On the fifteenth day of their winter journey, in Agusheed's study—
During Agusheed's daily routine of decoding the Spell book of Sage Ewig,
Frieren, with a face full of smiles, bounced her way from outside the door to stand before Agusheed.
She made quite a commotion,
As if deliberately reminding Agusheed that she had arrived.
But Agusheed ignored her. Not only that—
He didn't even lift his head,
From beginning to end keeping his attention focused on the spell book before him.
The sound of his quill pen moving across parchment was crisp and pleasant,
Yet inadvertently gave the white-haired elf a feeling of being kept at arm's length.
But how could Frieren care about such things?
She never showed any respect for teachers around Agusheed anyway.
"Agusheed."
The little magic sprout tried calling her teacher's name to get his attention.
But as expected, it failed.
Agusheed still didn't look up, maintaining his posture as he wrote rune after rune.
"Agusheed—"
This time Frieren called out louder. Not only that,
While shouting, she also struck quite exaggerated poses with a smiling expression.
"Agusheed, can you perform that again?"
"You know, that one—"
"'Get this straight... what you're facing is the world's strongest Grand Mage.'"
"And also—"
"'What worthless Grand Demon are you supposed to be? How dare you play riddle-games in front of me, the world's strongest mage?'"
After reciting these two pieces of Agusheed's dark history that she'd heard from Flamme,
Frieren couldn't help but roll on the ground, pounding the floor as she laughed mockingly.
The pen stopped—
Agusheed also lifted his head, but contrary to what Frieren expected,
There was no anger or annoyance on his face.
Agusheed simply gestured with his hand,
Using Magic That Allows Low-Altitude Levitation—
He levitated Frieren, who was rolling on the ground, and floated her to beside his desk.
With another wave of his hand, he cleaned the dust from the white-haired elf's clothes.
Under Frieren's gaze, Agusheed finally sighed.
He spoke to this silly disciple who almost never got up early on normal days,
Usually sleeping until afternoon:
"Every day you run here to repeat those 'stupid things' I said back then—"
"Frieren, have you been very idle these past few days?"
Frieren shook her head but still maintained her playful expression.
—≧≦
"I just think it's too funny... Agusheed."
"The 'world's strongest mage' getting knocked out by the Demon King in one round—"
"That kind of thing is really hard to hold back from laughing at, right?"
Frieren continued recounting Agusheed's dark history.
But to avoid getting her bottom spanked, she still tried to add something nice at the end.
"But, Agusheed..."
"I never expected you actually had a period when your humanity was so abundant."
Abundant humanity...
Agusheed felt no ripples in his heart regarding Frieren's assessment.
And regarding that so-called dark history, his attitude had always been silence.
Agusheed didn't care about Frieren's evaluation and mockery—
Similarly, he cared even less about how that past appeared in others' eyes.
Even his initial reluctance to tell Frieren wasn't out of embarrassment or shame,
But rather that Agusheed truly didn't want to bring up anything about him and the Demon King.
Agusheed's attitude toward his own memories had changed long ago.
Because...
Starting from two hundred years ago—
He only remembered that it was his past.
No colors, no sounds.
In Agusheed's eyes, those scenes of memory were like deaf and mute silent films.
That was all.
Unable to understand, unable to feel.
He couldn't even empathize with his past self from hundreds of years ago.
Laughable, but that was the truth.
This was what it meant to be a demon.
"Frieren..."
Agusheed softly murmured the name of the silly disciple before him.
Then moved his finger to float her onto the chair beside him.
"I'll ask you a few small questions. If you answer them well, I won't spank you."
Sensing that Agusheed was getting serious, Frieren stopped fooling around.
She sat in the chair, looking up at her perpetually cold teacher.
"Really won't spank me if I answer well?"
"Really."
"Then go ahead and ask."
Agusheed reached out, smoothing the wrinkles in the little sprout's silver-white hair,
While maintaining his steady tone as always:
"Frieren, you only heard Flamme's vivid description. Why do you think I had abundant humanity back then?"
Why...
In Frieren's eyes, this hardly counted as a question at all.
Because this kind of thing should be something everyone naturally knows.
The reason communication between people can give birth to various emotions and reactions
Is because of empathy...
Frieren's pointed ears drooped down.
Feeling the coldness of that large hand smoothing her hair,
She clearly recognized that problem for the first time in a while—
Agusheed was actually a demon.
But the white-haired elf quickly emerged from her distraction,
Beginning to think about how to answer Agusheed's question.
Her throat moved, then she organized appropriate and easily understood language.
"Um... because those things you said back then didn't really seem like a demon's style."
Those things he said...
A demon's style...
After trying to replay those past scenes in his mind and still gaining nothing—
Agusheed lowered his brows and rubbed the silly disciple's cheek.
"Can you tell me what you mean by 'a demon's style'?"
Frieren paused for a while. Under Agusheed's calm gaze—
The white-haired elf looked him up and down carefully.
Then shook her head as she searched for the vocabulary she knew.
"'Cold,' 'proper,' 'serious,' 'occasional pleasure,' 'never exaggerated movements or expressions,' 'unhurried speech and tone'..."
"Something like that."
Frieren intermittently expressed her feelings bit by bit,
Then began observing Agusheed's reaction.
And Agusheed...
—After comparing the two periods of himself,
He still couldn't realize what significant differences existed between his past and present self.
So after a long period of contemplation, Agusheed—
Asked the little magic sprout sitting before him one final question.
"Frieren..."
"From your personal perspective—"
"What kind of feelings do you think I harbored after being easily defeated by the 'Demon King'?"
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Powerstones?
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