Chapter 70

Thirty years after Himmel's death, the party crosses into territory held by the Norm Company, surviving on rock-hard bread since the barren north lacks any real supply chain. They reach a fortified town that serves as the company's headquarters, an armed trading power Frieren describes as the true ruler of the plateau, mightier in practice than any nation. She cautions Fern and Stark against causing trouble with such an influential outfit.

A receptionist recognizes Frieren from a record book and ushers them before Norm, the firm's current head. He demands she settle a debt left unpaid for eighty years. Frieren protests that she was told it could be repaid whenever, but Norm refuses to honor any verbal arrangement his lenient ancestor may have made. She offers the party's entire purse of gold, silver, and copper, even waving off the change, yet he dismisses it as nowhere near enough.

The next scene finds Frieren in miner's gear, condemned to three hundred years of labor with everything she owns seized as collateral. She bids a tearful farewell as guards haul her away, leaving Fern and Stark baffled. Norm tells the pair that buying her freedom is hopeless, since interest has ballooned the sum past five hundred Strahl coins. That night, deep in the dusty shafts, a crew of miners approaches on the president's orders, and a smiling Frieren casts a spell that pinpoints a silver vein for them to dig toward.

A flashback fills in the truth. Norm had come down to the mine himself and listened as Frieren praised his heroic predecessor, the man who invested in dead land, built the plateau's distribution network, and bankrolled the Hero Party expecting nothing back. She had been let down by his successor's coldness, yet suspected a reason behind it.

Norm confessed that renewed demon activity had wrecked the supply routes and destroyed nearly a third of the company's armed caravans and soldiers. A nation in that state would have collapsed, but a company with capital can rebuild endlessly, and Frieren's arrival had given the old promissory note sudden value. Discovering silver in the still-developing mine would generate enough profit to erase the Hero Party's debt outright, so he formally asked her to help restore the network for the plateau's people, promising soft bread would one day reach its farthest corners. Charmed by his merchant's cunning and always meaning to repay his ancestor's kindness, she agreed. The miners strike a massive vein, and by morning Frieren reclaims her belongings just as Fern is plotting a nighttime raid to free her. Norm debuts as the company's president.