Chapter 65
"...Dear Miss Hanna Marshall, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Magic Council Academy. The new term will begin on September 1. We await your response no later than July 31..."
Marshall read the acceptance letter aloud to Makarov one painfully deliberate word at a time.
By the time he finished, his expression had turned completely black.
"Master!"
He slammed the letter onto the table.
"Would you mind explaining why this says Miss Hanna Marshall? The name I gave you was clearly Marshall Hanna! Are you deliberately messing with me?!"
Knowing he was at fault, Makarov guiltily avoided Marshall’s gaze.
"Well, you see... My friend at the academy must have read the surname and given name in the wrong order."
He coughed.
"These things happen. There was nothing we could do about it..."
"What do you mean, nothing could be done?! I refuse to enroll under this name! Change it back!"
"It’s too late. The acceptance letter has already been issued. How are we supposed to change it now?"
"Then I’m not going!"
"Don’t say that!"
Makarov hurriedly tried to calm him down.
"It took me a great deal of effort to arrange this. Besides, it isn’t entirely a bad thing. Registering you as a different sex will make your true identity much harder to discover."
"And to be fair, this isn’t entirely our fault. The photograph you submitted didn’t make your sex very obvious, so the misunderstanding is understandable."
"...I—!"
Marshall’s face flushed bright red.
The photograph he had given Makarov showed his transformed fifteen-year-old appearance.
He had admittedly grown up with an unusually pretty face, but he didn’t look so feminine that no one could distinguish whether he was a boy or girl!
His figure was still tall and straight.
The problem was that the academy’s file only used a headshot.
If someone saw nothing but his face...
Fine.
Maybe it was a little difficult to tell.
But was it his fault for being handsome?!
He had only chosen the surname Hanna as a joke!
How had that harmless joke somehow turned him into Miss Hanna Marshall?
Was he really expected to become a Princess now?
This can’t be serious!
"Oh, stop worrying about it," Makarov said. "You’re only sending a Thought Projection to attend the academy, aren’t you? Your real body won’t be going."
"It doesn’t matter. Just transform a little."
"My Thought Projection is still me!"
Marshall glared at him.
"You’re not the one transforming and attending school, so stop pretending it’s nothing!"
’Damn this old man.’
He had treated Marshall like a performing monkey!
Marshall would remember this grudge!
Unexpectedly, Makarov became agitated instead.
"You think I wouldn’t want to go?! This is an incredible opportunity!"
"The academy is a boarding school. They assign roommates!"
He pointed enviously at the letter.
"With that identity, you could be assigned a female roommate! Do you have any idea how fortunate you are?! I’m jealous enough to cry!"
"...Master, please show some dignity."
Marshall had clearly overestimated his Guild Master’s sense of shame.
The upper beam was crooked, so naturally the lower ones followed.
This hopeless guild was doomed.
Makarov snorted and turned his head away.
"In any case, the acceptance letter has already arrived. We can’t change it."
"If you still want to learn Archive Magic, you’ll have to accept the identity on that letter."
"Whether you go is up to you."
Marshall’s face pulsed red with frustration.
He wanted to learn the magic.
He genuinely wanted to attend the academy too.
But was he truly supposed to enroll under the identity of a female student named Hanna Marshall?
Were the few scraps of dignity he still possessed about to disappear like this?
"Marshall, stop making such a big deal out of it," Makarov said. "No one at the academy will care whether you’re male or female."
"It isn’t as though anyone is forcing you to wear a skirt. It’s only an error in your documents."
"Even if someone discovers your real sex, it won’t matter much. Magic capable of changing a person’s sex does exist, after all."
"Wait."
Marshall stared at him.
"You mean I can attend exactly as I am? I don’t have to pretend to be a girl?"
"?"
Makarov looked equally confused.
"I never told you to pretend to be a girl. Your registration information is simply incorrect."
"The only thing it might affect is your roommate assignment. Otherwise, it isn’t much of a problem."
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"Don’t tell me you were planning to dress as one yourself?"
"..."
Marshall’s face became so red that he looked ready to combust.
Killing intent leaked from his body, making it obvious that he wanted to stab someone.
"Master."
He spoke through clenched teeth.
"I expect no one else to learn that I’m attending under this identity."
"What? Am I not a person?"
Makarov laughed.
"All right, all right. I’ll keep it secret. I absolutely won’t tell anyone."
Seeing that Marshall hadn’t abandoned the academy plan, Makarov breathed a sigh of relief.
He truly worked himself to the bone for Fairy Tail!
The thought that their guild would soon possess a properly academy-trained Mage filled him with delight.
Raw strength was one thing.
A respectable education was another.
Let anyone try claiming Fairy Tail was uncultured after this!
"The academy’s location is concealed," Makarov explained. "Only someone carrying an official acceptance letter can find it."
"You may have to travel there by yourself. That won’t be a problem, will it?"
"No. Problem. At. All."
Still glowing red with embarrassment, Marshall left with a dark expression.
...
Over the following months, Marshall continued training his body with relentless intensity.
He electrocuted himself every day, determined to improve as much as possible before the academy term began.
Shortly before enrollment, he examined his newly updated basic attributes and nodded in satisfaction.
[Energy: 866/886]
[Stamina: 666/688]
[Magic Power: 6,000+ ↑↓ /7,024]
Marshall’s true height was now approaching one hundred and forty centimeters.
He was considerably sturdier than most children his age, and his physical constitution had already surpassed that of most ordinary adults.
His maximum magic power had also broken through seven thousand.
At this pace, he estimated that he could reach the threshold of an S-Class Mage within another year or two.
Breaking Laxus’s record and becoming Fairy Tail’s youngest S-Class Mage was practically within sight.
[Inspiration: 150,536]
Unfortunately, he was struggling to save Inspiration now.
Marshall had begun worrying that forcefully upgrading another skill might cause it to become uncontrollable, just as Meditation had.
From now on, he intended to raise a skill’s experience bar beyond fifty percent before using Inspiration to fill the remaining gap.
That should make the upgraded ability considerably easier to control.
There wasn’t much worth mentioning about his other skill levels.
Marshall had continued advancing numerous experience bars, but raising anything to Level Four was extremely difficult.
The only notable development was:
[Time Magic LV2]
After months of painstaking practice, Time Magic had finally risen by one level.
And it had granted Marshall the ability to send inorganic objects into the future.
He could select a stone and move it several minutes forward along the timeline.
The stone would vanish during that interval, then abruptly reappear at the designated moment.
It was a fascinating ability, somewhat similar to the effects of the Time-Time Fruit.
Unfortunately, it still worked only on lifeless objects.
Marshall couldn’t throw people into the future.
According to Makarov, the spell already resembled the earliest foundations of Fairy Sphere.
Once Marshall became an S-Class Mage, he might genuinely be capable of learning the super spell.
Marshall remained unconvinced.
Before long, the day arrived for him to send his Thought Projection to the Magic Council Academy.
He began deciding which abilities to allocate to it.
To make academy life easier, Marshall assigned most of his available magic power to the projection—slightly over five thousand units.
To prevent anyone from discovering his identity, the projection was forbidden from using Light Magic.
Spatial Magic couldn’t be exposed, and flying was also prohibited.
That left Script Magic as its main specialty.
As for an elemental attribute... Ice Magic would work.
Marshall occasionally used it to cool himself during hot weather. After several years of casual practice, he had accidentally raised it to Level Two.
That was more than enough to support his false identity.
He could simply pretend to be an Ice-Make Mage.
The only remaining problem was the Thought Projection’s transformed appearance.
Marshall fell into agonized indecision.
Should he actually become Hanna Marshall?
Fairy Tail already had one stripping exhibitionist.
Surely the world didn’t need another strange person!
But imagining someone mistaking him for a girl, only for Marshall to reveal later that he was male...
The expression on their face would probably be incredibly entertaining!
Alternatively, he could behave with all the overwhelming masculinity of a roaring lion, then casually produce a student identification card bearing the name Hanna Marshall and the sex female.
That could be equally hilarious!
Hehe.
Why should anyone presume his gender?
Whether he presented himself as Hanna or Hanna’s very masculine brother could depend entirely on which option offered the greatest advantage!
Once Marshall cast aside those pointless restraints, a single mischievous thought made the entire world seem broader.
He would take both options.
Speaking of which...
Was his sense of humor becoming increasingly unhinged?
Had something inside him finally broken?
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