"Grandpa, look over there!"
As early as when Fíliya leapt into the sky, the squad led by the aristocratic old man—who had previously voiced his high-minded theories—had already noticed her.
[Those squads who couldn't detect the danger in the sky were already foolish enough, but to think someone would actually fly up there alone... truly incurable stupidity...] The old man had intended to make such an assessment.
But after witnessing Fíliya pierce through the heads of over a dozen Corpse-Luring Birds in an instant, his eyes went wide, to the point where one might worry his gold-rimmed monocle would slide right off his face.
"Breathtaking... To think the younger generation of mages possesses such talent," the old man murmured.
"Her flight movements... are so strange. Grandpa Denken, can you fly like that?" asked the young girl with a bun hairstyle standing beside him, her face full of curiosity.
"I cannot. That young mage's Flight Magic surely involves her own unique techniques... However, this has nothing to do with us. Let's go. Our current target is the Stille."
Although the old man named Denken was amazed by Fíliya's performance, he did not stop for long. He quickly commanded his squad to head elsewhere.
This old man's team appeared to have decent combat power, but unfortunately, the magic of all three members was useless for capturing the Stille. Thus, from the very beginning, they had planned to seize the spoils of war from those teams capable of catching the Stille.
...
When Fíliya returned to her team, the first thing to greet her was an exclamation from Wirbel.
"Fíliya, the commotion you caused really wasn't small."
As Wirbel spoke, he looked around. Scattered across the clearing lay the corpses of several Corpse-Luring Birds that had fallen from the sky. Due to the massive size of the Corpse-Luring Birds, many surrounding trees had been crushed.
"It couldn't be helped... I didn't expect there to be so many idiots. Luckily I reacted quickly, otherwise those guys wouldn't have kept their little lives," Fíliya said, shrugging casually.
"What happened to those squads?" Miss Ehre pressed.
"Mm, I tied them up under a tree over there and snapped their staffs while I was at it."
As Fíliya spoke, she couldn't help but mutter internally. She wondered what the hell this test was... The Association used methods sufficient to threaten the candidates' lives to test them, yet these candidates were all so foolish. With just this level of strength, they actually dared to challenge for First-Class? If she hadn't stepped in, twelve people would have died in that wave just now... Life is precious, you know? Why does it feel like everyone treats it so casually?
Mm... I need to find Serie to discuss this. This feels like it needs urgent reform...
"Is that so... I didn't expect you to be quite kind-hearted," Wirbel's words interrupted Miss Fíliya's thoughts. Naturally, he understood the intent behind Fíliya's actions.
By snapping their staffs, she eliminated the possibility of them continuing to court death. For those rookies, surviving the test was already a blessing enough... There shouldn't be any blind fools coming to demand compensation for 'lost staffs'.
"Hah? I've always been kind-hearted, okay? It's your narrow little brain that always misunderstands me as some bad seed," Fíliya glared at Wirbel unhappily.
Tsk... Wirbel couldn't help but click his tongue, thinking to himself, Is this woman a 'Contrarian Personality'? No matter what I say, she has to retort against me, doesn't she?
But on second thought, what Fíliya said wasn't unreasonable. He remembered the first time he cooperated with Fíliya; back then, he had asked Fíliya to protect the soldiers in the squad, and Fíliya had done a very good job...
Maybe I really have been arbitrarily judging her this whole time?
...Fine.
Wirbel shook his head and continued speaking. "So what do we do next? Looking at you, it seems you've understood that ice-using girl's intention?"
"Mm, naturally. If I'm not guessing wrong, aside from freezing that largest lake, they must have done one other thing."
As Fíliya spoke, she led the group directly to a small pool of water a few square meters in size. Fíliya signaled for Miss Ehre to touch the water's surface with her hand, and Ehre naturally complied.
"Do you feel anything?"
"Mm... I think so, but it's very faint, not too obvious anymore... Oh, someone has injected a tiny amount of mana into these small pools... But why?" Miss Ehre's expression was very puzzled.
"It's simple. The Stille is a monster very sensitive to mana. After that ice-using girl froze the largest lake, the Stille wouldn't appear in that area anymore and would only look for other drinking water. So, they continued to inject subtle amounts of mana into these smaller water sources, further compressing the Stille's possible range of activity..."
"I see, I get it... That means in this forest, there is one place they haven't injected with mana, and the Stille will concentrate there."
"Exactly. So we just need to track that ice-using girl, and we'll be able to find the Stille."
Fíliya nodded, thinking to herself that this move by Frieren's squad had actually done her a considerable favor.
"But... that ice-using girl ran off long ago... She's definitely hiding her mana and hiding somewhere now. How do we find her?" Edel seemed to finally find an opportunity to speak, so she hurriedly piped up.
"Simple. We just have to 'wait'. Wait for the moment they capture the Stille. To catch that nimble little thing, it's impossible not to use magic... And as long as magic is used, it will definitely cause a mana fluctuation. No matter how excellent a mage is, they cannot hide that instant—not even Fíliya could."
"Mm, pretty much. Wait for them to use magic, then chase the mana fluctuation to find them."
Fíliya nodded noncommittally, considering it an endorsement of Wirbel's statement, but she immediately added a sentence. "However, that method is too slow. I have a better solution."
As Fíliya spoke, she closed her eyes directly.
In this world, if one had to choose the 'person best at hiding mana', that person would undoubtedly be Frieren. Fíliya naturally couldn't detect Frieren while she was suppressing her mana. Yesterday, she could lock onto Frieren analyzing the Great Barrier only because Frieren had been too obvious about it.
So what Fíliya was looking for now wasn't Frieren herself.
Since Frieren's squad had thought of this method to compress the Stille's activity range, then in order not to contaminate that prime location they had carefully selected, Frieren would definitely guarantee that place produced absolutely no mana fluctuations.
One had to realize that seven or eight mages had been active in this forest for a whole day; the vast majority of places were already tainted with mana.
So, this actually made it convenient for Fíliya. She just needed to find that one place where the mana response was sparse—sparse to the point of abnormality.
"Mm, found it."
After a short while, Fíliya slowly opened her eyes, the corner of her mouth carrying a trace of confidence.
___
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