Chapter 6
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Something’s funny. Chamo couldn’t stop thinking it—even when she’d been furious over Hans’s betrayal of her, when she’d furiously dumped Fremy and Nashetania for being dumb and told them to go do whatever, and when she’d been driving off fiends’ attacks during her search for Hans.
She was using a third of her slave-fiends to protect herself. These enemies were way weaker than the ones she’d fought with Hans, and they couldn’t even get close to her. She’d instructed the rest of her slave-fiends to disperse across the whole of the ruins. The enemy was interfering with some of them, but still, they should have been able to find something in the ruins.
Chamo had told them to return immediately if they found any clue, no matter how small. But none had come back. Was Hans not in the ruins anymore? Chamo still couldn’t tell.
“…Yeah, something’s funny,” she muttered. She remembered back when they’d fought with the fiend elites, before they’d come here. Those fiends had been strong. If Hans had betrayed her then, he could have killed her easily. But he’d even saved her after she fell and fiends attacked her.
So Hans’s goal hadn’t been to kill her. But she was clueless as to what he or Tgurneu was really after.
That was when a single slave-fiend returned. Ignoring the nearby enemies, it came to Chamo’s side with a weapon in its mouth—one of Hans’s throwing knives.
“Huh? …What’s this?”
There were words written on it, as well as signs that someone had tried to wipe them off, but the letters hadn’t been totally erased. If she looked closely, she could still read them. It was definitely Hans’s handwriting.
REVEAL TO EVERYONE THAT YOU’RE THE SEVENTH. OR GIVE ME PROOF IT’S YOU. THEN, I’LL TELL YOU HOW TO SAVE FREMY.
Chamo was confused. Based on the message, it seemed Hans had given instructions to someone.
Then Chamo remembered—Hans had tossed those throwing knives at Adlet more than once. “…What the heck?”
Examining the writing on the knife, Chamo kept thinking.
A stench wafted around her, and Mora’s mountain echo warned of a poison in the air. Still, Chamo didn’t stop thinking. She could leave this place later. Flames rose up suddenly on the distant mountain. But Chamo ignored that, too. She heard Mora’s mountain echo informing them that Fremy had been saved and that the plan had failed.
But Chamo didn’t move, still studying the knife.
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“I can kill Tgurneu, right?” Adlet asked, picking up his fallen sword.
Watching him, Tgurneu was almost touched. So its seventh, the one it had had such high hopes for, was indeed this great a man? Even now, he still hadn’t considered accepting his fate?
Adlet was on his feet again, but that changed nothing about the situation. He was just an extra body beside Hans, who had outlived his time. They couldn’t call their allies. They couldn’t take down the commander, and they couldn’t prevent the others from dying, either. This just meant Tgurneu would be able to taste the joy of crushing his love once again. To Tgurneu, Adlet’s comeback was actually a happy miscalculation—or so it should have been.
The fiend was confused. What was this trembling welling up from the center of its fig?
Why was it afraid?
Still confused, Tgurneu considered how to direct its subordinates. First, it would take down the silk cocoon. It would summon all its minions from around the ruins and order them to keep Adlet and Hans from escaping. Then, Tgurneu would flee.
But the moment it arrived at that decision, Hans said, “If yer scared, why don’cha run, Tgurneu?”
Of course I’ll run , Tgurneu thought. But Hans’s next remark stabbed it through the heart.
“At this rate, you’ll end up losin’ cuz of the miracles of love.” Hans was smiling. He was clearly provoking Tgurneu to keep it here.
But though aware of the tactic, Tgurneu swallowed its order to retreat. “There’s nothing for me to be concerned about. I’ll kill you and capture Adlet again.”
“Meow-hee-hee-hee! Well, thank ya! But yer the one who’s gonna die here!”
Despite Hans’s scorn, Tgurneu couldn’t bring itself to run.
If it fled now, that would mean acknowledging it feared the power of love. It would be accepting defeat at the hands of the love that so drove Adlet. And Tgurneu couldn’t do that.
The power of love existed for Tgurneu. Never something to fear. Tgurneu was the one who used it. Who destroyed it. This fiend would never be the one scampering off in confusion.
If Tgurneu was to flee in fear of love even once, that experience would scar its heart with a sense of inferiority, a feeling that would leave it unable to find joy in love’s demise ever again.
It may have been an illogical choice, but it was inescapable. This was who Tgurneu was.
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Tgurneu bared its fangs. Claws shot from its fingers, and its tail snapped like a whip. It approached Hans and Adlet slowly, wordlessly. The ten fiends of its guard, who had not participated in this battle thus far, also stepped away from its defense and moved to attack. Tgurneu was finally leaving its leisurely, cloistered position to join the battle. Hans’s provocation had worked. Had it escaped them, their chance of victory would have been nil.
“Haa!” With a shout, Tgurneu dashed toward the Braves. The speed of its steps was neither faster nor slower than Hans’s. As its body, Tgurneu employed a fiend with the head of a mouse. It seemed to have great agility.
Using the claws on both its hands, it made to kill Hans and Adlet simultaneously. The two leaned back and barely avoided the strikes. Tgurneu’s second attack flowed toward Hans, but Hans’s sword blocked it while Adlet threw a needle to stop the third.
“Stay close!” Hans yelled. They had to protect each other, or they wouldn’t be able to fend off Tgurneu’s strikes. As they defended themselves from the continuous onslaught from Tgurneu’s claws, the other nearby fiends joined in.
“Adlet! Ya don’t have no meowr tools?!” Hans cried.
Adlet replied, “I destroyed them! The flash grenades, the flute, the firecrackers—everything!”
They guarded each other’s backs as they weathered attack after attack. If Tgurneu had escaped, the Braves would have been done for. But the fiend’s refusal to run still didn’t mean they had a shot at winning.