Chapter 81: The Golden Land

Thirty years on from Himmel's death, Frieren and her companions travel through the Weise Region high on the Northern Plateau, where a quiet, off-the-books job reaches them from Lernen, a mage of the first class. Her first instinct is refusal, since unsanctioned work invites trouble and she makes no secret of disliking the man, who Stark remembers once struck at her without cause and left her shoulder hurt. A grimoire listed among the rewards changes her mind.

The group reaches the Golden Land, a vast sweep of gold sealed behind a strong anti-perception barrier. Half a century earlier its maker, the Sage of Destruction Macht, had turned the fortress city of Weise, its walls and its citizens alike, entirely to gold; the Continental Magic Association answered by ringing the place in a barrier meant to hold him there until age claims him. Because his power still seeps outward season by season, each year's appointed keeper has to push the barrier wider, a duty unbroken for fifty years.

The keeper turns out to be Denken, who took the post from Serie on making first-class rank, his own northern village having vanished beneath the gold some years back. He intends to fight Macht and undo it all, a plan Frieren rejects outright: Macht sits among the eleven mages ever to defeat her, and victory still lies past what she can picture, so she calls it wiser to let the seal outlast him. Denken concedes he once thought the same, yet, returning to a hometown untouched by time and standing again at his late wife's grave, he grasps that he has only been fleeing his past. The confession stirs Frieren's own memory of Himmel, who once told her there is no shame in holding onto happier days, and she agrees to help him find his slim opening.

A grimoire persuades Frieren to take Lernen's job, leading the party to the gold-drowned ruins of Weise. They discover Denken keeping the seal that has held Macht for fifty years, and learn he aims to break the Sage's curse over his lost hometown. Frieren, who counts Macht among the eleven to have bested her, first declines any part in it, then relents after Himmel surfaces in her thoughts and pledges to help Denken reach for a win.

The events sit thirty years past Himmel's death and frame Macht of the Golden Land as one figure within a dreaded circle, the Seven Sages of Destruction. They likewise confirm that a mere eleven mages have ever bested Frieren in combat, Macht among them.