Chapter 540 - 540: Naturally, Our Airship is Far Superior

The entirety of the airship's exterior had been transformed. The oppressive, gothic black and gunmetal grey of Grimoire Heart had been completely stripped away, replaced by a gleaming, pristine white hull accented with vibrant, swirling patterns of warm orange and gold. The sheer aesthetic shift made the massive warship feel bright, majestic, and undeniably heroic.

Emblazoned proudly on both flanks of the hull were massive Fairy Tail crests, ensuring that anyone who saw the ship in the sky instantly knew who it belonged to.

Stepping inside, the interior matched the exterior's welcoming atmosphere. The dark, labyrinthine corridors had been widened and redecorated primarily in white, accented with warm oranges and deep reds.

Ultear, Lucy, and the design committee had poured an immense amount of effort into maximizing comfort and creating a genuine 'homey' atmosphere. Since the guild would likely be living aboard this vessel during long expeditions, making it comfortable wasn't just a luxury; it was a necessity.

Noah and Mavis watched with amusement as Natsu, Gray, and the others sprinted wildly through the newly furnished halls, shouting in absolute awe as they explored every corner.

Logically, they shouldn't have been this excited. They had spent the last several weeks physically building the interior; they already knew exactly what it looked like. But building it and actually living in it were two entirely different experiences. Now that the sawdust was cleared and the tools were put away, they were finally able to appreciate the masterpiece they had created.

"Oh man, this is amazing! So soft!" Natsu cheered, launching himself into the air and belly-flopping onto one of the massive, plush sofas in the main lounge.

"It really is incredibly comfortable," Gray sighed in contentment, sinking into a neighboring armchair.

"Those sofas were custom-ordered from a high-end designer in Crocus, and they were not cheap! If you break them, I'm making you pay for them!" Lucy immediately warned, pointing a scolding finger at Natsu.

As the guild's undisputed King of Collateral Damage, Natsu was a walking disaster zone. Lucy wasn't about to let him incinerate her carefully curated interior design on day one.

"What?!" Natsu yelped, instantly springing up from the sofa as if it had caught fire. He knew his own track record. He spent half his mission rewards paying for property damage. Hearing that the sofa was expensive, his immediate instinct was to flee before he accidentally broke it.

But then he paused. Wait a minute, he thought. I'm just sitting here. I'm not fighting anyone. Why would I break it? What am I so afraid of?

Realizing he was being paranoid, Natsu cautiously sat back down.

Lucy couldn't help but laugh at his reaction. Despite knowing him for less than a year, she already had his personality perfectly figured out.

"Just make sure you don't accidentally set it on fire, ash-brain," Gray teased casually, leaning back in his chair.

"What did you say to me, ice-stripper?!" Natsu instantly flared up, leaping to his feet, ready to tackle Gray over the coffee table.

But as his eyes swept over the plush, expensive upholstery beneath him, Lucy's warning echoed in his ears.

If he started a brawl the literal minute he boarded the ship, broke the furniture, and got kicked off to go grind D-Rank missions to pay the repair bill, it would be humiliating. Forcing back his natural instincts, Natsu gritted his teeth and sat back down.

Seeing Natsu actually back down, Gray smirked but didn't push it. If they fought, he'd be on the hook for half the repair bill too, and that simply wasn't worth it.

Slowly, the rest of the guild filtered into the forward lounge after finishing their frantic explorations of the lower decks.

The forward lounge was massive. Aside from a slightly elevated, semi-enclosed command deck near the back, the vast majority of the room was a wide-open recreational space filled with comfortable seating. The front and side bulkheads were dominated by massive, reinforced panoramic observation windows, offering a breathtaking, unobstructed view of the sky.

Some members claimed the sofas, while others rushed straight to the windows, eagerly looking out.

"The view from up here is completely different," Simon murmured, standing by the glass with Kagura.

"It really is. We see the sky every day, but looking out from a flying ship just feels... magical," Kagura agreed softly.

"Man, when we were hauling lumber, it didn't feel this big. But actually walking through it... this place is massive," Macao noted, leaning against the bar.

"Yeah, no kidding. I tried counting the doors in the residential wing. There are hundreds of them! How many people can actually live on this thing?" Wakaba asked, looking around.

"The primary residential wing contains exactly one hundred and fifty individual private quarters, plus ten larger suites designated for VIP guests," Noah explained, projecting his voice so the crowd could hear. "Combined with the specialized training rooms, labs, and utility bays, the ship has roughly two hundred separate rooms."

Due to spatial constraints, the private quarters weren't massive—roughly ten square meters each—but they were fully furnished with a bed, a private bathroom, and enough storage space for personal belongings. It was more than enough for a mobile headquarters.

Currently, Fairy Tail had roughly a hundred active members, and Makarov had no intention of aggressively recruiting more. The larger a guild grew, the harder it became to maintain the tight-knit, familial atmosphere that defined Fairy Tail. A hundred members was the perfect balance.

"One hundred and fifty rooms?! Does that mean we each get our own private room?!" Lucy gasped, her eyes shining with excitement. She had known the room count during the design phase, but actually hearing Noah confirm the logistics was thrilling.

"Of course," Noah smiled. "Every official member of the guild gets their own room. There are blank nameplates on the doors; just claim an empty one. You are free to decorate the interior however you like, but please refrain from causing structural damage to the walls, floor, or ceiling, as they contain specialized magical conduits. As long as you remain a member of Fairy Tail, that room belongs to you."

"YES! My own room!"

"I call dibs on a room with an ocean view!"

"Hey, no cheating! We draw straws!"

"We can decorate them ourselves?! We should totally coordinate our room designs!"

The guild immediately erupted into excited chatter. Ultear, Lucy, and the girls were already fiercely debating interior decorating themes for their respective rooms. Having spent weeks designing the ship's common areas, they were eager to flex their newly acquired design skills on their personal spaces.

"Noah, how does our ship compare to Blue Pegasus's Christina? It's much bigger, isn't it?" Erza asked curiously, walking over.

She remembered seeing the allied guild's famous magical bomber during the Oración Seis incident. While impressive, it definitely wasn't this massive.

"Naturally. The Christina is classified as a Magical Bomber. Its primary design philosophy prioritizes high-speed mobility and devastating air-to-ground artillery. Because speed and agility are paramount, its physical chassis is relatively small and streamlined," Noah explained.

"Our ship, however, was originally designed to serve as the mobile headquarters and central fortress for the strongest dark guild in the Balam Alliance. It needed the internal volume to house a massive army, extensive laboratories, and logistical supplies. Therefore, its chassis is significantly larger and heavier."

"So, what are the actual performance specs of our ship?" Mirajane asked, leaning over the back of a sofa.

"Yeah! Does our firepower beat the Christina?!" Natsu asked eagerly.

"Can we outrun them?!" Gray added.

"Is our ship the strongest in Fiore?!"

The guild members quickly gathered around, bombarding Noah with excited questions.

As members of Fairy Tail, none of them doubted Noah's absolute magical supremacy. He had single-handedly engineered the guildhall's localized defense matrix and the miraculous enchantments on their guild marks—feats that no other guild on the continent could replicate. Those achievements required an unfathomable depth of magical theory, not just money.

Furthermore, ever since Jude and Layla visited, the guild knew Noah was intimately tied to the Heartfilia Conglomerate. He had functionally infinite funding.

Blue Pegasus possessed an airship because their Guild Master, Bob, was incredibly wealthy. But Bob couldn't hold a candle to Noah's magical intellect. They just wanted to know exactly how far Noah's genius had pushed the boundaries of aeronautic engineering.

Even Laxus and Makarov leaned in to listen. Aside from the engine specs, Noah had kept the final performance metrics of the weapon and mobility systems a secret.

"Naturally, our airship is far superior," Noah grinned confidently.

"YEAAAAHHH!" The guild erupted in triumphant cheers. They weren't cheering because they hated Blue Pegasus; they were just immensely proud of their own guild's sheer superiority.

Once the cheering died down, Noah began listing the specs.

"Let's start with mobility. Under standard cruising conditions, relying purely on the passive aerodynamic arrays, the ship has a top speed of roughly two hundred kilometers per hour.

"However, if we activate the specialized slipstream enchantments and reroute auxiliary power to the primary thrusters, we can shatter the sound barrier. Maximum overdrive speed exceeds one thousand three hundred kilometers per hour."

"WHOA!"

A collective gasp echoed through the lounge. Supersonic flight?! None of them had ever traveled on a vehicle capable of breaking the sound barrier. Even the fastest mages in the guild couldn't sustain speeds anywhere near that.

~~~

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