LinieBaru Chapter 31: Reasons Why Frieren Thinks Serie Should Have Died Long Ago (Patreon)

Surprise chapter that nobody asked for but needed regardless!

The chamber where Serie held court always felt too large for whatever business actually happened inside it, all soaring ceilings and echoing stone, as if the architecture itself had been designed specifically to make visitors feel small and unimportant before a single word got spoken. Frieren stood near the center of it now, arms crossed, staring at the ancient elf perched on her chair like she was trying to set the woman on fire through sheer force of glaring.

"What do you mean you let it go?"

Serie smiled, the kind of smile that had probably started wars in a previous century, easy and untroubled and deeply, personally infuriating.

"Yeah," she said. "It just happened."

Frieren's jaw tightened enough that she felt it in her ears. "That smile," she said slowly, "makes me want to reach into your skull and rearrange your facial bones into something less punchable. Purely as a professional courtesy."

"That's very violent of you. What happened to the old Frieren?”

"You brought it out of me. We had a deal, Serie. You said you would let me have the demon if I joined the exam."

"Correction," Serie said, holding up one finger with the delighted precision of someone who had clearly been waiting for the opportunity to say this exact sentence. "I said I would let you have the demoness if you passed the exam. Which, and I say this with great affection, you did not."

"I did pass. I cleared both phases without dying, without forfeiting,”

"You failed the third phase."

Frieren blinked. "Third phase?"

"Yes." Serie said it the way one might explain the concept of doors to a particularly confused toddler. "The one I personally set. Every candidate who passed the second stage was scheduled for an interview with me. Standard procedure, going back centuries. You, notably, never showed up."

"Nobody told me about a third phase," Frieren said, and her hand twitched toward the empty air beside her hip, the exact spot where her staff usually materialized when she was two seconds away from doing something regrettable. "Is this a joke to you? Do you understand what's actually at stake here?"

Serie leaned back in her chair, entirely unbothered, the picture of someone who had survived several thousand years specifically by refusing to be bothered by things. "Didn't you, a very long time ago, tell me that you wanted to walk away from all this and enjoy the simple pleasures of magic and discovery, rather than get tangled up in politics and obligation? I distinctly remember you saying something along those lines. Very inspiring at the time."

"That is not remotely the same thing."

"I'm just following your excellent advice. Consider it a tribute."

"That demon," Frieren said, her voice dropping into something flatter and considerably more dangerous, "is not a normal demon."

"Of course she isn't," Serie said, examining her own fingernails with theatrical disinterest. "She has a human consciousness inside her."

Frieren went very still. "...what?"

"She's human. A human soul, stuck inside a demon's body. Interesting little accident, really, if you think about it long enough."

"That's impossible."

Serie sighed, the long suffering sigh of someone who had explained this exact category of impossible thing far too many times across far too many centuries. "It would only sound impossible to you because you never stayed long enough to actually study the theory properly, all those years ago. There are exactly three beings capable of true soul manipulation."

"I always assumed that was a myth. A campfire story mages told each other to feel important."

"It is not a myth. It's the Megami, some unidentified demon nobody has managed to properly track down, and an old man currently residing in Ende."

Frieren's eyes narrowed. "That old man."

"Ah," Serie said, brightening slightly. "You've met him, then."

"Briefly. When I was traveling with the Hero’s Party, he gave us directions to the castle and then vanished before I could ask him anything, which in hindsight was probably deliberate."

Frieren exhaled slowly through her nose, forcing herself back toward something resembling composure, though her grip on her own patience felt like a rope fraying somewhere in the middle. "If the demon really is what you claim, human soul or not, why would you let her simply walk free? She is dangerous, Serie. That day in the ruins, her clone alone killed half the remaining candidates before I could stop it. I had to use Auslöschung just to bring it down, and that is not a spell I use lightly or often. Why would you release something capable of that kind of destruction back into the world without so much as a leash?"

Serie's expression shifted, just slightly, the playful edge dimming into something older and far more tired, the kind of look that belonged on someone who had genuinely lived through several apocalypses and remembered every single one in uncomfortable detail.

"You may be the last great mage from the last era," she said quietly. "But I am a mage from the mythical era, and I have lived long enough, and seen enough, to recognize certain things when they cross my path. That girl carries a burden. A purpose, glorious and terrible in equal measure, one that has not yet finished unfolding. I have seen enough threads of fate in my long life to know when pulling on one would do more harm than letting it run its course. For that reason, and that reason alone, I chose to let her go."

"You have doomed us all," Frieren said, and there was no exaggeration in her voice at all, just flat, cold certainty.

Serie's smile returned, small and unreadable, equal parts amusement and something far heavier hiding just underneath it.

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe not."

She rose from her chair, robes settling around her with the quiet rustle of fabric that had never once needed to hurry for anyone, and turned to leave the chamber without waiting for a response.

"Goodbye, Frieren.”

───✧───

The wind on the hilltop carried the faint smell of grass and distant rain, and Übel stood with the map spread out on a flat rock, one boot propped up beside it, studying the lines with the focus of someone plotting either a road trip or a murder, possibly both at the same time. Subaru stood beside her, turban wrapped snug around her head again, the fabric doing its usual job of hiding the two small horns that would otherwise raise a lot of uncomfortable questions in every village they passed through.

"Alright," Übel said, tracing a finger along the map. "Since we're heading to Ende, we've got a few stops along the way. Saum Wetlands first, then Faber Village, after that Graf Dach Domain, then we cut through Etwas Mountain Range, and eventually Heiß Region before—"

"That one." Subaru pointed a finger down at a spot on the map, cutting Übel off mid sentence. "We're going there first."

Übel followed her finger to the label written in careful, old fashioned script. Weise Region.

"That place?" Übel raised an eyebrow, tilting her head slightly. "I've heard some weird stuff about it. Supposedly the whole region is covered in gold. Except it's not the useful kind. Statues, apparently. Gold statue people, just standing around like some very expensive, very creepy garden decorations. Word is a demon attacked the place a while back and that's just what was left."

"Yeah," Subaru said. "That one."

"Why there specifically?"

Subaru shrugged, staring off toward the horizon like the answer might be written somewhere out there among the clouds. "I've got a feeling I'll find some answers if we go there. Call it instinct."

Übel studied her for a long moment, the kind of look that suggested she didn't fully believe the explanation but had also learned it wasn't worth pushing when Subaru got that particular tone in her voice. She finally shrugged, folding the map back up and tucking it under her arm.

"Alright. Weise Region it is."

They set off down the hill together, boots crunching against loose gravel, the wide open countryside stretching out ahead of them in every direction. As they walked, Übel found her thoughts drifting back, unprompted, to that day in the ruins, the one she still hadn't fully unpacked in her own head no matter how many times she replayed it.

Subaru's clone. The thing that had come out of nowhere during the second phase, wielding power that had nearly ended everyone in the continent, including Übel's, very short, very colorful career in one clean strike. If Frieren hadn't intervened with that strange, blood spell of hers, the one that had torn through the air, Übel was fairly certain she wouldn't be walking down this hill right now. She'd be a very artistic smear somewhere back in that chamber instead. If the Chamber remained, that is.

Subaru had never actually shown her that level of power directly, not really, and even now, weeks later, Übel still couldn't wrap her head fully around whatever Erfassen actually was. Some kind of technique that let her borrow shapes and weapons and abilities from somewhere else entirely, apparently, though the details remained frustratingly vague every time Übel tried to press for specifics. Subaru always deflected, always changed the subject, always found some clever way to avoid actually answering.

Fine. Übel could respect a good secret. She kept plenty of her own. But it did make her wonder exactly what Subaru was planning by dragging them both toward a region full of gold statues and dead demons, and whether that plan involved information Übel wasn't going to like once she finally heard it.

She glanced sideways at Subaru, walking a few paces ahead, turban fluttering slightly in the breeze, and a completely unrelated thought suddenly elbowed its way to the front of Übel's mind, derailing the serious one entirely.

"Subaru," she said, "I just realized something."

"What?"

"Demons don't wear clothes, right? Like actual clothes. It's all just mana construct, isn't it? The whole outfit."

Subaru blinked, clearly not expecting the conversation to swerve in this particular direction. "Yeah. I guess? It's easier that way. Saves me from having to actually shop for anything."

"So," Übel said slowly, a grin already creeping across her face, the exact kind of grin that had gotten Subaru nervous on more than one prior occasion, "that means you're basically walking around naked this entire time."

Subaru stopped dead in her tracks. "W-wait, what?!"

"I mean, it's technically true, isn't it? If the clothes are just constructed mana wrapped around your body instead of actual fabric, that's not clothing. That's just a very convincing illusion of clothing. Underneath all of it, structurally speaking, you're just."

"Don't finish that sentence."

Übel finished it anyway, with a gleeful little shrug. "Naked."

"I am not naked!" Subaru's face had gone a shade of red that clashed spectacularly with her purple eyes. "It's, it's clothes, okay, it counts, it's real fabric, it's just, it's made differently, that's all, it still counts as clothes!"

"Does it though?" Übel closed the distance between them with a few slow, deliberate steps, wiggling her fingers in front of her like a magician about to perform an extremely unwelcome trick. "Let's test the theory. If I touch you right here."

She poked Subaru directly in the chest, right on the fabric of her outfit, finger pressing firmly against the layered cloth. “Huh, it's cloth.”

“But what if I coat my finger with mana…”

Übel's fingers passed through the clothing, Subaru froze, Übel smiled like a cat and grabbed something firmly.

Silence stretched between them for one very long, very awkward second.

"GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU CREEPY PERVERT!" Subaru shrieked, leaping backward so fast she nearly tripped over her own boots, both hands flying up to cover her chest even though there was absolutely nothing visibly different about her appearance than there had been thirty seconds earlier.

Übel smiled, slow and satisfied, thoroughly pleased with herself.

"So it does not feel like skin without mana," she said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "But it doesn’t work if someone internationally tries to bypass with mana.” She sniffed her palm like a proud chef. “Smells like apple pie. Interesting. Really makes you think about the nature of demon fashion, doesn't it."

"It does not make me think about anything except how much I regret ever agreeing to travel with you!" Subaru's voice cracked slightly on the last word, still clutching her chest protectively like Übel might lunge again at any second. "You can't just, you can't just poke people! You can't grope people! That's not, that's an invasion of, of personal space, that's assault, I could report you to someone!"

"Report me to who? We're in the middle of nowhere. Unless you're planning to file a complaint with that rock over there." Übel gestured vaguely toward a large boulder sitting a few feet off the road, entirely unbothered and entirely uninterested in Subaru's plight.

"I hate you," Subaru muttered, adjusting her turban with unnecessary force, refusing to make eye contact. “You are a predator,”

"You say that a lot," Übel said cheerfully, already turning to continue walking down the hill, hands clasped behind her back like she hadn't just committed a deeply questionable act of scientific curiosity against her traveling companion. "And yet here you are, still walking next to me."

"Only because I had literally no other options that day."

"Sure," Übel said, not remotely convinced, humming a little tune under her breath as she strolled ahead. "Keep telling yourself that."

Subaru trudged after her, still red faced, still muttering something under her breath about personal boundaries and demon anatomy and how exactly one was supposed to travel across half the continent with someone who apparently viewed basic human decency as more of a loose suggestion than an actual rule. The wind kept blowing steady across the hillside, the road kept stretching out ahead of them toward Weise Region and whatever waited there among all that useless gold, and despite everything, despite the poking and the shrieking and the deep, personal betrayal Subaru clearly felt over the entire exchange, there was something almost comfortable settling into the rhythm of their footsteps side by side.

Übel glanced back over her shoulder, still grinning. "For the record, your fake clothes are very convincing. Ten out of ten. Would poke again."

"I will end you."

"Noted."

───✧───

The wind howled across the frozen plains, carrying with it sharp gusts of snow that stung the skin and made every step a battle against the elements. The sky was a pale, washed-out gray, the sun barely visible behind a thick layer of clouds. The ground was hard, the snow packed tight, and the only sounds were the crunch of boots and the distant wail of the wind.

Fern walked at the front of the group, her steps steady, her posture straight. Her staff was in her hand, the tip glowing with a faint, warm light that pushed back the cold. Her expression was focused, determined, the expression of someone who had a mission and would not let anything stop her.

Behind her, Stark trudged through the snow, his shoulders hunched, his arms wrapped around his body. His face was red from the cold, his breath coming out in short, sharp puffs. His armor, usually polished and gleaming, was covered in a layer of frost. He looked miserable that came from being forced to walk through a blizzard when he would rather be anywhere else.

"Walk faster, Stark-sama," Fern said, her voice sharp, commanding. She did not turn around. She did not slow down. She just kept walking, her steps steady and sure.

Stark groaned, a long, exaggerated sound that was probably meant to convey his suffering. "Fernnnnnn, it is windy," he whined. "The wind is so strong. It is pushing me back. I am not walking slow. The wind is just too strong."

Fern's voice was flat, unimpressed. "You are a warrior. Act like one."

Stark opened his mouth to argue, but the wind chose that moment to gust, sending a spray of snow into his face. He sputtered, spitting out the snow, his hands waving wildly. "Kraft, heeeelp!" he called out, his voice pleading. "Tell her to slow down! Tell her to show some mercy!"

Kraft walked at the back of the group, his steps steady, his expression calm. He had a large pack slung over his shoulders, and his cloak was wrapped tightly around his body. He did not look bothered by the cold. He did not look bothered by anything.

He glanced at Stark, his eyebrows rising slightly. "I am already carrying enough baggage," he said, his voice dry, almost amused. "I do not have room for your complaints."

Stark's shoulders slumped. "Ugh," he groaned. "How far is the Northern Plateau anyways? It feels like we have been walking for days."

Fern glanced back at him, her expression unchanged. "Two days worth of walk," she said. "If you stop complaining, it might feel shorter."

Stark grumbled something under his breath, a string of words that were probably not polite. But he kept walking, his steps slightly faster, his shoulders slightly straighter.

"I hate walking," he muttered, his voice low, almost to himself.

Fern's voice was sharp, cutting through the wind. "Frieren-sama is waiting. We have to go and aid her quickly."

Stark sighed, a long, heavy sigh that seemed to carry all the weight of his exhaustion. "I know," he said. "I know."

He did not complain again. He just kept walking, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his steps steady and determined. The wind howled. The snow fell. And the three of them continued their journey, each step bringing them closer to their destination. The City of Magic.

Hope you liked it.

Next chapter: I Saw The Reaper That Day

❝Land's heart lifted for half a second. Then the clone lunged at them with even higher speed, a blur of gray clay and blue light. Two new things appeared in her hands as she moved, chained weapons with jagged blades at the ends, and they spun around her in a deadly dance. The chains whistled through the air, the blades bit deep, and the golems crumbled. The first golem lost its head and collapsed, spilling ????? to the floor. The second golem was cut in half at the waist, and ????? tumbled free, rolling hard. The third golem tried to shield itself with a stone arm, but the blades of chaos curled around the limb and crushed it to powder, and the golem fell with ?????? still on its back. The fourth golem, carrying ???? , made it the farthest, almost to the hole, before a chain wrapped around its leg and yanked it backward. The golem hit the floor and broke apart like a dropped pot, and ???? was thrown clear. Only ???? and ???? survived. ???? had been caught under the falling body of his golem, and the weight had crushed him instantly. He did not cry out. He simply stopped❞

Basically CloneBaru being a killing machine shenanigans.

Join my Discord Server: https://discord.gg/X7sphRUsxJ