"Well… that's hard to explain."
Shane opened his mouth, only to realize he had absolutely no idea how to explain this sudden surge of "girly sentiment."
Fortunately, seeing that he didn't look like he'd been in a fight, Erza didn't press him. She only looked curiously at the flowers in his arms.
"Are these some kind of magical tools you use in battle?"
"No. They're very obviously just ordinary decorative flowers."
At the side, Ultear glanced at the vivid bougainvillea and answered in a flat tone.
Then she turned to the equally puzzled Jellal and said,
"Don't think too much about it. His brain sometimes just short-circuits, and he does bizarre things that make no sense whatsoever."
"Even if he suddenly decides to go buy flowers right before heading into battle, don't worry about it. Just treat it like some strange little ritual for a special kind of magic."
"…"
Jellal's eye twitched.
Why did she sound like she had personally witnessed the whole thing? And why did she make it sound so plausible?
What left him even more speechless was that, for normal people, seeing a boy buy flowers would naturally make them think it was a gift for someone.
So how had it become either a "magic tool" or a "ritual" once it passed through Erza and Ultear's minds?
Just how bizarre was Shane's usual image in their heads?
Jellal took a deep breath, forcibly swallowing the urge to comment.
"Forget it. There's no time to waste. Let's go."
"We're taking the magic train?" Erza asked, puzzled.
Based on what she knew about Shane, in a moment like this—when time was important—he should have been complaining that public transport was too slow and offering to carry everyone there with dragon wings.
Halfway through the thought, she seemed to realize something.
Erza lightly smacked her palm and said in complete seriousness,
"If you're worried that carrying three people at once would be inconvenient, I can hold onto your leg. That way, it would free up space."
"Pfft—"
Jellal nearly choked.
"No, no flying."
To everyone's surprise, Shane rested his chin lightly against the soft petals, his gaze drifting dreamily toward the sky.
"The weather's this nice today. Let's… just take the train. It's fine if we go a little slower."
"…"
Now it wasn't just Erza. Even Ultear, who prided herself on understanding Shane, looked at him like he'd suddenly become an alien.
"..."
Inside the gently swaying train carriage, the atmosphere was strangely tense.
Erza sat across from Shane, and the entire ride, she kept shooting him sharp, searching looks, as if trying to see right through him.
"Shane, you're… really strange today."
"Am I? I think I seem pretty normal."
He answered in a laughably perfunctory way.
Then he turned back to the window, leaning against it and watching the scenery blur past outside with visible fascination.
There wasn't actually anything remarkable out there.
Just bare winter trees, long stretches of snow-covered rock, the occasional frozen creek, and a few winding dirt roads.
And yet all of it—this scenery that Shane should have already been bored of, this scenery he should have considered completely ordinary—felt strangely vivid and captivating to him.
Like a blind man seeing the world for the first time and greedily drinking in all its colors.
In fact, merely looking at it through a pane of glass no longer felt like enough.
Shhk—
As if acting on instinct, he yanked the train window open and stuck half his body out into the rushing air.
The wind screamed past him, instantly whipping his hair into disarray.
"Ahhhhhh—!!!"
Facing the speeding wind, Shane shouted like a child on his very first outing, letting the cold air filled with snow and the scent of grass and trees pour straight into his mouth.
"…"
At that point, anyone with even average intelligence could tell something was wrong.
Jellal reacted first, grabbing Shane and hauling him back into the carriage.
"What is wrong with you?"
Ultear and Erza both sat up straight at the same time, their eyes turning grave.
For someone whose strength already rivaled that of a Wizard Saint to start acting this strangely—it could only mean some extremely dangerous curse or mental interference was at work.
"Shane, don't tell me…" Ultear began, stopping herself midway.
"No, it's not that."
Shane cut her off at once.
He covered his face in frustration. At this point, he would rather they looked at him like he was an idiot than wore those serious, on-edge expressions.
Closing his eyes, he sent a tentative thought into the depths of his consciousness.
Are you there?
He hoped for even the faintest response. A flicker of emotion would have been enough.
But the sea of consciousness remained silent, with no answer at all.
Shane wasn't stupid.
From his bizarre urge to buy flowers earlier to this almost obsessive delight in the world around him now…
with one inexplicable emotional shift after another, it wasn't hard to guess that all of this had to be connected to the god who had answered his wish the previous night.
That god hidden in darkness seemed to be experiencing the living world through Shane's senses.
And yet, from the very moment he had realized something was off while buying flowers, he had been trying to communicate inwardly and had received nothing in return.
"If you're already projecting emotional resonance through me, why won't you appear and speak?"
Shane genuinely could not understand what this unknown existence was thinking.
At least one thing could be considered good news for the time being.
The emotions reaching him from that being held only pure curiosity and fondness toward this world. There wasn't a trace of malice mixed in.
So hopefully… it wouldn't interfere with what they needed to do next.
"Haa…"
Shane lowered his head and let out a long sigh before waving a hand at the others.
"I'm fine. I've just been under a lot of stress lately. I needed some wind in my face."
After that humiliating little incident, and with Shane making a conscious effort to control himself, the rest of the trip finally passed without him doing anything else too outrageous.
He still couldn't help sneaking glances now and then at the ordinary passengers moving through the aisle, but beyond that, he managed to act like a normal human being again.
Under that strange atmosphere, the train eventually reached its destination.
The four of them didn't waste any time. They immediately rented a magic vehicle and sped toward the vast forest where the super magic Nirvana was hidden.
The moment they stepped into the dim forest, Shane instinctively turned and cast Ultear a somewhat loaded glance.
He still remembered the last time they had investigated this place together. Back then, the "inversion of good and evil" magic radiating from Nirvana had twisted Ultear's personality to an extreme.
"…"
Catching that teasing look, Ultear stiffened slightly and silently turned her head away.
She didn't want to admit it, but by now she understood perfectly well why, after being "reversed" by Nirvana, she had felt such intense disgust and rejection toward Shane back then.
A faint flush rose at the tips of her ears.
She quickly lowered her eyes and forced the topic away in a cold voice.
"I just checked. The warning barriers I set around the edge of the forest before we left… have all been cleaned away. Very cleanly."
"Then we came to the right place. Brain and the others are definitely in there."
Erza nodded, and Flowing Water was already in her hand.
"This forest is enormous. Where do you think Brain and the others would be hiding?" Jellal asked, looking up at the dense canopy above that almost blotted out the sky.
"Just follow me."
Shane gestured for them to come along.
Since Brain had chosen this forest as the meeting place, it only proved that the old fox hadn't forgotten about Nirvana.
There was no need to waste time searching blindly. If they went straight to the cave where Nirvana had been sealed, they'd find what they were looking for.
Just as the four of them were about to head deeper into the woods, Erza suddenly stopped and pulled a faintly glowing communication lacrima from her coat.
"Oh, right. Just in case, the Master insisted I bring this before we left."
She held it up for the others to see.
"It's a special two-way communication crystal. He said it would make it easier to contact him if we ran into trouble."
Seeing it, Shane's brows drew together.
"Didn't we already tell the old man before leaving that he should stay at the guild and not worry about us?"
"Even if something really did happen out here, it's too far away. Even if he grew wings, he'd never make it here in time."
"You'd have to tell that to him. The old man is every bit as stubborn as you are."
Erza replied helplessly.
~~~
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