Chapter 3
✦ ✦ ✦
I really ain’t right in the head , Hans Humpty thought.
The situation was desperate. Adlet had successfully set him up as the seventh, and the other Braves had placed their full trust in the real seventh as they went out to face Tgurneu one last time.
Was there any way to prove he was a real Brave? If he killed Adlet and no petals disappeared from their crests, it would leave no room for doubt as to what Adlet was. But Hans wanted to avoid killing the bearer of the seventh crest, since the nature of the mark was still unknown to them. And if a petal vanished upon his death anyway, there’d be no point. It was too uncertain.
But it would be the only method to prove Hans was the real thing. He couldn’t think of any way to win the others over, either. Worst of all, they were out of time. The power of the Black Barrenbloom was going to kill all the Braves before Hans revealed the truth, and Tgurneu’s forces might well kill them all even before then.
A normal plan wouldn’t be enough to save them. Hans had to come up with something that neither Tgurneu nor Adlet would ever imagine.
He was caught between a rock and hard place—and having the time of his life.
✦ ✦ ✦
After leaving the Temple of Fate, Hans and Chamo ran north for the time being. If they’d stayed where they were, they would have ended up in a potentially lethal fight with the other Braves, so at the time, there’d been no option but to run. Fiends from Tgurneu’s army had immediately discovered them, but with few pursuing, it had been easy enough to drive them off. After that, they’d treated the wound in Hans’s leg, courtesy of Fremy. Fortunately, Chamo had some of Mora’s medicine. It hurt, but he could still fight fine.
Once they were done treating his injury, one of Chamo’s slave-fiends returned to her. Chamo had leaned her ear close to the slave-fiend’s mouth as it spoke to her. “…Guess they know right where we are. Lots of Tgurneu’s fiends are coming this way.”
“Meow , I figgered this’d happen,” said Hans. He and Chamo were the only ones who might pose a threat to it now. “Is Tgurneu comin’?”
Chamo whispered to the slave-fiend again. “It says it doesn’t know.”
It’d be great if Tgurneu would come in person to kill them, but the hopes for that were slim. For Tgurneu, the best plan was just to wait patiently someplace safe.
“Fer neow, we kill all the bastards comin’ fer us. After that, we chase down the others. They’ll get away if we waste too much time.”
“It’ll be okay. Chamo’s pet is following the idiots. It’s a smart little guy, so it’s not gonna lose sight of ’em.”
“Hrmeow. Sharp little cookie.”
“Tee-hee. Of course. Chamo is Chamo.”
The two smiled at each other. Right that very moment, a fiend popped up from the thicket. In a heartbeat, Hans dashed in close and killed it with a single sword swing, but all around, they could hear more howling in unison.
“Relax, catboy. Leave the enemies to Chamo and think about a way to kill that idiot Adlet. Chamo’ll protect you, catboy.”
Why did Chamo trust him? Why did she not even consider the possibility that he was a traitor? Hans had figured that one out, and personally, it made him a little uncomfortable.
Hans preferred mature, experienced older women. Kids? No way.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ngh!”
Some hours passed. Hans’s expectations that they would clean up the enemies quickly and chase the others down were dashed. The two had been pinned just over half a mile north of the temple.
About a hundred enemies had been dispatched to them, enough that even with the two of them, it was hard to make much headway. And worse than their numbers was their skill. They couldn’t even be compared to the fiends they’d been fighting so far. Unlike most, who fought instinctively with brute force, these ones practiced a brand of refined martial arts that resembled the fighting style of knights, and they could make logical decisions. They clearly moved like an army commanded by a very intelligent fiend.
Hans had been an assassin for over ten years. He’d jumped into crowds of enemies solo more than once or twice. But still, he’d never encountered such a highly trained group before. Could even fiends with their inferior intellect get this good after hundreds of years of training? Once again, Hans was forced to admire Tgurneu’s leadership skills.
A single aerial fiend leisurely circled above, observing what Hans and Chamo were doing. It was probably going to fly straight to Tgurneu if anything happened. Hans could tell even from the ground that the creature thought little of them and assumed they wouldn’t attack it.
“Don’t get in our way! Move!” Chamo vomited up all her slave-fiends for the battle. A water snake slave-fiend spat out a mucus to slow down a cluster of enemies. Meanwhile, Hans was driving for the leader, running along tree branches, leaping down from above to finish it off when—
“Never mind protecting Chamo! Just kill those guys!”
The moment Hans heard Chamo yell that to her slave-fiends, he spun around and dashed toward her. When the slave-fiends defending her left, a fiend that had been observing from a distance made its move. It rushed in for a suicide strike, aiming only for Chamo’s life.
“Huh?” Chamo tried calling her slave-fiends to her and ran, attempting to get away. But she didn’t know how to protect herself and fell before she could get anywhere.
“Hrmeow-mreaah!” In a flash, Hans scooped up Chamo and rolled, then tossed the little Brave over his shoulder and sprinted away. When you’re at a disadvantage, you make use of the terrain. That was the basics of strategy.
But Hans didn’t know the first thing about the terrain here.
“Ngh…grghhhh! Damn it!” Chamo yelled, frustrated that her mistake had screwed things up for him.
“Hrmeow , Chamo. No need to fret. Ya did good.”
“…Huh?”
“I told ya, meow ? You protect me. And in the meowntime, I’ll think of a way to turn this around. Mew gave me the time to think. I got inspired.” That was a lie; he’d come up with a way to turn it around a long time ago. But this would make Chamo happier.
He wasn’t a fan of babysitting. He enjoyed the skin-of-your-teeth fight, but this part was a bit of a buzzkill.
✦ ✦ ✦
Hans was running around the forest in search of advantageous terrain, still carrying Chamo, when he heard the cries of a fiend in the distance. The echoes rang from the mountains loud and clear.
“Where äre you? What are you döing, seventh?! You don’t mean to bétray us for the Braves, do you?! Betrayal will not be fórgiven! If you réveal even part of the truth to the Braves, pünishment from Cómmander Tgurneu will be instantaneous!”
Hans perked up his ears at that.
“Prótect Cómmander Tgurneu! Prévent the Braves’ attacks and kill them all! You should underständ that if by any chänce something happens to Cómmander Tgurneu, your loved one will die!”
“…Hrmeow , Commeownder Tgurneu’s callin’. Gotta go kill the Braves.”
Chamo gave him a blank look. She seemed to take a moment to understand it was a joke.
That call just now had been directed at Adlet, and they weren’t that far away.
After that, Hans continued listening, but he couldn’t hear the fiendish call anymore. However, he did hear something else—the faint sound of water flowing nearby.