While sleeping, Frieren dreams of the time she received the finest example yet of a grimoire claimed to be written by her master Flamme. To humans, Flamme might as well be a fairy tale, and Frieren may be the only person still alive who remembers her face; who remembers Flamme the person.
And as she mentions to Stark and Fern while the three clear a road blocked by debris from a battle with demons, it’s not unusual that neither of them have met another elf. She herself hasn’t seen one in 400 years. They apparently have crap libidos, and are slowly, quietly going extinct.
Frieren & Co. happen to arrive in a town on Liberation Day, the anniversary of when Himmel’s party defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the land. Their victory is commemorated by copper statues that have since gained a green patina.
Frieren feels such ornamentation excessive, but she remembers Himmel telling her he didn’t have all these statues made simply so they would be remembered, or to remind future generations that they existed and weren’t mere fairy tales. He also had them built so Frieren wouldn’t be alone when the rest of the party passed.
From this village of celebration, Frieren, Stark and Fern continue north to the heavily fortified and alert domain of Graf Granat. While strolling the streets, Frieren suddenly wields her staff; she senses demons. Sure enough, they emerge from a gate, one of them chatting with Lord Granat.
When Frieren prepares to launch a magical attack she is tackled to the ground by Granat’s guards. The demon, apparently a “peace envoy”, asks Granat if he planned this; he says the elf must be an adventurer who is out of the loop. But they’re essentially booing her when she’s right.
That said, Graf Granat, who apparently doesn’t recognize the legendary mage Frieren, has her thrown in the dungeon to think on her actions “for two or three years.” Frieren takes this well as you’d expect; finally, some time to read her grimoires!
Fern and Stark do nothing to antagonize Graf’s men, and when they visit her, Fern has learned that the demons are here for peace talks. Their leader, Aura the Guillotine, was one of the Demon King’s Seven Sages of Destruction and returned to power 28 years ago…just after Himmel died.
While Stark considers that if the demon envoys share human language, perhaps a peace can be struck between them, Freiren regales them with a tale from her journey with Himmel. A little demon girl ate the daughter of some villagers. Himmel is about to kill her, but she says “mom”, and he hesitates.
Frieren steps in to do the deed, but the village chief asks them to stand down, and he ends up adopting the girl. He raises her like a daughter right beside her own, and they live peacefully for some time…until the demon girl murders the chief and takes the daughter hostage.
While the villagers had ceased trying to kill her, she never stopped sensing their murderous intent. In a cold transactional act, she’d hoped replacing the couple’s daughter she ate with the chiefs would make things better. Himmel rescues the chief’s daughter, and Frieren, no longer held back, finishes the demon off.
As the demon disintegrates, Frieren asks her why she said “mom”, both before and now, when demon children grow up in solitude and have no concept of family. The dying demon states, quite simply, that saying things like “mom” or “dad” keeps people from killing them.
Demons, then, don’t have the power of human language only to deceive. Similarly, the demon peace envoys in Granat’s town may wear fancy clothes and have proper manners, but they’re no less cold-blooded predators than that demon girl was. They simply do what they can to survive so they can kill when the time is right.
Turns out Graf Granat was not taken in by the envoys, but always intended to kill them in order to avenge his dead son. He comes extremely close to doing so too, Lord Lugner (the lead demon) lies about his father having been killed in the same conflict, and urging Graf to choose peace.
It’s such a simple trick, but empathetic humans fall for it every time. Frieren, on the other hand, has never been tricked by demons, and isn’t about to die in a city overrun by a restored Lady Aura. As she contemplates escaping in the chaos and destruction that’s bound to begin any time, she’s visited by Draht, Lugner’s bodyguard and one of Lady Aura’s executioners.
He’s come to kill her, but Frieren, cool as a cucumber as always, warns him that she’s strong. Not just stronger than Draht. Stronger than Aura. Graf and the humans of this town may never know how lucky they are Frieren strode into their town. Just as she alone looked upon the face of Flamme, she knew the second she saw demons around that they needed to be exterminated with extreme prejudice. She knows a tiger can’t change its stripes.
This week’s Frieren went to some dark places. And while she often acts like a child that needs pampering (or rewarding when she deigns to wake up early), at the end of the day Frieren as a no-nonsense warrior as they come when there’s a serious threat lurking. Next week’s episode is called Frieren the Slayer, and thus sounds like it will further delve into her darker, more lethal side. My money’s on the she-elf!
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