Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Vol. 3

by Ishio Yamagata

  “…It’s no use, Fremy. There’s nothing.”

  “Looks like it.”

  The voices were very close. The first was Fremy. Nashetania didn’t know the other, but it was safe to assume it was Rolonia.

  “She’s not underground? Then…where the…” said Fremy.

  “Maybe she’s gone even deeper down? There could be a fiend with powers like that.”

  “But still, that would leave traces. There’s no way we’d tear up the whole surface and find nothing.”

  The two of them hadn’t noticed the fiend carrying Nashetania in its stomach. But they were close by, so close that Nashetania could overhear them clearly. Nashetania’s captor didn’t move a muscle. Was it trying as hard as it could to disappear and avoid discovery? Or did it simply not believe it would ever be found?

  “There are still places we haven’t searched yet,” said Fremy. “The pit where Chamo is…and the hills around there. Let’s search over there.”

  “And what if she isn’t there?”

  Their voices departed, and eventually Nashetania couldn’t hear them anymore. They must have left. They’d given her no ideas as to her location, and neither had she been able to gain any information worth telling Goldof. So she kept her ears open for any other clues.

  “There has to be…something.” Having escaped Adlet, Goldof was now examining ground zero of Fremy’s blasts. He’d made sure that Adlet, Fremy, and Rolonia were nowhere near, but he couldn’t yet set foot within the area of effect. He’d decided that if he did enter, it would be after he had found answers.

  Why this region? Goldof was convinced that if he could answer that question, he would find Nashetania—though he had no basis for that belief.

  There was something in the volcanic area that was absent elsewhere. Heat. The warmth permeated up from the ground—could it be used to hide? Goldof considered the idea carefully, but nothing came to mind. He picked up a rock at his feet. Did the stone hold some kind of secret? He stared at it hard enough to bore holes into it but found no answers. He had no ideas, but thinking was all he could do. There was a key in this zone; that was the only clue Goldof had uncovered.

  As Goldof pondered, he heard lightning strikes far away. The sounds were coming from the pit where Chamo was. “…Dozzu, I guess.” He recalled that Tgurneu had ordered Dozzu to keep Hans busy. Dozzu must have wanted to rescue Nashetania, but Goldof couldn’t rely on its help if it couldn’t oppose Tgurneu.

  “…”

  Again Goldof reflected on the whole fight from the beginning, Nashetania’s information, and Dozzu’s. So Tgurneu’s been watching Dozzu, and Dozzu’s to do what Tgurneu says. But has Dozzu done nothing at all to help Her Highness?

  No, that couldn’t be. Dozzu must have done something to ensure that Goldof could help Nashetania. It must have given him a clue indirectly to escape Tgurneu’s notice. That was what Goldof would have done if he were in Dozzu’s position.

  Again Goldof examined each and every thing Dozzu had done, one by one. Out of every action it had taken, Goldof remembered just one thing it had said that seemed off. It had been right as the fake Nashetania was fighting the Braves, immediately before she activated the blade gem inside Chamo’s stomach.

  “Goldof, how many times have you fought her now?”

  The sudden question had confused Goldof. When Goldof had replied that it was the second time, for some reason Dozzu had given him an uneasy look. Next it had asked if Nashetania had ever escaped him.

  Why had Dozzu inquired about that? Nashetania was captive. The previous times he’d fought her shouldn’t be important. And furthermore, what did her escaping him before have to do with it?

  Goldof thought further. Had Dozzu done anything else unnatural? Goldof didn’t only consider what Dozzu had said—he even called to mind its slight changes of expression and eye movements. He recalled that for some reason the look on Dozzu’s face had changed a few times. That had been before Goldof fought Adlet to save the fake Nashetania.

  “Dozzu…that stealth power…she has… If you focus on looking…and hurt yourself…you can see through it…right?”

  When Goldof had said that, Dozzu’s expression had changed. It had given Goldof a brief, pensive look and eventually replied, “That’s exactly right. You do know. That’s good; it saves me the trouble of explaining.”

  “…It couldn’t be…”

  What Dozzu had been trying to confirm was that Goldof knew about the stealth ability. Upon finding out that Goldof knew how to see through it, its expression had changed to one of relief. The fiend’s attitude had been superficially curt, but it had clearly been glad.

  That power of concealment. Was that how the captor was hiding?

  When he realized that, it hit him. Fremy had said before that when a fiend used the stealth ability, a sweet scent would hang in the air around it. Goldof now understood why Tgurneu had chosen this hot spot as their battlefield. The smell of sulfur hung over the whole area. A few minutes there and your nose went numb. Tgurneu had elected to carry out his scheme here in order to disguise the smell of the stealth ability.

  “…I’ve got it,” muttered Goldof, seeing a faint light in the darkness. He had figured out the true nature of the enemy’s powers.

  Goldof sprinted around the outer circumference of the area of effect, keeping out of sight. He was in danger of being discovered by the other Braves, but he couldn’t afford to worry about that anymore.

  Fremy’s bombs had drastically transformed the landscape. Even from outside the area of effect, Goldof could get a glimpse of the situation within.

  “…Hmm…” Goldof found Adlet about five hundred meters away, squatting down, head lowered in thought. It was unlikely that he’d notice Goldof, but it would still be dangerous to get too close. Goldof stopped and backtracked.

  He was certain now that there was a fiend with a stealth talent somewhere within the gem’s area of effect, and inside its stomach was Nashetania. Adlet had said that the ability was a kind of hypnosis. Fremy also explained that a fiend would scatter a special chemical while emitting a sound that human ears couldn’t detect. And Goldof knew the way to see through it. He could weaken the effect of the hypnosis by causing severe pain to himself. Then, if he concentrated his mind and focused his eyes, he’d be able to see the fiend.

  How was the fiend staying hidden when this power generally only lasted for just over ten seconds? Goldof didn’t have an answer. But if Nashetania’s captor was using the same technique, he should be able to defeat it the same way.

  “Ngh!” Running, Goldof stuck a finger under one of his nails and pried it hard until it split. The pain should weaken the hypnosis’s hold over him. He braved the discomfort and focused his eyes. But in the expanse of the lava field, nothing became visible. Not here, then? Goldof thought. He tried another location and tore off the broken nail. He peered hard once again, but still, he didn’t find anything. “…Damn it!”

  The sounds of Fremy’s bombs had already halted. She’d probably given up searching underground and was on the lookout for some other clue.

  He had to find Nashetania before the others did. But even after he combed through the entire circle and broke every nail on his hands, he couldn’t find anything. Had his deductions been wrong? Was pain not enough to see through the stealth ability? Maybe there something else he needed in order to find Nashetania? He had less than thirty minutes left. Panic was clouding his thoughts, and irritation weakened his concentration.

  Visibility in the rocky area was much better now. And there, specialist number twenty-six continued its observation of the Braves of the Six Flowers. Inside its stomach was Nashetania.

  About twenty meters away, Adlet, Fremy, and Rolonia were having a discussion. The fiend was certain they wouldn’t figure out its true nature. There was also no indication that Hans and Mora would come out of that pit, so no problems on that front, either. The only issue was Goldof. He was running the circumference of the area of effect in search
of something. He might have deduced the fiend’s ability to cloak itself.

  Two hundred years ago, Tgurneu had told the fiend that its ability was weak. It could vanish for just over ten seconds. It was intensely exhausting, and once it had used the skill, it would be unable to do so again for a while. What’s more, it couldn’t even vanish perfectly, and once its opponents found out how to overcome the hypnosis, it was useless.

  At most, it would only serve catch the Braves of the Six Flowers by surprise. And Tgurneu had said that even if it startled them, it probably wouldn’t be able to defeat a warrior strong enough to be chosen as a Brave.

  But Tgurneu had also said that this power had potential. Even simple concealment might lead to the death of all the Six Braves, depending on how it was used. The fiend joined the group known as the specialists, and the number given to it was twenty-six.

  It could only make the stealth effects last for a few scant moments. No matter how much it evolved, it couldn’t change that. So then it had an idea. If the effect held for only a dozen-odd seconds, it should just trigger it multiple times in succession—just use it continuously tens, hundreds, thousands of times. But after triggering its illusion, there was a cooldown of a few minutes, and no matter how much it developed the talent, it couldn’t improve this, either.

  So then it thought it should just make more of itself. It should split itself into thousands, tens of thousands of bodies. It remade its form and mutated itself to create a new organ inside itself: an ovary. By splitting its core, it acquired the ability to spawn eggs. The children it bore were about one centimeter long and one millimeter in diameter. They had no organs for eating, and neither could they drink water. Once the children were born, they would die in about a day.

  Like their parent, the offspring could use the same drug and sound wave. The offspring would hypnotize nearby humans, hiding themselves and their parent by altering their perception. The fiend had dispersed about fifty thousand children across approximately three kilometers throughout the rocky plain. When one offspring’s hypnosis wore off, another would immediately pick up the slack. When the second round ended, another offspring would instantly trigger its ability, and it was by repeating that over and over that the fiend remained hidden. Fremy’s bombs had killed many of the offspring. The fiend itself had also been wounded by the blasts. But still, enough remained to maintain the illusion.

  Goldof must have already realized that the fiend was using this stealth ability. But its hypnosis was far from weak. He would not be able to reveal his foe easily, even if he injured himself to do it. He’d never be able to break through the hallucination unless he focused on one spot and stared continuously at it. It wasn’t possible to find the fiend in a mobile search, like he was doing now.

  Thirty minutes left. The fiend’s powers would hold until then.

  “…Goldof. He has the key. I can’t think of anything else,” said Adlet.

  Adlet, Fremy, and Rolonia, who had been conversing nearby, seemed to have come to a conclusion. Foolish. They were trying to go look for clues, totally unaware that their target was right beside them.

  But right as Adlet and the others ran off, suddenly two explosions occurred in succession. Boiling water burst from the earth. All Fremy’s blasting had disturbed the magma and water vein underground. It was startling, but no serious cause for concern, or so the fiend thought.

  Nashetania was biding her time inside her prison for an opportunity to communicate her position to Goldof, hoping for a hint as to her position. Pretending she was unconscious, she waited to hear something.

  Her throat had already recovered somewhat, and speaking was entirely possible for her. But once she’d spoken, she would immediately be strangled again. She could only give Goldof a brief message.

  “…Goldof. He has the key. I can’t think of anything else.”

  She heard Adlet and the others talking. They were close by. She thought about telling Goldof that—but that wouldn’t be enough. Was there no information that would help him pin down her location?

  That was when Nashetania heard the double explosions. For a moment she didn’t understand what they were. Then she realized the sound belonged to hot water spraying up from the ground. She made up her mind. If she was going to relay something to Goldof, this was it.

  “Goldof. Just now, close by, two geysers went off,” she said quietly, and the moment the words left her mouth, the tentacle around her neck constricted, sending her mind careening into instant darkness.

  Goldof was still on the prowl for the stealth-fiend when he heard a voice. After many hours, Nashetania had fed him information again.

  “Goldof. Just now, close by, two geysers went off.” Her voice was so hoarse, he almost couldn’t believe it was her.

  He immediately dashed off. Fortunately, there was no sign of Adlet’s trio within the gem’s area of effect. It seemed they were looking for something beyond the boundary. Goldof would probably be discovered within ten minutes. He had no choice but to find Nashetania and save her before his time was up.

  He hurtled across the ground. He found one geyser, but not another spray of steam nearby. He ran farther and found another. Not this one, either. Forgetting the pain of his fingers and his other injuries, Goldof ran and ran.

  Specialist number twenty-six felt its blood freeze. Nashetania, whom it had thought unconscious, had told Goldof where she was.

  The boy would come immediately. The fiend desperately began to move, but it was slow, no faster than a human’s walking speed. It had expended all its strength on camouflage, and Fremy’s bombs had wounded it. It couldn’t move quickly.

  Tgurneu had said that under no conditions should it allow itself to be found by Goldof, in particular, and that if he seemed close to rescuing Nashetania, to kill her. Goldof would reach the fiend eventually. So what should it do? The creature desperately racked its brains. It had to carry out Tgurneu’s orders no matter what. To a fiend, failure to follow its master’s orders was an agony more terrifying than death.

  “…Oh? Has something happened?” Tgurneu muttered, far, far away. It was still aloft, observing the situation down below. Goldof had suddenly dashed into the gem’s area of effect, while specialist number twenty-six began lumbering off. The child couldn’t have figured out where Nashetania was, could he? From afar, Tgurneu couldn’t tell what was going on.

  “Hmm. What’s to be done here? Well, this time, I suppose I’ll trust in my pawn. Let’s leave it to number twenty-six.” Tgurneu understood that its subordinate was in danger, but it couldn’t come up with any ideas as to how to assist. If Tgurneu charged in, it could be exposed to danger itself. Just a little while ago, it had had a close call, and it wasn’t keen on experiencing that again.

  “All right, number twenty-six. I’ve decided to cheer you on from up here. You can do it. You can do it. Don’t give up,” Tgurneu urged gleefully as it continued to observe the spectacle.

  “Is that…it?” Goldof found two adjacent holes spurting steam. Already, five minutes had passed since he’d received that message from Nashetania.

  Goldof bit his broken fingertip. The bone grated, shooting a spike of pain through his appendage. Amid the aching, he focused his eyes. It seemed a part of his field of vision shimmered just a bit. He concentrated on that spot and bit his finger harder. The mirage-like fluctuation grew, and when he continued to stare, a fiend came into view. It was turned away from him, trying to escape. The moment Goldof started after it, he heard a voice.

  “Stöp, Goldof.” When the fiend spoke, it appeared clearly—a lizard-fiend with rock skin. When it turned toward him, he stopped automatically.

  “…Monster…”

  The fiend’s mouth was very slightly agape, and inside he could see Nashetania’s face. The sharp teeth pierced her skin. That alone told him immediately what it was about to do. If Goldof took one step forward, it would kill her.

  The fiend was about thirty meters away from him—too far for even Goldof to cross in a
n instant. He knew it wasn’t bluffing. Tgurneu would want to avoid her rescue at all costs. It would surely rather kill her than let him save her, even if that meant the plan to deal with Chamo would fail.

  “…Not a sïngle step.” The fiend spoke skillfully, even with its mouth blocked. It wasn’t going to hand over the girl. It would never let him save her. A glance was enough for Goldof to apprehend its determination.

  “I’m…almost there…” The Helm of Allegiance was still telling him that his master was in danger. How much longer until Chamo died? Depending on her strength, she could fade at any minute. If she died, Nashetania would immediately follow.

  “I will…save her.” Goldof took a slow step forward. The sharp teeth bit into Nashetania’s face. Blood dripped from her forehead onto her cheeks. He could even hear her bones grating, or so he though. “Your Highness… Please…open…your eyes…” Goldof called out to her. But her limp body didn’t so much as twitch. And even if she did wake, there was nothing she could do, anyway. Tgurneu had said that the power of one of these specialists prevented her from controlling blades.

  Goldof shifted forward very slightly, less than a full step. But the fiend didn’t miss the movement. It clamped her face even harder. He couldn’t get near it.

  Can’t I create an opening? he thought. But the fiend was eyeing his every action. He couldn’t approach. Then I should throw my spear, he thought, but the fiend had already anticipated that. The instant he moved his arm to ready his spear, the fiend’s mouth tensed.

  What’s more, Goldof realized that if he failed to kill the fiend in one strike, the next thing it would do was crush Nashetania’s face. If he aimed for its head, he’d kill her, too. He couldn’t aim for its heart because he didn’t know where that was.

  “…I’ll nevér give her to you.”

  Sweat beaded on Goldof’s face, left tracks down his jaw, and dripped on the ground. He kept perfectly still as he and the fiend stared each other down.