"How did you find out about this place?" Ultear asked, her eyes wide with genuine shock.
Meredy, Flare, and Sorano mirrored her disbelief. When Finn had mentioned a detour, they fully expected him to visit one of his other conquests, or perhaps sneak into the Fairy Tail lodgings to satisfy his seemingly insatiable desire to claim every beautiful mage in Fiore.
"..."
Instead, Finn had led them into a hidden, subterranean cavern system deep beneath the capital. The air was incredibly dense, and Ultear could feel a thick, ancient, and highly unique magical energy suffocating the atmosphere.
"My bird familiars found it by coincidence," Finn replied smoothly.
"Ah."
The women nodded, immediately dropping the subject. They knew perfectly well that with his network of familiars and optical illusions, absolutely nothing in Fiore could escape his gaze. It was safe to assume he already knew every secret this city had to offer.
"So... have you figured out what happens in this city every year during the Grand Magic Games?" Meredy asked casually, stepping over a jagged rock.
Unlike Flare and Sorano—whose primary objective in life was simply to serve and please Finn—Meredy and Ultear hadn't forgotten their original Crime Sorcière mission: investigating the dark, malignant magic that plagued Crocus annually.
"It's directly connected to the royal family," Finn answered.
"Huh?"
"Don't overthink it. I will handle it when the time comes."
"Okay...?" Ultear raised an eyebrow. She had a hundred questions. If Finn already knew the truth about the royal conspiracy, why was he just sitting on his hands?
Before Ultear could formulate a response, Meredy bluntly voiced what they were all thinking. "Why haven't you stopped it yet? Are you planning to use whatever they're doing to blackmail the King and conquer Fiore?"
Her tone wasn't accusatory; she was genuinely just curious about his logistical strategy. But her bluntness left Ultear, Sorano, and Flare staring at Finn in stunned silence, eagerly awaiting his master plan.
"Hmm...." Finn glanced at Meredy.
Realizing she might have spoken too freely, Meredy flushed and offered a highly awkward, defensive smile. "D-Don't spank me for asking, okay?"
"...I wasn't going to," Finn sighed. He knew perfectly well that Meredy had nailed his intentions exactly, but he wasn't about to admit it out loud. If he did, wouldn't that just make him a cartoon villain?
"I know exactly what is happening in the capital, but if I try to expose it now, no one will believe me," Finn explained defensively.
"Is there a specific reason for that?" Ultear pressed.
"Let's put it this way," Finn stopped walking and turned to face the four of them. "If someone walked up to you right now and said I was a tyrant, a villain, or a literal demon plotting to conquer the world and turn everyone into my personal subjects... would you believe them?"
"Er..."
All four women broke eye contact, looking at the cave walls. Deep down, they all universally agreed that yes, it was highly probable Finn would do exactly that.
"...It actually hurts a little that you all agreed so quickly," Finn muttered, rubbing his temples. He genuinely hadn't expected them to doubt his moral compass that easily.
"Sorry, sorry!"
"Yes, yes, we know you're wonderful, we're sorry!"
"But Finn-sama, even if you did dominate the world, that would be a good thing, right?"
"Yeah! I feel like even if you are a demon, you're our good demon."
"....."
As the four women eagerly crowded around him to stroke his ego, Finn seriously wondered if he had accidentally given them severe Stockholm Syndrome. He had corrupted them so thoroughly that their moral compasses now pointed exclusively to his benefit.
To them, the idealistic concepts of freedom, justice, and the "power of love" were entirely hollow. They had seen the darkest, most brutal sides of Earthland. Love hadn't saved their families, their childhoods, or their innocence. But Finn had. He offered them a pragmatic, brutally effective reality where they were safe, powerful, and unconditionally protected. If his method of fixing the world involved absolute domination, they were fully prepared to be his most fanatical enforcers.
"...Stop touching me there. This cave is damp and dirty," Finn scolded lightly, swatting a pair of wandering hands away from his belt. "We can continue this back at the hotel once we're finished here."
"Okay," they nodded obediently in unison.
"..." Finn shook his head. "Anyway, even if I tell the royalty the truth about their own project, they won't believe me because it shatters their desperate idealism. Unless you have absolute trust in someone, it's incredibly difficult to accept a harsh truth that directly contradicts your deepest wishes."
"...That's surprisingly deep," Meredy noted softly.
"Perhaps. But let's keep moving. We're getting close, and frankly, I don't want to stay in this damp place any longer than necessary."
They pressed deeper into the subterranean abyss until the narrow tunnel abruptly opened into a colossal, cavernous chamber.
"This is...?!"
The girls froze in their tracks, their eyes widening in absolute horror and awe at the landscape stretching out before them.
"Dragon bones," Finn stated calmly.
They were standing in a massive, ancient graveyard entirely littered with the fossilized remains of hundreds of dragons. It was a subterranean crypt hidden directly beneath the bustling capital of Fiore. This was the true reason Finn had slipped away from the arena.
Even with Finn confirming what they were looking at, Flare, Sorano, Meredy, and Ultear were entirely at a loss for words. It was a sight out of a mythological nightmare.
"...This...? How long has all of this been down here?" Ultear asked, her voice trembling slightly as she stared up at a ribcage the size of a cathedral.
"Roughly four hundred years," Finn provided the trivia easily. "Dragons were driven to extinction on this continent four centuries ago. All that remains of them now are these bones, their rotting corpses, or the crystallized Lacrima you occasionally see sold on the black market."
"Why did they go extinct?" Flare asked, stepping closer to Finn for comfort.
"Because they were apex predators," Finn explained. "To most dragons, humans were just food, and destroying a village was considered light entertainment. But eventually, a faction of dragons decided to coexist with humanity instead of slaughtering them. That ideological divide sparked a catastrophic civil war known as the Dragon King Festival."
"Why on earth would a dragon want to team up with a human?" Sorano asked, genuinely confused. In her mind, dragons were just giant, violent beasts. Why would a beast care about a person?
"Drop your preconceived prejudices," Finn warned her gently. "Dragons are the ultimate lifeforms. They might look like monsters, but their intellect equals or surpasses human intelligence. Combine that hyper-intelligence with physical invulnerability and absolute magical immunity, and you have a race of untouchable gods."
Finn paused, looking out over the sea of bones. "As for why they chose to protect humans? Probably for the exact same reasons humans do anything. Love, ideology, philosophy, or simple curiosity. In the end, humans and dragons aren't all that different. They formed factions, argued over who was morally correct, and ultimately annihilated each other to prove a point."
He rolled his shoulders, stretching his neck. "But we can discuss ancient history back at the hotel. Right now, I need to claim this."
Finn stepped forward, walking directly up to a massive, beautifully preserved horned skull. He pressed his bare palm against the ancient bone. Even after four centuries, he could feel the residual, terrifying density of draconic magic lingering deep within the marrow.
He closed his eyes, his own magic power surging and synchronizing with the ancient fossil.
"Take Over."
In a blinding flash of ethereal light, the colossal skeleton began to dissolve, the ancient draconic essence aggressively pulling into Finn's body as he absorbed the power of a fallen dragon.