Chapter 27

Twenty-nine years past Himmel's death, the party travels the Alt Woods, where Frieren encounters a man sunk in a bottomless swamp spinning a sob story about a childhood friend to win her help. She declines to grab his filthy hand, but once Fern arrives she remembers the spell to haul him free. Grateful, the man invites the trio to his village, though they press on toward a larger town, heeding his warning about poisonous creatures.

On the road a snake bites Stark and his nose begins bleeding. Frieren can detect the venom but cannot analyze it, not being a priest, so they return to the village church. The resident priest declares the case hopeless, yet his younger brother, the swamp man named Sein, strolls in, recognizes the party, and cures Stark with a touch. Frieren judges him a rare talent at the Goddess's magic, since his brother wears a Holy Symbol badge granted only to a region's finest priest, the same badge Heiter once bestowed.

The elder brother asks Frieren to take Sein away, believing he is waiting for someone to push him toward the adventurer's life he once craved. Fern and Stark like the idea of a priest in the group, but Frieren hesitates, suspecting she simply dislikes people so much like herself. Stark tries to win Sein over a gambling table and loses everything down to his underwear. Sein dismisses himself as a ruined middle-aged man, and his words mirror Frieren's own past reluctance, which Himmel had answered by telling her to think in the present. She repeats the line, and though Sein wavers, he refuses. Frieren decides she genuinely despises him, which is exactly why she invites him along, a reasoning he cannot follow.

Frieren rescues Sein from the swamp with magic. A snakebite drives the party back to the village, where Sein effortlessly heals Stark. The village priest asks Frieren to take his brother adventuring. Stark loses a recruiting gamble against Sein. Frieren, echoing Himmel's old recruitment of her, invites Sein along despite his refusal, admitting she does so because he resembles her.

Eisen can shrug off venom strong enough to drop a dragon. Fern recalls Heiter's claim that a fifth of adventurers die to poison. The village church bears the same emblem as Kraft's pendant, marking it as the Goddess's symbol. The Holy Symbol badge is awarded by the Holy City only to a region's most accomplished priest. The village chief, as it happens, is who cleaned out both Sein and Stark at poker. The chapter takes place in the Alt Woods.