“I’ll explain that as well. No matter what, we had to kill three of your group in order to force Tgurneu and Cargikk to bow to us.”
“What do you mean?” Goldof asked without thinking. That didn’t seem connected to Dozzu’s argument.
“Before I left the Howling Vilelands, Cargikk, Tgurneu, and I made a contract through the Saint of Words. Whichever of us killed three of the Braves of the Six Flowers first would become the sole commander to rule all fiends, and the other two would submit to their new leader. Any who broke the contract would die. That was the agreement.”
“…”
“If I had killed three of your group, then Tgurneu and Cargikk would have been forced to submit to me. Then there would no longer be any obstacles to our goal. We bet it all on that fight four days ago in the Phantasmal Barrier.”
“But…”
“You know what came of that. With Adlet’s ingenuity and resourcefulness and Hans’s insight, Nashetania was defeated, and she fled. Were it not for those two, the world would have had a different fate!” Dozzu ground its teeth.
“I don’t understand,” said Goldof. “Why would…Tgurneu and Cargikk…agree to that contract?”
“That goes without saying. Because I tricked them,” Dozzu said readily.
Five fiends appeared before them. Dozzu still dangling from his grasp, Goldof slaughtered them with his spear, then cut open their stomachs to check inside.
“This is a waste of time, Mister Goldof. Nashetania is not going to be there,” said Dozzu.
Goldof knew that. But he couldn’t help but search for her. After he had killed the fiends, he hastened onward. It wasn’t much farther to the volcanic area. “…I get your situation,” he said. “But what I care about…is Her Highness. What’s happening with her?”
“Yes, allow me to explain. After Nashetania’s defeat, she spent a day swimming through the sea to join up with me. Then Tgurneu’s forces appeared. All we could do was flee.”
“…And then?”
“We gathered our remaining comrades in the lava zone, lured Tgurneu in, and began our final showdown. I thought that if we took him down, the way would open for us. But he has gotten much stronger over the past two hundred years, so strong I can’t match him. My comrades were annihilated, and he captured Nashetania,” Dozzu finished.
“There’s a few things…I want to ask,” said Goldof.
“Please do.”
“Who’s the seventh?”
“…I have an idea, but I don’t know for sure.”
“What?”
“The seventh among you is not one of ours. I’m quite certain that Tgurneu was the one who arranged that one. Sending in an impostor to kill the Braves of the Six Flowers from the inside…This may be hard for you to believe, but Tgurneu and I had prepared the very same ploy.”
“I can’t…believe that.”
“Neither can I. When my ally who was investigating your group told me that there was yet another Brave, Nashetania and I were both dumbstruck.”
“…I still have more questions. How did you get…that fake crest she has?”
“That I cannot answer,” Dozzu replied flatly.
“Then one last thing. Do you…do you two…still plan to fulfill your ambition?” The way Dozzu described their plight, it and Nashetania seemed near despair.
But Dozzu thought for a moment and replied, “One with ambition cannot stop until they are dead. Even if our chances of this goal being realized are near zero, as long as we’re alive, we have to keep fighting.” That was exactly what Nashetania had said back in the Phantasmal Barrier.
“You and I are enemies,” Goldof said in no uncertain terms. “I want to…protect Her Highness. I want her…to live. I have to stop her from keeping on with this reckless fight…no matter what it takes.”
“Unfortunately, that’s quite impossible. Nashetania will persevere in the fight for her aspirations as long as she lives. If what you want is to protect her, then you must fight together with her to realize her goal.”
Goldof fell silent. He couldn’t give Dozzu that answer yet. “…I…”
“I won’t ask you for a response right now. Choose the path you believe is right. That’s what Nashetania said.”
Goldof had made up his mind to protect Nashetania. But who should he fight in order to do that? If he killed Dozzu, would she stop? Or was there no way to protect her other than to eliminate the Braves of the Six Flowers?
Goldof put off the decision. Thinking about what would happen next was pointless. Right now, he would save Nashetania from Tgurneu. That was everything.
“Tgurneu will have a hard time killing her, though,” said Dozzu.
“What do you mean?”
“One year ago, a comrade from the Howling Vilelands came to me in the royal palace to inform me that Tgurneu wanted to see me. I found this peculiar, but I responded to the summons. I changed shape and headed to the location specified as our rendezvous point. Oh, I didn’t explain this before, but I’m able to transform myself. My current form was not the one I was born in.”
“And?”
“Tgurneu was there with the Saint of Words, Marmanna. He then made a request of me—that I not kill Fremy Speeddraw.”
That’s strange, mused Goldof. Fremy had told them that Tgurneu had planned all along to get rid of her. If that was true, it would be odd for Tgurneu to arrange a contract like that. Or was Dozzu lying?
“I agreed and made my own request in return: that Tgurneu would not kill a certain individual whom I would later give proof of comradeship. Tgurneu agreed quite willingly, and we sealed our contract through Miss Marmanna. The one to whom I handed that proof was, of course, Nashetania.”
Goldof mulled over it. Was what Dozzu said true, or not? But without a contract like that, Tgurneu would have no reason to let Nashetania live. Why was she still alive, and why hadn’t Tgurneu killed Nashetania after capturing her? Goldof couldn’t come up with any other explanation. “What will…happen to her…now?” he asked.
“I expect that Tgurneu intends to hand Nashetania to Cargikk. I didn’t make a contract with Cargikk, so Tgurneu must be planning to have him kill her.”
“…Is Fremy…the seventh?” Goldof asked.
“I have no definitive proof, but I think that’s the most likely.”
A Brave of the Six Flowers carried the fate of the world on their shoulders. He should have immediately gone to Adlet and the others to tell them about this and then interrogated Fremy to evaluate Dozzu’s claims. But Goldof’s feet kept on course to the lava zone.
He would save Nashetania. That was the only thing driving him. “Never mind…about Fremy right now. I’ll save Her Highness…and that’s all.” He couldn’t trust Dozzu entirely. It was a fiend and an enemy of the Braves. But he had to cooperate with it in order to help the princess. At the very least, it was true that Nashetania had been captured and was in trouble, because the Helm of Allegiance activated only when the wearer’s master was in such a situation.
“…”
Then Goldof remembered—Nashetania had also been the one who’d given him this helmet. It could be part of her plot, too. But his feet continued forward anyway. Nashetania might truly be in peril. So Goldof was forced to keep going, even if it was a trap.
As he ran, he happened to look back. What were Adlet and the party doing now? He wanted them to ignore him and cross the ravine. He didn’t want anyone else walking into this trap.
At some point, the trees around him had grown sparse, the ground gray and rocky, and the undergrowth thinner. Goldof was entering the lava zone.
As Dozzu dangled from Goldof’s hands, the fiend thought to itself that the boy most likely did not entirely believe what it had said. This was still good enough, though. Dozzu had never expected to be able to deceive him completely. Goldof was heading into the volcanic region, just as Dozzu and Nashetania had anticipated, so they had achieved their goal. The problem was what came next.
Would he
ever figure out the truth? If he did, then when? Would Nashetania and Dozzu’s plan succeed?
All of it was riding on Goldof.
Chapter 5
A String of Battles
Goldof and Dozzu pushed on through the lava zone. Their line of sight was obstructed in every direction, so if they wanted to avoid getting taken by surprise, they’d have to proceed cautiously. But the pair raced forward without the slightest hesitation. Here, too, they fought several fiends, and each time, Goldof sliced their stomachs open in search of Nashetania.
“Listen, Goldof, Nashetania won’t be in there,” said Dozzu.
Goldof agreed with Dozzu. If Nashetania was in a fiend’s stomach, it probably wouldn’t be one of the rank and file. But he still couldn’t help himself from checking.
“More importantly,” Dozzu added, “has she not contacted you at all?”
“No. I think…she can’t…talk…right now,” Goldof replied, putting a hand on his helmet. He could hear the bell warning him she was in danger, but nothing else.
Goldof had told Dozzu all the information he’d learned from the Helm of Allegiance. When he had told Dozzu that Nashetania was inside a fiend’s stomach, it had grimaced. It would be difficult to find out which fiend held her. Without more information from Nashetania, it would be nearly impossible to pinpoint her location.
The two of them ventured deeper into the land over the magma chamber. After they climbed a stone hill, a large trapezoidal mound came into view. Dozzu saw it and said, “Over there—that’s where Nashetania was taken.” Goldof clambered up the slope to the top. In the hill’s center was a large pit filled with piles of bodies. They all seemed to be still. It appeared Tgurneu and Nashetania had already left.
“Are these…your…comrades?” Goldof asked Dozzu beside him as they descended the slope.
“They were all so brave. I’ll roll in my grave if we fail to see their passion rewarded,” said Dozzu. The fiend lowered its nose as it ran down the slope, snuffling along the earth. “Please wait just a moment. I’m trying to pick up which way Nashetania went.”
Goldof nodded and then scanned the area for anything of concern. But he had no idea what he was looking for, so clearly he wasn’t going to find anything. He called out to Nashetania through his helmet over and over, but still received no answer. Curbing his impatience, he waited for Dozzu to find something.
“I’ve figured it out,” it said. “I can’t find Nashetania’s scent, but I know now where Tgurneu and his followers are headed. Most of the surviving fiends headed southward. Tgurneu, and most likely Nashetania as well, are among them.”
“All right. Then let’s go,” said Goldof. He dashed off, Dozzu following after him. “What is Tgurneu…heading south…for?”
“He must plan to get rid of her, after all. Tgurneu can’t kill Nashetania himself, so he’ll hand her over to Cargikk’s fiends to have them do it instead.”
“Any other…possibilities?”
“Alternatively, he may be planning to use Nashetania as a hostage to threaten you. That would be the only worthwhile use he could get out of it.”
“…I see.” As Goldolf used his hands to scale a steep slope, he wondered—was Dozzu really telling the truth? Maybe it wasn’t Tgurneu who was trying to lure him in to kill him, but Dozzu. Was Nashetania actually in danger?
But still, Goldof couldn’t stop. The princess could die. As long as that possibility existed, he had to go save her. If this was a trap, then he’d just have to break out of it on his own.
Goldof and Dozzu traversed over the waste for another fifteen minutes. Then, apparently puzzled, Dozzu stopped sniffing the ground.
“What is it?” asked Goldof.
“This is odd. The fiends are moving too slowly. If their plan is to hand Nashetania off to Cargikk’s followers, they should be moving faster.”
“So what’s…going on?”
“I don’t know what Tgurneu is trying to do. But regardless, at this rate, we should catch up to them soon.” Still looking perplexed, Dozzu started running again.
When they crested the next rock hill, they arrived at a somewhat open expanse. The moment they got to the top, Goldof was stunned. There had to be fifty fiends waiting for them, clearly anticipating their arrival. But it wasn’t the enemies that shocked him. What left him breathless was Nashetania, right there in the center of the crowd. She was sitting on the back of a giant rock-skinned lizard, fiddling with the slim sword in her hands. The armor she wore was different than he remembered, but it was clearly her.
“Your Highness!” Goldof called out to her.
Without a word, Nashetania pointed her sword at him, and the fiends charged en masse.
At first he was suspicious, thinking it was a trap after all. But when he looked at Dozzu beside him, he noticed the fiend’s eyes were wide with shock.
“Nashetania! You were safe?!” Dozzu cried, running up to Nashetania.
The charging fiends attacked it. Dozzu rolled to one side to avoid the assault, but then a score of blades sprouted from the ground, drawing blood where they grazed its tiny body.
Goldof couldn’t understand it. If this was a trap and the goal was to kill him, then why attack Dozzu, too? Nashetania had told him that the fiend commander would never betray her and she’d never betray it, either.
The fiends descended on him, and Goldof raised his spear to repel the onslaught crashing toward him. These he couldn’t kill in one stab. They were clearly superior creatures, very different from the cannon fodder he’d been fighting before.
“Your Highness! What’s going on?!” Goldof cried out to her, but she didn’t reply. She continued her merciless barrage of blades at Dozzu. Wordlessly, she smiled and kept up the fight.
His next suspicion was that perhaps this Nashetania was a fake. Adlet had told him that some fiends could transform. But even a shape-shifter wouldn’t be able to mimic her power over blades. That meant this Nashetania was real. And the Helm of Allegiance’s ringing hadn’t stopped. She was still captive and in peril. Goldof didn’t understand what was going on. He couldn’t manage to muster anything but bewilderment.
“What are you doing, Nashetania?! We came to save you! Don’t you recognize us?!” Dozzu yelled, dodging attacks from the fiends closing in around it. Horn sparking, it roared and called down lightning in every direction. Two enemies fell in a single blow. “Nashetania! Why?!” Dozzu tried to run to her, but she retaliated with a blade that impaled it from stomach to back, suspending it in midair. Dozzu twisted itself off the spike and backed away from Nashetania.
“Ngh!” Distracted by Nashetania and Dozzu, Goldof had left himself open to an attack from behind. Another three fiends approached him from the front. He raised his spear high, feinting a downward swing onto the one before him but then jamming the butt into the ground instead. He leaned on the spear, vaulting himself up with a wide leap, flying high and somersaulting in the air to land past the fiends. Then he charged toward Nashetania. Of course, he wasn’t going to kill her. He was planning to slay that stone lizard-fiend and then hit her in the jaw or stomach to knock her out.
“…Hee-hee.” Nashetania giggled, and blades sprouted up from the ground at Goldof. Most of them pinged off his armor, and the rest he deflected with his spear, but one managed to bite into his foot.
“Gah!” Goldof collapsed, and immediately, fiends rushed in around him to attack together. But still, he reached out toward Nashetania.
A blade stabbed up through the ground and skewered his outstretched hand. Blood streaked down the metal, dripping onto the ground. Why? he thought, rising and rolling to the side to dodge a fiend attack. He couldn’t get any closer. All he could do was keep on the defensive and run. “Your Highness!”
Nashetania ignored him and slapped the head of the stone lizard-fiend under her. The creature began a sluggish lope away from Goldof.
“Mister Goldof! Follow her, please!” Dozzu cried.
But the others were blocking Goldof’s
way, and he couldn’t follow her. A few followed her in her retreat northward.
“Where are you going?! Nashetania! Nashetania!”
Dozzu shouted, but she didn’t even look back. She simply continued over a rock hill and out of sight.
The foes surrounding them were all powerful. It took nearly half an hour to finish off the whole group. Whenever Goldof tried to pursue Nashetania, they hounded him, trapping him in the area. Once they’d finally defeated them all, Goldof regarded Dozzu with a look of utter loathing.
“…What’s going on, Dozzu?” he demanded. The Helm of Allegiance was still telling him Nashetania was in danger. But it was clear that she was not anyone’s prisoner.
“Mister Goldof, is the Helm of Allegiance still ringing?” asked Dozzu.
“Yeah.”
“Then…Nashetania is still captive.”
“…Explain,” Goldof said, pulling a needle and thread from beneath his armor as he spoke. Still standing, he swiftly stitched up his wounds and pasted medicine on them to stanch the bleeding.
“Tgurneu commands fiends known as specialists. They’re tools that lack the ability to fight, but in exchange, each of them has a unique power that other fiends cannot imitate. One of these may be able to control humans. Controlling a human is very difficult, but it may be possible for them.”
“You’re saying…she’s being controlled? Do you have proof?”
“No. The powers of these specialists are a mystery. But I can’t think of anything else.”
Goldof tried to follow Nashetania northward, but the pain from the stab wounds she’d given him prevented that. He pulled a small metal bottle out from beneath his armor and swallowed a gulp. This medicine was another of the treasured hieroforms that had been passed down through Piena’s royal family. It didn’t heal wounds—it cleared pain and exhaustion so you could force yourself to fight. It was half medicine, half poison.
“I believe this fiend is probably like a parasite,” said Dozzu. “If we can remove it from her body, that should solve the problem.”
“Anyway…this means we have no option but to catch her.” Goldof hadn’t seen this coming. He couldn’t have imagined that he’d have to fight Nashetania in order to save her. But still, it wouldn’t be impossible. One-on-one, he was stronger than her.
Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Vol. 3 Page 14
