The strange inheritance made Fern's mood feel a bit complicated when she realized it herself.
She wanted to correct something, but it didn't seem like there was actually anything that needed correcting.
So as she thought more and more and her mood became increasingly odd, she simply stopped dwelling on it and put on a stern face, saying seriously, "Anyway, children and willful people both need proper lecturing if they're going to change. Blindly spoiling them is absolutely not acceptable."
"The way you say that, it's like either I or Frieren has actually changed over all these years?", Braving the risk of angering Fern, Ash couldn't help but refute her using himself and Frieren as examples.
And, as expected, this made the purple color in Fern's eyes seem to fade, "You really have the nerve to say that! I've said it so many times, about so many things, and you and Lady Frieren have never corrected yourselves even once! Not once! This is the first time I've realized just how rigid people can be!"
"You can't say there's been no change at all. Frieren hasn't changed much, but at least I apologize faster than before, and my attitude when reflecting has also—"
"You've only improved in apologizing and reflecting! If nothing changes in the important parts, what kind of change is that?"
"Just tell me if there's been change or not."
"There hasn't been any!"
It had originally just been a discussion, but the example he gave seemed to have gone wrong, causing Fern to get angrier the more she thought about it, until she completely exploded on the spot and gave him a thorough lecture.
In the end…
"Please reflect on yourself properly!"
Throwing down just that one sentence, Fern stormed out and slammed the door.
Only then did Ash, who had been lectured to the point of dizziness, shake his head, sort out his thoughts, and open the wardrobe, planning to take his things and leave first to avoid trouble later.
But the door was suddenly pushed open again.
He froze on the spot as if struck by lightning, not daring to turn around for a long while, afraid he would be met with a gaze from Fern even harsher than before, the kind she would use to look at a bug.
Carefully turning his head, he realized it was actually Frieren standing blankly at the door.
Frieren stared at the figures inside his wardrobe, and the expression on her face visibly became strange.
"Um…", Ash silently closed the wardrobe, feeling like he should say something. Frieren lifted her gaze and stared into his eyes, silently waiting for his explanation.
The room fell into an eerie silence.
After a long time, Frieren, who had originally come to tell him that Fern had actually always wanted to give him a gift, slowly raised her hand, pointed at the closed wardrobe, and asked, "Don't you have anything you want to explain to me?"
"A finely crafted statue like that is pretty rare, right? Wanting to collect it is reasonable, isn't it?"
"But that's a sealed replica, right?"
"You could tell?"
"You don't secretly like small ones while pretending to like big ones, just like Master said? And back then… when Fern used the potion to melt my clothes, did she show up at just the right time on purpose?", Thinking back to what had happened not long ago, a rare blush appeared on Frieren's face. She even looked as if she had been betrayed, her expression full of disbelief, "I trusted you so much, treated you as my best friend, and you were looking at me like that? Or was it from the very beginning… when you looked at my underwear, you already had those kinds of thoughts?"
"Wait a second. Calm down and let me sort this out for you," Not expecting his former senior to have slandered him like this behind his back, Ash held his forehead in disbelief.
"Did you forget that between the two times we watched meteor showers, we didn't see each other for about fifty years?"
"So what?"
"A normal person would almost be dead after fifty years. Speaking of which, before you met Fern for the first time after that, Himmel had already been dead for twenty years, right? That means we also hadn't seen each other for twenty years. If I really had those kinds of thoughts, would I not contact you for that long?"
"To be honest… I don't know!"
After thinking for a long time, Frieren spoke her honest thoughts with an oddly serious expression.
That strange answer made Ash rub his face repeatedly, his expression strained with suppressed frustration, "Then what are you even talking about now? Aren't you just being unreasonable with me?"
"I feel like… sorry?"
"Forget it. I don't feel like arguing with you. I have something to do, so I'm heading out. You should reflect on yourself."
With a disappointed expression, he patted Frieren on the head, sighed, and quickly left the room. As he passed by her, he let out a faint sigh, "Frieren, the way you said that about me… it really hurts."
Those words made Frieren's pupils shrink slightly, and an indescribable sense of guilt spread through her heart.
Even after Ash had been gone for a long time, Frieren still stood in his room, sinking into an inexpressible mix of distress and self-reproach.
But as the guilt gradually faded with time, a question surfaced in her mind, 'Can I hurt Ash really that easily?'
Based on her understanding of him over the years, even if he really were hurt, he definitely wouldn't say it out loud.
"Does that mean… I got played by him again?"
Frieren murmured softly, still unable to figure out what exactly had happened. No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't make sense of the situation.
After all, matters like this were simply too difficult for her.
———
Because of the situation, it wasn't suitable to move the statue, so Ash could only leave the room for now with some regret.
Although on the way out, he felt like he might have gone a bit too far with what he said, he was still a little annoyed.
After all, Frieren's words were definitely an injustice to him. At least he felt that he wouldn't have had those kinds of thoughts toward a little elf granny a thousand years ago.
But if asked whether he actually had such preferences, then why were there so many flat girl among the ones around him, aside from the occasional strange male… even he didn't really understand that.
A normal girl would be Fern, and then there were Fern's friends. He couldn't possibly mess around with them, right?
Although he sometimes teased them, he still had a sense of limits.
Among capable juniors, aside from males, there was only Sense. Sense and her master Serie both had young appearances, and that definitely had nothing to do with him.
As for demons, there were plenty of normal young girls and women, but the valuable, powerful ones he was close to all happened to be small in stature. Could that really be his fault?
'Of course not. It must be the world's fault, right? Maybe this world just favores short girls more, so women with smaller builds tended to stand out more?'
"So it's the world's fault after all," he muttered, instinctively tossing the thought aside and not dwelling on it further.
But the moment he stepped out into the courtyard, he saw Fern leaning against the wall, as if waiting for him.
He instinctively took a couple of steps to the side, trying to avoid another possible lecture, but that action made Fern openly show an unhappy expression, "Lord Ash, why are you avoiding me?"
"That's not it," Like someone caught doing something bad, he unconsciously averted his gaze and muttered softly, "I just have an appointment, so I need to head out."
"With who… no, never mind," She started to ask, then shook her head on her own, her expression turning a bit sulky, lips slightly pursed.
"I'm not your housekeeper. I won't restrict your movements. But, I hope that when you leave, you at least tell me. That way I'll know whether I should cook."
"I probably won't be back...", Something about Fern's mood today seemed off, 'But she has always been acting like a housekeeper anyway. What's going on now?'
As he cautiously observed her expression, he added carefully, "I need to leave the city for a bit. It might be difficult to come back tomorrow morning, but I'll return by noon."
"You promise, you'll be back at noon?"
"Yeah. Under normal circumstances, there won't be any problem."
"So… there are abnormal circumstances?"
"In abnormal situations, normally there won't be any, of course."
"That makes sense," Fern nodded slightly, then walked over to him with an inexplicably serious look, raising her head to stare at him.
"It's a promise, okay? Lord Ash."
"Do you really need to be this serious? Honestly...", He smiled and shook his head, unconsciously reaching out to gently stroke her hair.
That familiar touch made Fern's expression soften, and she showed a slightly playful smile, "I've always trusted you, Lord Ash, you know?"
"I know."
'I know, but you were just saying I never change and were really angry a moment ago… girls really are unpredictable,' Unable to say what he was thinking, he left under Fern's gentle wave, holding back his words.
At first, he had thought it didn't matter when he came back. But now, he felt like he might actually need to find a way to return earlier.
Still, he intended to carry out what he had planned. So he went straight to the lord's residence and took Linie with him, leaving the place.
———
Across the Kingdom's border checkpoint lay the Empire's checkpoint.
The border between the two sides was set at a canyon, or more accurately, the Kingdom had advanced to this point back then. Though called a canyon, it was actually a long and wide rift valley.
On both sides were dense primeval forests filled with countless poisonous insects and magical beasts, making it unsuitable for marching armies.
Compared to the Kingdom's defensive barrier, which emitted a purple glow, the Empire's national defense barrier at its checkpoint gave off an eerie light, its color shifting like an aurora.
Back then, the Kingdom had been stopped by that very barrier. Even the Demon King's army had been blocked by such defenses, greatly slowing their advance.
At this moment, both sides' checkpoints were filled with heavily armed soldiers and highly alert mages.
Yet the checkpoint below had not been closed. Trade continued as normal. While both sides remained tense, they maintained a strange kind of peace, strictly inspecting those entering and exiting through small openings in the barrier.
Sitting on the city wall, Linie swung her legs freely and pointed toward the distant barrier, "I remember that was one of the defensive barriers set up a thousand years ago by the founder of human magic, Flamme, to protect the Empire. And you know her, right, Lord Ash? Can't you think of a way to deal with it?"
"Those final defensive barriers were developed and set up in Flamme's later years together with her disciples. Even her only surviving disciple, Frieren, doesn't know how to deal with them. How would I?"
In fact, in Flamme's later years, she already had many disciples in the Empire stronger than Frieren was back then.
Before her death, Flamme had even said she wanted to leave behind magic that Frieren wouldn't be able to fully learn in her lifetime.
So just how much magic she developed and how many theories she created, only heaven knows. Most of it surely surpassed this era.
After all, even the earlier, weaker barriers she had set across the continent still surpassed their time, making them extremely troublesome for attackers, who could only try to exhaust their energy.
And over the past thousand years, these national defense barriers had been continuously optimized and improved based on Flamme and her disciples' work, long since losing their original form and becoming incredibly complex.
Although no new barriers could be added without Flamme's original foundation, the ones that remained were already enough to make people sigh in despair. Other than brute-forcing them with magic to wear them down, there was basically no way to break through. But to overwhelm them by force… the core of these barriers usually contained an absurd amount of magical stones.
"So how are we supposed to break through it? Let Solitar analyze it?"
"Linie, Solitar isn't even here right now, so what are you—"
"No, Lord Ash… she's nearby," Before he could finish, Linie pointed toward the distance.
He looked over instinctively.
Not far away, a familiar small female demon, looking like a short demon girl, was walking toward them with a smile.
That sight made Ash's expression gradually turn very complicated, "Solitar is here too? Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"Solitar said she wanted to give you a surprise."
"I don't think this counts as a surprise at all."
"That's a bit hurtful to say, isn't it?", Solitar clasped her hands in front of her chest, tilting her head slightly, her smile blooming like a flower in spring, warm and gentle.
With that harmless appearance, anyone else might, under cognitive interference, fail to notice her horns and mistake her for an innocent, kind girl.
Feeling her burning gaze fixed on him, Ash rubbed his temples and sighed, "Anyway, tell me first what your 'surprise' actually is. And don't say something like 'I am the surprise.'"
"My, saying such hurtful things again. You really are a cold, heartless man," Solitar put on a wounded expression, but in the next moment, her slender fingers traced across his chest as she lifted her head with a bright smile.
"I came to help you break the barrier."
"If I remember correctly, you've already finished analyzing the barrier that sealed Macht. But the Empire's national defense barrier, even in peacetime, is always openly guarded by the Magic Special Forces, with Shadow Warriors operating behind the scenes to prevent anyone from analyzing it."
As a vital national defense asset, even great demons wouldn't have the opportunity to analyze it while dealing with those two troublesome organizations.
After all, analyzing it required placing one's hand on the barrier. While the other side couldn't attack through it, they could open small gaps to harass, meaning they held all the initiative.
That was exactly why Solitar had always been deeply interested in the Empire's barrier. Now, smiling sweetly, she tempted him:
"So… this is where you and Linie come in to protect me. If I can fully analyze the barrier for you, then from now on, all of the Empire's barriers will be easy to break and won't be able to stop you anymore. Isn't that gift good enough?"
"Let's wait a bit. They've already sent reinforcements. They're probably planning to come over and break our barrier first."
He understood that although she said it was for his sake, it was really to satisfy her own curiosity.
But since they were on the same side, he didn't say more. Together with Linie and Solitar, he temporarily returned to the small town behind the checkpoint, mainly used to support the front line.
Because as soon as he arrived at the checkpoint, he saw a secret message sent back by an Imperial noble spy through the garrison commander. Information even more accurate than what the Magic Association's spies had obtained.
The Holy Wand Court and the Magic Special Forces had not only already set out, but they weren't coming from the Empire. They were coming from within the Kingdom's own rear.
They had likely infiltrated the Kingdom ten years ago and remained dormant all this time. Now they had finally been activated. As for whether they planned to carry out massacres in the rear or attack supply lines, that was still unknown.
Since the Empire's three major organizations, the Holy Wand Court, the Magic Special Forces, and the Shadow Warriors, answered only to the Emperor, even the publicly known Magic Special Forces kept their members' identities confidential. All of them were core institutions of the Empire.
Thus, even though the Kingdom had planted many spies within the Empire, they had obtained very little information about these groups.
After learning that the enemy forces had already moved in from the rear, Ash naturally couldn't return to the magic city with peace of mind. For the time being, he stayed in the small town behind the checkpoint.
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