Frieren kept silent for a while, but her finger moved slightly.
"Above…" she breathed, the word slipping out like a fragment of a spell.
One of the officers heard her. "Above?!"
Before the officer could even raise his head,
the lights died at once, swallowed by a sudden curtain of darkness.
Why didn't I consider this sooner? she wondered, lifting her hands.
"The lights?! The lights?!" the officer cried, panic cracking his voice.
One of them switched on his torch. "They… they're all blown!" another whispered.
The youngest officer swallowed hard, his heartbeat thudding loud enough that even he could feel it. His hand drifted toward his belt—not out of courage, but pure instinct.
Someone's chair scraped sharply against the floor, the sound slicing through the darkness.
In the dark, her mana pulsed once, noticed only by Joe, the officer who had brought her.
Joe's breath caught in his throat. For a moment, he forgot the darkness entirely, fixated only on the faint glimmer he had just witnessed.
He blinked rapidly, desperate to confirm whether he had truly seen it.
"Everyone! Outside, now!" the chief barked, his voice cracking under the pressure.
When everyone stepped out, they breathed heavily.
One of them whispered with a shaky laugh, "Feels like we're in a horror movie…"
"Shut up," another hissed, more to himself than anyone else.
By the time they gathered themselves, Frieren had already gone.
Joe took a hesitant step forward, eyes scanning the empty doorway, the memory of her mana pulse still clinging to his mind.
The chief clapped his hands. "Silence, silence!"
"B-but sir… you're trembling yourself," one of them stammered.
"Silence, all of you!" the chief snapped, his voice cracking at the edges.
Silence filled the place; only the sound of crickets remained.
One officer lit a cigarette with shaking hands, drawing in a long breath as if it were medicine.
"We've got cameras, dogs, and , more importantly , you!" the chief said.
"Go search for that creature right now, before we lose her trail!"
He turned to Joe, who was staring at the ground, confused, Joe flinched at the sound of his own name, pulled harshly back into reality.
"Joe! Call the tech unit!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Joe's throat tightened. He didn't know what scared him more: the creature they were hunting, or the chief's desperate attempt to pretend he wasn't terrified.
Joe hurried toward the comms vehicle, his legs stiff, every shadow suddenly looking alive.
Behind him, the officers whispered among themselves, voices low and uneasy.
The chief rubbed his temples, trying to mask the tremor in his hands.
From afar, perched high above a tree, Frieren watched.
"When it comes to stealth, I doubt anyone surpasses me."
"Besides that… I might have frightened them a little," she whispered, placing her hands over her cheeks, her legs swinging despite her serious gaze.
"If I had used hypnotism… I used that spell all the time when Himmel had sleeping problems.."
"Those strange oil-lights… breaking them was safer than dealing with humans directly. Well, at least…"
Her gaze narrowed as she stared at the police cars departing. "I should be more careful. Humans today are far too jumpy."
Frieren stepped onto the air as if it were a solid surface, pulling her cloak's hood back into place.
The branches below rustled beneath her, stirred by the wake of her floating steps.
She glanced once more toward the road, watching the police lights flicker like dying fireflies.
A faint puff of breath escaped her lips, half a sigh, half amusement, then she placed her hand over her temple, scanning the area. "Hmm… which way now?"
A breeze stirred a few loose leaves, making them dance across the darkened road.
She adjusted her hood slightly, the soft weight grounding her in the moment.
"Ah… I almost forgot , the inn," she murmured.
On the other side of the police building, almost everyone had departed to search.
Joe was standing up when the young officer reached him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
The hand on Joe's shoulder was firm, grounding him in the moment.
"Joe, come here… quietly," the young officer murmured.