Mira joined the guild a bit later than the others, and Rhode asked, "What's up?"
"Jimmy said she wanted to visit her father's workplace, so I asked Elfman and Lisana to take her there." Mira noticed the little creature in Rhode's hand, "I've been meaning to ask, what is this? A pet?"
Rhode replied, "I was just about to show you. It feels a bit like a demon."
"Really?" Mira gently leaned in, pressing her eyes close to the golden transparent orb, staring at the little creature inside.
The little creature bared its teeth and scratched the protective shield with its claw, seemingly challenging Mira.
"Ah... it's quite cute." Mira concluded with a smile.
Rhode said helplessly, "...Be serious, maintaining this magic is quite a drain on magic power."
Mira said, "But because of your magic, it's too well protected, it's hard to sense what its magic power is like. Maybe we should let it out first."
The little creature's face showed a clear smile, with a subtle change in its expression.
Rhode said, "You can tell just by looking at it that it's up to no good. This little thing must be plotting something."
Mira laughed, "Yes, its expression is too easy to read."
The little creature immediately restrained its smile, putting on a pitiful look in Mira's direction.
"It seems it definitely has basic intelligence; otherwise, it couldn't pretend to be a person in Raven's Tail." Rhode pondered, "Let's go to the back."
Though there might be some danger, if even a 'downgraded' version of Fairy's Ball can't handle it, it won't cause much trouble.
The two went to the backyard, and Rhode gently tossed the light orb. The transparent golden barrier shattered silently.
The little creature fell to the ground, then nimbly jumped up and ran out without looking back.
Rhode opened his right hand and softly chanted, "Gather here, River of Light guided by fairies! Shine here! Eliminate the evil minions... Fairy Radiance!"
A massive golden halo descended from the sky, accurately landing around the little creature, condensing to the size of a bracelet, tightly binding its forelimbs to its sides.
The fleeing little creature stumbled, using the tip of its tail to push itself forward, its expression somewhat terrified.
This person is too scary, using super magic to deal with such a cute little pet!
"Rhode?" Mira was also taken aback. Wasn't Fairy Radiance a bit much?
"It's fine, I'm very familiar with this move. The President said it might be related to Zeref, so we can't be careless." Rhode clenched his fist.
The golden halo suddenly tightened, squeezing the little creature, which squeaked in pain, losing all strength to struggle.
Rhode pulled back his fist, and the golden halo brought the little creature flying back, suspended in front of them.
"Alright, feel free to study it. If it dares to make any moves, I'll crush it."
Mira smiled helplessly, using Fairy Radiance to guard it: "You're making me feel like a delicate researcher."
"So, I'm like the bodyguard of a beautiful scientist? That's nice." Rhode also smiled and reminded, "Don't touch it directly. It's the ace Raven's Tail planned to use to ambush me. It might have magic that activates upon contact."
"Okay." Mira leaned in a bit, carefully examining the little creature hanging limply.
Fairy Radiance's powerful magic was so immediately noticeable that Makarov opened a window to peer into the courtyard: "What's going on? Are there enemies?"
Rhode quickly said, "No, we're just doing some research, preparing a defense."
Makarov glanced at the little creature almost entirely overwhelmed by the light magic: "..."
If he wasn't mistaken, that was Fairy Radiance, right? To think it was condensed this much without exploding...
Doing research? To see if a mosquito can leave a whole corpse after being hit by a cannon?
He silently closed the window, reminiscing about the days when someone always asked him to safeguard whenever they had a new summoned beast.
The once insecure newcomer now seemed to bring him a sense of safety. This kid has changed a lot, but in some ways, remains unchanged.
Makarov was filled with emotion.
A moment later, he thought of the 'activation effects' of Fairy Radiance.
"..." Hopefully, this won't cause a commotion in town?
There was indeed a bit of stir, but since the large halo descended on Fairy Tail, most of the 'old-timers' found it reasonable.
Oddly enough, they felt a reassuring calm; Fairy Tail finally stirred up a big fuss again.
As a result, following the 'incident frequency' calculated by some bored person six years ago, things should be quiet for a while now.
For the next two or three days, one could confidently go out for dates and gatherings without worrying about the atmosphere being ruined suddenly.
Only some members of Ghost of Dusk on the other side of Magnolia weren't happy.
Recently, a few of them had lost face encountering Rhode on the street and were planning revenge with some close friends.
But news of Rhode's quick defeat of the Dark Guild cooled them down.
Today, upon hearing the exaggerated magic, they found out, astonishingly, that this level was just Fairy Tail 'playing around'?
"Um, Tibo, my rent is due soon. I need to work quickly, so maybe let's drop what we talked about last time."
"I... I, too, the President said not to provoke that guild casually, so I'll leave first."
Tibo: "...Actually, I have no issues with Mr. Rhode; last time, I was just too excited upon meeting him and lost my footing..."
"Is... is that so? That's great, me too, hahaha..."
...
In the backyard of Fairy Tail, Mira had been examining for a while.
The creature indeed exhibited demonic traits, and in terms of magic power, just a simple sense revealed an overwhelmingly dense Light Magic Power.
—The presence of Fairy Radiance was too strong.
Mira finally managed to find a trace of the research subject's magic power amid the vast ocean of it.
After carefully sensing for a moment, Mira said, "It seems it's definitively a demon. Its 'quality' is higher than those second generations Zeref created on Celestial Wolf Island, but its strength feels weak... Are you suppressing its magic power?"
Rhode denied, "No, it's been like this since I first saw it."
Mira tilted her head, "Strange, how could something like this be used as their ace against you?"
"Maybe it has some special ability to turn the tide, or maybe it's just pretending." Rhode flicked a fingernail-sized light bullet with his free left hand, tapping the little creature on the forehead,
"Speak up, you couldn't have been pretending to be mute at Raven's Tail for so long, right?"