“Anyway, let us hurry,” said Goldof. “There will be no more hesitation on my part. I will trust your judgment.”
“Thank you. Goldof, will you take a look and see if Adlet is still alive?” Nashetania opened up the breastplate of her armor and showed him the crest near her collarbone.
“Do not worry,” he said. “No one is dead yet. Adlet and the rest are all alive.”
“I see. Then Adlet is doing his best. I will not fail, either.”
The two of them continued running toward the temple.
Maybe I can trust in you. When Adlet heard Fremy say that, hope blossomed inside him. Hans was already on his side, and Nashetania most likely trusted him. If he could get Fremy to side with him, too, he wouldn’t have to flee anymore. In a way, that was his ulterior motive.
But then Fremy crushed that feeling of hope as she aimed the muzzle of her gun at him. “I’ve always been skeptical—why do you keep protecting me? Why haven’t you suspected me, even once?”
“Why are you pointing your gun at me?” he asked.
“If you try to dodge the question, I’ll shoot.”
Fremy’s behavior confounded him. Her abrupt question, her impatient desire for answers. Fremy had said she didn’t understand Adlet, but he didn’t understand her, either. Adlet reflected. He decided to be sincere, to abandon any sort of calculated plan to get her on his side or convince her to believe him. “It was just a feeling. I felt that you weren’t my enemy. I wanted to protect you. I don’t have any reason to give you.”
“Did you not hear me? Don’t evade the question,” she ordered him.
“Fremy…” Staring down the barrel, Adlet searched his heart. He had indeed been trying to protect her. A neutral observer would see the lengths to which he had gone as unnatural, and Fremy would, too. Why? Adlet asked himself. As she watched him, her gun trained on his heart, he searched for the reason.
“Answer me,” she demanded.
Adlet quietly began to speak. “A long time ago, I tried to turn myself into a weapon. I tried to rid myself of my human heart. I tried to become a creature that existed purely for the purpose of killing the fiends that had stolen everything from me.” Fremy didn’t ask what he was talking about. She kept silent and listened.
“Because, like you said, and like my master said, I’m just ordinary. I thought that was the only way I could become the strongest man in the world. But it didn’t work.”
“What didn’t work?”
“You can’t throw away your heart just because you want to. No matter how many times I thought I had, I found it was still there.”
“You’re wrong, Adlet,” Fremy said icily. “I did get rid of my heart—not my human heart, but my fiend heart. I did it to get revenge on my mother and revenge on the Evil God. I’m alive now because I rid myself of it.”
“No, Fremy,” he said. “You can’t throw away your heart. Even the desire to do so comes from your heart.”
She looked at him. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“You want to cast it all aside to become stronger?” asked Adlet. “You can’t. You can’t stop yourself from loving someone, no matter what you do.”
“…”
“I care about you,” he said. “I always have—well, I guess it’s only since yesterday. But I’ve always cared about you.”
Fremy’s eyes opened wide, and she stared at Adlet. “Is that what you were thinking? Is that what you were thinking when you were with me?”
“I only just realized now how I feel, though. But I’ve felt this way since we first met.”
“And that’s why you tried to protect me?”
“I did worry over it when we met with Nashetania and Goldof and I learned that you were the Brave-killer. But when I saw Nashetania and Goldof suspect you, I thought, I can’t let this happen. If even your fellow Braves wouldn’t trust you, then I’d just have to trust you in their stead. I felt that if no one else in the world would protect you, then I would be the one to do it.”
“And after that?” she prompted.
“I felt the same way when we found out there was an impostor among us,” said Adlet. “I didn’t even consider suspecting you. I guess you obviously find that unnatural. But I couldn’t help myself. I’d fallen for you.”
“Just what do you find so attractive about me?”
“I don’t know. But when I see you suffer, it hurts me, too. I may be the strongest man in the world, but I can’t handle that.”
“And that’s why you decided to protect me,” she said. Adlet could see faint hesitation in Fremy’s cold expression. Sometimes, she looked like a doll holding a gun, but he was convinced she wasn’t a heartless monster. She had a heart. And if that was true, that meant their hearts could connect. He believed they could.
“Sorry, but you can’t protect me,” said Fremy. “I’m going to die anyway, once I defeat the Evil God.”
“Why?!”
“Where should I live once the Evil God has been defeated? I can’t go back to the fiends. There’s no place for me in the human world. I will have no choice but to die. Dying and taking the Evil God with me is my ideal.”
“You can’t do that.” Adlet shook his head. “Revenge might be everything to you right now. But that’s only temporary. Once your vengeance is complete, you have to start over again.”
“I can’t start over. Humans will never accept me. They will never accept the daughter of a fiend, or the Brave-killer.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Adlet. “I’ll figure something out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a big world out there. I’ll find a place that’ll accept you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Fremy. “There’s no way you could.”
“You’re the one being stupid. Just who do you think I am? I’m Adlet, the strongest man in the world. You’re telling me I
