With Serie herself — the group's anchor — having spoken, Genau let the matter drop and said nothing more.
Serie offered a few calming words to the assembled mages before making her way over to Frieren's side.
"Frieren..." Serie's expression soured slightly as she fixed the elf with a sideways stare. "Do you have so little regard for me?"
"What do you mean?" Frieren blinked, genuinely puzzled.
"This." Serie gestured idly toward Himmel, who lay nearby. "You went and asked Edel first — you didn't even think to come to me?"
Frieren tilted her head at Serie's complaint, more confused than ever.
"Serie, you can't undo this kind of control."
The words irritated Serie — not because they were cruel, but because Frieren hadn't said it as a question. It was a flat, certain statement.
And yet Serie had no choice but to accept that it was the truth.
It was just like what Fíliya had said of her once. She was ill-suited to the title of God of Magic, and equally ill-suited to being any kind of leader.
Serie's way of thinking was, at its core, that of a pure warmonger. She had gathered more spells than anyone else in the world — but gathered and mastered were two different things. When it came to the application and understanding of those spells, there were many cases where she fell short even of her own human disciples.
Well, so what — I still have unrivaled combat power, she could tell herself.
But if even that most direct measure of strength were one day taken from her... that would likely deal a blow to her spirit she might not easily recover from.
Perhaps that, more than anything, was why that little test had lodged itself so deeply under her skin.
Seeing Serie fall into a rare, tongue-tied silence, Frieren didn't press further. Her attention needed to be elsewhere right now anyway.
After a short while, Edel slowly opened her eyes and withdrew the mana she had channeled into Himmel's body.
She let out a long breath, then reached up to wipe the sweat that had beaded on her forehead from sheer concentration.
"This is... rather complicated..." she murmured to herself — and Frieren, standing closest to her, caught every word.
"I see... Even you can't make sense of it?" Frieren's mood dipped visibly.
"Hm? Oh, no — I only said it was complicated, not that it was hopeless. It won't be solved in a day or two, but... I can lift the control on Mr. Himmel."
Edel caught the look on Frieren's face and immediately understood she'd been misread.
Not just Frieren — every First-Class Mage in the room looked up at once, a new light in their eyes.
After all, everyone present had already assumed this control was almost certainly Fíliya's handiwork — the Demon King herself — and so few had allowed themselves to hope that Edel might actually be able to undo it.
But if she truly could... the human camp would gain one of its most powerful fighters back.
"Edel... you're serious?!" Frieren asked, her voice a mixture of surprise and barely contained relief.
"Of course. What surprised me, honestly, is that the technique used to seal away his mind and personality... is actually a method Fíliya and I once discussed together. Back then, we both thought it was far too labor-intensive and wasteful of mana, so we never pursued it further. I never imagined Fíliya could actually pull it off now."
"Is that so..." Frieren went quiet for a moment, but a thought had already taken shape in her mind.
Given Fíliya's current abilities, she almost certainly had no shortage of methods to control a person's mind. And yet she had deliberately chosen one that someone else was familiar with.
On top of that, Fíliya surely knew that Edel was stationed here at the Empire's branch right now.
Which meant...
Frieren's brow furrowed. She had completely lost track of what Fíliya was planning.
"So, Edel — how long will you need?" she asked.
"Hmm... At least half a month."
"I see. Then I'll leave him in your care."
"Understood." Edel accepted the task without hesitation, a smile breaking across her face.
After all, despite being stationed at the Empire's branch, she hadn't been of much use to anyone until now. Outside the domain of Mind Magic, she was barely a match for an ordinary Third-Class Mage — but here, at last, she could bask in the expectant gazes of her peers.
Besides... this was a challenge Fíliya had essentially left for her personally. She absolutely had to solve it — if only to show that infuriating woman what she was made of.
With Himmel entrusted to Edel, Frieren felt the tension in her chest ease just enough to let her rejoin the broader discussion.
The First-Class Mages spoke over one another in a noisy, sprawling debate, searching for some strategy that might counter Fíliya's immortality — but in the end, nothing concrete emerged.
Which was hardly a surprise. An immortality this absolute had never appeared anywhere else in the history of the continent. There was simply no precedent to draw from.
"If we have no way to break Fíliya's Immortality... then what if we started from the very beginning — and simply prevented all of this from happening in the first place?"
It was Fern who posed the question, though the room was quick to push back.
"Lady Fern, are you suggesting... time travel? That's impossible. According to the Irreversibility Principle left behind by the Great Mage Flamme—"
Falsch had barely begun to object when Frieren cut him off.
"Flamme's Irreversibility Principle isn't accurate. I know this for certain — because I've traveled through time at least once myself."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Coming from anyone else, a claim like that would have been laughed out of the room. But Frieren's very existence was the stuff of legend, and her power was proof enough that her words carried weight.
"Frieren, you mean the Goddess's Monument... but that thing was destroyed. And the time travel it allowed was fixed — you could only return to the moment you last touched it. It's far too limited to accomplish what Fern is suggesting."
Serie had grasped immediately what Frieren was referring to.
"Yes, I know all of that. But what I want to establish is that traveling through time is not impossible. There may be other ways to achieve it in this world. Fern's proposal is a sound one — it could spare us from ever having to face Fíliya head-on."
Frieren's words sent the room into contemplative silence.
For all that First-Class Mages were prepared to give their lives, that didn't mean any of them were eager to actually do so.
And then — as the mages sat lost in thought — a voice rang out inside the room, sharp and sudden as a crack of thunder.
"A magic that crosses through time — of course it exists."
Who—?!
Strung tight with tension as they were, not one of the First-Class Mages had detected anyone approaching.
And yet something was immediately, deeply wrong — because this was the Empire branch's council chamber, a room that could only be reached by passing through layer upon layer of guards.
Who in the world could have slipped inside without a single person noticing?
Every eye in the room snapped toward the source of the voice.
To most of those present, the figure who stood there was merely unfamiliar — a stranger who sparked only mild curiosity. But the instant Frieren and Serie saw that face, both elves went completely, utterly still.
A warm, effortless smile. Eyes full of quiet confidence. Long orange hair that fell to her hips. And a gentle, familiar presence that reached deep into memory and pulled something tender to the surface.
"...Sensei?"
"Flamme?"
The two elves each breathed a name — hushed, uncertain, barely more than a whisper.
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