Chapter 24 - Rofta’s goal

The 1st day of the festival was quickly over when Marc and co. had so much fun, though when Marc woke up the next day, he heard people talking about a high man with long black hair who wouldn't shut up about his love for little girls. After listening in on people's talk he finally understood what happened. Last night the man bar-hopped and wouldn't shut up about how little girls are cute and his future wife will be the cutest of them all. In short, he was a bonfire lolicon. Marc was very interested in this person because he seemed funny, yet Marc didn't manage to catch Rofta nervous behavior when they were about to leave the city.

When they were about to leave the city, they saw Genno, Antonio, and Lisa waiting for them. Marc and Rofta just assumed they were here to bid them farewell and walked up to them.

"Good morning Marc young-in and Rofta young-in. Maquarry City will be quiet without you, so we wanted to say farewell before leaving." Genno was the first one to open the conversation.

"Hmph, hurry and go away brats so I can begin remaking my lovely pavement again," Antonio said harshly with his arms crossed while saying stuff he didn't mean.

"Geezer, then you should make it studier so it won't be damaged so easily. If it can't take dropping a few small stones on it, then doesn't have much worth…" Marc hit Antonio where it hurts, his pride. He's the best stonemason in the country who renovates the royal family's castle and the wall surrounding the capital. He felt like if somebody said shit about your favorite anime waifu. The worst is that his dream waifu stood beside him but treated him like air, and was interested in a kid under half her age.

"Don't you dare criticize my pavement, or I will shut your-" Before Antonio could finish his threat, he felt a sudden killing intent dawning upon him that made him sweat buckets.

It wasn't until Genno came to his rescue that he could take a breather again. "Lady Heartfilia please don't be too hard on my friend. He didn't mean anything bad."

*Snort* "Don't let it happen again then. He's under my protection after all." Lisa said with a haughty attitude while completely ignoring Rofta as she only cares about Marc.

"Yes, I promise he won't do it again!" Declared Genno on behalf of Antonio, who just sighed and completely let go of his feelings for his old crush.

But someone was dissatisfied with one of the things she just said "Ey, I allowed you to tag along with us to the capital, but we certainly don't need a babysitter. If you are hell-bent on wiping our ass' then you better fuck off!!" Marc didn't sugar coat any of his words because if there's one thing he hated more than anything then it's people intervene in his business. His journey has just started and he would be dammed if this chick would take all the fun from him. Most would find his thinking stupid because who wouldn't want a really powerful mage protecting you in this dangerous world?

Before going separate ways yesterday after the 1st day of the festival was over, she asked about his plan and he just explained what he agreed on with Rofta. After hearing it, Lisa asked if she could travel with him and Marc didn't find anything wrong with it at that time so he just agreed. But now...

"N-No no no no, I won't get in your way, I swear in the name of the Celestial King !" Lisa got flustered and panicked while waving her arms around in a hurry to calm Marc down. Antonio was about to cry because of the unfairness of the world and even Genno found it hard to believe that the normally prideful and harsh lady is acting so mellow because of Marc, but he just thought "as expected, Marc young-in isn't an ordinary kid at all..."

As he heard her promise, he immediately let go of his frown and smiled "Then we have no problems."

After Marc finished showing who wear the pants, they said their farewells and proceeded to go out of the city and travel to the capital.

…

"I just thought of something, what's the capital called?" Marc wondered if it's called Crocus like it was called in canon. He didn't know much of its previous history, so he asked Rofta and Lisa that walked beside him.

"Cro-" Before Rofta could answer, Lisa beat him to it and said, "it's called Crocus also known as the Flower Blooming Capital." Rofta frowned in displeasure, but didn't say anything because he knows she's way beyond his capabilities for now that is…

"So it was still called that in this timeline. Guess Antonio's bragging about his walls wasn't empty words if it going to be the same for hundreds of years in the future…" Marc thought the Kingdom of Fiore would have moved or changed the name of the Capital over the many years, but it seems like that wasn't the case.

"I see. Well, I will run ahead and check things out." Marc was a little too excited and wanted to explore a little so he was about to run off, but he stopped as he saw Lisa was about to follow him. "I want to go alone," Marc told her, making her a little disheartened. She didn't want to be a nuisance to Marc so she stayed with Rofta.

Rofta observed her various expressions she had the last hour after Marc ran off. At first sad, then she rebuilt her bearing and looked like an overbearing woman with tons of confidence, to a nervous look while looking the way Marc ran away before she began panicking a little while biting her nails still waiting for Marc's return. Rofta couldn't help raise his eyebrows, baffled about what Marc did to break such a strong woman. They didn't exchange a single word between them as nobody wanted to open the conversation, but Rofta couldn't hold back after he saw her begin biting her thump hard enough to let blood flow out. "Would you stop it already and calm down?"

When Lisa heard that she glared at him for a second making Rofta regret not shutting his mouth for a second, but then she asked "He's been away for over an hour already. Do you think he's okay? Do you think he's hurt? He might have run into trouble, or maybe he's waiting for us? He might have… We should go and find him!" She began thinking of all kinds of scenarios of what could have happened to Marc with a worried tone, making Rofta mouth open and close when he heard some of them. "Maybe some other woman kidnapped him and stole him away from me. I have to save him before they do anything I haven't done yet. What if they are rapping him? We have to hurry and save him!!"

"Pfft…Ahahahaha…" Rofta couldn't help laughing when he imagined tons of mothers kidnapping Marc and forcing him to do things against his will. Karma, that's what it is. Rofta can't count how many times Marc has cheated women for food with his innocent look. He always looked so smug after getting it, annoying Rofta as he couldn't do the same because he looks like a pirate according to Marc.

Lisa heard him laugh and didn't like it one bit. She was just about to move and beat him to a pulp and Rofta realized it too. "He will soon come back!! Marc always runs off at some point and manages to come back with trouble. You shouldn't worry about him but instead be ready to either run or deal with the problems that will follow him…" Rofta said with a wry smile when he remembers what a trouble magnet Marc is, but also showed a little smile as he's also fun traveling with. Lisa stopped in her tracks when she got information about Marc.

"What do you mean-" Before she finished her sentence she began hearing the sound of animals running? She wasn't sure but she looked in the direction of where Marc left and could barely see a horde of rabbits running in their direction with a fast pace that left a dust cloud behind. When they got closer her mouth opened wide at the funny sight of giant multi-colored green-furred rabbits with ears that had feathers and looked like wings. What left her speechless was the sight of Marc sitting on the front runner's head with a stick pinned through a carrot while holding it in front of its nose.

(A/N: Fantasy rabbit reference here if you are interested...)

"So he's finally here…Are you going to do something about it, or are we running?" Rofta wasn't that shocked but he still managed to be surprised.

Lisa's eyebrows twitched a little when he mentioned running. If the proud guild master is seen running from a horde of weak rabbits then she would be laughing stock. But newer the less she decided to move away from Rofta as she saw Marc on the rabbit looking at Rofta with a nasty grin.

Rofta saw it too but he was about to jump in a tree as there are way too many giant rabbits for him to take on. He can only manage to use his magic on 7 opponents as of right now, so doesn't want to fight a pack of over 50 giant rabbits that are going full speed in his direction. But before he could climb a tree he heard Marc yell "Are you going to hide from a few cute rabbits? I thought your magic was supposed to be strong against multiple opponents but I guess I thought too highly of your magic…" Marc used his best skills in life, taunting and bullshitting. If those skills reach Max-level one day, he might be able to persuade a king to peek at his wife bathing, together...

Rofta stopped himself from climbing the tree and walked out in the open instead to get a better view. He knew Marc was just spouting crap as usual, but after his words, he was reminded of some harsh words his father and mother told him before he ran away from home with the stolen Inverted World Magic grimoire that his parents forbid him from learning. He will show them that he can beat his grandfather one day with it. So what if Rofta's a genius in his family's magic? He doesn't like using it!

The rabbits came closer and closer and before they came too close, Rofta placed his hands together and activated his magic. A wide invisible domain was created that barely managed to cover 25 giant rabbits. This was his absolute limit right now. He didn't pull his sword out as he wanted only to focus on his magic right now. At first, he just wanted to change the course of the leading rabbit Marc's sitting on but abandoned that idea as it wouldn't challenge his magic use at all. Instead, he began making 5 of them stop and run backward, making chaos happen in their formation. The rabbits jumped all over the place in different directions to evade their weird fellow rabbits that suddenly began going in the wrong direction.

Half of the rabbits wanted to jump away, but they found themselves jumping into each other. It was Rofta that just managed to smash through his bottleneck and influence more foes than he used to with his Inverted World Magic. Now he can control 12 people's sense of direction at a time when they are in his domain as his limit without moving.

"I will get stronger than grandfather no matter what. Just you wait and see!!" Rofta thought while he felt a terrible pain in his head after Marc forced himself to go beyond his limit.

Meanwhile, Marc dropped the stick with the carrot on, he ended up diving into a bush at the side of the road with his legs dangling in the air. The rabbit he rode was eating the dropped carrot…

***

(A/N: Just Marc fooling around and the reveal of Rofta's goal. He realized his bad habit of taking the easy way and it would take much more to beat his grandfather."

(A/N: Could somebody come up with a cool name for this type of rabbit species that I will add in the next chapter? We can't have an unnamed mount in the story...)

(A/N: I plan on adding more fantasy creatures to the story as I have always thought Fairy Tail didn't have enough. If you have JUST the right reference please post it. Bye.)

(Words: 2140)