Chapter 244
"Woohoo! Earth Land, I’m back!"
"Whoa! Look at that enormous Magic Crystal! How much money is that thing worth?!"
The commotion outside Magnolia was so enormous that Makarov and the guild members who had stayed behind soon hurried over as well.
Marshall and the others had disappeared into Edolas for several days without sending back a single update, so despite acting calm, the old Master had been genuinely worried.
Seeing all of his troublesome children return with as much energy as ever finally allowed him to relax.
"You’re certainly making enough noise. Looks like you all had fun over there."
"Master! Hahaha, I recorded the whole operation!"
Someone excitedly waved a magic terminal.
"We’ll show you later. You have to see how impressive we were!"
Everyone was laughing and celebrating.
Marshall, however, wasn’t quite able to join in.
He stared at Lisanna.
"Lisanna."
"Why did you bring Wendy back with you?"
"Well..."
Before Lisanna could struggle out an answer, Older Wendy stepped forward and "confessed" without the slightest hesitation.
"I asked Lisanna to let me come."
She smiled brightly.
"I prefer living in a world with Magic, so I’ve decided to begin a new adventure here in Earth Land~"
On the surface, her explanation sounded completely reasonable.
Unfortunately, now that Marshall was back in Earth Land, his Telepathy worked as naturally as breathing.
And Older Wendy’s thoughts reached him loud and clear.
’So this is a world overflowing with Magic~ Amazing! There’s no way I could pursue my "dream" in a world without Magic.’
’And Marshall is here too... I’m definitely going to win him over!’
"..."
Marshall silently stared at her.
He had assumed her interest in him was mostly something she entertained privately in her imagination.
Apparently not.
She had followed them across worlds.
She was clearly serious.
The most troublesome part was that nobody would ever guess it from looking at her.
Older Wendy carried herself exactly like an adventurous Mage who had simply left her homeland in search of a new life.
Lisanna, on the other hand, was suspicious enough for both of them.
Her eyes darted everywhere except toward Marshall.
"Y-Yeah! Wendy insisted on coming with me, so I-I couldn’t really stop her..."
Her thoughts were even worse.
[Ugh... what am I supposed to do now? I really agreed to Wendy’s ridiculous plan...]
[If Sis ever figures out what we were plotting, she’s going to kill me...]
"..."
Marshall was speechless.
These two really were a matched set!
Plenty of girls liked him, but most of them had enough sense to wait until he was older before seriously pursuing anything.
Older Wendy was the first person to cross an entire dimension just to keep hovering around him.
What was going on here?
Was it because Earth Land’s Wendy was such a pure little angel that the Edolas version had somehow ended up at the complete opposite extreme?
Marshall suddenly had no idea how he was supposed to deal with the larger Wendy.
"Uh... welcome, I guess."
He hesitated.
"Are you planning to join Fairy Tail?"
"Of course!"
Older Wendy answered immediately.
"I was already a member of Fairy Tail in my own world!"
With so many people gathering in one place, the area had descended into complete chaos.
Cana was furiously scolding Gildarts, who had somehow returned wearing nothing but a pair of brightly patterned shorts.
Natsu was enthusiastically bragging to Romeo about his glorious achievements as the Demon King of Edolas.
Little Wendy and Older Wendy were staring at each other in complete fascination.
Carla was negotiating with a large group of Exceeds.
Gajeel was wrestling with an extremely muscular black cat.
Mira had dragged Lisanna aside and was mercilessly pinching her cheeks.
And Laxus was showing off several records he had bought in another world to Makarov.
Everyone seemed to have brought something back from the trip.
Marshall glanced at the massive Magic Crystal tower before him, then at the steel-black dragon armor stored safely inside his personal space.
He nodded in satisfaction.
Definitely worth it.
...
The Edolas incident came to a successful conclusion.
The Exceeds who had crossed into Earth Land eventually found a place near Magnolia where they could establish a settlement.
Marshall wasn’t completely heartless toward them either.
In fact, he generously offered them well-paying jobs at his amusement park.
After all, an amusement park could never have too many talking cats.
Fairy Tail also gained two new members.
The first was the black Exceed Panther Lily.
The second was Older Wendy.
Back in Edolas, Panther Lily had served as captain of the kingdom’s First Magic War Division.
He possessed tremendous physical strength and considerable swordsmanship, but after arriving in Earth Land his body inexplicably shrank into a much smaller form.
Lily had originally been captured during Fairy Tail’s assault on the royal palace.
Gajeel immediately took an interest in him, and after the two spent several days clashing with one another, Lily finally agreed to become his partner.
At long last, Gajeel had gotten himself a cat.
As for Older Wendy, unlike Earth Land’s Wendy, she did not carry the surname Marvell.
She was an orphan and had no family name at all.
Although she possessed no innate Magic Power, she was similar to Mystogan in that she had exceptional skill with magic arrays.
When using Holder-Type Magic, her combat ability was no worse than that of Fairy Tail’s veteran middle ranks.
She was also a master of hand-to-hand combat, fighting with gauntlets and tonfa.
The first time Older Wendy put on her gloves, smiled, and formally introduced herself to Marshall, he nearly started seeing Tifa Lockhart standing in front of him!
And once that comparison entered his head, he couldn’t unsee it.
The hairstyle.
The build.
The martial-arts fighting style.
There was practically no sense of mismatch at all.
Still, it was obvious that joining Fairy Tail wasn’t Older Wendy’s real objective.
Her intentions were painfully clear.
She had set her sights on Marshall.
She had barely finished settling into the guild before she began openly gathering every scrap of information she could find about him.
Then she discovered that Marshall had four fan clubs.
She was delighted.
Without hesitation, she joined all four group chats.
In that respect, the two Wendys had somehow made exactly the same choice.
Marshall genuinely didn’t know what to say about it.
Fortunately, he had no time to worry about Wendy right now.
After obtaining Dorma Anim, his desire to dive into research had reached an all-time high.
Compared with a gigantic piece of anti-magic technology from another world, these smaller personal headaches could wait.
The day after returning from Edolas, Ultear came to find him.
"Marshall, I need to leave for a while."
Her expression was unusually serious.
"Grimoire Heart is gathering the Seven Kin of Purgatory. It looks like they’re preparing for some kind of major operation."
Ultear hadn’t accompanied Marshall into Edolas.
Apparently, she hadn’t been idle on this side either.
Marshall frowned.
By now, he had gotten so used to having Ultear around that the thought of her suddenly disappearing again genuinely annoyed him.
"When are you finally leaving Grimoire Heart?"
He crossed his arms.
"Didn’t you say the Second Master wouldn’t stop members from leaving?"
"Yes..."
Ultear sighed.
"Master Hades generally doesn’t force people to obey him."
She thought about Marshall’s favorite way of describing the man.
"As you would put it, he prefers making grand promises and convincing people to follow him willingly."
"But if I suddenly left without explanation, he would definitely investigate."
She shook her head.
"I’ve already been using other excuses to keep him from becoming suspicious."
Ultear cared a great deal about Marshall’s reaction, so she quickly added,
"Besides, there’s someone else I need to bring out of Grimoire Heart."
Marshall looked at her.
"Someone else?"
"I have an adopted little sister there. She’s around your age."
Ultear smiled.
"She’s very pretty too. How about I bring her back and let her become one of your maids~?"
"?"
Marshall looked offended.
"What kind of person do you think I am?"
He paused.
"Do you have a picture?"
"Yes, yes."
Ultear immediately pulled one out.
"Come to think of it, she has pink hair too. She actually looks a little like you..."
Marshall examined the picture.
"This little brat is one of those Seven Kin of Purgatory?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"Grimoire Heart doesn’t sound all that impressive."
"She works very hard."
Ultear’s smile faded slightly.
"And she’s extremely talented."
After a brief pause, she added softly,
"Her past is pretty tragic too."