Chapter 34: Schlacht Could See A Thousand Years Into The Future

The dining room had emptied out for the night, most of the inn's other guests long since retired to their rooms, leaving only a low fire crackling in the hearth and a few flickering lanterns to keep the darkness at bay. Stark sat slumped in a chair at the round table, staring down at his own hands, still visibly rattled.

"I have never seen her like that," he said finally, breaking the silence that had settled over the table since they'd left Frieren's room. "Never. Not once, in all the time. She gets annoyed, sure. She gets bored, all the time, honestly it's her default setting. But that anger back there. That was something else entirely."

Kraft said nothing, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the low flames dancing in the hearth, his expression unreadable in the dim light.

Footsteps approached from the hallway, and Sein and Fern entered together, both looking considerably more composed than they had ten minutes earlier, though the exhaustion in their eyes told its own story.

"How is she?" Stark asked immediately, sitting up straighter.

"Resting," Sein said, pulling out a chair and sitting down heavily. "Too much drink, mostly. She's unconscious now, but her body seems to have reacted pretty violently right before she passed out. Sudden, excessive blood flow through her vessels, a strain you'd normally see with extreme physical strain, except she wasn't exerting herself at all."

"Meaning?" Stark asked, brow furrowed.

"Meaning the anger itself is likely what caused her to black out," Sein said. "Her body simply couldn't handle the intensity of it combined with everything she'd already had to drink."

Fern lowered herself into the remaining empty seat, hands folded tightly in her lap, staring at the tabletop like it might offer some kind of answer she desperately needed.

"I have traveled with Frieren-sama for years now," she said quietly. "I have seen her calm during battles that would break most seasoned mages. I have seen her patient through insults, through betrayal, through things that would have broken lesser people entirely. But this... This is new. Even to me."

Kraft finally spoke, his voice low and measured, still watching the fire rather than any of them.

"There is a reason for it," he said. "Frieren grew up believing something very simple. Demons are evil. It is their nature, unavoidable and absolute, woven into whatever passes for their soul. Humans and demons cannot coexist, not truly, not in any meaningful way, because the demon's very existence is built around deception and destruction aimed squarely at us."

He paused, finally turning his gaze toward the others.

"But this particular demon contradicts every single principle Frieren has built her entire demonview around. Every principle I have also lived by, for that matter. If this creature genuinely carries a human mind trapped inside a demon's body, that would explain a great deal. It would explain why she has been helping people instead of hunting them."

"So you've heard about the Vorig Region incident, then," Sein said.

"Yes," Stark answered before Kraft could. "The Hero of Vorig. The one who killed Rivale." He paused, something dark passing behind his eyes. "As far as I remember, Rivale was the demon responsible for destroying my village. Everything I lost, everyone I lost, came from that thing. My master had been training me in case I face Rivale one day."

The room fell quiet for a moment.

"My working theory," Kraft continued eventually, "is that this creature remains confused about who counts as an ally and who counts as an enemy, and has simply been proceeding based on instinct rather than any deeper understanding of the conflict between our two races. And so far, that instinct has served her remarkably well."

"Yeah," Sein said grimly. "As far as anyone's been able to determine, she has no known failed encounters. Not one. Every fight she's walked into, she's walked back out of, and usually left the situation better than she found it."

Fern's hands tightened in her lap. "A demon with a human mind," she murmured, almost to herself. "With a one hundred percent success rate in every encounter so far. What exactly are we dealing with here?"

The fire popped softly in the silence that followed her question, nobody quite ready to offer an answer.

"There is something else you all should consider," Kraft said finally, voice dropping lower, carrying a weight that made even Stark straighten in his seat. "The Sword of Megami has emerged from its stone. It has chosen its wielder.

"There is no guarantee," Kraft continued, "that this demon, or human, or whatever combination of the two we are truly facing, will not abuse whatever power she has been granted or will yet acquire. History has shown us, again and again, that power without proper restraint eventually turns toward ruin, regardless of the intentions someone starts out with. If necessary, we must be prepared to strike her down before that happens."

Stark's eyes narrowed. "I hope we don't have to use the sword," he said quietly, the words carrying more weight than their simple phrasing suggested.

"We'll hope so," Kraft agreed, though his tone offered little genuine comfort. "For now, the more immediate question is simpler. Where is she even headed?"

"Ende," Sein said.

Kraft's eyes narrowed sharply at the name, something cold flickering behind his usually calm expression.

"Then we leave as soon as possible."

Stark frowned, glancing between the two elves at the table. "How exactly are we supposed to enter the Northern Plateau without a first class mage escorting us? Last I checked, that's not exactly optional."

Kraft's expression didn't shift, though something in his voice carried a quiet, unshakable certainty that made the hair on the back of Stark's neck stand up ever so slightly.

"It's easy," Kraft said.

───✧───

The afternoon sun hung lazy over Faber Village, warming the cobblestones just enough to make walking pleasant instead of miserable, and Subaru wandered through the narrow streets with her hands tucked behind her head, taking in the small, unhurried rhythm of a place that had clearly never seen anything more dramatic than a particularly aggressive goose. She and Übel had checked into the local inn that morning, and while Übel had immediately gone off to interrogate the innkeeper about local rumors, Subaru had decided her own afternoon was better spent doing absolutely nothing productive at all.

That plan lasted about ten minutes before a small crowd of children found her.

"Are you an adventurer?" one of them asked, a boy who couldn't have been older than eight, tugging on the hem of her coat with the fearless directness only small children possessed.

"Have you fought monsters?" asked another, a girl with pigtails, practically vibrating with excitement.

"Did you kill a dragon?"

"Have you ever seen a real demon?"

Subaru blinked down at the growing swarm of kids surrounding her, all wide eyed and hopeful, and something warm settled in her chest despite the slight panic that particular last question triggered. She crouched down to their level, putting on her most confident, adventurer worthy grin.

"Alright, alright, one question at a time," she said, holding up both hands. "Yes, I'm an adventurer. Yes, I've fought monsters. Yes, I have killed a dragon, dragons are apparently rarer than good bread around here, extremely disappointing. And demons." She paused for dramatic effect, watching their eyes widen further. "Let's just say I've had some encounters."

The kids erupted into a chorus of excited chatter, and before she quite knew how it happened, she found herself in the middle of the village square, surrounded by an audience demanding a demonstration.

"Show us your training!" the boy insisted. "How do adventurers get strong?"

Subaru considered this for a moment, then rolled her shoulders back and grinned wider.

"Alright, gather round, listen up. This is a very ancient, very important stretching routine every hero has to master before they can call themselves worthy of the title."

She proceeded to lead them through an elaborate series of stretches and warm up exercises, half remembered from old training montages she'd absorbed over a lifetime of watching anime back home, arms swinging in wide circles, deep lunges paired with exaggerated grunts of effort, a dramatic squat sequence that made the kids collapse into giggling fits trying to copy her. She threw in a few overly theatrical battle cries for good measure, striking poses between each stretch with the kind of unearned confidence that only made the children laugh harder and try even more enthusiastically to keep up.

By the time she finished, the whole group of them was sprawled on the grass, breathless and delighted, several of the younger ones already begging her to teach them the routine again tomorrow.

"Maybe next time," she said, ruffling the nearest kid's hair before finally extracting herself from the group and continuing her walk through the village, feeling considerably lighter than she had all morning.

Her wandering eventually brought her to the heart of the village square, where a large stone fountain sat surrounded by flower beds, and beyond it stood a statue that immediately caught her attention. Not the familiar bronze figure of Himmel she'd seen in half a dozen other towns by now, sword raised, cape frozen mid billow in some dramatic imaginary wind. This one was different. Copper instead of bronze, weathered green with age, depicting a figure she didn't recognize at all, standing with one hand extended forward and an expression carved into something that looked less like triumph and more like quiet, permanent exhaustion.

She approached a nearby man sweeping the steps of a shop, curiosity getting the better of her.

"Excuse me," she said. "Who's this supposed to be? I've seen a lot of Himmel statues, but this one's different."

The man glanced up, following her gaze toward the copper figure, and something reverent crossed his weathered face.

"Ah," he said. "That's the Hero of the South. Different fellow entirely from Himmel. Fought his war on the Northern side of the continent, around the same era, give or take."

"What did he do?"

"Within a single year," the man said, leaning on his broom, clearly settling in for a story he'd told plenty of times before, "he pushed the Demon King's army all the way back to the edge of the Northern Plateau. Nobody thought it was possible, given how thinly stretched his forces were, but he managed it anyway. Folks say he had something called speed sight. Could see attacks coming before they even happened, dodge things nobody should have been able to dodge."

Subaru's eyebrows rose. "Speed sight. That sounds useful."

"Useful doesn't even begin to cover it. He went up against all seven of the Demon King's Sages of Destruction at once. All seven, together, in a single battle. Killed three of them outright before the fight was through. Even took down Schlacht the Omniscient, if the old records are accurate, which honestly still gives historians headaches trying to verify."

"And after that?"

The man's expression sobered slightly. "That was his final stand. Whatever strength let him hold off that many sages at once wasn't enough to let him walk away from it. He gave everything he had in that battle, and it cost him his life."

Subaru stared up at the weathered copper face, trying to imagine facing down seven monstrous generals of destruction at the same time, future sight or not.

"Was he stronger than Himmel?" she asked.

The man considered the question seriously, the way someone might weigh a genuinely difficult debate rather than dismiss it outright.

"He was the strongest mankind ever produced," he said finally. "Bar none.”

───✧───

The Grand Hall of the demon capital sat swallowed in shadow, lit only by a scattering of torches burning low along the black stone walls, their flames throwing shapes that stretched and twisted across the floor like restless things trying to escape their own outlines. At the far end, raised above a wide staircase carved from the same unyielding stone as the rest of the palace, sat the throne, and on it sat the king.

He wore silver armor polished to a mirror shine despite the dim light, plates fitted so precisely to his frame that they seemed less like protection and more like a second skin grown from metal instead of flesh. His features carried the sharp, refined lines of aristocracy, cheekbones high, jaw firm, deep purple eyes that held the kind of stillness usually reserved for things that had stopped needing to blink out of habit rather than necessity. Two large horns curved back from his forehead, dark and smooth, catching the torchlight along their ridges. He sat tall even seated, tall enough that standing would have made most visitors feel like children looking up at a monument.

His cape pooled around the base of the throne in heavy black fabric, its collar trimmed with something soft and pale that caught what little light reached it, and his shoulder plates gleamed gold against the silver beneath them, an unnecessary flourish on a man who clearly needed no further reminder of his own authority. His crown sat simple atop his head, a plain ring of dark metal, unadorned by jewels or ornamentation, as if decoration itself would have been redundant on someone who already commanded a room without trying.

The huge doors at the far end of the hall groaned open, iron hinges announcing the arrival long before the figure stepping through them ever spoke a word. Tall, cloaked in dark fabric that swallowed most of his form, two horns rising from beneath his hood, unmistakably one of his own kind. He crossed the length of the hall with slow, measured steps, the sound of his boots against stone the only noise in the entire chamber, and stopped at the base of the stairs, bowing low.

"Your majesty."

"Schlacht," the king said, his voice carrying easily across the hall despite its quiet, even tone. "What is the state of the war?"

Schlacht straightened slightly, though he kept his head bowed in proper deference. "The King's army has been rendered incapable of further war. However, as I reported previously, one man has caused this outcome nearly single handedly. Brown hair, a mustache, no title of note beyond what he has earned through battle. He has pushed our entire eastern force back to the edge of the Northern Plateau."

"I see." The king's fingers tapped once against the arm of his throne, slow and deliberate. "What a strong foe. Tell me, Schlacht. What is his heart's desire? Every man carries one. Find it, and we find the thread that unravels him."

"He is a noble man, sire. Genuinely so, not merely in title. No temptation will work against him. Human emotions and human will cannot be purchased or twisted by creatures such as us, who lack any true understanding of empathy or love ourselves."

"Accurate," the king said, and something in his tone carried the weight of a conclusion reached many times before, worn smooth from repetition. "Demonkind will never win against humanity until we understand those concepts ourselves. Tell me, Schlacht. Do we win this war?"

Silence stretched through the hall, thick and heavy, the torches flickering as if even the flames were holding their breath.

"Speak, Schlacht."

"No, sire," Schlacht said finally, voice steady despite the answer. "We will not."

"Ever?"

Another pause, longer this time. "There will come a time, your majesty, when a demon with the heart of a man will sit upon this very throne."

The king's purple eyes narrowed slightly, the first real shift of expression to cross his otherwise composed face. "I see. Will they find a way to make peace with mankind? To finally coexist?"

"I am afraid not, sire. Even with vast prowess beyond anything our kind has produced before, they will fail. Mankind will rise to stop your successor, as mankind always eventually rises to stop what it fears."

"How unfortunate." The king let the silence settle for a long moment, his gaze drifting somewhere past Schlacht, past the hall itself, toward something only he could see. "Tell me about them anyway. Even knowing the outcome, I wish to understand who comes after me."

"They will be counted among the Hundred," Schlacht said. "One who travels from the Central Kingdoms all the way to Ende, reclaiming this throne along the way. They will face outstanding foes throughout that journey, powerful enemies drawn from every corner of both our world and mankind's. And in the end, one bearing the Hero's Destined Sword will strike them down."

"What is their name?"

Schlacht lifted his head slightly, meeting the king's eyes for the first time since entering the hall. "Why don't you decide that, my lord. Whatever name you speak now will become the name they carry."

The king considered this in silence, his fingers still resting against the arm of his throne, purple eyes distant with thought. He had spent centuries chasing one singular goal, buried beneath every war and every failed negotiation and every fruitless attempt at understanding a species that refused to be understood by his own. Coexistence. A simple goal, on the surface. Straight and direct, without unnecessary complication.

Linear.

"Linie," he said finally.

Schlacht bowed his head once more, accepting the name without question. "Yes, my lord. Your successor Linie will reclaim your throne, sire, carrying forward the same goal you have carried for so long. And she will be struck down by the hero destined to oppose her, and with her fall, demonkind as we understand it will cease to exist in any meaningful form."

He paused, and something almost like reverence crept into his voice, strange and unsettling given the grim nature of what he was describing.

"And what a glorious battle it will be, your majesty. What an unstoppable power she will become, carried by conviction alone through battles no ordinary demon could hope to survive. Even knowing fate has already chosen her death, I find myself unable to imagine anything more magnificent than watching her walk that path regardless.”

Author Note:

Are Schlacht's words absolute? Is he right?

Is this a foreshadowing? Or is the author misleading you?

Note that all characters mentioned here are canonical, no OC used, in case you are unfamiliar with the Frieren-verse.

Next chapter: Revolte and gang show up. Time to bullshit her way out of this.

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