“…Hey.” Adlet’s lips barely moved. He was calling out to himself—trying to tell himself that if he passed out, it would all be over. But his consciousness was sinking into darkness as if it were dragging him down. What are you doing, Adlet Mayer? You’re the strongest man in the world, aren’t you? There’s no way you can die here, he silently muttered to himself, and he reached around to his back. His hand tried to extract the blade and then fell limp.
Then he stopped moving.
Hans was sweeping the dark forest, searching for Adlet.
“Hans! We have searched enough for now! The sun has set!” Mora’s voice echoed through the darkness that had enveloped the Phantasmal Barrier.
Hans stopped and replied, “Meow? How can you be so calm about this?”
“’Twould be dangerous to continue any farther. We have no idea what kind of tricks Adlet has up his sleeve. The darkness is his domain.”
“You think I’d let a guy like that beat me? Besides, he’s gonna kill Fremy.”
“Hans, show me your crest. My own is on my back, so I cannot see it myself,” said Mora.
“Why?” Hans pulled up his shirt to show her the crest on his chest.
“Fremy is not dead. If she has not yet perished, that means that Adlet has judged her to be of value as a hostage.”
“Meow can you tell that?”
“Look at your own crest.”
Hans looked down at his chest. It was just as it had been before, faintly glowing.
“I did not have the time to explain earlier,” said Mora, “but there are six petals, are there not? When one of the six Braves falls, one of those petals disappears. This signals to you whether your comrades are alive or dead.”
“I didn’t know that,” remarked Hans.
“Goldof, Chamo, and the princess have returned to the temple. Let us return as well.”
“…” Though Hans’s expression said he wasn’t convinced, he followed Mora back.
When they returned to the temple, the other three were waiting.
“No go,” said Chamo. “We totally lost sight of him. He’s super fast.”
“To move with such speed, even when stabbed in the back… We cannot underestimate him.” Mora sighed. “We have little choice. We will begin our search anew on the morrow. Let’s pray that Fremy remains alive until then,” she said, and she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The others, too, each rested in their preferred ways.
Nashetania was the only one among the group who was curled up, holding her head. “Adlet, why? Why would you do something like that?”
The seventh had been surprised by Adlet’s speed, quick wit, and luck. Escape had seemed impossible, surrounded like that. Perhaps it had been a mistake to judge Adlet as one rung below the rest.
But that would not pose too much of a problem. Whatever the case, Adlet was cornered. The impostor would just have to wait until Adlet fell at the hands of his own allies. The seventh would simply watch him struggle in vain for a while. There was no need to rush things.
Around the time the other five gave up pursuit and headed back to the temple, Adlet was lying on the ground, unconscious. In the darkness, he dreamed—an old, wistful dream of his youth.
Adlet raised a stick over his head with a yell. He was trying to hit the boy who stood before him with a little wooden stick wrapped in cotton. But the boy easily dodged his playmate’s attack, striking Adlet’s shoulder with his own stick instead. Adlet let out a cry and dropped his childish weapon.
“Ah-ha-ha! I kicked your butt again!” The boy laughed. His name was Rainer, and he was Adlet’s friend, three years his elder.
They lived in a tiny, ordinary village deep in the mountains of the Land of White Lakes, Warlow. There were about fifty people there who made their living by herding sheep, farming grain, and picking mountain mushrooms. The name of the village was Hasna.
In a corner of a pasture where sheep grazed, Adlet and Rainer practiced sword fighting. They were the only two boys in the village. Whenever they could get a spare moment, they would swing sticks wrapped in cotton at each other. The rumors that the Evil God would soon be revived had spread as far as this remote area. Warlow, Land of White Lakes, was not that far from the Howling Vilelands. The fiends of the Howling Vilelands might well invade this far inland. Such thoughts prompted the boys to organize a defense corps of two.
“Adlet, you’ve gotta get better at this. At this rate, forget fiends. You can’t even beat my mom.” Rainer pulled his utterly bruised friend up off the ground.
“Then maybe your mom should join the defense corps,” Adlet muttered as he rubbed his battered body.
“What’re you talking about? The defense corps is you and me,” said Rainer.
The truth was, Adlet was not enthusiastic about playing defense corps. The fiends weren’t going to come this far anyway, and the Braves of the Six Flowers would defeat the Evil God. Even if fiends did come, the people should just turn tail and run. That was what Adlet thought. But Rainer was his only friend in the world, so Adlet couldn’t turn him down.
“Rainer! Where are you? I know you’re just playing with Addy!” a voice called from far away. Rainer had been skipping out on his work in the fields, so his mom was coming to get him. The boy stuck out his tongue and ran off in the opposite direction.
It had been quite the rough day for
