Marco's words made Felix inwardly grumble.
'Seems like Fairy Tail doesn't take the Magic Council seriously either...'
"If the Magic Council can't handle this, then Fairy Tail will take matters into our own hands. We absolutely cannot back down from something like this!" Marco added, further fueling Felix's silent complaints.
'So Fairy Tail really doesn't respect us, huh?'
Despite his internal grumbling, Felix knew Marco's points were valid.
The nature of this incident was indeed extremely severe.
His earlier odd expression and hesitation had simply been because he wanted to vent—these Fairy Tail members really knew how to create work for them!
Thanks to Fairy Tail's existence, their workload was far heavier than their counterparts in other countries!
Felix hadn't forgotten that Marco had recently handed them a major headache—Jose Porla—whom they had just managed to pass off as a hot potato.
"I look forward to seeing your results," Marco concluded before leaving, leaving behind a slightly flustered Branch Director.
Felix felt threatened, though he had no concrete evidence.
After all, Marco had spoken with righteous conviction.
Though his words were somewhat aggressive, his intentions seemed noble—as if he genuinely cared about the Magic Council and maintaining order in the magical world.
"How did Savalu manage to offend Marco?" Felix wondered after Marco's departure.
The conflict between the Heartfilia Konzern and the southern nobles hadn't yet spread, so Felix was naturally puzzled by Marco's intense hostility towards Duke Savalu.
"Regardless, we must dispatch the investigation team and the enforcement unit!"
Despite his confusion, Felix couldn't refuse the credit Marco had practically handed him.
This matter wasn't too difficult to handle.
...
Soon, the Magic Council's specialized forces were deployed.
The Council, of course, had its own professional armed units—magical ones at that.
After all, their targets were Dark Guilds, so they needed magical troops capable of carrying out arrests.
...
"The Magic Council's enforcement unit surrounded Duke Savalu's mansion, and he was taken away without resistance."
A few days later, Marco received the news.
Things had gone surprisingly smoothly—Savalu hadn't even put up a fight before being apprehended by the Magic Council.
"That's it?" Marco couldn't help clicking his tongue.
Was the Magic Council's intimidation really that effective?
That previously arrogant Savalu didn't even have the courage to gather his men and resist when faced with the Council's arrest warrant?
"Have we been underestimating the Magic Council all this time?"
Marco began to reflect—had their perception of the Magic Council within Fairy Tail become somewhat distorted?
Had both sides developed a stereotype of each other?
The Magic Council viewed Fairy Tail as 'troublemakers' 'the source of chaos' and 'creating problems where none existed'.
Meanwhile, Fairy Tail saw the Magic Council as a bunch of nagging busybodies who meddled in everything and constantly pestered them.
Mutual disdain, one might say.
Regardless, Savalu's arrest was now a fact.
Though his sentencing hadn't been decided yet, he likely wouldn't be causing more trouble—no one wanted to see him free to stir up more chaos.
The Fiore Kingdom government cooperated with the Magic Council to take over Duke Savalu's southern territories.
The Council even issued requests to mobilize Magic Guilds in cleansing the Dark Guilds operating within Savalu's domain.
"So... the real privileged class in this world are the mages," Jude remarked with some emotion at this outcome.
Duke Savalu had seemed like an overwhelmingly powerful opponent to him—a thorn in Fiore Kingdom's side.
Yet after Marco's intervention and the Magic Council's involvement, everything changed.
Faced with Marco, Savalu became hesitant and powerless.
He couldn't even hire assassins from Dark Guilds to eliminate Marco, because all the Dark Guilds he could contact combined probably still couldn't match Marco.
His only option was targeting Jude.
And after Marco exposed his misdeeds and the Magic Council stepped in, Savalu couldn't even muster a resistance.
Confronted with the Council's authority and enforcement unit, he didn't dare fight back.
Throughout this, the Fiore Kingdom government played almost no active role, merely taking over Savalu's territories after his arrest—a textbook case of reaping benefits without effort.
A true 5.0 performance rating... though perhaps a 7.5 would be fairer since at least they didn't interfere.
"Isn't this perfectly normal?" Marco said matter-of-factly. "Those who wield power naturally seek corresponding status. Could society remain stable if the powerful class lacked proper standing? Ishgar's current relative peace exists precisely because mages hold special status."
As a member of Fairy Tail, Marco knew better than anyone whether mages enjoyed privileges.
Without such status, given Fairy Tail's typical behavior, half their members would probably be behind bars by now.
In a way, the existence of the Magic Council and its long-standing regulations truly provided ordinary people with the conditions to live normal lives, rather than being forced to serve as mere servants to the mages.
If not for the Magic Council and its rules, Marco wouldn't have needed to waste words with people like Duke Savalu at all.
There would have been no need to gather evidence of the Duke's crimes—just one solid slap would have settled the matter.
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