“And if there is information about the Black Barren Flower at our destination, it is highly likely that the seventh will make a move in order to try and hinder our actions.”
“…”
“Are you still going to make excuses for her even after what you’ve seen and heard? Do you think you can overlook this, even though the evidence isn’t definitive?”
“You are our enemy. All it seems like you’re doing is trying to set Rolonia up.”
“There are bombs attached to my knees. And I am surrounded by the Six Flowers. If you were me would you think about trying to set up a trap in a situation like this?”
“That may be so, but there is no way that we can trust anything you say.”
“Chamo wonders if that’s true,” she said. “Nashetania can’t be trusted, but Chamo also doubts what you’re saying, Adlet. If there is absolutely no evidence that she is the seventh then Chamo would definitely believe you.”
“I’m not saying that, but I…”
“Chamo has wondered a lot, why is this stupid cow getting in our way?”
“…getting in the way…”
“Adlet, should I hunt down Rolonia or kill the princess?”
With a wide grin on her face, Chamo placed her foxtail grass to her mouth. There were still a number of Jyuma within her stomach.
“Chamo-san. I don’t think that we should kill Rolonia-san immediately. This flute still might not be hers. It’s possible that the seventh planted it without her knowledge.”
“Maybe, but…,” Chamo said.
“What in the hell are you saying? What is the meaning of this, Nashetania?”
Dozzu was getting flustered, and at least to Adlet it didn’t seem like he was acting. And Dozzu and Nashetania shouldn’t have had any time to conspire together, so this couldn’t have been Dozzu’s plan.
“I’m just saying what I’ve seen. I’m not plotting anything, Dozzu.”
Nashetania looked back to Adlet. “As Chamo-san said, we can’t definitively say that Rolonia-san is the enemy, but there is a chance that she is planning to stop us. Or she might have some trap for us in that cave to kill all of us. There’s no way that we can let her go.”
“But, the corpse soldiers definitely said it,” Rolonia interjected. “They said go to the cave. They wanted us to help them!”
Adlet was shocked. She was placing her thoughts about the corpse soldiers ahead of her concern for herself. Why? Adlet wondered. She can’t really be hiding something, right?
At that moment Adlet was taken aback. He was starting to trust Nashetania’s words more than Rolonia. He found that unacceptable. However, once suspicion had sprouted inside of him it wouldn’t disappear no matter how many times he denied it.
Nevertheless, Adlet placed his hand on Rolonia’s shoulder and spoke. “Don’t worry. I don’t know what Nashetania is planning, but you are friend to the Strongest Man in the World. I will not let you die.”
“….Thank you.”
From the way she said those words Adlet sensed that she still hadn’t changed her mind about the soldiers.
“Do you still plan on going to that cave?”
She didn’t say anything, but not answering was the same as admitting it to be true.
“What are you thinking? Don’t you get the situation we’re in? Nashetania is setting you up. She is trying to frame you.”
“But, we have to go quickly. Our chance to help the corpse soldiers might disappear.”
“That’s enough about the corpse soldiers! Didn’t I say it?! Those words, the speaking corpse soldier, all of it are a part of Tgurneu’s strategy!”
Adlet simply couldn’t understand what Rolonia was thinking. The flute wasn’t the only reason he was suspicious. It was also because she was trying to help the corpse soldiers, even though there was no way to actually do so. There had to be a reason behind her incomprehensible behavior.
“Naturally, Chamo can’t let you freely go off somewhere,” Chamo pressed Rolonia.
“I concur. I apologize, but it is necessary to restrict your movements, Rolonia-san,” Nashetania said.
“Hey you stupid cow. Hand Chamo your whip,” Chamo said and stuck out her hand.
Rolonia looked at her with eyes full of fear. That whip was her only weapon.
“Until suspicions surrounding you have been cleared up, Chamo will hold onto it. But don’t worry, you won’t need it. After all, you’ve been useless for a while now.”
“But, but this is…”
“Chamo said she’ll give it back when everything has been cleared up, but you still aren’t handing it over. Why is that?” Chamo continued to move closer to Rolonia while twirling the fox-tail grass by her mouth. Rolonia in response backed up.
“Without my whip I can’t fight.”
“Chamo is saying not to fight. You really have no choice but to give it to Chamo.”
Chamo then stuck the grass down her throat and at the same time Adlet moved to defend Rolonia. The Jyuma Chamo spat out lurched towards Rolonia and Adlet stop their attacks with his sword.
“Stop it, Chamo!”
“Chamo doesn’t plan on killing her. Chamo is just going to make it so she can’t go anywhere!”
Adlet then blocked each of the attacks that came from Chamo’s Jyuma one by one. He could tell that Chamo wasn’t trying to kill Rolonia or him, but he still had no choice but to protect Rolonia.
“Rolonia, if you don’t want to pit us all against one another then give up your whip.”
“I…I can’t.”
Goldof came to grab Adlet, but Adlet kicked him in the side. However, that left an opening in his defenses and one of the Jyuma rushed past Adlet and barreled towards Rolonia. In order to keep hold of her whip, Rolonia was forced to defend herself against the Jyuma.
“You’re being stupid, Rolonia. If you’d just go along with this you wouldn’t get hurt.”
“But…”
Despite being so close to the enemy, the companions continued to fight among one another. Nashetania, the ringleader of all the commotion, simply watched from the sidelines.
“Wait a second, this is bad. The Dark Specialist has started to move,” Dozzu said.
For a long time the corpse soldiers had been heading towards the mountains to the south, as Adlet and the other’s had intended. But as if they had sensed that something was wrong, they seemed to have changed course and were now coming right towards them.
“There’s nothing we can do. We have to fight back!” Adlet stood at the head of the group and faced the corpse soldiers.
“Well, Chamo guesses we have no choice. So we’ll postpone things will Rolonia till later,” Chamo replied.
The Jyuma that were attacking Rolonia changed their targets to the corpse soldiers.
The battle grew fiercer than ever before. Before they had simply chased the enemy as they ran, but now the soldiers were coming right for them. They had to fight off these corpses while simultaneously forcing them and the Dark specialist towards the southern mountain where Fremy and Mora were waiting.
What’s happening? Adlet thought as he fought. What should I do?
Is Nashetania trying to deceive us? Or did she really discover that there was a chance that Rolonia was the seventh and was just trying to tell the group? Both possibilities seemed likely, so Adlet couldn’t come to a conclusion.
Is Rolonia still just trying to help the corpse soldiers? Or is she really trying to set a trap for the Six Flowers? Adlet didn’t know the answer to that either. He had no idea why Rolonia was helping the corpse soldiers so much.
Rolonia was a kind girl. It was natural that she would think to help the corpse soldiers, but why was she risking her life to do so? As he fought with the corpse soldiers those questions continued to confuse him.
Adlet used a massive amount of bombs and Goldof charged through the corpse soldier ranks, cutting them up to pieces. It eventually stopped the corpse soldiers’ charge and they started to retreat.
But then Nashetania shouted, “Rolonia-san isn’t here!”
Adlet turned around, but Rolonia, who just a moment ago had been fighting right behind him, was nowhere to be found.
No way, could she have really headed to the cave to help the corpse soldiers?
“Were you not watching her, Chamo-san?!” Nashetania yelled.
“Chamo wasn’t. What were you and Goldof doing?!”
Nashetania and Chamo argued as Goldof puzzled over whether to chase after Rolonia or not.
“What a pain. Now Chamo might not stop at just hurting her,” Chamo muttered.
And with that the suspicions the group had about Rolonia deepened.
“What are you doing, Rolonia?” Adlet wondered.
Even if there were words written on the corpse soldiers, and even if it were true that the corpse soldiers had spoken, he was sure that all of it was just a trap Nashetania had set. And if things continued as they were, Rolonia would probably be killed.
I have to protect her. However, how in the world am I supposed to do that?
“….Rolonia, are you really….?”
Adlet desperately tried to contain the doubt that was forming within his mind.
#
It seems the attack has started, thought Dark Specialist Number 9. The reason he dared to go on the offensive wasn’t to kill the Heroes of the Six Flowers. It was to get close to the Six Flowers and figure out the current situation. I wonder if any of them set a trap, the Dark Specialist thought as the Flowers started to talk among themselves and a quarrel broke out among them.
As he listened to their conversation, his confidence in that idea was changing.
Number 9 thought back to the past about ten years ago.
For a long time as Tgurneu’s subordinate, Dark Specialist Number 9 had forced his body to evolve. He used the large amount of humans gathered by Tgurneu as lab rats and succeeded in turning them into corpse soldiers.
Then when he showed the corpse soldiers to Tgurneu, for some reason Tgurneu seemed displeased. Even though Number 9 had absolute confidence in the corpse soldiers he had produced, for Tgurneu it was hard to believe in them.
“This is a bit unsatisfactory. Hey, these so-called corpse soldiers, can they not speak?”
Number 9 nodded. The corpse soldiers were fighting weapons. There was no ne