Chapter 224

Chapter 224: Chapter 224

"The annual Harvest Festival is finally here! I’m your favorite host, Max the Duststorm! This year, Fairy Tail has prepared a very special event for everyone—Conquer the Tower of Heaven!

"See that nine-story magic tower behind me?! That’s today’s attraction! To let everyone experience the legendary adventure in which the Fairy Queen defeated the evil Wizard Saint Jellal, we’ve built a genuine Tower of Heaven of our very own!"

"Anyone who wants to try it can line up at one of the four entrances. Admission is completely free today, but today only! And anyone who reaches the top within ten minutes will receive a special commemorative prize!"

On October 6, X784, the Harvest Festival arrived.

As one of Ishgar’s major annual celebrations, the Harvest Festival had traditionally been an important occasion for Fairy Tail.

Every year, the guild held a parade and various public performances, both to show off its strength and to increase its influence.

After all, the more famous a guild became, the more commissions were likely to be sent its way.

But that had been in the past.

Ever since Fairy Tail stopped having to worry about money, nobody had made much effort to deliberately improve the guild’s "reputation."

Even without trying, Fairy Tail’s name had only continued spreading farther and wider.

So nowadays, events like this were held for a much simpler reason.

Everyone wanted to have fun.

Over the previous week, Makarov had mobilized practically the entire guild. Everyone contributed something, and together they designed and constructed this new "Tower of Heaven."

The original Tower of Heaven had taken Jellal seven or eight years to build because it had been designed to accumulate enormous quantities of Magic Crystal and support the complicated arrays required for the R-System.

This imitation didn’t need to be nearly as tall, nor did it require all that Magic Crystal or the countless magic arrays of the original.

With a whole guild full of Mages working overtime, they finished the thing in a single week.

Once again, Marshall was reminded that the productivity of Mages was utterly unreasonable.

He had only proposed the overall framework.

There was no way he could have built the entire attraction by himself.

Instead, practically every creative lunatic in Fairy Tail had contributed some bizarre idea of their own.

Because everyone had only been responsible for designing a portion of the traps and challenges, nobody except Makarov, who had handled final inspections, knew everything hidden inside the tower.

Not even Marshall.

That was exactly why he wanted to experience the attraction himself.

And for today, he had specifically invited Erza to join him.

Erza had dressed specially for their date.

Instead of her usual armor, she wore a crimson dress and high heels that brought her close to six feet tall.

Without all that steel hiding her figure, she carried herself with the full confidence and mature presence of a beautiful older woman.

Marshall thought she looked stunning.

Beautiful, elegant, and impossibly charming.

He was about to fall in love all over again!

Erza looked up at the Tower of Heaven standing before them, so familiar and yet completely different from the one in her memories, and smiled with genuine relief.

"In the end, the Tower of Heaven became a real amusement attraction."

Her expression softened.

"Maybe this is what it should have been all along."

Then she glanced at Marshall.

"Come on. Let’s challenge Jellal one more time."

Hearing how casually Erza spoke about it, Marshall knew she had finally stepped completely out of the shadow of her past.

True revenge was never about maintaining an intense hatred forever.

It was reaching the point where the person who once hurt you no longer mattered at all.

Indifference was the greatest form of contempt.

Marshall smiled and took Erza’s hand.

Together, the two of them stepped into the "Tower of Heaven" once again.

The moment they entered, three lines of glowing Jutsu-Shiki appeared overhead.

[Magic is prohibited inside the tower.]

[Harming other participants is prohibited.]

[Anyone who shouts "Leave" will be expelled from the tower.]

Neither Marshall nor Erza had brought any tools capable of overriding Jutsu-Shiki, so for the moment, neither of them could use Magic.

"If this had happened to the old me, suddenly losing access to Magic would probably have made me extremely uneasy."

Erza flexed her hand, then smiled and shook her head.

"But now... I don’t feel that way at all."

"Really?"

Marshall glanced up at the rules.

"Honestly, this attraction still has plenty of loopholes. For someone like me who specializes in Script Magic, rewriting rules this simple wouldn’t even take a minute."

He shrugged.

"So I’m not particularly worried either."

Erza smiled and gently patted his head.

"That’s true."

She squeezed his hand.

"As long as Marshall is beside me, I don’t think there’s anything I need to be afraid of."

"!?"

Marshall’s heart gave a violent thump, and the tips of his ears immediately turned red.

What the hell?

When had Erza learned to say things like that?!

Did she have any idea how unfair it was for a tall, beautiful older woman to hold his hand while calmly dropping lines like that?

"C-Cough. We should hurry!"

Marshall quickly looked away.

"The first three floors are a maze. They’ll eat up a lot of time!"

"All right~"

Unfortunately, Marshall soon discovered that he had celebrated too early.

Despite saying they should hurry, the two of them ended up walking extremely slowly.

The lighting inside the Tower of Heaven was deliberately dim, and the maze incorporated plenty of haunted-house elements.

Every so often, hidden mechanisms would suddenly launch props or eerie decorations at passing participants.

Unfortunately...both Marshall and Erza had nerves of steel.

Neither of them was remotely affected by the atmosphere.

The two walked side by side through the gloomy corridors as casually as though they were taking an afternoon stroll through a park.

’Oi!’

’This isn’t how this is supposed to work!’

Marshall started getting anxious.

He hadn’t invited Erza into a haunted attraction so they could calmly go sightseeing!

This woman was seriously made of wood.

Marshall gritted his teeth, moved closer, wrapped himself around Erza’s arm, and blinked up at her.

"Erza-nee... I’m kind of scared."

"Hm?"

Erza looked around.

"What is there to be scared of? Everyone in the guild built these props, didn’t they?"

She smiled warmly.

"I can practically feel how much love they put into them."

"..."

Marshall felt his teeth ache.

How was anyone supposed to flirt with a woman braver than most men?

"I’m afraid of the dark."

Erza blinked.

Then, several seconds later, she finally realized that this was supposed to be a date!

Her face reddened, and she immediately became awkward.

"O-Oh!"

She tightened her grip on Marshall’s hand.

"Then make sure you hold on properly. Your big sister is right here, so there’s nothing to be afraid of."

Good.

Good.

At least she wasn’t a complete blockhead.

Marshall pressed a little closer to Erza, breathing in the familiar scent around her while his mind raced for another topic.

"Erza-nee, you spent so many years working toward defeating Jellal, right?"

He looked ahead through the dim corridor.

"Now the Tower of Heaven has become an amusement attraction, and the goal that defined so much of your past is finally behind you."

Marshall glanced up at her.

"So have you thought about what you want from the future?"

"The future?"

Erza considered the question.

"I’ve been so busy lately that I honestly haven’t had much time to think about it."

That was certainly true.

She had been dealing with the aftermath of the Tower of Heaven, arranging places for her old companions to stay, and contacting numerous people in the hope of finding some way to help Simon.

She had barely stopped moving.

"I suppose... I’ll keep working as a Mage?"

Erza smiled a little helplessly.

"It’s not as though I’m particularly good at anything else."

"That’s not what I mean, Erza-nee."

Marshall reached for her hand properly and intertwined their fingers.

"Have you never thought about who you want to spend your future with?"

Erza looked down.

Marshall continued more quietly.

"I don’t mean everyone in the guild."

His fingers tightened around hers.

"I mean someone who could stay beside you for the rest of your life."

Erza instantly began turning red.

Marshall looked up at her rapidly overheating face and couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

"Erza-nee, did you know?"

His voice softened.

"Ever since I was little, I’ve wanted to marry you someday."

Erza’s entire face went crimson.

"Have you ever thought about something like that?"

"M-M-M-Marry?!"

Erza’s brain completely stopped functioning.

Why had the conversation suddenly turned to marriage?!

She hadn’t prepared herself for this at all!

Her thoughts descended into chaos, but after struggling for several seconds, Erza somehow managed to straighten herself and answer with complete seriousness.

"I-I may not be a very qualified wife, but... p-please take good care of me!"

"?"

Marshall stared at her.

Sometimes he really did think Erza was just an incredibly beautiful idiot!

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