Memory

"I have an idea."

Frieren suddenly made a suggestion.

"Breda should be somewhere in the central region. If it comes to it, we can search every inch of land. We're sure to find his hiding place eventually."

It did sound like a foolproof plan. As long as they searched a wide enough area and spent enough time, they could probably turn up not just a monster, but even a needle lost who knew where.

"How long would that take?"

For some reason, Fern had a bad feeling about this.

"Not long. About a hundred-odd years."

Frieren tilted her head and spent a moment doing the math.

It really was a solution that called for patience. They would probably die of old age halfway through, long before they found him.

Spending their lives chasing a monster was a touching endeavor best left to someone else.

"Let's think of a plan we can complete within a normal human lifespan."

Fern rejected the suggestion without a change of expression.

Zanze showed little surprise at Frieren's "hundred-year plan." She simply picked up her teacup and took a calm sip, as if she had expected the elf to say something like that.

As expected of a First-Class True Magic User, perhaps. She really was well-informed. Then again, after so many years at Serie's side, she was probably long accustomed to elves' sense of time.

"I have another idea."

After her suggestion was rejected without hesitation, Frieren made a new one without batting an eye.

"We could search that Windwing Dragon's memories. It should have seen Breda with its own eyes before it was controlled, so we should be able to find quite a few clues."

This sounded far more promising than spending a hundred-odd years digging through every inch of the land.

"Do dead monsters still retain their memories?"

Fern asked, puzzled.

"Strictly speaking, they aren't really memories."

Frieren explained.

"Things that monsters with powerful mana experienced while alive sometimes linger in their brains and nerves as traces of mana. Using special true magic or tools, you can extract some of the stronger memories from their remains."

"Can you see everything they experienced?"

"No, you can only see very fragmented images, and the more time that passes, the less remains."

So that was how it worked. They had thought they could extract a monster's memories from its DNA and connect to them through some kind of device, letting them personally experience a thrilling adventure. Apparently, they had imagined far too much.

"I didn't know you could use that kind of true magic too, Lady Frieren."

Fern praised Frieren. Extracting memories sounded quite difficult, after all, and even if one could only see a few fragmented images, it was probably a very rare kind of true magic.

"Actually, I can't."

"...Huh?"

"But I bought a magic tool at the Saint Lomiu Festival this year."

"From a stall at the Saint Lomiu Festival? It isn't something of dubious origin, is it?"

Lorenzo looked at her with open suspicion.

Stalls at festival markets usually sold all sorts of strange things. There were certainly some genuinely useful magic tools among them, but more often they were oddities of unknown origin and purpose, ones even the stall owners themselves didn't know how to use.

"Of course not. The stall owner said it was a valuable magic tool unearthed from ancient ruins, and I've seen something like it before."

"What kind of tool is it?"

Zanze asked curiously as well. In all her years, this was the first time she had heard of a magic tool that could view a Demon's memories.

Frieren began rummaging through her "magic little suitcase" again and finally took out a long, chip-like object.

"This. It's called a 'Memory Chip.'"

Frieren placed it on the table.

The Memory Chip was about half a finger long and translucent pale blue throughout. Inside it were countless silver lines as fine as nerves. One end was perfectly flat, while the other gradually tapered to a needle-like point.

"You just have to insert it into an important part of the monster's body, and it can recreate fragments of its life in the user's mind."

"What do you mean by an important part of the body?"

Fern asked.

"The brain, the heart, or the organ that stores mana. The closer the insertion point is to where the memories remain, the clearer the images will be."

Frieren picked up the Memory Chip and gave it a gentle twirl between her fingers.

"But the Windwing Dragon's brain probably doesn't exist anymore, does it?"

Lorenzo said. When they defeated the Windwing Dragon, he had deliberately increased the power of the arrow he shot into its head to ensure it was dead. Its brain had long since been reduced to literal "mush."

"Don't we still have its eye?"

Frieren said to Lorenzo, evidently remembering his particularly bizarre-looking Mystic Code.

"Can eyes store memories too?"

"They can't store complete memories, but they can retain some of the Windwing Dragon's residual visual impressions."

That sounded reasonable enough.

"Then are there any side effects to reading the memories?"

Heiter voiced some concerns. As a priest, he understood the risks of reading memories better than anyone else present. Forcing experiences that belonged to another life into one's own consciousness was not as simple as looking at a painting. If it was handled poorly, the mildest consequence was mental confusion; in severe cases, one might even become unable to distinguish which memories were truly one's own.

"In my case, no."

Frieren gave a little huff, looking quite confident.

"At worst, using this kind of Memory Chip makes you dizzy for a while. For me, that doesn't count as a particularly serious side effect at all."

"In that case, let's begin."

Lorenzo took out the Mystic Eyes Cloak. The eye on it was still blinking, seemingly unaware of what was about to happen to it.

"Wow, what an ugly cloak."

Fern gave her merciless assessment.

It was her first time seeing the Mystic Code.

Out of concern for the physical and mental well-being of a minor, Lorenzo had never taken the Mystic Eyes Cloak out before. Now it seemed that had indeed been the right decision: the first time Fern saw it, she was already looking at it with obvious distaste.

Frieren approached with the Memory Chip, and the eye seemed to finally sense danger, desperately turning away.

Unfortunately, its struggles were entirely futile. Frieren located the point where the eyeball joined the Mystic Code and drove the sharp end of the Memory Chip straight into it. With a faint fluctuation of mana, the silver lines inside the Memory Chip lit up one by one.

It looked painful.

"I'm starting."