They all covered themselves with black cloaks courtesy of Adlet, keeping low to the ground as they advanced. Melting into the darkness of night, they forged ever westward.
They weren’t thinking about killing Tgurneu, nor uncovering the seventh. They only concealed themselves and evaded potential battles.
“Any enemies behind us, Mora?” Adlet called from the front of the group.
“No,” Mora replied while bringing up the rear. She was walking backward, her fists raised and facing away from the group. With Hans watching their right and Fremy watching their left, the seven crept forward.
An earthworm wriggled up to their feet. Chamo plucked it up, bringing the worm’s mouth region up to her ear. “It says about three hundred meters ahead, the enemy made a fence. There’s whole ton of fiends in front of it.”
“I see,” said Adlet. “Fremy, how big is this fence?”
“It’s nearly thirty kilometers across,” she replied. “I don’t think it’s possible to go around it. Mora could probably break it, but there’s a mechanism that sets off a loud noise if you come near it.”
“Do you know how the alarm works?” Adlet asked.
“It’s a clapper made of string and wood. If your foot catches on the string, the clappers smack together to make noise.”
“Meow-hee, is that it? I could get past that, easy-peasy.”
Adlet put a hand to his jaw and considered for a while. Then he gathered the group around him to explain the plan. “First we retreat back about one kilometer. Fremy, you plant a bomb in the ground. After one hour you blow it up. Meanwhile, we’ll be moving north.”
“So a diversion,” said Mora.
Adlet nodded. “When the bomb goes off, the fiends should all go toward it. Then Chamo’s slave-fiends will attack the fence. This is also a distraction. We’ll head south toward the blockade. Fremy will snipe the remaining guards, and Hans and I will break the clapper. Mora, you smash us a way through as quietly as you can.”
“Understood,” said Mora.
“And please,” he finished, “don’t let the fiends—or Tgurneu—find you.”
The party moved into action. Soundlessly, they advanced as Fremy’s bomb and Chamo’s slave-fiends sowed confusion among the enemy. Fremy attacked a weakly guarded area, while Adlet, Hans, and Mora burst through the fence. Then, before the fiends on watch could return to their positions, the Braves quickly slipped through to the west.
“So…it’s all going smoothly, huh, Addy?” Rolonia said, walking beside Adlet.
“For now.” He happened to glance up at the sky peeking through the gaps in the forest canopy. The stars had already faded, and the black of night was slowly giving way to gray. “Tgurneu’s probably lost track of us. If it did have a hold on what we’re doing, there’d be more fiends waiting for us here.”
“Y-yes…I’m sure you’re right.”
“Anyway, our party needs to keep a low profile. We’re gonna run as hard as we can away from Tgurneu until we’re out of this forest, past the ravine, and reach the Weeping Hearth.” After listening to Adlet’s explanation, Rolonia nodded. It seemed the rest of the group didn’t even need to be told. They were not going to fight Tgurneu, and they wouldn’t let it figure out where they were. The top priority was making a beeline straight for the Weeping Hearth. That was the plan.
“Have you noticed, Adlet…?” Fremy said abruptly.
“Noticed what?”
“I’ve heard some fighting behind us, a few times now. The sound is too faint, so I couldn’t tell who’s involved.”
As they marched, Adlet listened closely. The stirring of the trees, his companions’ footsteps, and also fiends’ cries, or so he thought. “You’re right. There’s a battle going on back there. But who, and with whom?”
“You want Chamo to go check it out? It’ll take a little while,” said Chamo.
Adlet shook his head. “I’m curious, but our time is more important. We’ll leave it and move on.”
Fremy and Chamo nodded, and the seven proceeded farther west. Adlet looked over his shoulder, but the fence was already out of sight.
About an hour after Adlet’s party passed the blockade, a fiend came to examine the damaged fence. “Hmm. So they’ve broken through here, too. Oh, dear.” The creature had a yeti’s body and the head of a crow, and in its hand was a large fig. The yeti-fiend—Tgurneu—sighed and said, “It seems their plan is to do everything they can to avoid me.”
Around him were throngs of fiends, clamoring until their voices were hoarse. The superior fiends, those that could speak, were giving out orders to their subordinates to hurry and find the Braves of the Six Flowers.
“What do you think, Number Eighteen?”
Beside Tgurneu was a snake-fiend, slender enough to grip in one hand but more than ten meters long. Two arms, thin as twine, grew from its trunk about fifty centimeters from its head. “They’re terríble cowards. Not wörth fearing at all,” it sneered. This fiend was one of Tgurneu’s specialists, considered unique even among its followers—the eighteenth specialist, to be exact. It had evolved itself according to Tgurneu’s instructions to develop its exceptional powers.
“You’re the one not worth fearing,” Tgurneu scoffed, kicking Number Eighteen lightly. “What would you do if you were in their position? What would be your priority?”
“I would consider discovéring the seventh to be the most important,” said Number Eighteen.
Tgurneu sighed. “The worst choice you could think of. The way things stand now, they have no means of ferreting out the impostor, and I doubt they’ve even found any clues that could lead them to the answer. What course do you believe they should take in such a situation?”
“Üm…”
“Wait until the seventh makes a mistake. That would be my strategy, if I were them. Any other ideas?”
“Perhaps they could prioritize defeating you,
