Frieren: Understand Humans, Aura!

Hey hey hey I'm back (っ＾▿＾)💨

Just a need one day for refreshing and now I'm back for action (ง︡'-'︠)ง

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Days and nights passed, the stars and constellations shifted. Time seemed to blend into an endless cycle as Aura adjusted to her "new life".

Last night, Aura had that dream again—the one where she became the Demon King after much hardship, only to be ordered by Frieren to commit suicide.

Fortunately, Aura was no longer as terrified as she once was.

She just rolled out of bed in the middle of the night and slapped Zanze who was under the bunk bed to wake her up. Seeing Zanze cursing at her with dark circles under her eyes, Aura was sure that this was not a dream, so she released the defensive magic cast on her neck.

Upon arriving in Kribi, Aura moved into the headquarters of the Continental Magic Association and continued to sleep in the same room with Zanze as she did at the beginning.

"Why can't I have my own private space? Why do I have to squeeze together with this human?" Aura protested to Serie.

"Even if we physically isolated Aura half a city away, she will still throw her dirty clothes at my house on time and ask me to wash them for her. She will also come to eat my leftovers every night." Zanze, with dark circles under her eyes, suggested,

"Why not keep Aura next to me? If she does something wrong, I can punish her."

"Just you?" Aura said disdainfully, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at Zanze.

"Yes, me." Zanze responded firmly, meeting Aura's gaze without flinching. Despite her appearance, she showed a surprising amount of determination.

Aura looked down on this short, pink-haired human mage. After all, ten years ago, Zanze's mana couldn't even reach a tenth of hers.

But now—

'Hmph.'

Aura couldn't sense it at all.

After being severely punished by Zanze's overwhelming precision in mana control, Aura became much more obedient.

"Just wait, Zanze! I'll kill you!! I'll use obedience spell to turn you into my slave!" Aura shouted, even while bound and suppressed by anti-magic spells, refusing to give up.

It wasn't until she went hungry for half a day that she began to beg for mercy.

After being disciplined and rewarded, the unruly demon were obedient for a short while.

"Why have you suddenly become so strong?" Aura questioned.

Although Zanze won because Aura couldn't harm humans and deliberately limited her mana, Zanze's power had indeed grown immensely.

"Suddenly? Do you know how long we've known each other?"

"Only ten years."

"Only ten years?!"

Zanze shouted at Aura, who looked indifferent.

Although Zanze had long known that the time perception of long-lived races like demons and elves was vastly different from humans, she still found it unacceptable when this disparity manifested before her.

"I can't believe I've been with a slow-witted creature like you for ten years. I don't know how I've put up with it. Wasting ten years of my life, Aura, how many decades do you think I have?" Zanze asked.

Aura, recently freed from Zanze's anti-magic spell. She nibbled the bread in small bites, still somewhat obedient.

She tilted her head and tried to answer:

"A hundred?"

"Don't impose your long-lived perspective on me. Can't you see the changes in me? Maybe in another three decades, even you, who has been with me all this time, won't recognize me."

"Oh, is that so?"

Aura stared at Zanze's face carefully for a while before comparing it with the first time they met and finding the differences.

Zanze has grown some white hair, although there are only one or two strands, which was not the case before.

And her face had become rounder. Aura remembered meeting Zanze during her adolescence. Humans seem to have a period of rapid physical growth. At that time, they will be a little thinner because all the nutrition is used for bone growth, and the skin and flesh are very thin.

Now, Aura noticed, Zanze's face had softened, and her body had curves, no longer a thin pole like a skeleton. Her cheeks had a healthy flush, and there was a softness to her features that spoke of better nourishment and perhaps a bit of comfort in her current life.

Still—

"You're still as short as before, Zanze."

"Aura! You!! Go sleep on the mud tonight!" Zanze shouted, her face flushing with anger. She pointed towards the door, fuming at Aura's comment.

Aura didn't understand what she had said wrong to make Zanze angry. To her, it was a simple observation, not something to spark such fury.

But according to her observation, humans are such a moody species, completely different from the emotionally stable elves and demons.

Their anger came quickly and dissipated just as fast. One moment they were furious, and the next, they seemed almost indifferent. It was baffling to Aura, who was used to more steady emotional responses.

Just as she was wrapping herself in a blanket and lying down on a flat surface on the street, trying to find some semblance of comfort, Zanze came to fetch her.

Aura thought that this was definitely because Zanze couldn't bear to see her suffer, and not because a bunch of people on the street surrounded her while she was sleeping rough, talking about Zanze's name and pointing fingers.

Aura, who was found by Zanze, naturally refused to walk by herself. She stubbornly insisted on being carried, saying, "I don't wanna, carry me."

Zanze's patience was wearing thin, but she tried to reason with Aura. "You can walk just fine. Come on, get up."

"No, carry me," Aura persisted, her tone petulant.

In the end, Zanze used a floating spell, lifting Aura off the ground. Aura was dragged back upside down by Zanze, her indignation clear as she floated helplessly. She crossed her arms, grumbling all the way back, while Zanze struggled to maintain her composure. The scene was both comical and frustrating, highlighting the odd dynamic between the two.

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"Humans are such incomprehensible creatures. They're always angry, impatient, and nitpicky. They make a big fuss every ten or twenty years. Obviously, this period of time is not long, but it seems as if something is urging them."

Wrapped in a blanket, Aura stared at the ceiling, listening to the gradually slowing breathing below. She found herself contemplating the strange, hurried lives of humans.

Zanze always goes to bed on time every day and never stays up late. She repeats the same things every day, day after day and year after year. She finishes today and tomorrow, as if her time is filled with many things.

This was something Aura, used to postponing things until ten years later, found hard to understand. To her, a decade was but a fleeting moment, barely significant. Yet for humans, it was a substantial portion of their lives, filled with urgency and the need to accomplish as much as possible.

"Humans are indeed very difficult to understand." Aura sighed, her thoughts drifting. She wondered if she would ever truly grasp the motivations and emotions of these short-lived beings.

Listening to the breathing of the human below, Aura closed her eyes. She didn't know when she had developed the habit of going to bed early.

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Another year had passed.

"Has a year gone by? Is it really a year? I can't quite remember."

Aura groggily woke up and climbed out of bed.

For the demons, one or two years is equivalent to one or two minutes for humans. No demon would deliberately remember it; they would just let it pass in a blur.

"Time for work, Aura. Stop lounging in bed. You've been absent from work for half of the month. There have been many times when I got up early and you were in bed, and when I came back you were still asleep. Lady Serie couldn't stand it anymore, so she pointed it out in the meeting asking me to keep an eye on you."

Before Aura could fully shake off her drowsiness, Zanze pulled her out of bed.

Zanze pressed Aura on her knees, holding a stone comb, and combed Aura's messy purple hair.

"I really don't know how you, Aura, managed to braid your hair into a complicated style with six braids by yourself when I was not around. Did you do it by yourself? I don't believe it." Aura's hair was in good condition, so Zanze didn't need much effort to comb it smooth before starting on the braids.

Fortunately, Zanze also has long hair and has experience in taking care of it, so she worked skillfully. Otherwise, who knows how much more time she would have spent on Aura's fluffy purple hair.

"I've never been alone. As one of the Seven Sages of Destruction, I had my own servants. And even if all my servants died, I could use obedience spell to control human corpses to do my bidding," Aura replied softly.

"Doesn't it creep you out to have the dead help you style your hair?"

"Having you do it is creepier," Aura compared in her mind and honestly said, "The dead are more useful than you."

"Ow, ow, ow, ow! Lighter, lighter! You're pulling my scalp off!!" Not knowing what she said to upset Zanze, Aura quickly apologized.

"I'm sorry, Zanze! Please forgive me! I'll do anything to make it up to you!" Aura said sincerely.

"Then go to work." With a stern face, Zanze finished braiding Aura's hair, making sure every strand was in place. She then urged her to put on her mage robe, the fabric heavy and formal, and wear her hat, completing the look. "Head to the library for your shift," she commanded, pointing towards the door.

"But my horn hurts, I can't work." Just moments ago, Aura had said she'd do anything, covered her right horn when she heard the word "work" and said that her injury had not healed yet.

"Stop pretending. I applied the medicine on your horn with my own hands, and I removed the gauze for you with my own hands. Don't I know when it will heal? And - it was your left horn that was almost broken, not the right one." Zanze pointed out, exposing Aura's ruse.

Since meeting Aura, Zanze had seen her injured three times, each time on her left horn. It always happened after she tried to escape and was inevitably brought back by Lady Serie.

In Zanze's eyes, Aura was like a cat she raised at home. Every time she escaped from the cage, she would be beaten up by the wild cats outside, and then she would roll back home covered in wounds and hide.

She wondered, who was that stray cat that scratched Aura?