Chapter 248
Once Erza had caught Lucy, there was no chance she was letting Natsu and Gray off either, and Happy ended up getting dragged into the cleanup after Natsu volunteered him as extra labor.
Before long, three people and one Exceed were being marched into the wrecked library under Erza’s supervision.
"Damn it... Erza was the one who kicked me through the ceiling. I’m the victim here! Why do I have to clean this up too?" Natsu complained as he picked up scattered books.
Erza slowly turned her head toward him.
"You don’t want to?"
"I-I want to."
Lucy almost laughed in disbelief.
Natsu feared practically nothing, yet Erza could still crush him with a single look.
While watching him work, however, she noticed that he wasn’t wearing his usual scarf.
No, that wasn’t quite right—it had probably fallen off during the fight earlier, exposing a very noticeable scar on his neck.
"Natsu, where did you get that scar?"
"Hm? This...?" Natsu touched his neck, only for his face to change almost immediately. "Ugh—no. I don’t want to remember that. That person was a demon."
Lucy glanced at Erza just as she punched Gray into the floor. "
Are you talking about Erza?"
"No! Not her. Anyway, I don’t want to think about it. I thought I’d already forgotten..." Natsu muttered uneasily.
Just then, he bent down and picked up one of the books lying on the floor.
The moment his fingers touched the cover, he frowned.
"Huh? This book feels weird. There’s Magic Power coming from it. Let me see what—"
"Natsu, don’t open it!" Erza’s instincts screamed that something was wrong.
She immediately grabbed him and yanked him backward, but in the process she stepped on Gray’s hand and slammed back into Lucy.
The strange book slipped from Natsu’s fingers, spun through the air, and opened by itself.
A brilliant light exploded from the pages and swallowed all four of them along with Happy.
By the time the radiance faded, the library was completely empty.
...
A moment later, Marshall teleported into the room.
He had been working with Older Wendy at the Cake Tower when he suddenly felt the marker he had left on Memories of Time activate.
There was nobody left inside the library, but the air was saturated with an unmistakably dense trace of Time.
Marshall inhaled slowly, then smacked his lips in thought.
"So it actually activated... No matter how many times I opened that thing, it never reacted to me."
The scents of Erza and the others were still lingering in the room.
Unless something unexpected had happened, they should have been sent back to X779, five years into the past.
Marshall still remembered that they had spent about six hours there.
What he didn’t know was how much time would pass in the present before they returned, and that made him curious enough to stay.
He casually cast Reparo, restoring the library to its original condition, then sat down nearby with a timer.
Roughly forty minutes later, Erza, Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Happy suddenly reappeared in front of him.
"Oh? You’re back already?" Marshall glanced at the timer.
Erza blinked. "Marshall? Why are you here?"
"Forty-one minutes and thirty-six seconds ago, you went into the past. I came over because I wanted to measure how much present time would pass before you returned."
Erza suddenly walked straight up to him and began patting him down, checking his face, shoulders, and arms.
"Hey—what are you doing?"
"That’s strange. You don’t seem any different."
Marshall stared at her. "What exactly did you expect to be different?"
Erza narrowed her eyes. "So five years ago, you had already met the future versions of us?"
"Yep."
Her cheeks puffed up slightly.
Without another word, she grabbed Marshall and started dragging him out of the room.
"You! Come with me."
"Ow, ow, ow! That hurts!"
Natsu and Gray watched them leave before glancing around the restored library.
"Huh. Marshall already fixed everything," Gray said.
Natsu immediately brightened. "Then I guess we don’t have anything left to do."
"Looks that way."
"Let’s get out of here."
The two vanished almost instantly.
Lucy, meanwhile, had somehow acquired a pipe and was holding it between her lips, eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.
She had just discovered something extremely important.
Only a few hours earlier—from her perspective—a nine-year-old Marshall had tried to flirt with her!
Nine years old!
That meant five years ago had actually been the first time Marshall ever met her.
Back then, the brat had tried his very first pickup line and Lucy had shut him down completely.
Therefore, there was only one logical explanation for why he had spent the last six months constantly tormenting her.
He remembered.
He had been holding a grudge ever since!
’What a vicious little monster! He was evil from childhood!’
The worst part was that Marshall now possessed a mountain of embarrassing material about her, so Lucy didn’t even dare reveal that his very first attempt at flirting had ended in catastrophic failure.
He already had her completely trapped!
’Damn it. Was this part of Marshall’s plan all along? That’s way too cruel!’
Lucy’s expression darkened.
’No. I refuse to accept this. I’m going to find a way to get revenge. Somehow, someday, I’m making that brat suffer for once.’
...
Meanwhile, after Erza dragged Marshall out of the library, he simply teleported both of them back to his room.
The instant they arrived, Marshall gave her his sweetest smile.
"Erza-nee~ Want a kiss?"
"Absolutely not! I’m here to settle something with you!"
Erza’s eyebrows drew together sharply. "Do you remember what you promised me five years ago? Why did you still turn out like this?"
Marshall blinked innocently. "I promised you that I would treat romance seriously and never play around with someone’s feelings. I’ve kept that promise the entire time."
Erza stared. "Hah?"
"I’m serious about every girl I care about. I want all of them to be happy, and I’ve never treated anyone’s feelings like a game."
Her expression faltered.
Marshall continued as though explaining something perfectly reasonable.
"I used to think becoming a carefree playboy like Gildarts sounded pretty cool, but after what you taught me back then, I realized that was wrong. So now, if I genuinely like someone, I intend to take responsibility for those feelings instead of abandoning them."
He looked up at her with complete sincerity. "Erza-nee... did I do something wrong?"
Erza’s momentum vanished.
Because that really was what she had told him.
From her perspective, she had only just returned from the past, where she had firmly instructed nine-year-old Marshall to treat romance seriously.
Of course, what she had meant was that he should think carefully and eventually make a responsible choice.
She had absolutely not meant, ’If you like several girls, then take responsibility for all of them.’
Marshall’s interpretation was completely wrong.
Wasn’t it?
Then another thought struck her.
If Marshall had genuinely spent all these years trying to honor the promise he made to her, didn’t that mean his current attitude toward romance had developed because of... her?
Erza’s face slowly went pale.
If she had never gone back in time and lectured him, perhaps Marshall would have remained an innocent child who barely understood romance!
Instead, she had introduced the concept to him years earlier, and then, with nobody properly guiding him afterward, he had spent years thinking through her words in his own peculiar way until they eventually evolved into his current worldview.
Which meant... the true culprit was her!
"Marshall!"
Erza suddenly grabbed his shoulders. "I’m sorry!"
"?"
"It’s my fault. All of this is my fault." Her grip tightened with dramatic conviction as tears began gathering in her eyes.
"I was the one who sent you down the wrong path... but don’t worry! No matter what road you eventually choose, I’ll stay beside you."
Erza forced herself to stand straight and looked at him with absolute determination.
"This is my mistake, so it’s also my responsibility. Your big sister will take responsibility for Marshall!"
--------
Read 40 Chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator