Chapter 283

Chapter 283: Chapter 283

While Fairy Tail’s core members were enjoying their beach barbecue on Tenrou Island, the guild hall back in Magnolia was considerably quieter.

Little Wendy sat by one of the tables with Ruby hugged against her chest, sighing miserably.

"Ugh... Everyone went to Tenrou Island. Even Sloth got taken along. I’m so bored~~~"

Little Wendy hadn’t been selected for the S-Class Promotion Trial because nobody had invited her to be their partner.

Or, more accurately, the spot she might otherwise have filled had been taken by Older Wendy.

Ever since unlocking her Second Origin, Older Wendy had become an extremely powerful Mage—and unlike Little Wendy, she was a pure close-combat fighter.

She hardly bothered with elaborate spells at all, simply reinforcing her body with Magic Power and throwing herself into hand-to-hand combat.

Even Natsu had trouble gaining the upper hand against her.

Little Wendy, meanwhile, hadn’t even reached the Magic Power threshold for S-Class yet.

For now, she was still primarily a support Mage and healer, so it wasn’t particularly strange that nobody had chosen her.

Truthfully, Wendy wasn’t that upset about missing the exam itself.

She was simply bored.

"When is Marshall-nii coming back, Ruby?"

"Dunno, nya. Boss didn’t tell me, nya."

"Poor Ruby. Marshall-nii barely looks after you at all. He’s terrible."

"It’s okay, nya! Boss said a truly excellent kitty has to learn how to take care of herself. Ruby is an excellent kitty, nya!"

"..."

Little Wendy stared at her sympathetically.

Ruby really had it rough.

Maybe she should take even better care of her from now on.

Just as Wendy tightened her arms around the little Exceed, Carla suddenly hurried over, her expression unusually tense.

"Wendy! And Ruby too—can either of you contact Marshall? I have something important to tell him!"

"Carla? What’s wrong? You look really nervous."

"I-I saw another bad prophecy just now."

Carla’s face was pale.

"A very frightening future."

Several images had flashed through her mind without warning: a terrifying explosion over the sea, Marshall disappearing into a brilliant light, and Wendy crying afterward.

Ever since Carla had reunited with Queen Shagotte, she had gradually gained better control over her precognitive ability.

She could now glimpse a few seconds into someone’s immediate future with reasonable consistency.

Predictions involving the distant future, however, were still beyond her control.

Those visions came and went on their own.

This one had been the same.

No matter how hard Carla tried now, she couldn’t summon the images again.

Even so, what she had seen was disturbing enough that she felt Marshall absolutely needed to know.

"Carla-chan~~~! Why did you run off, nya?"

Millianna came hurrying after her.

The two of them had apparently been together before Carla rushed away.

As an enthusiastic member of the cat-loving population, Millianna had excellent relationships with practically every feline in the guild.

Sometimes it was difficult to tell whether she was playing with the cats or the cats were playing with her.

Little Wendy took Carla’s prophecies very seriously.

Without wasting another second, she pulled out her terminal and called Marshall.

There was no answer.

"Huh? Marshall-nii isn’t picking up. Is he busy?"

With no other option, Wendy asked Carla to explain exactly what she had seen.

Carla carefully described every fragment of the frightening future, which immediately startled Wendy as well.

"That sounds really bad! But Marshall-nii isn’t answering right now..."

She looked down at Ruby.

"Ruby, do you have any way to reach him?"

"Yes, nya!"

Ruby lifted one tiny paw and tapped the bell hanging from the collar around her neck.

A moment later, Marshall’s voice came through it.

Apparently, the bell was also a communication Magic Item.

"Ruby? What’s wrong?"

"Marshall-nii! Thank goodness! It’s Wendy. Something happened..."

Wendy quickly repeated Carla’s prophecy.

On the other end of the connection, Marshall seemed to be working on something. Strange metallic noises and intermittent clattering echoed in the background.

"A huge explosion over the sea?"

Marshall paused.

"That could mean far too many things. There’s really no way to tell what situation she saw from that alone."

More clanging followed.

"Anyway, I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks for warning me! I’m still busy over here, so I’ll talk to you later!"

The connection ended.

"..."

Wendy looked at Carla in confusion.

"That’s strange. Marshall-nii didn’t seem very concerned."

She tilted her head.

"That really isn’t like him. He’s always been incredibly cautious. Usually, even the smallest risk bothers him. Why would he brush this off?"

Carla’s ears drooped slightly.

"Maybe... he thinks a threat like that is something he can handle easily?"

Her voice became quieter.

"Was I worrying over nothing?"

"Of course not! Marshall-nii thanked you, didn’t he?"

"But..."

Carla hesitated.

She had seen Wendy crying.

Admittedly, Wendy cried rather easily, but Carla still couldn’t shake the bad feeling sitting in her chest.

Millianna suddenly clapped her hands together.

"Nya! If worrying is making everyone miserable, why don’t we go out and have some fun instead? We could head toward the coast and meet Erza and the others when they come back!"

"Just the two of us?"

"We can invite Wally and the others too!"

Wendy hesitated.

The guild really was painfully boring today.

Going out for a while sounded much better than sitting here worrying.

"Then... okay."

...

At almost exactly the same time, Marshall received another message from Ultear.

[They’ve started moving!]

The subject had been deliberately omitted.

That alone told Marshall that Ultear was probably somewhere close to Hades and didn’t dare transmit anything more explicit.

"So it’s starting..."

Marshall hadn’t gotten much rest over the past two days.

He had been working nearly nonstop on his so-called secret weapon—an advanced intelligent remote-controlled combat mecha.

Or, as Marshall preferred to call it: a Gundam!

Standing before him was a compact mecha roughly three meters tall.

Its exterior had been painted in the classic blue-and-white color scheme, giving it an undeniably impressive appearance.

Marshall had wasted an embarrassingly large amount of time on the aesthetics.

In fact, most of the last two days had been spent repeatedly adjusting its appearance rather than improving its actual performance.

The machine had consumed roughly one quarter of the original black-dragon armor recovered from Edolas.

As a result, it inherited the material’s extraordinary resistance to ordinary Magic, while its mobility had reached what Marshall considered an acceptable level.

There was only one major flaw.

No human could actually pilot it yet.

The cockpit and human-machine integration systems simply weren’t finished.

That normally would have made the entire machine rather pointless, but Marshall had designed it specifically around his current circumstances.

He couldn’t control when the curse would erupt.

He also couldn’t separate a Thought Projection from himself and send it safely into battle, because the projection would trigger the curse at the same time as his real body.

So Marshall had chosen an indirect method of participating on Tenrou Island.

He would use Information Magic to synchronize all of the mecha’s sensory data with himself and remotely control it from the island, essentially turning the entire battle into an immersive full-body game.

Marshall could already picture it.

Hades would be standing there, smugly abusing his bottomless Magic Power and tormenting everyone—

and then, at the critical moment...

Marshall’s remotely controlled Gundam would descend from the heavens!

He would take over the battle and crush the Second Master while the old man screamed in disbelief!

"Hahaha..."

Just imagining it was exciting.

Even if Marshall couldn’t personally appear on the battlefield, fighting through a Gundam sounded pretty damn good.

"All right. One last round of debugging."

He bent over the machine again.

"Please don’t break down at the worst possible moment..."

As for Carla’s warning?

Marshall hadn’t given it much weight.

Her prophecies were simply too unstable.

She could glimpse scenes from the future, but she had no way of knowing when those events would occur.

Without a reliable timeframe or context, the visions weren’t especially useful for making plans.

Besides...

Marshall genuinely couldn’t think of many ways he could die anymore.

Naturally, he wasn’t particularly worried about his own safety.

Then his terminal chimed again.

Another message from Ultear appeared.

Marshall’s expression changed the instant he read it.

[THE BLACK MAGE IS ON TENROU ISLAND!!!]

Marshall’s eyes widened.

"...What?"