"What a worrywart."
Shane turned his face away a little awkwardly. He grumbled, but still obediently took the magic crystal Erza handed him.
"Still, since it's the old man's thoughtfulness, I'll keep it properly."
After tucking the crystal safely into his clothes, Shane lowered his head again and buried his face in the bouquet he'd been protecting the whole time, taking a deep breath of the flowers' scent.
"What kind of god of death or ruler of the underworld could possibly love flowers and the living world this much?"
He turned the thought over in his mind.
Persephone from Greek myth? Or Hel from Norse myth?
Just as he lowered his head in thought, the floral scent was suddenly mixed with a rising smell of raw earth.
Gurgle—
The firm ground of the forest floor suddenly began to churn violently without warning.
With a grating sound like wet soil turning to mush, the earth beneath the four of them instantly lost all support and transformed into a thick, sucking swamp of quicksand.
"What?"
Caught completely off guard, they all lost their footing at once, their legs sinking deep into the mire.
The quicksand moved like a living thing, generating a tremendous pulling force from below that wrapped itself around their ankles.
Not only that, it climbed rapidly up their calves, dragging at them with the clear intent of burying them alive underground and suffocating them there.
At the same time, a mocking voice crashed down from above through the branches.
"I knew you idiots wouldn't be able to sit still and would come running in early to die!"
The leaves shook violently, and several waves of magic—thick with malice and overwhelmingly strong—spread through the woods like tangible storm clouds.
"Having us wait here in ambush ahead of time was exactly the right call!"
"Damn it, the whole structure of the ground has turned to sand! There's no point of leverage!"
Erza reacted instantly. She drove her sword into a nearby tree, trying to use it to pull herself free.
But even the roots of that massive trunk, thick enough that several people would need to link arms to circle it, had already been turned to sand.
The whole tree was tipping and sinking at a frightening speed. There was no support to be found.
"Hehehe… give up struggling."
Accompanied by a slightly ridiculous sing-song tone, a burly orange-haired man with a square, striking face strolled out from the shadows among the trees.
Hands pressed together, he wore a greedy smile.
"Money may be the sweetest thing in the world, but the price the boss offered today… is your lives. That's how it is~"
"To instantly transmute this much land into a sand swamp… that level of earth magic…"
Jellal's face darkened as his magic began to rise.
"Freeze the sand and break out!"
Just as the mire was about to swallow them past the knees, Ultear's cold voice cut through the chaos.
The next instant, freezing air exploded outward from her, instantly locking the churning quicksand into dead, solid ice.
No one hesitated. Taking advantage of the brief moment, they shattered the frozen sand around them and leapt to the remaining patches of solid ground.
"Too slow!"
Before anyone could even settle, a shrill mocking voice pierced the air.
"The speed at which you escaped that trap was pathetic. Like snails crawling on the ground!"
Whoosh—
A gust of wind whipped dead leaves into the air as a figure moved so fast it was almost nothing but an afterimage, darting back and forth between the high tree trunks around them.
The voice came from every direction at once, making it impossible to pin down his position.
When the blur finally stopped on a branch not far away, they saw a tall, lean man with a mohawk, dressed in a skintight outfit.
"The boss said to crush all of you pests as fast as possible!"
Hiss… hiss…
As soon as his voice fell, a scalp-crawling chorus of snakes followed.
The same arrogant voice sounded from above again.
"I can hear it all… your pounding heartbeats, and all that ridiculous panic and confusion buzzing around like flies. I've heard every bit of it."
An enormous purple-scaled serpent, big enough to rival a giant python, was winding its way down through the thick canopy, crushing the fragile branches beneath it.
Standing atop its massive head was a wild-looking red-haired boy.
He looked down at the four of them with the cruel smile of something cold-blooded.
"Kehehe… what pathetic looks. A second ago you really did look like ugly little ducklings rolling around in the mud."
Above them, a white-haired girl draped in pure white feathers descended slowly from the air like some holy angel.
She lazily inspected her fingernails, wearing a sweet and innocent smile while saying words full of venom.
"You poor little lost lambs. Don't be afraid. Since you're all in such a hurry to die, let a pure angel guide you… straight into hell~"
And above all of them, a richly decorated flying carpet hung motionless in the air.
Curled up on it was a man with black-and-white hair, apparently fast asleep, giving off faint snores as though the life-and-death tension below had nothing to do with him.
An earth mage. A snake tamer. A speed freak. A holy-looking girl. And a sleeping man.
These five strange and extremely powerful mages had completely sealed off every possible escape route.
"Brain's subordinates?"
Shane asked in a low voice.
His mood had already been made worse by nearly having the flowers in his arms swallowed up by mud.
The white-haired girl, Angel, ignored his tone completely. She let her smile drop and pointed one polished fingernail directly at him, a trace of wariness in her eyes.
"As planned. Midnight, Cobra… that man is yours."
"With your hearing, plus Midnight's magic, you two are the best suited to deal with him."
"Ah, don't worry. My ears will hear every opportunity for victory."
Cobra flicked his red hair and stared straight at Shane.
"Don't underestimate him. The boss emphasized it over and over. This one really is a monster who defeated one of the Ten Wizard Saints," Angel warned.
"I don't care if he beat one of the Saints. His killing intent and weak points can't hide from my hearing!"
Cobra sounded irritated, as if he'd been insulted.
Behind him, the man on the flying carpet—Midnight—remained completely silent, only his steady snoring drifting through the forest as if he really were asleep.
Like a pack of wolves dividing up prey before the hunt, the others also chose their targets.
The square-faced man clasped his hands and fixed his greedy little eyes on Jellal. "You look expensive, kid."
The leather-clad speed freak crouched on a tree trunk, staring at the calm Ultear. "I hate that expression on your face."
"As girls, don't be too rough with me later, okay?"
Angel floated over in front of Erza, smiling sweetly and tilting her head in provocation.
Seeing this, Shane smiled instead of worrying.
"So this is the Six Prayer Generals—every one of them except their leader Brain, all gathered here."
"You went to all this trouble just to stop us…"
"Looks like our arriving early really did cause quite a lot of trouble for your dear boss's plan."