Chapter 42
Marshall had technically learned Dragon Slayer Magic.
The problem was that there was almost no chance he could actually use Dragon Slayer Magic.
Natsu taught him for exactly one day before Marshall gave up on him.
His entire teaching method amounted to, "You do this, then that, and then it goes like this, and finally the magic comes out!"
No normal human being could possibly understand him.
It wasn’t even like playing music to a cow.
The cow was the one giving the lesson instead!
Fortunately, Marshall had his System.
And by some miracle, he managed to unlock the skill: [Dragon Slayer Magic LV0: 0.1%]
And then he discovered a magic even harder to learn than Crush Magic.
Marshall spent several days practicing in every ridiculous way he could think of, but the experience bar refused to move even slightly.
He could not tell whether the problem was Natsu’s hopeless teaching or whether Dragon Slayer Magic was simply that difficult to learn.
But it didn’t matter since Marshall had a cheat!
He spent a modest one thousand Inspiration to raise Dragon Slayer Magic to Level One.
Then something happened that he could not understand at all.
[Dragon Slayer Magic LV0] disappeared.
In its place appeared:
[Enchantment Magic LV1]
[Attribute Conversion Magic EXP +1,000]
[Dragon Seed: 0]
Marshall stared at the screen, his head filling with question marks.
Enchantment Magic... He vaguely remembered seeing it mentioned in a book.
The thousand points of experience in Attribute Conversion Magic also made sense.
But what the hell was a Dragon Seed?
According to Natsu, Dragon Slayer Magic allowed a human to wield the power of a dragon.
It gradually transformed the user’s body into something closer to a dragon’s and had originally been created for the purpose of killing dragons.
Yet Dragon Slayer Magic had now vanished from Marshall’s skill list entirely, leaving him with no way to gain experience by practicing it.
The Inspiration he had invested had still granted him an understanding of the magic’s principles, and based on what he had learned...
Dragon Slayer Magic simply could not be used without a Dragon Seed.
Marshall was speechless.
He had no idea what to do!
"Marshall! Marshall! Waaaah!"
He heard the crying before the person herself arrived.
The door slammed open as a white-haired delinquent dressed entirely in black charged into the room.
Mirajane had tears streaming down her face and a bubble of snot beneath her nose as she threw herself around Marshall and began sobbing uncontrollably.
"??? Mira? What happened?"
"Waaaah... I’m telling you... Elfman... Lisanna... because of me... Take Over... How can they be... so wonderful...?"
Mirajane babbled through her tears so incoherently that Marshall could barely understand a word.
Fortunately, he could hear her thoughts.
Elfman and Lisanna had secretly learned Take Over Magic because they did not want Mirajane to feel alone while she maintained her aloof, intimidating persona around the guild.
They had revealed it to her as a surprise earlier that day, and Mirajane had been so overwhelmed that she nearly broke down on the spot.
Unfortunately, she was thin-skinned and far too stubborn to cry in front of her siblings.
So she ran away.
Then she came to Marshall’s house and cried all over him instead.
Marshall did not know whether to laugh or sigh.
Ever since Mirajane had exposed her softer side to him, she had gradually stopped restraining herself.
Inside the guildhall, she was still the same arrogant, aggressive little delinquent as before.
After several embarrassing incidents with certain people, she often sat by herself and pretended to be cold and untouchable.
In private, however, she turned into an ordinary girl who loved hearing Marshall call her his big sister.
She had also begun treating him as her personal confidant and emotional shelter, coming over to bother him whenever anything happened.
At the end of the day, she was still an immature girl at precisely the age when everyone thought they understood the entire world.
Honestly, Marshall was beginning to find her a little annoying.
"All right, stop crying. You ran away without saying anything, so Elfman and Lisanna are probably upset and confused right now. Aren’t they the ones who should be crying?"
"They won’t be! Don’t underestimate the bond between me and my siblings!"
Mirajane sniffled and tightened her arms around him.
"And hurry up and call me oneesan."
"No. I refuse to acknowledge a sister this embarrassing!"
"Then I can be your little sister instead! Why don’t you turn back into your fifteen-year-old form and let me see it again~? I can call you Big Brother too. Hehe."
Mirajane happily pinched the soft flesh of his cheeks.
Strictly speaking, she had never really changed.
Her mischievous, almost devilish personality had always been there.
The only difference was that she had thrown away her "responsible eldest sister" persona around Marshall and stopped pretending altogether.
In some ways, Mirajane and Marshall were surprisingly alike.
Both wore masks around others.
Both enjoyed watching people embarrass themselves.
And both valued the family they had now more than almost anything else.
Perhaps because they recognized something familiar in each other, Marshall rarely bothered acting like a child around her.
Their relationship had become extremely casual.
"Stop bothering me. Unlike you, I have things to do. I need to research magic, so get out."
"How heartless! I came straight here to share the happiest moment of my life with you, and you’re throwing me out!"
"...Then should I leave instead?"
"Fine~ I was about to leave on my first solo job anyway. I only wanted to spend my precious remaining time with Marshall before I went."
Mirajane wiped away an imaginary tear.
"But I understand now. I’m nothing more than an irritating nuisance. I’ll quietly disappear from your life..."
[Come comfort me! Call me oneesan! Hurry! Do it!]
She dabbed at her eyes through spread fingers, watching him with eyes that shone like tiny lamps.
Marshall almost laughed from sheer irritation.
What kind of absurd path did this girl’s brain take to arrive at these ideas?
"Let me see your guild mark."
"Huh? Why?"
Mirajane raised her leg, revealing the pink Fairy Tail emblem stamped on her thigh beneath her shorts.
"I’m adding another mark."
Marshall pressed his palm against it and left behind his Flying Thunder God mark.
"...Since you apparently have nothing better to do, you can stay here and help with my research."
"Sure! I can spend the whole day with you!"
Marshall had very few ways to deal with Mira.
He might as well use her as a test subject.
Although the Dragon Slayer Magic skill had disappeared, the knowledge he gained from learning it remained.
He now understood most of the principles behind it.
Dragon Slayer Magic was a composite system.
At its core, it drew dragon power out of a Dragon Seed, converted that energy into a special elemental form of magic power, then used Enchantment Magic to apply the dragon attribute to a human body.
That was how a human gained the power of a dragon.
In essence, Dragon Slayer Magic was an application of Enchantment Magic.
Its creator had simply been extraordinarily skilled.
Like Celestial Spirit Magic, all the intermediate steps had been arranged into an automatic process.
A muscle-brained Mage like Natsu had no idea he was also using Enchantment Magic whenever he cast a spell.
Enchantment Magic could directly grant magical effects to objects or living bodies.
As Marshall understood it, it applied buffs—and not merely temporary ones, but buffs that could become permanent.
Dragon Slayer Magic continuously enchanted the human body with the dragon power contained inside a Dragon Seed.
In theory, the Dragon Seed’s element determined which type of Dragon Slayer Magic the person could learn.
Natsu undoubtedly possessed a fire-attribute Dragon Seed, which was why he was a Fire Dragon Slayer.
The flames he ate were not truly entering his stomach. They were being stored inside the Dragon Seed within his body.
Marshall, however, had no Dragon Seed.
He possessed neither dragon power nor any internal vessel capable of storing a special element, which meant he could not use Dragon Slayer Magic at all.
This was the first magic Marshall had ever encountered that he simply could not learn.
If he genuinely wanted to continue pursuing it, he would first need to find a Dragon Seed containing dragon power.
He had no idea where to begin with that.
For now, though, he could test Enchantment Magic instead.
Honestly, this spell might be even more exciting than Dragon Slayer Magic!
Level One Enchantment Magic appeared capable of applying basic elemental properties to the human body.
Marshall took Mirajane’s hand and enchanted her palm with light.
Her hand immediately began to glow, radiating dazzling brilliance.
"Huh? What’s this? My hand is shining!"
Every magical element possessed certain fixed characteristics.
Fire carried burning and heat.
Ice carried cold and stillness.
Earth carried hardness and weight.
Light possessed brightness and extreme speed.
Its raw destructive power might not be exceptional, but nothing could question its speed.
"Let’s go outside first."
Marshall teleported with Mirajane to the edge of the forest and pointed toward a large boulder in the distance.
"See if you can launch the light from your hand."
Mirajane studied her glowing fist, then punched forward.
Her magic power transformed into a golden fist-shaped blast that crossed the distance almost instantly and struck the boulder with a heavy thud.
"Cool! That was... surprisingly easy."
"Interesting. Let’s test something else."
Marshall placed both hands against Mirajane and enchanted her entire body, transforming her into a brilliantly glowing human-shaped light.
"You’ve been enhanced. Go!"
He pointed dramatically toward the boulder.
"I choose you, Mira! Use Lightspeed Attack!"
"..."
Mirajane felt there was something deeply strange about his wording, but she followed his instructions anyway.
She stepped forward.
The next instant, she appeared directly in front of the boulder and drove her fist into it.
The entire rock shattered into pieces!
Mirajane stared blankly at her fist.
Then she suddenly screamed.
"WAAAH! Ow, ow, ow! That hurts!"
She clutched her small fist and hopped around with tears welling in her eyes.
When she looked toward Marshall, hoping for even the slightest concern or sympathy, she found nothing but excitement burning in his gaze.
"That was fast!"
Marshall’s eyes gleamed.
"That movement was probably the highest speed your body can currently endure. With all that momentum added to the strike, your fist produced far more force than usual."
He examined her hand without the slightest pity.
"Fortunately, your body is strong enough to withstand it. If I tried the same thing, I’d probably shatter my wrist."
"Enchantment Magic is this powerful? Come on, let’s begin the next test—"
"W-Wait, Marshall. I suddenly remembered I might have something else to do..."
"Mira-neesan?"
Mirajane immediately straightened.
"Please use your big sister however you like!"
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