What if you are reborn as a demon after a funeral?

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Frilian sighed softly and said nothing more to him, silently helping her clansmen to gather up the bones scattered on the ground.

Before they could even finish collecting the bodies, a stranger arrived late and stepped into the village that had suffered such a catastrophe.

Coincidentally, that person was none other than Ash's senior sister, Volame, whom he didn't know well.

The Burial of Frilian: A Thousand Years Later: Chapter Twenty-Four - The Belated Arrival of Vlame: The Disciple's Duty

Noticing signs of battle from afar, and the beam of light shooting through the air, Vlame rushed over, but it was too late.

When she arrived at the scene, the battle was over, but to her shock... there were still quite a few survivors in the village.

The demon general's armor and weapons lay empty on the ground, making her realize that the villagers had actually defeated their opponent, and even...

"What? Ash...?"

"Oh, isn't this my dear senior sister? How have you been?"

"No, this is only our second meeting, isn't it? Seriously, why did you say 'darling' with such a blank expression..." Vlame looked at Ash speechlessly, wondering, "Is this some kind of sarcasm?"

"That's a misunderstanding. I just wanted to improve our relationship with my fellow disciples and make some icebreakers."

"...Compared to this, did you take care of this guy?" Vlame glanced at Bazart's armor, while Ash pointed at Frilian: "It's not really accurate to say that, since this guy interfered."

"...This guy..." The strange way he introduced the body made Frillie, who was still dragging the corpse, turn around and glare at him unhappily.

Vlame looked at him, puzzled: "Why are you here?"

"Of course it's for studying, but... I don't know why I encountered such an undeserved disaster." He shook his head and kept sighing.

Before Vlamé could say anything, he asked curiously, "Speaking of which, you must have gone back, right? How's Celia doing lately? Hmm... I mean, how's she feeling?"

"It's strangely nice, is it because you're not here?"

"That's such a shame. I've clearly been trying my best to fulfill my responsibilities as a disciple."

"I heard that it's all been Master taking care of you, right? What kind of disciple's responsibility is that?"

"You don't understand. With your short lifespan and my weakness, we don't know when we'll die. Leaving her all alone over there, we have to find a way to teach her to take care of herself, right?"

"...What you said makes a lot of sense, but you're probably just too lazy to do it yourself, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"......"

Ash readily agreed, leaving Frillie standing nearby speechless, while Vlame rubbed her forehead, already feeling a headache and even a pang of heartache for her mentor who had raised her.

But for now, she decided to ignore it for the time being. This guy was just as strange as her master, only strange from a different angle.

He then looked at the crowd and saw the strongest one, Frilian. He watched her move the corpses and began to talk to her.

..........................

The two seemed to have talked about something, but Ash wasn't quite sure what it was, and he wasn't particularly interested.

He simply dug a hole, buried everyone in it, and then sat down to drink the beverage Millie offered him.

"So, what are you going to do next, Millie?" He took a sip of his drink and turned to look at the elf beside him.

"Isn't it appropriate to live a life of doing nothing?"

"...Is this alright?"

"Alright, alright~ I don't want to end up like you."

"Let's be careful. The demons are slaughtering the elves right now. Maybe we should try to learn some magic?"

"Well... um, I'll have to be more careful from now on." Millie, whose personality was lively for an elf but still a little eccentric, smiled as she stood up and waved to Freyren without turning back as she walked towards him: "I'm off now. Hope to see you again sometime~"

"Ah... goodbye."

Despite saying that, they both knew that without making any promises, seeing each other again was probably a pipe dream, after all, the world is so big.

Neither of them mentioned it, and Millie said goodbye to Frillie with a smile.

After burying their companion, the other villagers said their goodbyes and prepared to leave, but before that...

Ash and Frilian left first, accompanied by Vlame, who for some unknown reason had taken Frilian as his apprentice.

"...Speaking of which, Frilian."

As Ash carried Frillie, who seemed to have finished burying the people and had already broken away, on his way, he suddenly looked back as if he remembered something.

Hearing his inexplicably cheerful voice, Frilian, who was lying on top of him, immediately became alert: "What?"

"Now that you've become Vlame's disciple, doesn't that make you my nephew? In that case, you should call me uncle-master, right?"

"...You haven't forgotten that I taught you magic too, have you?"

"Then I'll call you my junior disciple, and you can call me by my name. How about we each address each other?"

"...No matter how I look at it, I'm the one who'll suffer a loss, so I won't do it."

Frillie turned her face away, completely ignoring the guy's proposal.

Vlamé, standing to the side, was holding his forehead with one hand, seemingly unwilling to join in this strange conversation.

But just as Ash was about to hold on a little longer, three cloaked demons suddenly appeared on the side of the road.

They had been hiding themselves, but upon seeing that the three were all mages, they revealed themselves, just like Bazart had done before, and asked them to put down the elves.

"...That's how demons are. Though they're despicable and cunning, they also hold a considerable pride in their worthless magic. They would never resort to sneak attacks on mages and always seek a fair duel..."

While speaking to the two in rather crude language, Vlame removed Frilline from Ash's body, appearing to be surrendering, yet continuing unhurriedly:

"Because when it comes to magic, they are full of confidence and trust in the magic they have studied for so many years—in other words, they have a dog-shit arrogance and a sense of righteousness!"

At the end of his words, Vlamé raised his hand without warning, releasing a golden light.

The hillside not far away was transformed into a crater more than twenty meters in diameter in the burst of light.

But after completing all this, she turned around without any expression of joy or anger and looked at the two of them:

"They are indeed first-rate, outstanding mages, but even the best can lose their lives due to a small oversight... Mages are such an extreme profession; their bodies are much weaker than warriors, and they could be stabbed to death by a child if they are not careful."

"So that's why you've been hiding your magic power all this time?" Ash asked, looking at her burgeoning aura. "But how long have you been hiding it? It can't have been like this all along, can it?"

"That's right, exploiting the opponent's misjudgment of magic, deceiving and killing him, defiling the noble magic... that's my most despicable tactic."

"...No offense, but aren't you being a little strange? You were just talking about bullshit magic, and now you're suddenly talking about noble magic?"

At the end of her words, the sadness in her lowered gaze made Ash realize that she was speaking to herself, not to the vanished demons.

"...I like magic, but I also hate magic."

“Haaa…”

"In any case, let's go back first. After all, we've taken on a disciple, so we should at least tell our master."

Ignoring his dumbfounded expression, Vlame walked ahead on her own.

This left him with a sense of helplessness, but he still carried Frilian on his back again and followed behind.

The only thing they can be thankful for after being attacked repeatedly is that they are going in a different direction than Millie, and the demons are coming from a different direction, so they don't need to worry about the safety of the villagers and Millie.

The Burial of Frilian: A Thousand Years From Now On: Chapter Twenty-Five - What a Proper Disciple Should Be Like

As dawn breaks, a gentle, pale white light appears on the horizon, and a thin mist, like a veil, swirls above the winding river.

The three of them strolled leisurely through the area.

Although Vula said he was going to report to his master, he seemed quite leisurely on the way, as if he were sightseeing, without any sense of being in a hurry.

Along the way, they would stop at a meadow full of flowers to enjoy a moment of peace and beauty, or climb up a boulder to gaze into the distance and take in the surrounding green hills and clear waters.

Sunlight filtered through the treetops, casting dappled shadows. The three's journey felt more like a simple trip than a hurried one.

But during this process, Vlamé was also teaching Frilian, and Ash was also learning from her, which made Vlamé seem a little troubled and had some strange concerns.

In the end, however, she put aside her concerns and the two of them started teaching together.

It took the three of them half a year to slowly cross the border and reach the neighboring country... There was no other way, since they barely walked any steps each day.

However, as they approached the ruins where Seria lived, they came to a flower field next to the ruins and decided to rest for the night before going inside... After all, the inside was definitely not ready, so staying outside was more or less the best option.

This flower field is vast and boundless, like a meticulously woven tapestry spread across the land under the blue sky and white clouds.

Sunlight filtered through the sparse clouds, illuminating the flower field and making it seem like a fairytale world. But... Frillian clearly had no interest in it, stepping squarely onto a flower.

"Speaking of which, why is there such a large flower field here?" Ash casually picked a bunch of flowers and looked at Vlame with a puzzled expression.

"This?" Vlame glanced at the sea of ​​flowers and smiled. "This is a gift I gave to my master before."