“…Urk,” Adlet moaned quietly. Something was calling him awake.
“How many times does Chamo hafta tell you?!”
It seemed her rebuke had awoken him. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d collapsed.
“Chamo, please…a little quieter.” The next voice Adlet heard was Dozzu’s.
When Adlet opened his eyes, he saw the ceiling of a dark cave. Looking toward its entrance, the light of high noon hit his eyes. He squinted at the brightness.
“The proof is all there! Chamo is telling you, Adlet framed the catboy. We read all the hieroglyphs written on that gem. The Barrenbloom didn’t have any transfer power. He was lying about that.” Chamo stood in the center of the cave as she shouted to Rolonia, Mora, Nashetania, and Goldof, who were all sitting together.
“B-but Hans almost killed you…,” Rolonia said, confused. The other Braves and Nashetania also appeared perplexed.
“Chamo’s told you guys over and over. The catboy isn’t the seventh. He was just pretending to be to lure Adlet out and trap Tgurneu.”
Dozzu was curled up behind Chamo. Hans was lying in the back of the cave, apparently still asleep. Fremy was beside Adlet, holding her knees.
“But, Chamo,” said Mora. “Didn’t you say yourself that Adlet was the one who killed Tgurneu in the end? Why would the seventh do that?”
“Chamo doesn’t know, either. But then lemme ask you: Why was the catboy fighting Tgurneu?”
“Well…uh…” Mora faltered.
Then Fremy quietly asked, “Adlet…are you awake?” Her voice sounded frail.
Still lying down, Adlet gave a small nod.
“It’s noon now,” she told him. “It’s been about five hours since Tgurneu’s death. We’re on the eastern side of the Fainting Mountains—quite far from the original meet-up point we arranged.
“Cargikk’s subordinates were lying in wait at the Bud of Eternity, and given our wounds, we had no choice but to run. It took us hours, but we finally found a safe place.”
“…I…see.”
Chamo approached where Adlet lay and glared down at him hostilely. “You’re gonna confess everything.”
He had no intention of hiding anything. There was no reason for him to. So he told them everything—how he’d ordered the white lizard to protect Fremy back at the temple, how he’d heard a voice that sounded like the Saint of the Single Flower coming from his crest, how Tgurneu had informed him that it had taken Fremy hostage, how Hans had trapped him, and how Tgurneu had surrounded them.
And how he had exposed their plan to protect Fremy.
The allies were all speechless as they listened to his tale. Even after he finished explaining everything, they didn’t open their mouths for a long time.
“…Is that…true?” Chamo finally asked.
“The hieroform Tgurneu had…the Book of Truth. Use that. Then…you’ll know everything.”
“We brought it with us, but it’s a no go. Only Tgurneu can use it.”
“Oh…but trust me. It’s all true.”
Again, they were all struck dumb.
That was no surprise. Mora and Rolonia had firmly believed all this time that Adlet wasn’t the seventh.
“So I gambled on the wrong man,” said Nashetania. “I’d made up my mind to bet everything on the hope that you were a real Brave.” She was pale. Dozzu looked at her with some reproach. Goldof also seemed confused by this revelation.
“I…” Adlet’s gaze turned to Fremy. She was staring at his face without saying a word. On the surface, she didn’t seem upset, but beside her, Adlet could tell—she was trembling slightly.
“I…”
He couldn’t believe it.
Fremy had been his every reason for living. Every reason for him to fight. He’d betrayed the Braves for her, stood up for her, killed Tgurneu for her. He’d sworn he was going to make her happy, just five hours ago. And it felt like moments ago.
But despite it, he felt no love for her at all.
“…Fremy,” he muttered. He thought that maybe saying something would change his frozen heart. But nothing changed.
To Adlet, the one who sat beside him now was nothing. Nothing more than a girl.
“Fremy.” He said her name one more time and looked at her face. But nothing stirred in his heart.
He didn’t understand it. Why had he wanted to destroy the world for this girl? Why had he ever felt the desire to defeat this enemy for her? He tried recapturing the feelings he’d had before. He fought to remember loving Fremy. But he just couldn’t. He felt empty, as if a dry wind were blowing through him. There was a sense of loss, as if something important was gone forever. It was a sadness he’d never experienced—not of losing someone important, but of losing the importance of her.
“…So what do we do with him? Kill him? Or cripple him so he can’t fight?” Chamo suggested. Adlet looked at her face with surprise.
“Adlet should no longer be any harm. Tgurneu was controlling him, and it’s dead. Adlet himself had no desire to fight the Braves. So we should treat him as an ally, as we have thus far,” said Mora.
“I believe we have yet to acquire proof that he was never Tgurneu’s ally in the first place. We don’t know he was forced to love Fremy,” Nashetania countered. Her voice was terribly cold.
“It would be…a bad idea to kill him. But I’m not sure…if we can trust him…from now on…” Goldof was also cautious about Adlet.
“…Hrmeow . Adlet’s harmless neow . No need to kill him,” Hans said, now awake.
“You’re too nice, catboy. He just about killed all of us,” Chamo snapped.
Rolonia argued, “N-no, we can’t. I mean, Addy saved the world, didn’t he?!”
“…What?” Chamo shot back.
“I mean, he defeated Tgurneu! Without him, we all would have died! We can’t kill the one who just saved us!”
“No!” Adlet yelled. Rolonia jumped a little. “If I hadn’t been there, you all coulda killed the Black Barrenbloom at the Temple of Fate. Getting rid of Tgurneu would’ve been way easier. None of you would have been in so much danger.”
“B-but…”
“Tgurneu said no other seventh could’ve kept Fremy safe. And I think that’s true. If I hadn’t been there, or if I had been weaker, the Braves would have been able to…kill her.”
Fremy’s eyes widened. Would have been able to kill her. She must have been surprised to hear the phrase from Adlet’s mouth.
“You should’ve let her die. That would’ve ruined all Tgurneu’s plans.”
Fremy’s lips trembled as she looked at Adlet. She must have realized how he felt now. She lowered her eyes sadly.
“It’s… It’s not your fault, Addy,” Rolonia said, her expression heartbroken.
Why did it end up like this? Adlet wondered as he looked at the ceiling of the cave. He wanted to love Fremy. He wanted to fight for her. But he was positive; he couldn’t anymore. “…Why?”
Fremy was an ally he’d fought together with for some time. She’d saved him in the Phantasmal Barrier. She’d always been concerned about him. In the Temple of Fate, she’d asked him to save her. Wounded and in pain, she had clung to him. She’d kept fighting for him.
So why couldn’t he love her, even a little? He didn’t understand it.
“There’s no meaning in believing in him and continuing to fight—because he doesn’t actually love you one bit.” Tgurneu’s words passed through Adlet’s mind, but he rejected them. He believed he had to love Fremy, even if Tgurneu wasn’t controlling him. He didn’t want to acknowledge the fiend had been right. He didn’t want to believe he could be so heartless.
But he couldn’t love her. As he spent more time awake, he even began gradually forgetting what it had felt like to love someone. He could tell without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t the same person he’d been before.
Lying here was someone completely different.
Who am I? Just who is the man I am now?
“…Fremy,” he muttered.
Something was gradually blazing up in his heart—the revenge that had once been a raging fire within him. The flames of his desire for revenge had burned and burned within him since the destruction of his village eight years earlier, and even after Tgurneu’s death, they were still ablaze.
Once, Adlet had sworn to abandon everything for the sake of his revenge—he’d sworn he didn’t need a human heart. He would abandon love, joy, and everything else and fill his heart with hate alone. He had sworn to become a tool that lived just to fight and avenge. He had sworn he would never, ever stop fighting—not until he had killed all the fiends that had destroyed his village and any of their accomplices.
Have I done that? Have I fulfilled my revenge? Adlet asked himself.
No. And he could say that for certain. The fires of his desire for vengeance had not abated in the slightest.
Fremy. There was still her. If only she had never existed, this wouldn’t have happened.
Adlet’s village had been destroyed to make him the seventh—to make him protect Fremy. If she had never existed, his village wouldn’t have been destroyed. Rainer wouldn’t have died. His life wouldn’t have been shattered.
Tgurneu had made Fremy suffer, too. Just like Adlet, she was a victim, robbed of everything by that fiend. But Adlet kicked those thoughts away. So she hadn’t known—so what? It didn’t change the fact that if Fremy had never existed, Adlet wouldn’t have had to lose it all.
He also considered her feelings for him, but he discarded those thoughts, too. Even if she did care for him, so what? Would that change that his village was gone or that everyone was dead?
Worst of all, there were Tgurneu’s final words. Right before Adlet had crushed Tgurneu in his palm, Tgurneu had used the Book of Truth to say:
“[Fremy killed your sister, Schetra.]”
Rolonia was still addressing the group. “We don’t have to kill him. We can’t lay the blame on his shoulders. Everything was Tgurneu’s fault, and it’s dead now. Can’t we just let it end there?” The others still acted wary of Adlet, but Rolonia continued pushing back. “Right, Addy? We’re going to protect the world together, right? You’re one of us now. We’ll work together to fight the Evil God and Cargikk. Right?”
Adlet was unable to reply.
Rolonia turned around to look at him. “Say something, Addy… Addy?” She seemed puzzled. She peered into his face for a long time. And then, so quietly it could hardly be heard, she murmured, “…Are you really Addy?”