Firona sighed inwardly, then with great difficulty rolled over, changing from lying on her side to lying flat. She gazed up at the gray, hazy sky above the plateau, and another train of thought began turning through her mind:
But even so, that madman still isn't dead.
I definitely saw it just now. The Clown was suddenly rescued by a figure who appeared out of thin air.
I didn't see what he looked like, but there's no question about it—he had to be...
The Butcher Hunter. Jietisikoki.
I thought he had no interest in interfering with this battle any further. I never expected him to make a move in the end and save the Clown's life.
But... that makes no sense.
Why did the Butcher Hunter only take that madman away, instead of directly attacking the three of us who were left?
We've all become helpless wrecks, incapable of even trussing up a chicken. It should have been easy for him to kill or capture all of us.
So why didn't Jietisikoki do that?
Whose side is he actually on?
At that thought, beneath Firona's haggard exhaustion, her eyes could not help filling with deep incomprehension and confusion.
As she stared at the silent sky, Firona soon felt as though her brain had nearly reached its limit. If she kept thinking, even her nerves began to throb with pain. So she simply set aside those doubts, closed her eyes, focused on breathing, and did her utmost to keep herself from passing out like the other two.
Even as the Dawn Squad's last three fighting members lay helplessly on the ground, emerald radiance from beyond the Cube World continued to work quietly within them, allowing them to steadily pull farther away from death despite their grievous injuries.
And all of this