Chapter 181

Chapter 181: Chapter 181

In the room next door to Marshall’s, Cana lay on her bed with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling without the slightest trace of sleepiness.

What had happened tonight had caught even her off guard.

She had mentally prepared herself for something like this a long time ago, but when the possibility finally became real right in front of her, Cana discovered that she couldn’t even properly understand what she was feeling.

The words indulging Marshall had simply come out naturally.

Looking back on them now, they hardly sounded like something she would normally say.

Deep down, Cana knew that even if she hadn’t said any of that, Marshall would never cut ties with her.

Yet there was another uncomfortable truth she couldn’t avoid: if she distanced herself from Marshall, he would simply spend that time with other girls instead, and she knew perfectly well that she would become jealous when that happened.

Perhaps that was simply the painful and happy reality of their relationship.

As for what would happen in the future... Cana suddenly felt that it wasn’t important.

As long as Marshall was still beside her right now, that was enough.

It was already enough.

Eventually, somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, Cana drifted into a dream.

She dreamed of Marshall’s wedding.

The brides were all beautiful and all of them all familiar to her.

And Cana herself?

She stood below the stage and applauded.

She offered them her blessing.

And tears ran down her face.

...

The next day, Loki returned to the guild.

Apparently, the other Celestial Spirits had given him such a cold reception that he became annoyed and decided to "leave home" for Earth Land.

Until he found another suitable contract holder, he claimed he had no intention of going back.

Marshall suspected the truth was much simpler.

Loki couldn’t bear to leave all his girlfriends.

Marshall had spent most of the previous night feeling strangely nervous after openly declaring his grand harem ambitions to Cana.

Then he saw Loki.

Suddenly, he felt much better.

Comparison really was everything.

Next to the guild’s genuine womanizers and serial heartbreakers, Marshall was practically innocent!

Loki didn’t make any grand announcement about being a Celestial Spirit, but he didn’t deliberately hide it anymore either.

Natsu and Gray were both surprised when they discovered that the guy they had known as Loki was actually Leo the Lion, but Fairy Tail members had always possessed absurdly strong nerves.

After an initial—

"Oh."

—they simply went back to whatever they had been doing.

So he was a Celestial Spirit.

Big deal.

Lucy, however, still wanted nothing to do with him.

She completely approved of Leo’s decision to protect Aries back then, but she was still furious that Marshall and Loki had teamed up to manipulate her into confronting the Celestial Spirit King.

Lucy felt that her pure and sincere heart had been cruelly taken advantage of.

The world was full of terrible people!

...

Ever since that night, Levy had also been pestering Marshall to make her a new Spatial Magic tool.

As for what exactly the tool was supposed to do...

Don’t ask.

Marshall tried resisting at first, but Levy had become extremely difficult to deal with.

Whenever she found an opportunity, she would sneak up on him and steal a kiss, apparently finding the secrecy of it all incredibly exciting.

Marshall was beginning to struggle.

If not for his unwavering determination to pursue his grand harem dream, Levy might genuinely have bewitched him so thoroughly that he forgot everyone else existed.

And so...

somehow...

Marshall eventually gave in and made the magical tool for her.

He named it—Cow, Come!

As for what Cow, Come! actually did...

Those who understood already understood.

Those who didn’t understand wouldn’t understand even if it were explained.

There were too many interests involved, and saying too much wouldn’t do anyone any good.

All Marshall could say was that the waters ran deep.

Ordinary people wouldn’t understand.

In any case, because of various recent events, Marshall and Levy had become noticeably closer and were often seen together.

Naturally, the other girls eventually noticed.

The first person to realize something was wrong was Juvia.

Juvia liked Marshall.

She had secretly liked him for years, but because of their age difference, she had never openly confessed those feelings.

Instead, she usually presented herself as the proud president of Marshall’s "mom-fan club."

Juvia believed she had hidden her feelings extremely well.

In reality, practically everyone in Fairy Tail with functioning eyes had already figured it out.

Nobody simply bothered exposing her.

In Juvia’s eyes, Marshall was like a flawless little angel.

She was determined to quietly protect that rare and precious innocence from the shadows.

Which was why one of Juvia’s most important daily activities was—monitoring Marshall.

She regularly hid in all kinds of strange corners with a camera, waiting for opportunities to photograph every handsome moment of Marshall’s day.

To put it bluntly, she was the ultimate obsessive fan.

Fortunately for Marshall, he traveled almost everywhere through teleportation, so Juvia could generally only photograph him while he was inside the guild.

He had grown so accustomed to her lurking around that he often forgot she was even doing it.

Juvia, meanwhile, had spent much of the past few days trying to rehabilitate Envy.

Ever since bringing the little Apostle home, she had repeatedly attempted to convince Envy to abandon her extreme way of thinking and metaphorically put down the knife.

Naturally, she failed.

Once an Apostle’s personality formed, it was essentially fixed.

They were the truly stubborn ones.

Juvia never managed to persuade Envy.

Instead, she nearly persuaded herself.

Her mind had recently become filled with thoughts such as:

’Forcing love never ends well.’

’Love means restraint.’

’Sometimes, if you truly care about someone, you have to know when to let go.’

After repeating those ideas often enough, Juvia was dangerously close to brainwashing herself.

Still, although she couldn’t change Envy’s personality, the two had actually begun getting along reasonably well.

The reason was simple.

They shared a hobby.

Spying on Marshall!

Juvia followed Marshall around because she wanted to preserve beautiful moments of his life through photographs.

Envy followed her master around because she wanted to identify any women who showed improper intentions toward him and then write their names into her personal "death notebook."

Envy wasn’t singling out Juvia.

She wanted to kill every woman who received too much of her master’s favor.

As a result, where guild members had previously been accustomed to seeing one blue-haired Juvia lurking in dark corners and secretly watching Marshall, there were now two.

One large.

One small.

The larger Juvia would stare at Marshall with hearts in her eyes, sometimes practically drooling as she took photographs.

The smaller one stood beside her with an icy expression, silently recording names in a little notebook.

The entire sight was so absurd that Fairy Tail’s members had collectively decided that pretending not to notice was the healthiest option.

Which led to a very obvious problem.

There were now two blue-haired Juvias constantly watching Marshall from the shadows.

And elsewhere, another blue-haired girl named Levy kept finding chances to grab Marshall and secretly kiss him.

Under those circumstances, the probability that nothing would go wrong was approximately zero.

Unsurprisingly—

Marshall was exposed.

"No no no no no!"

Juvia stared at the photograph in her hands.

"This isn’t right!"

Her pupils shook.

Her brain shook with them.

The photograph was painfully clear.

At a corner on Fairy Tail’s second floor, Marshall and Levy were secretly kissing!

Juvia’s entire world collapsed.

’LEVY!’

’YOU SNEAKY LITTLE BITCH!’

’WHAT DID YOU DO TO MARSHALL?!’

Her eyes instantly turned red.

She couldn’t accept this!

Why wasn’t the blue-haired girl in that picture her?!

Where exactly had Juvia lost?!

"K-Kill..."

A voice beside her trembled.

"Kill kill kill kill kill kill her!"

Juvia slowly turned.

The miniature Juvia beside her was staring at the same photograph.

Envy’s eyes had turned scarlet.

Her desire to kill was rising so violently that she could barely suppress it.

"Envy..."

Juvia swallowed.

"You need to calm down first..."

She took several deep breaths herself.

She couldn’t go to extremes.

Things weren’t necessarily as bad as they appeared.

Perhaps it was just a misunderstanding.

Perhaps the lighting had made the photograph misleading.

Maybe Levy had only kissed Marshall on the cheek—

’EVEN THE CHEEK ISN’T OKAYYYYY!!!’

’I CAN’T CALM DOWN EITHER!!!’

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Juvia finally snapped.

"I HAVE TO FIND OUT WHAT’S GOING ON!"

She grabbed Envy by the shoulders.

"Envy!"

Her eyes burned with determination.

"Help me!"