“We’ve caught hím!” A giant earthworm wrapped itself around him. Goldof hacked its head off with his spear, but the fiend continued squeezing him tight, even in death.
A dog-fiend lunged for his neck to bite him, but Goldof dodged and smacked it away with a fist. “I will…protect…her…” he muttered to encourage himself. But despair was gradually creeping up, starting at his feet. Could he really find Nashetania? Tgurneu had said a certain fiend’s power kept her hidden. It had sounded quite confident that Goldof would never find her.
Could he figure out Tgurneu’s scheme? He wasn’t smart like Adlet and Hans. He didn’t have Fremy’s knowledge of fiends, either. What could someone like him do?
“Dïe!”
Goldof shook off the worm-fiend, but the dog bit into his leg next. He stabbed it in the torso with his spear, but its jaws stayed clamped on his armor.
The other fiends seized the opportunity to rush him. Goldof fled, dragging the corpse of the fiend biting him. He tried to rip it off as he ran, but his fingers felt weak. “Damn it!”
The other Braves saw him as their enemy. If he encountered them, they’d immediately try to kill him. He couldn’t expect them to go easy on him like they had before. Now he didn’t even have the strength to survive another fight against them. If he got close to the gem’s area of effect, he’d meet a quick end. Forget finding Nashetania—he couldn’t even get near her.
“He’s rünning!”
“After him! We can finish him off now!”
He couldn’t count on Dozzu’s help, and neither could he hear Nashetania’s voice. He had no clues as to how he could keep her alive.
Goldof fled the fiends. When one nearly caught him, he killed it and then kept running. Another loomed close, and he slaughtered that one too without stopping. He repeated the same thing over and over—there was nothing else he could do.
How much time had passed? Goldof could only think of one way out of the situation.
And that was to abandon Nashetania.
Tgurneu had informed Goldof that if he shared the truth with the other Braves, it would immediately kill her. His liege’s death meant that Chamo would live. What Goldof should do was kill these fiends, head back to Adlet, tell them the truth, and beg forgiveness. Adlet wouldn’t kill him without hearing him out. Goldof would fight Tgurneu and its minions, destroy the Evil God, and then just disappear somewhere. He should forget all the time he had spent with Nashetania, like how a dream evaporates upon waking. That would solve everything.
Goldof killed the last of the gang of enemies, a leopard-fiend. Then he looked to the south, where he knew Adlet and the others were.
“…Princess…” Emotion swelled in his chest. The shock of their first meeting. His elation when he’d headed out to save her with nothing but a hammer in hand. How moved he’d been when she had listened to his request afterward. His confusion upon finding out what an outrageous tomboy she was. Anger at being the target of her mischief. Attraction, as day by day she became a woman. Bewilderment when she’d first declared she would become a Saint. Worry when he’d found out she was throwing herself into severe training with no care for her own life. Joy at watching her grow into her power as the Saint of Blades. Then regret for how he’d gone easy on her in the Tournament Before the Divine, when he’d handed victory to her.
Unease when she had been chosen as a Brave of the Six Flowers, and then determination to fight when he made up his mind to see her back safely from the Howling Vilelands. His slight jealousy of Adlet. And finally, the relief of knowing she was alive in his heart.
“If I could…forget it…like a dream…” A single tear welled in his eye. “It would be…so much easier.” Goldof took the corpse of the leopard-fiend lying at his feet, lifted it up, and bit into its neck. He noisily sucked down what remained of the fiend’s blood. The moment had to be a first for humanity—a man eating a fiend. The blood quenched his thirst.
Removing his armor, Goldof daubed what medicine he had left on his wounds and then quaffed the secret tonic passed down through Piena’s royal family. This medicine was so powerful it was practically poison. Agony rippled down his throat and into his stomach. He hunched over, resisting the urge to vomit.
“…”
Then he rose to his feet. He clenched his fists and gave his spear a few swings. He could move. I can still fight, he thought, and he calmly began striding away. He’d made a decision—no matter what difficulties stood in his way, he would protect Nashetania.
About eighteen hours earlier, Nashetania and Dozzu had been in the Cut-Finger Forest. Hiding in the undergrowth, they leaned in close as they convened.
Their comrades weren’t with them. Every single one had died after their fight with Cargikk’s fiends. Dozzu was bleeding all over, and Nashetania’s wounds were even more severe. A fiend’s horn had impaled her, and the puncture wound reached all the way to her back. There was a deep cut in her leg, too, and the tendon was severed. Nashetania was fused with a fiend, so her capacity for recovery was far greater than a normal human’s, but these injuries were grave, even for her.
Cargikk’s forces had surrounded them with wave upon wave of fiends. How many more hours would they be able to keep running around? It was uncertain if they would even live to see the sun rise.
“Nashetania,” said Dozzu. “I’ll cut a path for you. Flee, please.”
“Dozzu…”
“If you die, it’s all over. As long as you’re alive, we’ll still have hope. Please, you must survive this.”
“I can’t! I can’t do anything by myself. Both
