He was in the forest, surprised to be still alive. “…?” He thought he’d collapsed facedown, but now he was lying faceup with a tree root as his pillow. When he touched his back, the sword that should have been there was not. His wound had been treated, sewn up, and wrapped in bandages. Who had treated him? Had Nashetania found him?
Then he heard a voice.
“You’re awake.” He could just barely see Fremy’s blurry shape within the dark fog. “They missed your vitals. If you rest, you should be able to move around again soon.”
“You treated my wound?” Adlet asked, sitting up.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Fremy should also have believed that Adlet was the seventh. They had gotten off to a rocky start when they first met, too. He couldn’t understand why she would save him.
“I’m ninety-nine percent certain that you’re the seventh,” said Fremy. “But not completely. This is for the sake of that one percent chance.”
“Well, you’re right. I am a real Brave. I came here to fight the Evil God.”
“Oh? I don’t believe you,” Fremy said, looking away.
Silence fell upon them. The nighttime forest was quiet. Adlet figured the other five would have given up searching now that it was dark. There was no sign that they were still chasing him. So what should he do at this point? He had to prove his innocence, no matter what. But how? “This is gonna sound pathetic,” said Adlet, “but I have no idea how the impostor got into the temple.”
“Of course. Because you’re the impostor.”
“Was it really true, what Hans said? Was there really no way to open that door?”
“I’m not as informed as he is, but I do know a bit about the doors created by the Saint of Seals. I don’t think what Hans said was wrong,” she said.
“…”
“Besides, Mora shot down your ideas, too. There’s no way anyone could have gotten into that temple.”
If that was the case, then Adlet really was stuck. If it was, in fact, possible to get in the temple, that would mean that Hans, Mora, and Fremy were all lying. But only one among the seven of them was the enemy. Six really were Braves. It would be unthinkable for any of the real Braves to be conspiring with the enemy of their own free will. That meant that if multiple Braves were telling the same story, it had to be the truth.
“The impostor might be Mora,” suggested Adlet. She’d said there was no one who could have broken into that locked temple. But if her testimony had been a lie, then what? What if she was an accomplice to the Saint who’d broken in?
“That may be possible,” Fremy conceded. “But you can’t prove it. You would have to capture the person who broke into the temple and demonstrate their powers to all of us.”
“Well, maybe there’s some unknown Saint, one that even she doesn’t know about. She didn’t know about you, so you can’t say for sure that there aren’t any as-yet-unknown Saints.”
“That amounts to the same thing. You can’t prove this Saint did it unless you catch her.”
Anyway, that just meant he had to catch the person who’d activated the barrier. “Let me sort this out,” he said. “First, we have two or more enemies. One of these two is among the seven Braves who have gathered here. The other is the one who broke into the temple and activated the barrier.” That much was certain. It wasn’t possible for any of them other than Adlet to have activated the barrier. When it had been turned on, Fremy, Nashetania, and Goldof had been fighting fiends. Mora and Hans had been on their way to the temple. The only one whose position at the time was unknown was Chamo, but Mora had testified that Chamo could not break into the temple with her powers.
“We’ve been calling the one who infiltrated our group, the one who bears a crest, the seventh,” Adlet continued. “Let’s call the one who activated the barrier the eighth. Of course, they’re working with the fiends. The fiends dropped bombs on the temple in order to lure the Braves of the Six Flowers to the temple and attacked us to separate me from the rest of you. This was most likely a carefully prepared plan.”
“That still leaves us with a question,” said Fremy. “What is the seventh here for? If the plan was to lock us in, it could have been accomplished without the seventh’s presence.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Adlet. “If the seventh wasn’t among us, framing me as the seventh wouldn’t be possible. The plan wasn’t to lock us up. The plan was to set me up and get me killed.”
“I didn’t think of that. Because I thought you were the seventh.” Fremy was going along with the conversation, but she didn’t seem to trust him at all. Adlet had thought he could persuade Fremy to side with him, but it seemed that would be impossible.
“Anyway, we can put off dealing with the seventh,” he said. “Our number one priority is finding the eighth.”
“Can you? On your own, I mean.”
Adlet was forced into silence. He’d be looking for an unknown enemy with unknown powers, all while shaking the other five Braves. Of course, this eighth person wouldn’t just be strolling the woods. They’d be desperately hiding to avoid capture. Could it even be done? It seemed completely impossible to him. But the more convinced he became that it was impossible, the bigger the smile on his face grew. His lips relaxed, and his spirit was invigorated.
“You’re a strange man. What are you smiling about?” asked Fremy.
“I’m smiling because, as usual, I’m the strongest man in the world.” Adlet clenched a fist. “I’m in a lousy situation, but it doesn’t even come close to breaking my spirit.” To smile at despair: That was the first thing Adlet’s master, Atreau, had taught him. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the day I ruin my enemy’s
