Chapter 268
Fairy Tail’s Magic Tournament had officially come to an end.
The spectators had arrived full of anticipation and left completely satisfied, and it was easy to imagine what would happen next.
As people returned to their homes across the country, Fairy Tail’s name would spread along with them.
The great age of Fairy Tail was about to begin!
...At least, that was how Makarov imagined it.
The old Master was extremely pleased with the tournament.
He had gotten to see the spirit and progress of Fairy Tail’s younger generation, but more importantly—
they had made an absurd amount of money!
With the guild’s current wealth, Makarov felt as though they could support this entire pack of troublesome brats for a hundred years without running out.
Why had nobody ever told him making money could be this easy?
And Fairy Tail wasn’t the only one profiting. Magnolia’s residents, street vendors, factories, shops, inns, and restaurants had all made a fortune from the flood of visitors.
For the first time, Makarov began to understand what a true magic city could become.
A steady flow of people brought vitality to a city, and vitality created opportunity.
Maybe someday he could even become an honorary mayor or something.
One tournament had somehow given the old man a second spring in life.
His greatest wish had always been simple: to help his family live better and better lives.
Now, however, it seemed Makarov was beginning to develop slightly larger ambitions.
Whatever new dreams the old man was entertaining, Fairy Tail itself remained noisy for several days after the tournament.
The first major topic was, naturally, Marshall defeating Laxus and becoming the undisputed strongest member of Fairy Tail’s younger generation.
Everyone was somewhat surprised, but nobody found the result particularly unbelievable.
Marshall’s talent was simply too absurd.
At this point, there was practically no Magic in the guild that he hadn’t managed to learn in one form or another.
Techniques that other people might spend an entire lifetime refining could sometimes be copied by Marshall after watching them a few times.
Frankly, it was terrible for everyone else’s confidence.
That was why most of Fairy Tail had already started treating Marshall as something outside the normal rules.
When he defeated Laxus, instead of reacting with disbelief, most of the guild simply adopted an attitude of—
’See? Told you even Laxus couldn’t beat that brat.’
If anything, the result made everyone else feel better.
It proved that they weren’t weak.
Marshall was simply ridiculous!
He had single-handedly isolated the entire guild from the normal power scale.
From now on, Marshall could sit at his own table. Nobody was inviting him to play anymore.
Hmph.
Years ago, Natsu and Gray might still have felt humiliated by losing to a younger kid like Marshall.
Now they had completely stopped caring.
They couldn’t beat him.
So what?
Life went on.
Marshall’s public appearance during the tournament, however, created a completely different problem.
His fanbase began growing at a frankly terrifying rate.
Groups of young girls started showing up at the Fairy Tail guild hall without even taking jobs or ordering anything.
They simply wanted to see Marshall in person.
Apparently, some were already trying to figure out how to join his private fan clubs, while others had begun approaching Juvia to buy Marshall merchandise.
It was horrifying.
And this was precisely why Marshall hated becoming famous.
Aside from attending the guild’s celebration on the day the tournament ended, he barely dared show his face in the guild hall for the next few days.
There were simply too many people looking for him.
Marshall couldn’t deal with all of them.
So he chose the most sensible solution available.
He hid.
Gildarts watched the whole thing with unbearable envy.
Damn it!
If he had known participating in a public exhibition tournament could attract that many young women, he absolutely would have entered!
Unfortunately, regret came too late.
The girls flooding into the guild were interested in cute younger boys, not scruffy middle-aged men with beards.
After several consecutive failed attempts at flirting, Gildarts nearly got himself disowned by Cana.
Two days after the tournament ended, Makarov finally announced the list of candidates permitted to participate in that year’s S-Class Mage Promotion Trial.
Marshall Team — 3 candidates: Cana, Levy, Juvia.
Fire Dragon Team — 2 candidates: Natsu, Mest.
Thunder God Team — 1 candidate: Freed.
Witch Team — 1 candidate: Elfman.
Ice Lion Team — 1 candidate: Gray.
Eight candidates in total.
Several other guild members had performed well enough to meet the strength requirements, but anyone who had belonged to Fairy Tail for less than a year was declared ineligible.
They could try again next year.
The moment the list was announced, the guild exploded.
What the hell?!
Marshall’s team had practically been a carry squad, yet three of them had qualified?!
Fine, maybe Marshall’s team could be explained.
But why had Natsu’s team, which only reached the semifinals, somehow gotten two candidates?!
That’s unfair!
A few people stormed over to protest directly to Makarov.
Makarov slapped them across the guild hall.
The Master would choose whoever the Master wanted!
If they didn’t like it, they were welcome to become Guild Master themselves!
That ended the argument rather quickly.
Once everyone realized they had no hope of changing Makarov’s decision, their attention immediately shifted toward something else.
If they couldn’t become candidates themselves, they could at least try to become one of the eight candidates’ partners.
Close enough.
At least they’d get some participation out of it.
Unfortunately, they quickly discovered that even those spots were already disappearing.
Several candidates had permanent partners who nobody else had any realistic chance of replacing.
Natsu was obviously taking Happy.
Gray was taking Loki.
Freed was taking Bickslow.
Nobody was even allowed to compete for those three places.
Then Cana announced that Lucy would be her partner, removing another opening.
That left only Levy, Juvia, Elfman, and Mest without confirmed partners.
Naturally, half the guild immediately began pestering those four.
𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎
Fairy Tail remained as noisy as ever, and Marshall heard most of the rumors eventually, but he had stopped paying much attention.
Ever since the Magic Tournament ended, he had been obsessed with recovering the flash of inspiration he experienced while standing directly inside Laxus’s Fairy Law.
He spent practically every waking hour in his laboratory, ignoring everything happening outside.
Fairy Law was an extremely unusual spell.
Marshall walking away completely unharmed had been a special circumstance.
When the spell genuinely judged someone as an enemy, the target would be struck by Fairy Light and lose their life force.
In severe cases, the target could simply die.
But the death wasn’t caused by catastrophic physical injury.
Fairy Law didn’t necessarily crush organs, tear flesh, or destroy the body.
It simply harvested the target’s life itself.
Almost like... Simon.
That was the connection Marshall couldn’t stop thinking about.
Someone truly struck down by Fairy Law could die with relatively little visible damage to the body.
Their life force simply vanished until the body could no longer continue living.
That meant the Super Magic touched upon mysteries belonging to the domain of Life.
Even Laxus almost certainly didn’t understand the underlying principle.
And despite having studied Fairy Law himself, neither did Marshall.
Yet while standing directly inside Laxus’s spell, Marshall had distinctly felt something strange.
Something inside his body had moved.
As the Fairy Light washed over him, his body had felt subtly wrong, almost as though some invisible force were trying to pull something away from him.
The sensation had been disturbingly similar to his very existence trying to separate from his body.
Marshall’s first thought was the soul.
Perhaps Fairy Law somehow acted directly upon it?
But that explanation didn’t feel right.
Marshall could perceive his own soul. He was familiar enough with Soul Magic to know what disturbances in the soul felt like, and during Fairy Law, his soul hadn’t shown that kind of reaction.
So what exactly had moved?
Marshall gradually formed another hypothesis.
Perhaps there was some kind of intersection connecting body and soul.
Something intangible, yet inseparably linked to both.
Could Fairy Law be attacking that?
And if such an intersection existed... could it be the very thing Simon was missing?
The instant Marshall followed that line of reasoning, ideas began pouring into his head.
He immediately called Older Wendy back to the laboratory and restarted their suspended research.
There was a real possibility that Fairy Law could help him locate Older Wendy’s elusive First Origin.
Her Second Origin had already been opened artificially, but no matter how hard they searched, they had never been able to find the First Origin hidden somewhere within her.
If Fairy Law interacted with the junction between body, life, and soul, then perhaps observing its effects on Wendy could finally expose that hidden point.
And if Marshall succeeded... he might finally understand how the connection between body and soul was established.
From there, perhaps he could recreate the connection missing from Simon.
If that happened, Simon might finally wake up.
More importantly, Marshall might take an enormous step forward along the strange and profoundly difficult path of Life Magic.
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