Well, the archive site might be down, but I'm still posting it, though this might cause A03 to fall behind in terms of updates.

Hopefully the site is back soon.

Anyways, this is the official first chapter of the El Dorado Arc, we shall discuss the limitations of Übel's spell, Linie's origin, what happens when Subaru faces a big obstacle with RBD and of course: plot armor.

Chapter 36: Everything Really Is Gold

Frieren came down the inn stairs one shaky step at a time, one hand on the railing, the smell of stale beer trailing behind her strongly enough that several patrons wrinkled their noses and pulled their drinks closer. Her eyes had the glassy, unfocused look that came from several days of steady drinking rather than one bad night. She tipped sideways twice on her way across the room and caught herself against the wall each time with the ease of someone who had made this walk before.

"Frieren-sama!" Fern shot up from her seat and was halfway across the floor before Frieren waved a hand.

"'m fine."

She reached the table under her own power and dropped into the empty chair with a heavy exhale, ignoring every head in the room turning to watch. Sein said a quiet prayer, mostly hoping she wasn't about to repeat the incident from three nights ago, the one that had ended with a very unfortunate splash pattern across his boots. Stark scooted his chair a few discreet inches away, just in case.

"How are you feeling?" Kraft asked, watching her carefully.

Before Frieren could answer, she raised a hand and called toward the bar. "One Höbi."

The waiter, well acquainted with her order by now, fetched a fresh bottle without further instruction and set it in front of her.

"'M fine," she said, reaching for it.

Fern's hand shot out and snatched the bottle away before Frieren's fingers closed around it.

"Frieren-sama, are you trying to beat Heiter-sama's old record? Even he gave up drinking eventually, before he passed away."

"I'll live a thousand years," Frieren said, waving a hand vaguely. "Don't worry about it."

"That is not the point."

Kraft cleared his throat and pulled the conversation back to what had brought them to this table. "We plan to leave soon and find the demon. We'll try to talk her down first. If that fails, we will take other measures."

Frieren laughed, loud and sudden, with an pitch that made a few patrons flinch.

"That's not a demon," she said, jabbing a finger in Kraft's direction. "I already told you, didn't I? Humans grow in strange, terrifying ways when they're pushed into dire situations. You of all people should know that, Kraft." She hiccupped. "You've seen it before."

"I have," Kraft said evenly. "But we must face her regardless."

"That thing," Frieren muttered, staring at the empty spot where her bottle used to sit, "is a nightmare."

"We carry the Hero's Sword now, Frieren, don't forget that." Stark said, sitting up straighter, some of his usual confidence returning.

Frieren went quiet. Her face turned somewhat serious through the effects of alcohol.

"The Demon King was a nightmare to fight," she said at last. "Even with Himmel with us. We would have died more than ten times over if Heiter hadn't kept healing us, if we hadn't worked together perfectly every time. Now imagine a frightened human, trapped in a demon's body, with power like that." She shook her head slowly. "You fight her, you die. Stark cannot fight her, Fern cannot kill her. None of you can."

"Have faith in us, Frieren-sama..."

"I did have faith in you," Frieren cut in, voice sharp. "In you, Stark, in Fern. And Stark nearly died that day. He suffered for weeks afterward, barely able to walk, barely able to hold his own axe." Her fingers tightened on the edge of the table. "Faith is a lie. I have none left. In case you did not know, the demon destroyed my clone in the ruins that day. And my clone had more mana than me thanks to Spiegel, with no limitations of hesitation.”

"Then what exactly do you suggest, Frieren?" Sein snapped, frustration breaking through his usual patience. "That we let her wander free? Let her fall in with worse company than she already keeps, and do even more damage than she already has? I've heard her clone killed half the candidates."

Frieren shrugged and reached for a bottle that wasn't there, her fingers closing on empty air before she remembered Fern had taken it.

"Nah," she said. "We go. And we stop her. No questions asked."

Fern bonked her on the head for the language, a reflex built from years of correcting worse behavior, though Frieren barely seemed to notice.

"Human on the inside or not," Frieren said, staring at the empty table, quieter now, more tired than angry, "she is still a calamity waiting to happen."

───✧───

Revolte had spent centuries reading the auras of others, a skill sharpened through years of survival among his own kind, and nothing in that long experience had prepared him for what radiated off the small demon standing before him.

Demons carried auras the same way humans did. Humans couldn't sense them, but any demon who looked closely could. Most demons, despite what human stories claimed, carried nothing sinister in theirs. Demons hunted humans the way humans hunted rabbits, from instinct rather than malice, a natural order that had hardened into legend through generations of exaggeration and fear. Evil required intention, and intention was something most demons rarely bothered with beyond the next meal.

This one was different.

Her aura was dark, a deep purplish blue that only showed if you looked past the surface layer most demons projected without thinking. It wrapped around her like something coiled tight against her soul, close enough that Revolte wondered whether it belonged to her naturally or had been forced on her from elsewhere. He wasn’t sure, but he felt like dozens of hands were coiling around her. Either way, it left him with one thought. She could kill him. Easily, probably, without much effort.

It felt strange to bow before someone who looked young enough to be his own child, someone with a build that suggested she had barely survived her first century. But instinct rarely lied, and everything in him said this was no ordinary demon.

"You don't need to bow," she said, waving a hand. "It's unnecessary, and I don't really like unnecessary things. Not my style, um."

They straightened at once and stood in an uneven row, waiting.

"Soooo," she said, drawing the word out, "what are you guys doing all the way out here?"

"Trying to kill some humans!" Young announced brightly, seeing nothing wrong with it.

Subaru's face scrunched. "What a lame thing to be doing."

Revolte braced himself, certain that comment was the start of their end and she would cut them down in the clearing. Many of the Sages of Destruction and Greater Demons disliked mindless killing, despite the popular belief. Instead she raised one finger toward the night sky, thoughtful.

"We aren't stupid animals. We should think bigger than this. What do you think people say about us when they hear stories like that? No wonder demons get such a bad reputation everywhere we go."

A strange thing to hear from a demon. Yet it made an odd kind of logic, as if she had turned the thought over many times before reaching this conclusion.

"Then what would you suggest we do instead?" Revolte asked carefully.

A pause. "Try to coexist with them."

Nobody spoke. Revolte glanced at Scout, wondering whether this was some elaborate joke, the kind humans told each other for fun.

Then he saw her face.

She was smiling, wide and genuine, and the smile sent a cold shiver down his spine despite the warmth of the summer night.

"Imagine it," she said. "Humans and demons living together. Side by side. No more killing, no more dying."

"That's impossible," Revolte said, shaking his head. "The last Demon King attempted exactly that. He failed, and his failure led our entire race toward ruin."

The demon girl raised a finger again and wagged it side to side with a small click of her tongue. "Tch, tch, tch. He just wasn't doing it the right way. That's why he failed."

"And what would the right way look like?"

"Eh..." She tilted her head, looking like she was making up the answer as she went. "We'll figure that out eventually. For now I'm just making friends wherever I go. So why don't we become friends too? No killing involved, obviously, because honestly, I think I'm pretty tough."

Revolte heard it for what it was, a quiet, almost casual declaration of authority, wrapped in language too soft to be a threat but carrying the same force underneath.

"Sure!" Young said at once, thrilled at friendship over violence.

Zorida gave a small nod. Scout inclined his masked head, offering no words and no objection.

As the others settled into agreement, Revolte studied her more closely, weighing what he'd seen in the last few minutes against the dark aura still curling around her frame.

"Are you," he asked slowly, "truly the new king?"

The demon girl stared at him for a long moment, and for half a second something crossed her face that looked like real surprise. It was raw and unguarded, an expression Revolte had never seen on another demon.

Then she threw her head back and laughed, loud and bright, a sound too alive to belong entirely to their kind.

"Naturally," she said.

Revolte lowered himself back to one knee, this time without hesitation.

"Then I shall follow you until the end."

───✧───

Next day.

The road out of the clearing had barely stretched a mile before the first monster found them, a hulking four legged thing with matted fur and too many teeth crammed into a jaw built wrong for its skull. Übel dispatched it before Subaru had fully drawn her weapon, one clean slash from shoulder to hip, and the second and third monsters over the next hour fared no better. By midday they had left a trail of dead things behind without either of them breaking a sweat.

Norm Region was in view now. 

The ground under their boots shifted from packed dirt to something harder and smoother, laced with faint veins of ore visible at the surface. The city sat against a range of low mountains, its buildings made of locally quarried stone, every structure carrying the gleam of a place that had never struggled for coin. Norm Region was famous across the continent for its mines and the obscene wealth they had generated over the centuries.

Guards at the gate checked their papers with the bored efficiency of people who processed travelers all day, and waved them through once everything checked out. The gates groaned open, and Subaru and Übel stepped into streets still bustling despite the late hour, merchants calling prices, the smell of roasted meat and hot metal drifting from every direction.

Subaru walked half a step behind Übel, quieter than usual, her mind still turning over the previous night.

She hadn't told Übel a word about it: about Revolte, Young, Zorida and Scout kneeling in that clearing. And she certainly couldn't talk about the ridiculous bluff that had somehow landed exactly where it needed to. She'd simply told the four to head ahead at a certain place and wait for her there, and to her surprise none of them had questioned the order. They had nodded and gone, as if her word alone were reason enough.

She still couldn't fully wrap her head around it.

A king. Or at least meant to become one, according to whatever prophecy or vision or nonsense Revolte had been carrying in his head for who knew how long. The thought sat uneasy in her mind and wouldn't settle.

It was frightening, honestly. She had never wanted to lead anyone. Back home she could barely organize a group project without it collapsing into chaos and mutual blame. The idea of demons looking to her for direction, for some grand vision of coexistence she'd made up on the spot to avoid getting murdered, felt absurd from every angle.

And yet…

If this strange authority, this accident of circumstance, could help her find a way home, maybe it was fine that it had fallen into her lap. She had no illusions about playing savior to a race of creatures most of whom, from what she'd seen, leaned heavily toward the psychotic end. That fight belonged to someone else.

Then there was Frieren, the racist elf hunting her across half the continent, driven by a deep belief that every demon existed only to destroy humanity. If Subaru got tangled up in actual demon politics, it would only paint a bigger target on her back and give Frieren more justification to end her the moment they met again.

Better to keep it quiet. Better to use whatever authority she'd stumbled into carefully, sparingly, and only when it served the goal of getting home.

"Subaru."

She blinked, pulled out of her thoughts by Übel's voice, and realized they'd already started weaving through the crowded main street, looking for a decent inn among the packed buildings.

"What's wrong with you?" Übel asked, glancing over with narrowed eyes, as if she had been studying Subaru's face longer than Subaru had noticed.

"Nothing," Subaru said, forcing her expression back to something neutral.

Übel didn't look convinced. Her gaze lingered a beat too long before she shrugged and turned back to the signs hanging above the shop doors, searching for anything that looked like lodging.

───✧───

The road to Weise Region stretched longer than either of them expected, days of walking through increasingly quiet countryside, with fewer travelers passing in the opposite direction and fewer villages offering a place to rest. By the time the region's border came into view, the air itself felt different, thick in a way that made the hair on Subaru's arms stand up for no clear reason.

"You feel that?" she asked, slowing.

Übel nodded, staff already shifting into her grip out of reflex. "Something's off."

They approached the border together, and Subaru spotted a faint shimmer stretched across the road, nearly invisible unless the light hit it at the right angle. Übel walked straight through without a flicker of resistance and went several steps before realizing Subaru hadn't followed.

Subaru had walked directly into what felt like a solid wall of static electricity and bounced backward with a small yelp.

"Ow. Okay. That's a thing."

She pressed forward again, more carefully, and her palm flattened against something invisible and immovable, holding firm no matter how much weight she leaned into it.

Übel turned back, watching with obvious fascination. "Anti demon barrier, probably. A strong one, given how easily it stopped you."

"You think?" Subaru pressed her whole face against the invisible wall now, cheek squished flat, staring through it at the empty road like a kid staring into a closed convenience store, wishing the doors would open. "This is ridiculous. Can you do anything about it?"

Übel shook her head, arms crossed. "Outside my expertise. Barrier magic isn't really my area."

Subaru groaned and peeled herself off the surface, her mind flipping through the catalog of weapons she'd collected over months of borrowing shapes and blades from every story she could remember. Asta's sword came first, the magic nullifying broadsword that could cut straight through barriers like this, but she hesitated at what might happen if she shattered the whole structure. A barrier this size and this strong probably had eyes watching it somewhere. Breaking it outright might bring every mage and demon within twenty miles to their location.

Something more precise, then. Something that could open a gap without announcing itself to the entire region.

The Inverted Spear of Heaven came to mind almost immediately, the same weapon that had sliced through the clone's shield without slowing down. If it could cut pure mana that cleanly, maybe it could carve a small, temporary opening instead of tearing the barrier apart.

Worth trying.

She summoned it, the familiar weight settling into her palms, and stepped forward, driving the blade in a careful arc against the shimmering surface, treating it less like an attack and more like unlocking a stubborn door. The barrier parted along the cut, a narrow gap opening just wide enough for her to slip through.

"Ha!" She stepped through triumphantly, let the spear dissolve behind her, and dusted off her hands with exaggerated satisfaction.

Übel stared at her with an expression Subaru had never quite seen on her before, somewhere between fascination and delight, the look a cat gives a particularly interesting toy right before pouncing.

"How many of those do you have?"

"Weapons? I honestly can't count anymore. There's too many."

Übel took one slow step closer, tilting her head, that unsettling smile widening. "I think I'm falling in love with you."

All of Subaru's confidence evaporated. She stumbled backward, landed hard on the ground, and began scooting away on her hands and heels like a startled squirrel fleeing something much larger.

"Nope. Nope, keep that energy far away from me."

"I'm not going to try anything," Übel said, laughing, though the reassurance did nothing to slow Subaru's retreat. "Relax. You looked cute doing that spear thing, that's all. Purely observational."

"That's not comforting! That's the opposite of comforting!"

Übel laughed harder and held out a hand to help Subaru up. After a long, suspicious pause Subaru took it, brushed dirt off her clothes, and shot wary glances sideways every few steps as they continued into the region.

"Can you feel that, by the way?" Übel asked after a while, her tone more serious. "The mana here. It's immense. Almost suffocating."

Subaru paused and closed her eyes, letting her senses stretch outward the way she'd learned over the past several months. The mana here didn't feel right, not like the clean, natural energy she was used to sensing in forests or rivers or open fields. It was heavier and wrong, closer to corrosion than magic, like something had spread slowly through the land the way rust spreads through untreated metal.

"It's nor normal demon mana," she said slowly. "It's more like, I don't know, decay? Something eating away at everything from the inside."

They rounded a bend in the overgrown path, and both of them stopped walking.

Ahead, as far as either of them could see, stood a forest. Every leaf, every branch, every trunk gleamed with the shine of solid gold, frozen mid sway as if an invisible wind had caught them at the moment they turned to metal and never let go.

"Ah," Übel said quietly, staring at the impossible sight. "Everything really is gold.”

Next Chapter: Macht Has Some Intel

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