As he promised to the Mayor, Alex goes to subjugate the sea monster the next day. The Mayor and his men are preparing the ship that Natsu's team usually uses, but Alex tells them that he won't need it.
"Eh? You don't need the ship?" The Mayor asks confusedly.
"Yeah, it will only get in my way and I don't want to endanger the crew."
"T-then how will you go to the monster's location?"
"Well, I'll just walk there."
The Mayor doesn't understand what Alex means by that. Only the Fairy Tail Mages understand what he means. Then under the Mayor's and town people's surprised eyes, Alex starts walking on the water.
"W-what? H-he....." The Mayor doesn't even know what to say.
"Don't worry, Mayor. That's also our first reaction when we see him doing that. He's the only person I know who can walk on the water." Erza tells the Mayor while standing behind Team Natsu that sits on their knees on the hard floor as their early punishment.
Everyone watches as Alex gets further into the sea. He gets so far that he looks so small and most of them can't see him anymore. They need to use scopes from a higher ground to see him now.
Alex is now standing still on a spot while looking down at the water. Then suddenly, he sinks into the sea. Everyone thinks he is diving to catch the sea monster, but he suddenly moves around like a panicked drowning person.
The Mayor and town people are also panicking because they think that Alex really drowns. Then suddenly, a giant tentacle comes out from the water and grabs him. It pulls him into the sea and he doesn't do anything to break free from it.
Everyone is surprised and the town people scream in horror. But Erza tells them to calm down, saying that it must be Alex's plan even though he doesn't know what Alex wants to do. After all, he can swim and should be able to break free from that tentacle's grab if he wants, but he just lets himself get caught.
Then all of a sudden, everyone sees fog start forming on the sea where Alex stood before. It gets thicker very quickly, making them confused. Even the Mayor and others who spend most of their time in the sea don't know what causes this.
"Wait! That's not fog, that's steam. Look at the warping space around it. It seems like a fatamorgana that only happens in hot places." Lucy realizes that it's not fog and the others finally realize it too.
"But why does steam suddenly appear there?" The Mayor asks confusedly.
"The sea must be boiling." Erza says as if it's a normal thing.
"W-who can boil the sea?" Of course, the Mayor and town people are baffled by what she says.
"We'll find out soon." Erza just smiles thinly because she knows who causes it although she doesn't know how.
Soon, they finally see who caused the sea to boil and let out steam. A humanoid blue-black flame cat suddenly comes out of the fog. Then a giant clam shell is seen moving behind the humanoid flame cat.
The dead sea monster is dragged using a fire rope that's wrapped around its shell. That fire rope is coming out of one of Alex's Matatabi Tails. It's so strong that it doesn't disappear even underwater.
There's even a big fire net coming out of the other tail. It's filled with fish that died because of the high temperature that boiled the sea and created that high amount of steam. But the fire net and fire rope aren't hot as they don't heat up the water and fish at all.
Alex finally arrives on shore and puts the dead sea monster and cooked fish on the beach before dispelling his transformation. The Mayor and town people are stunned by how fast Alex finishes the job. He kills the monster that has made their lives difficult so easily.
"Do you know how I kill it, Natsu?" Alex asks before anyone can ask him how he does it.
Natsu thinks while looking at the dead sea monster's condition. "Don't tell me..... Did you cook it from inside?!"
"That's right. I let myself get caught and eaten by that thing. Then I heat it up using Fire Magic until it gets cooked thoroughly." Alex explains it as if it's an easy thing to do.
"Dammit! I should've done that." Natsu grabs his head in frustration.
"No! No! No! You can't do that." Erza, Lucy, and even Happy are saying it together. Even Meteor is shaking his head.
"They're right, you can't do that yet. Before thinking of even cooking that thing from inside, you need to think of not being crushed by that guy's tentacle. Then you need to be able to hold your breath long enough until you kill it. It doesn't have teeth and jaws because it swallows its prey whole, but you need to think about it too. So you need to think whether your body can withstand being munched by a monster this big. Then you also need to think of withstanding its digestive system too. Only then you can think of whether you can even cook it until it dies. And yeah, just the last part alone isn't something you can do yet. Don't believe me? Then why don't you try boiling the water on this beach?"
Alex gives Natsu a challenge which he accepts happily. Natsu walks into the water and spreads his flame everywhere to boil the water. His flame spells surely evaporate the water they touch, but they disappear quickly and the water doesn't boil at all.
Natsu then tries to cover his arms with flame and puts them underwater. He manages to boil a small area around his flaming arms, but he is having a hard time keeping his flame on. After struggling for a while, Natsu's flame finally dies down and the water becomes cold again when waves push the hot water away.
"ARGH! DAMMIT! WHY IS IT NOT WORKING?" Natsu is very frustrated.
If it's the Natsu that shows up after training seriously for a year in the future, then maybe he can do it. After all, he can heat up a whole stadium and melt people's clothes just with his hot fire aura.
But he's not at that level yet even though he often trains with Alex. Maybe he's stronger than he's supposed to be at this time. But he's surely not as strong as when the war with Alvarez happened in X792. Maybe he's not even as strong as when he has unlocked his Second Origin for the Grand Magic Games yet.
"Here, let me show you how to do it."
Alex transforms into humanoid Matatabi again and steps into the water. Suddenly, the water around him evaporates almost instantly. Because of that, a big empty area on the beach is empty without any water.
Everyone can feel the heat, but it's not too intense. Even so, the water area that gets evaporated gets even wider. The water on the beach is shallow, so it doesn't even have a chance to boil and straight up get evaporated.
"What you need to do isn't just using your Fire Magic, but spreading the heat of your Fire Magic. The heat should be very strong too and it needs to spread equally in all the target areas. If it's to kill that size of monster, then the heat should be hot enough to cook it thoroughly because if you can only cook a small area, it won't kill the monster. That's why you need great power and also great control over your Magic. Using your body as the source of heat is easier and you won't have a problem with it because you are a Dragon Slayer so using Fire Magic inside your body won't hurt you. If you have greater control, then you can even do it like this."
Alex creates a small fireball and throws it far into the ocean. Then the same phenomena as before happens. A very wide area around where the fireball falls is boiling and a lot of steam comes out of the water.
"I spread the heat from that fireball to a very wide area, and if you have great control over your magic, your fireball won't disappear." Alex pulls out the fireball from the water and it still has the same size and power as before.
He drops it in another area and the same thing happens. Showing that the fireball is still just as powerful as before. Alex only does it for a short time before dispelling the fireball and returns to his normal form.
Natsu gets very motivated and wants to be able to do the same. He shouts, saying he'll train very seriously once he returns to Magnolia. But his face becomes pale as soon as Erza grabs his shoulder.
"Train you say? Sure. Then why don't you train together with me after we return? You too, Lucy, Happy."
Erza's words drain the color of Team Natsu's faces. They all know that it won't be training at all, it will be punishment. But that's the consequence of their action.
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Thank you for reading this story. Please support by clicking like or vote if you like this story. It is much appreciated.
Read ahead up to +50 chapters in my patreon page, patreon.com/GrimFairy
Ch. 163. Gods' Deceit (+ A picture of a cuter Shukaku's humanoid form design)