NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 29: The smile she remembered
✧ Long Ago — A Memory
In a meadow far from war and worry, two elves stood beneath a sky painted with twilight.
Magic danced between their fingertips.
One summoned a lattice of light, rigid and precise. The other conjured a burst of glittering petals, chaotic and colorful.
"You're too stiff, Frieren," Milirade laughed.
"And you're too reckless," Frieren replied, but her voice lacked bite.
The meadow shimmered with laughter and mana. Milirade spun, her spell leaving a trail of flowers behind. Magic wasn't just a weapon to her. It was freedom. Joy.
"You'll never get the drop on a demon if your spells all follow rules," Milirade teased.
"I'd rather survive than impress one," Frieren muttered.
Milirade's grin softened.
"You'll remember this someday," she said.
"The way we practiced. The way we smiled."
✧ Present — The Festival's Edge
The grand hall was still buzzing with confusion, but Frieren had already left.
A shimmer in the air. Residual mana. A trail—faint, but present.
Not even Serie followed. Not even her hand-picked mages dared.
But Frieren did.
Down stone corridors lined with echoing pipes. Past kitchens and enchanted stairwells. Into the underworks of the imperial palace—where the glamour of the festival faded into dust and silence.
She found her.
Minus.
Leaning against a broken archway, one hand resting on the carved wall like she'd never left it. Cloak discarded. Hair different now—looser, touched with silver and memory.
"You followed," Minus said. Not surprised. Not smiling yet.
"You didn't make it hard," Frieren replied.
A pause.
Then: "You used her."
Minus turned, brows lifting. "Used?"
"Milirade. Her body. Her magic. Her smile."
For the first time, the calm flickered in Minus's eyes. But it passed.
"I didn't steal it," she said. "She gave it to me."
Frieren's fists clenched. "She was dead."
"So was I."
A beat passed. The corridor tightened with mana.
"Why now?" Frieren asked.
"Why come back?"
Minus looked past her, to nothing. "Because Serie asked me to. Because the world still lets monsters live. Because Lowe breathes."
Then she smiled.
It was wrong.
Or it should have been.
But the smile wasn't cruel. Not exactly. Not gloating.
It was familiar.
Too familiar.
"That smile—" Frieren whispered.
"You remember it," Minus said.
And then—
The air cracked.
A flash of light—Frieren's spell, fired without warning.
It slammed into the wall where Minus had been standing a moment ago.
Stone splintered. Dust roared. And out of it, Minus emerged, cloak swirling, hand glowing with spiraling mana unlike any Frieren had ever seen.
✧ The Fight Begins
They didn't speak now.
Magic filled the corridor like floodwater—dense, fast, lethal.
Frieren moved first, casting in silence. Binding rings. Mana-seeking arrows. Shields thin as hair but strong as mythril.
Minus responded—not by matching spell for spell, but by rewriting them.
A wave of distorted space swallowed Frieren's binding ring. A lashing whip of black ice tore through her barrier, not with brute force—but by understanding its rules and undoing them.
Frieren gritted her teeth. This wasn't just Minus.
It was someone who had her memories. Someone who knew her style.
"You remember how I fight," Frieren said, casting four spells at once.
"I remember how you think," Minus corrected.
They clashed.
The floor cracked under pressure spells. Walls crumbled from redirected explosions. Between them: flickers of old battlefields.
A spear of molten metal shot from Minus's palm—Milirade's spell.
Frieren's breath hitched.
She dodged late. It grazed her arm, searing cloth and skin.
"Stop using her magic!" Frieren shouted, voice breaking.
"She was part of me," Minus hissed. "And you abandoned her."
Frieren's next spell was desperate. Fast. Instinctive.
She summoned a coffin of temporal ice—her signature, the spell that once felled demon kings.
But Minus didn't try to block it.
She walked through it.
No—phased through it.
"That's not possible," Frieren whispered.
"Not for you," Minus said. "But I'm not you."
With a twist of her wrist, Minus carved a sigil into the air.
Magic surged—neither holy nor demonic. Ancient. Forgotten. The kind of spell Frieren hadn't seen in centuries.
Memory Magic.
It struck her—not in the body, but in the mind.
She saw the meadow again.
Milirade spinning.
Smiling.
"You'll remember this someday," she had said.
And now—she had.
✧ The Smile She Remembered
The spell ended.
Frieren dropped to one knee, breath short.
Minus stood over her—not victorious. Not cruel.
Just… tired.
"I don't want to kill you," Minus said.
"Then why fight?" Frieren asked.
"Because you wouldn't believe me otherwise."
The corridor went quiet.
A drip of water. The distant echo of festival music.
Frieren looked up.
Minus smiled again.
And this time—it was unmistakable.
Milirade's smile.
"You're not just her," Frieren said.
"No," Minus answered softly. "But she's not gone."
Frieren rose to her feet, slowly.
"Then what are you?"
Minus paused. Her voice barely above a whisper.
"Something new."
And then—she stepped back. The mana folded around her like a closing curtain.
Gone.
No trace.
Just silence.
✧ Epilogue: Elsewhere
Lowe stood at the edge of the palace roof, watching the night sky.
He had felt the mana surge.
And he knew—deep in his bones—
This would not be a clean war.
Next Time: "Old Magic, New Monsters"