Frieren 23

Title: Thank You, You Annoying Jerk

Faced with the predicament of being unable to free his foot from the ground, Ash only felt annoyed. Basalt, on the other hand, felt deeply humiliated:

“I’ll kill you… I’ll definitely kill you! Human!!”

“Ah~ hold on a sec.” Ash looked up at the sword. He brushed the dust off his clothes, shaking his head with a smile: “You seem to have misunderstood something.”

“What?”

“I’m actually a demon.”

“…What?”

With no one else around, Ash grinned as he revealed the truth. Basalt instinctively froze in shock, even suspecting Ash was deceiving him.

But before Basalt could question him, Ash raised his hand and pointed to the sky: “Look up there.”

“Hm?”

Basalt instinctively looked up and saw a silver object in the sky, plummeting straight toward him at high speed.

Its speed was terrifying. The object must have been launched high into the air by a repulsive force, then pulled down by gravity.

But faced with this sword falling from the sky, Basalt couldn’t dodge at all. Instinctively, he felt as if his heart was being gripped, and his eyes narrowed sharply.

Yet, as he clearly saw what it was, and before he could even lower his head, the blade, descending at high speed, pierced through his mask with a flash of sparks and stabbed into his forehead.

*PU-CHI!*

Blood instantly poured from the holes in his helm. His massive body swayed for a moment before collapsing the next second.

The sight made Ash smile with satisfaction: “I initially thought if this didn’t work, I’d just have to drag out a long fight. But the effect was pretty good.”

If the knife’s penetration had been slightly shallower, they would’ve been locked in a stalemate.

This strengthened his resolve to buy a big sword in the future.

As he collapsed, Basalt’s consciousness faded rapidly like melting snow. Unfortunately, until the end… he still didn’t understand whether Ash was human or demon.

But Ash no longer paid him any attention. After resolving to buy a big sword, he redirected his magical energy, swung his knife, and attacked the remaining demons in the area.

Though they were of the same race, just as humans kill humans, demons casually kill other demons without any psychological burden… and now, at least, he knew these elves.

After all, not all demons were loyal to the Demon King. Those forced into loyalty… were mostly controlled by fear, as the essence of demons was loyalty only to themselves.

Many high-ranking demons, strong enough on their own, didn’t care about the Demon King or the survival of their race. After all, demon society inherently fostered a weak sense of racial unity.

◆━⊰✧⊱━◆

When the sounds of battle in the village finally subsided, the demons’ nighttime assault came to an end. But fires and smoke still smoldered throughout the village.

Since demons left nothing behind after death, the ground was mostly littered with the scattered corpses of elves.

The expressions of the surviving villagers were deeply sorrowful, yet strangely, none of them wept loudly. They remained calmer than expected.

“…I feel like they’re all as cold as demons. Are they some peaceful version of demons?”

Ash, slightly saddened by the deaths of people he knew, walked past the corpses, glancing at Frieren, who stared blankly at her friends’ bodies, and couldn’t help but mutter.

This made Frieren look up and glare at him unhappily: “…Are you ready to get beaten for saying that right now?”

“Don’t misunderstand, I’m just saying what I think. I didn’t expect you to hear me even though I spoke softly. Normally, I wouldn’t say stuff like that in public.”

“Saying it behind my back is worse.”

“Alright, fine. So, you want to get violent with your benefactor, me? If you can pull it off, I’d be impressed. Go ahead.”

“Annoying.”

“…Didn’t I just help you?”

“Thanks, you annoying jerk. But I’m not in the mood to chat with you right now.” Frieren looked at her friends’ corpses around her and closed her eyes wearily.

Millie, her arm still bleeding and temporarily bandaged to stop the flow, approached at that moment. With a slight sigh, she asked:

“This village is done for too. Time to move somewhere else… What about you two?”

“…That’s all you’re thinking about right now? You’re even more annoying than me.” Ash looked at Millie in disbelief.

Millie just shrugged: “No choice. Everyone’s so cold. The only one I really know is Frieren.”

“…Is that so?”

Isn’t this just a peaceful version of demons?—This time, Ash finally kept his thoughts to himself, silently reflecting on how cold the elves were.

After calming down a bit and thinking of Serie, who also didn’t care about her own race, Ash stopped dwelling on it. He looked at the corpses around and suggested: “Anyway… before we move, shouldn’t we take care of these bodies?”

“For now, that’s all we can do.”

Frieren let out a soft sigh and said nothing more. She quietly began tending to the bodies alongside her fellow elves.

But before they finished, a stranger arrived late, entering the disaster-stricken village.

By chance, it was Ash’s unfamiliar senior sister-in-arms—Flamme.