"What's wrong?"
Himmel looked at Frieren in confusion.
Suspicion, shock, fear, disorientation...
Emotions more vivid than dreams—Himmel could hardly believe he was seeing such depth of feeling in the eyes of that normally emotionless elf.
Her lashes lowered as if to contain the wave cresting within her. Then, Frieren turned away and looked back at the Goddess's Stele.
"I don't understand..."
"I see. You don't understand, huh…"
Himmel's tone was calm—neither surprised nor disappointed.
"Can we go back now?"
"I'd really like to get going," grumbled Heiter, still bitter after their three-day misadventure through the woods. Eisen echoed the sentiment with a weary sigh.
"Aesc must be tired of Frieren's whims too, huh?"
Heiter turned toward Aesc, hoping to find some shared exasperation. But Aesc just smiled gently.
"What's the harm? Kids like to run around. Having energy is a wonderful thing."
"Are you her mother or something?"
It was exactly as she remembered.
Frieren stood up, fighting to remain composed, and walked over to Himmel. She raised a hand and began gently pinching his cheeks.
"Uh… what are you doing?"
Frieren's strange behavior made Himmel blink in confusion.
"He's real…"
Frieren glanced away slightly, then asked, "Himmel, how old are you right now?"
He blinked, a bit thrown by the question, but answered honestly, "Twenty-three."
"Tch, she's dazed again…"
Heiter scowled, annoyed.
"…I see."
Frieren had roughly pieced things together. Hard as it was to believe, as fantastical and unreal as it seemed—even compared to dreams—this was the truth.
Fifty-three years before Himmel's death. Seven years into the hero's journey.
That was when Frieren now found herself.
She had returned to the past.
...
Frieren knelt once more before the Goddess's Stele, continuing to examine the magic inscribed upon it.
There was no doubt—it was the goddess's magic in the stone that had sent her back in time. But she couldn't comprehend any of it.
To modern mages, goddess magic was like handing a handgun to a caveman. A priest blessed by the goddess could use divine magic simply by possessing a holy text—but understanding how it worked was another matter. You might know how to fire a gun, even if you had no idea how it was constructed.
What Frieren was attempting now was closer to a caveman trying to reverse-engineer a rocket launcher. She knew fully deciphering its mechanics was impossible—but if she could at least learn to use it…
While she worked, Aesc stood a short distance away, doing her best to keep the others calm, especially Heiter.
Her method? A rather unorthodox one. She cast a peculiar spell that caused a tree nearby to start growing... carrots.
The group stared at the strange sight in awe. Heiter pointed to the tree with genuine curiosity.
"Aren't carrots supposed to grow underground?"
"Manifesting dreamlike visions into reality—that's the wonder of magic,"
Aesc replied with a soft smile, adjusting the bridge of her glasses with one slender finger. The sun caught the lens edge with a glint.
"Magic really is amazing…"
Heiter nodded in earnest. But then his eyes lit up with that familiar glint of mischief.
"So… is there a spell that can make a tree grow full of liquor?"
There was no saving this drunkard priest.
That thought crossed the minds of Aesc, Himmel, and Eisen simultaneously.
Himmel glanced toward Frieren, who was still inspecting the stele.
"Frieren, we should probably get going soon."
Heiter added, "Yeah, but how are we getting back?"
Aesc replied calmly, "I marked our path with a spell before we came. We won't get lost again."
Eisen nodded. "Magic really is convenient… Whoever invented that spell did the world a favor."
At the rear of the group, Himmel called out to Frieren one more time.
"Let's go, Frieren."
Reluctantly, Frieren cast one last lingering look at the stone before finally following the group.
They walked through the forest with Aesc leading the way, while Frieren, bringing up the rear, continued to mull things over.
This isn't a hallucination. This is real time travel... Unbelievable. It completely violates the principles of irreversibility.
Then again, goddess magic still holds countless mysteries.
Based on what I know so far, it seems this magic returns the user to the exact moment they last touched the stele.
The real problem is how to return. Even when I touched the stele again, nothing happened.
She wracked her brain to no avail—exhausting herself and still arriving at no answer. She didn't even know what her next step should be.
Instinctively, she wanted to turn to someone she trusted—someone like Himmel.
"Hey—"
"What is it?"
Himmel turned around, but just as the words were about to leave Frieren's lips, she stopped herself.
"…It's nothing."
No… I can't. This might change history. If I'm not careful, even Fern and Stark might vanish.
After all, those closely tied to Fern (Heiter) and Stark (Eisen) were standing right in front of her.
"…Is something wrong with her?" Himmel frowned.
Eisen muttered, "She doesn't seem like herself."
"Could failing to decipher the stele have hit her that hard?" Himmel asked.
But Heiter scoffed.
"You two are too soft on her. What she needs right now is a good scolding."
With that, he stormed over to Frieren and barked, "This whole detour was your fault! If you love magic so much, why don't you go join someone else's party!"
Himmel sighed. "You sound like her mother."
Aesc chuckled and pointed at herself. "Then I guess I'd be the team's sole magic user."
Eisen shot her a look. "Don't joke like that. What if Frieren takes you seriously?"
But to everyone's surprise, Frieren didn't argue. She simply lowered her gaze and muttered apologetically:
"…I'm sorry."
Everyone froze.
Eisen blinked. "Did she… apologize?"
Himmel stared. "Seriously? Even when she's obviously wrong, she never apologizes."
Heiter was the most shaken—he stared at her for a full eight seconds before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a piece of candy.
"If you realize your mistake, that's enough. Want a sweet?"
"No."
Frieren refused flatly.
"…You're just spoiling her too," Himmel muttered.
Frieren had no intention of telling them about the future—not if she could help it. She didn't want to risk a time paradox.
But reality wasn't so cooperative.
On the way back, Aesc and the others ran into a demon.
This demon wielded spatial transfer magic—a kind of sorcery so advanced that the modern human magical system couldn't even confirm its existence.
In order to fight it, Frieren had no choice but to reveal some of her abilities.
It seemed the demon had been tasked with guarding the Goddess's Stele. When it detected the time fluctuation, it had immediately rushed to the site. Combined with what Frieren had revealed, it quickly realized she was from the future.
To prevent it from reporting this, Frieren was forced to kill it—exposing even more in the process.
With her secret now witnessed by those she trusted, Frieren had no choice but to explain.
That night, the group sat around a fire.
Himmel was the first to break the silence.
"Frieren, would you mind explaining what's going on?"
Frieren remained quiet, clearly still debating internally.
Then Himmel said something else.
"Though… Aesc probably already figured it out, right?"
Only Frieren reacted—turning to Aesc in surprise. Eisen and Heiter didn't look surprised at all.
"She's been acting like she's got something on her mind too," Eisen added.
"Aesc's pretty easy to read," Heiter smirked.
"…So I was already found out, huh?" Aesc tugged at her hat brim sheepishly. "And here I thought I was doing a decent job keeping it under wraps…"
She glanced at Frieren, then said softly, "If you don't want to say it, I can do it for you… but there's really no point hiding it anymore."
"…I'll say it."
With a sigh, Frieren made her choice.
"The truth is… I came from eighty years in the future."
"…I see."
Himmel accepted the fantastical confession without changing his expression.
"You… believe me?" Frieren asked.
"You don't realize how obvious your weird behavior has been," Aesc chimed in.
"Not just in that battle just now—the spells you used, the things you've said… You've underestimated how well we know you after all these years together."
"Eighty years in the future, huh…" Heiter scratched his chin. "It sounds ridiculous, but with everything we've seen, and you being the one to say it, I guess I can believe it."
He turned to Aesc. "But how did you figure it out so fast?"
In terms of understanding Frieren, none of them were inferior to Aesc. They'd all noticed her strange behavior—but only Aesc had guessed the reason.
Because none of them had thought of time travel.
So why had Aesc?
"Because I can do something similar."
Aesc tilted her head casually, like it was no big deal. "I can't turn back time, but… I can send my memories back to my past self."
The words landed like a bomb.
"…That's going a bit far for a joke," Heiter said flatly.
Sending memories to the past—even if not the same as reversing time—sounded just as insane.
"Don't look at me like that. The casting conditions are insanely strict. Using it once pretty much guarantees I'll die."
"That's still incredible!" Heiter exclaimed. "Honestly, those kinds of conditions should come with magic that broken."
Frieren, Himmel, and Eisen all nodded in agreement.
"And once my past self receives those memories, they can change the future—creating a second timeline and erasing the first. So technically, if the 'first Aesc' dies, it's not a big loss."
Frieren rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Doesn't that make the cost of the spell… kind of meaningless?"
They were supposed to be discussing her, but somehow the conversation had veered entirely into Aesc's magic.
...
The next morning, the group continued their journey.
"…I just thought of something," Heiter said suddenly, catching everyone's attention.
"If Aesc has magic that ridiculous… isn't it possible she's already used it once?"
"…That makes sense," Eisen mused, stroking his beard. "She does know a lot of strange magic. Like that overpowered flame spell… and the memory-transfer one."
Himmel turned to Aesc. "If that's the case, then even now, I bet you've got tons of magic you haven't told us about."
Then he turned to Frieren. "What do you think? Did Aesc show any signs like that eighty years from now?"
Frieren frowned deeply, then shook her head. "No idea. I never paid attention… That memory-transfer spell? I only learned about it last night."
"I see…"
Himmel didn't seem disappointed.
That was just who Frieren was. Her entire focus had always been on collecting magic. Anything unrelated didn't even register.
"Geez, ever since last night, it's been all about me."
Aesc jogged a few paces ahead of the group, then turned around with her hands on her hips.
"Shouldn't you all be more curious about Frieren's future? She's the one from eighty years ahead!"
"Oh, we are curious," Heiter admitted. "That's eighty years, after all. By then, Himmel and I are probably long gone… Of course I'm dying to know. I want to know—did we beat the Demon King?"
"But,"
Himmel smiled, "Since Frieren's done hiding it, I know she'll tell us if we ask. And that means we're free to be more curious about you, Aesc."
"…Well, too bad for you."
Aesc puffed up her cheeks in mock seriousness. "I'm not from the future."
Though she had seen it.