"Like I'd believe that."
He shot back without any courtesy. Ubel turned around and walked backward in front of him, leaning down with a cheerful smile and looking up at him from below.
"How mean~ Aren't we already companions? And yet you so little trust in me?"
"A habitual liar like you has no right to say that."
"But you're not much better, are you?"
"That's exactly why I said you don't have the right to say it."
At the very end of the exam, the two people who had quite a bit of conflict between them unexpectedly spent the time strolling and chatting until the exam ended.
During that time, Lawine froze the lake, while Frieren and Kanne went off to do something unknown.
Of course, whether those three finally managed to obtain the Stille bird or not, neither of the two of them really cared.
———
Evening, beside the barrier—
Sense had already disappeared. Only the chief examiner remained, simply announcing that those who obtained the Stille bird had qualified for the second round of the exam, along with the notice that the second round would be held three days later.
He made absolutely no mention of the matter of Ash having entered the safe zone. After finishing, he simply left the scene on his own.
Once the examiners were gone, the people at the scene all breathed a sigh of relief. Cheers and sounds of high-fives could even be heard.
Among the dozen or so people who had passed, Ash also saw quite a few familiar faces.
Among them were two teams whose mana he had almost completely drained, yet they had still managed to qualify.
But for some reason, that old man Denken had a bruised and battered face.
Seeing that, Ash couldn't help walking up and teasing him.
"You're clearly a mage, and at your age too. Did you actually go and get into a fight?"
"That's all thanks to you."
Having fought a hand-to-hand battle with another mage who had also exhausted his stamina and successfully seized the Stille bird, Denken already felt a headache just from seeing Ash. Still, he shook his head and asked suspiciously, "Though in the end it's the result of our own suffering, so I won't complain. But I still can't figure it out... just who exactly are you?"
"About me? For many things, it's happier they remain unknown. Little Denken, see you in the next exam."
Ash smiled and patted the shortened old man's head, then left him behind and strode ahead.
"Little Denken..."
That overly strange way of saying it made the expression on Denken's face extremely subtle.
After all, he was already a seventy-eight-year-old man. No one had spoken to him like that for at least fifty years. Yet now someone was treating him like a child?
Anyone would probably be stunned by that. Unfortunately, before he even had a chance to protest, Ash had already left him behind and walked away, leaving him standing there alone feeling gloomy.
———
Frieren, who had just fought Ash earlier, very naturally walked over to his side. Fern also followed right behind her.
She stared at him expressionlessly and asked in a tone lacking emotion, "Lord Ash, I'm not angry. Please honestly tell me... what exactly happened between you and Kanne?"
"You say that, but when people say something like that, they're usually already angry, right?"
"Then answer honestly!"
Fern stared at him without blinking, pouting unhappily.
"And even if I really am angry, it must definitely be Lord Ash's fault for always not explaining things properly."
"I want to say it, but..."
How could he possibly say something like that.
He looked toward Frieren for help, but she silently turned her face away and said without looking back, "Don't look at me. I don't care about your matters, and don't even think about dragging me into it again."
"Lord Ash."
"Alright. Actually, Kanne was attacked by a bird in the sky, and I happened to pass by and saved her. That's what happened."
"Then what's so hard about saying that? Isn't that a good thing?"
"Actually I don't really like showing off my achievements. After all, despite how I look, my skin is actually quite thin. I'm not very used to being praised."
He selectively told part of the truth and polished that truth a bit, making his actions sound reasonable.
Hearing that, Fern narrowed her beautiful eyes.
"So you're still hiding something?"
"Why do you think that?"
"Look at Lady Frieren's expression."
"Frieren... uh... Hey! What kind of expression is that?"
Ash subconsciously looked over and only then realized that Frieren's expression looked extremely strange.
"Sorry, what you said was just too ridiculous. I really can't hold it in."
Frieren stiffly turned her face away, covering her mouth with her hand in case she burst out laughing.
"Sigh! Honestly..."
Seeing himself betrayed by her expression made Ash let out a long sigh.
"It's fine. Even if Frieren didn't make a strange face, no one would believe that nonsense anyway."
Ubel appeared from somewhere unknown, still walking with her hands behind her back. She came to his side and comforted him with a smiling face.
But did that really count as comfort? Ash felt like she was just using the opportunity to deliberately mock him.
As for Kanne, one of the people involved, she noticed the conversation over here but didn't come close at all. She even started fighting with Lawine again, who was also asking her what exactly had happened.
Ash glanced at Fern, then at the two girls who had started wrestling. Since he obviously couldn't imitate Kanne and wrestle with Fern on the ground just to change the topic, he could only look up at the night sky and sigh.
"What youthful energy."
"Lord Ash, please don't look away."
"Today's weather..."
"Don't try to change the topic."
"That topic isn't over yet?"
"Because you still haven't explained it clearly."
Beside him was a girl staring at him without letting go, someone who knew him so well she could even interrupt his universal topic-changing method.
Next to them were two people clearly enjoying the show.
His heart was bitter. In the end he simply lowered his head and walked silently, saying nothing, using silence to resist everything.
———
After the group returned to the Magic City, because of the promise he made with Frieren last night, Ash found a pretty good restaurant and was forced to treat the three girls, none of whom were easy to deal with.
The more normal Lawine and Kanne had already gone home to meet their parents.
But just as they arrived nearby, they saw three familiar people standing outside the restaurant entrance not far away, Denken, Richter, and Laufen.
"The last time I came here with my wife was fifty years ago. Yet it still feels exactly the same as back then... truly incredible."
Denken looked at the entrance, stroking his large beard, his eyes full of nostalgia.
Hearing that voice, Frieren also looked at the signboard that seemed unchanged except for some aging compared to the past, and she sighed.
"That's true. The last time I came here with Ash was eighty years ago, right? It's almost been a century. Yet there's still a human who can eat together with me. That feeling is quite fresh."
"Eighty years?"
Hearing that, Denken instinctively turned his head over. Even Ubel looked extremely shocked.
"How old are you exactly?"
Ubel reached out and pinched his face.
"It feels very soft. It doesn't seem like makeup at all."
"Don't randomly... touch people. That's rude."
He pulled Ubel's hand away and sighed.
"Ubel, you should know Sense, right?"
"I've met her before. I know. What about it?"
"For more than ten years until now, she hasn't changed at all. She's still a cute little girl."
"Huh? Are you two the same species?"
"Don't describe that cute child like some strange thing, alright?"
Ash slapped a hand onto Ubel's head and forcibly ended the topic.
Frieren then explained the situation a bit.
But to everyone else listening, it was completely confusing.
Occasionally encountering a hundred-year-old blessed by the goddess wasn't strange. But Ash's mental state didn't look like someone who had lived a hundred years at all.
'Could it be that after spending so long with Frieren, an elf who has lived who knows how many years, his mentality has also become younger?', Everyone couldn't help making that guess.
Fern had already heard from Ash before that he was actually a special existence capable of living forever, so she wasn't worried about him dying of old age or anything.
However... Even though he wasn't participating in the conversation, Fern still kept staring at him.
Her gaze made him feel uncomfortable all over.
In the end, although he wanted to pretend he couldn't hear or see anything, the pressure of that gaze forced Ash to turn his head while resting his chin on one hand.
"Fern... why are you staring at me?"
"Sense is a very cute child."
"What about it?"
"Lord Ash wouldn't be someone who says he likes older women but actually likes girls like Miss Sense, would you?"
Fern looked very unhappy, clearly beginning to suspect his true nature.
"How could that be? I just like cute things. You're the same, right?"
"That's true, but... is Lord Ash really only like that? Really only that kind of liking? There aren't any strange thoughts?"
Fern placed both hands on the table. With every word she leaned closer toward him, almost pushing him off the table.
"What else could there be?"
Forced to lean his body backward to avoid her pressing closer, he sighed.
While stroking Fern's hair to calm the child who was questioning his tastes, he also turned his head toward the side.
"Frieren..."
"Don't always look at me at times like this. I'm troubled too."
The expressionless elf girl almost buried her face into the menu between her hands. Without lifting her head she spoke in a muffled voice, and both her long ears drooped down.
But she also felt that always ignoring things like this wasn't very good.
After glancing around the surroundings for a while, she suddenly noticed a couple not far away feeding each other a single merkur pudding.
Seeing that, she lightly slapped her palm, "I heard that this country is very wealthy, but it turns out there are still people who can't even afford one pudding each and have to share like this. So rumors really are lies. We clearly have enough money to order one each. Hmm... thinking about it this way, even if we can't eat desserts every day, our life is actually pretty good, right?"
Frieren's sudden bizzare realisation left Ubel beside her stunned.
Even Ash and Fern, who were familiar with her, wore strange expressions.
"If someone else said that, I'd definitely think they were helping me change the topic."
Ash held his forehead with one hand and sighed lightly.
"But you saying it like that..."
"What are you talking about?"
Frieren looked confused. Seeing him hesitate and not want to explain, she simply didn't ask further and directly raised her hand.
"Boss! Five merkur puddings first!"
"Oh, five servings, right? Please wait a moment!"
The shop owner behind the counter didn't think much of it. Before long he brought out five plates of pudding.
Looking at the extra one, Fern hesitated.
"Lady Frieren, are you planning to eat two by yourself? That must be it, right? It can't be..."
"What are you talking about?"
Frieren shook her head helplessly. She picked up the extra pudding and walked straight to the couple.
She moved so fast that Fern didn't even have time to stop her, and could only throw Ash a look asking for help.
But what could he do? He could only silently move his chair a little to the side to avoid people thinking he knew Frieren.
"Lord Ash?"
Fern immediately grabbed his wrist, her face full of disbelief. She hadn't expected him to abandon Frieren so easily.
Looking up at him from below, her eyes seemed to be trying to awaken his conscience toward his friend.
That look really made him hesitate for a moment.
Then, he simply grabbed Fern's chair and pulled it, chair and person together, over beside him.
Following the momentum beneath her, Fern almost fell onto him and ended up leaning against his side.
Fern froze for a moment.
Her face slightly red, she looked at him for a while as if she wanted to say something but couldn't. Then she pouted like a child and murmured,
"Lord Ash... what exactly are you doing?"
"I'm trying to keep you from being treated like a weirdo."
"I've been with you all for so many years. At this point, haven't I already been misunderstood plenty of times?"
"Don't give up, Fern! You still have a very long life ahead of you."
"Normally at times like this, shouldn't you be thinking of a way to fix things so I won't keep getting misunderstood in the future?"
What seemed like casual encouragement made Fern's expression turn strange.
She even lightly punched his chest with her small fist.
Although she didn't use any strength at all and was simply expressing dissatisfaction, it still made Ash look somewhat helpless.
"I am reflecting seriously, but right now Frieren's situation is clearly worse."
"I'll properly talk to Lady Frieren later. Please work hard as well."
"Mm... I'll try."
"Why aren't you even looking at me when you say that? What kind of effort is that supposed to be?"
He stiffly turned his head away and let Fern keep talking while his mind drifted elsewhere.
For the words of the girl beside him, it was simply in one ear and out the other.
———
Before long, Frieren returned after kindly delivering the pudding.
But she completely ignored the scene of Fern nearly leaning onto Ash while hitting him like a spoiled lover.
Instead she stroked her chin and showed a puzzled expression.
"How strange..."
"Lady Frieren, what's strange?"
Fern temporarily stopped attacking the Ash who was pretending to be clueless and looked over in confusion.
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
[email protected]/AmbitiousTranslator
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through P@treon.