That so? Well what's the story here then?"

"His home town was burned to the ground and he no longer has a place to go to.

I thought it would be a good idea for him to come and join up with the guild!"

"Oh, so that's what happened! Poor kid… Hey Wakaba give me my damn drink back!" Macao demanded that Wakaba return his drink to him.

"What? I'm already drinking it! Why do you want it back now?"

"The boy's not his kid! Bet's not over yet!"

"Well I say that I should drink it anyway!"

"Either give me my drink, or the money I spent back before I kick your ȧss!"

"You wanna try me Macao?!"

"QUIET YOU TWO!" Makarov yelled and shut them both up.

"Hey kid! Come with me." Makarov asked for me to follow him to his office.

"Okay then…"

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(Inside Makarov's office)

Me and Gildarts entered Makarov's office together with him and he took out a bunch of stamps with Fairy Tail's emblem on them.

"Okay kid, what color do you want you mark to be?"

"Huh? You're just gonna let me in like that? No test or… Anything…?"

"Why should I test you? Fairy Tail's Ace member is vouching for you, that's more credibility than any test could provide me with."

I stood there for a while and then said: "Black. I want a black mark…"

"Fine then." He took out the black stamp

"And, where do you want it placed?"

"… On my right shoulder please!"

Makarov used the stamp on my shoulder and it left a black Fairy tail guild mark on it.

"Congratulations! You're now an official member of the Fairy Tail guild! Good luck kid." Makarov congratulated me on joining.

"Thank you Master!"

I can't really lie here. I'm actually feeling quite happy… I've actually managed to join Fairy tail! But…

"Ain't that great Arthur? Haha!" Gildarts said to me.

"Yeah... I'm now a member of Fairy tail…"

"Why the long face kiddo?"

"Well… It's just that. If I could I'd have wanted to join in together with my friends…"

"Ah, well… That's… *sigh* Look kid, I know what it's like to lose someone. I've had allot of friends go on missions only to never return from them. Heck my wife even left me!

I'll understand if you want some time alone."

"Thanks Gildarts. You've already done so much to help me. I'll be sure to repay this debt in full!"

As I said that I walked out of the office and then some of the guild members came to me and asked about my relation to Gildarts. Mostly random members and no one of any importance to the original show.

I simply told all of them that he was my benefactor and walked out of the guild hall.

I walked around Magnolia for the rest of the day, thinking of what I should do now that I've joined Fairy Tail...

One thing is certain.

I'll need to find the tower of heaven in order to confirm whether or not Lilith and Matthew are still alive…

But how do I do that? The only lead I've got is that it's on some Island somewhere out at sea…

And even if I did know where it was, Zev and his father's existence isn't something I can just ignore…

(A/N: Yeah, me neither... can't have those there :P)

According to Zev his father is apparently obsessed with Zeref…

He must either want him dead or to serve under him.

If he wants him dead then he might just be trying to find information on him through the Tower of Heaven cult…

And if it's the latter then does he not know that Zeref is still alive?

Either way unless Zev's father gives up on the R-System plan and leaves the Tower of Heaven…

Erza probably won't be able to overthrow it during her revolt and escape…

That would be rather problematic since she's probably my best shot at finding the tower to begin with!

Seeing as she runs away from it, she should also know the way back.

But that event is still about four years away from now…

I don't know the exact date but I know it takes place in the year of X776.

For now I have to get stronger.

My fight with Zev showed me that I'm lacking both physical strength and any good defenses.

If I couldn't heal myself then his one punch would have left me incapacitated and unable to continue the fight... Damn Dragon bloodline...

For the physical strength part, I will gain it as I grow and continue to train myself, and I could perhaps do something with my magic about it too.

My defenses only consist of my barrier spell and steel skin as of now… I can also make walls from any element if needed.

Perhaps if I could combine the idea of both the barrier and steel skin to create an outer barrier layer around myself like a sheath together with the steel skin spell?

Together with the actual barrier orb around me I usually use it would definitely have some effect against powerful attacks...

As for normal attacks, they probably wouldn't really hurt me when I'm hit while having both steel skin and for a lack of a better term this so called barrier skin on…

The problem is making the 'barrier' spell into the 'barrier skin' spell as a sheath over my skin…

Anyway, for now I should think of more ways to improve those two areas…

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The sun was now setting and I was sitting under the tree in Magnolia's south gate park.

"Hey Arthur! There you are, I've been looking for you."

"Gildarts? What is it?"

"Well, I don't think you've got a place to stay at, so I thought I'd invite you over to my house for the night.

It's not much but it's better than staying outside. "

"You've already done so much for me… To ask for more is a little…"

"It's fine! I'm doing this cuz I want to! Not for your gratitude. Come on you'll catch a cold out here."

"Okay then, if you insist." It's certainly bad to turn good will away I guess…

After we got to Gildarts house we talked about some stuff concerning working at the guild and then later fell asleep.

He told me I should start doing jobs so that I can get myself some money and experience working as a mage.

Nothing too hard for now, just the local problems of the townspeople.

The next day I went to the guild hall and I was greeted by Macao and Wakaba who were drinking together.

"Yo! Your name is Arthur right? We couldn't talk yesterday so first let me just say welcome to the guild. I'm Macao and this is here drunk is Wakaba"

"Who you calling a drunk? Never mind… Welcome to the guild kid."

"Thank you. It's nice to meet you Macao and Wakaba." I tried being polite towards them as they're my elders

"Likewise"

"It's nice to meet'cha too kid!"

As I walked around I met and greeted a lot of the older members of Fairy tail, there were allot of ones I've never even seen before.

Since it's still just at the end of December in the year X771, there is no one from the new generation in the guild as of now.

Cana should join in the year X772 so I guess she'll probably be here a few months from now…

I got to the quest board's corner and took a local job with a 1500 jewel reward for completion.

I had to go and catch a runaway cat for its owner. Well that sounds simple enough.

There was a picture of the cat on the job poster so it wasn't really hard to find it with my {Clairvoyance} spell.

I used {Conceal presence} and teleported behind it with {Teleport}, grabbing the unsuspecting kitty and afterwards teleporting to the owner's house address.

I knocked on the door and waited until it opened.

It was a very big, for a lack of a better term lady that came out and then thanked me for bringing her cat 'Mr. Whiskers' as she called him, back.

She then hugged the poor cat very tightly until it couldn't resist anymore and gave up to its fate…

Now I know why Mr. Whiskers tried to escape from here in the first place…

that poor cat...

Hm? I'm having a strange feeling of Déjà vu here for some reason…

Anyway, after taking my reward of 1500 Jewels I went and rented a cheap apartment room for 1 day.

It cost 1000 jewels for each day so I still had 500 to eat and drink with.

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About a week later Gildarts went on another SS-rank quest job and would probably not return for about a month or two until he was done with it since the client was rather far away he said.

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A month has now passed and I've mostly been spending my time doing easy local missions for the townspeople and earning some cheap savings.

Doing so has quickly made me known throughout town as a problem solver.

Now I can't walk down the street without being greeted by someone I helped out.

People are quite friendly here once you get to know them.

"Oh! Hey Arthur! Would you like to have some strawberry cake? It's on the house!

I'd like to thank you for helping me out before with that bug infestation… Business was really tough before you came along and got rid of them!"

The owner of Magnolia's cake shop just gifted me a cake. Sweet! Literally!

"No problem, I just did my job!" I said and took the cake with a smile.

"Take care of yourself kiddo!"

"You too pops!"

This guy's cakes are awesome! No wonder Erza loves them so much…

Whelp. It's about time I go and do another job today!