It couldn’t be. Mora herself couldn’t possibly be the seventh.
They must have been discussing their situation for around two hours, and the trio was running out of things to say. They had run through every possible ability that could have stopped the Saint’s poison after it permeated Tgurneu’s body. They had also spent a long time considering what the creature may have been hiding from Fremy, but she had simply not been exposed to enough information to pin down its secret.
The air between them was heavy. Adlet, Rolonia, and Fremy looked at one another. “Maybe we should change tacks,” Adlet said, unable to stand how circular the conversation had become.
“How?” asked Fremy.
“Instead of asking what kind of power could block the poison, we ask if there was anything odd about Tgurneu’s behavior. Let’s think about that.”
Fremy and Rolonia did not react with enthusiasm. “Everything Tgurneu does is odd,” said Rolonia. “It popped out from underground, talked about how greetings are the first step of something-or-other and complained about my ‘foul language’…”
She was right. “Has Tgurneu always been like that, Fremy?” Adlet questioned.
“Oh, yes. ‘Greetings are the first step toward living a bright life.’ That’s what it always said. If its vassals failed to greet it properly, Tgurneu would get mad.”
What the hell is with that fiend? wondered Adlet. “And what was that mouth on its chest? Is that like its storage closet or something?”
“That’s right. Tgurneu would put lots of different things in there.”
“What was inside?” asked Rolonia.
“Tgurneu often kept memo books and writing tools in there, and a compass and a map…and candy and toys made by humans, too.”
“It sounds like it’s nothing but mundane things in there,” said Rolonia.
That was when Adlet remembered—among Tgurneu’s many bizarre actions, there was one thing in particular that had stuck out. “Hey…why did Tgurneu have a fig?”
“?”
“Fiends don’t have to eat very often, right? So why was Tgurneu walking around with food?”
“It ate unusually frequently. It told me that it was just innately hungry more often than regular fiends.”
“Is that true, Rolonia?”
“That its body made it eat more often? I couldn’t really say…”
Adlet thought back to when Tgurneu had appeared in Adlet’s village, eight years ago. Back then, it had taken a seat at a table to speak with the villagers—and for some reason, there had been a large volume of food on that table, too. “Maybe there’s a secret behind that fig.”
“The fig?” Fremy echoed dubiously.
“What did Tgurneu normally eat?”
“Anything. Humans, animals, fruits and vegetables—fruit in particular quite frequently. Tgurneu would make the captured humans grow it, which it then carried in the mouth in its chest.”
“It ate fruit, huh?”
“I could tell that from tasting its blood before. Tgurneu really does eat anything,” said Rolonia. “Like figs, and animal meat, too, and grass and things. And…” Partway through, Rolonia hesitated. “It also ate fiends.”
Adlet was shocked, but Fremy seemed unfazed. “Yes, Tgurneu eats fiends,” she said. “It would eat useless, low-level types, and also those it suspected of being loyal to Dozzu. Tgurneu said it made it stronger.”
“It even eats its own kind… Sickening.” A fiend that ate ravenously. That part stuck in Adlet’s mind. But what did that imply? He couldn’t say if it meant anything at all. But the thing had pulled a fig from the mouth on its chest and eaten it. That just didn’t strike Adlet as an inconsequential act. “…Tgurneu wasn’t described as a big eater in the old records, though,” Adlet commented absently.
“Old records?” Fremy seemed curious.
“You don’t know about Barnah’s Chronicle of War? It’s a historical document written by a survivor.”
“I’ve never even heard of it. Does Tgurneu make an appearance in it?”
Adlet nodded. Anyone who aspired to be a Brave of the Six Flowers would have read Barnah’s Chronicle of War.
“I’ve read it, too.” Rolonia raised her hand.
“Heroic King Folmar was cool, wasn’t he?” said Adlet. “Especially in that scene where he accepts Zophrair’s challenge to fight one-on-one.”
“My favorite was Pruka, Saint of Fire. Though she was the first of the six to die.” Adlet and Rolonia began chatting away.
Fremy interrupted. “I’m curious. What does it say about Tgurneu?”
“Tgurneu’s name isn’t mentioned directly,” said Adlet. “There’s just a fiend among Archfiend Zophrair’s underlings that was described as looking just like Tgurneu.”
“Archfiend Zophrair?”
She doesn’t know about that, either? Adlet was surprised. “Zophrair was in the first Battle of the Six Flowers. They say it used to rule over all the fiends, ranking second to the Evil God. The author of the Chronicle, Barnah, gave it the name Archfiend.”
“Such a fiend existed? I had no idea,” said Fremy.
“You know how the first generation of Braves came to the Howling Vilelands by boat, approaching from the western side?” Adlet began. “They distracted the fiends and disembarked at a vulnerable point where the enemy defenses were thin. Then they headed straight for the Weeping Hearth, taking them by surprise. The Archfiend Zophrair and its twenty-two underlings stood in their way.
“Apparently Zophrair looked quite bizarre,” he continued. “It had the wings of a peacock, something like a cross between a bird and a cat. Barnah said that it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his whole life.”
“You sound like you know all about it,” said Fremy.
“I’ve read Barnah’s Chronicle of War so many times, I’ve memorized it. Let me continue. Zophrair had unique powers. Barnah described it as a controller-type.”
“What kind of powers did it have?”
“The power to control other fiends. When Zophrair’s minions fought the Braves of the Six Flowers, they were perfectly coordinated. They didn’t talk to each other or look at each other; they were just flawlessly in sync. And the Chronicle says that no matter how many times Zophrair’s twenty-two minions were killed, they revived again. As long as Zophrair was alive, none of them would fall.”
“What’s a controller-type?”
“Zophrair didn’t give orders. It apparently just assumed complete power over its minions. They forfeited their wills to
