Chapter 296

Chapter 296: Chapter 296

"STOP—!!!"

Marshall shouted with everything he had, desperately trying to halt the power that had suddenly awakened inside him.

Unfortunately, he realized almost immediately that his efforts were already too late.

The Black Dragon had disappeared, and so had every member of his guild.

All that remained before him was the lonely expanse of Tenrou Island, standing peacefully beneath an empty sky.

The surroundings were so quiet that it was almost frightening.

There was no trace of Acnologia’s overwhelming presence, no sound of his companions calling out to one another, and none of the destruction that had been unfolding only moments earlier.

Instead, the air was filled with the lingering fluctuations of Time Magic.

Marshall stared at the island in disbelief.

"Did I... travel through time?"

His expression twisted as he realized what had happened.

"Damn it! Why the hell did the Heart of Time activate at a moment like that?! Everyone was still—"

For once, Marshall genuinely struggled to maintain his composure.

He felt as though he’d been completely screwed over by the mysterious person responsible for giving him this thing.

Until now, he’d regarded the Heart of Time as a sort of emergency safeguard, something that would activate during a truly desperate situation and save his life when there was no other option.

And technically, that was exactly what it had done.

The Heart of Time had activated at the most dangerous possible moment and successfully removed him from Acnologia’s grasp.

As far as saving Marshall himself was concerned, it had performed its function perfectly.

But what about everyone else?!

His entire guild had still been trapped on Tenrou Island when he disappeared!

"FUCK! How is that any different from abandoning everyone and running away?!"

Marshall gritted his teeth. He had gone there specifically to buy his friends enough time to escape, yet the Heart of Time had dragged him away before he could accomplish anything.

"No. I have to go back and save them!"

He immediately extracted the Heart of Time from his body and examined it.

The mysterious object looked completely different from how he remembered it.

Its entire surface was now radiating an intricate, almost mystical light, with strange magical fluctuations moving through it.

Previously, the Heart of Time had been sealed off from his perception.

No matter how thoroughly Marshall attempted to examine it, its internal structure remained inaccessible, preventing him from understanding the principles behind its operation.

Now that it had activated, however, that restriction had apparently disappeared.

Marshall could finally read and analyze the information contained within it.

To his surprise, the underlying mechanism wasn’t particularly complicated.

The Heart of Time consumed an enormous quantity of energy to transport someone from one point in spacetime to a particular period in history.

After the traveler remained in that historical era for a predetermined duration, the Heart would automatically return them to the original spacetime coordinates.

In principle, it was almost identical to the Magic described in the book Reminiscence of Time, which Marshall had encountered previously.

There was only one major difference: the amount of time the traveler could remain in the past depended on how much energy the Heart of Time possessed.

Unfortunately, that was precisely where Marshall’s problem began.

His Heart of Time had absorbed an astonishing amount of magical energy—more than half the power of an Etherion blast.

With that much energy stored inside it, the duration of his journey had been extended to an absurd degree.

Fourteen years!

Marshall stared at the result.

"Fourteen years?!"

His voice rose several octaves.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! You’re telling me I have to spend fourteen whole years in the past before I can return to my original timeline?!"

That wasn’t even the worst part.

Marshall still remembered what had happened when Reminiscence of Time activated before.

Erza and the others had traveled six hours into the past, but by the time the spell ended and they returned, approximately forty minutes had also passed in the present.

That proved an extremely important point: although the amount of time experienced by the traveler and the amount of time passing in the original timeline weren’t necessarily equal, the original timeline didn’t simply stop while someone was away.

Time continued moving.

And if the Heart of Time followed the same principles as Reminiscence of Time, Marshall could make a rough estimate of what would happen.

Six hours in the past corresponded to forty minutes in the original timeline.

If he applied that same ratio to fourteen years...

Wouldn’t more than a year pass in his original world before he finally returned?!

"Are you kidding me?!"

Marshall felt another headache coming on.

By the time he got back, everything would already be over!

His friends had been facing Acnologia’s devastating Dragon’s Roar when he disappeared.

Even a delay of a few minutes could have been disastrous, let alone more than a year.

He wanted to return immediately, but his current mastery of Time Magic simply wasn’t sufficient to force the Heart of Time to activate ahead of schedule.

According to the information he could now read from it, he would have to wait until the fourteen-year period was over.

There was no way for him to shorten that duration with his present abilities.

"Calm down... Calm down, Marshall."

He drew several slow breaths and tried to organize his thoughts.

"Maybe this Heart of Time is more advanced than Reminiscence of Time. Maybe the original timeline doesn’t move at all while I’m here. It isn’t necessarily as bad as I’m imagining."

He rubbed his forehead.

"Nothing’s been confirmed yet. There’s no point panicking before I know what actually happened."

Marshall forced himself to settle down.

Getting angry wasn’t going to accomplish anything, and he certainly couldn’t solve the problem by shouting at the Heart of Time.

In fact, he had long suspected that this mysterious item would eventually provide him with an extraordinary opportunity to improve his abilities.

Being sent into the past for an extended period could give him time to study Magic that would otherwise take years of uninterrupted research.

What he hadn’t expected was for the damn thing to activate at the precise moment his guild needed him most.

But it had already happened.

And Marshall knew that pointless rage was one of the least productive reactions a person could have when faced with a problem that couldn’t immediately be changed.

He needed to think clearly.

Unfortunately, that was proving rather difficult.

The events preceding his arrival were still swirling around inside his head, and almost every part of the encounter had raised questions he couldn’t answer.

Why had Acnologia recognized him?

The Black Dragon had spoken as though they had encountered each other hundreds of years earlier, yet Marshall had never seen him before.

And who had been responsible for the mysterious voice that told him to cast Fairy Law?

He had never heard that voice in his life, but its owner had somehow known his name and exactly what spell he needed at that moment.

More importantly, why had casting Fairy Law triggered the Heart of Time?

There were far too many unknowns.

Still, none of those questions was particularly useful until Marshall understood his current circumstances.

Since he’d already been transported into the past, his first priority should be determining exactly when he had arrived.

He looked around carefully.

The island beneath him was unmistakably Tenrou Island.

Its geography was familiar, and the enormous Tenrou Tree still stood in its characteristic position, looking no different from how it had appeared before his disappearance.

That established at least one important fact.

His spatial coordinates hadn’t changed.

Only the temporal coordinates were different.

Which meant that the easiest way to identify the current year would be to find someone and ask.

Marshall glanced toward the forest below.

’Would there even be anyone living on Tenrou Island at this point in history?’

He extended his magical perception across the surrounding area.

To his surprise, he detected another magical presence almost immediately.

There really was someone on the island!

Marshall lowered his gaze toward the forest, searching for the source of the reaction.

It didn’t take long before he noticed a small head peeking out from behind a large tree.

A little girl was hiding there, tilting her head back to look at him.

’Was she attracted by all the shouting?’

Marshall had been so thoroughly absorbed in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed someone watching him.

Fortunately, he’d been floating in the air the entire time.

If he’d remained on the ground, and the Curse of Ankhseram had chosen that moment to erupt, he might have killed someone without even realizing there was another person nearby.

That was a thoroughly unpleasant possibility, especially considering that the person hiding behind the tree was only a child.

The little girl looked several years younger than Marshall himself.

He was about to call out to her when something about her appearance caught his attention.

’Wait a second...’

Golden curls.

Bright green eyes.

And those distinctive hair ornaments that resembled tiny wings.

Marshall’s expression gradually changed.

’Why does she look so familiar?’

Then the realization struck him.

’Don’t tell me...’

’Is that our guild’s First Master, Mavis?!’

His eyelid began twitching uncontrollably.

Marshall had seen photographs of Fairy Tail’s First Guild Master before, and the girl standing beneath him was an almost perfect match.

It wasn’t merely a vague resemblance. Her appearance was practically identical to the Mavis Vermillion he recognized from those pictures.

He also remembered Makarov mentioning that Tenrou Island had originally been the First Master’s home.

The location fit perfectly.

Which meant...

’Did I travel back almost a hundred years?!’

The little girl seemed to notice that Marshall had spotted her.

She immediately withdrew behind the tree, then turned and ran away as fast as her legs could carry her.

Marshall blinked.

’She’s not even wearing shoes. Doesn’t she care about getting her feet dirty?’

A moment later, he appeared directly behind her.

Before the little girl could escape, Marshall reached down, caught her by the back of her clothes, and lifted her off the ground.

"Your name is Mavis, right?"

The girl flailed in surprise.

"Y-You know me?! Let go! Put me down, you bad person!"

"I’m not a bad person. I’m actually—"

Marshall stopped himself.

Explaining that he was a member of a guild she hadn’t founded yet, who had traveled backward through time after being attacked by a legendary Black Dragon, probably wasn’t the best way to introduce himself.

"Never mind. Forget I said anything."

He adjusted his grip slightly.

"Miss Mavis, could you tell me what year it is?"

Now that Marshall had effectively confirmed the little girl’s identity, he was considerably less worried about approaching her.

After all, traveling through time wasn’t supposed to change established history.

At least, that was how Marshall currently understood it.

The founding of Fairy Tail by Mavis was already a historical fact.

Since that event had definitely occurred in the future he came from, he reasoned that Mavis couldn’t simply die before establishing the guild.

That meant he could interact with her without worrying quite so much about accidentally interfering with her predetermined fate.

Of course, he still needed to be careful about his own uncontrollable curse, but at least he didn’t have to treat her like someone who might vanish from history because he said the wrong thing.

Mavis stopped struggling once she realized Marshall wasn’t intending to hurt her.

She blinked her enormous green eyes and examined him with open curiosity.

"You want to know the year?"

"Yes."

"Today is December 16, X684."

She tilted her head.

"Aren’t you a Mage who came here from somewhere across the sea? How can you not even know what year it is?"

Her initial fear had already begun fading, replaced by an almost shameless curiosity.

Mavis had never seen anyone quite like the boy standing before her.

He was astonishingly handsome, and despite appearing only a few years older than herself, he had descended from the sky and moved so quickly that she hadn’t even seen him approach.

Naturally, she couldn’t stop staring at him.

Marshall, however, barely noticed her scrutiny.

"X684..."

He slowly repeated the number.

"Exactly one hundred years."

His expression became complicated.

"This is seriously..."

He had actually traveled an entire century into the past.

And if the Heart of Time’s information was accurate, he would now be stuck in this historical period for fourteen years.

Marshall struggled to decide whether the situation was an unimaginable disaster or an extraordinary opportunity.

Fourteen years was an absurdly long time to spend waiting for a magical artifact to reactivate, particularly when his friends’ survival was still uncertain.

On the other hand, living in the past opened up possibilities that were almost impossible to imagine in his original era.

’Wait...’

A ridiculous thought suddenly occurred to him.

’If I’m going to stay here for fourteen years, doesn’t that mean I might even get to hold the old Master when he’s a newborn baby?’

Marshall’s expression turned strange.

The idea of meeting a baby Makarov was almost too absurd to process.

Time travel was really fascinating!

Then another realization struck him.

’Hold on. Mavis’s voice...’

Marshall looked at the little girl again.

The more he listened to her speaking, the more familiar her voice seemed.

’Why does she sound so much like the person who told me to use Fairy Law?’

The mysterious voice that had appeared inside his mind during the confrontation with Acnologia had possessed a beautiful, almost fairy-like quality.

And now that he was listening to Mavis speak, he couldn’t shake the impression that the two voices were extraordinarily similar.

’Don’t tell me the First Master was the one who warned me.’

Marshall’s thoughts began racing.

’Could she still be alive a hundred years from now?’

If that were true, then perhaps Mavis had never truly disappeared.

She might have remained hidden somewhere on Tenrou Island throughout the intervening century, quietly watching over Fairy Tail from the shadows.

And if the person who had warned him really was the First Master, that would explain how the mysterious voice had known his name.

’So that’s how it is...’

Marshall felt a faint sense of relief.

Maybe he didn’t need to worry quite so much about his friends after all.

If Fairy Tail’s First Master had genuinely survived for over a hundred years and was still secretly watching over the guild, then surely she must have possessed some means of protecting its members.

Even against Acnologia...

’She should be able to save everyone... right?’

Marshall wasn’t entirely confident in that conclusion, but it gave him something to hope for.

At the very least, the possibility that Mavis had been secretly protecting Fairy Tail meant he couldn’t simply assume everyone had died after his disappearance.

He would have to wait until he returned to his original era to learn what had really happened.

For now, however, he had another problem to consider.

Fourteen years.

That was an enormous amount of time, particularly for someone like Marshall, whose magical development had already reached a point where further breakthroughs could fundamentally change the nature of his abilities.

He had been struggling to find enough time to study the Curse of Ankhseram, improve his Life Magic, master Time Magic, and explore the deeper principles behind the systems he had developed.

Now, whether he liked it or not, he’d been handed fourteen years in which to work on those problems.

If he made proper use of that opportunity, just how powerful could he become before returning?

Acnologia was undeniably terrifying.

His Magic Power exceeded even the detection limits of Marshall’s most advanced equipment, and his physical strength was sufficient to destroy the Gundam with a casual swipe.

But Marshall had fourteen years.

Fourteen years to study, train, experiment, and develop new Magic.

’If I really spend all that time improving myself...’

His eyes gradually brightened.

’When I return, will I finally be strong enough to beat the absolute shit out of that Black Dragon?’

The thought was deeply appealing.

Marshall looked down at the curious little girl still watching him, and a smile slowly appeared on his face.

"Hello, Miss Mavis."

He finally introduced himself properly.

"My name is Marshall. It’s a pleasure to meet you."

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He’ll be 28 when he comeback while only 1 year pass in the present.

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