Frieren had seen it too without her companions having to point it out.
But she didn't react right away. Instead, her gaze calmly swept over the cage and the "ingredients" on the ground before finally settling on the smiling face of a certain troublesome little girl.
After a long while, she sighed in her emotionless voice:
"Annie..."
"To win, you actually resorted to this kind of..."
"...tactic?"
"Are you planning to catch all the iron-meteor birds and then..."
"Eat them?"
To be honest, Frieren had to admit that this was very much like Annie. This was exactly how she pictured Annie, after all. Only Annie would do something so exasperating and infuriating, yet somehow impossible not to laugh at.
"Oh, my!"
(▽｀)
Annie waved her little hand, unconcerned.
"I didn't catch all of them!"
ヽ(￣▽￣)
"I worked so hard catching them all day, and I only barely managed to catch ten. They're so hard to find!"
(￣▽￣)
She said it as if ten were a tiny number, without the slightest regard for the fact that Frieren's team of three might not have caught a single one all day.
"!!"
At that, the brown-haired young mage couldn't hold back. She stepped forward, pointed at Annie, and scolded her furiously:
"Y-You can't do that! It's so underhanded!"
"How can you catch so many?"
"And then butcher them?"
"That's just awful!"
Then she paused. As if she'd thought of something, a flicker of interest and malice passed through her eyes. She lowered her voice and whispered a suggestion to Frieren beside her:
"Frieren, how about we..."
"...steal one?"
"We've failed so many times today, and there are three or four right here. If we wait, the other team will butcher them!"
They'd already proved through their own efforts that catching iron-meteor birds in