Rokka no Yuusha - Volume 2 - Chapter Pr

Prologue 
Murder 

Adlet sprinted as fast as he could over the parched earth, which was lined with angular rocks, flattening the sparse, withered grass underfoot. He was in the Ravine of Spitten Blood at the eastern edge of the Howling Vilelands, the peninsula that jutted out from the western edge of the continent and where the Evil God and its fiends resided. It was night. He made his way under the moon with only a luminous jewel affixed to his chest-plate to light his path. 
“Hurry!” he shouted to the three lights behind him: Fremy, Chamo, and Goldof. 
The boy breathed heavily. His heart pounded, his lips trembled, and his feet wouldn’t move as he willed them—and not from exhaustion. It was because of the nightmare unfolding before him. 
“Hans! Rolonia! Where are you?!” he called. 
There was no reply from the darkness. 
“Are you dead?! Hans! Rolonia! Answer me!” He leaped onto the rock face before him, wedged his hands and feet into the minute crevices in the wall, and clambered up the cliff in a flash. 
As he ascended, he glanced inadvertently at the back of his hand. There, the Crest of the Six Flowers—the proof that he was one of the Braves destined to save the world—glowed faintly. 
One of the flower’s six petals was missing. One of the Braves was dead. 
“Hans!” Adlet kicked off the cliff and sprang up to land at the top of the precipice, drawing his sword and taking a defensive stance. What he saw next, illuminated by the light of his jewel, left him speechless. 
Hans Humpty—the strange assassin who fought like a cat, who bore the Crest of the Six Flowers—lay faceup on the ground. The carotid artery in his neck was slashed open, his blood splattered on the dry earth in a grotesque constellation. All color had drained from his face. 
“Hans…” The sword began slipping from Adlet’s hands. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Adlet’s confidence in Hans’s amazing physical abilities and the sharpness of his wits had been absolute. 
“You’re too late, Adlet.” The remark came from a woman who stood a little ways away from Hans. Her back turned, Mora Chester spoke quietly. 
“Hans…it couldn’t be…,” whispered Adlet. 
Fremy and Goldof clambered up the cliff after their comrade. The three aimed their weapons at Mora. 
“There’s no need to explain the situation, I’m sure. I’ve just killed Hans,” Mora said, turning. Her face, chest, and iron-gauntleted hands were drenched in blood. Her armor was cracked open in various places. An ordinary human would already have been dead with such wounds. 
“Mora…you…,” Adlet began. 
“Exactly so. I am the seventh.” Dispirited and exhausted, she raised both her hands in the air and then quietly dropped to her knees, weakly hanging her head. No one said a thing after that, and silence alone reigned. 
Mora was on her knees. Adlet stood mutely with Fremy, Chamo, and Goldof behind him. The last person among them who bore the Crest of the Six Flowers was sitting by Hans. 
“…Rolonia.” 
Adlet called out to her—Rolonia Manchetta, the Saint of Spilled Blood. Her power was manipulating blood, and she was also the eighth person to have appeared bearing the Crest of the Six Flowers. She had a round face and wore glasses. Her expression was timid, her body petite, and her appearance made no suggestion that she was a powerful warrior. Had she not been wearing a full set of heavy armor and carrying a long whip at her waist, she could have been mistaken for some village girl. 

Rolonia’s palms, pressed to Hans’s chest and throat, glowed faintly. 
“Why did Hans lose?” Adlet asked. 
The girl did not reply. Her attention was focused only on Hans. 
“Answer me, Rolonia! Why is Hans dead? What happened?!” 
Adlet realized that Rolonia was muttering to herself. He leaned in to hear the stream of words falling from her lips with every breath. “I won’t let you die…I won’t let you die…I will …save you…” 
As the Saint of Spilled Blood, Rolonia could control blood to treat wounds. Adlet decided not to interrupt and instead touched Hans’s wrist. He felt no pulse under the cooling skin. It’s no use, Rolonia , he thought. There was hardly any blood left in the man’s body. His heart had stopped. He was already dead. 
“What’s the meaning of this, Rolonia? Hans is dead, and you’re not even scratched,” accused Adlet. Why hadn’t Rolonia fought Mora, the seventh? And the even greater question was why the traitor hadn’t attacked Rolonia while she was defenseless. 
Rolonia was desperately intent on trying to save Hans—blind to what was going on around her. 
“You were with him. What were you doing?” Fremy asked her. 
But the healer wasn’t listening to her, either. “I’ll save you… I will save you. If I don’t…” Only her muttering reached Adlet’s ears. 
Chamo ambled toward Mora at her usual lazy, seemingly apathetic pace, wearing a carefree smile, as if she wasn’t the slightest bit concerned that Hans was gone. “Aw, so the catboy’s dead now? That’s too bad.” Chamo looked down at where Mora knelt and said, “Chamo really liked him. He was cute, and strong, and he talked funny. At first, Chamo hated him after he won that fight, though. But then traveling with him got kinda fun.” Chamo clenched a fist and whacked Mora in the face. Mora’s head rocked only slightly in response to the tiny blow. “You’re not gonna get away with this. You’re gonna die. And it won’t be pretty!” 
Mora averted her eyes from the enraged Chamo. “It matters not to me if you kill me. I am prepared.” 
“Ohh? So you’re all ready, huh, Auntie? That’s a big disappointment.” 
“But first,” said Mora, “allow me the time to tell you the truth.” 
Chamo raised her fist once more, but Fremy grabbed her hand. “Talk, Mora. And make it as brief as possible. Once you’re done, you die.” Fremy’s eyes also radiated quiet anger. 
Still hanging her head, Mora began. “This was not my desire. I did not wish to kill Hans. Not him, not anyone.” 
“What did you say?” 
“There was nothing for it but to kill him. Every avenue aside from his murder was closed to me.” A single teardrop fell from her eye. “I wanted to protect the world. I wanted to defeat the fiends alongside you, to stop the revival of the Evil God.” 
“Who could believe that?” spat Chamo. 
Adlet disagreed. Mora wasn’t lying. He was convinced she was sincere. 
“Up until just yesterday—no, up until one hour ago—I had every intention of doing just that.”