But Goldof was different. Adlet had simply been unable to communicate with him. There was nothing inside him that Adlet could understand; sometimes the young knight seemed like an alien beast to him. He still had no idea who Goldof Auora really was.
It was the fifteenth day after the Evil God’s awakening. Hans and Mora were all patched up, and Mora’s broken armor had been repaired. The party set out once more, late at night this time, while Fremy’s bullets and Chamo’s slave-fiends killing all the enemies observing the Bud of Eternity before the troupe made their way to the vast forest.
They all covered themselves with black cloaks courtesy of Adlet, keeping low to the ground as they advanced. Melting into the darkness of night, they forged ever westward.
They weren’t thinking about killing Tgurneu, nor uncovering the seventh. They only concealed themselves and evaded potential battles.
“Any enemies behind us, Mora?” Adlet called from the front of the group.
“No,” Mora replied while bringing up the rear. She was walking backward, her fists raised and facing away from the group. With Hans watching their right and Fremy watching their left, the seven crept forward.
An earthworm wriggled up to their feet. Chamo plucked it up, bringing the worm’s mouth region up to her ear. “It says about three hundred meters ahead, the enemy made a fence. There’s whole ton of fiends in front of it.”
“I see,” said Adlet. “Fremy, how big is this fence?”
“It’s nearly thirty kilometers across,” she replied. “I don’t think it’s possible to go around it. Mora could probably break it, but there’s a mechanism that sets off a loud noise if you come near it.”
“Do you know how the alarm works?” Adlet asked.
“It’s a clapper made of string and wood. If your foot catches on the string, the clappers smack together to make noise.”
“Meow-hee, is that it? I could get past that, easy-peasy.”
Adlet put a hand to his jaw and considered for a while. Then he gathered the group around him to explain the plan. “First we retreat back about one kilometer. Fremy, you plant a bomb in the ground. After one hour you blow it up. Meanwhile, we’ll be moving north.”
“So a diversion,” said Mora.
Adlet nodded. “When the bomb goes off, the fiends should all go toward it. Then Chamo’s slave-fiends will attack the fence. This is also a distraction. We’ll head south toward the blockade. Fremy will snipe the remaining guards, and Hans and I will break the clapper. Mora, you smash us a way through as quietly as you can.”
“Understood,” said Mora.
“And please,” he finished, “don’t let the fiends—or Tgurneu—find you.”
The party moved into action. Soundlessly, they advanced as Fremy’s bomb and Chamo’s slave-fiends sowed confusion among the enemy. Fremy attacked a weakly guarded area, while Adlet, Hans, and Mora burst through the fence. Then, before the fiends on watch could return to their positions, the Braves quickly slipped through to the west.
“So…it’s all going smoothly, huh, Addy?” Rolonia said, walking beside Adlet.
“For now.” He happened to glance up at the sky peeking through the gaps in the forest canopy. The stars had already faded, and the black of night was slowly giving way to gray. “Tgurneu’s probably lost track of us. If it did have a hold on what we’re doing, there’d be more fiends waiting for us here.”
“Y-yes…I’m sure you’re right.”
“Anyway, our party needs to keep a low profile. We’re gonna run as hard as we can away from Tgurneu until we’re out of this forest, past the ravine, and reach the Weeping Hearth.” After listening to Adlet’s explanation, Rolonia nodded. It seemed the rest of the group didn’t even need to be told. They were not going to fight Tgurneu, and they wouldn’t let it figure out where they were. The top priority was making a beeline straight for the Weeping Hearth. That was the plan.
“Have you noticed, Adlet…?” Fremy said abruptly.
“Noticed what?”
“I’ve heard some fighting behind us, a few times now. The sound is too faint, so I couldn’t tell who’s involved.”
As they marched, Adlet listened closely. The stirring of the trees, his companions’ footsteps, and also fiends’ cries, or so he thought. “You’re right. There’s a battle going on back there. But who, and with whom?”
“You want Chamo to go check it out? It’ll take a little while,” said Chamo.
Adlet shook his head. “I’m curious, but our time is more important. We’ll leave it and move on.”
Fremy and Chamo nodded, and the seven proceeded farther west. Adlet looked over his shoulder, but the fence was already out of sight.
About an hour after Adlet’s party passed the blockade, a fiend came to examine the damaged fence. “Hmm. So they’ve broken through here, too. Oh, dear.” The creature had a yeti’s body and the head of a crow, and in its hand was a large fig. The yeti-fiend—Tgurneu—sighed and said, “It seems their plan is to do everything they can to avoid me.”
Around him were throngs of fiends, clamoring until their voices were hoarse. The superior fiends, those that could speak, were giving out orders to their subordinates to hurry and find the Braves of the Six Flowers.
“What do you think, Number Eighteen?”
Beside Tgurneu was a snake-fiend, slender enough to grip in one hand but more than ten meters long. Two arms, thin as twine, grew from its trunk about fifty centimeters from its head. “They’re terríble cowards. Not wörth fearing at all,” it sneered. This fiend was one of Tgurneu’s specialists, considered unique even among its followers—the eighteenth specialist, to be exact. It had evolved itself according to Tgurneu’s instructions to develop its exceptional powers.
“You’re the one not worth fearing,” Tgurneu scoffed, kicking Number Eighteen lightly. “What would you do if you were in their position? What would be your priority?”
“I would consider discovéring the seventh to be the most important,” said Number Eighteen.
Tgurneu sighed. “The worst choice you could think of. The way things stand now, they have no means of ferreting out the impostor, and I doubt they’ve even found any clues that could lead them to the answer. What course do you believe they should take in such a situation?”
“Üm…”
“Wait until the seventh makes a mistake. That would be my strategy, if I were them. Any other ideas?”
“Perhaps they could prioritize defeating you, Cömmander Tgurneu.”
“That would be an amateur play. Killing me, if they could, would indeed bring them much closer to victory. But they would have to sacrifice something valuable for it. Do you know what?”
“W-wëll…”
Tgurneu didn’t wait for Number Eighteen to reply. “Time. There are only fourteen more days until the Evil God’s revival. If they fail to reach the Weeping Hearth before then, we win. If the Six Braves had targeted me, I would’ve devoted all my resources to stall for time. As long as I remained alive, those precious days and hours would slip away.”
“…”
“Now do you understand what the best choice available to them is? It’s to run from us, ignore me, and head straight for the Weeping Hearth. As long as I don’t know where they are, even I have only so many options available.” Tgurneu’s beak moved. It seemed the fiend was smiling. “Not bad, Adlet. It seems you’re capable of simple reasoning, after all.”
“…I have a propósition, Commander Tgurneu. Why don’t we order the sevénth to tell us where the Braves of the Six Flowers are?”
Tgurneu’s shoulders slumped in utter exasperation. “Any further foolishness from you and I’ll squash you,” it threatened, raising one foot over Number Eighteen.
The snake-fiend placed its thin, twine-like arms on the ground and bowed its head in apology.
“Well, no matter. Let’s take it easy. You may conduct a search attempt to lure them out. We have so many ways to play with them.”
For two days after
departing from the Bud of Eternity, Adlet’s party continued its flight through the Cut-Finger Forest.
Fremy guided them through the intricate and complex growths as Chamo’s slave-fiends hunted around for nearby enemies and unguarded areas. Mora’s power of mountain echo was useful in disorienting enemies, while Adlet and Hans put their heads together to deduce the enemy’s next ploy. When bad luck brought them into contact with the fiends, they fought with everything they had to kill them all before Tgurneu could learn about their position.
To completely kill a fiend, you had to find the core and smash it, since an intact body would revive again a few years later. But they didn’t have the time for that now. They tossed aside the corpses and pressed forward.
The Cut-Finger Forest was vast. No matter how great the enemy numbers, they couldn’t hope to guard the whole thing. For two days, Adlet’s party went undetected. As the night ended, the eastern sky swathed in red, the group neared the perimeter of the forest.
“There was no sign of fiends beyond the woods. I think we can relax and move on,” said Fremy when she returned from scouting ahead.
“None behind us, either. Guess we’ve totally gotten away,” said Chamo.
“Tgurneu probably thinks we’re farther neowrth. I think we can keep goin’ this way,” said Hans.
“So that’s one barrier down, huh?” said Adlet.
They all shared smiles and shook hands. Adlet offered his hand to Fremy, but she looked away, arms crossed. Equally stubborn, Adlet kept his hand extended. In the end, she reluctantly hooked her fingertips on his and gave him a weak shake. After that, Rolonia and Mora tried to get a handshake, too. Though she regarded the pair sourly, Fremy accepted the gesture. Hans’s offer was refused.
“The seventh still hasn’t taken action yet, though, have they?” said Fremy. As the party had proceeded through the forest, they had constantly observed each other for signs that they would attack under cover of night or help the enemy find them or covertly contact Tgurneu. But nobody had done anything suspicious.
“We don’t have to rush to find them,” said Adlet. “The seventh is bound to do something eventually. We just have to keep our eyes open to make sure we catch it.”
“I hope you’re right,” Fremy replied.
Adlet’s gaze happened to land on Goldof at the fringes of the group. They had not shared a handshake yet. When he offered, surprisingly enough, Goldof accepted it willingly.
“You’ve done well, too. Let’s keep on fighting,” said Adlet, but Goldof didn’t meet his eyes or reply.
During their advance through the woods, Adlet had kept a particularly close eye on Goldof. The knight had followed instructions faithfully and had done nothing at all suspicious. But Adlet still had no idea what he was thinking. Was that soulless attitude an act, or was it real? He couldn’t tell.
“It’s time to go, Adlet,” Fremy prompted him. “Once we’re through the forest, the ravine is next. Don’t let your guard down.”
“S-sure. Got it,” Adlet responded and started walking. But Goldof’s behavior wouldn’t leave his thoughts. What was he thinking? What was Nashetania to him now? Even after they emerged from the forest, pressing on westward, he had no answers.
Adlet was totally unaware of the situation that had already begun to unfold. In a corner of the Cut-Finger Forest, an unimaginable scene was occurring.
As the party escaped the woods, Tgurneu was reclining in a hammock with a book and a large fig on its chest.
An eagle-fiend descended from the sky. “I have a rèport, Commander Tgurneu.”
“Chamo’s slave-fiends attacked and killed the specialist tracking the Six Braves. You’ve basically lost the trail and the scent and presently have no clues at all to their whereabouts. Am I wrong?” Tgurneu answered with mild irritation, eyes still closed.
“Y-yës, Commander.”
Tgurneu withdrew a map from above its hammock and examined it. “Now, then, I wonder where they went. Are they still in the northern section of the forest, or have they already arrived at the ravine…?” It mulled over the map for a while.
“…Commander Tgurneu, your ordérs?”
“They’ve already left the forest. Leave half the troops there and send the other half to the ravine. We can make that our next playground. Let’s flank them when they’re vulnerable, right when they’re crossing.”
“Verÿ well, Commander.” Right as the eagle-fiend was about to fly off, Tgurneu reached out to grab its leg. “What iš it, Commander?”
Tgurneu didn’t reply but instead glanced around. Its inexpressive crow’s head revealed none of its thoughts. “I take back what I just said. Summon the pawns to me.”
“Uh…why, Cómmander?”
“The enemy.”
The eagle-fiend flew off immediately. Tgurneu dropped from its hammock, bit into the fig, and then picked up a club on the ground, squeezing it tight.
Nearby was the sound of a disturbance—like someone running.
They must have walked for about five hours after leaving the forest. The sun was already high in the sky. No fiends attacked the seven during their advance due westward. They had now covered two-fifths of the Howling Vilelands.
After crossing the plains, they were confronted with their next obstacle.
“Meooow! That’s huge! I’ve never seen nothin’ so big!” Hans cried out when he saw it, sounding delighted for some reason. Its massive size left Adlet speechless, and Mora, Rolonia, and Chamo’s eyes were wide with shock.
What lay in their path was a ravine.
It had to be nearly a hundred meters deep and at least a hundred and fifty wide, cutting straight north to south. Looking in either direction, they couldn’t even see the ends. The cliff was a vertical drop of smooth rock with no visible handholds. A boiling river lined the bottom, venting thick steam all the way up to where the seven stood and raising the ambient temperature by five degrees. Adlet had never seen such an enormous canyon in his life. Three days earlier, at the Bud of Eternity, Fremy had told him about this place, but it was far beyond what he had envisioned.
“I can’t believe it. Fiends carved out this whole thing?” said Rolonia, beside Adlet.
“The fiends have been preparing for their battle with the Braves of the Six Flowers for three hundred years,” said Fremy. “Digging a ravine like this is nothing to them.”
The colossal valley before them had not existed when the Saint of the Single Flower battled the Evil God, or when past generations of Braves had answered their calling. It was called Cargikk’s Canyon. The biggest moat in the world, it had been made by the fiend commander Cargikk. According to Fremy, the ravine divided the Howling Vilelands clean in two, and to reach the Weeping Hearth required a successful crossing.
But the sight of the great ravine transfixed all of them. Eventually, Mora glumly posed the question. “How will we cross it? Tgurneu will eventually notice our departure from the forest. The fiends will flood in, and we’ll be surrounded.”
“It won’t take us long to find a way. It’ll all work out,” Adlet said, pulling out a rope from the iron box on his back. He gave one end to Mora and climbed down the cliff face. But about seventy meters down, the rising steam became too suffocating, and he immediately scrambled back up to the top.
“It’s no use, Adlet,” Fremy said curtly. “Even with a Saint’s power, getting across this thing isn’t easy.”
“Isn’t there a bridge, Fremy?” he asked.
“There is,” she replied. “One at the northern end and another at the southern end. But I don’t think either one is an option. Cargikk’s minions are waiting for us there, and the bridges are set up to immediately self-destruct if we ever get close to crossing.”
“Hey, Fremy. Aren’t there any secret paths? Like some way to get across safely without the bridges?” asked Chamo.
“There’d be no need, would there?” Fremy retorted. “Since the fiends always use the bridges.”
“’S’pose you’re right�
��” Chamo crossed her arms and puzzled over the problem.
The rest of them tried to devise a way across the ravine, too, but no great plans were forthcoming.
“Rolonia’s whip…wouldn’t reach, I guess,” said Adlet.
Rolonia gave him a regretful nod. She had soaked the weapon with her own blood so she could manipulate it at will. But even with her powers, it wouldn’t work for a bridge. Her whip was only about thirty meters long. Even if they used Adlet’s rope to add to its length, it wouldn’t reach the other side.
“Do any of yer pets fly, Chamo?” asked Hans.
“If they did, we wouldn’t be worrying over this. Do you think Chamo is stupid, catboy?” she replied testily.
“If Athlay were here, she could have made us a bridge of ice,” Mora lamented, frustrated. The Saint of Ice had been well-known as a candidate for Brave but Fremy, the former Brave-killer, had assassinated her. Athlay had been dead.
“The reason I killed Athlay of Ice first was to prevent you from getting past this ravine. Tgurneu’s orders,” Fremy said bluntly.
After that the seven continued to discuss their options for a bit longer, but the only conclusion they reached was that the ravine was insurmountable. Digging a moat to prevent the enemy’s attack was such a simple and straightforward idea, but such banal stratagems really did tend to cause the most trouble. Standard tactics became standard precisely because they were effective. Cargikk could turn out to be an even tougher enemy than Tgurneu.
“Anyway, standing around talking won’t get us anywhere,” said Adlet. “We’ll split into three groups to look for a way across. Find us something we can work with, no matter how trivial. Hans and Mora, you go north. Me, Rolonia, and Goldof will go south. Chamo and Fremy, you stay here and guard our backs.”
Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Vol. 3 Page 2
