“There’s a few things…I want to ask,” said Goldof.
“Please do.”
“Who’s the seventh?”
“…I have an idea, but I don’t know for sure.”
“What?”
“The seventh among you is not one of ours. I’m quite certain that Tgurneu was the one who arranged that one. Sending in an impostor to kill the Braves of the Six Flowers from the inside…This may be hard for you to believe, but Tgurneu and I had prepared the very same ploy.”
“I can’t…believe that.”
“Neither can I. When my ally who was investigating your group told me that there was yet another Brave, Nashetania and I were both dumbstruck.”
“…I still have more questions. How did you get…that fake crest she has?”
“That I cannot answer,” Dozzu replied flatly.
“Then one last thing. Do you…do you two…still plan to fulfill your ambition?” The way Dozzu described their plight, it and Nashetania seemed near despair.
But Dozzu thought for a moment and replied, “One with ambition cannot stop until they are dead. Even if our chances of this goal being realized are near zero, as long as we’re alive, we have to keep fighting.” That was exactly what Nashetania had said back in the Phantasmal Barrier.
“You and I are enemies,” Goldof said in no uncertain terms. “I want to…protect Her Highness. I want her…to live. I have to stop her from keeping on with this reckless fight…no matter what it takes.”
“Unfortunately, that’s quite impossible. Nashetania will persevere in the fight for her aspirations as long as she lives. If what you want is to protect her, then you must fight together with her to realize her goal.”
Goldof fell silent. He couldn’t give Dozzu that answer yet. “…I…”
“I won’t ask you for a response right now. Choose the path you believe is right. That’s what Nashetania said.”
Goldof had made up his mind to protect Nashetania. But who should he fight in order to do that? If he killed Dozzu, would she stop? Or was there no way to protect her other than to eliminate the Braves of the Six Flowers?
Goldof put off the decision. Thinking about what would happen next was pointless. Right now, he would save Nashetania from Tgurneu. That was everything.
“Tgurneu will have a hard time killing her, though,” said Dozzu.
“What do you mean?”
“One year ago, a comrade from the Howling Vilelands came to me in the royal palace to inform me that Tgurneu wanted to see me. I found this peculiar, but I responded to the summons. I changed shape and headed to the location specified as our rendezvous point. Oh, I didn’t explain this before, but I’m able to transform myself. My current form was not the one I was born in.”
“And?”
“Tgurneu was there with the Saint of Words, Marmanna. He then made a request of me—that I not kill Fremy Speeddraw.”
That’s strange, mused Goldof. Fremy had told them that Tgurneu had planned all along to get rid of her. If that was true, it would be odd for Tgurneu to arrange a contract like that. Or was Dozzu lying?
“I agreed and made my own request in return: that Tgurneu would not kill a certain individual whom I would later give proof of comradeship. Tgurneu agreed quite willingly, and we sealed our contract through Miss Marmanna. The one to whom I handed that proof was, of course, Nashetania.”
Goldof mulled over it. Was what Dozzu said true, or not? But without a contract like that, Tgurneu would have no reason to let Nashetania live. Why was she still alive, and why hadn’t Tgurneu killed Nashetania after capturing her? Goldof couldn’t come up with any other explanation. “What will…happen to her…now?” he asked.
“I expect that Tgurneu intends to hand Nashetania to Cargikk. I didn’t make a contract with Cargikk, so Tgurneu must be planning to have him kill her.”
“…Is Fremy…the seventh?” Goldof asked.
“I have no definitive proof, but I think that’s the most likely.”
A Brave of the Six Flowers carried the fate of the world on their shoulders. He should have immediately gone to Adlet and the others to tell them about this and then interrogated Fremy to evaluate Dozzu’s claims. But Goldof’s feet kept on course to the lava zone.
He would save Nashetania. That was the only thing driving him. “Never mind…about Fremy right now. I’ll save Her Highness…and that’s all.” He couldn’t trust Dozzu entirely. It was a fiend and an enemy of the Braves. But he had to cooperate with it in order to help the princess. At the very least, it was true that Nashetania had been captured and was in trouble, because the Helm of Allegiance activated only when the wearer’s master was in such a situation.
“…”
Then Goldof remembered—Nashetania had also been the one who’d given him this helmet. It could be part of her plot, too. But his feet continued forward anyway. Nashetania might truly be in peril. So Goldof was forced to keep going, even if it was a trap.
As he ran, he happened to look back. What were Adlet and the party doing now? He wanted them to ignore him and cross the ravine. He didn’t want anyone else walking into this trap.
At some point, the trees around him had grown sparse, the ground gray and rocky, and the undergrowth thinner. Goldof was entering the lava zone.
As Dozzu dangled from Goldof’s hands, the fiend thought to itself that the boy most likely did not entirely believe what it had said. This was still good enough, though. Dozzu had never expected to be able to deceive him completely. Goldof was heading into the volcanic region, just as Dozzu and Nashetania had anticipated, so they had achieved their goal. The problem was what came next.
Would he ever figure out the truth? If he did, then when? Would Nashetania and Dozzu’s plan succeed?
All of it was riding on Goldof.
Chapter 5A String of Battles
Goldof and Dozzu pushed on through the lava zone. Their line
