The girl was lifted off the ground like a baby chick, dangled by the scruff in one hand.
"Filthy," It remarked — and invoked Paradox Magic.
An invisible force swept across the girl's body, washing away the mud and blood, and revealing a crop of lovely bright orange-red hair underneath. The grimy little face transformed in an instant into something soft and rosy-clean, and even the nightgown she wore visibly lightened in color before their eyes, every speck of filth sliding off and dropping from her bare feet to the ground below.
"You can use it like that?" Nanoda found herself genuinely surprised by the novel application. Using Paradox Magic for cleaning was not something she had ever considered.
"Separating and isolating materials of opposing conceptual properties — for me, that's a minor trick at best. Pay attention and learn."
The girl felt the sticky, clinging filth disappear from her skin, and the sensation of weightlessness slowly eased the trembling out of her small frame.
This demon didn't seem to want to kill her.
The thought had barely formed before she immediately crushed it. Her mother had told her: never trust a demon. Never.
"Why haven't you killed me? Don't you want to eat me?"
The girl tilted her head back to look up at the beautiful demon before her. Strangely, the terror that had gripped her while she was hiding had begun to fade, replaced by something she couldn't quite put a name to.
"You're a curious little thing. Rest easy — I won't kill you. Keeping and observing a human youngling strikes me as rather worthwhile."
"Are you planning to fatten me up first and then eat me?" The girl's brow furrowed slightly, her large eyes trembling with a faint glimmer of something wet.
"What a delightful little creature."
That answer made It burst into genuine laughter. With that, It carried the girl over to a cleaner patch of ground and set her down.
"Don't even think about running. I could kill you in the blink of an eye."
It was quite a bright, cheerful smile — and yet it sent a chill straight through the girl. She forgot, for a moment, that she had even considered running. She stood rooted to the spot, both small hands clenching the hem of her skirt, looking unmistakably tense.
"Hm? Wait a moment — why does she look so familiar?"
Now that she was cleaned up, Nanoda found herself studying the little creature's face with a growing sense of recognition she couldn't quite place.
This demon had slipped back into that habit of talking to itself again, as if someone else had taken over entirely.
Since escape was clearly off the table, the girl took the opportunity to examine this demon with its ever-shifting expressions more carefully.
Setting aside the fact that she was a demon — she was genuinely beautiful. The most beautiful girl the girl had ever seen, by a wide margin. The longer you looked, even a child could tell she only grew more captivating the more you studied her.
Were all female demons this beautiful?
"Familiar?"
"Yes — I keep feeling like I've seen her somewhere before."
"Give it a rest. This is a full thousand years before your era."
Watching Nanoda mutter to herself, the girl lowered her head.
She was clearly different from the demons who had massacred the village — but she was also clearly some kind of split personality.
And then, at that moment — distinct from what had come before — the other side of this demon spoke.
"What is your name?"
The tone was flat. The earlier domineering playfulness was gone, replaced by something cool and aloof.
The girl hesitated, then answered honestly.
"My name is Flamme…"
"Fla-what?"
"Um — Flamme…"
"What kind of 'mme'?"
"Flamme!"
"Hold on. Let me think."
Orange-red hair. Still a baby face, yes — but when held up against the image in her mind, Nanoda drew in a slow, deep breath.
Frieren's master. Serie's apprentice. The great Mage who unified the empire a thousand years ago. A hero of history. A human Mage who made countless contributions to generations that came after her, one of the founding figures of human magic, a living legend among humankind — and right now, that person was this bright-eyed little girl standing in front of her?
She had stumbled across a random human survivor, and it turned out to be Flamme? How could something so absurd actually happen?
Was there any chance it was just someone with the same name?
"There is another reason I wanted to keep this child." Its voice rose suddenly in her mind, offering a quiet hint. "That child possesses extraordinary magical talent — a natural, innate affinity with Mana that she was simply born with."
"Don't worry — only you can hear me speak. We are one body now, and I can commune with you soul to soul. Focus your mind, and you'll be able to do the same."
Hearing Its assessment, Nanoda now felt she could say with considerable confidence: this child really was that Flamme.
"Oh? Was this girl someone important, back in the old days?"
It had already read the shape of Nanoda's emotional shift and made a fairly accurate guess.
Nanoda focused her mind and initiated an exchange within their shared inner space.
"The greatest human Mage of a thousand years ago — and she is standing right in front of us."
"It seems my eye for talent has never failed me."
"So — what do we do with her now?"
Nanoda stood perfectly still, her gaze fixed on the girl — on Flamme — while the internal conversation continued.
Flamme tilted her head to one side in puzzlement. She wasn't sure what to make of it. Why had this demon suddenly gone so still, staring at her without blinking? Surely it wasn't thinking about which part of her to start eating first?
"My original intention was to keep her with me. But then again — an important historical figure. I'll be honest, that does complicate things a little."
"By the way — her future master is Serie, an elven Mage who has existed from the Mythical Era to the present. Come to think of it, she would be a contemporary of yours, more or less. Do you know her?"
"A Mythical Era elf? I don't know her. That was a chaotic age — simply surviving it was no easy feat, so I rarely paid attention to what was happening in the outside world. This one called Serie is probably a formidable force to be reckoned with."
Nanoda understood clearly: when it came to their attitude toward humanity, It shared the same stance as herself. Neither of them bore absolute malice toward humans. Something like eliminating a future human powerhouse for the sake of the Demon Race's future — that was simply not the kind of thing either of them would do.
Rather than taking sides, they had always remained neutral, and what they did was always an expression of their own genuine will.
"Do you want to kill her?"
Its question caught Nanoda off guard.
Why?
"Good. Then I have something important to tell you — something concerning time-based magic."
This time, It was completely serious. Not a trace of the earlier flippancy remained.
"Time-based magic — that is magic which only a god of the world can use. Even my Paradox Magic can only exert a borrowed, indirect influence on that category of magic. So tell me — what do you believe the future of this world looks like? What do you think the nature of its worldline is?"
"Worldline?"
"I see two possibilities: a single fixed line, or multiple branching lines."
Drawing on her knowledge of Return Magic as it existed in Frieren's world, Nanoda turned the question over quickly in her mind and gave her answer.
"I believe — most likely — it's a single line."
Judging from what Frieren had experienced with Return Magic:
After Frieren's soul traveled back into the past, Himmel had concealed everything — all of future-Frieren's experiences along the journey, her crossing over, her search for a way to return, her battle against demons like Wunderwunder — he had kept all of it hidden from those around him.
From this, it could be inferred that Frieren's crossing had an almost negligible impact on the past worldline.
Of course, this didn't rule out the involvement of Schlacht and his future-sight ability. After all, for intelligence about future-Frieren returning to the past to have reached the Demon Race — that almost certainly had something to do with Schlacht.
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🔥 New history: Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou, And other Chuunibyou Brats
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