Chapter 138 of “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End” came out on Tuesday, November 19th. The chapter is the latest part of the foundation festival arc in which Frieren, Fern and Stark team up with four of the Continental Magic Association’s first-class mages in order to protect Serie after a threat to her life was discovered. The most recent chapter is called “Traitor” and gives more information about the shadow warriors that the party has been facing against so far.
I actually like how this chapter starts with Serie reminiscing about Flamme and how she is the only one who remembers what she was like as a child, how she’s the only one who remembers Flamme’s smile, or how she longed for something out of a fairytale. I think it adds more onto Serie’s character and the themes of the story. It shows that Serie just like Frieren is dealing with her own type of grief around losing her apprentices. I think the best line to represent this is when she says to Falsch, “What a strange feeling. I’m the only one left in the world who remembers that.” I think this entire scene works well in expanding upon Serie and drawing ties between her and Frieren. They both are partially immortal and are dense towards humans and their emotions, but at the same time can not understand their grief around those they have lost. They just have different ways of expressing it. This scene just makes Serie even more conflicting, the elf that declares she doesn’t care for humans, yet remembers her apprentice’s favorite spells and feels something at the fact she is the only one who remembers a young Flamme and her love of magic, her smile.
The Shadow Warriors were the main focus of this chapter as we learn more about who they are and how they work. The Shadow Warriors are an elite group of warriors who used to work under the empire until they were disbanded 16 years ago and no longer work for the empire. The most interesting part is that the reason for their disbanding by the previous emperor is the reason that they were so strong in the first place. They were disbanded due to their lack of control that was had over them. But they continue on with what they do due to the belief that the empire will be worse off without them.
At the end of the chapter, we get to see a list of the shadow warriors which includes someone that looks like Gorilla, which if he was one it would fit into the naming scheme of some of the Shadow Warriors, like Wolf and Gazelle. Along with that when the shadow warriors first met up when they got their order from Lord Lӧwe they were missing one member. So from all of the connections and Stein’s reaction, I think that the final Shadow Warrior is Gorilla, and I’m curious to see what happens when he and Stein meet once again.
