Chapter 42

Stunned that Fern can erase her presence completely, Wirbel assumes she captured the Stille. Übel, still bound, admits they only got lucky by stumbling onto the bird's nest and snaring it with Fern's bird-catching spell. When Wirbel asks after Ehre, Fern coolly states that she no longer exists. Since every member of a party must remain standing to advance, the captain accepts the loss, releases Übel, and turns to leave, warning her that firing on his back would force him to make her death a necessity.

Land's separate struggle with Scharf looks lost, his guard shattered and his body wounded, until he reveals that the figure trading blows was a duplicate he had run since the trial began. The real Land steps out behind Scharf and drops him in an instant. Elsewhere, Wirbel rouses an unconscious Ehre and grasps that Fern deceived him; the scorched ruin of the surrounding forest convinces him she truly won with plain offensive spells alone. Unable to walk, Ehre demands a piggyback, and he hauls both her and the equally immobile Scharf across the grounds.

As rain begins to fall, Wirbel reflects on what drives him. He claims people fight to feed their own wants, and confesses that his own began with a girl he adored as a small child. Roughly twenty-nine years earlier, a surge of demon attacks drove her family from the Northern Lands toward the Central region, and he vowed to wipe out every demon so she would come back. He no longer recalls her face or name. By sheer chance the group spots a Stille resting in a tree, and Wirbel snares it with Sorganeil, grumbling at how absurdly late the luck arrived. Far away, Laufen vanishes faster than the eye can follow and lifts the Stille from Frieren's party in a blink, leaving them to puzzle out where she went.

The Fourth Party holds onto its Stille, while the Eighth Party secures one of its own only after being knocked out of contention. Land subdues Scharf by revealing his long-running clone. Fern's bluff about killing Ehre forces Wirbel to forfeit the match. The Thirteenth Party, through Laufen, robs the Second Party of its captured bird, opening a fresh front in the exam.

Titled A Reason to Fight, or Tatakau riyū, the chapter debuted on March 17, 2021 in that year's sixteenth issue and runs eighteen pages within volume five. It sits in the first stage of the First-Class Mage Exam Arc and was adapted as part of the anime's twentieth episode. The installment underlines Übel's talent for reading people, since she spots Fern's lie to Wirbel at once.