Chapter 548 - 548: Work Hard and Make Money, Otherwise You'll Be Gnawing on Bread While Everyone Else Feasts

"Regarding food, we'll primarily restock our supplies whenever we dock at a city," Noah explained, his voice carrying over the excited chatter of the guild. "If you want to eat aboard the airship, you'll need to notify the logistics team in advance and pay a standard meal fee. Alternatively, you can utilize the ship's kitchens to cook for yourselves—we'll keep the pantries fully stocked with basic ingredients. But honestly, since we'll be stopping near major cities, your best bet is to just disembark and eat at the local restaurants."

"I am absolutely trying the desserts in every single new city we visit!" Erza declared instantly, a terrifyingly serious glint in her eyes.

"Exactly! You can't visit a new country and not try the local delicacies," Sorano agreed, nodding vigorously.

"Sampling the local cuisine is half the point of traveling," Ultear added with a sophisticated smile.

A chorus of enthusiastic agreement swept through the hall. How could they possibly travel the continent and not indulge in the unique foods of foreign lands?

"I figured most of you would feel that way, which is why I'm bringing this up now," Noah smiled. "Our scheduled departure is in exactly one week. We are going to be traveling for several months, so you need to make your preparations immediately. And by preparations, I mean you need to start grinding quests and saving up your Jewels today. Otherwise, when we land in a foreign city, a good chunk of you are going to be stuck sitting on the curb, gnawing on plain bread while you watch everyone else feast on luxury meals."

"NOOOOOO!!!"

A collective wail of sheer, unadulterated horror erupted from the guild members.

The mere mental image of watching their friends gorge themselves on exotic delicacies while they chewed on stale crusts was too devastating to comprehend.

"Happy! Lucy! We need to go take a quest right now!" Natsu roared, leaping onto a table.

"Aye!"

"I'm on it!"

The trio bolted toward the request board like their lives depended on it.

"Hey! I saw that subjugation quest first!"

"Back off, flame-brain, that one's mine!"

"Out of the way! Stop blocking the board!"

Absolute chaos descended upon the guildhall. A frantic stampede of mages completely swarmed the request board, ripping down flyers in a desperate frenzy. Many members snatched up three or four jobs at once. They knew that once they boarded the airship, their standard income would vanish for months. Even those who had decent savings realized that traveling meant spending—souvenirs, exotic clothes, high-end food—and they wanted to be absolutely loaded before takeoff.

Fortunately, thanks to Fairy Tail's meteoric rise in prestige over the past year, the request board had been overflowing with high-paying jobs from across the kingdom. Even with the frantic hoarding, there were plenty of quests to go around.

Within twenty minutes, the mages registered their jobs with Mirajane and sprinted out the front doors, leaving the normally chaotic guildhall practically empty.

"So this is why you've been telling them to save their money for the last month," Laxus remarked, walking over to the bar.

Because Laxus already had a massive hoard of savings and had to manage the guild's administrative affairs while Makarov was busy, he hadn't joined the stampede. Strangely enough, even the S-Class mages like Gildarts, Ur, and Ultear had sprinted out to take jobs. According to them, they planned to buy a ridiculous amount of luxury goods abroad, so they needed an absurd amount of spending money.

"Exactly. I've had this continent-wide tour planned since we acquired the airship. I tried to warn them to start saving early," Noah sighed, shaking his head with a smile.

"I wonder how much they'll actually manage to scrape together in a week," Laxus mused. The vast majority of the guild had zero concept of financial planning.

"Probably a decent amount. The sheer fear of missing out on a vacation will push their productivity through the roof," Noah chuckled. "Anyway, I need to head out and bulk-order the baseline provisions for the ship's pantries."

"Go ahead. Just bring the invoices back to me; we'll cover the raw materials from the guild's central treasury," Laxus nodded.

Noah waved and headed out into the city.

Over the next few days, the guild members worked with a terrifying, borderline psychotic level of efficiency. Almost no one lingered in the guildhall; they sprinted in, slammed their completed quest reports onto the counter, grabbed a new flyer, and sprinted right back out. The manic energy far surpassed even the weeks leading up to the S-Class Trials.

As the departure date loomed, several members cautiously approached Noah with a question: Could they bring their families?

While Earthland's major cities were generally safe and well-patrolled, the wilderness between them was incredibly dangerous, teeming with vicious beasts and ruthless bandits. Because of this, the average civilian rarely ever left their home country, let alone traveled across the continent.

Now, Fairy Tail was offering an escorted, luxury cruise across Ishgar, protected by the strongest mages on the continent, including several S-Class monsters and Noah himself. It was the safest, most incredible travel opportunity in human history. Naturally, members who had civilian families wanted to bring them along for the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Noah agreed without a second of hesitation.

He heavily supported the idea. Due to the dangerous, erratic nature of a mage's lifestyle, many members had strained or distant relationships with their civilian relatives. A massive, stress-free family vacation was the perfect opportunity to mend those bonds.

Noah simply clarified the logistics: civilian family members would have to share the member's assigned private quarters. If extra rooms remained empty after departure, they could spread out, but they needed to prepare for a tight fit initially. The members enthusiastically agreed. It was just for sleeping anyway; during the day, they would be out exploring the ship's massive lounges or sightseeing in foreign cities.

However, receiving permission to bring their families meant the members suddenly needed to cover the expenses for three or four people instead of just themselves.

The resulting surge in motivation was terrifying. Fathers and mothers took on insanely dangerous quests, working themselves to the bone to ensure their kids could eat all the foreign sweets they wanted.

Seeing them take on such reckless workloads, Noah actually got worried they might get themselves killed before the vacation even started. After a quick consultation with Makarov and Mavis, Noah officially delayed the launch date by one full week, giving everyone ample time to safely complete their jobs and stockpile their funds without rushing headlong into danger.

Word of the continent-spanning, luxury airship cruise quickly leaked into the streets of Magnolia.

The townsfolk were immensely jealous. Dozens of wealthy merchants and adventurous civilians flocked to the guild, offering massive sums of Jewels to buy a ticket on the ship. Noah politely but firmly refused them all. This was an exclusive guild expedition, a private family vacation, not a commercial cruise line.

While the rejected citizens sighed in profound disappointment, the prestige of Fairy Tail skyrocketed. Children of guild members became absolute celebrities in the local schools, boasting about their upcoming international flight while their classmates looked on in pure, unadulterated envy. A massive wave of eager applicants tried to join the guild just to get on the ship, but Noah and Makarov swiftly rejected them, refusing to dilute the guild's familial bond with opportunists.

With the roster finalized, Noah, Makarov, and Mavis focused on mapping the flight path.

Since their primary objective was locating Mavis's lost child, the route had to systematically sweep the entirety of the Eastern Continent without wasting time on redundant overlapping.

Using highly detailed topographical maps procured from the Magic Council, Mavis took the lead. She meticulously charted a flawlessly efficient flight path that completely covered Ishgar's landmass while ensuring the airship strategically docked near major cultural and commercial hubs, allowing the guild members to thoroughly enjoy their tourism.

Time flew by, and the highly anticipated day of departure finally arrived.

Standing on the bridge of the Fairy, Noah reviewed the finalized passenger manifest. He blinked, staring at the digital scroll, then looked out the window at the massive, chaotic crowd of mages and their families boarding the ship.

"I knew a lot of people wanted to come, but... literally the entire guild is going?" Noah asked, genuinely stunned.

Between engineering the Lacrima engines, finalizing the tracking spell, and buying provisions, Noah had been completely isolated in his lab for the last two weeks. He hadn't checked the sign-up sheet since day one.

"Yeah, it surprised me too when I tallied the final numbers," Laxus admitted, stepping onto the bridge and looking equally amazed. "Every single active member of Fairy Tail is currently on this ship."

Noah's eyes narrowed as a glaring logistical nightmare suddenly dawned on him.

"Wait a minute. If the entire guild is on this ship... who is watching the guildhall?! What about our regional quest quotas? If the number one guild in Fiore just vanishes for months, the Magic Council is going to throw an absolute fit!" Noah turned to Laxus, glaring at him. "Why didn't you tell me this?!"

"Because Grandpa specifically ordered me not to tell you," Laxus held his hands up in immediate surrender, recognizing the dangerous glint in Noah's eyes. "He said he already handled it."

"Handled it how?" Noah demanded.

"He pulled some strings and negotiated directly with the Magic Council," Laxus explained. "The Council agreed to temporarily freeze all standard quest distributions to our Magnolia branch until we return.

"In exchange, Grandpa accepted a massive backlog of high-priority subjugation requests directly from the Council's central office. These are highly dangerous, cross-border anomaly hunts and S-Class monster subjugations that have been piling up in foreign territories because local guilds couldn't handle them.

"Since our flight path takes us directly over all of these high-risk zones, the Council officially commissioned the Fairy as a mobile strike force. We get our vacation, and we clear out the continent's most dangerous beasts along the way."

~~~

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