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The celebration in the streets didn't even last an hour before the reality of the war slammed right back into our faces.
The morning after the Magic Council investigators dragged the corrupt merchant away in suppression cuffs, the atmosphere in the guildhall was dead silent. The local Magnolia town guards were completely useless against high-tier wizards, and everyone knew it. Before the Council robes left our territory, the lead investigator gave Mavis a blunt warning: the merchant was just a frontman for a massive noble coalition in the capital, and those aristocrats wouldn't let their trade monopolies collapse without a fight.
They didn't waste any time. Within a week, the first wave of retaliatory blockades hit our provincial borders.
It started small—a burned cargo wagon on the southern highway, a few traveling merchants getting jumped by rogue mages, and spiked barricades popping up on the provincial roads overnight. At first, the boys would sprint out of the guildhall every time an alarm sounded, full of energy and eager to crack some skulls. But noble gold is an endless well, and they just kept hiring more swords. Weeks bled into months, the easy victories dried up, and the fights turned into a grinding, repetitive routine of tracking supply lines and sleeping in wet cloaks.
By the time the autumn rains arrived, the transition was complete. The cozy, warm winter vibes inside our new guildhall had faded into ancient history. The northern snows had long since melted away, replaced by a miserable, never-ending downpour that turned the entire valley into a swamp. A full year had crawled by in that relentless, muddy blur, and the capital lords were still throwing wealth at every cutthroat mercenary guild in Ishgar, desperate to choke Magnolia into submission.
Yuri POV
Out in a narrow, jagged valley miles from the town borders, I leaned my weight against a half-destroyed stone supply bridge, breathing like a broken bellows. Mud, thick and grey, covered me from my boots straight up to my hair. My fingers twitched against the hilt of my sword, slick with rainwater.
Just thirty yards down the path, a thirty-man mercenary vanguard marched toward me in a tight, synchronized line. They had heavy iron tower shields locked edge-to-edge. Behind that wall of metal, their caster mages stood with their hands glowing a steady, threatening blue, ready to rain fire magic down the second I blinked.
Calm down, I told myself, forcing my racing pulse to steady as I centered the Ethernano inside my container. If you charge in blind like last month, they're just going to counter you and break your ribs again. Keep it tight. Compress it.
I clamped down on the raw power, forcing the electricity down into thin, high-frequency piercing threads that hummed with a sharp buzz right along the edge of my blade.
"Alright, you armored tin cans," I muttered, spitting a bit of grit out of my mouth as a sharp smirk cut through the mud on my face. "Let's see you block this."
I blurred forward, skipping the massive explosions entirely to slip right between the narrow gaps of the incoming tower shields. My sword became a streak of golden sparks. Clang! Crack! I didn't waste power trying to slash through heavy iron plating. Instead, I drove the lightning threads straight into their exposed armor joints, shattering their gauntlets and bursting the hilts right out of the mercenaries' hands before they could even complete an incantation.
Three mercenary captains in the back row realized their front line was collapsing. They pivoted, trying to flank me from the left with their spears raised to skew my ribs.
Precht POV
Yuri was already overextending his left flank like a complete idiot. He was moving fast, but he was leaving his blind spot wide open for those three captains.
Before they could even take a step toward him, I let out a breath and stepped from the treeline shadows. The rattling of my heavy iron chains was almost completely drowned out by the pounding rain. I didn't play like a quick-stabbing rogue anymore; a year of constant ambushes on these roads taught me that knives don't hold a frontline.
I snapped my wrists forward, launching the iron chains straight through the mud like striking vipers.
Lock them down. Give them everything.
The second the heavy iron links latched onto the wet stones beneath the mercenaries' boots, I flooded my container's energy straight through the metal links. The atmospheric weight inside a ten-yard radius spiked. The fifteen surrounding mercenaries were slammed flat into the mud, their bodies collapsing under a sudden, crushing downward pressure. Their heavy iron armor became an impossible prison, pinning their chests to the dirt so hard they couldn't even lift their jaws to yell.
"Yuri! Clean them up!" I called out, keeping my boots firmly planted to maintain the weight.
Yuri looped back around in a flash of golden current, using the opening to cleanly tap his hilt against the back of their helmets, knocking out the immobilized targets before they could even process the trap.
"Clean sweep," Yuri wheezed, sheathing his blade as the last mercenary slumped into the muck. He walked over to the back of their cargo cart, hoisting a heavy, dented iron chest full of salvaged noble gold over his shoulder. "Man, your gravity trick gets creepier every time I see it, Precht."
"It saves magic," I said flatly, pulling the chains back into my sleeves without breaking a sweat. "And it keeps you from getting stabbed because you're too busy showing off. Let's move. The rain is getting heavier."
Warrod POV
By midnight, the heavy oak doors of the Fairy Tail guildhall were kicked open, and Yuri and Precht trudged inside. They left a trail of wet mud, sweat, and rainwater across the wooden floorboards, looking like absolute garbage.
I didn't even look up from my side table, my fingers digging straight into a shallow wooden crate of local soil as I channeled my Ethernano down into the roots. My hands were permanently stained with dirt these days.
Come on, just a few more inches, I thought, sweating as I forced the crop seeds inside the dirt to bypass their natural cycles, rapidly sprouting into thick green shoots right before my eyes. The town is starving under this noble blockade. If I can't figure out a way to grow these winter wheat variants in three days instead of three months, the eastern sector is going to collapse by next week.
Thud.
Yuri dropped the heavy iron chest of salvaged gold onto the floorboards, collapsing onto a nearby bench with a loud groan. He cracked his neck, rubbing his sore shoulders. "Those capital bastards are getting desperate, Mavis. They funded heavier iron plating for the vanguard today. If Precht hadn't anchored their legs, we would've been playing pinball out there."
"Their supply lines are tightening from the western roads," Precht added, leaning against the counter as he ran a sharpening stone down his daggers. "But they're bringing more mages from the southern borders. We can't keep holding the valley with just the two of us forever."
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, looking over at Mavis, who was currently buried under a massive mountain of seized merchant ledgers. "They're trying to starve us out, Mavis. The southern trade route is dead. My magic can barely keep the local bakeries supplied for another month."
Mavis didn't answer immediately. Her green eyes were wide, sharp, and intensely calculating as she pulled a fresh geographical chart toward her chest, tracking the mercenary factions' movements like a high-stakes chessboard. The soft, bookworm look was gone from her face, replaced by the rigid focus of a general.
"They're consolidating their numbers because they're running out of coin to pay the guild fees," Mavis stated, her voice cold and steady as she tapped a specific canyon pass on the map. "They think they're cornering us, but they're just overextending their flanks. Warrod, how are the eastern trench fortifications?"
"Anchored deep," I grunted, my mind already calculating the structural density of the tree roots I'd buried under the valley road. "The local guard is ready to drop the pitfalls the second you give the word."
Merlin POV
Up on the wet roof tiles of the guildhall, the pouring rain slid right off my white coat. I was sitting cross-legged on the ledge, resting Odin's staff across my lap as I watched the dim lantern light flicker through the tavern windows below.
Watching them scramble, make mistakes, and reinvent their magic to survive a grinding trade war was a hell of a lot more entertaining than playing babysitter. They were earning every single drop of their power, and honestly, it saved me the hassle of having to carry them.
Solomon, I thought, letting a tiny golden swirl hit my eyes as I looked out toward the dark valleys. Run a quick check on the provincial border. Let's see how many more toys the capital lords are throwing into our backyard.
[Notice: Boundary scanning complete. Enemy Ethernano density within the eastern sector has increased by 14.5% over the last twenty-four hours. Data indicates the capital noble coalition has finalized a high-tier mercenary contract with an elite siege guild.]
[Report: Individual 'Mavis' has correctly predicted the enemy's pathing vector. Her defensive layout for the upcoming second year of the campaign has an 88% probability of success.]
I let out a low chuckle, spinning my staff against my shoulder as the flower petals of my passive magic drifted away into the wet wind.
"Eighty-eight percent, huh?" I muttered, a lazy smirk hitting my face as I looked toward the eastern road. "Not bad, Master Mavis. Let's see if your little illusions hold up when they actually bring the heavy artillery."