Petrel

Chapter 19

A year has passed since our first C-rank mission. Elsa and I began to advance in strength further and further, and, which is not surprising in principle, we have long since moved on to B-rank missions, and perhaps the only thing that distinguished them from C-rank was that we now had to destroy not ordinary beasts, but those that mutated under the influence of magic. It is also not surprising that we quickly gained manokat and at least 5 B-rank missions a week we completed. In theory, this should have slowed down our progress, but for some reason, after battles to the death with monsters, our reserves increased almost twice as much as we achieved in one go of our usual training. This moment, frankly speaking, made me suspect the presence of some hidden system in this world, but when I asked the master about it, everything turned out to be much simpler.

It was all about the emotions we received during such battles. They imperceptibly for us pumped up our magical power, and as a result, under the pressure of magical power, our containers expanded. Many tried to recreate the same emotions outside of battles in order to become stronger, but even under the influence of mind magic, the exhaust from artificially recreated emotions was hardly as effective as a fight with an opponent, albeit superior in number, but weak. For this reason, many try to look for stronger opponents in order to, so to speak, knock themselves unconscious. Why was there no such exhaust during sparring between me and Elsa as from a battle? Everything is actually simple here. We value each other too much to force each other to intentionally cause harm sufficient to send us into unconsciousness. But even so, from our usual training, although magical power is pumped up less, but physical power. It is pumped up almost 5 times faster. Despite the fact that I am 12 and Elsa is 13 years old and we look like beautiful and fragile girls, in terms of physical strength we are already at the level of S-rank mages, which also allows us to more easily accumulate a magical reserve.

In this world, the magic system is quite conveniently arranged in relation to the body. Here, your body will always be strong enough to be able to pass through itself as much magical energy as you can have in reserve, and compared to all sorts of magical channels, chains, etc., which would have to be pumped separately and constantly have the risk of overstraining them or even tearing them, thereby becoming a cripple, in this world everything is much more pleasant, simpler and more effective.

Today, Elsa and I decided to take on an A-rank quest for the first time. After all, we are already a high A-rank in reserve. And B-rank quests are too simple and have long felt like a routine. In fact, the main reason I wanted us to go on an A-rank quest was to persuade Elsa to focus on training after we reach S-rank strength, because with the way things are going, we will become the next mages who follow the principle of "hit harder and everything will be fine." And I hope that we will at least become such mages that they will be able to get out of any situation before officially becoming S-rank mages. After all, there will already be missions waiting for us from the category of destroying dark guilds, destroying monsters from the category of natural disasters, as well as tasks in which, first of all, in addition to strength, knowledge will also be needed.

Why do I think she'll agree with me after the A-rank mission? Because this time we have a mission to capture/eliminate a gang of bandits, and we'll most likely have to rescue hostages. I expect that a mission that requires combining strength and intelligence to safely rescue hostages will be a good example of why we need to develop a variety of capabilities in addition to strength.

According to the assignment, a gang of robbers appeared near a small village, periodically robbing food and taking girls. It is strange, in fact, that they are so reserved and took, so to speak, a little bit of everything, but this does not change the fact that the rune knights in Fiore are complete weaklings with a C rank at most. Most likely, this happened because being in a guild, compared to the army, gives freedom of action to magicians. Well, it is not particularly important. All the same, the main force of the council, oddly enough, are the chosen ones and strategic weapons like faces and eitherion. What does the chosen ones have to do with it? And given that by accepting the title of the chosen one, the magician undertakes to carry out the tasks of the council, although it is quite natural that this also gives many advantages. For example, Fairy Tail would no longer exist if Makarov did not have the title of the chosen one. The same Gildarts has long had the power of the God-chosen, but since the guild already has a Master who has taken on this title, then he, as a person who avoids responsibility as much as possible, does not need the title of God-chosen.

So I went somewhere far away. So here's the task. Since standard rune knights are not able to safely save hostages, such applications are sent to the guilds and now Elsa and I, thanks to my disguise, are standing almost right next to the guards of the bandit camp. We were waiting for the moment when the guard would change and it would be possible to quietly abduct the leaving bandit and find out from him where the hostages are.

- Hey Ralph. They say today they brought in some two blonde girls, one is 14 and the other is about 11. It seems like the pass to the rest tent will open in about 10 minutes after our shift ends, so if we hurry we can finally try what it's like to print a beautiful loli. - One of them said with a nasty smile.

-If you love lolis so much, then take care of the little one, and the older one at least looks the right age to have fun. - With contempt in his voice, despite his own plans, the one who was called Ralph answered.

Elsa was so angry at what she heard that she wanted to rush to destroy, but I managed to hold her back. Although I myself felt disgusted that they were planning to turn even children into sex slaves. But if we want to save them, we must act carefully.

-Elsa. I understand that you are angry, but we must save the hostages first, and not kill the bandits. Although one does not interfere with the other, but first the hostages. - Hugging her friend from behind and thus holding her back from rash actions.

-Then let's go inside quickly. I know that under your disguise we won't be noticed.

-My disguise hides our presence, but if someone looks directly at us, we will be noticed. It is not invisibility after all. So for now we need to find out the exact location of the hostages.

"Okay, but how do we do this?" a nervous Elsa asked me.

-Right now the only ways I can think of are to catch the robber and torture him or force him to take us where we need to go under the guise of hostages.

-T-try?- The clearly frightened friend asked again.

-Yes. Don't worry, I'll do everything myself, since I chose this mission, I'll do the most disgusting thing. - I answered with grim determination.

"Are you sure we can't do without this?" Elsa asked reluctantly.

-We don't know any spells of invisibility, search, or intelligence to do without it.

"I understand," my friend said, upset, but accepting my point of view.

Just at the moment when we were able to agree on what we would do, there was a change of guard, which meant that there was little time. As soon as only 2 new ones remained on guard, we immediately jumped out and, having muffled the surrounding sounds, tied up the hapless guards. Then it was a small matter, I decided that we had to hurry and decided to go according to the hostages' plan. Therefore, having previously caused them more pain, I said.

- Now you will lead us to the hostages under the guise of new kidnapped girls. And believe me, if I doubt your actions for even a second, I will personally cut off not only your genitals, but I will cut out your tendons and then leave you in the forest to be torn apart by animals, do I make myself clear? - I said this while creating a wind blade on my hand and thrusting my hand into a stone that was cut like butter. All this had an extremely strong effect on ordinary bandits and after 2 minutes we were standing with our hands falsely tied in front of the entrance to the tent, which was guarded by 4 guards.

- Hey, are we really going to get not 2, but 4 new girls?! - one of the guards asked happily.

-Hahaha, yes, they were literally running nearby, apparently they wanted to save their friends. But at least they will help reduce the load on them.

- Ah, what a lucky day it is. Let's bring them inside. - Said one of the guards and opened the entrance to the tent.

Inside we were greeted by a very strong smell of sweat, urine and most likely sex. In total I saw 12 girls inside, 4 of whom were already broken judging by their empty looks. And in the far corner two crying girls were hugged by a girl of about 20.

"Are all of them hostages?" I asked my guide.

"Y-yes," he answered, trembling with fear.

-Okay. - As soon as I said this, I tore the rope on my hands and knocked out, strengthening myself with the charms of the heavenly dragon and telekinesis, in a couple of moments I incapacitated all the nearby bandits.

- So, everyone, listen to me. - I attracted the attention of the girls who had been looking at the defeated bandits in amazement. - We are magicians from Fairy Tail and have come to save you, so those who are in a sane state, please help your sisters in misfortune move. We will lead you out of the camp, and then we will clean it up.

-But there are a lot of them there and there are magicians among them. How can we get past them? - One of the girls said.

- Don't worry, we are already close to S-rank mages in strength. - Said Elsa, who had only just recovered from the shock of seeing the state of most of the girls.

-Okay, enough wasting time. Get up and follow me.

Leaving the camp was easy enough for us. Elsa and I used bows to shoot the arms and legs of every bandit that came into our sight, and thanks to our physical abilities, it is not surprising that it seemed as if we were shooting not from magic bows, but from machine guns. Then we had little left to do, we led the girls to the village, where we were thanked by both the residents and the former captives themselves, who were quickly taken home by their families.

When we were about to leave, I noticed something strange. The two girls we saved. No one came to them except for the boy who hugged them and cried, and the villagers stood aside and looked as if if we had not been there, these children would have been pelted with stones.

This picture reminded me that the Strauss family had not yet come to Fairy Tail. And deciding to confirm my assumption, I approached the crying brothers and sisters.

- Sorry to distract you from the reunion, but is your last name Strauss by any chance? - I asked, successfully attracting the children's attention. Although it is not for me to call them children, considering that we are about the same age.

- Yes. And thank you again for saving us. - This time it was definitely Mirajane who answered, because she was the eldest among them, as far as I remember.

-Would you like to come to Fairy Tail with us? You are clearly mages and will most likely become strong in the future, and Fairy Tail is the best guild in Fiore. - I invited the Strauss family enthusiastically.

It took the sisters and brother literally a couple of moments to make their choice, and 10 minutes later we were all riding towards Fairy Tail. Meanwhile, I was thinking about how much this differed from the canon. After all, I'm almost sure that they should have come to the guild themselves much earlier, but it turned out that they walked right on the edge. Honestly, now I don't know if I should go check on Gray, otherwise he might as well die without outside help, and honestly, I would still prefer that Gray's teacher's story turned out less tragic.