"This is normal. If I encountered such a funny thing, I wouldn't want to tell others so soon either... Right? Frieren."
Fíliya stood up clutching her stomach, finally having recovered her breath, and then looked directly at Frieren, who was walking towards them.
"You... know Milliarde?"
Frieren asked with some surprise. After all, Milliarde was an Elf, and even she had only stayed with Milliarde for a very short time... Yet looking at Fíliya's reaction, it seemed this fellow was even more familiar with Milliarde than she was.
This fellow couldn't possibly have met Milliarde... Frieren thought to herself.
"Mn, of course I know her. Even if I die, I'd have to recall that name once before I'd be willing to breathe my last... However, she definitely doesn't know me."
Fíliya replied with a light chuckle. This reaction made Frieren even more curious, so she immediately pressed Fíliya about where she knew the other party from.
"Heh heh, Frieren, you fellow, you're only interested in grimoires, right? I'm different from you. Besides grimoires, I also like reading ancient classics and historical biographies. This fellow's deeds often appear in legends, and according to my research, most of these legends are actually true."
"So, what kind of legends?"
Almost in unison, the four people present shouted this sentence. The sources were Fern, Stark, Fass, and Aura.
Seeing everyone gathering around her, each with a face full of curiosity, Fíliya also suddenly became interested and began to recount the story of Milliarde in detail.
"According to legend, Milliarde was a very headache-inducing fellow, and could be considered an oddball even among the Elf race.
"Her favorite thing to do was to deceive and fool future generations... For example, she once built a giant dungeon, and then wrote on the inscription at the dungeon entrance something like 'In the depths of the dungeon lies a treasure sufficient to change the world'—boastful, long-winded words like that. Then she sealed the dungeon with extremely complex Barrier Magic, just like now."
As Fíliya spoke, she pointed to the seal not far away.
"After humans spent decades cracking the barrier, and then sent large numbers of elite adventurer parties deep into the dungeon to explore, clearing out the monsters and traps entrenched inside, they only found a weathered, tattered scroll... Guess what was written on it?"
Fíliya said this much, then looked around at everyone with an enigmatic expression.
"Could it be some powerful magic?"
"Wrong!"
Fíliya hurriedly extended a finger and wagged it at everyone, then continued to add.
"That tattered scroll had 'A treasure sufficient to change the world' written on it."
Hearing Fíliya say this, everyone except Frieren and Solitär widened their eyes, yet couldn't squeeze out a single word. It seemed no one could imagine that an Elf would actually go to such lengths just to fool future generations.
"There's more. Milliarde did plenty of things. For instance... she once used powerful Barrier Magic to seal a cave, and then wrote an inscription saying that sealed inside was a legendary staff she made from a branch snapped off the 'Top of the World Tree'. Such words naturally attracted countless mages wanting to fight for the treasure. But after they spent countless efforts analyzing the barrier, and even sparked continuous conflicts... what they obtained from the barrier was just a... genuine rotten tree branch."
"And also... the legend of the 'Sword of Salvation'..."
"'The Spell of Eternal Life'..."
Next, Fíliya told everyone several more legends about Milliarde in succession. Of course, none of them were true; everything was a hoax fabricated by Milliarde.
"...Strange. If that's the case, why would those people still believe this 'Milliarde's' words? Humans should remember her after being fooled a few times, right?"
The first to raise a question was Stark.
"Because these lies weren't woven by her all at once; there were time spans of several hundred years in between. You know, humans never learn lessons from history. Moreover, under the erosion of time, no matter if the people at the time hated Milliarde's guts, just give it a few decades and humans will pretty much forget her. They can only see records of her in some ancient texts."
"Besides, this fellow's barriers are truly capable of bluffing people. When ordinary people see this kind of extremely complex barrier that requires great trouble to crack, they couldn't possibly imagine that someone would be so bored, right?"
"She even deliberately used the Ancient Elven Language to write the inscriptions, knowing that the more obscure and difficult the language, the more humans are willing to believe the records on it... She really understood them through and through."
"...So this Lady Milliarde is just a bad-natured fellow who likes fooling future generations? I didn't expect there to be such people among Elves. I thought at most they would just cause a little trouble like Mistress Frieren."
Fern said, glancing at her family's white-haired twintail.
"Bad-natured... that's not quite accurate. Although we've never met, I feel this fellow should be the type who is very 'nihilistic'."
Fíliya held her chin with one hand and looked around the circle, as if she were truly a teacher lecturing everyone.
"Nihilistic?"
Aura blinked blankly, seeming unable to quite understand the meaning.
"Mn, it's that kind of fellow who feels survival has no meaning, living has no meaning, death has no meaning... everything is meaningless."
Fíliya explained slightly to Aura.
"Hah? How can there be such a person? Living is very meaningful, okay! As long as one can cling to life, as long as there is still stuff to eat, it is ultimately still very happy... Death is when you truly have nothing."
Aura immediately used her own will to oppose the nihilism.
"If everyone could think like you, they could indeed live very happily."
Fíliya looked at Aura's appearance and immediately revealed a smile.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
"Mn, let's not discuss right or wrong for now; that's not the point."
Fíliya directly ignored her, then continued speaking.
"She probably gradually lost interest in all things. But for a long-lived species, once they fall into this state of nihilism, their mind will collapse very quickly... So she began to semi-compulsively immerse herself in certain things, trying to give a little meaning to her actions... Mn, the first time might have been some coincidence—she unintentionally deceived someone, or perhaps she was deceived by something—and thus finally discovered that this kind of fleeting joy or anger was the only thing that could evoke her emotional fluctuations... So she began to constantly replicate this process... In layman's terms, she's just endlessly looking for amusement."
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