Frieren: Understand Humans, Aura!

After some hesitation and tense conversation, Sasha finally loosened her grip and released Flamme's staff. Her reluctance lingered in her eyes, but she didn't protest further.

At Flamme's request, Sasha agreed to guide her to the village—the place where Aura had once lived.

Their trek began in tense silence. The path wound its way through steep mountain passes and icy rivers that churned violently against the jagged rocks. Sasha moved with an ease that spoke of familiarity with the terrain, while Flamme followed with measured steps, her eyes never lingering on the path but constantly scanning their surroundings.

As they climbed higher, the air grew colder, thinner. Snow dusted the peaks in the distance, while the shadow of their ascent stretched long behind them.

It was at a flattened ridge where Flamme abruptly halted, her gaze narrowing on the scorched and cracked earth. The remnants of a magical explosion were unmistakable—jagged stones sheared cleanly in half, as though cleaved by a celestial blade.

Sasha noticed Flamme's pause and sighed. "That was Master Aura's doing. The villagers asked her to clear the ridge to shorten the way to the nearby town."

Flamme crouched, running her hand across the brittle surface. She let her mana seep into the ground, feeling the faint echoes of magic still trapped within the stone. "This level of power… to reshape the land itself. She did it for the villagers?"

Sasha nodded, her tone clipped. "Yes, she did."

Flamme straightened, brushing the dirt from her hands. Her eyes lingered on the ridge a moment longer. 'A demon shaping a mountain to aid humans. It's almost… laughable.' But she kept the thought to herself and gestured for Sasha to continue.

The remainder of the journey was filled with an unspoken tension. Flamme walked a step behind Sasha, her eyes scanning every path and every landmark. She wasn't just traveling; she was analyzing, piecing together the puzzle of Aura's life here. Her thoughts churned as she examined the traces left by the demon—traces that might reveal how much humanity Aura had truly embraced, or if it had all been a clever facade.

When they finally reached the village, Sasha hesitated for a moment before stepping aside to allow Flamme to enter. 

Sasha led Flamme on a brief tour, pointing out key landmarks with few words. Flamme, however, lingered in the village square, her gaze fixed on the statue of Aura that stood proudly in the center.

The statue was carved from stone, weathered yet imposing. It depicted Aura in her full glory, one hand raised as though casting a spell, her expression calm yet commanding. Flowers had been placed at its base, offerings from the villagers who clearly revered her as some kind of divine protector.

Flamme stared at the statue for a long time, her face unreadable. Sasha stood nearby, watching her warily but saying nothing.

As Flamme wandered through the village, she discreetly cast a spell to amplify her hearing. She caught snippets of conversations:

"The statue's so lifelike, don't you think?"

"She saved us from those monsters... We owe her everything."

"Divine envoy or not, she was a hero to this village."

Flamme's lips raised a little at their words, but she made no comment.

Afterward, Sasha brought Flamme to the mountain hideout where Aura had lived.

Aura, of course, could not returned to this place. Demons had no sentimental attachment to places they deemed unsafe. Once they left, they abandoned everything without a second thought.

Flamme stepped inside the hideout, her senses immediately assaulted by the stale air and the faint smell of dried herbs. She moved slowly, taking in the scene.

The hideout bore all the signs of a once-lived-in space. Strings of dried meat hung from the ceiling, now stiff and brittle. Piles of magical manuscripts were scattered haphazardly across a desk in the corner. Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with an odd mix of alchemical ingredients, empty jars, and half-finished experiments.

The place was a mess, as though its owner had cared little for tidiness. Flamme's eyes lingered on the mundane details: a chipped mug left on a table, a pile of firewood stacked neatly in one corner, a threadbare blanket draped over a chair.

"She lived like this?" Flamme muttered, half to herself.

"She wasn't one for tidiness," Sasha replied, her voice soft. "But this was her home."

Flamme remained silent, her thoughts churning. 'A demon with a home. A place she returned to, a place she left traces of herself.'

Exhaling deeply, Flamme shook off her melancholic thoughts, turning to Sasha, who had been silent the entire time, as though she didn't exist. Sasha had carried out her tasks wordlessly, head bowed.

Flamme asked, "Why were you willing to bring me here?"

Sasha's grip tightened around the bundle of dried meat she had been holding. She didn't look at Flamme, her eyes fixed on the shadowed entrance of the hideout. When she finally answered, her voice was hollow. "Would resisting have changed anything?"

"No." Flamme's reply was immediate, her tone devoid of malice. It was just a fact, plain and unshakable. Whether Sasha had agreed to guide her or not, Flamme would have come anyway. There were too many questions, too many pieces of Aura's life that she needed to understand.

Sasha exhaled, her shoulders sagging. For a moment, the only sound between them was the faint rustle of wind through the mountain pass. Then, almost imperceptibly, her voice broke.

"So… all I can do is show you everything…" She paused, her throat tightening, but she forced the words out. "And then beg you… to spare my Aura."

Flamme's head tilted slightly. "Yours?"

Sasha's head snapped up, and her eyes burned with a fierce determination that seemed to clash with the vulnerability in her trembling hands. "Mine!"

Flamme's expression didn't change, but inwardly, a faint sigh stirred in her mind. 'You've really messed up a lot of lives, Aura…'

She looked back toward the hideout, her voice calm yet probing. "Why is she hiding here instead of returning to the demon lands?"

Sasha seemed to wrestle with the question, her brows furrowing as she thought. After a long pause, she said, "Master Aura never said it outright… but I think she's afraid of something there. She's also afraid of something here—on the human side. I think she's afraid of you on this side…" Sasha's voice trailed off as her gaze dropped to the dirt beneath her feet. "But as for the demon side… I don't know."

Flamme folded her arms across her chest, her tone sharpening. "The Omniscient?"

Sasha blinked, clearly confused. "Who's that?"

"A demon who can observe history from the future," Flamme replied, her voice steady, though her thoughts churned. 'If the demon side knows what Aura has done—whether by choice or by force—they'll never let her live.'

Sasha shifted uncomfortably, clutching the dried meat tighter, as though it could anchor her. Her voice was almost a whisper when she asked, "Master Aura won't die, will she?"

Flamme's answer was quick and firm. "She won't. I won't let her die." Her eyes flashed with quiet determination as she added, "If the demons want to kill her, I will never allow it."

Sasha stared at her, hope flickering hesitantly in her gaze. "If you can protect Master Aura, then please… keep her by your side."

Flamme raised an eyebrow. "Hmm? Don't you want her to come back here?"

"I do," Sasha admitted, her voice trembling. "But I can't protect her. If she comes back here, I'll lose her. I'm… I'm too weak to stop it."

For a moment, neither spoke. Flamme's gaze lingered on Sasha, watching the way her shoulders hunched under the weight of her words. There was no defiance in her now, only a desperate kind of love. Finally, Flamme spoke, her tone softer than before.

"That's a noble kind of love."

Sasha straightened slightly, "The love I have for my master is, of course, noble. But what about you? What kind of love do you have for her?"

The question struck Flamme like a blow, and for a moment, she had no answer. 'What kind of love do I have for Aura?' The words echoed in her mind, louder than the wind around them. She looked up at the hideout—the place where Aura had lived, where she had carved out five fragile years of freedom. Then she turned her gaze to the horizon, following the faint traces of residual mana she could still sense.

After a long silence, Flamme finally spoke, her voice low and heavy with regret. "I'm sorry," she said, her words cutting through the quiet like a blade. "I cannot return her to you."

Before Sasha could respond, Flamme was gone. Her form vanished in an instant, the rush of her teleportation magic scattering loose pebbles on the ground.

Sasha stood frozen, staring at the spot where Flamme had been. Slowly, her legs gave out beneath her, and she crumpled to her knees. The dried meat slipped from her hands. She pressed her palms to the floor, her body trembling as tears spilled silently down her cheeks.

"Master Aura…" she whispered, her voice breaking. "I couldn't... sobs sobs... I couldn't protect you…"

The dried meat lay forgotten in the floor beside her, a stark reminder of her feeble attempts to hold on to the life she shared with Aura. The ache in her chest swelled, and for a moment, she felt as though the mountain itself was collapsing onto her, crushing her under the weight of her failure.

The wind carried the faint echoes of her sobs through the mountains, but no one was there to hear them. No one was there to console her. And in that moment, Sasha was utterly alone.

——————

At the border between the demon and human territories, a faint but peculiar force stirred, unnoticed by the world's ordinary inhabitants. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, a whisper in the fabric of existence that only the keenest minds might have suspected—and even they would have dismissed it as coincidence.

Sometimes, this force revealed itself as an abrupt gust of wind, tearing through the stillness of a moonless night, cold and biting, like the breath of something unseen.

Other times, it was the ghostly shimmer of a mist, rising inexplicably under the blazing midday sun, vanishing just as swiftly as it appeared, leaving only a sense of unease in its wake.

On darker occasions, it was the untraceable deaths of a few forgotten souls, felled in some remote corner of a battlefield. No blade, no spell, no trace of poison—just lifeless bodies left in eerie stillness, their existence erased as if by the hand of fate itself.

And sometimes, most unnervingly, it was the sudden appearance of one or two demons in places they had no business being. These demons, unfamiliar and unnamed, left behind mysteries and lingering questions, their presence a disruption to the timeline written in history's pages.

...

These minor disruptions were like the first tremors of an earthquake—barely noticeable, yet impossible to ignore when pieced together. Each ripple shifted the world's history by the smallest margins, and though the changes were slight, they bore an unmistakable pattern: a tilt, an invisible nudge, ever so subtly favoring the demons.

This was no accident. It was a plan that spanned a thousand years, a grand design orchestrated in whispers and shadows. The changes were too small to draw attention, yet over centuries, they would accumulate, one by one, into an insurmountable advantage for the demon race.

At the heart of this intricate web of manipulation was Schlacht. Among demons, he was regarded as an enigma—a mage blessed, or cursed, with the extraordinary power of foresight magic. Schlacht could see the vast tapestry of history, observe its threads, and nudge them ever so slightly. But even with such a gift, the world had imposed a cost: his talent for battle magic was limited.

No, that wasn't entirely true. By the standards of the demon race, Schlacht's combat abilities were exceptional. Yet, compared to the immense value of his foresight magic, his other talents seemed insignificant. Schlacht himself regarded his combat skills as functional, nothing more.

However, time was a cruel and unyielding force, even for demons. The warriors and the mages who could lay waste to armies, fell one by one to the inexorable torrent of years. But Schlacht endured. He always survived. For his foresight magic ensured it.

This was the advantage of foresight magic. As long as Schlacht desired to live, nothing could kill him. Unless he willingly sought death, even the deadly traps laid by the mythical mage Serie from the Age of Legends would be powerless against him.

But during the vast stretch of a demon's life, there would inevitably be one or two events that even Schlacht deemed worth dying for.

The most critical of these events lay a thousand years in the future.

And now, a thousand years earlier, another such event had appeared before Schlacht.

[Aura is in danger.]

The voice of the future suddenly resounded in Schlacht's ears as he busied himself fortifying the demon border.

[Who's responsible?]

[Flamme.]

Hearing this name, Schlacht fell silent.

Even for someone with foresight like Schlacht, recklessly confronting Flamme—the most powerful human mage in recorded history—offered no guarantee of survival.

Schlacht looked up at the sky with difficulty, his expression stiff, as he questioned his future self:

[What's the outcome?]

[It's unclear. After Aura encountered Flamme, she vanished for the next thousand years. Most likely, she's dead.]

[No. That won't happen. I won't let her die. If humans wish to kill her, I will not allow it!]

That purple-haired demon was a wildcard in the timeline, possibly the only hope for the demons to turn the tide against humanity in the future.

Schlacht made up his mind.

No matter the cost, he would protect Aura from Flamme's hands.