Both Frieren and the village chief reminded me something my grandma often said: "the devil isn't wise because he's the devil, but because he's old". Specially Frieren - it's almost like she knew that something was wrong with the village chief, right off the bat. Everything else was just confirming it.
higher ups forgetting to inform their agents that mission was canceled
It isn't exactly the same, but that idea reminded me of an episode of Kino's Journey that I really liked. It was a kind of parable almost that didn't take up the whole episode, but it is similar. It is from the 2003 version of the anime (episode 5), but it wasn't adapted in the 2017 version; Three Men on the Rails.
I agree with you that neither of the scenarios you laid out seem the most interesting, but I am struggling to come up with a plausible third path. I am also curious to know how/why Frieren ended up on the assassination target list. Didn't she help save these Northern Lands from the demon king? Perhaps her/HImmel's popularity was seen as a threat at one point in time?
I actually thought about something similar after my previous post - maybe the old/current regime started losing power and thought they could prop themselves up by eliminating popular/potentially influential people.
I wonder if this will expand into a bigger arc about empire being in a bad shape politically or if this will be just another side adventure.
So, I went back through this chapter a second time to see what foreshadowing I may have missed about the village chief, and there is the obvious entire panel they devoted to Frieren staring at his hand when they are shaking. But, there is also this panel in which Frieren is asking if he tends to the fields. I suspect this is her trying to figure out if his hardened hands might be due to fieldwork rather than "field"work. There are also a couple panels of Frieren keeping a close eye on him as they are doing their thing around the village.
I wonder if he played things off that he still worked the fields if Frieren might not have raised her guard so much as to post Stark on watch. Looking forward to the next chapter.
I may be reading a little too much into this but I feel like the Frieren was a bit wary of him from the beginning. This face reads to me less like her usual curiosity/nonchalance and more like she's trying to figure him out:
I might also be thinking that because I'm checking the chapter again after learning about his secret so...