Rokka no Yuusha - Volume 6 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 
Hans Humpty’s Lies 

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. 
The fiend in command of the unit chasing Hans and Chamo resembled a praying mantis. It had not been given a specialist number, but it bragged that it was the greatest fiend among Tgurneu’s forces. The specialists were really just a bunch of one-trick ponies. What would bring down the Braves was intellect, skill, and the ability to unify a group; this fiend was the only one in Tgurneu’s army that possessed all these. And the praying mantis–fiend had indeed used its hundred subordinates to corner the two strongest of the Braves. The pair’s attacks had already whittled down their number by fifteen, but that wasn’t a problem. 
“Catboy, over there! Run that way!” 
The two Braves gave up on trying to kill fiends via straightforward assault and just ran instead. The slave-fiends spread out to investigate the area. They must have intended to use the complex terrain to secure an escape route. 
This was an opportunity but also a danger. This area held ancient ruins from the time before the Evil God. To the west were the ruins of a town, and Hans and Chamo were headed in the direction of a watchtower and a charcoal-burning hut. There would also be underground waterways dotting the area. The praying mantis–fiend wasn’t fully informed on the nearby topography. There were a wealth of places the pair could hide—and escape routes, too. If they used those, the mantis’s forces could lose sight of them. 
On the other hand, this was also an opportunity. Since Chamo had dispersed her slave-fiends, her defenses were thinner. Just five remained with her and Hans. Hans himself was running with Chamo in his arms, so he was pressed, too. 
The praying mantis–fiend decided that before the two Braves found an escape route, it would kill one of them, and it gave the order to its subordinates to surround them in a surprise attack. It readied its troops to engage all together at one signal. 
“Over there!” 
Hans ran in the direction Chamo pointed. The praying mantis–fiend spotted the well and inferred that they meant to escape via the underground waterway. 
“Gët thëm!” the mantis yelled, and its forces leaped on Hans just before he could jump into the well. Hans couldn’t block all the sickles, tentacles, and acid, so Chamo slipped off his shoulder. 
One of the fiends swung at Chamo where she lay fallen on the ground. A slave-fiend shielded her but couldn’t block the attack entirely, and the fiend’s second strike sent her rolling back. 
That instant, all the slave-fiends nearby were sucked into Chamo’s mouth. She passed out, losing control over them all, and the mantis was certain of its victory. Hans tried to shield Chamo with his body, and the mantis-fiend was ready to signal the attack. “It’s över!” it yelled. 
But that very moment, the ground crumbled away to reveal a large hole. The fiends clustered around Hans and Chamo all slid down into it to prevent Hans from escaping. Then, the mantis-fiend realized—there was a big underground cave beneath their feet, and Hans had lured them there. 
Most of the fiends, including the mantis-fiend, fell to the bottom of the hole and into a massive reservoir filled with dirty water. 
“Bahh!” In the reservoir, Chamo pushed her face up out of the water as dozens of slave-fiends burst up from the surface. Chamo hadn’t been knocked unconscious. She had been sending the bulk of her slave-fiends to lie in wait inside the reservoir. 
She was the Saint of Swamp. All the slave-fiends under her command were aquatic, and water was where they fought best. 
The moth-fiend watching over the tides of battle from the sky could hardly believe its eyes. Suddenly, a large hole had opened in the ground, and Hans and Chamo had fallen in together with a majority of the fiends. 
What’s more, all the slave-fiends surrounding them had rushed in to attack, and the ten or so fiends that remained aboveground also plunged down into the great hole. All the moth-fiend could hear from the dark pit was the shrieking of fiends. 
The moth-fiend judged that their attempt to stop Hans and Chamo had failed, and it turned around back toward Tgurneu. Its only job was to immediately report if anything unusual happened. 
But the dismayed moth-fiend failed to notice that the moment the large hole had opened in the earth, Hans had escaped the fall, stepping up fiend to fiend and launching himself into the trees, where he was now crouched right below. 
And he had readied throwing knives in his fingertips. 
The two blades pierced its wings at the base, and the moth-fiend lost its balance and fell. It righted itself again and started flapping away when Hans leaped from the treetops to slice it to pieces. 
“…That was close, meow ,” Hans muttered, standing beside the big hole. 
“What’re you talking about? That was easy.” Chamo rode the back of a slave-fiend up to the surface. 
She didn’t get it. They really had only just scraped together that victory. If the enemy had realized the underground reservoir was there, the pair would never have been able to set up that trap. Hans could tell the mantis leader had been pretty sharp. If they’d been any slower with their snare, the mantis probably would have caught on. 
Hans had only been able to kill that moth-fiend due to a combination of the enemy’s carelessness and luck. They couldn’t afford to let a messenger reach Tgurneu. If it became known that the fiends had failed to stop their approach, further reinforcements would be deployed. 
Well, done battles don’t matter , Hans thought, instantly forgetting the round they’d just won. “Meow , the fight comin’ up is gonna be a lot tougher.” 
He dashed off westward, and Chamo followed after him astride a slug slave-fiend. The slug cleaned the dirt off Chamo with jets of water from its tentacles. 
But right after they started off, Chamo seemed to notice something and dismounted to scoop up a twelve-inch-long earthworm. She leaned in close to discuss something with it. 
“The idiots are doing some stuff west of here in a place that looks like an old town. It says they’re all there. But there’s a whole bunch of fiends, too, so it couldn’t get close.” 
Hans recalled seeing this slave-fiend before, when he’d fought with Chamo in the Phantasmal Barrier. The little earthworm had also acted as a scout when their party was running through the Cut-Finger Forest. 
“…Hmm? What?” said Chamo. The earthworm moved its mouth close to Chamo’s face and said something. “It says there’s a group of about a hundred, and the one in the middle is acting like a real big shot. It says that’s probably Tgurneu.” 
“That guy’s smart.” 
“Of course. It’s Chamo’s pet.” 
Hans’s mind was spinning. He’d already come up with a rough outline of a plan, but he still hadn’t decided on the details. He had to figure out to some degree what Tgurneu, the other Braves, Dozzu, Nashetania, and Adlet were all doing, or there was no way he could make a real strategy. 
“What’re those idiots up to?” wondered Chamo. 
“Who kneows. If that earthworm don’t, ’course we can’t.” That was a lie. The other Braves would be coming up with a plan to kill Tgurneu, then move to carry it out. 
Adlet had tricked the Braves into believing the Black Barrenbloom wouldn’t stop, even if they killed Fremy. They believed they had no choice but to kill Tgurneu. And Adlet would be facilitating Tgurneu’s defeat, too—on the surface. 
“I ain’t too sure what the others are doin’, but I do kneow what Tgurneu’s up to. It’s gonna be hidin’ somewhere, waitin’ ’til the Barrenbloom kills us all.” 
“Yeah, Chamo thinks so, too. The big shot is prolly just some lackey. It’d be nice if we could lure Tgurneu out from hiding somehow, though.” 
“If it was that dumb, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” 
Chamo was calling on every brain cell to come up with a solution. Hans wasn’t expecting anything from her mental faculties, but there was no reason to stop her, so he let her be. “We’ve just gotta prove that you’re not the seventh, after all,” she said. “Fremy and Rolonia are hopeless, but that dummy Goldof was the one guy who suspected Adlet. Let’s get him on our side.” 
“Not gonna happen. The princess likely has him wrapped around her little finger. He can’t go against what she says.” 
“So we kill that dummy princess. We should’ve killed her right after they told us about the temple in the first place.” 
“And make an enemy outta Goldof?” Hans discarded that idea with a single remark. 
“So then…we kill Fremy, after all?” 
“Meow , I dunno…” For once, Hans wasn’t sure what to say. 
He had figured that was the most certain course of action, too. Killing the Black Barrenbloom would mean the biggest crisis was dealt with. Fremy was pretty strong, and Adlet would do everything he could to defend her, as would the other Braves he’d deceived. But still, he and Chamo would have a chance at victory. 
Hans wavered—should he target Fremy or come up with a different tactic instead? 
But he quickly reached a firm decision. Even he and Chamo wouldn’t be able to kill her instantly. It would clearly take a few minutes of fighting, and there was no way Tgurneu would just sit there and watch in the meantime. 
“What’ll we do, catboy? If you can’t think of anything, then Chamo’ll do it. Chamo’ll kill Fremy good, even if Chamo’s life is on the line.” 
“Meow , fine. We kill Fremy. Once ya see ’em, go straight fer her and don’t think ’bout neowthin’ else. I’ve got a plan—a way to get rid of her fer sure.” 
“Just gotta rush straight in, huh?” 
Hans was going to pull something crazy. He’d chosen to do something neither Adlet nor Tgurneu would ever think up. It would be a disadvantageous gamble. If he blew this, it would be over for him—and the world, too. 
Hans also wasn’t going to tell Chamo about this gamble. If you want to deceive your enemy, you’ve got to start with your friends. 
“I’m goin’ ahead a bit to set up my plan. I’ll meet up with ya in a flash, so keep on runnin’.” 
“Huh?” Chamo was confused by the sudden order. 
“Ya don’t have to kneow about my plan. If we’re gonna kill Fremy, we need to surprise her. Yer looks and yer actions might give away what I’m thinkin’.” 
“…I don’t really get it, but okay.” 
Hans ran through the forest, away from Chamo. Just as he vanished from sight into the treetops, he called back: “And that earthworm. Release it again. Make it keep an eye on the big shot.” 
“Got it.” 
Hans waited a little, watching Chamo’s earthworm wriggle past his feet. Silently, he approached it and plucked it up gently. The surprised earthworm began flailing around. “Settle down a li’l.” 
From their conversation, Hans had figured out what sort of abilities this earthworm slave-fiend possessed. It was intelligent and had good observational skills. If needed, it would even watch for, remember, and report things other than what Chamo had specifically requested. 
And Chamo couldn’t tell what the earthworm was doing or where it was. 
“This’ll meowbe hurt, but suck it up. This plan is countin’ on ya,” Hans said, bending the earthworm and tying it like a ribbon. Then, he tucked it into his pocket. This earthworm was the cornerstone of this scheme. 
After that, Hans took care of a few things, and then, once his arrangements were made, he recoinnoitered with a puzzled-looking Chamo. Then, they headed toward Adlet and the others. 
“Chamo and Hans are here?” Tgurneu was understandably shocked to hear this from the wolf-fiend. They weren’t on the approach; they were here. Tgurneu was stunned at the incompetence of its subordinate, who had failed both to hold them back—even with a unit of one hundred—and to report the breakthrough. 
An aerial fiend circling in search of Adlet’s party had reported to the wolf-fiend that it happened to see slave-fiends and said that Hans and Chamo were headed straight for Adlet, Fremy, and Dozzu. 
“<Send out one unit to fight them. Stop Hans, at the very least,>” Tgurneu ordered for the time being. 
But the wolf-fiend complained through number twenty-four, “<Th-they wön’t make it in time. Fremy’s shot down möst of the messenger fiends, and there aren’t mäny I can use.>” 
“…Ngh.” Tgurneu was irritated. “<You know where Adlet and Fremy are, don’t you?>” 
“<Y-yes, Cómmander, I do.>” 
“<Chamo and Hans will most likely seek to kill Fremy. Once Hans, Chamo, and Fremy begin fighting, attack from the side. Your target is Chamo. Have the Braves or Dozzu and Nashetania kill Hans. Listen to me: No matter what happens, absolutely do not allow Fremy or Adlet to die.>” 
“Undérstood.” Number twenty-four stopped transmitting the wolf-fiend’s message. 
Number eleven, at Tgurneu’s feet, said, “Should we not älso sörtie to kill Hans, Cómmander?” 
“…No need. I trust in the power of love—and in Adlet. As he is now, he’s sure to make it through such a simple bump in the road.” Tgurneu kicked at the ground in irritation. 
Right when it was getting good. Tgurneu had been delightedly imagining Fremy’s despair, so tantalizingly close… And now this interruption. 
Adlet tossed two flash grenades into the sky. Bursting in the air, they illuminated the ruins like day for an instant. One flash grenade was the signal that they had found Tgurneu. Two meant Hans was coming. 
“Where is Hans?!” Adlet asked Fremy and Dozzu. 
“I don’t know,” said Fremy. “But he should be close. A slave-fiend discovered me, then immediately left. I think they’ll be coming for us soon.” 
Hans’s target would be either him or Fremy. 
The three ran westward. Nashetania and Rolonia would be coming to them from that direction. Adlet’s party would meet up with them to face Hans and Chamo. The three alone would be at a disadvantage otherwise. 
“So Hans truly has won Chamo over,” said Dozzu. “She still believes you’re the seventh, Adlet.” 
“Nothing we can do about that,” Fremy replied. “This is Chamo. She may be strong, but you can’t expect much from her brains-wise.” 
Listening to Fremy and Dozzu’s conversation, Adlet considered what to do now. 
He couldn’t kill Hans or Chamo. If he killed Hans, he could talk his way out of it, but killing Chamo was out of the question. He would be suspected of being the seventh all over again. On the other hand, leaving the two alive would place Fremy’s life in jeopardy. 
And this would also make it more difficult to kill all the Braves aside from Fremy. He would be forced to suspend the plan, as they’d decided beforehand. He would no longer be able to ensnare the Braves in their own stratagem. 
But right now, he didn’t have time to be thinking so far ahead. He had to deal with the imminent threat. 
When Rolonia and Nashetania saw the light grenades, they sprinted off eastward. Plowing through fiends as they went, they listened and looked for Adlet’s party. 
“N-Nashetania, you understand that you can’t kill Chamo or Hans, right? We’re just going to defeat and capture them,” said Rolonia. 
“Don’t worry. I’m hoping the situation will allow it.” 
Goldof and Mora both saw the light of the flash grenades, but being surrounded, they couldn’t go anywhere. 
“Hans… Chamo…,” Goldof murmured. He was still on the fence. He didn’t quite believe that Adlet was a real Brave. In his mind, he called out to Hans and Chamo. If you two are real Braves, then show me you can get out of this. Prove you’re not the fakes. You’re the only ones who can. 
Upon receiving the order from Tgurneu, the wolf-fiend sent out its troops—the thirty best fighters of the hundred under its command. They would be the first to engage them and prepare a surprise attack. The wolf didn’t explain to the fiends who the seventh was. It only ordered them to kill Chamo while the others were busy fighting. It moved the remaining seventy to a position where they could quickly rush to the battle. 
The wolf-fiend then found a conveniently large tree and climbed up into it. Looking out through the canopy into the distance, it immediately spotted Adlet’s party and two lights rushing toward it with incredible speed. That would be Hans and Chamo. They would catch up to Adlet’s group soon. 
“We’re gonna fight!” Adlet yelled. 
They couldn’t get away. Hans and Chamo would catch up before they could rejoin Rolonia and Nashetania. Adlet yelled and turned around, readying paralysis and pain needles in the fingers of both hands. 
Astride the back of a slug, Chamo was making a beeline for them, illuminating the whole area with a light gem. Her eyes were locked on Fremy, and she stuffed her foxtail down her throat to vomit up every slave-fiend she had. Lightning, bombs, and needles held them at bay, but even Adlet, Fremy, and Dozzu attacking simultaneously couldn’t stop all her forces. 
“Watch out!” cried Adlet. The slave-fiends that had slipped through their attacks were after Fremy. Adlet shoved one away with a body blow while Dozzu fried another with its lightning. Where is Hans? Adlet wondered, looking around. He sensed something in the darkness. Hans was coming for Fremy from the side. 
“Just lie down and die already!” Chamo yelled, pointing at Fremy. Instantly, even the slave-fiends protecting Chamo joined the attack as Hans leaped from the treetops toward Fremy. 
“It’ll be a cold day in hell!” Adlet’s sword blocked Hans’s swing. 
“Hrmeeeaow!” Hans fell back, throwing two knives. One missed, sticking near Adlet’s belt and leaving him unhurt. The other went for Fremy. She easily repelled it with the grip of her gun, but the slave-fiends used that moment to close the distance. 
The fight turned to chaos, with both sides in a jumble together. This is bad , thought Adlet, and he ran for Fremy to protect her. 
Right then—Hans grabbed hold of a light gem he’d been hiding in his hand, and for just a blink, the gem flashed at its brightest intensity. The glare wasn’t as powerful as a flash grenade, but as Adlet’s, Fremy’s, and Dozzu’s eyes were used to the dark, it blinded them for an instant. Fremy and Dozzu both froze for that split second. 
“Is that all you got?!” Adlet didn’t flinch, slicing out at Hans, but Hans slipped past Adlet’s sword and switched targets. Landing on the ground with his hands, he took the fight in the exact opposite direction—toward Chamo, on the back of her slug-fiend. His sword was raised, ready to descend on Chamo at full force. 
“Huh?” Chamo muttered weakly. Hans’s blade was nearing her neck as if a magnet were pulling it in. 
“Chamo!” A high-pitched, metallic sound rang out. Hans’s trajectory was suddenly reversed by Fremy’s bullet, but he’d blocked it with his sword and escaped injury. 
“…Wh…at?” All the slave-fiends froze, as did Adlet and Dozzu. The only movement was in Fremy’s fingertips, loading her next bullet. 
“…Huh?” 
Hans rolled on the ground, then slowly stood up. Carelessly, he scratched his head and shrugged. 
“…Catboy?” Chamo touched her hand to her neck. She looked at her palm. It was sticky with blood. 
“That was close. I blew it. If Fremy hadn’t gotten in my way, I’d have taken ya meowt.” Hans smiled gleefully. 
The wolf-fiend stood on its branch, frozen. Unable to process what was going on, it simply stopped just as it was about to give the fiends waiting nearby the order to charge. 
Tgurneu’s instruction had been to kill Chamo while the Braves were fighting one another. But the wolf-fiend could no longer obey. Both sides had stopped fighting. 
Hans and Chamo were supposed to be working together. So then, why would Hans attack Chamo? Had Commander Tgurneu lied? If so, then what for? 
“So I couldn’t even kill Chamo. Oh, meow . I can’t do anythin’ right.” As Hans spoke, he started ambling around. Chamo was stunned, still staring at him. 
He’s finally stopped hiding it , Fremy thought. 
“Fiends, y’all stay back a bit longer, meow . I’m talkin’ here, so don’t get in the way,” Hans called out to thin air. “Well, that’s neow problem. I got other cards to play. Lemme tell ya somethin’, Adlet.” 
Adlet seemed unable to process the situation. For the moment, Dozzu was watching attentively. 
“I’ve decided I won’t try to kill Fremy no meowr. I realized there’s a better use for her.” 
“…What are you trying to say?” demanded Fremy. 
“My first idea was to use ya as a tool to kill Chamo. Well, that failed. But there’s still one other way you can help me. I’ve decided to take ya hostage, Fremy.” 
“…Hostage?” repeated Adlet. 
“I’ll be frank: I can kill Fremy at any time. If ya wanna save her, Adlet, then listen up. Look, if ya do anythin’ funny, it’ll all be over in a flash. You don’t behave, Fremy’s as good as dead.” 
“What did he do, Fremy?! Hans or Chamo did something to you, didn’t they?!” Adlet yelled. But Fremy shook her head. She didn’t recall even being touched by a slave-fiend, much less Hans. But then she quickly remembered something—that red mark stamped on her chest. 
It was probably no lie that he could kill her at any time. 
“…He’s…a helluva bastard,” Adlet muttered. 
“My demand is…well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell mew, Adlet.” 
Adlet was speechless. He’d known Hans was a formidable man but hadn’t realized how formidable. 
Since Fremy and Dozzu believed Hans was the seventh, they’d think he was taking her hostage as an accomplice to Tgurneu. But since Adlet knew he himself was the seventh, he saw something else. 
Only Adlet understood what Hans was really after. 
It was true that Hans had attacked Chamo. But Hans was a real Brave, and he would never try to actually kill an ally. That had just been an act, planned with Chamo in advance. So why the act? To surprise Fremy and Adlet—and create an opportunity for Hans. It had worked and confused Adlet, and Fremy had been distracted by the need to protect Chamo. And they’d all been blinded by the light gem, to boot. 
What had Hans and Chamo done in that moment? Hans had told them the answer himself. 
He had taken Fremy hostage. 
Though Fremy had said Chamo hadn’t done anything to her, they weren’t exactly aware of every ability Chamo’s slave-fiends possessed. It would be no shock for one to be able to poison you unawares or implant a parasite in your body. In fact, it would be stranger if they didn’t. And such an ability had allowed Hans and Chamo to take Fremy hostage. 
Considering all Hans had said and done so far, Adlet had no choice but to acknowledge he was telling the truth. He and Chamo had taken Fremy hostage to threaten Adlet. But Adlet couldn’t get where this was going at all. 
“…He’s…a helluva bastard.” 
Hans had figured out everything—that Adlet would be willing to give his life to defend Fremy, that Tgurneu had taken Fremy hostage to demand Adlet’s betrayal…and that Adlet had caved to that demand. There was no other way he would have been able to conceive of this plan. 
“My demand is…well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell mew, Adlet.” 
The situation was beyond disastrous. Fremy’s life was in the balance on both sides now: by the Braves and Tgurneu. Tgurneu was telling Adlet to protect Tgurneu and betray the Braves of the Six Flowers. Meanwhile, Hans was telling him to stab Tgurneu in the back, literally and figuratively. 
And both sides were threatening to kill Fremy if he didn’t obey their orders. 
What should he do? For a long time, Adlet stared at Hans’s face. 
“…Hn.” 
Then, Chamo’s shoulders started shaking. 
“Wah…hic…WAHHHHH!” She flung her head back and started bawling loudly, but after about ten seconds of nonstop wailing, she suddenly stopped. “…I’ll…kill…you…” 
The moment Hans heard that, he turned around and took off like a shot. Chamo’s slave-fiends completely ignored Fremy and Adlet and chased after him. But Adlet knew her crying was an act. Hans hadn’t actually tried to kill her, and she should’ve know that, too. 
Dozzu and Fremy struck at Hans, but neither of their attacks hit. 
“We’ve come to help!” Just as Chamo disappeared from sight, Rolonia and Nashetania burst in. 
Took you long enough , Adlet thought. 
“…Did you fight them off?” 
The two seemed confused that Hans and Chamo weren’t around. 
“For now, we run, and I’ll explain as we go. It’s a bad idea to stay in one place for long.” Fremy dashed off after Chamo, and the others followed. 
Fremy gave them an outline of everything that had happened: the fiends calling for her surrender, the pain and red mark on her chest, Hans’s sudden attack on Chamo—and his claim to have taken Fremy hostage before he ran off. 
After hearing this report, Nashetania tilted her head. “This doesn’t feel right. Hans’s and Tgurneu’s actions don’t seem consistent. First, they’re calling for your surrender, and next, they come to tell you they’ve taken you hostage?” 
“I agree,” said Fremy. “It may be that they’re not coordinated or that Hans is acting on his own.” 
The group was apprehensive. Adlet was the only one there who knew what was actually going on. 
As they ran, he said to Rolonia, “Why are you wasting time? Treat Fremy’s chest.” 
Flustered, she put her hand where the mark had been and rubbed the area a few times, and her expression clouded. “It’s no use. There’s nothing I can do.” 
“Do you think Mora can help her?” 
“I doubt even Mora could. I’m not positive, but this is less like a wound and more like a disease. It’s as if she’s suddenly contracted a fatal sickness.” 
Adlet scowled. Fremy told him, “I already figured there would be no getting rid of it.” 
But he pressed Rolonia further. “Give her a thorough examination. Is there anything planted inside her?” 

Rolonia did as he said, touching Fremy’s chest once more. “…U-um, I can’t find anything…but my powers aren’t much compared to Torleau’s or Lady Mora’s…” 
“That’s enough, Rolonia,” Fremy said, pushing her away. Quietly, she asked Nashetania, “You’ve finished preparing for the fire?” Nashetania gave a tiny nod. “…Then we’re doing it. We have no time to lose. Tgurneu is going down.” 
Dozzu and Nashetania nodded. 
This is bad , thought Adlet. He couldn’t let them go through with the plan. If Tgurneu died, so would Fremy, and he had yet to tell Tgurneu about their plan. If they did it now, the Braves would succeed. 
That was when, from the sky above, an aerial fiend yelled, “A message from Cómmander Tgurneu! ‘Häns, I am éxasperated with you! I have no möre use for you! Kill yourself ímmediately! If you cóntinue to disobey my örders, your beloved will be wïped from éxistence!’” 
“…This is convenient. They’re confused, after all. If we’re going to do this, it’s now or never. You’re fine with this, right, Adlet?” Fremy asked. 
Adlet faltered. The first thing he had to do was interrupt the plan, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that would convince the others. 
The wolf-fiend gave Tgurneu the update through number twenty-four: Hans had suddenly attacked Chamo, then claimed he had taken Fremy hostage and run off. 
“<Did you…sit there…and watch? As my plan…was ruined?>” Tgurneu’s calm usually never faltered, but it was now nearing its limits. Its subordinates’ hopeless incompetence was indefensible. “<Give the whole army the order to kill Hans.>” 
“<But the Braves bélieve he’s the seventh. It could get out that he’s a real Bräve—>” 
“<Tell him in the Braves’ earshot: You’re incompetent. I’ve got no more use for you, so go and die.>” Tgurneu worked its mind, considering for a bit before it asked the wolf-fiend, “<…Which way did Hans and Chamo go?>” 
Adlet and the others were chasing Hans. They got an earful of Chamo’s yelling and crying ahead of them, as well as the shrieks of the slave-fiends. 
“What are you doing, Adlet? This isn’t the time to be chasing Chamo. The plan was to capture one to drive them away, but I don’t think there’s a need for that now.” Fremy had to mean that they should start the plan. 
“Hold on a minute. I’m gonna take a look around right now,” Adlet said, climbing a tree. As he pretended to focus his eyes in the darkness, he considered his course of action. 
He would interrupt them, no matter what. But the problem was what came after that. Fremy was Hans and Chamo’s collateral, so he had to free her. But had Hans actually taken her hostage in the first place? Chamo was good, but was she capable of implanting a parasite into Fremy without her noticing? 
The truth could be that Chamo had done nothing. But even if Adlet suspected that might be the case, he had no proof. Without proof, he couldn’t reach a decision. 
He pulled out the knife stuck in his belt—the one Hans had thrown at him. He noticed the faint message on it, written in blood, on the side of the blade. 
PRETENDED TO BE THE SEVENTH TO MAKE CONTACT WITH FIENDS. FOUND A CLUE TO SAVE FREMY FROM TGURNEU . SHE CAN BE SAVED. 
Adlet wiped the message off the knife and stuffed it into one of his pouches. He figured this was good news. If he could free Fremy from Tgurneu, he wouldn’t have to betray the Braves anymore. If he could kill Tgurneu, then the Black Barrenbloom would be undone, too, and Hans and Chamo would no longer have a reason to kill Fremy. 
But could he believe the message on the blade? 
Fremy was affected by the chain-death ability, that red-mark disease. It couldn’t be easily undone, surely. Not even Hans should have been capable of finding a clue as to how to accomplish that. 
But Adlet thought that maybe, just maybe, Hans—with his ingenuity and acting skills—could have pulled it off, if Tgurneu had failed to control the information somewhere along the line within its army. There was a possibility that Hans really did have some notion as to how Fremy might be saved. 
Adlet climbed down from the tree. He’d made up his mind what to do. First, he would chase down Hans and Chamo and ask them how to rescue Fremy from Tgurneu. If they didn’t know how to cancel out the chain-death ability, he would kill the two somehow and free Fremy from them. After that, he would betray the Braves and kill them all except Fremy, for sure. 
“We’re not gonna withdraw, but don’t go through with the plan yet. We’ve nearly caught Hans,” Adlet said to the others. 
Aside from Rolonia, they were all surprised to hear that. “Pardon me,” interjected Dozzu, “But I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. We’re going to let this chance go?” 
“We should just let Chamo handle Hans. Even if he does escape her, it sounds like Tgurneu will kill him for us,” Fremy added. 
“No, it won’t,” Adlet replied. “This is not our best chance. Do you think Tgurneu will actually kill Hans? Do you think there’s actually confusion in the ranks? That’s just a bluff—they’re trying to mess with us.” 
“Then that’s convenient for us. While Tgurneu is busy setting up this bluff, we’ll go take its life.” Then, Fremy looked Adlet in the face as if she’d realized something. “It couldn’t be… Do you think Hans could tell you a way to save me?” 
In a way, she was right on the mark. He froze, and Fremy pressed him further. “I thought I told you before—you can execute the plan without me now. You need to focus on killing Tgurneu, not worrying about my life.” 
“But then, Fremy, you’ll—,” Rolonia argued. 
Fremy cut her off. “I thought you understood, too, Rolonia. We’re going to kill Tgurneu, even if it costs us our lives.” 
Dozzu and Nashetania appeared to agree. 
“No,” said Adlet. “I could tell. Hans…figured out something.” 
“…?” The whole group seemed confused. 
“When Hans was talking, he was watching us. And for a moment, he looked at me. Right then, my gut told me he’d figured out something. I don’t know what. But he’s definitely gotten hold of some important information. Do we go through with the plan or withdraw? I have to find out what he knows, or I can’t reach a decision.” 
Even Adlet could see their astonishment and hear their unspoken question: Are you going to let the perfect opportunity slip away because you have a gut feeling? 
“I underestimated Hans,” Adlet continued. “The most formidable thing about him isn’t his combat abilities—it’s his powers of observation and deduction. If we let him roam free, he’ll read every card in our hand. Whether we keep fighting or run and rework the plan, we have to capture Hans.” 
“You’re thinking too much. Hans’s ploys have been a string of failures,” Fremy shot back. Dozzu and Nashetania weren’t convinced, either. And Adlet doubted he could convince them with a “hunch” alone. 
“Dozzu…you didn’t deliberately let Hans escape, did you?” Adlet asked, and Dozzu’s eyes went wide. Adlet knew Dozzu and Hans weren’t secretly communicating, but he deliberately cast suspicion on the fiend. 
“Hardly. What are you talking about?” 
“It looked to me like you coulda hit him with that last strike. Right before he got away. What are you plotting, letting him go?” 
“You’re suspecting me at this point? I was aiming for Hans. This is a false accusation.” 
“Oh, is it?” 
Dozzu and Adlet glared at each other. 
“…Understood. We’ll pursue Hans and capture him. If we cooperate with you in this, you will trust that we haven’t been duplicitous?” asked Dozzu. It and Nashetania were in a shaky position. If Adlet threw Dozzu’s loyalties in doubt and threatened to treat it as an enemy if it didn’t obey, Dozzu had no choice but to do as it was told. “But you’re completely mistaken. We absolutely must go through with the plan. First, we’ll capture Hans and disable him, and then we will have Chamo restrain him. After that, let’s carry out the plan. If even this won’t convince you, then we have our own ideas.” 
“All right. I’m uneasy about this, but let’s go with that.” Adlet nodded. That was enough. 
“Wait. Hans is trying to trap you. Chasing him down is just what he wants.” Fremy still doggedly opposed him. 
Then Rolonia said, “I think it’s better to trust Addy’s hunch, Fremy. His hunches have gotten him out of trouble over and over again. Let’s do what he says one more time.” 
Gritting her teeth, Fremy nodded. 
Adlet gave his allies instructions. “Dozzu, Rolonia. You go back the way you came and keep making sure nothing is going on with the wolf-fiend and its unit. And like Dozzu said, we’re going to be carrying out the plan eventually, so communicate the situation to Mora and Goldof, too.” 
“Right,” said Rolonia. 
“We’ll chase down Hans,” said Adlet. “Fortunately, Chamo is loud. We’ll be able to tell where they are right away.” Fremy still seemed uneasy, but Adlet grabbed her and ran off with Nashetania. 
Goldof was battling the fiends inside the barrier. Quite some time had passed since they’d been informed of Hans and Chamo’s approach. 
That was when Mora said, “Dozzu has entered the range of my clairvoyance. It’s told me what’s happened.” 
They cleaned up the enemies that had broken into the barrier, and during a short pause, Mora told Goldof what was going on. 
“…It’s not…lying?” Goldof was shocked at how wrong he’d been. 
“Dozzu tells us to wait just a little longer. Another push, Goldof.” 
Whether they were to escape or carry out the plan, it seemed Goldof had no choice but to keep on fighting. 
“Where are you? Where are you, Hans?!” Hans could hear Chamo yelling as he leaped from branch to branch in flight. 
Seems my thinkin’ was right , he mused. 
Adlet wasn’t Tgurneu’s ally, after all. Tgurneu had simply manipulated his emotions to make him fall in love with Fremy. Hans could tell from Adlet’s expression as they talked—he was thinking about her and nothing else. 
Still running, Hans glanced backward and saw Adlet and the others in pursuit. Just as he’d predicted. 
The truth was that Hans had not taken Fremy hostage. Chamo hadn’t done anything to her. That was just a bluff. But Hans had figured it would be enough to trick Adlet. The first stage of his plan had succeeded—but the hard part was what came next. 
“Found you!” he could hear Chamo shout. Her slave-fiends all stampeded to Hans’s position atop the branches, but Hans used them as stepping stones to leap even higher. If he ever dropped onto the ground, they would be on him in an instant. 
“Chamo’s not gonna forgive you! How dare you trick Chamo?!” Chamo was crying and yelling. She didn’t know what Hans was really after. She believed he’d attacked her for real, since he hadn’t brought her up to speed beforehand. Chamo couldn’t act for beans, and any attempt to deceive Adlet with bad acting would fall flat. Hans had judged that Chamo would react how he needed her to, even if he didn’t bother telling her what was actually going on. 
“There he ïs! It’s Häns!” The moment he escaped the slave-fiends, real fiends swooped in to attack him from the side. 
“I’ve found him! I’m going to capture him!” And now Fremy’s bullet was flying at him from behind. Hans just barely managed to avoid the multipronged assaults. 
Now he had no allies anywhere. The Braves and Tgurneu—everyone was an enemy. But Hans didn’t see this as a problem. In fact, the thrill of being completely alone was just what he’d been looking for. 
“Die, Hans, die!” 
Before long, Adlet’s party found Hans and Chamo. Even though fiends and slave-fiends were all after Hans, he didn’t have so much as a scratch. 
“Chamo! Wait, please! Killing him would be a bad idea!” Nashetania called out. 
Chamo turned around with tears in her eyes and gave them a hair-raising glare. “What? Chamo can’t hear you. Chamo’s gonna kill Hans now, so could you not get in the way?” 
“I’m telling you to calm down, please.” 
“Do you want to die before him?” 
Nashetania fell silent. 
But Adlet knew it was a ploy—part of the duo’s conspiracy to take Fremy hostage and threaten Adlet. But her acting had a bloodcurdling edge to it. Adlet was surprised she was this good. 
“Hans! Stop! We won’t kill you!’ Fremy called out as she fired her gun. 
“What kinda idiot’s gonna stop ’cause ya told ’em to?” Using a ruined building as his shield, Hans nimbly evaded her bullets. 
“Häns! Die, you üseless creature!” a fiend screeched from Hans’s side. Its attack failed to connect, too. 
Nashetania’s blades and Fremy’s bullets blasted the fiends back, and the fiends were attacking the trio, too, as they pursued Hans. What a bizarre situation , Adlet thought. Braves, fiends, and two fake Braves, all with completely different motives but chasing one person. 
While they were busy getting in one another’s way, Hans darted casually around the ruins. 
“Hans! Listen to us!” Adlet yelled. 
Hans stood on a tree branch and turned back. “Hrmeow. Do ya have some business with me?” 
“Tell us everything. If you do, I won’t kill you. Tell us…your goal—and all you know. Everything, every little inkling. And…how to free Fremy!” 
First, Adlet had to make sure whether or not Hans really knew a way to save Fremy from Tgurneu. Had he actually found a method to help them cancel the chain-death ability? 
“Meow …tell ya, huh? I dunno.” Standing on a tree branch, Hans scratched the end of his nose. “Is Fremy that important to ya, Adlet? If so, I really can’t just tell ya that easy, neow.” 
“Don’t you give me…that crap…” 
As Adlet lashed out with his blade, Hans threw another knife at him. It thunked into the shoulder of Adlet’s leather armor. When Adlet pulled it out, he found something written on this one, too. 
Reveal to everyone you’re the seventh. Or give me proof it’s you. Then, I’ll tell you how to save Fremy. 
Adlet frantically wiped the message off the knife and hurled it far away. 
So this was his goal, huh? To threaten Adlet into confessing and expose Tgurneu’s full plan to the light of day. That was the purpose of this whole scheme. 
Adlet couldn’t do what Hans wanted. Even if he did confess, he didn’t know if Hans would actually save Fremy. Neither Hans nor Chamo would hesitate to sacrifice her life for the sake of victory. 
So he couldn’t confess, but if he ignored Hans’s instructions, Chamo would kill Fremy. Desperately, Adlet tried to think of a plan. 
“Nashetania, circle around to the left!” Fremy called out, and the two made to ensnare Hans. With enemies bearing down from either side, Hans changed directions, charging for Adlet instead. 
“Tch!” Adlet struck back. The two crossed swords. Their blades clashed once, twice, and then Hans said softly, “If ya agree to my deal, then follow me. Alone, meow ,” jerking his chin in a southeastern direction. Adlet tried to kick Hans away, but he dodged backward to evade it. “Hrmeow!” 
A fiend was waiting for Hans before he could land. Its attack grazed his leg, knocking him off-kilter and causing him to bungle his landing and fall to the ground. Another fiend was waiting to thrust its claws into Hans’s stomach, sending a spray of blood over the dark ruins. 
“You did good, fiend!” Chamo said with a smile. Her slave-fiends, Fremy, and Nashetania took over from there, driving Hans staggering into a corner. 
“This is our chance. He’s wounded pretty badly,” said Fremy. “We can capture him now.” 
This is bad , thought Adlet. Chamo’s attempts to kill Hans were an act, but the fiends were seriously trying to get rid of him. Adlet didn’t know what Chamo might do if Hans died. He also wouldn’t be able to get whatever Hans might have to help Fremy. 
“…Don’t let him go. We’re gonna keep after him,” said Adlet. 
Adlet made up his mind. He would accept Hans’s proposal. He would, as instructed, separate from the other Braves, Nashetania, and the fiends and talk with Hans alone. Right now, Hans was injured, so Adlet wouldn’t be at a disadvantage one-on-one. Then, Adlet would find out if Hans actually knew how to cancel the chain-death ability. 
If he did, Adlet would disengage it and kill Tgurneu. Once Fremy was safe, Adlet wouldn’t mind confessing he was the seventh, as Hans had demanded, but if Hans didn’t know, Adlet would devote everything he had to eliminating him and Chamo. At that point, he would pass a secret message to Tgurneu and slaughter the other Braves. 
As for the details, he’d have no choice but to play it by ear. Whatever the case, it was certain to be a tough fight. 
But he was the strongest man in the world. No matter what the crisis, he would make sure Fremy was safe. As long as she was all right, the world—and he—could go to hell for all he cared. 
Hans kept running for some time after that, and Adlet’s party lost sight of him. They illuminated the area with their light gems at max strength but saw neither hide nor hair of him. 
There were no fiends nearby; it seemed they’d lost sight of Hans, too. He was formidably fast, despite his injury. 
This is convenient , thought Adlet. Hans wanted to talk with him one-on-one, and Adlet meant to acquiesce to that demand. 
“It doesn’t look like we’ll find him as a group. Fremy, Nashetania, I think we should split up for now,” suggested Adlet. 
Nashetania replied, “That’s dangerous. We don’t know which direction he might attack from.” 
“We’ll keep from separating too far so we can quickly rush to help one another.” Adlet instructed Nashetania to go east, while Fremy went south. 
“Please be careful. And we’re not secretly communicating with Hans,” Nashetania added before she ran off eastward. 
Just as Fremy was about to head south, Adlet ran up to her. “Be careful of Chamo. There’s a chance Hans may be using her.” 
“…There’s no way. She should understand who the seventh is.” 
“He can pull off the impossible,” Adlet warned her. It hurt to be away from Fremy, even though it was necessary. And he had one more thing to tell her. “Fremy, if…” The words caught for a moment; this was a hard thing to say. “If I die, the plan fails, and you lose any way of escape. There’s nothing you can do…” 
“What are you trying to say here?” 
“Surrender. You survive, at least.” He didn’t want to say it, but he couldn’t be sure he would live through this. He had to tell her this before he died. 
Dumbfounded, she stared at him. 
Then she slapped him across the cheek. “…When did the strongest man in the world give up?” 
“I’m still the strongest man in the world. But even so…there are some battles you can win—and some you can’t.” 
“Don’t give me that. I intend to fight to the death. To the bitter end—no matter what.” 
He’d expected that reply, and that was exactly what made this so hard. “Give me a firecracker. For communication. If I set it off…that’s the signal that there’s nothing left to be done. If you see that, then surrender.” Another slap resounded off his cheek. Adlet offered his other cheek, too. “Hit me as many times as you like. Once you’re satisfied, give me a firecracker.” 
Fremy raised her hand to slap him a third time. But then she lowered it. She manifested gunpowder in her hand—not as a firecracker but in the shape of a small board. 
“Fremy, I—” 
Fremy shoved the gunpowder board into his hand; then, without waiting for his reply, she turned away and ran off. 
Adlet stroked his cheek. It wasn’t the way she’d looked at him before. Adlet could sense she hated him from the bottom of her heart. But I don’t care if she hates me. It’s enough if she’s alive and happy , he thought, burying his sorrow deep in his heart. 
He tucked the gunpowder into one of his belt pouches and dashed off after Hans. 
Hans revealed himself to Adlet, then fled, over and over. As Adlet pursued, he slowly moved farther and farther away from Fremy and Nashetania. Hans had insisted a one-on-one conversation, and Adlet didn’t want the others interrupting him. 
There were fewer fiends coming after them now. Chamo had killed many, and the remainder had lost sight of Hans and Adlet. The fiends wouldn’t be getting in their way. 
As Adlet sprinted, he scanned the area. He didn’t see any of Chamo’s slave-fiends coming after him, and everything suggested Hans really did want to talk one-on-one. He must have figured the presence of slave-fiends would put Adlet on guard and keep him at bay. 
“…Hrmeow.” Hans was watching him from the shadow of a tree, quietly pointing toward the center of the ruins. Only Adlet noticed him before he vanished again. 
Adlet headed in that direction, making sure to avoid Nashetania’s and Fremy’s notice. The voices of the two women got farther away. 
After running for what must have been about ten minutes or so, Adlet eventually came to a halt. 
He stood in a place that had once probably been a town square for the ancients. There were no buildings for a hundred square yards, and only trees and weeds poked up here and there among the flagstones. On the edge of the square were some particularly large structures, maybe the estates of nobles or the churches of some long-dead religion. 
This was about a mile and a half away from Mora’s position. Of course, at this distance, there was no sign of any fiends after them, either. 
Adlet found Hans in the center of the square, crouching weakly. His face was pale, probably due to blood loss. Adlet approached cautiously and said to him, “I’ll agree to your deal, like you wanted. And you asked me to come alone, so here I am.” 
“So what’ll ya do?” 
“I don’t care what happens to me as long as Fremy is safe. I’m fine if you reveal to the others that I’m the seventh.” 
“Hrmeow , so…” 
“But! It’ll be after I’ve made sure you can actually save her from Tgurneu! Tell me, Hans! What do you know?!” 
“Hold yer horses, meow . I’ve gotta tell ’em yer the seventh, or I’m as good as dead.” 
“Shut up. Fremy’s all that matters. I don’t care about you or the other Braves or the world.” Sword up, Adlet slowly closed on Hans. “I want so badly to kill you—you hurt her. I don’t care how little it was; you hurt her.” Then, before Adlet finished speaking, something moved off to his side. He turned and spotted a small fiend falling from high up in a tree, so he whipped his sword around to point at it. 
But he quickly realized—the fiend was already dead. Its body had been tied up with string, the other end of which stretched toward where Hans had just been. 
It was a trap to distract him. The moment Adlet realized it, he took a step back and tried to block Hans’s swing. Hans was slow enough for Adlet to deflect the blade. Hans rolled backward, and then, as Adlet was following up his last strike with a paralysis needle— 
“Hrmeooow!” Hans leaped, nothing like before, charging straight for Adlet with the strength of his arms alone. Adlet couldn’t believe it. Hans shouldn’t have been able to move. 
Startled by the double-layered trick of the fiend corpse and Hans’s sudden comeback, Adlet was taken off guard. The pommel of Hans’s sword drove into Adlet’s stomach, making his lower body go numb. He pitched forward, and a fist smacked right behind his ear. The world spun. 
“Sorry, Adlet. The truth is I don’t kneow any way to save her.” 
Adlet looked at Hans’s stomach. He could have sworn he’d seen enough bleeding there to stop Hans in his tracks. 
“That was rabbit’s blood. I ain’t fond of torturin’ animals, but push came to shove,” Hans said casually, pulling Adlet’s arms as far as they would go. Adlet’s joints creaked, and he felt weak. With his free hand, Hans struck Adlet in the stomach. When his mouth opened in a gasp, Hans shoved his fingers in and pushed something bitter and wriggling down to the back of his throat. “Meow-hee-hee , good boy. Eat right up.” Hans poured something down after it. 
“Ya wanna neow what ya just swallowed? I’ll tell ya, Adlet. It’s one o’ Chamo’s slave-fiends. A real smart one, too. It’s monitorin’ ya from inside yer stomach. I’ve ordered it to kill ya right away if ya do anythin’ bad.” 
“…That’s…ridiculous.” 
“Neow ya can’t fight us.” 
Until now, Adlet had intended to eliminate Hans and Chamo if need be. All he’d have to do was capture Hans and take Chamo by surprise and kill her, and Fremy would be okay. But now, he had no choice but to do as Hans said. 
“Meow-hee. Let’s make a deal.” 
Before launching his attack on Fremy, Dozzu, and Adlet, Hans had realized that just eliminating the Black Barrenbloom wouldn’t be enough to win this fight. Getting rid of Adlet, the seventh, couldn’t win the battle for him, either. Killing either one would still leave the root cause of their falling-out unresolved, and Tgurneu was sure to take advantage of that to kill the Braves. 
In short, the only path to victory was to kill Tgurneu. 
But Hans had no way to find the fiend. He didn’t have the muscle to break through its protections, either. So how to take it out? 
The answer was simple: Adlet was the seventh, Tgurneu’s pawn. Hans just had to turn that around and use Adlet himself. 
Hans released Adlet from where he’d pinned him and spoke to him kindly. “Listen, Adlet. It ain’t at all like I wanna let Fremy die. She’s a good woman. She’s sacrificin’ herself to serve her allies. I don’t wanna see no one like that kick the bucket.” 
Adlet had been freed, but that didn’t mean he could resist. He had no choice but to listen. 
“I get it. Ya ain’t on Tgurneu’s side. Ya just wanna protect Fremy, right? So we can work together to find a way to kill Tgurneu without givin’ up on ’er. If we can do that, then we’re back to bein’ buddies, like before.” 
“…Shit.” That made sense to Adlet. But it was impossible. If Adlet let Tgurneu die, Fremy would die, too. There was no way to undo the chain-death ability. Why else would he be so distressed? 
“Neow then. I need to ask ya about yer little pickle here. What sorta power is bein’ used to keep Fremy hostage? When’d ya find out about it, and what’ve ya done so far?” 
Adlet told him everything—they’d come up with a plan to kill Tgurneu and had been right about to put it into action. He told Hans about the chain-death ability afflicting Fremy and the woman’s voice, probably the Saint of the Single Flower, telling him he was the seventh. And he told Hans he’d been about to send a secret message to Tgurneu, tipping it off, but that Hans and Chamo had prevented him from doing so. 
“Meow-hee . So ya’ll were right about to kill Tgurneu, eh? That makes things faster.” Hans pointed his sword at Adlet. “Tell Tgurneu this. Hans and Chamo ain’t a threat no more ’cause of you. Hans said he took Fremy as a hostage, but he was bluffin’. There ain’t no risk he’ll kill Fremy
neow.” 
“And then…?” 
“Leak a plan to Tgurneu—but neowt the real plan. Tgurneu’ll think yer on its side and let its guard down, and we capture it and beat it.” 
What about this is a deal? thought Adlet. Hans was just pushing his demands on Adlet, wasn’t he? 
“But then Fremy will die,” Adlet said. 
Hans grinned. “Then we just don’t kill Tgurneu. Its real body’s a fig, right? If it ain’t possessin’ another fiend, it can’t do neowthin’. So we just have to kill its host, knock the fig out without killin’ it, and carry it away. You’ve got some tools that can stop a fiend in its tracks, at least, right?” 
It was true; he did. 
“Tgurneu’ll have the rest of the hieroglyphs, so look at those to find a way to undo it. ’Cause if ya can just undo the Barrenbloom, there’s neow reason to kill Fremy. Or ya could just find a way to cancel the chain-death ability. Long as that’s gone, there’s neow reason to let Tgurneu live, right?” 
He had a point. But Adlet had already considered and abandoned that idea. “What do you plan to do if we can’t find it? Or what if the only way to stop the Barrenbloom is to kill Tgurneu…and the chain-death ability can’t be undone?” 
“…What about it?” 
“Besides, do you think Tgurneu will keep Fremy alive, right up until the end? Tgurneu holds her life in its hands.” 
Hans thrust his sword in Adlet’s face. “Right neow, we’re the ones with ’er life in our hands.” 
“Do you think we’ll be able to deceive it? If it decides she’s no longer useful—” 
“I’ll say this one meowr time. Right now, we’re the ones with ’er life in our hands.” 
Adlet fell silent. He couldn’t do a thing against Hans now. 
“Listen, Chamo could kill Fremy while we’re here havin’ this chat.” 
Adlet was helpless. Hans had wrangled him into complete surrender. He had to do what Hans said. 
“This is where ya pull out all the stops, Mr. Strongest-Man-in-the-World. C’mon, you can manage it. And if ya don’t…it’ll only be mew and Fremy dyin’,” Hans said with a smile. 
Meanwhile, Fremy was muttering, “…This is strange. Adlet should have come this way.” In the ruins, she’d been keeping an ear out for Adlet’s voice as they chased after Hans. But now, not only could she not find Hans, she couldn’t even see Adlet. 
“Which direction did Hans go? He should have come this way,” Nashetania asked her. A moment earlier, the two had met up. Something was strange. 
Fremy raised her light gem up high to illuminate the area. It would draw the fiends to their location, but it was a necessary risk. Finding Adlet was the top priority. 
They had fallen for a trap. The enemy’s goal had been to isolate Adlet. Fremy had to assume that the hostage situation and Hans’s intentional revelation of it had all been for the sake of luring Adlet out. 
That was when she heard the sound of swords clashing from the south—and Adlet’s voice. “Fremy, are you there? Come help me!” 
Fremy’s and Nashetania’s heads jerked in that direction, but Adlet said nothing after that. What they heard instead were the cries of fiends and Chamo’s shouts. 
“What happened, Chamo?” asked Nashetania. 
A giant slug with Chamo astride was shoving through the underbrush toward them, and one of her slave-fiends carried the body of a fiend slung over its shoulder. “This one yelled in Adlet’s voice, and the sound of the swords were this thing, too,” Chamo spat. “It was a setup—by Hans and Tgurneu.” 
In other words, Adlet was facing Hans and the fiends all alone. 
The ruined square was silent. No sign of anyone nearby: no people, no fiends, not even any animals. Hans was twirling his swords in his hands as he waited for Adlet’s reply. 
Adlet was thinking. Was there a way to eliminate Chamo and Hans and keep Fremy safe? Hans’s plan was too dangerous. 
But Hans wasn’t going to give him time to scheme. “Make a decision, Adlet. If we don’t do nothin’, no tellin’ what Chamo might do.” 
Adlet faltered. Was there no other choice but to do as Hans said? 
Hearing Hans’s next words, though, Adlet felt a strange wave of something he’d never experienced before. 
“[One signal, and Chamo’ll kill Fremy right away.]” 
For some reason, Adlet could tell Hans was lying. He was certain that even if Hans gave the signal, Chamo would do no such thing. He was as certain of that as he was that the sun would rise in just over an hour. 
The change in Adlet’s expression stunned Hans a little. It seemed Hans himself wasn’t aware of the phenomenon. “[What’s up? Did somethin’ happen?]” 
“Say what you just said one more time, Hans.” 
“[Yeah, I’ll say it as many times as ya like. Once I give the signal, Chamo’ll kill Fremy. Ya ain’t got time to be draggin’ yer ass.]” 
So it really had happened. Adlet saw clearly that Hans was full of it. Chamo wouldn’t kill Fremy. The urgency was a ruse. Adlet had no idea what was going on, but he knew if Hans was lying or telling the truth. “Did you just lie, Hans?” Adlet asked. His sudden change in attitude confused the other man. 
After a second, a fiend emerged from the shadow of a structure. All at once, they could hear footsteps everywhere, and fiends were blocking all the roads that led into the square. 
When had they been surrounded? Adlet hadn’t even had an inkling that the enemy was there. 
“…Oh, that was close.” One fiend calmly approached the two of them. It looked half rat, half human, but there was no way Adlet could ever mistake that tone. That was Tgurneu. 
It held a book in two limbs—Adlet couldn’t pin down whether they were arms or forelegs. Adlet’s eyes could see a faint haze issuing from the book. “Dear, dear…you’re a fearsome man, Hans. If I hadn’t had this hieroform, I don’t know what might have happened,” Tgurneu said with a smile.