Chapter 97

While Denken trades blows with Macht elsewhere, Fern and Stark keep pressing Solitar despite mounting wounds. The demon parries them with ease, chatting all the while about her fascination with human lives, families, and last words, subjects her own kind never knows. Fern lands a high-speed Zoltraak variant on Solitar's arm, then a homing barrage, yet the demon's overwhelming mana leaves her nearly untouched. Solitar answers with Mana Strike, a plain but potent magic, before Macht's Diagoldze sweeps over the pair and seals them in gold.

Denken, learning that Macht can fight for days even under Mistilziela, races to spare Frieren from the spreading gold. Solitar cuts him off, and rather than be struck he drops his own spell and lets the gold take him, apologizing to Frieren's group as he hardens. With the forest turned to metal, Solitar muses to Macht about residual mana she found at Aura's defeat, evidence that Frieren had quietly studied and unraveled a Sage's magic. Frieren then wakes, dispels the transmutation, and declares Diagoldze no longer a curse.

Solitar admits she has never met magic like Fern's rapid Zoltraak and thanks the young mage for the chance to witness it. Fern discovers that thickening the density of her power lets her shots reach the demon, grazing her shoulder, which earns Solitar's open admiration for her aim, speed, and composure. The exchange ends abruptly when Macht's gold reaches both humans. Solitar voices her boredom afterward, and Macht reminds her that tedium is simply their daily lot.

Their talk turns to Frieren. Solitar recounts finding mana traces at the site where Frieren felled Aura, proof that Frieren had dispelled Auserlese after watching Aura's magic across the eighty years since the Hero Party first faced her. Macht doubts a human could decode a Sage's spell, but Solitar argues that something need not be understood to be undone, comparing it to people who built boats and sails long before grasping buoyancy or wind. Realizing his own memories are being read, Macht wonders how many times he has cast Diagoldze over the past century, and Solitar names their true enemy as Frieren the Slayer.

A memory carries Frieren back to the Hero Party trapped inside a barrier raised by the immortal Bose, who likewise ranked among the Seven Sages of Destruction. Frieren calls escape impossible, drawing a distinction between surrendering and being unable to picture a spell. She likens it to crushing a walnut by hand versus a diamond, a feat she cannot visualize though Eisen claims he could. Himmel rises, chips the barrier with his sword to prove it is not truly unbreakable, and Heiter promises a spell that would sustain all of them for two whole months without air, food, or water, leading Frieren to joke that her companions are nothing but monsters.

Titled Observation, the chapter was written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Abe Tsukasa within The Golden Land arc. The action stays within the Fortress City of Weise, now remade into the Golden Land, and splits across two parallel battles: Fern and Stark against Solitar, and Denken against Macht. Spells in play include Zoltraak, Mistilziela, Diagoldze, and the negation magic Frieren uses to break it. By the close, her analysis of Macht's memories is complete and the gold curse loses its hold.