Chapter 99
Ever since Cana moved into Marshall’s home, some unspoken balance between the girls seemed to have shattered.
Certain rivalries that had once remained hidden were now creeping into the open, and their relationships grew more delicate by the day.
Marshall barely dared to activate Telepathy Magic around them anymore.
He was afraid that if he heard too much, he might lose what little faith he had left in friendship.
The girls’ bonds were apparently far more fragile than he’d imagined.
Most of the conflict revolved around Cana, Mira, and Juvia.
Juvia was targeting Mira.
Mira was targeting Cana.
Cana was targeting Juvia.
Juvia’s reasoning was simple:
’Cana treats Marshall like her own little brother, so she can be ignored for now. But Mira has stopped even pretending lately. She must be defeated!’
Mira’s thoughts ran along a similar track:
’That rain woman came out of nowhere, so I’ll deal with her later. Cana, however, isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. She must be corrected!’
And Cana’s position was equally clear:
’There are already too many girls circling my Marshall. Mira can be tolerated for now, but that newcomer is the greatest threat. She has to go!’
Their thought processes were disturbing in several different ways.
Marshall had no idea how he was supposed to respond.
The more he interfered, the more likely he was to make things worse, so he chose the wisest possible strategy: He did absolutely nothing!
Erza remained largely unchanged.
Unlike the others, she didn’t waste much thought on schemes or subtle competition.
She was focused entirely on becoming stronger.
Levy claimed she was too busy with work to participate in the conflict, though Marshall suspected she was secretly planning something of her own.
He neither wanted nor had the time to involve himself in their battles.
He already had far too many projects and problems to handle.
One of those problems, unfortunately, also involved Cana.
Marshall had assumed that allowing her to move into his castle wouldn’t cause any serious trouble.
Clearly, he had underestimated both Cana and himself.
The problem began when Cana chose not to live on one of the many empty floors.
Instead, she moved directly into the room beside Marshall’s bedroom.
Cana had never been particularly self-conscious around him.
One evening, after finishing a bath, she casually wrapped herself in a towel and stepped into the hallway—only to run straight into Marshall, who had just returned from the laboratory.
The youthful vitality of a girl rapidly approaching adolescence hit him without warning.
Marshall froze.
His entire face turned red, and before Cana could even react, he spun around and fled into his room.
It wasn’t that Marshall was especially shy.
He had simply discovered something terrifying.
His mind and his rapidly maturing body were beginning to disagree over who was in charge.
Cana had developed faster than he had expected, and certain ’talents’ could no longer be ignored.
The incident frightened Marshall badly enough that he hid inside the laboratory for the next several days.
He was beginning to regret letting Cana move in at all.
At the very least, he should have placed her on another floor!
Marshall trusted his own judgment and self-control. He wasn’t worried that he would do anything inappropriate.
The problem was whether he could prevent his overcharged constitution from embarrassing him at the worst possible moment.
His Energy attribute had already exceeded five thousand.
Beneath his perfectly balanced physique lurked the vitality of a small volcano.
Marshall had assumed that volcano would remain dormant for years.
Apparently, it had already begun rumbling—and it was both highly flammable and dangerously easy to set off.
If anyone ever noticed his body reacting before his mind did, he would be so humiliated that he might leave the planet entirely.
After that, Marshall began avoiding Cana whenever possible and buried himself in magical research.
Only the beautiful world of magic could properly distract him.
Nearly a month passed after his return before he finally received the good news he had been waiting for.
[Mystogan, come to the top floor of my castle immediately. Anima has appeared.]
After sending the message through his magical terminal, Marshall had his Thought Projection enter the Planetarium Chamber, where Super Archive’s planetary model was maintained.
"Gugu-gaga!"
’Boss! It’s right here!’
Three little Gugas had been assigned to monitor unusual weather patterns across the planetary display without pause.
Having inherited fragments of Marshall’s intelligence, the creatures were remarkably clever.
They were the ones who noticed a disturbance resembling Anima.
Since the receiving array in Edolas’s royal capital was fixed in place, every Anima that appeared in Earth Land manifested somewhere within Fiore.
This time was no exception.
The spatial storm had formed above a dense forest in the central region of the kingdom.
Mystogan arrived quickly.
Marshall wasted no time on explanations.
He grabbed him and teleported both of them directly to the coordinates, where a mass of magical clouds was already gathering high above the forest.
"This is incredible."
Mystogan looked up in relief.
"Your teleportation is far more flexible than my own arrays. With your help, I can reach every Anima before it fully forms."
"Thank you, Marshall!"
The moment he finished speaking, Mystogan began arranging the spell formation needed to disrupt Anima.
A second later, however, he looked up in surprise.
Marshall had flown directly toward the spatial vortex.
"Marshall? What are you doing?"
"I’m going to teach your world to fear garbage."
"???"
Marshall reached the subspace convergence point and pulled out a specially prepared signal converter, which he pushed directly into the spatial crack.
...
At the same time, his main body remained at the Strauss family’s home, holding another magical terminal while Mira and Elfman gathered around it.
After a short delay, an image finally appeared on the screen.
Lisanna stood on the other side, still in Edolas.
"Lisanna!"
"Mira-nee! Elfman!"
"Thank goodness... You’re really all right..."
All three siblings immediately began crying.
Mira and Lisanna hadn’t seen one another for nearly two months.
They had lived together since childhood and had never been separated for anything close to this long.
Naturally, they had endless things to say.
Marshall quietly left them to their reunion.
His Thought Projection still had work to do.
Placing the signal converter inside the spatial convergence point had only been a side objective.
Marshall hadn’t forgotten his plan to take revenge on the king of Edolas.
He produced two tightly wrapped cloth bundles.
In truth, they were spatial storage bags, and developing them had cost him a painful number of brain cells.
Personal storage magic wasn’t particularly difficult to learn in Earth Land, so there had never been much demand for spatial bags.
They were also extremely troublesome to manufacture.
Mages who understood Spatial Magic usually had no need for them, while magical-item craftsmen rarely understood enough Spatial Magic to build one.
Combining both specialties was an inconvenience most people had no reason to endure.
Only someone like Marshall—who scattered his talent across far too many fields—would willingly waste time developing such ridiculous objects.
And he had done it for one reason alone: To disgust the king of Edolas!
One bag was filled entirely with rotten fish.
The other contained spoiled shrimp.
Marshall had spent the past month occasionally visiting coastal towns and purchasing every batch of rotting seafood he could find.
The quantity was enormous.
And the smell...
It was devastatingly authentic.
Even while controlling the bags from a considerable distance, Marshall nearly recoiled when he loosened their seals.
He sincerely hoped His Majesty would appreciate the gift.
Marshall sensed the coordinates on the other side of the subspace passage.
Once he confirmed that the exit had opened directly above the royal palace, he released both storage bags and began the precision deployment of rotten fish and shrimp.
That day, seafood rained from the sky above the Edolas royal palace.
Countless rotting carcasses poured down in overwhelming waves, burying the palace guards and covering nearly the entire royal compound.
For more than two months afterward, the royal capital was said to have been haunted by a fragrance disturbingly similar to manure.
From that day forward, Faust’s residence became known throughout Edolas as—
The Stinkiest Palace in the World!
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