Elfman wakes up the next day, but the siblings wait for another day to return to Magnolia. He still needs to recover his strength, after all. Mira keeps apologizing to her younger siblings and they have a good talk that finally lifts her spirit again.
Alex's team leaves to do their job to subjugate a Dark Guild after making sure the siblings are fine. Now that he has succeeded at preventing Lisanna's "death", Alex can finally focus on his job without any worry.
Subjugating Dark Guilds is a common job for Alex and it's actually his favorite, especially if they are Zeref Worshipper Guilds. He likes destroying those maniacs and they also usually have more magic power for him to absorb compared to magic beasts.
Furthermore, if he is lucky, he will find valuables in their stashes like money, jewelry, or even magic books, increasing his profit even more. That's why while it's riskier than magic beast subjugation, it's also more profitable.
But he makes sure to only take the job if he's sure his team can defeat the targeted Dark Guilds. That's why he needs to get information about them even before taking the jobs. He doesn't want to risk his team's life, after all.
His team often takes Dark Guild subjugation jobs though, so they are used to it and already have proper strategies to defeat the Dark Guilds. The strategy that they use the most is for Alex to solo the Dark Guilds after being buffed by Wendy.
After finding their base, Wendy will buff Alex with all of her buff spells. Then Alex will transform into Shukaku and make a powerful sand dome to protect Wendy, Carla, and Meteor. He will also add Shukaku's seals to strengthen the sand dome even further so no one can break it.
Wendy can even strengthen the sand dome, so its defense is really high. They have tested it and even Gildarts couldn't break the dome right away, even with his Crush Magic. Shukaku's seal and Wendy's magic buff are stopping Crush Magic's effect quite well, although only for a few times.
But that's enough to show its defensive ability because Gildarts's Crush Magic can break almost everything, including spells. Spells of equal level with it can stop it, so the Sand Dome Shield is almost at an equal level with Gildarts's Crush Magic.
Anyway, after protecting the kids with the Sand Dome Shield, Alex will transform into whatever form he wants and attack the Dark Guild alone. With the kids protected, he can rampage as much as he wants without any care.
As long as there's no hostage in the Dark Guild's base, he can just destroy everything. He can collect the material things like money or treasures later after defeating the Dark Mages. But he will fight carefully if there are hostages in the bases.
Fortunately, there are no innocent people in the base of their current target. Alex has surveyed the whole base that looks like a haunted mansion in the middle of the forest using Shukaku's Sand Eye. So he can just fight without any worries which will make this easier.
He chooses to transform into Mini Saiken, the 6-Tailed Slug. Alex shows up in front of the Dark Guild's base openly. He just walks there nonchalantly, attracting their attention with his unusual appearance.
"W-what's that?"
"Such a strange beast."
"Hey, it's coming here."
"Let's capture it, that kind of strange beast must be expensive."
The 2 guards see Mini Saiken's unusual appearance and immediately think of getting profit from selling a rare beast. They have done many illegal jobs including smuggling many kinds of creatures, so they can tell if a creature is valuable or not.
None of them has ever seen a creature like Saiken, so they know they will get a lot of money from selling the slug to collectors. That is if they can even capture the transformed Alex with their puny strength.
The 2 guards rush toward Alex while preparing their spells. But then Alex suddenly shoots 4 whitish liquid balls at them. The 2 balls on the front hit their magic circles, destroying them, while the 2 at the back hit their feet.
When the whitish liquid balls hit their feet, the 2 guards' feet suddenly stick on the ground and they fall on their faces because of their running momentum. The whitish liquid ball is a very sticky liquid that's stronger than any glue.
Alex drops more of the sticky liquid at their bodies, so they can't move to fight again. He leaves their head though, so they still can breathe and scream for help. Their screams attract their Guild Mates' attention and all of them rush out of their base.
The Dark Mages see their 2 wet Guild Mates get pinned on the ground by 2 of Alex's tails. He is absorbing their magic power until they pass out because they've done their job at calling their comrades out of their hiding.
"Good, you finally show up, so I don't need to look for you now." Alex grins.
"I-it talks!" The Dark Mages are surprised to hear the strange beast talks.
Alex doesn't give them a chance and shoots a massive amount of sticky liquid to the sky from his mouth. The sticky liquid he shoots then becomes a rain that falls upon all of them.
A few of them who are quick-witted immediately try to block the rain with magic because they know it will be dangerous. But they are speechless when nothing happens to the ones who don't protect themselves and get wetted by the rain.
Until they find out that no one can move. Even those who manage to block the rain are caught by the sticky liquid that spreads on the ground. Alex can actually control the liquid he releases to move as he pleases and he controls the spreading sticky liquid to wrap the Dark Mages' bodies.
Now no one can move, and before they can do anything to repel the sticky liquid, Alex moves fast to knock them down. Even though he is a slug, Saiken can actually move very fast, utilizing his liquid that he can control freely and make it slippery so he can slide.
Alex uses that technique to slide toward the Dark Mages. He knocks them over so they'll fall and stick flatly on the ground. He hits them quite hard with his tails that knock out some of them.
Then he absorbs their magic power to weaken them greatly and knock them all out. By absorbing their magic power to the lowest amount possible that won't kill them, Alex can make sure they won't fight back until he can hand them over to the Magic Council because they will need a long time to recover their magic power.
His fast and decisive actions are the keys to his success in his S-Class jobs. Alex rarely gives his opponents chances to attack him, especially when he goes against many people at once. He might fight them properly if there are only some or even just 1 of them, but it all depends on the situation too.
Right now, he only takes this job as an excuse to follow the Strauss siblings and save them. He has succeeded in that, so he wants to quickly get done with this and go back to Magnolia. These Dark Mages are also not powerful enough to entertain him anyway, so he won't waste his time.
It takes a while for the Magic Council's law enforcement squad to arrive with their airship to take the captured Dark Mages. Alex often deals with them because he takes Dark Guild subjugation jobs quite often, so he knows the procedures and can finish everything quickly.
Alex's team finally returns to Magnolia and finds the Strauss siblings have arrived safely. The siblings also have reported what happened to Makarov, so he calls Alex to his office right when Alex's team arrives.
Makarov just wants to know the details because the siblings were too tired to tell all the details and Mira was in a very low spirit, so they couldn't speak properly for too long, that's why Makarov chose to wait for Alex.
Alex explains everything that happened from his point of view. Now Makarov can understand everything and he is very thankful for Alex. It really could end up badly if Alex wasn't there.
"Hmm, from the siblings' and your explanation, it seems like the quest's danger was downplayed by the requester or they didn't know that the target was that strong. The 2nd case seems to be more possible because they are just civilians, so their knowledge about magic beasts is limited."
"Yeah, that's why we are the ones who always need to be selective and careful about the jobs we take. We need to make sure everyone thinks that their jobs can be more dangerous than what's described."
"The adults mostly think like that, it's the young ones that often underestimate their jobs. They should be more aware now because of this incident, but I'll still do something about it."
Anyway, this problem is over and everyone is safe. Alex is very relieved now and the only thing left to anticipate this year is the S-Class exam because Mystogan should be promoted to S-Class this year.
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Ch. 142. Wiping Out Grimoire Heart