Fairy Tail: The Uncrowned King of Magic

Chapter 141: Chapter 141

Marshall had stumbled onto an enormous secret.

He had only brought Lullaby back on a whim, yet the demon had unexpectedly provided him with information far more valuable than he had anticipated.

Tartaros.

One of the three great dark guilds of the Balam Alliance, one of the most feared dark guilds in existence, and arguably the most mysterious of them all.

And apparently, it was deeply connected to the origin of the demons from the Books of Zeref.

The reason those demons had been created, the nature of their existence, and even the purpose engraved into their very souls...

It was nothing like Marshall had expected.

They hadn’t originally been created merely to destroy the world.

Destruction was only a means to an end.

Their true purpose was to discover a way to kill their own creator—Zeref.

And even more astonishingly, that had apparently been Zeref’s intention from the beginning.

He had created demons because he wanted something capable of killing him.

A power strong enough to overcome his immortality.

Perhaps even a force capable of resetting the entire world.

As long as it could bring about his death, Zeref had been willing to pursue it.

Marshall could find references to the cause in Super Archive.

The Curse of Ankhseram.

Those afflicted by it became ageless and immortal.

Worse, the more they valued life and loved other living beings, the more violently the curse would take life away from everything around them.

According to Lullaby, Zeref despised that curse.

And he hated his own inability to die just as much.

So he created demons in the hope that one of them would eventually become powerful enough to kill him.

The true bodies of the demons from the Books of Zeref were apparently stored within a place Lullaby called Zeref’s Bookshelf, located under Tartaros’s control.

That did not mean every demon remained with Tartaros.

They possessed their own personalities and desires, and those whose beliefs differed from the others often chose to wander independently.

Some had even been abandoned by Zeref long ago.

Yet many of them still remembered the purpose for which they had been created.

Even if they lacked the power to kill Zeref now, they continued striving toward that goal.

And their chosen method was...

Spreading fear throughout the world.

The demons from the Books of Zeref did not use conventional Magic.

They used Curses.

Magic relied on magic power—either the caster’s own reserves or power drawn from the surrounding environment—which was then shaped through will, knowledge, and technique into a desired phenomenon.

It had to be learned.

Its performance could even fluctuate depending on the user’s mental and emotional condition.

A demon’s Curse, however, required no magic power at all.

It was an expression of the demon’s own existence.

Their life itself was the source.

That was why some demons could possess no measurable magic power whatsoever and still use their Curses normally.

After hearing Lullaby’s explanation, Marshall remained silent for quite some time.

If everything the demon had told him was true...

Then Zeref, the legendary Black Mage, was somehow even worse than Marshall had imagined.

He wanted to die but couldn’t, so he kept inventing increasingly extreme methods of killing himself.

That alone was deranged enough.

Then, because his immortality made him miserable, he created monstrous beings whose search for strength spread suffering across the world.

And once those creations proved unable to kill him, he apparently didn’t even bother cleaning up the mess.

He simply let them wander wherever they pleased.

Marshall had to admit that the title of history’s most evil Black Mage suddenly sounded extremely appropriate.

And remembering what Makarov had once told him—that Zeref was still alive somewhere in the world—made Marshall distinctly uncomfortable.

Someone that powerful, impossible to kill, and apparently mentally unstable was essentially a walking disaster.

If Zeref happened to lose control one day and decided to destroy the world, there was an uncomfortable possibility that he might actually succeed.

Even worse, one of Fairy Tail’s members could someday run into him by pure chance.

Against a Black Mage that powerful and effectively immortal, they might not even understand how they died.

Marshall fully believed that he would eventually stand at the very summit of this world.

But eventually was the important word.

Right now, he still needed time to grow.

Fortunately, Lullaby was absurdly cooperative.

The demon had practically sold out Zeref without the slightest hesitation.

Then again, perhaps it had never possessed any loyalty toward its creator in the first place.

If someone genuinely offered to help kill Zeref, Lullaby might happily cooperate with them.

Marshall had no intention of helping fulfill that ancient objective anytime soon.

He knew his own limits.

He still couldn’t defeat Makarov.

Picking a fight with Zeref now would be nothing more than suicidal arrogance.

There was, however, another subject that interested him immensely.

[Lullaby, you were created by Zeref, but not every demon in existence was created by him, correct?]

[And the power demons use... is it fundamentally derived from emotion?]

Lullaby answered immediately.

[Correct.]

[We were artificial demons created by Zeref in imitation of true demons.]

[True demons are born from negative emotions themselves. Because of that, they instinctively understand how to wield emotional power.]

That answer clarified several questions that had been bothering Marshall.

Zeref’s demons and Celestial Spirits actually had a surprising number of similarities.

As long as their true bodies remained intact, neither could be killed easily.

Neither relied primarily on ordinary magic power. Celestial Spirits possessed celestial energy, while demons could draw upon emotional power.

Both also tended to possess abilities embedded into their existence rather than freely developing entirely new systems of Magic through study.

And most importantly—

Both were forms of artificial life.

Marshall had already begun treating Zeref as the strongest hypothetical enemy he might someday have to face, so naturally he couldn’t resist comparing his own work with Zeref’s.

If Zeref could create powerful artificial life-forms capable of fighting...

Why shouldn’t Marshall eventually be able to do the same?

The existence of the Gugas already proved he had succeeded halfway.

Their greatest weakness was that they couldn’t independently absorb and utilize magic power like ordinary living beings.

That might also explain why Celestial Spirits and demons relied on alternative energy systems rather than conventional Magic.

But was a Curse truly something fundamentally different from Magic?

Marshall wasn’t convinced.

Virgo’s ability to move through earth behaved almost like an instinctive racial ability, yet comparable spells existed within Earth Magic.

Loki’s light-based attacks were similar.

Even Lullaby’s Curse had recognizable parallels within conventional magical theory.

So perhaps "Curse" was merely another technical framework.

The difference might be comparable to an engine powered by fuel versus one powered by electricity.

Different input.

Different internal mechanism.

But ultimately, both were still converting energy into work.

That raised the real question.

Why did both Celestial Spirits and Zeref’s demons rely on entirely different sources of energy instead of simply learning to absorb and use magic power directly?

If Marshall could answer that...

He might finally solve the Gugas’ two greatest weaknesses: their poor endurance and their lack of meaningful combat ability.

Or perhaps he didn’t need to understand everything immediately.

Maybe he could simply copy the successful principle first.

If Gugas couldn’t efficiently use magic power, then perhaps he could find another source of energy for them.

A new fuel.

Something capable of sustaining artificial life without depending entirely on Marshall’s own reserves.

The possibilities began multiplying rapidly in his mind.

...

When Erza returned carrying tea and snacks, she found Marshall completely absorbed in his work.

She recognized that expression immediately.

He had entered one of those states where the outside world practically ceased to exist.

Rather than interrupt him, Erza quietly set the refreshments aside and decided to find something else to do.

What did maids normally do, anyway?

She vaguely remembered reading descriptions in some of Levy’s stranger books, but those examples had been so ridiculous that they were probably useless.

Then...

Laundry?

That sounded reasonable.

Virgo had mentioned that Marshall was lazy about nearly everything except keeping his own clothes clean.

Since Erza had promised to serve as his maid for the day, she might as well wash something for him.

She quietly entered Marshall’s room and found some clothes waiting to be cleaned near the bathroom.

The moment she picked them up, however, her magical senses caught something unusual.

’Hm?’

There were traces of Spatial Magic woven into the fabric.

’Marshall enchanted his clothes too?’

Erza examined the spellwork curiously.

It appeared to be some kind of miniature spatial-storage array built into one of the inner layers.

Why put a storage pocket there?

She carefully fed a tiny amount of magic into it.

The array activated.

"Oh?"

Her hand could actually pass through the opening.

"So he built a hidden dimensional pocket into his clothes?"

That was certainly strange.

Erza reached inside experimentally and felt something soft.

"What’s this?"

She tugged.

The spatial pocket reacted immediately, expanding as though an emergency storage mechanism had been triggered.

A second later—

A pink flash tore through the room.

The clothes vanished from Erza’s hands, so did the spatial pocket.

Erza blinked.

"That was... Marshall?"

For just an instant, she had caught sight of him snatching the enchanted laundry away at an absurd speed.

His face had been bright red.

"...Why was he so embarrassed?"

Erza stared at the empty space for several seconds.

Then, deciding that perhaps certain magical inventions were best left unexplored, she quietly walked out of Little Garden.

Magic truly was a mysterious thing.

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