Chapter 19

After several stories, I touched down just outside of Yonju Town, setting Levy down on her feet. "Thank you for flying Air Ash," I joked. "Tip generously."

She giggled and dusted off her dress. "Dork," she told me. "So, who posted the request?"

"It was the mayor," I told her. "Makes sense, this is a situation affecting the entire town, so him taking action and sending out a request is perfectly normal. They have to act in the town's best interests, after all."

She hummed and nodded. "So, Mayor's office first," she agreed. "So, let's ask some locals!"

"You go ahead," I tell her. "I'm the socially awkward one."

She snorted. "You've gone on so many missions, how can you say that you're socially awkward with how much you have to interact with people?"

"Fake it till you make it," I said simply.

"We'll get that out of you someday," she told me.

"Yeah, maybe when pigs can fly without magic or machinery helping them," I told her.

She flicked my nose, making me recoil in surprise. "No need to be a dick about it," she said sternly.

I paused and grimaced. "… You're right, sorry," I apologised immediately. I was just anxious with so many people looking at me since I'd yet to hide my wings, it was making me default to dry humour and aggression to hide how uncomfortable it made me.

I took a deep breath and re-applied the transformation magic, hiding my wings and halo once more. "I think it's best you do the talking," I told her. With most jobs I couldn't avoid talking to people, but if I could avoid it then I would.

She nodded and gently held my hand. "We'll help you get over this," she promised. "I'll do the talking, but we'll try and get you over your anxiety someday, okay?"

"… At the very least, I'll try," I told her.

She smiled and nodded. "And that's all I ask, that you try."

"Alright," I nodded at her words. "We'll talk about that later. For now, we have work to do."

She nodded and took the lead, taking us over to a young woman who was walking down the street with some groceries.

The young woman was very helpful, telling us how to get to the town hall. "You can't miss it," she told us. "It's the big house around the middle of the town; doubles as both the mayor's house and his office. It's got a nice little garden out front, lots of flowers out front. Like I said, you can't miss it."

"Thank you," Levy smiled as she gently pulled me along towards the Mayor's house.

Indeed, we couldn't miss it. Lots of pretty flowers in a rainbow of colours out front. The house was big. Bigger than the average house, at least, enough to make it stand out among all of the smaller houses in town.

We made our way to the door and Levy knocked firmly three times.

The door opened after about a minute of waiting, revealing a portly man with black hair and a fine moustache. He looked to be cheerful, but the bags under his eyes told me that he'd been having many sleepless nights as of late.

"Are you both mages?" He asked with a hopeful voice. "The ones I requested?"

"Yes sir," Levy smiled. "I'm Levy, this is my partner, Ash. We're Team Ragnarök."

"Thank goodness," he looked relieved. "I'd been so worried about the salamander nest nearby since our best trade is rice. If the Salamanders happened to wander near the rice field, it would cause us so many problems! Please, come in, come in!"

He urged us inside, and we gladly stepped in. A quick look around the house showed that, despite its size, it was a very modest home. Not bare bones, but it was cozy and warm, almost everything was practical with a few extra touches for aesthetics here and there.

He led us to the living room and gestured for us to sit before he sat opposite us. "The Salamanders showed up about two weeks ago," the Mayor told us. "I've been so worried ever since, especially because fire monsters are the most dangerous since our main export and trade is rice. Luckily, the Salamanders haven't been spotted near our rice fields yet. But that is yet, and I don't want to take the risk. If possible, I want you to clear out the Salamanders but also find out what brought them here in the first place. It's not migration season for them, and they never come near Yonju Town."

"You're concerned there is foul play involved," I voiced.

"Yes," he nodded. "I'm not sure who, but I'm fairly certain that there must be some kind of foul play. There's no reason for Salamanders to come here when they usually prefer wastelands and mountains."

"You've done your research," Levy noted, sounding impressed.

"Of course!" He nodded. "I take the safety and wellbeing of Yonju Town very seriously! I grew up here, and I plan to take care of this town with all my heart!"

Levy smiled, and I nodded. It was obvious to see that the Mayor was incredibly passionate about the town, it was no wonder he was losing sleep over the Salamanders. If they wandered near their rice farms…

"We'll take care of it," Levy nodded firmly. "Can you tell us about the last sighting of the Salamanders?"

"It would be due north of here," he told us. "About a mile or two out."

"Any distinguishable landmarks?"

He shook his head. "Nothing major…" He tapped his chin. "Actually, there's a particularly tall willow tree there, stands out above the rest of the trees."

"Alright, thank you for the help," Levy nodded and stood up. "We'll make sure to clear this mission."

"Thank you so much," he said in relief and showed us out politely before he closed the door.

"Something's off about this mission," I told Levy as we began to walk to the north exit of the town.

"I mean, obviously, but why in particular?" She asked.

"Salamanders are a C-Class monster, but they aren't too difficult to fight," I told her. I'd fought a few when doing C-Class missions, and they weren't that difficult. "The difficulty with Salamanders is the heat. They bodies naturally emit a lot of heat that causes their surroundings to heat up, and they also will go out of their way to burn things around them in order to increase the temperature. The Salamanders have been here for two weeks, and yet there's been no reports of a fire whatsoever, just that they've been spotted."

Her eyes widened. "Of course!" She muttered. "I forgot that they do that because their natural habitats are deserts and mountains, there isn't much to burn down in those places."

"Which means that it's likely that someone has brought the Salamanders here and is keeping them contained, planning to unleash them at the right time. It could also be purely to incite panic and fear, it's hard to say just what the goal of whoever brought them here is. Luckily, it's also our job to find out."

"What should we do?" Levy asked.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst," I told her. "We'll hope that it's just some stupid prank or a competitor taking drastic measures… But prepare for a worst case scenario of Dark Mages."

She nodded quickly, taking a deep breath to mentally prepare myself. That was when I saw a gold ring appear in her eyes, around her pupils.

"Is that Eye Magic?" I couldn't help but asked.

She looked at me and smiled. "I said I was planning to develop Eye Magic," she reminded me. "This is my Eye Magic; I call them the Rune Eyes. Not only am I able to read at the same speed as Gale Force Reading Glasses, but I'm also able to unleash my Letter Magic directly with my eyes just by thinking of a word instead of needing to spell it out. I haven't tried compound words yet, but I'm making progress!"

That was… Very clever. I recalled that I'd told her I was going to develop my own eye magic awhile ago, and she'd expressed interest in the same thing. I hadn't expected that she'd actually go ahead and do it though.

"I'm impressed," I complimented her as I activated my own eye magic, causing one of my eyes to shift from brown to blue.

"Oh, how pretty," her eyes lit up, the golden rings making her eyes look even more stunning as a result.

'This girl just doesn't play fair,' I mentally lamented, despite knowing that Levy probably didn't realise the effect she was having on me.

[I mean, you have literal future knowledge to back you up.] BB pointed out teasingly. [I think she's just using her own feminine advantages~ Nothing wrong with that, Senpai~]

'I don't remember asking,' I huffed at BB, unable to fight the redness blooming on my face.

"Aww, you're blushing, so cute," Levy cooed out as she pinched my cheek.

"Not the time for flirting, Levy," I told her, mentally cursing out BB who just laughed in the back of my mind. "Mission first, flirting later."

Her smile faded as a serious look came to her face, and she nodded. "Right," she agreed. "I'll enjoy seeing your cute blushing later, for now we should focus up."

"… Was it necessary to mention that I'm cute when I blush?"

She just smirked and didn't answer as she took the lead, hips swaying.

'This bitch…'

The trip north was quiet and comfortable as we decided to walk the mile. We might be spotted by whoever was taking care of the salamanders, but they would almost certainly spot us if we came from the air because there were no clouds in the sky today.

Then again, how often did people look up in this world?

Eh, it was probably fairly often, there were various kinds of magic to allow one to fly after all. Even Erza could do so when she equipped certain armours, and people seemed to have a pretty huge jumping ability when using magic.

Soon enough, the two of us reached the forest where the Salamanders had been spotted… The fact we couldn't smell any burning was definitely a sign that someone had hidden the Salamanders and was keeping them contained, only allowing sightings of them to scare people off and warn them.

In other words, they wanted to keep people away while they looked for something in this area.

"Levy, this will be a good chance for you," I told her.

"How so?" She tilted her head.

"Use your letter magic to scout the area," I told her. "Try the words 'Scan Radius.'"

"Scan Radius?" She asked. "What does scan mean?"

"It's a word similar to scout," I told her, aware 'scan' probably wasn't a common world in this Fantasy place. "Basically, to search for something or study something. It's used to basically scout an area; Scan should be a more efficient word than Scout."

"And how is that spelt?"

"S-C-A-N," I spelt it for her.

She nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll give it a shot," she agreed. She took a breath, and I saw the rings around her eyes glow brightly as she wrote one word in the air while the other formed from the air around us.

SCAN RADIUS

The words glowed before I felt a 'pulse' of magic wash over the area, covering a huge radius… Maybe a few miles even.

"Ah…" Levy's eyes widened. "Woah… I can feel everything in this forest… Every living being, I can sense all of them and their exact locations, even what they are… This is amazing…!"

"In that case, are you able to confirm our suspicions?" I asked her.

"Yes," she nodded. "About a kilometre north, within a cave… I can sense ten Salamanders, and around them are twenty humans. The Salamanders were brought here intentionally, and they must have been the ones to do it."

"About a mile, huh?" I mused before I activated my God's Eye. With my own experience over the last month, I was able to double my range, allowing me to see up to a kilometre away.

Instantly, I found my eyes scouring through the forest as the scenery rushed past my senses, and I peered straight into a cave at the humans… Who had a guild marking on themselves familiar to me, one I'd been keeping an eye on since I knew they were coming up.

'But the question is, what is Eisenwald doing out here?'