Chapter 157
In the end, Makarov overruled everyone and flatly rejected the idea of retaliating against Phantom Lord.
Then, after making that decision, he retreated to his office to be angry by himself.
Naturally, nobody downstairs was satisfied.
The moment the Guild Master disappeared, most of Fairy Tail crowded onto the first floor and began loudly "discussing" what they ought to do next, which in practice meant openly plotting revenge while pretending they weren’t.
"The old man really has gotten old! Where’s his fighting spirit?! They did that to our guild and he can still swallow it?!"
"Exactly! What the hell is Phantom Lord anyway? They think they can pick a fight with Fairy Tail just because they have branches everywhere and more members than us? Most of those guys are complete trash!"
"If they’re willing to unleash their Iron Dragon on us, then we should unleash Natsu on them. Let him bite every last one of those bastards!"
Natsu immediately perked up at that suggestion.
"That one sounds good!"
Someone else, possessing slightly more common sense, raised a hand.
"Maybe we should hear what the S-Class Mages think first. Where’s Laxus?"
"Out on a job. The whole Thunder God Tribe left with him."
"Then Marshall?"
Everyone turned.
Marshall was floating lazily several feet above the floor, lying almost horizontally in midair as he yawned.
He had gone to bed late, been dragged awake early by Lucy, and was still badly sleep-deprived.
"My opinion?"
He rubbed one eye.
"Kill every member of Phantom Lord, cut off their heads, pile them outside their guildhall as a warning, and then nobody else will be stupid enough to provoke Fairy Tail again."
The entire guildhall went silent.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Even Natsu slowly wiped cold sweat from his forehead.
"Uh... Marshall?"
He glanced around awkwardly.
"Isn’t that maybe... a little extreme?"
Marshall shrugged.
"See? You ask for my opinion, then complain when I give it."
He spread his hands.
"What do you people want from me?"
Someone hurriedly redirected the conversation.
"R-Right! What about Erza?"
Erza had finally returned to the guild after avoiding Marshall for several days.
Unfortunately, she was visibly distracted.
The moment she had approached Marshall earlier, she’d noticed an unfamiliar fragrance lingering strongly on him.
She had no idea whose perfume it was, and for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, the discovery had left her increasingly irritated!
So when everyone suddenly asked for her opinion, she needed a second to realize they were even talking to her.
"Hm?"
She glanced toward the iron pillars outside.
"The pile of heads would be excessive."
Everyone collectively exhaled.
Then Erza continued with perfect seriousness.
"It’s also needlessly inhumane. We should simply kill them all and be done with it."
Silence returned.
This time, the killing intent in her voice was unmistakably real.
Several guild members swallowed.
Slowly, reluctantly, they turned toward the final S-Class Mage present.
"M-Mira?"
"Your opinion?"
Mirajane clasped her hands together and tilted her head, smiling as sweetly as ever.
"My~ Marshall and Erza are being much too impulsive."
Everyone almost cried with relief.
’Thank goodness!’
’At least one of our S-Class Mages still has common sense!’
Mira continued brightly.
"The Magic Council obviously wouldn’t allow us to massacre another legal guild."
Everyone nodded vigorously.
Exactly!
Finally, sanity!
"So my suggestion is that we attack the Magic Council first, eliminate the councilors, make Master the new Chairman, rewrite the law, and then destroy Phantom Lord legally."
"..."
Fairy Tail stared at her.
’We’re doomed.’
Apparently the last sane S-Class Mage had been the craziest one of all!
For the first time that morning, several members began to appreciate exactly how difficult Makarov’s job was.
If these three were ever genuinely allowed to make policy, Fairy Tail might become a dark guild before lunchtime.
Marshall finally snorted with laughter and summoned a miniature projection of Super Archive.
"All right, enough messing around."
Everyone froze.
’That was a joke?!’
’YOU COULD HAVE SAID THAT FIRST!’
Even Natsu, who had been among the loudest voices demanding revenge, had calmed down considerably after hearing the three S-Class Mages casually discuss mass murder and overthrowing the government.
Marshall enlarged the projection in the center of the hall.
"Whatever we decide, Phantom Lord has already focused its attention on us. I seriously doubt last night’s attack was anything more than the opening move."
His tone became more practical.
"Sitting around waiting for them to make the next move isn’t ideal, but charging in blind would be even stupider. First we need to understand who we’re dealing with."
Information began appearing in the air around him.
"Know your enemy, know yourself. That principle works for guild wars too."
A crest appeared first.
Phantom Lord.
"Historically, Phantom Lord has always competed with Fairy Tail for the position of Fiore’s number-one guild. Over the past few years, we’ve pulled so far ahead that the rivalry has become fairly one-sided, but a dying camel is still bigger than a horse. They’re nowhere near weak."
Several portraits appeared beside the crest.
"As far as I can confirm, Phantom Lord currently has four officially recognized S-Class Mages, each associated with one of the four classical elements."
Marshall pointed to the first.
"Aria of the Sky."
The second.
"Sol of the Earth."
The third.
"Totomaru of Fire."
Then the fourth portrait appeared.
Marshall stared at it.
The man in the image had gone out of his way to style himself with a shark-like appearance that bore an extremely suspicious resemblance to a certain famous ninja manga character.
Marshall’s expression slowly became offended.
"...And Kisame.... of Water."
He narrowed his eyes.
"Wait."
"Isn’t this guy’s entire gimmick copyright infringement?"
A few guild members leaned closer to the projection.
"He really does look like him."
"Isn’t that straight out of Naruto?"
"Wow, what a shameless dude."
The worst part was that the man clearly wasn’t even being subtle about it.
From the hairstyle to the overall look, he might as well have carried a sign reading Yes, I read the manga!
Marshall shook his head in disgust.
The information he was displaying hadn’t come from some secret intelligence network.
He had simply asked around through Super Archive.
Over the years, he had published enough highly regarded material and helped enough people through the network that he had built a surprisingly extensive circle of contacts.
When Marshall asked for information, people usually answered.
He moved on.
"Besides those four, Phantom Lord also has another Mage with S-Class combat strength."
A new portrait appeared.
"Gajeel Redfox, the Iron Dragon. He’s almost certainly the one responsible for what happened to our guildhall last night."
Natsu’s eyes immediately sharpened.
Marshall continued.
"He uses the Lost Magic Iron Dragon Slayer Magic. In other words, he’s a Dragon Slayer like Natsu."
"What?!"
Natsu slammed both fists together as flames erupted around them.
"Then that bastard’s mine!"
He grinned fiercely.
"I’ll beat his ass!"
Marshall ignored the predictable reaction and brought up one final portrait.
"This is the important one."
The room gradually quieted.
The man projected before them wore a dark, severe expression.
"Jose Porla, Guild Master of Phantom Lord."
Marshall’s voice lost some of its earlier playfulness.
"Like Master, he’s one of the Ten Wizard Saints. His specialty is Darkness Magic, and unless we’re badly underestimating someone here, none of us besides Master should assume we can defeat him head-on."
That finally made several people sober up.
Marshall expanded the information panel again.
"Beyond those five, Phantom Lord has more than a thousand registered Mages spread across its branches."
He glanced around the room.
"That’s roughly ten times Fairy Tail’s active membership."
One member sucked in a breath.
"One Wizard Saint, four S-Class Mages, plus that Iron Dragon..."
Another scratched his head.
"And Laxus is gone right now. That means if we count Marshall, Erza, Mira, and Mystogan, we’ve only got four S-Class Mages available too."
"Sounds pretty even."
Natsu immediately objected.
"What are you scared of?!"
He jabbed a thumb at himself.
"I’ll wipe out a thousand of them with one roar!"
"You’d pass out before number fifty," Gray muttered.
"What’d you say, ice bastard?!"
Marshall was already scrolling through more information.
"Oh?"
Something else caught his attention.
"There’s another report here."
A schematic appeared above the table.
"Apparently Phantom Lord’s main guildhall isn’t just a building. It’s a gigantic mobile magical fortress."
Several members blinked.
"A fortress?"
Marshall’s interest visibly increased.
"It’s equipped with a large-scale magical convergent cannon."
He leaned closer to the projection.
"That thing is considerably more dangerous than an ordinary S-Class Mage."
Then, almost under his breath—
"Damn."
Everyone expected concern coming from him.
But instead Marshall sounded impressed.
"They have something this cool and nobody ever told me?"
He studied the schematic with increasing fascination.
There was apparently quite a bit of worthwhile technology inside Phantom Lord.
Marshall couldn’t help thinking that the world truly was full of teachers if one knew where to look.
Even an enemy guild could provide inspiration.
In fact...
Would anyone really object if Fairy Tail happened to confiscate some of their more interesting equipment after winning?
Marshall’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
That was tempting.
Very tempting!
The guild members, meanwhile, had become far calmer after hearing the full assessment.
Phantom Lord wasn’t an opponent they could simply rush into and flatten without consequences.
A guild war against more than a thousand Mages, multiple S-Class fighters, and another Wizard Saint was a serious matter.
Someone finally suggested, "Why don’t we call Laxus back? If he’s here, we should have the advantage."
"Forget Laxus. If we’re going that far, call Gildarts."
"And how exactly are we supposed to find Gildarts? Nobody knows where that guy is half the time!"
"Enough. Stop arguing."
One of the older members folded his arms.
"Phantom Lord may be deliberately trying to provoke us because they know Fairy Tail can’t legally start a guild war over property damage alone. If we charge into their territory now, we could walk straight into whatever trap they’ve prepared."
Another reluctantly nodded.
"For once, maybe we should listen to Master and cool down."
Gradually, the room reached the same conclusion.
Retaliating immediately would be satisfying, but charging blindly into Phantom Lord’s headquarters was foolish.
Marshall dismissed the Super Archive projection.
"I agree that last night was probably only a test."
He glanced toward the restored guildhall.
"If they’ve decided to move against us, there will almost certainly be another step."
Then his smile returned.
"But waiting quietly for someone to hit me twice has never really suited my personality."
Natsu’s eyes lit up.
"Marshall?"
"What’re you thinking?"
Marshall pointed toward the row of enormous iron pillars he had extracted from the guildhall earlier.
"We return their property."
Everyone stared.
"The iron pillars?"
"Yep."
Marshall smiled pleasantly.
"Master shouldn’t have any objection to us returning something that belongs to another guild, right?"
He raised his voice toward the ceiling.
"If you don’t answer, I’m taking that as permission~"
There was no response from Makarov’s office.
Marshall nodded solemnly.
"Permission granted."
Before anyone could question that logic, a vast magical interface unfolded across the guildhall.
Super Archive expanded around Marshall, and an enormous three-dimensional image of Earth Land appeared in the air like a miniature planet.
Everyone crowded closer.
Marshall rotated the projection.
"Let’s see..."
"Where exactly is Phantom Lord’s headquarters...?"
The image shifted across Fiore.
"Found you."
A spatial coordinate locked into place.
Marshall looked toward the iron pillars outside and grinned.
"You left your scrap metal at our place."
"So please take it back."
Space distorted.
Every iron pillar vanished from Fairy Tail’s courtyard at once.
Marshall had not sent them directly into Phantom Lord’s guildhall.
That would have been crude!
Instead, he opened the destination point roughly ten thousand meters above it.
Several guild members slowly realized what he had done.
"Wait."
"You dropped them from that high?"
Marshall was already casting another spell.
A disk of light unfolded in the air, resolving into a distant real-time image.
[Light Telescope.]
The projection showed Phantom Lord’s headquarters far away.
High above it—far beyond what the people on the ground could see—several enormous iron pillars had begun falling.
These weren’t decorative rods.
Each weighed hundreds of kilograms, possibly more.
Dropped from an altitude of ten kilometers, they would accelerate for an enormous distance before air resistance finally limited their speed.
By the time they reached the ground, they would be moving at close to a hundred meters per second.
They didn’t need explosives.
At that mass and velocity, kinetic energy alone would do plenty of damage!
Every Fairy Tail member slowly turned toward Marshall.
Marshall clasped his hands behind his back, watching the Light Telescope projection with an innocent smile as the iron pillars continued their long descent.
"Fairy Express!"
His smile widened.
"Guaranteed safety delivery."
Far away, high above Phantom Lord—the first iron pillar began screaming through the atmosphere!
"Please enjoy Fairy Tail’s complimentary express shipping, dear friends~"
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