Of the three humanoid species, elves are the rarest and least prolific. Few humans will ever encounter one in their lifetime, so much of what is known about them beyond their long lifespan is their general appearance. Unlike dwarves with their short, powerful bodies and long beards, elves are very similar to humans, save for their pointed ears. Many who have encountered an elf will claim that they have an unearthly, natural, youthful beauty. Those same people, however, will also typically describe an elf’s personality in the same way: cold, distant, detached, disinterested, or unexpressive.
While there is some truth to these claims, as the elves as a species have a hard time understanding and expressing their emotions, that does not mean that elves experience them less frequently. For those few who get to interact with an elf frequently, not only will they get to witness the emotions an elf can express, but they will also pick up on the subtle nuances and shifts that convey emotions they are unable to convey.
However, such intimate familiarity with the golden-haired elf seated in her small throne as she sipped on a cup of tea was unnecessary. The begrudging acceptance on her face was a far cry from the stoic, confident visage she showed to the two apprentices in the room with her. And yet, she said nothing about what had put her in such an uncharacteristic mood.
“Meisterin Serie, are you still bothered by the results of the First-Class Mage Exam?” The sleepy-looking brunette standing to the elf’s left asked with an uneasy expression.
Glancing at the young woman with near floor-length hair, Serie placed her cup onto the saucer she was holding and let out a sigh. As she went to place the saucer on the table next to her throne, she couldn’t quite reach from how she was sitting, but the brunette’s hair flowed on its own to do it for her. “No. As I stated before, the number of talented mages being tested this year was higher than usual, Sense. I am fine with the number that passed.” As she spoke and was no longer left to dwell in her thoughts, Serie’s typical, neutral expression returned. “That Frieren… Not only did she find such a talented mage, she even passed on her ridiculous philosophies to her as well. Of all the spells she could have requested with her privilege.” Rolling her eyes as she remembered how proud of herself the purple-haired young mage looked when she handed her the grimoire her spell, Fürwehrer, generated, she sighed again. “But enough of that. What’s done is done, and there is work to be done.”
“Yes, Meisterin Serie. So, should I call for that adventurer party that has been waiting for the exam to conclude?” Sense asked, using her hair to pick up a small stack of papers. “They’ve already been cleared to enter the dungeon.”
“Dungeon? Why would Meisterin Serie have anything to do with restricting access to a dungeon?” The other woman in the room, a blonde standing to Serie’s right, asked.
“Hmm? Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t know, Methode.” Serie said, looking at her newest apprentice. “I have a dungeon that exists coterminously with my digestive tract inside me. Some of the resources that can be found inside are valuable, so I have to allow adventurers to enter.”
“Not only that, but the dungeon is also connected to Meisterin Serie’s mana and creates pools of stagnation in her mana flow if the resources aren’t gathered periodically.” Sense added with a mix of concern and apprehension. “She may require us to go in and harvest the resources if adventurers fail to clear it, too, so keep that in mind.”
“Really? There is a dungeon in Meisterin Serie’s cute little body? I find that hard to believe.” The older-looking woman said.
“Well, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t believe it. Dungeons forming inside a living body are extremely rare.” Realizing that it was a strange concept to accept at face value, the brunette tried to assure her it wasn’t a lie. “Meisterin Serie is the only one.”
“That’s not true, Sense. There’s one other living dungeon.” Serie said, correcting her apprentice. “Frieren also– ah.” Remembering a piece of history that even she had forgotten, the golden-haired elf paused as a bit of sweat dripped down her brow.
“And so, realizing that Meisterin Frieren would still be close by, you summoned me back, Herrin Serie?” A young, purple-haired girl asked, sitting opposite Serie and two of her apprentices in a private room at a restaurant typically reserved for nobles. On either side of the talented, newly certified First-Class mage were her partymates and travel companions, a young man in red with red and black hair, and a young-looking, silver-haired elf.
As she shifted her gaze from the girl she had summoned back to Äußerst to the one she truly wished to speak to, Serie nodded. “That’s right, Fern. I apologize for misusing my authority as the head of the Continental Magic Association, but had I contacted Frieren directly, she wouldn’t have come back. No, she would have run away.”
“Of course.” Replying in as dry and neutral as Serie explained herself, Frieren all but scoffed at her. “Though saying I’d run away is a bit much. You’re the one who didn’t want to see me for a thousand years. That ban was childish, Serie, so why would I come back just because you asked? And now you force me to come back by using Fern? It was so embarrassing running into Lawine and Kanne after saying goodbye this morning. What could be so important?”
Seeing that the silver-haired elf was going to give her a hard time, Serie narrowed her eyes at her. “Trödelnde Ruhe.”
Hearing the words Serie said, Frieren’s composure stiffened as she suddenly couldn’t maintain eye contact. “Oh…”
“Huh? What’s that? A spell? An item?” While he had been sitting silently, trying not to draw too much attention to himself, the redheaded young man on the opposite side of Fern leaned back to look at Frieren. “Is it important? It’s not dangerous, is it? Tell me it’s not dangerous, Frieren!”
“Quiet, bo–” Raising her hand to cast a spell on the obnoxious young man, Seire stopped as Fern manifested her staff and aimed it at her without hesitation.
Frieren also reacted to Fern’s threatening action as quickly as the golden-haired elf did, raising her hand to the head of Fern’s staff to lower it. Sense then raised her hair, and Methode aimed her wand shortly after.
“Easy, Fern,” Frieren said, though she was smiling proudly at her apprentice.
“Herrin Serie. What spell were you about to cast on Herr Stark?” Fern asked, lowering her staff and sitting back down.
Despite just staring down a staff ready to shoot a spell at her, Serie couldn’t hide the smirk on her face. While she could have reacted to any spell the young mage might have tried to cast, it would have been just that, a reaction. The speed at which Fern readied her spell was far beyond any mage she had encountered in her life. “It’s a spell that reduces a person’s size: Klein. His voice was getting annoying, so I was going to make him be quiet.” She explained.
“You could have just asked!” Stark replied, wrapping his arms around himself defensively and turning away.
“Oh, is that all? My apologies.” Dismissing her staff, Fern bowed politely to the influential mage and held a hand up to her trembling companion. “Please, proceed.”
“What?! Fer–!” Before Stark could say another word, he was enveloped in a flash of light and vanished from his seat and appeared on Serie’s upturned palm, roughly as tall as her index finger.
“Here, Methode. Go take him somewhere while we talk.” Serie said, handing the shrunken warrior to her blonde apprentice.
“Yes, Meisterin Serie~!” More than happy to handle someone so tiny and cute, Methode carefully received the tiny Stark and promptly got up from the table.
As her apprentice left, Serie continued the conversation. “Don’t worry about the boy. Methode has a soft spot for small, cute things.”
“Yes… I’ve noticed.” Puffing out her cheeks, Fern reached over and grabbed Frieren, pulling her into a protective embrace. “Herrin Serie. Could you teach me that spell?”
Raising an eyebrow, the golden-haired elf smirked. “Just the other day, you reject my offer to become my apprentice, yet you’d ask me to teach you a spell?”
“Yes. I would greatly appreciate it.” Without being dissuaded or a hint of shame, Fern nodded and reiterated her request. “I don’t believe two mages need to be master and apprentice to share spells.”
Taken aback by the gall and willfulness of the composed young mage, Serie just looked to Frieren in disbelief. “Quite a cheeky apprentice you have.”
Rather than reply, Frieren beamed a proud smile and puffed out her modest chest.
“That wasn’t… never mind.” Rolling her eyes, Serie let out a weary sigh. “Ask your master to teach it to you, Fern. She knows it too… Assuming she hasn’t forgotten it along with her responsibilities.”
“Alright. Thank you very much, Herrin Serie.” Bowing her head politely to the other elf, Fern turned her attention back to the one in her arms. “Meisterin Frieren, what is this ‘Trödelnde Ruhe’ anyway?”
Visibly reluctant to tell her, Frieren glared at Serie for saying anything about it at all, but sighed. “It’s a special dungeon…”
Cocking her head, Fern’s curiosity was piqued even more. “But you love exploring dungeons. Why do you look so unenthusiastic?”
“Because she can’t enter Trödelnde Ruhe,” Serie said with a smirk. “But she’s supposed to be letting other people enter it on a regular basis. She was exempt from her responsibilities while traveling with the Hero’s party, but she had been wandering around so much before that, Trödelnde Ruhe has become a lost dungeon.”
Sheepishly lowering her head, Frieren didn’t say anything in her defense. She couldn’t.
However, Fern could. “W-Well, couldn’t someone else oversee it? We’re traveling to Aureole.” She asked, unable to see what the problem truly was.
“I said this dungeon is special, Fern. Frieren’s the only one who can oversee it.” Serie insisted, taking great joy in the discomfort the subject was causing the elf in question.
“But… But why? Where is this dungeon? What’s so special about it?” Frustrated, Fern furrowed her brow as she demanded an answer.
“Well, it's a living dungeon, for one.” Sense said, actually moving the conversation along.
“A ‘living dungeon’? I’ve never heard of that before.” Taken aback by the new term, Fern didn’t even know how to interpret it.
“That’s not surprising. Only professional adventurers and dungeon-delving fanatics would be familiar with the term in this era. And there are only two of them.” Serie said, leaning forward and placing a hand over her stomach. “Großartig Zauberbücher Verarbeiten…” Then, pointing to Frieren’s midsection, her grin widened more. “...and Trödelnde Ruhe. Living dungeon is the classification for the dungeons that appeared in my and Frieren’s bodies a thousand years ago.”
Fern took a moment to process what she had just heard, looking from the golden-haired elf to her master, then back to Serie again. Even if she were enjoying it immensely, this wasn’t a topic she thought Serie would joke about, let alone call them back after departing to resume their journey. And seeing Frieren cover her stomach after the claim Serie made didn’t help matters either. She also knew that with Frieren’s love for dungeon exploration, she wouldn’t ignore one she knew about unless she couldn’t enter it. And a dungeon being inside of Frieren’s body would make it impossible for the silver-haired elf herself to explore.
“Meisterin Frieren, Meisterin Frieren?”
“Yes, Fern?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me you had a dungeon inside of you?”
“Because it’s embarrassing…”
After learning about the responsibilities that Frieren had been ignoring for the better part of a century, if not longer, Fern had seated herself on Serie’s side of the table, leaving the silver-haired elf sulking alone. Seeing this turn of events, Serie took great pleasure in Frieren’s comeuppance. And with Fern now taking charge of the conversation, she didn’t have to do or say anything. She was free to sit back and enjoy the show.
“You don’t understand, Fern. Having to shrink and swallow people isn’t the problem.” Frieren argued, trying to win her apprentice back over. “It’s… letting them out after.”
“While I agree that random, rowdy, uncivilized adventurers are unworthy to look at Meister Frieren’s cute rear, you said you wipe their memories after.” However, Fern wasn’t going to give her master any leniency. Unlike normal dungeons, Frieren and Serie’s dungeons would detrimentally affect their health if not cleared out regularly. Though ‘regularly’ was a relative term for immortal beings like elves. “You can’t ignore it forever.”
“But… But… If they don’t come out, that means they got digested…”
Immediately getting up and going back to her original seat, Fern held onto her master again. “Getting to become the flesh and blood of someone as beautiful as Meisterin Frieren is too good for some random adventurers.”
“By the dungeon, not by me.” Though she was happy to get Fern back on her side, the misunderstanding was even more embarrassing. “You don’t understand because you’re not a living dungeon, Fern…”
“And what does it matter? I’m sure the party I had to swallow earlier has been wiped out by now.” While neither of the other two mages at the table could relate to Frieren’s concern, Serie was completely apathetic to the fates of those who entered her dungeon. “Those fools didn’t heed my warning and threw their lives away.”
“Are living dungeons that dangerous?” Fern asked. With Frieren, she could exaggerate based on how unwilling she was to do something, but that didn’t seem to be the case with Serie.
“If I had to give a rough estimate, before the mechanisms of my dungeon were fully understood, the chances of a party surviving to the end of my dungeon were about one to five percent,” Serie answered plainly. Unlike Frieren, there was no sign of displeasure or embarrassment on her face, nor subtle hints of remorse or regret. The golden-haired elf truly didn’t believe she was responsible for the lives lost in her dungeon. “But now, if I need to, I’ll send some of my apprentices in if adventurers haven’t sufficiently collected all the resources inside, isn’t that right, Sense?”
“Please don’t remind me, Meisterin Serie…” Blushing and covering her face with her hair, it wasn’t often for the brunette to show her emotions.
“And it may be because I’ve chosen and trained them personally, but they rarely succumb to my dungeon.” Letting her apprentice off with only slight embarrassment, Serie continued her answer to Fern’s question. “I’m hesitant to adjust the threat rating because of that, since adventurers and my apprentices are on opposite extremes of the spectrum.”
“Must be nice, Serie. I’m pretty sure less than ten percent of the adventurers who enter my dungeon come out.” Sighing as her secret was out now, Frieren had a reflective, blushing expression. “The last ones were Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen, but I fully erased their memories of the experience.”
“That would have been over a century ago. Trödelnde Ruhe must be overflowing with Reminiszenz-Erz and Anonymität Themen, to say nothing about those foolish trinkets and tomes of useless Folk Magic.” Concentrating on Frieren’s mana, it was more difficult for Serie to sense the stagnant pools that the treasures in her dungeon formed due to Frieren’s precision of mana control. But as a living dungeon herself, and one of the Great Mages of history, she could feel that Frieren was close to her saturation point. “If you keep ignoring it, you’ll collapse within another ten or twenty years.”
“Ehhh… Isn’t it fine then?” Nonchalant about her impending health, Frieren brushed off the concern.
“Meisterin Frieren!” Fern, however, was not about to take such a relaxed stance on the matter. “Herr Stark and I… No, I’ll enter your dungeon and clear it for you. Okay?”
“I wouldn’t recommend that, Fern–!?” As she was about to offer her advice, Serie, who still had her focus heightened, paused as she looked at the purple-haired, young mage. Once more, her face lit up as a smile spread across her face. “Sense, get the documents prepared.”
“Documents? Which ones, Meisterin Serie?” The brunette asked as she stood up.
Looking up at the young woman, Serie’s excited smile shifted to a smug smirk. “To register the third living dungeon.”