Chapter 293: Responsibility
With no reason to overstay his welcome, Vahn departed from Tria shortly after inputting the coordinates of the waterfall basin’s Waystone into the one the Revolutionary Army kept in their basement. To confirm it worked, he used it to return, resulting in him appearing in a dirt clearing encircled by three-meter-tall runestones that provided a permanent barrier against monsters wandering into the area.
"Hm? What’s this...?" Vahn wondered aloud, his brows rising slightly as he noticed several fantasy-esque buildings had been erected in the relatively short time he had been gone. There were seven in total, the most notable being a three-story tavern with sloped, crimson-tiled roofs with emerald-green trim, a gold wood facade, and a nameplate with a dancing fairy and the words FAIRYTAIL emblazoned on the front without a space. The rest of the buildings appeared to be a bakery, three residential structures, one of which was markedly more extravagant than the others, a butcher shop, and a tailor with a now familiar paw print emblem above its entrance.
"I haven’t even been gone for two full hours, and Fairy Tail managed to pack up and transplant all their buildings here...they work fast..." muttered Vahn, his curiosity piqued. He found it strange that Carla’s shop would be among the transplanted buildings, but he soon discovered the truth as he habitually spread his domain. Millianna was sewing a large cat plushie in a room on the second floor of the building, so the simplest explanation was that Carla had hired her to operate the storefront on her behalf, which, in turn, explained why the buxom cat girl referred to the Exceed Princess as her Mistress.
Shifting his gaze to a third-floor window of the more extravagant-looking residential building, Vahn adopted a casual smile and raised his right hand to wave at the tall, muscular, full-plated man observing him with crossed arms and a disapproving grimace. The man had deep-set green eyes, high cheekbones, and notably spiky black hair that stuck up and flared out like a broom. Below that, he had thick, angular eyebrows and sideburns that flowed seamlessly into a tufted, brush-like beard—reminiscent of an older Asuma.
Recognizing the man as the Commander of Hisui’s Royal Guard and Chief of the Fiore’s Cherry Blossom Holy Knight Squadron, Arcadios, Vahn knew why the man was upset with him. The virtue of a Princess was a valuable commodity to most Kingdoms, so by offering her virginity to him, Princess Hisui could no longer be wed according to Fiore’s existing customs.
"Oh, hey! If it isn’t Vahn...!" exclaimed a familiar voice, drawing Vahn’s attention to a familiar salmon-haired youth with spiky hair, sharp black eyes, and a near-perpetual smile. With him was a bipedal, large-headed cat with sky-blue fur, large black eyes, a white-tipped tail that was longer than his body, and a green rucksack fastened around his neck. Notably, unlike the salmon-haired youth, Natsu, the roughly 60cm tall cat, Happy, sported a look of disapproval mixed with resentment.
"Natsu, it’s good to see you," greeted Vahn, extending his hand for Natsu to clasp rather than shake.
"You bet!" chimed Natsu, producing a loud, echoing pop as his hand met Vahn’s. Then, sporting a toothy grin, he added, "I heard there’s going to be a fighting competition and that you’re planning to accept challengers. I’m fired up!"
"Aye...let’s see if that handsome face of his can take a punch..." appended Happy, staring intently at Vahn as if the latter had eaten his favorite fish to extinction.
Pretending he hadn’t heard Happy’s hushed grievance, Vahn affirmed, "As far as I’m aware, the format hasn’t been settled yet. But since quite a few people seem to want to fight me tete-e-tete, I imagine things will play out that way."
"Right on...!" exclaimed Natsu, retracting his hand before thumbing over his shoulder with his left and asking, "Happy and I were planning to head out and explore the surrounding biomes, but since it’s been a while, want to grab a drink? We brew everything in-house."