Adlet heard what she was saying, but her words weren’t reaching his brain.
“Hans,” she continued, “I had thought that most likely, you would be the most annoying of my enemies. I devised a number of ways to pin the deed on you and get you killed, but…it all came to nothing. What a disappointment. Well, I was right to predict that you would be the strongest of the lot. If you hadn’t been here, I would not have lost.” Smiling, Nashetania swept her gaze over the crowd. “What’s wrong? You’ve all gone quiet.”
When Adlet saw that smile, he thought that maybe Nashetania wasn’t the enemy, after all. The way she was so up front about it made it hard to doubt her. He even began thinking that perhaps it had been right that she had caught him in her trap.
“Wh…,” Mora squeezed out, “why did you think to kill us…? No, you really did intend to kill us, so…you were allied with the Evil God, with the intention of destroying the world…” Mora was so shocked, she couldn’t speak properly.
Nashetania frowned slightly. “Perhaps all this was unnecessary. Perhaps I should have revealed everything to you and asked for your cooperation. There’s no point in that now, though.”
Then Goldof knelt at Nashetania’s feet. “Your Highness! Please, tell me! Just what on earth are you trying to do?! I will follow you!”
Nashetania looked down at him and smiled wryly. “The truth is, Goldof, I thought you might become my ally. If you had said nothing, kept your silence, and done as I ordered, I would have told you what was really going on. But you…” She trailed off and put her hand to her mouth. A mean look on her face, she giggled. “I had no idea you would say something like that.” Had something happened with Goldof? But that didn’t matter.
“Chamo wants to know, though, Princess. Why’d you wanna kill us?” inquired the little Saint.
“Oh yes, about that.” Nashetania put her hand to her heart and said sincerely, “I really do wish for peace. I want to create a world where the Evil God, fiends, and humans can live together without strife. That was my goal in putting this plan into action.”
Adlet couldn’t say a word. He didn’t even understand what she meant.
“I have no ill will toward any of you,” she continued. “But I must revive the Evil God. To that end, I was forced to eliminate the Braves of the Six Flowers, no matter what.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand what you mean. What are you talking about, Princess?” Mora sounded utterly confounded.
Nashetania ignored her and continued. “I have a request for you all. Would you please withdraw? I will deal with the Evil God once it has revived. I will not allow it to destroy the human world, because I love both humans and fiends equally.”
“Princess, please. Explain in a way we can understand,” said Mora.
“Let me put it simply,” said Nashetania. “My goal is to replace the hearts of fiends in order to force them to reconcile with humans.”
That doesn’t make any sense, thought Adlet. What she’s saying is absurd. But even so, he listened. Perhaps he’d just been swallowed by the atmosphere of the moment, or perhaps it was her charisma.
“S-so…we reconcile, and then there’s world peace?” said Hans. Even he was overwhelmed.
“Yes, that’s right,” Nashetania replied. “Though I will not say there is no danger. There will be some sacrifices. But really just a few.”
“How many?” asked Fremy.
“I estimate that it will not be more than approximately five hundred thousand human lives.” Nashetania rattled off the figure as if it were a simple matter of course. Her voice was filled with confidence.
I don’t get it, thought Adlet. He couldn’t understand any of it—not what she was trying to do, not what she was thinking. What he saw there was a monster with a charming form. “Hans. Fremy. Mora. Chamo,” he said. He turned to his dazed allies. “Kill her!”
Roused by Adlet’s words, Hans drew his sword and dashed forward. Chamo put her foxtail in her mouth and spewed up fiends. Mora clenched her fists and threw a punch at Nashetania. The first attack to connect was Mora’s fist. She smashed Nashetania’s head in one hit. But…
“So trying to explain it to you was useless, after all.” Nashetania stood there, her head caved in as if it were nothing. Her body crumpled. Armor, clothing, and all, she transformed into something mud-like. “What a disappointment.” The voice came not from the mud that had been Nashetania, but from the forest around them. “Good-bye, Goldof. It’s really a shame we couldn’t go together.”
“What was that…?” trailed off Goldof.
“A fiend technique. And that of a high-level fiend, too,” said Adlet.
“And Fremy,” Nashetania continued. “I feel that perhaps you and I could understand each other.”
“Meow! She should still be close!” said Hans.
“Let us see each other again sometime,” the voice finished.
Hans ran in the direction from which it had been emanating, chasing after Nashetania alongside Chamo’s fiends.
“Fremy! Take care of Adlet!” Mora said, sprinting into the forest. Goldof, who had been momentarily frozen, ran off, too. Only Adlet and Fremy remained behind, alone.
“No way…Nashetania? I can’t believe it,” Adlet moaned. The moment the identity of the seventh had come to light and he could relax, pain had assaulted him.
Fremy moved Adlet from his perch against the tree and laid him down on the ground. “Don’t speak, Adlet. You’ve pushed yourself too hard.”
“Pushing myself too hard…is my special technique.” Adlet smiled.
Fremy’s face hovered just above his. “You’ve lost too much blood. Hold on. This isn’t much, but I have some tonic.”
“You’ve gotten a lot nicer… You should’ve been like this from the start.”
“I told you not to talk,” Fremy ordered, fishing within her cloak.
As Adlet watched her, he thought of when they met. When he’d first seen her, he’d found her beautiful and wanted to protect her. There had been no logic in those desires.
