“…Your Highness…”
“Die to save us, Goldof.”
Goldof closed his eyes for a while. Then he checked the ground at his feet and replied, “Yes. Very well, Your Highness.”
“Huh?”
“Goldof?”
Shock made itself plain on Nashetania and Dozzu’s faces. Goldof seized the moment to make his move, kicking a nearby rock as hard as he could. The rock smashed into Nashetania’s face and shattered into pieces.
“Sometimes…I…”
Everything happened in an instant. In the blink of an eye, Goldof was advancing on Nashetania, rolling forward to dodge the blades from below. He swept her feet out from under her, and when she lost her balance, he grabbed her face, slamming it against the ground, hard.
“I…lie…too.”
“Gah-hah!” The impact drove the breath from her lungs, and then she was still. He hadn’t killed her. She just wouldn’t be able to move for a while.
Goldof stood and glared at Dozzu. Now all he had to do was kill the fiend. He felt the black embers in his heart blazing brighter than ever. This one he couldn’t let live.
Dozzu’s horn sparked right as Goldof tore off his iron plate, throwing it at the fiend in an attempt to avoid the lightning. But only one piece of armor wasn’t enough to block the whole strike. Goldof jumped backward, but the sparks still singed him all over. “Aagh!”
As Dozzu mustered power in its body, particularly fat sparks scattered from the horn on its forehead, and an instant later the fiend unleashed the most massive bolt of lightning yet. The moment Goldof saw the flickering, he rolled to the side. But even after avoiding a direct hit, the heat still penetrated his armor, searing his skin.
Even now that it was one-on-one, this was no easy fight. Once Goldof saw a strike was coming, it was already too late to dodge it. If he wanted to avoid getting hit, he had to move out of range. But if he did, he’d have no way to attack. The only commonsense choice would be to run. But Goldof tore straight ahead.
“…Foolish,” said Dozzu. Right as the deadly charge descended, Goldof kicked a rock at his feet. The missile shot toward Dozzu, but the fiend easily avoided it. “I’ve already seen that move,” it said. And then, without a pause, the next strike found its mark, shooting through Goldof’s body. Slowly, he sank toward the earth.
“This is the end,” said Dozzu.
Mid-crumple, the moment before Goldof’s face would connect with the ground, his hands shot out.
His right hand grabbed a rock, and his left hand and both feet propelled him forward in a leap.
“!”
Goldof had figured it out. He’d analyzed Dozzu’s technique. If Dozzu used all its strength, it would probably be able to hit him with a bolt powerful enough to be instantly lethal. But Dozzu’s attacks were only ever just strong enough to slow Goldof down. Goldof figured that a full-power lightning strike would leave Dozzu wide-open afterward. Its plan was to hit him with one bolt to stun him and then charge up a second, fatal strike. Goldof was going to take advantage of the brief moment between the first and second strike. He let the first attack land, making a gamble that his body and his willpower would hold out.
“What?!” Dozzu cried as the shards of a rock Goldof had crushed in his hand stabbed into its eyes. When Dozzu tried to back away, Goldof reached out, grabbed the tiny fiend, lifted it into the air, and hurled it into the ground with all his strength.
“Ah…gah!”
Goldof raised his leg and smashed it to the ground. The limb bounced back up and descended again. He could feel the unpleasant sensation of bones breaking.
“Argh…ughhhh…” As Dozzu moaned, crawling on the ground, Goldof went to retrieve his spear from where it had fallen on the slope. He lifted it and approached Dozzu, raising the weapon to finish the fiend off. But then what Nashetania had said flitted through his mind.
“My comrade, Dozzu.”
He remembered how proud she’d looked when she’d said Dozzu’s name.
“We share the same passionate ambition, and we fight together. I would never betray Dozzu, and Dozzu would never betray me, either.”
“…” Goldof lowered his spear. She would surely mourn if he finished off Dozzu. And the fiend couldn’t move anymore. Goldof figured he should just leave it be. “Her Highness…is more important.”
Nashetania’s eyes had rolled back in her head entirely. She didn’t appear to be feigning unconsciousness.
He approached her. If he carried her unconscious form in his arms, he could run out of the gem’s area of effect within five minutes. That would save Chamo, too. Then this fight would be over.
What should he do after that? Return to the other Braves, or take Nashetania and run?
But he didn’t have the time to be thinking of the future. Right now I just have to get her out of the area of effect, he thought, but the moment he reached out to her—
“…Goldof.” He heard her voice from the Helm of Allegiance.
“Huh?” For the briefest moment, he was stunned. How could he hear Nashetania’s voice from the helmet when she was unconscious? The moment Goldof figured it out, he shot backward.
A moment later, a cluster of blades stabbed up from the earth where Goldof had been. If he’d been just a moment later jumping away, he would have been skewered to death. More and more pierced up below him. Goldof ran, keeping them away with his spear.
How could Nashetania be using the power of blades when she was unconscious? How had he heard her voice from his helmet? The answer was clear: This Nashetania was a fake.
The blade attacks stopped. Lying on the ground, the girl changed shape before Goldof’s eyes into a fiend that looked like a thin monkey: a shape-shifting fiend. Strangely, even now that the monkey’s true form was revealed, its left arm was still human.
“I must repeat the previous question—are you actually a monster? How did you dodge that attack? To say nothing less
