“…Your Highness…are you safe? Where…are you?”
Occasionally, she could hear him speak in her head. He was still searching, still trying to save her. Hope was not yet dead.
What she knew was that she was inside a fiend’s stomach, and it was holding her somewhere within the gem’s radius. She knew it was staying perfectly still and not moving at all. That was it. Nashetania didn’t know how it was staying hidden.
In the darkness, she heard sounds. Fiends’ footsteps as they thudded along in a pack. Adlet, Fremy, and the rest fighting the fiends. She heard bomb after bomb detonating all around her. From these noises, Nashetania could guess that she was aboveground, not underground, and that Braves had passed right by her multiple times. As for why none of them could find the fiend that had swallowed her—it was so baffling she could hardly take it.
“…”
Nashetania tried to keep every muscle still, pretending she was unconscious so as to make the fiend that had swallowed her lower its guard. She also listened intently for anything that could help her understand what was going on outside and where she was so that she could tell Goldof. She wondered what she could tell him that would be helpful. What would lead him to her?
She remembered what Goldof had said to her six years before. He had told her his wish was to save her one more time. She had yet to grant that request.
Hiding outside the circle, Goldof continued pondering. He contemplated everything that had happened since he’d first heard Nashetania’s cry for help—what she had said, what Dozzu had said, what Tgurneu had said, and what Adlet and Mora had said—wondering if maybe a clue lay somewhere in all of that.
But nothing came to mind. Mora had only told him the situation with Chamo. Adlet hadn’t found any clues. Tgurneu had chosen its words carefully to ensure Goldof wouldn’t find Nashetania. And Dozzu was under surveillance, so it couldn’t tell him anything.
One more time, Goldof reviewed everything from the beginning. One by one he diligently scrutinized each thing he had seen and heard in all the fights so far. Nashetania had told him that she was south of the forest, inside a fiend’s stomach, in the lava zone. As asked, he’d come.
That was when a question floated up in Goldof’s mind. One of the most fundamental elements of this situation didn’t make sense to him: Why the lava zone? If the goal was to lure out the Braves of the Six Flowers in order to activate Chamo’s blade gem, it shouldn’t matter if they were in the forest or anywhere else. But Tgurneu had clearly chosen the magma hotspot as their battlefield.
There had to be a reason—a reason the scheme had to be set here.
“!”
Staring into empty space atop the hill, deep in thought, Goldof had been distracted by his questions and ignored his surroundings. Adlet was two hundred meters away, and Goldof was within his field of view. Panicking, the knight slowly lowered himself down and out of sight.
“…”
If Adlet had spotted him, he would have called for Fremy and Rolonia, and they’d have come to surround Goldof and kill him. Should he move out from this spot and defeat Adlet before he called for help? But he couldn’t manage that, either. Don’t notice me, Goldof prayed, waiting for the redhead to pass him.
After some time, Goldof poked his head out. Adlet was moving farther away. Goldof immediately ducked down and left the vicinity.
It appeared Adlet was searching for something, and his eyes were emitting a strange light. He didn’t seem to be wandering aimlessly. Had he found some kind of clue? What was he looking for? What had he noticed?
“I don’t…have time,” Goldof muttered, and he continued his analysis.
Inside the fiend’s stomach, Nashetania had her ears open. She could hear explosions going off nonstop all around her. That was probably Fremy. Nashetania couldn’t see anything, so she didn’t know what was happening outside.
It wasn’t just Goldof who was looking for her—the others would be on the hunt, too. If Fremy found Nashetania first, she would kill her. Stifling her terror, Nashetania focused on the sounds outside.
“…It’s no use, Fremy. There’s nothing.”
“Looks like it.”
The voices were very close. The first was Fremy. Nashetania didn’t know the other, but it was safe to assume it was Rolonia.
“She’s not underground? Then…where the…” said Fremy.
“Maybe she’s gone even deeper down? There could be a fiend with powers like that.”
“But still, that would leave traces. There’s no way we’d tear up the whole surface and find nothing.”
The two of them hadn’t noticed the fiend carrying Nashetania in its stomach. But they were close by, so close that Nashetania could overhear them clearly. Nashetania’s captor didn’t move a muscle. Was it trying as hard as it could to disappear and avoid discovery? Or did it simply not believe it would ever be found?
“There are still places we haven’t searched yet,” said Fremy. “The pit where Chamo is…and the hills around there. Let’s search over there.”
“And what if she isn’t there?”
Their voices departed, and eventually Nashetania couldn’t hear them anymore. They must have left. They’d given her no ideas as to her location, and neither had she been able to gain any information worth telling Goldof. So she kept her ears open for any other clues.
“There has to be…something.” Having escaped Adlet, Goldof was now examining ground zero of Fremy’s blasts. He’d made sure that Adlet, Fremy, and Rolonia were nowhere near, but he couldn’t yet set foot within the area of effect. He’d decided that if he did enter, it would be after he had found answers.
Why this region? Goldof was convinced that if he could answer that question, he would find Nashetania—though he had no basis for that belief.
There was
