Rokka no Yuusha - Volume 3 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 
The Blade Gem 

Three days earlier, at the Bud of Eternity, Adlet had asked his allies a question. 
“Hey, after I passed out in the Phantasmal Barrier, what the heck happened?” 
After the battle, Adlet, badly wounded, had immediately fallen unconscious. He functionally had no recollection of what had happened between that time and when he had woken up the next morning. 
The group had retold in turns to Adlet and Rolonia the events of that night. Hans, Mora, Chamo, and Goldof had followed Nashetania. She had run all over the area, evading their pursuit the entire night. Immediately after being revealed as the impostor, she had deactivated the Phantasmal Barrier, but Mora said that it had remained in effect until the mist dispersed. 
Hans and Chamo explained that they’d wounded Nashetania more than once, and a few times they had even been certain they’d finished her off. But still, she had gotten away. 
“Nashetania uses some kinda weird power. You think you’ve got her, and then she’ll disappear just like that. Chamo thought she was dead, but then there was nobody,” said Chamo. 
“I’ve seen that power, too,” said Adlet. He remembered that after Nashetania had been exposed, Mora had smashed her head in. But then she’d immediately disappeared, and the real Nashetania appeared far away. It really was a mysterious ability, and not one that normally belonged to the Saint of Blades. 
“I don’t know how, but it seems Nashetania has the powers of a fiend. I think that’s a stealth-fiend’s ability,” said Fremy. 
A stealth-fiend. Adlet had never heard of that type, and he had studied at the foot of the fiend specialist, Atreau Spiker. He was not unfamiliar with the enemy’s abilities and biology. 
“Stealth types are incredibly rare,” explained Fremy. “I doubt there are more than five among all the fiends in existence. I’ve only heard of them—I’ve never actually seen one in person.” 
“So what is this power?” asked Adlet. 
“In a word, it’s like hypnosis.” Fremy explained that stealth-fiends released a vapor from their bodies that drugged their enemies while simultaneously emitting a unique sound wave. Inhaling the drug and hearing the sound would addle your perceptions, blinding you to the stealth-fiend’s presence. She then pointed out that Nashetania’s powers were unique even among stealth-fiends, since she could make you hallucinate her presence. 
“…That’s an incredible power.” Adlet broke into a cold sweat. If Nashetania were to approach them in stealth and catch them by surprise, they wouldn’t stand a chance. 
But Hans smiled and waved away Adlet’s worries. “Meow-hee. From what I can see, it’s not that meowerful.” 
“What do you mean?” asked Adlet. 
“I’ve seen the princess’s stealth power a few times. She can probably hide herself for ten seconds at meowst. What’s more, once she’s used it, she can’t use it again for another five minutes. And this is just a guess, but…I think she can only use that stealth ability when she’s runnin’ away.” 
Fremy’s eyes widened. “Quite the astute analysis. That’s basically it.” She supplemented Hans’s explanation, clarifying that the stealth ability was exhausting and it was not possible to attack while using it. At most, Nashetania could only run. This was true of all stealth-fiends. 
“Now that you mention it,” said Adlet, “my master said that there were a handful of fiends out there that could use hypnotism. But he also said the effects were only momentary.” 
“…I’ve been wondering for a while,” said Fremy, “who is this Atreau Spiker? How did he come to know so much about fiend biology?” 
“I dunno. I asked him plenty of times, but he wouldn’t tell me anything,” Adlet replied, and Fremy lowered her eyes in thought. 
“Atreau Spiker isn’t important. What is important is: Is there a way to trump this skill?” Mora asked. 
Fremy replied, “When a stealth-fiend uses their power, they’re surrounded by a sweet scent. You should be able to tell if the ability is active based on the smell.” 
“So if she does use her power, what should we do?” asked Adlet. 
“You can break the hypnosis by focusing your senses, staring hard, and causing yourself pain. A good bite to your tongue should be enough. That’s how you can beat it.” 
“All right. So if you smell something funny, stare hard and bite your tongue.” 
“That’s right.” 
I’m really glad she’s with us, thought Adlet. Nashetania’s stealth ability wasn’t that formidable. But still, if they’d had to fight her without knowing how her powers worked, it could have spelled disaster. But as with any ability, once you knew the trick to it, it wasn’t anything to be afraid of. 
The moment Nashetania was done greeting them, there was a gunshot. A blade sprouted from the ground to deflect Fremy’s bullet, and it ricocheted away. 
“You’re quite the violent person, aren’t you, Fremy?” Nashetania said. After blocking the shot, she calmly jumped down from her perch atop the dead fiend. Fremy was reloading, but Adlet stopped her. 
“Is that…Nashetania?” Rolonia asked from behind him. 
“Nice to meet you. So you’re Rolonia? I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other.” Nashetania put a hand on her chest and bowed, and Rolonia lowered her head in return. 
“What happened to Goldof?” Adlet asked. 
Nashetania pointed south. “He’s about two kilometers that way. Once he’s finished a little errand there, I think he’ll come back here.” 
“And what is this little errand?” Adlet asked. 
“That’s a secret.” Nashetania put her finger mischievously to her lips, acting just like she had back when Adlet had first met her in his jail cell. 
Adlet glanced at the back of his hand. All six of the flower petals were there. If Goldof was a real Brave, then at the very least, he wasn’t dead. If he was the seventh, that was another story, though. “Did you use him to lure us out here?” 
“Heavens, no. I just wanted him to help me out with something. I didn’t imagine that all of you would come running after him,” Nashetania said. 
She was clearly lying, and Adlet was certain this was a trap. Obviously, Nashetania was about to pull something. Adlet eyed their surroundings in an attempt to figure out her ploy. “How did you ask him to come help you?” he probed. 
“Our hearts are connected. I don’t have to tell him anything. All I have to do is wish for it, and he’ll come to me from anywhere.” 
“What’re you talking about? You betrayed him.” Chamo’s accusation didn’t seem to bother Nashetania. 
“Is Goldof the seventh?” Adlet asked. 
“How cruel of you to say that, Adlet,” Nashetania said. “To suspect my dear Goldof! He’s a genuine Brave of the Six Flowers. And this guarantee is coming from me, so there’s no question about it.” 
Did she show up here just to tease us? Her nonchalant attitude was getting under his skin. “By the way, we’re going to kill you now.” 
“Oh dear, I’m so scared.” 
“When is your precious Goldof going to come running?” 
Nashetania giggled. “Save me, Goldof! I’m over heeere! They’re going to kill meee!” 
Adlet scowled at her weak attempt at a joke. He shot a look to Fremy and Hans beside him. The two of them nodded, and he gave the order. 
“Kill her.” 
Fire burst from Fremy’s gun, and Hans darted straight toward Nashetania while Adlet turned around. It was just as he’d expected. Thirty fiends were now on the slope with red-hot boulders at the ready, about to throw. 
“I’ll get behind her!” Adlet yelled as he pulled a flash bomb from his pouch and hurled it. The powerful light overwhelmed the fiends, but they still launched the scorching rocks. His attack had ruined their aim, though, and the Braves dodged easily. 
But then one of the fiend corpses moved. A tentacle reached out from the ground toward Adlet’s neck. 
“Watch out!” Rolonia cried, and her whip sliced through it just barely in time. Strange-smelling blood spurted from the tentacle, and the fiend wailed. One after another, the apparent corpses began rising to attack. 
“Rolonia! Mora! You help me slow down these guys!” Adlet yelled. A blade stabbed up at him from the ground, but Rolonia’s whip broke it off. 
“Hrmeow-meow! You leave the princess to me!” Hans called as he rocketed through the air for a swipe at Nashetania. In response, she summoned another wave of steel from the rock below. 
“I’ve got your back, Hans!” said Fremy, and she threw a bomb and fired a shot at Nashetania. The former impostor rolled away from both attacks. Hans and Fremy were stronger than her. Two-on-one, there was no reason they could lose. 
“Be careful of her stealth meowers, Fremy!” said Hans. 
“You don’t have to tell me that.” 
Nashetania ran from them both. With the hilt of her slim sword, she blocked Fremy’s shots while keeping Hans at bay with her conjured blades. 
“You need Chamo’s help?” the youngest Brave asked, having already vomited up her slave-fiends. 
But Adlet shook his head. “Nashetania must be planning something. You keep an eye on the situation and be ready for the next attack, Chamo.” 
“Gotcha.” 
The melee continued for a few minutes after that. Fremy and Hans fought Nashetania, while Adlet, Mora, and Rolonia held back the fiends flooding in to support her. Chamo cautiously observed the area under the watch of her slave-fiends. The situation was clearly to the Braves’ advantage, as there was no indication of incoming enemy reinforcements. 
Adlet slammed his sword down on the crown of a charging fiend. When it recoiled, Rolonia whipped it to shreds, until blood spurted from it like a fountain and it was dead. 
There were about thirty fiends. It was more than a few, but with these numbers, the Braves could certainly keep them at bay. If fighting continued like this, they would beat Nashetania. 
“…No way…Is this it?” Adlet muttered as they fought. He couldn’t imagine that this was the full extent of what Nashetania had planned. Her scheme back in the Phantasmal Barrier had been so meticulous, he found it hard to believe she would challenge them to a battle like this without something more. 
“Meow-ha!” Hans’s sword swept toward Nashetania. Frantically, she blocked it with her signature Saint technique. One of the fiends slipped past Adlet’s team to guard Nashetania, and somehow she managed to slip away after nearly being cornered. 
“I’m not letting you get away,” Fremy said as her bullet pierced Nashetania’s leg. 
The princess grimaced. “I’m sorry! Come save me quick, guys, okay? Eek!” She no longer looked so composed. But that didn’t make Adlet relax at all. Nashetania clearly had something lying in wait. Was there another ambush? Or would she use Goldof as a hostage? Or maybe Tgurneu was going to appear and come after them? 
“Hey, Adlet.” Chamo, still spectating, spoke up. “Can I just kill Nashetania now?” 
“…All right. Do it!” Adlet made the decision. This was probably some kind of trap. But beating the enemy in front of them was more important than worrying about that. 
That was when it happened. A fiend slipped past Rolonia’s whip and Mora’s fists to rush over to Nashetania: a giant lizard-type fiend with rocky skin. Nashetania dodged a slice from Hans and leaped astride the stone lizard-fiend, which never broke its pace. Was it going to carry Nashetania and escape? 
“Where ya goin’, meow?!” 
The stone lizard-fiend was not moving terribly fast. Hans chased after Nashetania and tried to leap on its back, too, but a moth-fiend swooped in to knock him off. Fremy shot at Nashetania’s back, but the moth blocked the attack with its body. With the bullet buried in its chest, the moth-fiend fell to the ground in a shower of fluids. 
But as this was going on, Chamo’s slave-fiends had circled around to block Nashetania’s way. Ten slave-fiends all in a row attacked in unison. They got her, Adlet thought, but the moment he was certain she was done, Nashetania replied to Hans’s question. 
“Where am I going? I’m running away.” As the slave-fiends leaped at her, Nashetania smiled boldly. “Since I’ve done what I came to do, after all.” 
All the slave-fiends suddenly stopped. No blades had pierced them. Nothing had attacked them. What happened? Adlet wondered, and while he searched for the cause, the fiends took full advantage. A lion-fiend swiped at his neck from behind. He ducked and whipped around, throwing a poison needle into the creature’s face. 
Nashetania took the opportunity to escape the crowd of slave-fiends surrounding her and flee. “Let’s go! Hurry, hurry!” She hit the stone lizard-fiend’s back, and it kept thudding along. Nashetania repelled a shot from Fremy with a blade, while another of her fiends rushed in to hinder Hans’s pursuit. Rolonia and Mora’s opponents had repositioned to serve as a rearguard for Nashetania’s flight, preventing Fremy and Hans from chasing after her. 
For a moment Adlet hesitated, wondering if they should try to follow. But they had something more important to deal with. “What happened, Chamo?!” he cried, running up to her. 
She didn’t seem right, clutching her stomach with an expression of shock. She stared at her hands and her body and muttered, “…Huh? What…?” 
Then she covered her mouth. The next moment, blood began pouring from between her fingers. She collapsed without even a cry, and as she did, all of her slave-fiends immediately rushed back into her mouth. Adlet couldn’t see any visible; he had no idea what had hit her. 
“Chamo!” Mora cried as she and Rolonia rushed to the fallen girl. Mora held the young Brave while Rolonia tried to stop the bleeding. But when they attempted to treat her, they were left speechless and confused. They couldn’t find any wounds. 
“…What’s wrong, Chamo?” asked Adlet. 
Trembling, the girl held her hands over her mouth. It had to be the first time ever that she’d been afraid for her life. “There’s…swords…inside…my stomach…” She gasped, and then she vomited up another gush of blood. 
Fremy and Hans tried to pursue Nashetania, but the fiends fended them off, and Nashetania gradually widened her lead. Then she was past the slope and out of sight. 
Nashetania knew exactly what had happened to Chamo—of course she did. She was the one who had meticulously, painstakingly set the trap for her in the first place. 
Some Saints possessed a certain ability: They could imbue an object with their abilities to create tools with special powers. These tools were generally referred to as hieroforms. The Saint of the Single Flower, who had devised the original Crest of the Six Flowers, had been the most powerful creator of hieroforms in history. In more recent times, Mora of Mountains and Willone of Salt were known to often utilize this skill. Chamo and Rolonia could not do it at all, and Fremy did not seem very proficient at it, either. The typical target objects for this infusion of power were stakes inscribed with hieroglyphs, or written texts, or any sort of gem. It was said that giving a crest power, as the Saint of the Single Flower had, was an extremely advanced technique. 
Publicly, Nashetania hadn’t been able to create hieroforms—but that was a lie. If her capabilities were widely known, she wouldn’t have been able to fulfill her role in this scheme. 
About two years earlier, Nashetania had left Piena to visit All Heavens Temple. More than twenty servants accompanied her: guards, a coachman for each carriage, maids to handle her meals and clothes, and even someone to care for Nashetania’s pets. At the time, acting Temple Elder Willone, who had been managing the shrine, seemed quite displeased by the flaunting of luxury. 
“It’s unusual for you to come all the way to the temple, Princess,” said Willone. “What brings you here?” Nashetania had normally trained in Piena with Goldof and the knights. She rarely left the country. 
“Same as always. Just a whim,” she’d replied, evading the question. 
That day at All Heavens Temple, they were practicing battling fiends. The Saints fought Chamo Rosso’s “pets” on the temple training grounds. Slug-fiends, water-snake-fiends, and more attacked without mercy, and Athlay, the Saint of Ice, Liennril, the Saint of Fire, and other skilled warriors pummeled their opponents with their techniques. The training session was just like real battle. Not all the blood on the ground belonged to the slave-fiends. 
“…Wow,” said Nashetania in awe when she’d seen the spectacle. “So the girl in the middle is Chamo? She’s so cute. I’m sure she’ll be really pretty when she grows up.” 
Willone was taken aback by Nashetania’s happy-go-lucky grin. “…Um, Princess, if you came here without knowing what was going on, maybe you should reconsider. Chamo isn’t a bad kid, but she’s somewhat…atypical.” 
“Oh, really? Well, that’s a little unsettling. But don’t you worry about me.” 
“Please, just try not to get yourself hurt.” 
“If I avoid ever getting hurt, I wouldn’t learn anything, Willone,” said Nashetania, and she tossed aside her dress. Underneath, she wore simple training clothes. “I can’t wait any longer. Nashetania, Saint of Blades, joins the fray!” 
“Ah! H-hey! Hold on!” Willone had attempted to restrain her, but it was in vain. Nashetania leaped into the arena, slicing into slave-fiends with swords growing out of the ground. 
“Huh? A newcomer, huh? Hey, Willone, is that one of the Saints I’m allowed to kill?” Chamo asked, and she vomited up more slave-fiends. 
“No! Absolutely not! And there aren’t any Saints you’re allowed to kill!” Willone dashed into the arena to protect the princess. 
Nashetania was smiling, summoning blades as she began the clash against Chamo. “Wow! This is really amazing! So this is what it’s like to fight fiends!” 
“They’re not fiends,” said Chamo. “They’re my pets.” 
Nashetania kept on fighting for half an hour or more, grinning all the while. By this point in time, the plan to kill the Braves of the Six Flowers within the Phantasmal Barrier was already under way. Nashetania had come to the temple to analyze Chamo’s fighting abilities, since she was bound to end up in combat with the girl eventually. While Nashetania played the tomboy princess who enjoyed the battle, privately, she thought Chamo was a monster. 
“You’re pretty strong, sword lady,” said Chamo. “I dunno you. Who are you?” 
“My name is Nashetania. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Her head and body drenched in blood, Nashetania smiled. 
“This whole thing has been a pain in the butt, but Chamo’s glad to be here. Guess it’ll be more fun than I thought.” 
“Really? I’m enjoying myself, too.” Coming here to reconnoiter was the right choice, thought Nashetania. Forget one-on-one—even if she ganged up on Chamo with Goldof, she wasn’t sure she could win. She would prefer to leave Chamo to the real Braves, but that scheme might not go smoothly. She would have to put that thing inside her after all. 
Before coming, Nashetania had packed her power into a very tiny fragment of diamond. If she silently prayed for the diamond to activate—and certain requirements were fulfilled—then dozens of blades would burst from it. She didn’t have it on her at the time of the temple visit, however. 
“Princess, please be more careful! I can’t take responsibility if you get hurt!” Willone was practically tearing her hair out in one corner of the arena. 
Nashetania ignored her, yelling, “Let’s go, Chamo! Keep it coming, please!” 
“Are you sure, Princess? You might die,” the girl replied. 
Nashetania’s body was marred here and there with acidic burns, hot wounds, and bites. She had fallen and twisted her arm, possibly fracturing something. “Someone who aspires to be a Brave of the Six Flowers cannot retreat from something like this.” 
“Then I won’t hold back,” said Chamo. 
Nashetania glanced toward the arena’s audience seats. Her maids and guards were all white as sheets. Beside them there was a cage containing her pets. Nashetania had three cats, two dogs, and two squirrels, and she took them along with her wherever she went. The creatures were trembling in fear inside their cage. 
Then one of the dogs began flailing around. The cage broke open, and all the animals scampered away. Watching out of the corner of her eye, Nashetania gave the tiniest snicker. 
And then she thought, I’m counting on you, Dozzu. 
“…Ngh!” The strike from the snake’s tail knocked Nashetania’s sword from her hands. Willone panicked and cut in between her and Chamo. “Hold on. Chamo, Princess, let’s leave it at that. If this keeps up, someone is gonna die.” 
Nashetania picked up her sword and pointed it at Chamo. “We’re not going to stop, Willone.” 
“Come on, Princess—” 
“I want to become stronger. I can’t protect the people, my father, or anyone at all unless I get stronger. I can’t allow myself to be afraid of a little girl.” 
Chamo reacted to Nashetania’s provocation. “…Just a little girl, huh?” 
Nashetania pretended she hadn’t heard that and continued. “I want to fight stronger opponents. This still isn’t enough.” 
“Is that right, Princess?” There was a flash of anger behind Chamo’s smile. “Sorry, Chamo shouldn’t have gone so easy on you. Let’s fight for serious.” She plunged her foxtail down her throat, and every one of her slave-fiends was unleashed into the arena. 
Willone yelled, “Stop, Chamo!” and grappled with Nashetania as her pillars of salt sprang up one after another to block the attacks. Athlay of Ice and Liennril of Fire helped keep the slave-fiends at bay. 
“What are you doing, Willone?!” Nashetania demanded. “This is rude!” 
“Shut up, Princess Numbskull! You’ve exhausted my patience!” Willone fled the scene with the struggling Nashetania in her arms. The slave-fiends circled around them as if to say, We’re not letting you get away, and descended upon the both of them. 
“I can watch this no longer! Stop the princess!” 
Nashetania’s knight guards jumped into the fray then, too. In the midst of the chaos in the arena, the princess secretly smiled to herself. 
Fifteen minutes later, the chaos in the arena had settled. Nashetania had been made to sit on the ground, where her maids were giving her an earful. On the other side of the arena, Chamo and Willone were yelling at each other. 
Nashetania looked at her pets’ cage and said, “Hey, Porta and Powna aren’t in there.” Two of them, one cat and one dog, weren’t in there. The maids paused their lecturing and started a hunt for the two missing animals. They found the cat immediately, trembling at the edge of the audience seating, but the dog was gone. 
“A dog? Okay. I’ll look for it,” Willone reassured the princess after she told her and Chamo about it. They searched the arena. 
“Wait, maybe…” Chamo shoved her foxtail down her throat and hocked up a giant slug. She whacked it on the back a few times, and with a gloopy sound, something came up from the back of its throat. 
“Eek! Eeeeek! Porta! Porta!” Nashetania scooped the dog up in her arms. It was a funny-looking animal with a rotund little face and body, almost like a cross between a dog and a squirrel. Its fur tips had been digested, but it didn’t seem to be in mortal peril. 
“When did you swallow that?” Chamo scolded her slave-fiend. “Hey now, you’re not allowed to eat weird stuff.” 
“Porta! Hold on, Porta!” Nashetania called the dog’s name over and over. Watching, Willone held her head in her hands. 
No one but Nashetania knew that during the chaos, the dog had scampered about the arena in apparent fright, and then, when it was sure that no one was looking, it had jumped down the slug-fiend’s throat. The dog had been carrying a very tiny diamond in its mouth. Once it was inside the slug slave-fiend, it had embedded the gem in the creature’s flesh. 
The dog’s name was Porta, but that was just an alias it used to hide itself in the human realm. Its real name was Dozzu, and it was one of the three commanders that ruled over the fiends. 
“…It was a success, Nashetania,” Dozzu told her quietly. None but Nashetania could hear. 
“Thanks. I knew you’d do it, Dozzu,” she replied, smiling. 
The slug’s nerves were dull, so it probably wouldn’t notice the gem stuck inside it. In other words, Chamo would have no way of knowing it was in there. If the proper conditions were met and Nashetania prayed, the gem would unleash its power. Dozens of blades would slice the interior of the slug’s stomach. And what’s more, if Chamo had the slave-fiend inside her at the time, the blades would damage her organs. 
There were two conditions for its activation: Nashetania had to be near her target, and Chamo had to attack Nashetania first. But the gem wasn’t that powerful. Once the two were more than a kilometer apart, it would lose effect. This was because Nashetania had yet to mature as a Saint. 
But there were only two ways to cancel the blade gem. Namely, Nashetania could annul it herself, or it would happen naturally if she died. While she had been running around inside the Phantasmal Barrier, she had deliberately chosen not to activate it. There wouldn’t have been any point. It was better to reserve her trump card. 
Nashetania estimated that once the blade gem was triggered, it would take about three hours for Chamo to die. 
“…Guh…guh…gwaaaagh…” 
Chamo’s moans of pain were the only sounds in the corpse-strewn lava zone. She was desperately trying to vomit up the blade gem. All that came from her mouth was saliva and blood. No blade gem and no fiends. 
“Chamo…Please, keep trying,” Rolonia urged her. 
Mora and Rolonia’s fervent attempts at treatment had been ineffective. Chamo’s stomach was so unique, normal treatment didn’t work. All Mora could do was to pour energy into her body to shore up her vitality. 
“So…we have no choice but to kill Nashetania, after all,” Adlet murmured. 
Mora had used her powers to give them a general understanding of the nature of the gem. It would take about three hours for it to kill Chamo, and if Nashetania moved far enough away, it would lose effect. The radius of the gem’s effect was around one kilometer and there were only two ways to nullify it: Either Nashetania had to cancel it, or they had to kill her to save Chamo. 
Mora was still chanting in the divine tongue, to further analyze the gem stuck in Chamo’s stomach. Hans and Fremy were chasing after the culprit. If they lost sight of her, saving Chamo would become infinitely harder. Adlet anxiously awaited their return. 
“Auntie…Chamo’s not gonna die, right?” the girl asked weakly. 
Mora grasped her small hand and encouraged her. “How can you say that, Chamo? We’re all with you, aren’t we? Do you think we would let you die so easily?” 
“…Ah-ha-ha…You’re right…yeah.” 
Nashetania got us good, thought Adlet. Judging from her behavior, she hadn’t planted the gem during the Phantasmal Barrier incident. She’d done it long before the Evil God’s awakening. Adlet should have foreseen this; he’d known she’d been preparing for this fight over the course of many years. 
That was when Hans returned from his pursuit of Nashetania. 
“What’s the word, Hans?” asked Adlet. 
“Meow. I lost sight of her once, but we found her.” He seemed somewhat rattled. He was fully aware just how important Chamo was. “She’s about a kilomewter away from here, just hangin’ around. The damn woman gathered about thirty fiends, and now she’s just sittin’ in the middle of ’em and smilin’. I didn’t see no other fiends, though.” 
“And where’s Fremy?” 
“She’s watchin’ the princess from a little ways away. Fremy ain’t dumb enough to fight her alone.” 
“I’m worried,” said Adlet. “And about Fremy, too.” 
“There was neowthin’ else to worry about. I didn’t catch sight of Tgurneu, neither…or Goldof,” said Hans. 
Adlet scowled. But now it was clear—Mora’s analysis was right, and Nashetania couldn’t get too far from Chamo. Mora’s estimate of one kilometer for the area of effect also seemed accurate. “First, we get Chamo away from here and cancel the gem’s effects. Mora, can you move her?” Adlet asked. 
But Mora shook her head sadly. “She’s just barely clinging to life. I don’t know what would happen should we move her.” 
“There’s no other way. Nashetania needs to die, after all.” Adlet hurried to replenish his weapons from his iron box. “Me, Rolonia, and Fremy will go kill Nashetania. Hans and Mora, you stay here and protect Chamo.” Adlet chose to leave Hans, whose combat skills he trusted most, right by Chamo. This was because he was still worried about Tgurneu, who had yet to show up. 
“All right,” said Hans. “I’ll leave the princess to mew guys.” 
“And, Mora,” Adlet continued, “call Goldof one more time with your mountain echo.” 
Mora nodded. She took a deep breath and amplified her voice. “GOLDOF! WHERE ARE YOU?! I’VE CALLED YOU MANY TIMES! NASHETANIA HAS NEARLY KILLED CHAMO! RETURN TO US AND HELP SAVE HER!” 
When Chamo had first fallen, Mora had called Goldof over and over with her powers, explaining the situation to him. But yet again, her voice echoed throughout the lava zone in vain. 
“He still won’t return,” the oldest Saint said. 
“…Addy, what will we do about Goldof?” Rolonia asked. 
Adlet had no answers. First of all, he didn’t know if Goldof was even a real Brave or not. Was he the seventh, and had he lured Chamo here to kill her? If so, Adlet was forced to assume that the next time they encountered him would be in a skirmish. But there was still the possibility that Nashetania was deceiving and using him. Perhaps the fact that he had yet to return meant he was in trouble. 
“We’ll deal with him later,” said Adlet. It was too much to think about. He’d make the simple decisions first. “Sorry. Goldof is going to have to get through this on his own. Right now, let’s just focus on saving Chamo. Let’s go.” He took Rolonia and dashed off northward. 
The rocky hills of the volcanic region made running difficult. Adlet and Rolonia jumped over ditches and dodged geysers of hot steam as they pushed northward. After about five minutes of running, they heard gunshots. Fremy was battling fiends. 
They arrived at the rendezvous point Hans had indicated. Fremy had taken up a position at the summit of a rock mound, shooting down at the fiends attacking her from below. “Nashetania ran west! Follow her!” she yelled. 
Adlet didn’t hesitate. He turned away from her and headed west. Scanning around from the top of the highest peak in the area, he could see something moving in the shadow of a mound about three hundred meters away. “You’re not getting away!” he said, breaking into a sprint to give chase. He found Nashetania among the twenty fiends speeding across the rock hills. She was riding the back of a wolf-type, glancing behind her as she fled. 
When Adlet descended the rock hill, two fiends rushed up from below to attack him. A spider-fiend spewed thread at him, while a big snake-fiend spat fire. Adlet sprang backward, but the rock beneath him crumbled where he landed, sending him tumbling down the slope. 
“What are you doing, idiot?!” Fremy swiftly sniped the spider. 
“Sorry.” Adlet gave her a quick apology as he scrambled to his feet, dodging an attack from the snake-fiend before slicing its head off. The uneven footing of the volcanic terrain made this bout particularly challenging. It restricted the agility characteristic of his fighting style. 
“Addy! Incoming!” Rolonia cried. Another fiend approached him from the west. 
“You take it, Rolonia!” Adlet said, and he darted past the enemy to pursue Nashetania. She was probably sending her forces out a little at a time just to slow them down while she and her fiends focused on escaping. 
Rolonia pulled out her whip. When a fiend’s claws were almost to her neck, her shriek ripped through the lava zone. “Don’tmoveyourottendirtyvileverminI’llstopyourbreathI’llstopyourheart!” In an instant, her whip had slashed bloody, gushing ribbons into the fiend. 
The three of them kept on sprinting after the swarm, closing the distance bit by bit. 
Adlet ran side by side with Fremy and apologized. “I’m sorry, Fremy.” 
“?” 
“If I’d listened to you and been more cautious, things wouldn’t have ended up like this.” 
“Don’t be stupid. What’s the point of apologizing to me?” she replied, sounding uncomfortable. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not angry, and I don’t care.” 
Adlet nodded and kept his pace. 
He realized that Nashetania was running in an arc. She was drawing a half-moon with a one-kilometer radius, the pit where Chamo lay at its center. Adlet had originally been heading north, but now he was already turned in the opposite direction. Just as Mora had sensed, Nashetania couldn’t move more than a kilometer away. 
They were now within a hundred meters of their target. Fremy manifested a bomb in her palm and plugged it into the barrel of her gun. She fired, and the explosive fell ten meters off from Nashetania’s side. Adlet made a simple sling with some rope to launch another bomb at the fleeing traitor. 
“Is her plan just to keep running like this until Chamo dies?” Fremy asked as the chase continued. 
“Maybe. But at this rate, we’ll catch up!” Rolonia replied. 
She was right—if they kept bombarding Nashetania to slow her down while they pursued her, they would eventually catch her. Against just Nashetania and twenty-odd fiends, the three of them were sure to win. 
“Something’s fishy, Adlet,” said Fremy. 
“Yeah, I think so, too,” he agreed. They halted their assault, slowed down, and ran just fast enough as to not let Nashetania slip away entirely. 
“What’s wrong? We’re not going to fight them?” Rolonia was confused. 
Nashetania would know that she could not evade them forever just by running around the one-kilometer circle, and there was no way she could keep defending herself with just twenty fiends. If that was all, then she practically showed up just to get herself killed. But Nashetania had to have something else up her sleeve, maybe a special means of getting away. As they continued tailing her, Adlet pondered what the trick might be. 
Fremy had clearly noticed, too, and tried to puzzle out what Nashetania was thinking. “This feels like a diversion to me, Adlet.” 
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Is she waiting to be attacked?” 
“…Maybe to spring the same kind of trap as the one she pulled on Chamo,” Fremy suggested. 
But Adlet didn’t think that was possible. On the way to the Howling Vilelands, he had journeyed together with Nashetania for eleven days. Once he had discovered that she was the impostor, he had reinspected himself and all his equipment, thinking she might have placed something on him during that time. But he’d found nothing odd. At the very least, she hadn’t set any traps on his person. Fremy and Nashetania had been in contact for only one day. It seemed unlikely that Nashetania would have had the time to sneak something on her, and this was the first time she had ever met Rolonia. Adlet figured that Chamo was the only one who had been loaded with a blade gem. 
“Would there be any other reason for Nashetania to be such an obvious idiot?” asked Fremy. 
That was when it hit him. “Fremy, have you been watching Nashetania this whole time?” 
“No, I lost track of her a number of times…Oh. A transforming-type fiend?” 
Adlet nodded. 
Rolonia said, “Huh? What do you mean?” 
“I mean that the Nashetania we’re chasing right now might be a fake, a transforming-type fiend in disguise,” Adlet clarified. 

Some fiends could transform into any shape they wanted, and there were more than a few of them. Adlet had encountered one such creature himself during the Phantasmal Barrier fight. A shape-shifter wouldn’t be able to transform into Adlet or Hans. In order to create the perfect replica of someone, the fiend needed either that person’s cooperation or access to their corpse. So one could have easily disguised itself as Nashetania. 
“At the very least, the Nashetania we fought was the real one—she used the power of blades and activated Chamo’s blade gem. But there’s no guarantee that one over there is the real thing.” 
“Hans and I did lose sight of Nashetania,” said Fremy. “She had enough time to make the switch.” 
“I understand,” said Rolonia. “So that’s what’s going on. But how can we tell which is the real one?” 
“If we see her using the power of blades, we’ll know she’s the real one,” said Adlet. “We’ve also got another sure-fire way to know what she really is. Don’t we, Rolonia?” 
“What do you mean?” Rolonia, behind him, tilted her head in thought. 
So she hasn’t realized it? 
The three of them sped up their chase after Nashetania. They were already only about thirty meters away from her and her pack of fiends. Still astride the wolf-fiend, she looked back at them. She was apparently expecting Fremy to shoot, so Adlet figured he could surprise her. What he needed to watch out for was Nashetania’s stealth ability—but he already knew how to counteract that, too. 
“Let’s go!” Adlet yelled. 
Instantly, Rolonia’s whip wound around him. She planted her feet and lifted him into the air. “Be careful, Addy!” she cried, throwing him. As he hurtled through the air, arcing down toward Nashetania’s wolf-fiend, he drew a small knife. Attached to the handle was a fine chain that wrapped around Adlet’s arm. 
“Eek!” Nashetania blocked the knife with her left arm. As blood poured from her left wrist, a cute yelp escaped her. Dozens of blades sliced up from the ground toward Adlet as he flew. He blocked them with his sword and the iron plates fitted into his boots. The blades scored him with tiny cuts before he landed on the wolf-fiend’s back. 
“Watch out, Adlet!” Fremy yelled. Nashetania stabbed at his throat. Adlet blocked her sword with an armored shoulder as he pulled out a secret tool—a tiny, poison-filled bottle. She smacked it away with her weapon, but Adlet had anticipated that she’d avoid it. The bottle was just a decoy, and the real attack came from his own sword. 
“…Ngh!” Nashetania ducked. He was so close to knocking her off the fiend’s back. But then the wolf-fiend twisted, bucking Adlet off. 
“This is our chance! We’ll take him out, all together!” Nashetania cried, holding her wounded left arm. Fiends surged toward where Adlet had fallen on the ground. 
But Fremy fired off a round in his defense, and Rolonia wrapped her whip around his hand. Once he was holding on, Rolonia heaved him up with an “Up we go!” like she was reeling in a fish. Adlet kept the fiends at bay with a smoke bomb during his retreat. 
“We bungled that one. Well, no matter. Let’s run!” Nashetania said to the fiends that were about to pursue Adlet. They obeyed her orders and guarded her as she fled. 
“We blew it,” said Fremy. 
Adlet had been left lying on the ground after Rolonia had reeled him in, and Fremy helped him up. They’d been so close, and Nashetania had gotten away, but it hadn’t been in vain. Adlet showed Rolonia his tiny, bloodstained knife. “Do your thing, Rolonia.” 
“…Oh, that’s what you meant.” 
He handed the knife to her and immediately set off again. They couldn’t lose sight of Nashetania and her entourage. 
As they ran, Rolonia licked the blood off the knife blade. As the Saint of Spilled Blood, she possessed the ability to analyze blood by taste. Never slowing down, she rolled the liquid around in her mouth for a time. 
“…So Rolonia?” Fremy asked. 
“I’ve never tasted Nashetania’s blood before, but…this is from a female in her teens. A powerful Saint. It seems she’s exhausted, but generally in good health, and she’s had a very affluent lifestyle. I think it’s safe to say this is Nashetania’s blood.” 
“So we’re chasing the real one, then, huh?” said Adlet. They were lagging behind again, about a hundred meters back. He could see that she was observing them closely from the wolf-fiend’s back. “Though we knew she was the real thing once she used the power of blades, anyway. But it’s good to be doubly sure.” 
“Did you learn anything else, Rolonia?” 
“Well…though this is human blood, it tastes like a fiend. It’s really abnormal. It’s mixed with the blood of a fiend with strong restorative capabilities…and the blood of another with great physical strength…and the blood of some fiend I can’t understand at all. I don’t have the slightest idea how such blood would come to exist.” Rolonia continued, panting. 
“Great, Rolonia. Even that much is enough,” said Adlet, and he grinned. He didn’t know what Nashetania was plotting. But the real one was only a hundred meters away—they knew that for sure. They couldn’t let this opportunity slip from their grasp. “We’re gonna run as fast as we can to finish her off. Don’t let your guard down,” he said. Fremy’s eyes turned grim, and Rolonia swallowed. 
Fremy fired a shot to slow the fiends down while Adlet tossed a grenade. Bit by bit, the pursuers neared their prey. The enemy forces numbered fewer now, too—the three of them would be more than a match for the fiends. 
“Fremy, you and me are gonna blast them with every explosive we have,” said Adlet. “Then all three of us will charge in. You hold off the fiends. Rolonia, you use your whip to break Nashetania’s blades. Leave finishing her off to me. Got it?” Rolonia readied her whip while Fremy created bombs in her hands. Adlet pulled tools from pouches at his waist for his final preparations. 
“Please, come on! Can’t you run any faster?!” Nashetania cried, smacking the rear of the wolf-fiend under her. Was her panic an act, or was it real? Adlet couldn’t tell. 
“Once she’s over that mountain, go for her.” But right as the words left his mouth, something flew toward them from a long way away. He heard it ripping through the air. When Adlet skidded to a stop, a spear was stuck in the ground right in front of him. 
“!” 
All three of them turned to look toward the source of the missile. It was the opposite direction from where Chamo lay in the pit. 
When the hell did he get here? No—maybe he’s been close for a while. They had been so focused on chasing Nashetania, they hadn’t been keeping an eye on their surroundings. “He’s here.” Adlet scowled. He couldn’t say he was happy to see the man was safe. Goldof Auora was looking down on them from the top of a rock mound. 
“Why did you throw your spear at us, Goldof?” Rolonia murmured. 
He didn’t say anything, only watching them in silence. 
Nashetania took advantage of the pause to put some more distance between them, and Fremy dashed after her. Goldof savagely gave chase himself. 
“Rolonia! Stop him!” Adlet yelled. There was no more time for hesitation. He drew his sword and ran at Goldof, hardening his resolve to attack. Goldof would have heard Mora’s mountain echo; he should know that Nashetania had attacked Chamo and that their ally’s life was on the line. But he was still trying to protect Nashetania. Adlet had no choice but to consider him their enemy. 
Fremy pitched a bomb at Goldof. He protected his face with his hands and made a running jump to one side to avoid the blast. Despite his heavy armor, he was agile enough to put Adlet to shame. Once he was on his feet again, he resumed his charge at Fremy. 
“Oh no, you don’t!” From the side, Adlet threw a poison needle at him. Goldof dodged it without looking up or stopping, but as he did, Fremy fired a bullet into his chest. He was launched backward, head over heels. But his thick armor protected him from the bullet, and the shot wasn’t enough to kill him. 
“Fremy! Rolonia!” Adlet yelled to the pair. “You follow Nashetania! Let me handle Goldof!” Their target was racing away from them. 
But when the two girls tried to chase her, Goldof spoke for the first time. “…I can’t let you go.” He was on his feet and bolting for Fremy again. 
Adlet pulled out a tear-gas canister and lobbed it at him. Goldof covered his eyes and mouth with his hands, dashing out of the smoke. It wasn’t enough to slow him down. 
With a roar, Adlet leaped toward the running Goldof, slamming his sword down onto his shoulder. Goldof blocked the strike with a gauntlet and gripped both Adlet’s arms to throw him backwards. Then he completely barred Rolonia from further pursuit by seizing her armor and flinging her down. She tumbled along the ground, heavy armor and all. 
“Ngh!” 
Adlet and Rolonia both stood up at the same time. He had gotten careless because Goldof didn’t have his spear—but the boy was formidable in unarmed combat, too. 
“Fremy! Don’t worry about us! You can’t lose sight of Nashetania!” Adlet yelled. 
Fremy nodded and rejoined the chase. 
Goldof muttered something unintelligible and tried to sprint off after Fremy, but Adlet and Rolonia stood in his way. 
“You…handle Fremy!” Goldof yelled loudly. Who was he talking to? Nashetania, or a third ally? He spread his arms and hunched low, turning back to Adlet and Rolonia. It looked like he was going to see this fight through to the end. 
“Wait, please, Goldof!” Rolonia said, sounding frightened as she readied her whip. 
“…You’re in the way,” Goldof said, and Rolonia shrank back a step. 
“Why, Goldof?” Adlet said as he briefly retreated to pull Goldof’s spear out from where it was stuck in the ground. He sheathed his sword and raised the spear instead. It was heavy and unwieldy, but it wasn’t unusable. “You get what’s going on, don’t you? Chamo is about to die. We have no choice but to kill Nashetania to save her. Didn’t you hear Mora’s mountain echo?” 
“Please stop, Goldof! We have to defeat Nashetania. We have no choice if we want save Chamo,” said Rolonia. But it had no effect on Goldof’s battle-ready stance. 
“Goldof, talk to us,” said Adlet. “Who tricked you? And how?” 
“It’s the same as what happened with Mora, right?” Rolonia chimed in. “You’ve been coerced to fight us somehow, right? Haven’t you?” 
But Goldof softly replied, “I can’t let you…go beyond this point.” 
“Goldof…” Adlet began. 
“If you want to get past me…you have to…kill me first.” 
At the sight of Goldof’s eyes, a shiver of fear ran down Adlet’s spine. Until now, he had not given up on the chance that Goldof was still on their side. But the moment Adlet saw that look, those beliefs evaporated. Goldof intended to kill him—and Fremy and Rolonia. All of them. 
“Rolonia…you have to do that thing.” 
“That thing?” 
“Where you wail, die, die! That thing you do when you fight for real.” 
“Addy…” 
“We’re going to kill Goldof.” 
Rolonia’s eyes widened, and then she nodded wordlessly. As she did, Goldof lowered his center of gravity and charged straight for Adlet. 
Yelling with everything he had, Adlet thrust out the spear. Just moving it made his arms tired, and he gained a new and personal appreciation for Goldof’s unusual ability to whip the weapon around like a feather. Right before the spear would have connected, Goldof stopped. The spearhead was only a centimeter from his nose. Goldof immediately reached out to the haft. Adlet kicked him in the stomach to try to keep the weapon away from him. 
“Urg!” Though Adlet had been the one to kick, he was the one who was repulsed. The shock ripped through his ankle, like he’d just slammed into a boulder. 
Goldof grabbed at him, trying to catch him while he was vulnerable, but Adlet swept at his feet with the spear. The knight’s greaves took the strike. 
“Diediedietraitoryougottadieorthesunwon’trisetomorrow!” Suddenly, Rolonia’s screeching resounded around them as her whip undulated like a snake. Goldof shifted, hunching over and covering his face with his hands. She lashed him over and over, with sharp, metallic clangs. 
“!” Rolonia was shocked. Her whip, imbued with the power of the Saint of Spilled Blood, could wring blood from any enemy it touched. But she couldn’t draw a single drop from Goldof. He blocked every strike with his armor. 
“Rolonia! Don’t stop! Rip off his armor!” Adlet yelled, thrusting the spear again. Goldof jumped, and the lance thudded impotently into the ground. 
Goldof thwarted all their attacks. Rolonia’s whip landed hit after hit, but his armor blocked every one, and she failed to reach his blood. It wasn’t due to the quality his armor—it was his reflexes that were truly fearsome. Rolonia was aiming very precisely for the gaps in Goldof’s defenses, but he warded off everything with only slight adjustments. 
“Ngh!” Still intercepting her strikes, Goldof reached out to seize his spear. If Adlet gave him the slightest opportunity, Goldof would snatch it back. But if Adlet stopped attacking, Goldof was likely to target Rolonia instead. 
“Adlet,” Goldof said, blocking Rolonia’s whip. “Don’t kill…Her Highness.” 
“Enough of your bullshit!” Adlet yelled, stabbing out the spear. He was going for Goldof’s armor. If he could just rip off one plate, then Rolonia could finish him off with her whip. 
“Whywhywhywon’tyoudieyouwon’tdiedon’ttouchAddydon’ttouchFremydon’ttouchChamoDIEEE!” Rolonia screamed. Then the trajectory of her whip changed. It flailed in circles around Goldof, trying to ensnare him. 
This is bad, thought Adlet. She’s getting anxious. 
“Her Highness…” Goldof began. Right when the whip was about to catch him, he leaped high, his large frame soaring just like Hans’s as he slipped through the tiniest gap in the whip’s path. When he landed, he charged for Adlet. The red-haired Brave whirled Goldof’s spear around frantically, but he was a moment too late. What hit Goldof’s shoulder was not the spearpoint, but the haft. Goldof’s large hand grasped the weapon. 
Adlet instantly judged that he couldn’t hope to best Goldof in a wrestling match, and so he released the spear. Then, too fast for the eye to see, he pulled out a pain needle from a pouch at his waist. If he could stab Goldof with it, it would cause intense pain; no matter how tough Goldof was, he would be out of commission for a few seconds. 
Adlet tried to aim for Goldof’s hand with the needle right as it grabbed the spear—and that was when he noticed. 
“!” Goldof wasn’t going for the spear. He was going for the needle. Goldof released the spear and seized Adlet’s hand. Squeezing with unnatural strength, he forced Adlet to drop the needle, then quickly snatched it out of the air between two fingers and threw it. 
“Rolonia!” There was no way Adlet’s cry would be fast enough. 
Rolonia screamed and pressed a hand to her cheek, crumpling to the ground. 
I have to protect her, he thought, pulling out a smoke bomb. 
But Goldof immediately snatched back his spear, and then, out of the blue, said something very unexpected. “Listen…the enemy…isn’t the princess… It’s Fremy.” Then he thrust the blunt end of his spear into Adlet’s stomach. 
After making sure Adlet was down, he turned away from the pair and escaped. 
“…Damn it.” Adlet couldn’t chase after him. He couldn’t even move. Even if it were an option, leaving Rolonia was not. Somehow, he struggled to his feet and went over to pull the needle from Rolonia’s cheek. 
“I-I’m okay, Addy.” Rolonia engaged her power as Saint of Spilled Blood to bleed the wound on her cheek. It looked like that was enough to get all the poison out. 
They chased Goldof for a while, but he was too fast. Adlet and Rolonia lagged farther and farther behind. Goldof was running along that same one-kilometer-radius arc. After about a quarter way around the circle, they lost sight of him. 
Then, from far away, they heard gunshots. Fremy was fighting—and the sounds were coming from the very direction Goldof had run. “This is bad,” said Adlet. “At this rate, Fremy’ll be fighting two-on-one.” 
The two of them sped along over rock hills and the depressions between them. They could still hear Fremy’s gunshots. 
“Fremy!” Adlet called. Standing at the top of a rock hill, he finally caught sight of her. She was in a narrow valley, at the center of a circle of fiends. Goldof didn’t seem to be anywhere nearby. “We’re joining in!” 
There were about fifteen enemies. Surrounded, Fremy was dodging this way and that as she squared off against the fiends. Close-quarters combat was her greatest weakness. 
“Fremy! Watch out!” he shouted. 
She had lost her balance. Adlet readied his sword, holding it tight, and aimed. He twisted the hilt to launch the blade, the recoil knocking him backward. The sword impaled a fiend’s face, and Fremy took advantage of the opening it created to slip out of the ring and approach Adlet and Rolonia. 
“I’llkillyouDIEI’llkillKILLyouifyoutouchFremyI’llkillyoushowmeyourGUTSyourottenfiends!” Rolonia wailed as she swung her whip around. The fiends were advancing toward her and Adlet. The two of them gave up on chasing Goldof and fought the coming enemies instead. 
Fifteen minutes later, the enemy corpses lay at their feet. Of course, Nashetania was nowhere around, and neither was Goldof. Moments earlier, they had seen a flash of light in the direction the princess had gone and heard a noise like thunder. Now, both the sound and light were gone. 
“There you are. So this is where you landed,” Adlet said, picking up the blade. Compressing the spring in his sword hilt, he clicked it back into place. 
“…You saved me there. That was close,” Fremy said, and she breathed a heavy sigh. 
“What happened with Goldof?” asked Rolonia. “He ran off in this direction.” 
“He passed by me earlier, running after Nashetania. I would have liked to kill him, but the fiends were blocking my way, and I couldn’t get around. And there was also a tiny fiend following Nashetania.” 
“A tiny fiend? I wonder what that was.” 
“I don’t know. It was nothing I’ve ever seen before.” 
“Really? Well, I’m glad you’re safe, Fremy.” Rolonia breathed a sigh of relief. 
Fremy gave Adlet a reproachful look. “You let both Nashetania and Goldof get away,” she said, arms crossed. “Unfortunately, Adlet, every one of your ideas has been a failure.” 
“…Yeah.” He looked down. 
He had insisted that Goldof had merely been deceived by Nashetania, and so they had followed him to the lava zone. As a result, they’d played right into Nashetania’s hands, and Chamo was on the brink of death. Then, just moments ago when they had encountered Goldof, Adlet had hesitated to kill him. If been ready to kill the knight from the start, maybe things wouldn’t have ended up this way. 
“I blew it. Goldof is not on our side.” Adlet remembered what they had discussed three days before, at the Bud of Eternity. Fremy and Mora had told him that they suspected Goldof. He should have taken that more seriously. His naive beliefs about keeping faith in his allies were the root cause of this whole mess. 
“There’s no point in stressing over it now,” said Fremy. “I never believed your decisions would be perfect in the first place.” 
Cutting as ever, thought Adlet. 
“B-but…it’s still possible that Goldof has been tricked,” said Rolonia. 
“What do you mean?” asked Fremy. 
“He told us that our enemy isn’t the princess, but you, right?” 
When Fremy heard that, her eyebrows twitched. “You’re saying that I’m the enemy?” 
“That’s not what I mean!” Rolonia insisted. 
Adlet understood what she was trying to say, so he supplemented for her. “In other words, someone’s tricked Goldof. He’s being made to believe that you’re the enemy, Fremy, and he thinks that he has to kill you in order to save Chamo, and that’s why he came to try to stop us. That’s what you’re saying, right, Rolonia?” 
Rolonia nodded vigorously. 
But Adlet shook his head. “No way.” He rubbed his stomach. “He was fighting me like he didn’t care if I died. I could tell.” 
“If Goldof believes that I’m the enemy, then why did he run right by me?” Fremy added. 
“…W-well, um…” Rolonia couldn’t think of what to say. 
“Anyway, we need to hurry.” Fremy cut off the conversation. “It’s already been almost an hour since Nashetania activated the blade gem. There’s just a little over two hours left, and Tgurneu could come to the lava zone with its whole army at any moment.” 
She was right—they had no time. If Tgurneu attacked them at that very instant, it was over. They would have no options but to try to move Chamo, even if it was hopeless, and run for it. 
“Now that Nashetania has Goldof protecting her, she’ll be harder to defeat,” Fremy continued. “But still, the three of us should be able to do it. First, we have to find where Nashetania ran off to. Once we’ve done that, then we can talk.” 
Adlet and Rolonia nodded, and they began running over the rock hills. 
“We are at a disadvantage,” Fremy said. “But identifying the seventh is a major victory for us. Now if we can just save Chamo, our victory will be in sight.” 
Rolonia nodded. “You’re right—we know who the seventh is now.” 
But Adlet didn’t reply. 
“What’s wrong, Adlet?” asked Fremy. 
He wasn’t fully convinced. A number of questions rose in his mind. If Goldof was the seventh, he could have done it another way. For example, back in the Phantasmal Barrier, he could have killed Mora or Fremy or something and then pinned the deed on Adlet. So why hadn’t he? 
And there was another question: Why hadn’t Nashetania shown up during their fight in the Ravine of Spitten Blood? If the enemy had carried out their scheme for Mora and the blade gem trap at the same time, then the Braves would have been unable to manage it all. Why was the enemy executing only one plot at a time? Why hadn’t Goldof done anything so far, and why was he making his move now? 
And not only that—there was another more important problem. What was Tgurneu up to? It should know by this point that the Six Braves were in the lava zone. So why hadn’t it come to attack? Something was fishy. Behind the scenes, something was happening, and he couldn’t even get a clue as to what was really going on. 
“Rolonia,” said Fremy, “you go tell Mora and Hans what’s going on. Though I don’t think it’s likely, Goldof and Nashetania might attack them.” 
“Yes, understood,” said Rolonia. 
“We’re going to keep chasing down Nashetania. If you find her, set this off. We’ll come to you immediately,” Fremy said, handing her a signal flare. Rolonia nodded and ran back toward Chamo. 
“Snap out of it, Adlet. You’re the leader, aren’t you? Give the orders,” said Fremy. 
“O-oh…yeah. Sorry. I was thinking.” 
“I see. Let’s go.” 
Adlet followed her. His mind was still on Goldof. The young knight’s expression of shock when they had all found out that Nashetania was the seventh. His cast of despair as they’d progressed through the Howling Vilelands. That odd look on his face when he’d said he was going to go save Nashetania. Could someone really fake those things? 
Adlet didn’t know. He didn’t understand Goldof. He was either an extraordinarily skilled actor or something else entirely. 
In the rocky geothermal wasteland, there was no trail to track a person by. Adlet and Fremy decided to head for the spot where they’d seen that flash of light moments ago. Moving in a clockwise motion with Chamo at the center, they proceeded for about ninety degrees. Walking along, they searched carefully for Nashetania, overlooking no ditch or tiny pit or rock hill’s shadow. It took time, but they didn’t have much choice. 
“I’m almost certain that Nashetania can’t move farther than a kilometer away from Chamo. The circle’s not terribly big. We’re bound to find her,” said Fremy. 
They climbed a slightly more elevated rock hill to find a circular pit about twenty meters across. Smoke wafted from its center. “What’s that?” Adlet said, approaching the smoke. There, in the middle, were the corpses of two fiends. Both had turned to ash. One was a snake, and the other seemed to be a human type. When he touched one of them with his hand, it was hot enough to make him yelp. They must have been fried only a few minutes ago. There were no signs the finds had been drenched in oil and set alight or showered with flames. This was probably from a lightning strike. 
“What is this?” Fremy murmured. Upon closer inspection, the area around the fiends was scorched, too. They also found a few holes in the ground. 
“…Nashetania was here,” muttered Adlet. When she summoned blades from the earth, her attacks made pits shaped like this. “She fought someone here. There was also a fiend that can use lightning attacks—though I couldn’t say if it was her friend or foe.” 
“I wonder who she fought. Was this the work of Cargikk’s faction, too?” Fremy tilted her head. Now that she mentioned it, they still hadn’t solved the mystery behind the pile of bodies in that pit where Chamo was. 
“If it fought with Nashetania, then does that mean it’s on our side?” wondered Adlet. “No, that can’t be. There’s no way we’d have any allies in the Howling Vilelands.” 
“Let’s think about it later. Finding Nashetania is our top priority.” 
The two of them left the bodies and continued their search. They had about two hours left. 
When they emerged from the pit, they found Rolonia running across the rocky hills. She noticed them and came near. 
“How are Chamo and the others?” asked Adlet. 
“They’re safe,” Rolonia replied. “But…a bunch of fiends from the forest are lurking nearby. It doesn’t look like they’re going to attack. They seem to be keeping a close watch.” 
That was weird. Why was Nashetania attacking in half measures like that? 
“You didn’t fight?” asked Fremy. 
“Hans said, ‘Don’t worry about us; just go look for Nashetania.’ He and Lady Mora were both…pretty anxious.” Rolonia looked despondent. “But I do have one piece of good news. It sounds like Lady Mora can extend the time Chamo can hold on by just a little bit.” 
“How much?” asked Adlet. 
“…About half an hour.” 
It was good news, but Adlet couldn’t bring himself to feel glad. Chamo was still in danger. Besides, if Tgurneu brought its full forces to bear, that extra time would be meaningless. “Let’s hurry. That’s the only thing we can do right now,” he said. 
Maybe there was something going on in another place, and maybe there were factors they couldn’t see, but they didn’t have the time to ruminate on it. They would find Nashetania and kill her. They couldn’t afford to focus on anything else. 
Half an hour later, Adlet was crossing the lava zone by himself. He climbed a rock hill and scanned the area nearby, keeping his body low, and then he moved to another hill and searched again. He concentrated so as not to overlook a single shadow and listened intently for any sign of another being. Cautiously, slowly, he proceeded clockwise. 
Fremy and Rolonia were not with him. Fremy was circling around counterclockwise, while Rolonia was searching closer to Chamo. They would surely be able to find Nashetania, no matter which way she had run. 
Splitting up like this was dangerous, but considering the circumstances, they had no other choice. The plan was that if any of them found Nashetania or Goldof, they would immediately set off their signal flare to call the others. But Adlet had received no contact from the other two. 
“!” Adlet heard a sound behind him and dashed toward it. But all he found at the bottom of the ditch were some steam and a tiny puddle of hot water. Realizing that the noise was only the discharge of a geyser, he clicked his tongue quietly. 
Afterwards, he discovered two fiends. They were heading for the pit where Chamo lay. Adlet thought about killing them, but he changed his mind. Fighting the enemy was Hans and Mora’s job. He ignored them and continued the hunt for Nashetania. 
“Adlet!” A voice called to him from just ahead, and there was Fremy. 
He didn’t even have to ask, Did you find Nashetania? They’d already determined to call each other with a blast if they were successful. He approached Fremy and saw her expression was bitter. “You didn’t just miss her, did you?” he asked. 
“Hardly. Were you really not able to find her?” 
As they spoke, Rolonia came running up to them, too. Seeing their faces, she immediately caught on that they had failed. They couldn’t have overlooked Nashetania, not in this situation. They had searched every possible place she could have hidden. 
It didn’t take long to figure out why they couldn’t find Goldof, though. This meant he had run outside the gem’s area of effect. But Nashetania had to be within the area they had searched. 
“Why can’t we find her?” said Fremy. “It’s just a one-kilometer radius.” 
“This makes me think she’s got to be hiding somewhere, but…was there anywhere she could’ve hidden?” Adlet asked, recalling the area’s topography. There was no such place. 
“Maybe…Lady Mora’s analysis was wrong?” said Rolonia. 
“Impossible,” said Fremy. “Mora is an incredibly talented Saint. I doubt she would ever misidentify the potency of a hieroform.” 
“But…maybe there’s some way Nashetania could confuse her?” Rolonia suggested. 
“If so, Mora would know it. Besides, Nashetania has only been a Saint for three years. I highly doubt she could use such a high-level technique.” 
As the other two discussed, Adlet happened to catch sight of something strange. There was a fiend standing on top of a rock hill just a little ways away, waving an object in its right hand. 
“…A white flag?” he murmured. 
The fiend had a crow’s head and a yeti’s body. An old rag was wrapped around its waist, and it held a club. The bludgeon was wrapped with a piece of white cloth, and its owner was waving its impromptu white flag around as it slowly approached the trio. 
“An enemy.” Fremy drew her gun and aimed at the yeti-fiend. The yeti-fiend flailed the white flag around, raising its hands to plead, Don’t shoot! 
Rolonia cut in front of Fremy and said, “Please wait, Fremy. That’s a white flag.” 
“What’s that?” 
She doesn’t know what that is? Adlet thought, a little shocked. Fremy was ignorant about the strangest things from time to time. “It’s a sign on the battlefield that says you don’t want to fight. You didn’t know that?” 
“Humans use such strange devices.” 
While they were talking, the yeti-fiend approached the bottom of the small rock hill where the three of them stood. About ten meters away, it stopped. The three of them kept their hands on their weapons, watching it. 
“Hello,” the yeti-fiend said. It was not a voice they recognized, but its inflection was familiar. The pronunciation was smooth and refined, unlike the somewhat strange pronunciation typical of regular fiends. “Thank you for not shooting. Privately, I was quite nervous when Fremy drew her gun.” 
“…Who are you?” asked Adlet. 
The yeti-fiend shrugged. “I think if you see this, you might know,” it said, and reached under its waistcloth. From within, it pulled out a large fig. 
“!” Adlet and Fremy both moved at once. He aimed for the fiend’s hand with a poison needle, while she shot the fig. The bullet pulverized it in a spray of fruity fragments. 
“Unfortunately for you, this is just a fig. My main body’s location is a secret.” 
“…Tgurneu,” Adlet called the yeti-fiend’s name. No—the name of the one controlling it. 
“It looks like you folks have figured out what I really am, after all,” it replied. “That’s quite the accomplishment. What gave me away? Fremy was with me for eighteen years, and she never realized.” 
“What do you want?” 
Fremy loaded the next bullet and aimed for Tgurneu’s head. Her finger was already on the trigger, and she appeared ready to shoot the fiend dead. 
“Wait, wait, wait, Fremy. I’m not here to fight. I want to talk.” 
“I don’t,” she retorted. 
“Wait! Adlet, please stop Fremy,” Tgurneu said. 
Adlet didn’t. Just like his ally, he was looking for the chance to kill Tgurneu. He had no reason to let the fiend live. 
“I have a proposal, Adlet,” it said. 
Rolonia, too, was readying her whip, inching closer to Tgurneu. The commander had both arms up as it retreated backward, truly a pathetic sight. 
But they all froze at its next words. “Why don’t we work together to defeat Nashetania?” 
“…What?” Adlet asked without thinking. 
Seemingly surprised, Tgurneu said, “Huh? You haven’t figured it out? I thought with a little effort, you’d be able to put it together. Nashetania and I are not on the same side.” 
“What do you mean?” Fremy demanded. 
When Tgurneu saw her lower her gun, its beak trembled. It was hard to tell, but it seemed the fiend was laughing. “Nashetania is not my assassin. Dozzu is the one behind her—the disgraceful traitor to fiends. She is both yours and my enemy.” 
“…No way,” Adlet muttered. He couldn’t manage any other reaction. 
“By the way, you three. What happened to your greetings?” Tgurneu said, beak shuddering in laughter.