Fairy Tail: The Uncrowned King of Magic

Chapter 138: Chapter 138

After Natsu defeated Erigor, quite some time passed before Erza finally arrived with Gray and Lucy.

The moment Marshall saw her, he hurried forward to claim credit.

"Report, Erza! The target has been successfully captured. Awaiting further instructions!"

Erza smiled and rewarded him by pulling him close and patting his head.

"Mm. Well done. As expected of you Marshall."

Natsu stared at them.

"???"

Then his face twisted.

"HEY! I’m the one who beat him! Damn it, Marshall, don’t steal my credit!"

"I didn’t steal anything."

Marshall looked perfectly innocent.

"My job was to stop him from reaching the Guild Masters’ meeting. Without me slowing him down, would you really have caught up that quickly?"

Natsu paused.

"Oh."

"Then never mind."

Erza glanced at Erigor, who was lying on the ground like a corpse, and immediately lost interest in him.

There was something else she cared about far more.

"Marshall. Where’s Lullaby?"

"Right here."

Marshall raised the three-eyed skull flute.

"Its seal has already been completely removed. In theory, it should be able to reveal its true form now."

He turned the flute over in his hand.

"No idea why it’s still pretending to be an ordinary flute."

Lullaby remained silent.

"..."

A moment later, a sinister voice finally emerged from within.

"Hehehe... So my disguise was seen through long ago."

"Very well. There is no longer any reason to hide."

"Come! Let me devour your souls!"

Smoke poured from the flute and rapidly expanded, transforming into an enormous wooden demon more than ten meters tall.

It was one of the demons from the Books of Zeref—Lullaby.

Natsu stared up at it in amazement.

"What?! You can eat souls too?"

He immediately looked curious.

"Do they taste good?"

"How would we know?!" Gray and Lucy shouted together.

Lucy was already panicking!

"What do we do?! The demon came out!"

"This is Lullaby—the legendary demon whose song kills everyone who hears it!"

Marshall, however, merely frowned.

Not because Lucy was overreacting but something else had caught his attention.

He couldn’t sense any ordinary magic power coming from Lullaby at all.

That strange, familiar-yet-different sensation...

’Is this another special form of magical energy?’

Erza drew her sword.

"So the moment your seal was broken, you started acting on your own."

"Good thing we stopped you before you could cause any real damage."

Gray cracked his knuckles.

"Yeah. You’re the one dying here, demon."

"Let’s see what you can actually do."

Before either of them could move, Marshall spoke.

"No need to make this complicated."

"I’ll handle it."

His eyes turned crimson and a scarlet beam instantly tore through Lullaby’s chest.

Before the demon could even react, Marshall raised his gaze.

The Heat Vision swept upward and sliced the enormous body cleanly in half!

Lullaby didn’t even get another line out as its body collapsed into ash and vanished.

The entire fight lasted three seconds!

"..."

Natsu and Gray somehow ended up with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

Gray stared at the empty space where the demon had been.

"Oi, flame-brain."

"Do you think we actually have any chance of catching up to Marshall?"

Natsu’s face twitched.

"D-Damn it... You’ve got to be kidding me."

Happy nodded sagely.

"Aye! I think Natsu should just give up!"

Lucy’s eyes went wide.

She blinked several times.

Suddenly, serving as Marshall’s maid for three days didn’t sound so terrible anymore.

This was one very powerful connection she absolutely needed to hold onto!

Erza, meanwhile, smiled with quiet relief and shook her head.

As expected, even something like Lullaby couldn’t trouble Marshall anymore.

The little kid she remembered had grown unbelievably strong.

Yet in one respect, he hadn’t changed at all.

He was still as reliable as ever.

Marshall himself didn’t think the feat was particularly impressive.

Lullaby had been sealed for who knew how many years and had only just awakened. Naturally, it had barely recovered any of its original strength.

Destroying its manifested body in one attack was hardly surprising.

The interesting part came afterward.

Marshall examined the skull flute still resting in his hand.

The magical presence within it had become almost imperceptible, yet if he concentrated, he could sense its "power" slowly beginning to recover.

’Interesting.’

’An artificially created demon that doesn’t truly die when its body is destroyed?’

If he could understand the principle behind that power, his own artificial-life research might finally make another major breakthrough.

There was just one problem.

Erza and Gray were both standing right there.

It would be rather difficult to casually pocket Lullaby without them noticing.

Then an idea occurred to him.

"Oh, right."

Marshall looked back toward Oshibana.

"You guys damaged the station pretty badly. I’ll go restore it while I’m here."

Before anyone could respond, he teleported away.

Lucy opened her mouth, hesitated, then finally couldn’t resist pointing something out.

"Wasn’t Marshall responsible for some of that damage too...?"

She tilted her head.

"Also, what does he mean by ’restore’?"

Gray answered casually.

"Marshall created a spell called Reparo. It can reverse an object’s state through Time Magic and restore damage."

"The spell’s apparently rated pretty highly. I heard the Magic Council has even started teaching it to some of its field units."

He sighed.

"If I had any talent for Time Magic, I’d learn it too."

Lucy’s eyes widened.

"Whoa~ He’s young and he’s already creating original spells?"

Erza gave her an amused look.

"If something like that surprises you, you’re going to have a difficult time around Marshall."

She walked over to where Erigor was still unconscious, picked him up, and unceremoniously stuffed him into the storage compartment of her magic vehicle.

"All right. We’ll take Erigor back to the station."

"That should put every member of Eisenwald in one place."

Gray sighed.

"That damn Marshall. Teleporting all of us would take him a second, but he still left on his own."

By the time Erza drove everyone back to Oshibana Station, the place had already been restored to its original condition by Marshall’s Time Magic.

Gray rubbed his chin as he looked around.

"I have to admit, this spell is ridiculously convenient."

"If we could bring Marshall on every mission, we’d never have to worry about collateral damage again."

Natsu’s eyes lit up.

"Oh! That’s genius!"

He turned toward Happy.

"Happy, let’s ask Marshall to join our team!"

"Aye!"

Happy immediately ruined the idea.

"But Marshall will definitely refuse. He never teams up with boys."

Natsu deflated.

"...Good point."

"Damn it."

Lucy blinked.

"Huh? Why?"

"Marshall teamed up with me just a few days ago."

Natsu and Gray turned toward her with matching dead-fish eyes.

"Isn’t it obvious?"

"Because Marshall’s a little pervert!"

They answered in perfect unison.

Erza immediately flicked both of them hard on the forehead.

"Marshall is a very innocent child."

"You’re not allowed to badmouth him behind his back."

"..."

Natsu and Gray nearly cried.

But it was the truth!

Every guy in Fairy Tail knew it!

Why did none of the women ever believe them?!

’Damn you, evil little brat!’

’Just wait until I completely master my magic. One day I’ll—’

Lucy looked from Erza to Natsu and Gray, unsure which side she should believe.

Still, judging from what she had observed over the last few days...

Marshall did undeniably spend most of his time around girls, while his attitude toward the guys could look like an entirely different personality.

But surely that was just childish behavior.

When Lucy had gone on a job with him, he’d been quite gentlemanly and had taken good care of her throughout the trip.

How could such a cute boy possibly have bad intentions?

Obviously, the guys were simply jealous.

Lucy nodded to herself.

She had discovered the truth.

"Were you guys just talking about me behind my back?"

Marshall suddenly appeared behind them.

Lucy jumped while Natsu and Gray immediately shook their heads.

"Nope!"

"Absolutely not!"

Erza glanced around the restored station and frowned.

"The Magic Council still hasn’t arrived?"

"They’re probably on the way."

Marshall shrugged.

"We finished everything too quickly."

Then he held out a transparent case to Erza.

"Here, Erza. This is for you."

Inside the box was a perfect replica of the Lullaby flute, recreated one-to-one with Wood-Make Magic.

"I’ll leave all the annoying follow-up work to you~"

"I’m heading home first."

"See you~ ( ˶・༝・˶)"

Having successfully dumped the cleanup onto Erza—and quietly kept the real Lullaby for himself—Marshall happily called it a day.

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