Chapter 237
Edolas, inside a tavern somewhere in the royal capital.
"Did you hear? The king is activating Anima again."
"What?! That idiot king still hasn’t had enough shit thrown back in his face? Does he think we don’t have enough rebels already?"
"Tell me about it. Ever since the Anima Project started, life’s only gotten worse..."
"I’m seriously considering giving up my status as a citizen of the capital! Everywhere I go, people from other regions call me a filthy capital bastard and cover their noses the moment they see me! It’s outrageous! At this point, I hope the Revolutionary Army gets here and overthrows the king already!"
"Well, you can’t entirely blame him. The king is trying to obtain an inexhaustible supply of Magic Power. I heard they made enormous preparations outside the city for this attempt."
"What good does that do?! They said the same thing before! And what happened?"
The man slammed his drink onto the table.
"First we got mountains of rotting flesh, then an unbearable flood of shit, and last time those poisonous insects nearly caused an epidemic! What the hell are they going to drag through next?! I don’t even want to imagine it!"
"The king’s running out of options too. His reputation gets worse every day, fewer and fewer people believe Anima will ever succeed, and more Dark Guilds are joining the rebellion against him. If he doesn’t produce some kind of result soon, he’ll lose what little support he has left."
"He barely has any support now."
Suddenly, someone shouted from outside.
"Everybody, come look! Something’s falling out of the sky!"
"!!!"
"Holy shit! More rocks?!"
"No! Those aren’t rocks!"
"They look like... people?!"
That day became one the people of Edolas’s royal capital would never forget.
History would later record it as the Day of Revelation.
Visitors from another world descended from the heavens...and destroyed a kingdom.
The royal army collapsed almost immediately.
The king’s officials surrendered one after another.
The royal palace was torn apart by earthquakes and explosions, while the kingdom’s banners were snapped down and set ablaze.
In a single day...the kingdom fell.
...
Natsu tore through the royal army again and again, rampaging through their formations as though no one could stop him.
Eventually, he climbed onto a raised platform and spewed flames into the air.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
He spread his arms arrogantly.
"WHO’S NEXT?! Is there seriously nobody here who can fight?!"
"D-Demon!!!"
The soldiers below him collectively trembled.
"Uh..."
Natsu awkwardly rubbed his nose.
"Happy, am I acting a little too hard?"
Happy stared at him.
"What acting?"
"Aren’t you just behaving normally?"
Gray walked past and casually waved.
"Come on, Natsu. Everyone already surrendered. We’re supposed to gather at the palace."
"What about all these soldiers?"
"Marshall said to leave them alone."
Natsu sighed disappointedly.
"People in this world are so weak. This is boring!"
"The Edolas version of Erza was pretty strong."
Gray glanced back.
"I saw her fight our Erza for dozens of exchanges without losing before she managed to escape."
"Oh?! Really?"
Natsu immediately perked up.
"Hehehe! Then I’m gonna find this world’s Erza and fight her!"
"I was thinking the same thing."
Gray sniffed.
"By the way... does the palace smell kind of weird to you?"
Natsu and Gray continued chatting as they walked inside.
...
By then, Edolas’s king and several important officials had already been tied up in the palace hall.
Nobody was paying much attention to them.
Instead, Fairy Tail’s members were crowded around Marshall, loudly bragging about how many enemies they had defeated and complaining about how pathetically weak the royal army had been.
"All right, guys!"
Marshall clapped his hands.
"We’ve successfully captured the royal palace. Now we need somebody to serve as the new king."
He grinned.
"Any volunteers~?"
Natsu’s hand shot up instantly.
"ME! ME! I wanna be king!"
"Natsu?"
Marshall considered him for a moment.
"Can you even remember your lines?"
He shrugged.
"Whatever. It probably doesn’t matter. You’re hired."
Marshall casually tossed Faust’s crown onto Natsu’s head.
Then he pulled one prisoner out from among the royal officials.
It was Coco, one of the aides attached to the kingdom’s command staff.
"I heard you’re fast."
Marshall smiled.
"Congratulations. You’re our messenger now."
He pointed toward the doors.
"Go tell the people of this kingdom that starting today, the country officially belongs to us!"
Marshall immediately slipped into his villain role.
"From now on, every citizen will work twelve hours a day, they’ll only get one day off each month, and their wages will be reduced to barely enough to feed themselves—"
King Faust, tied up on the floor, suddenly roared furiously.
"You demon!"
He struggled against his restraints.
"Don’t think you can buy the loyalty of my people with such generous concessions! We will never surrender to you!"
"?"
Marshall froze.
"Huh?"
He stared blankly at Faust.
"That’s... generous?"
Then he slowly turned toward Coco.
"Wasn’t that harsh enough? What kind of life were you people living before?"
Coco cautiously answered,
"We normally work fourteen hours a day..."
She hesitated.
"And there are no scheduled days off."
"..."
Marshall covered his face.
What the hell was wrong with this world?
This damned king was apparently so evil that even without Fairy Tail’s intervention, he was eventually going to end up hanging from a lamppost!
"Fine."
Marshall sighed.
"Then we’ll make it simpler."
He pointed toward Coco again.
"Go announce that while we’re ruling this country, every tax will be doubled!"
Marshall reconsidered.
"No. Tripled!"
"And confiscate all property belonging to nobles and wealthy merchants!"
He continued piling on increasingly outrageous decrees.
"From now on, nobody is allowed to use Magic either!"
Marshall suddenly brightened.
"Oh, and bring every beautiful girl in the kingdom to the royal capital—ow!"
Mira grabbed Marshall’s cheek and pulled hard.
Her smile was dangerously sweet.
"Marshall."
"That last one was unnecessary, wasn’t it?"
"Miwa, whaff are you doing~?"
Marshall tried to speak through the stretched cheek.
"It’s necessary! We’re supposed to make the population furious, remember? The more outrageous our demands are, the better!"
He finally escaped her fingers.
"It’s not like I’m actually interested in those girls!"
Gildarts immediately nodded from nearby.
"Exactly my boy!"
"I support Marshall’s plan!"
Several older men joined in without hesitation.
"Right, right. It’s not like we’d actually do anything."
"If we’re finally getting a chance to play tyrants, we have to make the performance convincing!"
"Marshall has my full support!"
"..."
Someone stared at the group in disbelief.
"You guys aren’t acting at all, are you?"
"You’ve just finally found a role that feels natural."
In the end, everyone mostly followed Marshall’s plan and sent Coco outside to announce a long list of deliberately outrageous "new laws."
"Now hang the king up."
Marshall pointed toward Faust.
"And those officials too. Put them over the palace gates."
He stretched.
"After that, we’re holding a three-day, three-night party outside the palace!"
Marshall raised a finger.
"Anyone who wants to wander around the city on their own, remember to disguise yourselves. Don’t let anyone recognize you."
"OOOOH!"
"PARTY!"
The captured royal officials shed tears of humiliation.
Their country was finished.
If only they had known that people from another world could be this terrifying... maybe they never would have—
Unfortunately, nobody cared about their regrets.
Once the royal palace had been secured, Fairy Tail split into several groups.
Most of the guild stayed near the palace to prepare the party.
Carla took Happy and Ruby into the sky to search for the Exceed Queen, with Wendy and Natsu secretly following to protect them.
Gildarts changed his appearance and vanished somewhere into the city.
Laxus took the Thunder God Tribe into the streets to play the role of roaming tyrants.
Gajeel captured a large, muscular black Exceed and was currently "persuading" him to surrender through a very intense interrogation.
And Marshall took Mira and Elfman, along with his little follower Lucy, and teleported toward Lisanna’s location.
Mystogan had never joined the main assault in the first place.
He had his own part of the plan to carry out.
Before separating from them, however, he had given Marshall one additional request: bring the Fairy Tail of Edolas to the royal capital!