Natsu and Happy returned to the guild.

The lake had actually started to freeze during this season, so Natsu crashed through the thin ice and fell into the cold water.

When he returned to the guild, he was still wet.

Rhodes asked out of sympathy: "Would you like to take a shower and change into dry clothes?"

"Huh?" Natsu showed a confused expression, and then flames erupted from his body like a Super Saiyan, and his clothes and hair were completely evaporated in just a few seconds.

This fire dragon-slaying magic is really convenient. You are not afraid of heat in summer and cold in winter.

Rhodes waved his hand: "Pretend I didn't say anything."

"Natsu is too much." Happy complained, "He obviously fell into the water, but he didn't help us catch the fish."

"..." Rhodes was speechless. Unfortunately, I thought you chased after him because you were worried about him. It turns out you wanted him to catch fish by the way.

"I didn't mean to go into the water on my own! That Erza guy..." Natsu huffed, but immediately began to feel guilty. Although it was not intentional, he was the one who made the first move after all.

He looked at Rhodes with admiration: "Thank you for being able to team up with Erza."

Mira finished what she was doing and asked curiously: "Yeah, how does it feel, teaming up with Erza?"

Rhodes recalled the scene in his dream when he was slapped away by Mira, and he always felt that the smile on her face now was the smile of death.

By the way, wasn't Natsu's experience just like the scene in his dream? What Erza can do, maybe Mira can do it too.

No, no, no, it's impossible.

Rhodes thought about it and said, "In general, he is a very reliable partner, especially when fighting."

Natsu agreed with his face. If Erza was on his side during a fight, then of course she would be super reliable.

Rhodes recalled the scene at that time: "Both the offense and defense were extremely strong... It felt like the battle was over before I even participated in it."

"Eh? Isn't that super bad?" Natsu was shocked. He teamed up with Erza and didn't even have to fight?

Before Rhodes understood what was wrong with what Natsu said, he heard him say firmly: "I will never team up with Erza in the future!"

Mira thought for a while and asked: "So if Erza invites you, will you refuse?"

"Of course... of course..." Natsu turned off the engine, of course he wouldn't dare to refuse.

Rhodes looked at Mira, and he learned what he said to make the energetic Natsu calm down.

After Natsu swayed away with Habi, Mira continued to ask: "Aside from fighting? Have you found that Erza's personality is actually quite cute?"

"It's not bad..." Rhodes pondered for a moment and said with a smile, "Think about it, among all my team-building experiences, the most enjoyable one was teaming up with Miss Mirajane."

"Is that so?" Mira said with a smile, "Then do you want to try forming a team again in the future?"

"I think it's best to form a team to practice after get off work today, go shopping as a team tomorrow, and have dinner together as a team the day after tomorrow..."

Rhodes suddenly realized, "Hey, think about it carefully, when we were in the guild, did we work as a team every day?"

Mira smiled and said: "I don't think the word team is used in this way. Do you want to look up and down in the dictionary?"

Rhodes looked at her: "That's not how the upper and lower hands are used."

Mira covered her mouth and snickered.

Rhodes felt that this woman was a bad learner and would deliberately imitate the way he talked before to make fun of him.

Please be a little more bad.

After get off work that day, Rhodes devoted himself to daily training with great enthusiasm.

It's not because of Mira's company, but because I can actually feel the benefits of increased magic power.

If you have enough magic power, hundreds of weapons can fly out with a wave of your hand like Erza, and you can transform into a treasure trove of kings and unlimited swords by changing your magic.

And the high rewards corresponding to difficult tasks are really great. If you always do tasks worth tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, and you have to settle down in Magnolia by yourself, you don’t know how many years of hard work it will take.

But if a task costs a few million, you can buy a nice house in a few months at the earliest.

——How about simply marrying into the Strauss family? Mira is considered a rich little woman with a house and savings...

"What are you thinking about?"

Thinking of peaches (no).

"I'm thinking about the next stage of practice goals."

"Is it because you have further learned about Erza's strength, so the pressure is greater?" Mira asked, "I feel like you are training more vigorously today than before."

"Hmm... maybe it's because I saw some cruel things." Rhodes recalled the town citizen who was killed. "Suddenly I realized that this world is different from what I imagined, so I need to become a little stronger."

At first, Rhodes felt that everywhere was dangerous, and he would be easily trampled to death by wild beasts outside the town, so he should not go out easily.

Later, he learned magic and became much stronger. He would occasionally go out to take on quests. Coupled with the joyful atmosphere in the guild and the peaceful and prosperous life in Magnolia, he felt that the outside world was not actually that dangerous.

It's not about a happy ending, the life here seems to be much calmer than the pirates and Hokages he is familiar with.

But this time the Black Magic Order mission, the last mission to conquer the bandits, and the last mission to arrest the Dark Guild made Rhodes realize that Magnolia is so prosperous and stable, probably because of the existence of

Fairy Tail is here.

And in those remote villages and towns where there is no magician's guild, life may not be that good. There are still many dangerous elements who are always doing some small tricks secretly, even sacrificing human lives to summon demons.

Rhodes didn't have great ambitions to change the world, that was something the king should consider.

He just needs to become stronger and protect the people he wants to protect.

There are probably more than a hundred people that Rhodes wants to protect at present, and he knows that these people have always been protecting him.

…

Early the next morning, Rhodes came to work in the guild on time.

Mira felt that he seemed to be in a bad mood.

"What happened?" she asked as she cleaned a cup.

Rhodes said sadly: "My son is going to die."

Kah~ The wooden beer glass was cracked by Mira. She put the glass down without changing her expression: "Son?"

"Well, I have three pots of green plants on the balcony. I usually take care of them like my sons, and occasionally talk to them."

Rhodes said heartbrokenly, "But I haven't been able to control it for the past few days. When I came back last night, I found that everything was wilted."

"..." Mira let out a sigh of relief. It turned out that she raised Green Plant as her son.

Rhodes actually has this strange hobby.

——It’s certainly not strange to raise green plants, just call them your son...

But there are indeed people who take care of Huahuacaocao as if they were children, so that shouldn’t be considered weird, right?

Mira thought for a while and suggested: "Would you like to ask Troy for help?"

"Yes, he likes playing with plants the most. I'll go back for a while!" Rhodes ran out of the guild.

Mira wrinkled her nose and took out the attendance sheet.

He actually said something about sick green plants in such a scary way, huh, give him a record of absenteeism.

A few seconds later, Mira crossed out the record again, just going out for a while, not as serious as absenteeism.

And didn't you say hello to yourself before going out? Well, let him go.
Chapter completed!