Chapter 356: FTG Chapter 354: The Followers

Juvia did not come alone.

Behind her, there were also Macbeth, Erik, Sorano, and Jellal.

Since they had already been discovered, the few of them simply stopped hiding and walked out from behind the tree in a perfectly natural manner.

"Eh? It’s actually you guys??"

The members of this exchange student group had already been at Fairy Academy for several weeks. Although they were not in the same grade as Erzi and the others, with Juvia serving as a bridge of communication, combined with having just participated in the school sports meet together, the two sides were already considered acquaintances after spending some time around each other.

"What are you guys doing here too?"

Sorano brushed away Erzi’s hand that was gripping her clothes, explaining with a strange and resentful expression: "It’s all because of Juvia. She said you seduced her Gray-sama into running out in the middle of the night for a tryst, and asked me to come along to help her catch you in the act."

Erzi: "..."

Well, this was indeed something Juvia was capable of doing!

She then turned her head toward the three boys, casting a gaze that carried the same question toward them.

Erik chuckled and said: "When they were talking, we accidentally overheard. Out of temporary curiosity, we just followed along to see!" 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"I’m not surprised that you would follow along, but these two..."

Gray looked at Macbeth and Jellal with slight surprise: "Who would have thought you two look so quiet on the outside, but are secretly so closet-perverted and gossipy in the background..."

Macbeth said flatly: "I was dragged here by force."

Jellal, on the other hand, said: "I was just afraid they would cause too much of a commotion and make it hard to clean up the aftermath, which is why I followed along to keep an eye on things."

As for whether Jellal had truly come along just to keep an eye on things, Erzi could only say she was half-believing and half-doubting. But as for Macbeth—who looked like he suffered from narcolepsy all day long—being dragged here by force, she didn’t quite believe it.

What’s more...

"These swimming fish are your magic, right!"

"In order to make them more realistic, you actually even made shadows. And after that, you still say you were dragged here by force?"

"I see you are completely enjoying yourself!"

Macbeth lowered his head guiltily, subconsciously twirling his hair with a finger: "I just took this opportunity to practice my magic, that’s all."

Ever since his ’light distortion illusion’ was easily dispelled by Erzi during the Individual Combat Tournament last time, Macbeth had put a lot of hard work into this area, though the results were always less than satisfactory.

Erik raised an eyebrow again and said: "The few of you were over there fishing and playing card games, while we had to hide behind a tree feeding the mosquitoes. I couldn’t help myself, so... tut-tut, just now it was purely out of boredom, just playing a joke on you guys!"

Erzi rolled her eyes and complained: "What kind of logic is that?! It’s not like we made you feed the mosquitoes here..."

Gray also chimed in to agree: "Since you felt bored, wouldn’t it have been fine to just come straight out? The card game is only more fun when there are more people."

"If we had come out right from the start, wouldn’t we have been unable to pull off such an interesting prank just now?"

Natsu instantly grew furious upon hearing this: "Your prank almost scared the life out of me and Happy!!"

It wasn’t just "almost," right...

"Oh? I just didn’t expect that there would actually be idiots who would be scared by this kind of trick..."

Erik was apologizing with his mouth, but his eyes were completely filled with the smugness of successfully playing a trick on Natsu and Happy. It was visible that this round of pranking just now had completely balanced out his terrible mood from previously hiding here to feed the mosquitoes.

Natsu grew even angrier upon hearing this, lunging forward intending to settle scores with Erik. Erik was also glad to get some exercise, welcoming the battle with pleasure, and the two immediately began brawling together.

For some reason, no matter which group it was, Natsu could always find a person within it where both sides viewed each other with mutual distaste.

At the beginning Gajeel was like this, later Gray was like this, and now Erik was like this too.

Watching the two who were brawling together in one place, Erzi couldn’t help but think: ’Could it be that this fellow Natsu actually possesses some kind of special attractiveness??’

Compared to Natsu’s anger, Gajeel only felt that the appearance of the few people was unbelievable.

"You guys were hiding here just now, yet I unexpectedly didn’t smell your scent at all?"

One must know that a Dragon Slayer’s nose was very sensitive. Yet today, with these few people hiding in such close proximity, he and Natsu hadn’t discovered them at all, which was simply too abnormal.

"That’s because of my magic!"

Sorano jumped out, puffing out her chest, which was already beginning to show some scale.

"Your magic?"

Erzi and the others were stunned: "Speaking of which, I’ve actually never seen your magic before, nor did I see you sign up to compete in this school sports meet... Just what kind of magic do you use?"

Sorano held up a finger, giggling as she said: "It’s a summoning class just like yours, a magic named ’Angel Summoning’."

"I can summon ’Angels’ capable of using different magics. For instance, the angel I summoned just now can use ’Concealment Magic’. This magic can not only help me hide my figure, but even my scent can be erased completely clean, which is why it could hide from a Dragon Slayer’s nose."

"It’s just that my summoning medium is different from yours; it mainly relies on sacrificing magic power and gold coins to perform the summoning."

"Gold coins?! Are you that rich?"

Gray was greatly astonished upon hearing this, his two eyes continuously scanning back and forth across Sorano.

From her outfit and styling, one couldn’t tell at all that this girl was a wealthy woman!

Seeing this, Juvia immediately stepped forward to block Gray’s view of Sorano: "Gray-sama, don’t stare at other women! If you want to look, just look at Juvia!!"

Gray: "..."

Sorano ignored Juvia’s love-struck brain that enjoyed throwing tantrums, continuing to say: "They aren’t real gold coins, it’s just a kind of mystical item in the style of gold coins, similar to Celestial Spirit keys, which need to be taken back every time after use!"

As she spoke, she raised her hand, and a magic barrier suddenly surfaced around her body with a pop sound.

Right after, the barrier dissipated, turning into five palm-sized, angel-shaped figurines.

The five angels fluttered their wings, slowly flying into Sorano’s hand and turning into five golden coins.

Sorano picked up the gold coins to display them, and everyone took one each. They discovered that this thing which looked like a gold coin only weighed about the same as a piece of wood of the same volume, clearly not real gold.

Focusing their eyes to look again, they discovered that the front of the coin was stamped with an angel figurine, while the reverse side was engraved with different characters. It seemed that they had to follow a fixed pairing method in order to summon an ’Angel’ bearing a specific magic.

Looking at it this way, this Angel Magic was actually much more complex than Celestial Spirit Magic.

Gajeel’s point of focus, however, was not on the gold coins, but on that concealment magic indirectly cast through the Angel Magic.

Just now, the distance between the two sides was merely three to five meters. Under this kind of circumstance, even he hadn’t been able to smell their scent. It seemed that the degree of concealment was indeed exceptionally formidable!