Chapter 25

The chapter opens on a memory of the Hero Party leaving the capital with only ten copper coins. Frieren asks whether Himmel's blade is the famed Sword of the Hero, and he admits it is merely a replica a grateful peddler gave him after he slew a bird-like monster. He recounts that a young Heiter once mocked him as a fake hero with a fake sword, which spurred him to vow he would claim the real blade and topple the Demon King.

Twenty-nine years after Himmel's death, the party struggles through the mountains to the Village of the Sword, where a child introduces herself as the forty-ninth chief. She scolds Frieren for breaking a promise made to her grandmother to return within fifty years and resume exterminating the local monsters. Stark explains the legend: the blade, said to be a gift of the Goddess, could be drawn only by the hero destined to end great calamities, and supposedly Himmel did so eighty years ago.

The next day the party culls waves of wolf-like beasts gathering at a cave, and Frieren blasts apart the great Lord of the Mountains that ambushes them. Stark realizes the cave still holds the Sword of the Hero, and Frieren confirms the monsters were drawn by an urge to destroy the warded blade. She reveals that Himmel never pulled it free; a flashback shows him failing, then declaring that being a fake hero is fine so long as he defeats the Demon King. The truth was buried, Frieren explains, by those who wished the hero forever glorified.

The party reaches the Village of the Sword and meets its young forty-ninth chief. Frieren is held to her overdue promise to hunt the area's monsters. The party slays the Lord of the Mountains and clears the beasts massing at the sword's cave. It is revealed that the warded Sword of the Hero remains undrawn, and that Himmel never managed to free it. Frieren affirms Himmel proved himself a true hero regardless.

Himmel's everyday blade is a replica gifted by a peddler he rescued from an eagle-like monster, intended for a future hero. The monsters cannot resist trying to destroy the genuine sword despite the powerful barrier guarding it. The legend that Himmel drew the blade was preserved to keep the hero glorified, gradually obscuring what actually happened. The events unfold in the Schwer Mountains of the Northern Lands.