Fun! Author maintaining a very different feel from a lot of other series, subtly subverting typical decisions. Stark "I know what we have to do... is go find our party leader", no prideful monologuing just sneak attacks, probing for intel, etc. Good stuff. Not lingering too long either with any drawn out chase stuff or the like, 2-4 more chapters to wrap it up probably.
@Deathhappens
Yeah but the greater half of his life is twice the sum of yours and- oh, who am I kidding, of course she'll survive.
Eh, this was covered a bit back in ch5 vs Qual. Demons and Elves live a ton longer (forever outside of being killed?), but humanity may grow/adapt faster in some cases. And going by the hero party, humanity also can produce outliers many standard deviations above the norm. I don't think it's necessarily weird that >half of Fern's life, with Frieren as the tutor, might add up to more given she was apparently unusual from the start.
@Red225
Why is she even talking to the demon? Everything that comes out of their mouths are falsehoods anyway, and they only sometimes slip up and give away information without meaning to.
Fern doesn't have that internalized to quite the same degree, but also seems clear she's just buying time, looking for openings and preparing herself. If she's right in her assessment that the demon doesn't see her as a real threat that's not a bad strategy to exploit.