To say Gelmund was shocked would be an understatement.
'How did he locate me? Wasn't he near Makarov a minute ago? How fast is he? What's his purpose? W—'
CRACK
His thoughts were interrupted as he felt intense pressure on his head, followed by a cracking sound.
"NO! I will tell you anything. Please stop!" Despite feeling an intense amount of pain, Gelmund managed to say that out in a neutral tone.
"Who hired you?" Kazu coldly asked.
"We don't ask details of the client. Only the payment."
CRACK
"Agh..." The grip tightened. If Gelmund was not sure before, he now surely knew that his skull had cracks in it.
"Seems that you are telling the truth." Kazu lightly smiled.
'This fucker!' Gelmund didn't show his anger outwardly.
"Which organisation are you part of?"
"Baskerville."
"How much money were you paid for this mission?"
"1 Billion."
Kazu's eyes widened.
'Now!' Gelmund was looking for this exact opportunity.
Kazu's hand, which was tightly gripping Gelmund's skull, lost contact with Gelmund. It was now touching nothing, as a spatial distortion appeared there.
Kazu instinctively pulled back, afraid that if Gelmund cancelled his spell, he would lose his arm.
He turned to Gelmund, whose half of the body was already submerged in the ground, rapidly going downwards on the other side of another portal.
"I would fucking kill you and everyone in your guild." He said that when his head was the only part left to go through the portal.
Whoosh.
Suddenly, Gelmund found his vision changing, as the world started revolving.
He saw the sky, followed by other mountains. Then came Kazu calmly looking at him, before—
His eyes widened when he saw the portal on the ground, now disappearing.
"You know. Only one person is alive after threatening me like that." That was the last thing Gelmund heard before everything went black.
Thud
His head dropped on the snow.
Kazu looked at it for a few seconds before releasing a sigh. "How am I going to explain this to the master?"
---
"So..."
"I am sorry." Kazu didn't meet his gaze, looking at the ground with a guilty expression.
He didn't want to kill a person when Makarov was around.
Makarov released a sigh. "Did you have the option to not kill him?"
Kazu pursed his lips. "If I hadn't decided to interrogate him in the beginning and instead had knocked him out, then he wouldn't have tried to escape. He was pretty fast in his spell, so I wasn't able to stop him when he caught me off-guard..."
"So, you thought it's too dangerous to let him escape? So, you decided to kill him when you can't capture him?"
Kazu paused. "That too, but he threatened to go after the guild. So, I moved on instinct."
Makarov frowned. "I see. Did you provoke him in the interrogation? Why do you always go around making enemies?"
"Master, I was angry. I didn't provoke him directly... i think so. Also, I don't go around making enemies." Kazu defended himself.
"Well, we are definitely going to talk about this later. Did you get any information out of him?"
Kazu nodded. "He is part of an organisation called Baskerville, and the price he was paid was 1 billion."
Makarov's eyes widened. He turned to the head lying on the ground. "Where is his body?"
Kazu deadpanned. "It went through the portal. Do you really think he would carry that amount of money in such a mission?"
Makarov coughed. "Ahem. Anyway, Baskerville is a dark guild. He might have a bounty, so you could claim it later." He swiped his hand, and the head disappeared.
'Reequip magic. Master really knows several kinds of magic.' Kazu observed.
They got back to the carriage and continued their journey.
'Guess, that training to improve my Instinct magic last year was worth it.' The only good thing about this whole ordeal was how Kazu was able to react to the near-perfect assassination attempt.
Everything had happened very quickly. Due to that, not much time was present for him to think. Whatever perception he had was due to his instincts. Any thought that came to his mind was short and broken, which wasn't comprehensible to a normal person, but Kazu could instinctively understand them.
This idea was inspired by Kazu by seeing computers in his previous life, on how they work in binary. Though that's because that's how they work, and not because it gives speed, it was enough to give Kazu an idea.
'It's a shame that I have not optimised it enough to use in day-to-day life. Though even with high Ethernano consumption, I could still use it for training.'
The rest of the day was uneventful, with Kazu mainly focusing on practising his barrier magic.
---
"The room is not bad." Kazu plopped on the bed. He had been given a separate room, which was prepared by the organisers.
'The meeting is supposed to go for around 16 hours, which is pretty ridiculous. I wonder what they will even discuss.' Kazu drifted to sleep.
He woke up at 6:30 and in the next half an hour got ready for the meeting.
"Master, I am here." He knocked on the door.
"Yeah, let's go." Makarov came out.
They reached the room.
'Hold up. Will I have to stand for the entire 16 hours?' Kazu held back from cursing out loud. Though his body could easily support that, it's still annoying for him to do that.
People started trickling in, and in the next 5 minutes, all the seats were full. A person was standing behind all the guild masters, similar to Kazu.
Kazu looked around the meeting hall and recognised several figures.
'That old hag is the guild master of Lamia scale. She seems like she would drop dead any second.' Kazu held back a chuckle. His gaze shifted to the figure behind her, who waved at him.
Kazu waved back. 'Jura Neekis. One of the Wizard Saints. Shouldn't he be allowed to sit at least? He is stronger than most of the people in the room.' Kazu, along with Gray had met him last year, when they were on a mission to retrieve a book related to Darkness magic.
He then shifted his gaze to another bald person in the room. 'That's some fashion sense.' Kazu looked at the Blue Pegasus's guild master, Bob.
'Though ignoring his looks, he is pretty strong. He is pretty close to S-rank, if not already S-rank.' There's a difference in how each guild categorises its S-rank members. A common standard that each guild follows is the ranking criteria for rogue mages that the council uses.
Fairy Tail's S-rank criteria are higher than the ones the Council uses.
'Well, I might be considered S-rank already if we go by the Council's whims.' Kazu shifted his gaze to the person standing behind Bob.
A blue-eyed girl stared back. She looked around the same age as Kazu. Her long, wavy blonde hair was tied in a ponytail.
Kazu kept eye contact, as if engaging in a staring contest.
However, after a few seconds, he was the first one to avert his gaze. 'What was her name again? Jenny? I remember her as Mira's rival in the modelling thing. I don't really remember her magic.'
He then looked at the guild master of Phantom Lord, another Wizard Saint.
'Well, looking by his expression, it seems like he has eaten shit. Well, it makes sense.' Kazu grinned. This year, after Laxus's ascension to S-rank, Fairy Tail was officially recognised as the strongest guild in Fiore, overthrowing Phantom Lord.
Kazu looked at the person behind Jose, who was seemingly glaring at him. It was a green-haired boy who seemed to be in his late teens. One of his distinguishing features was that he was wearing a monocle.
'Who's that? Should I taunt him?' Kazu really wanted to tease the guy. However, suddenly he remembered Makarov's words from yesterday, causing him to lose his smile.
'Right. No need to make enemies needlessly.'
He observed all the people in the room, and he came to a shocking realisation.
'I am stronger than most of the people present in the room. Even the guild masters.' Kazu didn't know what to think about it. Though he knew that he was pretty close to reaching the strength Eris had portrayed, it now became clear when he compared himself to the top mages of Fiore.
'I shouldn't get arrogant. My instincts aren't that reliable. Moreover, according to Gildarts, after entering the S-rank level, the power comparison is pretty complicated. He said you could defeat somebody, but lose to somebody that person had defeated. So, I can't say with a guarantee that I would win in a 1v1.'
"Ahem!"
Kazu turned to an old man, who was the speaker of this meeting.
"I am glad that everyone is here. It has been a while since we met. I will start with announcing major things that have happened since we last met." He went straight to the point, contrary to what Kazu had expected.
***
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