“…and that’s all I know. I am prepared. Be done with it quickly.” And with that, Mora concluded her long confession. For a while, nobody said anything.
Goldof was the first one to speak. “You…don’t know anything about…the princess?”
Mora shook her head. “Tgurneu told me nothing of Nashetania. For my part, I had other concerns.”
“I see. So Her Highness…” Goldof started to say something and then stopped. Then he fell silent again.
“I dunno about this now. I was gonna kill you, but now I kinda feel sorry for you,” said Chamo.
“Are you going to kill Lady Mora?” Rolonia asked. “But she didn’t have a choice. Her daughter was taken hostage, and Hans did get properly revived.”
“Meow…I’ve kinda got mixed feelin’s about this.” Hans, unusually for him, seemed angry.
“You made your own decision to fight alone, and you lost. You reap what you sow,” Fremy said coldly.
Then Mora said, “Rolonia. ’Twould be naive not to kill me.”
“Lady Mora…”
“There was no guarantee that he would return after his death. And even if the revival was a success, he could have been severely disabled. I killed Hans, even knowing that.”
Rolonia was silent.
“No matter the result, I betrayed you. I must take responsibility. Moreover…I have no wish to live on so shamelessly as the traitor to the world.”
“Well, I guess we hafta, then. Though it’s too bad.” Chamo scratched her head.
“We can’t trust everything Mora’s said,” said Fremy. “We really should kill her.”
“But…,” Rolonia protested.
As the discussion persisted, Adlet opened his mouth. “Hmm… I wonder where I should start?”
“What’s wrong? Actually, you’ve hardly done anything tonight, have you?” Chamo scoffed.
Adlet ignored her. “I guess I’ll just start by getting to the point. Guys, calm down and listen.”
“…?” The present crowd seemed puzzled.
Quietly, but also with conviction, Adlet said, “Mora is not the seventh.”
As he’d expected, all six of them gaped in speechless astonishment.
The first to counter him was Mora. “What are you talking about, Adlet? The evidence that I’m the seventh is all there. Tgurneu threatened me into killing one of your allies.”
“Weren’t you listening?” said Fremy. “Mora admitted that she’s the seventh.”
“Addy… I’m sorry, but that’s just ridiculous.” Even Rolonia agreed. The others didn’t believe him at all.
Explaining this is gonna be rough, he thought. “First of all, Mora hasn’t betrayed us, has she? She did her utmost to make sure none of us would have to die. She did everything she could to try to kill Tgurneu. She wants to defeat the Evil God and save the world. There’s no way she could be a traitor.”
“True,” said Fremy. “She’s not a traitor—but she is the seventh.”
“You have no proof,” Adlet insisted. Fremy’s eyes widened. “How was the seventh crest created? How was the seventh chosen? We don’t have any of the facts. Calm down and think about it. In the end, the only evidence we have that Mora is the seventh is that Tgurneu said so. That’s all.”
“But that evidence is everything,” said Mora. “Tgurneu will never lie to me.”
Adlet said, “The very idea that Tgurneu won’t lie to you is the trap.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mora.
“Tgurneu’s goal was clearly to make you kill a Brave. It was positive you’d never abandon your daughter. But beneath that, it laid another trap—one to make you believe that you were the seventh.”
What he was saying made Mora hold her breath.
“All of us already considered the idea of falsely accusing a real Brave to make everyone else think they’re the seventh. But what we didn’t even think to consider was that you could trick a real Brave into thinking that they themselves had the fake Crest. Nobody would doubt someone calling themselves the seventh, right? Tgurneu’s a real piece of work. I almost wanna compliment that fiend for it. Nice job.” Adlet smiled. “Mora, from what you’ve said, though Tgurneu swore to the Saint of Words, it’s not like it can’t lie at all anymore, right? And all the Saint of Words can do is make any liar pay the predetermined price.”
Mora nodded.
“It’s so simple, it’s ridiculous. Three years ago, Tgurneu swore to the Saint of Words that it wouldn’t lie. On the surface, that was to get you to be willing to sit down and negotiate. But the other goal was to make you think it couldn’t lie.”
“…”
“You believed that Tgurneu wouldn’t lie under any circumstances. And then it told you, falsely, that you’re the seventh. So you mistakenly believed it—just like Tgurneu wanted. Simple, huh?”
“Wait. Do you think that I didn’t doubt Tgurneu? I also considered that Tgurneu could be lying. But the power of the Saint of Words is absolute. None can escape from it. Even the Saint of Words herself cannot nullify the contract.”
“Are you saying that even the power of the Saint of Words doesn’t work on Tgurneu?” said Fremy. “That’s impossible. If that were true, it would mean that Tgurneu really is immortal.”
“There’s no such thing as immortality,” countered Adlet, “and if there is, then it’s only the Evil God. I don’t know much about the Saint’s power, but it’s probably impossible to cancel out the Saint of Words.”
“So what is it, then? You can’t mean to say that Tgurneu died in order to tell that lie?”
“…” Adlet considered a bit, thinking about how he should explain things. “You said that after Tgurneu declared that Mora was the seventh, a jellyfish-fiend sucked it up. That wasn’t in order to escape—that was in order to hide that Tgurneu had died. It died in exchange for that lie, just as it had promised the Saint of Words.”
“That’s impossible,” said Mora. “Tgurneu is one of the commanders of the fiends. If it died, then all its minions would lose their chain of command and turn into a disorderly mob. Such a creature wouldn’t die for the sake of a single lie.”
“Tgurneu isn’t dead,” agreed Fremy. “Its death would cause chaos among its subordinates. I know it is alive.”
“Calm down. I’ll explain in full,” said Adlet,
