Fern walks slightly ahead — a young mage with neat dark hair and cool, focused eyes. She adjusts the strap of her bag to silence the glass vials inside.

Fern: “Frieren-sama, are you sure this route is shorter? We’ve been walking for three hours. Everything looks the same.”

Frieren moves without hurry — her long silver hair hardly shifting, expression distant and unreadable.

Frieren: “It is shorter. I used this path once… about a hundred years ago. Something might have changed.”

Stark follows last — a tall, broad-shouldered warrior hauling a huge battle-axe over one shoulder, boots leaving deep marks in the ground.

Stark: “‘Might have’? You say it like we can’t get lost in the middle of nowhere.”

Frieren: “Even if we get lost, we’ll still end up somewhere.”

Fern exhales slowly, brows tightening with measured irritation.

Fern: “That’s not an answer. That’s philosophy.”

Stark shifts the axe with a grunt, looking at the empty horizon with pity.

Stark: “If we don’t see a village in an hour, I’m climbing a tree.”

Frieren doesn’t look back.

Frieren: “Climb now. You’re not carrying anything.”

Stark: “I’m carrying my axe!”

Fern: “You’re just holding it. That isn’t carrying.”

Stark rolls his eyes, falling back into step behind them.

Stark: “…You two are going to kill me before any demon does.”

Frieren lifts her gaze to the sky as if measuring the sun against older memories.

Frieren: “Worst case, we open the wrong road by force. Forward is still forward.”