The Foundation Festival burned bright in the heart of the Empire. Enchanted lanterns hung from ancient spires, their light dancing across marble and mana-threaded silk. Music spilled from the grand hall, laughter echoing beneath its vaulted ceilings.
But beneath the gaiety, unease stirred.
Amidst the swirling dancers and high mages, the first-class mages stood alert. Serie's chosen defenders—each powerful, each prepared. They moved with purpose, their smiles thin, their eyes always watching.
Frieren stood among them.
Her gaze, sharp and clouded with memory, scanned the crowd not for beauty, but for threat.
And then—she felt it.
A ripple in the mana.
So subtle most wouldn't notice. But to her, it struck like thunder through the marrow.
A familiar magic. Cold and consuming. Layered and complex. A spell she'd once bled beneath.
It was Minus.
But… not entirely. Something else clung to that presence—an echo within the magic. Old. Familiar.
Milirade.
Frieren's heart stilled.
Her friend. Long dead. Once believed to have passed in silence. But now, that mana lingered—intertwined with the very witch who had once brought Frieren to her knees.
Across the ballroom, another figure moved with equal precision.
Lowe.
His expression was unreadable. Though dressed as a guest, every movement was that of a predator. He drifted through the sea of nobility and high mages, but his eyes never left one target.
Serie.
Or… what he believed to be Serie.
But something gnawed at him. The aura was wrong. The rhythm of her steps. The weight of her presence.
Familiar. But not the elf he knew.
And then—she turned.
Her face bore Serie's features. Her robe shimmered with her enchantments. But the smile?
Wrong.
Too knowing. Too sharp.
A beat passed. Then, with a whispered incantation, the illusion began to fall.
The layers of disguise unraveled like silk unraveling from bone. One by one, spells peeled away. Not forcibly—elegantly. Deliberately.
A body-altering spell shifted bone and voice and aura in an instant.
And there she stood.
Minus.
Not the elf Lowe meant to kill. Not a memory. Not a rumor.
The witch he had killed.
Alive.
Time halted.
Lowe's breath hitched, his grip on his hidden blade tightening. His hunter's mind screamed. The woman before him had died. He'd ensured it.
And yet, here she stood. Wearing another's skin. In a vessel long thought lost.
Across the hall, Frieren turned sharply. Her gaze met the witch's.
The sight hit her like a blade to the chest.
It was her. The same sharp stare. The same reckless calm. But now carried in a body etched with traces of Milirade's mana.
The grief of a friend. The memory of a rival. Colliding in one impossible form.
Frieren took a step forward, heart thundering. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"You… I remember you."
Minus tilted her head, a half-smile playing on her lips.
"Did you really think I'd disappear so easily?"
Her voice was soft. Cold. But beneath it was something else. Something sorrowful. Something human.
Around them, the hall stood frozen.
Serie's hand-picked mages—those few permitted—watched without acting. The shift in presence, the aura of an ancient, once-slain witch now returned, held them all like a blade at their throats.
No spell was cast. No weapon drawn.
Just one truth laid bare.
Minus was back.
Alive.
Reforged.
And standing in their midst.
Lowe's breath returned in a slow, sharp exhale. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
His entire mission—the unspoken war behind this festival—had just changed.
And then, as swiftly as she had revealed herself, Minus turned and vanished into the shadows. Her spellwork was clean. Flawless. Not even Frieren could follow her trail.
She left nothing behind but silence.
Lowe stared at the place she'd stood, expression unreadable.
Across from him, Frieren hadn't moved. But the memories surged within her like a rising tide—her own defeat, Milirade's smile, and the question now echoing louder than all:
Who had truly come back?
The ball resumed. Slowly. Hesitantly. But beneath every polished step and polite smile, fear crept.
The world had not buried its monsters.
Not yet.
From Serie's point of view.
Serie had always known.
Not because she sensed the mana—though she did.
Not because the disguise faltered—though she expected it would.
She knew because they had planned it together.
The return. The reveal. The stage. The storm.
The Foundation Festival was the final test. And Minus passed it the moment she smiled.
Across the ballroom, she watched Lowe flinch. Watched Frieren pale.
But Serie only took another sip of wine.
There she is again, she thought. Not Milirade. Not the girl I once taught.
Minus.
The witch who refused to stay dead. The friend who once tried to burn the world down.
Serie didn't fear what would come next.
If anything, she was curious.
What would her old friend do now, with the world watching again?
Next time: "The Smile She Remembered."