Opening

The vast plains of Britannia shook.

It wasn’t an earthquake. Earthquakes rarely occurred in this land. Moreover, the shaking was oddly rhythmic, with a beat resembling that of a drum:

Boom boom boom, boom boom.

It had just stopped raining, so the ground and the trees of the forest were all damp. The birds and animals were finally just emerging from their rain shelters.

The vibration gradually grew stronger—boom, boom, boom.

At last, something appeared from beyond the hillside, its silhouette breaking apart the trees—revealing itself to be, remarkably, a single giant boar.

In size, it surpassed the elephants from the southern continent. It must have been as large as the Earth Crawler, a beast that was said to swallow even tyrant dragons whole in one bite. And the boar’s body was a deep green, as if covered in moss. However, its eyes were gentle, and its mouth seemed to be smiling.

For some reason, there was what looked to be a person’s house atop the boar’s head.

The small building, with its orange roof that looked like a sharp pointed hat, indeed had windows and a front door. By the green wooden door on the white plaster wall were the letters BOAR HAT, embellished with a silhouette of a boar.

Indeed. This was the traveling tavern, the Boar Hat.

It was said to travel around Britannia while swaying atop a giant boar’s head. It was a legendary pub that had been seen all around for the past ten years.

The giant boar continued to walk as the reverberations of its footfalls continued: boom, boom, boom! With each impact, the raindrops stuck to the leaves of the trees scattered and glistened in the sun.

“Wow…Look, everyone! A rainbow!”

A window on the first floor of the Boar Hat opened, and a girl with silver hair stuck her head out. Where she pointed, a large double rainbow hung in the sky.

“Let me see, let me see!…Oh, it’s beautiful.”

“You don’t often get to see a rainbow as clear as this.”

The next window over and the ones on the second floor opened too, and several people peeked outside.

Though the Boar Hat had formerly been managed solely by one boy, who called himself the master, it had now become quite a large family. Currently inside the pub alone there were five or six people. Including the figures on the second floor and in the watchtower, the total number of people living in the tavern seemed to exceed ten people.

“Ah, rainbows. It’s sad that they disappear so soon.”

As the silver-haired girl, Elizabeth, said this, the beautiful woman with dark grey hair standing next to her smiled. This was Merlin.

“Shall we try to make a rainbow that doesn’t disappear? That might make for interesting research.”

At these words, spoken by Britannia’s reportedly top-ranked sorceress, Elizabeth clasped her hands in front of her chest.

“Oh, how wonderful! But—maybe rainbows are beautiful because they are short-lived.”

Just as Elizabeth said, the ends of the rainbow were already slowly growing faint.

“Maybe you’re right. It’s not like you can see them when you want to. They appear suddenly, and disappear in the blink of an eye. That might be the nature of their beauty.”

Merlin took a deep breath and her figure faded. Elizabeth could see a round transparent thing floating lightly in the air around her chest. Merlin’s soul was sealed inside this ball; the figure that people saw of her every day was something like an illusion.

“They leave an impression because they disappear. Hmm…I wonder if that’s it,” a bespectacled young man with red hair abruptly interjected from behind them. Elizabeth and Merlin, who reappeared as a solid figure, turned their heads towards him, surprised.

“Master Gowther.”

“Gowther, what’s wrong?”

Pushing up the bridge of his glasses with his right hand, the young man they called Gowther squinted at the rainbow outside the window.

“Do rainbows make you remember something special?” Elizabeth asked Gowther innocently. He replied in an indifferent tone.

“Memories are nothing more than the accumulation of information. It is true that there are times when you may observe a similar phenomenon, which becomes a catalyst that vividly revives certain memories. In those terms, right now, I certainly remembered a previous event. A recollection of a ‘persistent rainbow.’”

“Oh?”

“Oh, how interesting. I’d like to hear about it.”

“…Hear about it? Why? That story doesn’t have anything to do with the two of you.” Gowther cocked his head, puzzled.

“Well…of course, if you don’t want to talk about it, then don’t force yourself to…”

Elizabeth looked at Merlin with a troubled expression. Merlin laughed. She said:

“Humans are beings that deepen their mutual understanding by occasionally talking about each other’s past experiences, and view that as proof of their friendship. It means that the princess and I want to know more about you. Well, do you find that unreasonable?”

“Hmmm.” Gowther placed his hand to his chin and thought for a while, but before long, he nodded slightly.

“Well then, let’s talk. But I don’t think it’ll be particularly interesting.”

“Oh, oh. I definitely want to hear this story,” someone suddenly said. It was a young boy with blond hair who had been standing behind them unnoticed.

“Master Meliodas!”

“Hey, everyone. Gowther says he’s going to tell us some kind of old story.”

Gazes gathered from here and there in the tavern in response to Meliodas’ call. Tired of looking at the rainbow, the people setting about arranging the alcohol bottles and cleaning the place each stopped doing their business and gathered loosely around Gowther.

“I’d love to hear Mr. Gowther’s old story.”

“When is it from? Was it before you joined the Seven Deadly Sins?”

With a slight look of surprise, Gowther looked around at the young men who were unanimously asking questions. “This is really quite interesting. Are humans really this interested in the pasts of others?”

“Is that such a big deal? So, when was this story?” Meliodas asked.

Gowther returned his gaze.

“No—it’s not such an old story. It was just recently—when I was living in the village of Ordan.”

Then he started to tell his story.

1

“Young master! Young master Pelliot!”

In the tranquil village of Ordan, where windmills turned slowly with the winter breeze blown down from the mountains, between the fields where the wheat planted in the fall had grown thick and verdant, a lone man ran along the footpaths.

“Young master Pellio~t! It’s time for your studies! Geez, I wonder where he ran off to.”

He had simple straight red hair and thick glasses. Even his gait was somehow unreliable.

“Ah, Armando!”

A cute young girl with freckles came across the path and waved at him. Behind her, a woman carrying an infant also greeted him.

“Hey, Mera! Hello to you too, madam! Your baby has grown a lot.”

Armando stopped and peered at the infant in the arms of the woman.

“Yes. Thank you. He has an incredible appetite.”

“Since mama’s breasts aren’t making enough for him, we’re going to go get goat milk,” Mera said boastfully. Embarrassed, her mother rebuked her.

“Ahaha,” laughed Armando. “By the way, have you seen young master Pelliot?”

“Pelliot? He was walking that way with Thomas and Katts. Just a little while ago.”

“Wha-at?”

Mera pointed to the road that led to the forest to the north of the village.

“Young master!”

Tottering on his feet, Armando ran off.

Following the dusty path desperately, he saw the backs of the three boys in front of him before long.

“Young master Pelliot!!”

“Ah, it’s Armando.”

The fat boy looked back. At those words, the blond boy walking in front leading the way clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, he already found us, huh. Thomas, Katts, run!”

“What, no way.” The fat boy frowned.

“Thomas! We’ll leave you behind.”

“Go ahead.”

“Crap.”

The other two attempted to run off, leaving Thomas, who showed no signs of hurry whatsoever. But Armando caught up to them.

“Haa, haa, haa…Young master Pelliot! Thank goodness, I made it in time…”

The boy with blonde hair grumpily turned his face away from Armando, who held his arm. This was the village chief’s son, Pelliot.

“Katts, you too, let’s go home.”

“What will you give me if I go?”

The skinny, hunchbacked Katts turned his eyes up to Armando.

“S-Sure. If you ask the master, maybe some snacks.”

“Yay.”

“Traitor!”

As Thomas and Katts hurriedly started on the road back to the village, Pelliot sulked.

“All right, young master, let’s go, too. The master is waiting. Today’s the one day in ten the professor comes from the town.”

“I know, but!”

Pelliot looked towards the forest with a dissatisfied expression. But perhaps he’d given up, because he started to reluctantly walk down the path, led by Armando’s hand.

“Why did you decide to go to the forest on today of all days? You’re always told that children can’t go in there by themselves. You’ll incite the wrath of the Mountain God.”

As soon as Armando said that, they heard a roar from deep within the forest that shook the ground.

Boooooaaaagggghhhh, boooooaaaagggghhhh.

“See, it’s the voice of the Mountain God.”

“I know! But!” Pelliot stopped and looked back at the forest over his shoulder.

“…I saw a rainbow.”

“A rainbow?”

Pelliot’s gaze settled on a craggy mountain that rose up across the forest. He seemed to be looking at the mountain’s foot.

“A rainbow, over there? Even though it hasn’t rained here in quite some time?” Armando asked for more of an explanation, but with that, Pelliot hung his head, and not another word was heard from him until he returned home.

2

“Oh, Armando. Good job.”

When Armando brought Pelliot back home, the village chief himself opened the door and greeted him somewhat impatiently. “The professor is already here. Pelliot, go to your room.”

Pressed by his father, the boy climbed the stairs with an unhappy look on his face.

“Armando, could you clean up the barn out back? Yesterday I noticed a hole in the roof. Some water blew into it during the heavy rains last month, and the things stored there are almost ruined.”

“All right.”

“I’ll call a craftsman before long and have him fix the roof, but for now, please take out anything that appears to be damaged.”

“Understood.”

Armando headed towards the barn.

“Speaking of which, I’ve never been inside here before,” he mumbled to himself as he opened the poorly fitting door and set foot inside.

The air was stuffy with the reek of mold. There was also the smell of old books and dust.

A normal person would only have noticed those smells. However, Armando’s special senses also caught a faint aroma hanging further within the air.

“Isn’t that the smell of perfume and cosmetics?”

Without hesitation, Armando walked into the dim, narrow barn, with messy piles of things littering the interior.

“Hmmm…the hole in the roof must be over there.”

A band of light shone through the seams of the roof boards, illuminating the dust dancing in the air.

“The things underneath there certainly have traces of having been wet. I suppose I should take out the things from around there.”

The aroma from before rose up again. Looking for its source, Armando drew near the shelves along the wall.

Several beautifully ornamented wooden boxes were lined up on the shelves.

“Clothing boxes. That one’s cosmetics—it must have been one of Pelliot’s mother’s.”

Armando had heard that the lady of the house passed away from an illness shortly before he had arrived. These must be the possessions she had left behind.

They must have been hidden in the barn for Pelliot’s sake. The boy still deeply missed his mother. Armando also understood that the reason they hadn’t been thrown away was because of the village chief’s love for his wife.

“Fortunately, they do not appear to be damaged…oh?”

Armando looked at a small chair in front of the shelves.

“This is the only place where the dust pattern is different.”

It was as if someone had been sitting there sometimes.

Armando folded his thin, tall body in half and peered at the bottom shelf in front of that chair.

“A book. No, perhaps a diary.”

He looked over the stack of old paper.

“Well, it’s not a diary. This is…a story?”

Moving his face closer, he scented the same faint perfume as from the wooden box.

3

Boooooaaaagggghhhh, boooooaaaagggghhhh—

Armando walked through the forest where the Mountain God’s voice reverberated.

It was a late night with no moon. In the pitch-black surroundings, Armando advanced with his distinctive gait into a darkness so pure one couldn’t even see their own fingertip stretched in front of them.

“…He is calling me. I need to hurry.”

Climbing steep, boulder-covered slopes and stepping over twisted tree roots, Armando hurried to the foot of Ordan Mountain deep within the forest.

After jumping over a stream and climbing over fallen trees, he finally reached the entrance to a large cave.

“Hey!”

Armando called into the cave—and he heard a response of boooooaaaagggghhhh.

Then—the thump, thump of heavy footsteps.

Before long something emerged from within—a giant covered entirely in armor.

“Sorry I’m late. Today the young master just wouldn’t go to sleep.” Armando spoke in a tone and manner quite different from the way he addressed Pelliot.

He walked up to the giant that looked to have twenty-some odd feet and placed his hand on the front of his armor without any fear.

“Gow-, -ther…”

He heard a low mumble come from within the armor. It certainly resembled the Mountain God’s bellow, but the faltering tone seemed more like that of a small, frightened child.

“Gowther…” the giant called Armando.

Indeed. The young man known as “Armando” was only Gowther’s assumed identity.

“Gowther…I’m scared.”

“What are you afraid of? Nothing’s going to come here.”

Armando-Gowther surveyed the surroundings slowly.

“The wolves and bears are frightened away by your voice and disappeared from this area a long time ago. Because of me, the villagers of Ordan think what they hear are the roars of the Mountain God. Because of my magic Invasion, planting this idea in their minds was no trouble at all. There shouldn’t be anyone coming around here.”

“Gowther…I’m lonely.”

“Lonely? That’s a problem. I’m busy with Pelliot during the day, after all.”

“Pelliot…”

Gowther sat down on the root of a large tree near the entrance of the cave and made himself comfortable.

“All right, then. We can talk for a bit, until dawn, anyway.”

The Armor Giant lumbered to sit down across from him.

“How is…Pelliot?” the giant asked. Gowther nodded.

“Yeah. He’s fine. You always ask about Pelliot, huh.”

“I do…I want to see him.”

“See Pelliot? No way.”

“I want…to see him…” the giant moaned.

“You understand, you’re not human anymore. You can’t show yourself to people. There’d be an uproar if someone finds you. And it’d make problems for me, too.”

“I want to see…Gui-, -la…Ze-…-al.” The giant held his head and moaned.

“I see. So it’s not really Pelliot you want to see. It’s someone who is special to you—a family member, or a friend. If Pelliot makes you think of them, it must be a child.”

“A child…”

The giant said no more, only moaned painfully.

“…Can’t remember?” Gowther breathed out heavily and looked up at the heavens. Through gaps in the tree branches, he could see the star-filled sky, which looked like a sprinkling of silver sand.

“I can’t say I understand. Memories of loss, people I miss—I don’t have any of those. I’ve been sheltering you and staying with Pelliot only because I’ve learned before that’s what a person with a soul would probably do,” Gowther murmured to himself. In a blank voice. With emotionless eyes.

“What exactly makes a person a person? Even though you’re like that now, you seem to have memories and feelings. I told you a second ago that you were no longer human. But because you have those memories, those feelings, maybe you are still one after all…”

He breathed out heavily again.

“I’ve heard Pelliot lost his mother quite young. He doesn’t have any specific memories of her. But even so, he yearns for her. I don’t really understand what loneliness is. I tried to imitate the hairstyle of the lady from her portraits in the house, thinking it might make him feel even a little better, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. Maybe it’s because I’m a man. Since that’s how I was made, I can’t change it. I can change the color of my skin and my hair, but I can’t change that. Though if it were possible, I’d like to try being a girl too.”

“…”

Gowther seemed to be speaking more to himself than to the Armor Giant. However, the giant listened to him in silence.

“Some of Pelliot’s mother’s things were in the village chief’s storehouse. I found something like a diary, so I read it to learn about the lady’s time while she was alive, but it wasn’t a diary. It was more like a fairy tale.”

“…Fairy, tale?”

“Yes. I don’t know if it was an old Britannia legend, or if it was some writer’s invention, or if it was something the lady made up to read to Pelliot. It was just a childish story: When a rainbow bridge crosses the sky, you can meet the person you miss underneath.”

“…Rainbow.”

“That’s right. Have you ever heard of that legend?”

Like a child, the giant tilted his helmet with the broken ornamental horn on the left and hung his head. He looked like he was thinking.

“…”

But only a low groan slipped from his mouth.

“I see. So you don’t know it.”

Gowther sighed again, and then stood up.

“I have to head back soon. You should go to sleep, too. Unlike me, you still need your sleep, right?”

“…Mmmm…”

The giant stood up slowly.

“Good night.”

“Good night…Gowther.”

The giant reluctantly lowered his head, then lumbered back into the cave.

4

“You can meet the person you’ve been missing under the rainbow? Hmm, can’t say I’ve heard of that one.” Mera shook her head.

Armando shrugged. “I see. Well, that means it’s not some traditional village story, I guess.”

“I don’t think so…right, Mama?”

Mera looked up at her mother beside her. The woman sitting in the rocking chair holding an infant in her arms bowed her head to Armando apologetically.

“That’s right, I’ve never heard about it either…Sorry I can’t be of much help.”

“No…I apologize for intruding and asking such weird questions.” Armando smiled as he ruffled up his unkempt hair.

“Mr. Armando, how about staying for tea? Today’s your day off, isn’t it? Young master Pelliot has been studying with the professor since yesterday, right?” the woman said, standing up.

Armando hastily waved both his hands in a flutter. “No, I’m sorry, the professor will be leaving once he’s finished his lunch. I have to head back soon, too.”

“You have a hard job, huh.”

“Haha. I’m used to it, though.”

Bobbing up and down as he walked like a clown, Armando exited Mera’s house.

I’ve lived in this world for a long time and I’ve heard various tales from all over, but I can’t remember any stories like this one, so someone must have made it up. And recently, too—in that case, I guess there probably isn’t any foundation for it.

Armando placed his hand on his chin and pondered this while following the road to the village chief’s house.

The second half of the text was written pretty messily. Maybe the lady wrote it while she was ill. Perhaps she wrote down something she remembered hearing before, or maybe she made it all up—humans sure are interesting. Even on the brink of death, they try to tell made-up stories.

Yesterday, Pelliot said that he saw a rainbow.

Judging from the dust on the chair in the barn, Pelliot must have been the one reading that book. And then, having seen that rainbow at the foot of the mountain, he tried to go down there.

I wonder why there was a rainbow without any rain. But it might have been a misunderstanding of some kind. I’ll have to tell Pelliot that what he saw wasn’t real.

Anyway, even though the wolves and bears are gone, there are still many dangerous places in the forest. And above all else, there’s no knowing what would happen if he were to come across the Armor Giant.

“He” has been rather unstable over the past few months…The seal must be weakening. It was originally made for me, after all. Or maybe the seal would always have worn down with time…

Armando-Gowther recalled the first time he met him.

Originally, that armor had belonged to Gowther.

While he had been in the capital as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the order of knights under direct command of the King, his magician friend Merlin had made the armor for Gowther to seal his powerful magic from running wild. Until coming here, he had always worn it.

Then, framed for a crime he didn’t commit, he left the capital and reached the forest of Ordan in the course of his wanderings. It was then that Armando met him, who like himself, was also running from something.

He always looked like he was afraid of something and about to cry, even though his body was like that of an unsightly, swollen monster and possessed a terrible strength that could kill a bear in one hit.

But Gowther could sense, from a weak scent wafting from the magic’s depths, that he probably used to be a human.

Even Gowther, however, who had the power to see through a person’s soul, could no longer see into his. However, from the intense feelings of fear and regret that reared up, Gowther knew that he had originally been an honest man, with a heart of justice and order.

Currently, Britannia was split up into several countries, large and small, each armed with Holy Knights—knights possessing magical powers. He must once have been a Holy Knight from one of those countries.

But why had he turned into such a monster? Perhaps it was a curse, or maybe some wicked sorcerer had used him as a human guinea pig.

Whichever it may be, it probably wasn’t something that he had desired.

A monster created by people.

When Gowther thought that, for some reason, he didn’t want to kill him.

Gowther himself did not quite understand the reason why.

Instead, he gave him his own armor and sheltered the once-man deep in the forest. Then he decided to call himself Armando and played the role of the village chief’s son’s guardian.

Perhaps the end of all that is approaching.

He wondered what kind of feelings a real human would have on such an occasion.

Behind his glasses, Gowther closed his eyes—then, putting on Armando’s expression once again, he quickened his pace towards the village chief’s house.

Then—

“What’s that?”

“A rainbow?!”

Two farmers watering the field facing the side of the road suddenly looked up in the direction of the forest and shouted.

“…?!”

Armando looked in the direction they pointed.

“That’s…”

A rainbow spanned across the forest of Ordan.

But it was clear it wasn’t a natural rainbow.

It was very distinct, as though the seven colors were glowing independently, rather than being a refraction of some other light.

“Ooh. There it goes.”

Before long, the rainbow gradually shrank from its left side and disappeared among the trees as if it had been soaked up.

“What—what was that?!”

Armando looked back at the farmers. Both of them shook their heads again and again, flabbergasted.

“I have no idea, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Maybe it’s a sign from the Mountain God?!”

“…”

That must have been the “rainbow” that Pelliot saw yesterday, too.

I didn’t sense anything magical about it. But, it was clearly abnormal.

I have to make sure Pelliot doesn’t go running after it again. And I have to ascertain what the true nature of that rainbow is, and if it’s dangerous, eliminate it.

Armando let his face shift back into Gowther’s for an instant, and he kept his golden eyes behind his glasses on alert, expressionlessly. After that, he broke into a run with noisy footfalls.

But he was just a step too late.

Opening the door to the village chief’s house, Armando found it strangely deserted.

At this time, Pelliot’s tutor should have been eating lunch. The village chief and Pelliot would have joined him, and Armando should have heard their voices.

But there were no signs of anyone in the living room, where the stove was, or in the dining room in the back.

“It can’t be…”

Then a voice from upstairs called out to Armando, who stood bolt upright in the entrance.

“Oh hey, Armando. Where have you been?”

Standing on the landing, the village chief looked down at Armando absentmindedly.

“Master! Has the professor already left?”

“Yes. He said he was going to leave a bit early today. We gave him a packed lunch.”

“Then—the y-young master?”

“He said he would escort him to the edge of the village. He should be back soon.” Having said this, the carefree chief disappeared back onto the second floor.

“Young master…young master Pelliot!” Shouting his name, Armando once again tumbled out the entranceway.

5

Deep within the cave, he slowly awakened.

“Uuuughh…uuuughh…”

It felt like he had been dreaming.

It had been a warm, kind dream.

He was laughing, and surrounded by many people.

There were the smells of a great feast and liquor. Bright lights.

Tables lined up in rows. Tankards smacked together over and over again.

“For the king! For Liones! Cheers! Cheers!”

He too raised a tankard and cheered in chorus.

“The eyes see through evil! The mouth speaks truth! The spirit filled with justice! The sword breaks evil!”

Cheers, cheers!

A dream of bright days.

But he no longer even understood the meaning.

Another place. A sunny garden. Flowers in full bloom.

A young girl and a newborn infant looked up at him and smiled.

He reached out to hug them, but his hand passed through the air.

The illusion disappeared.

“Gui-, -la…Ze-…-al…”

The words flowed out of his mouth. Someone’s name. An important name.

“Want…to meet…”

What? Who? Even he didn’t know.

He stood up vacantly, and headed to the cave’s exit.

Rays of noon sunlight shone through the tips of the evergreens’ branches.

“Hmm?”

He emerged from the cave and squinted at the sun.

And then saw a rainbow.

A shining band of seven colors rose from the foot of the towering mountain.

For a time, it fluttered and swayed like a cloth. Then it disappeared, rushing up towards the heavens.

“When a rainbow bridge crosses the sky, you can meet the person you miss underneath.”

Gowther’s words from last night rose up in the back of his mind.

That Gowther had also said it was a childish fairy tale, or some writer’s make-believe, he had already forgotten.

But the words “you can meet the person you miss” remained engraved inside him.

“Uuuugh…uuuughh.”

“Meet,” he moaned again.

He started slowly walking off in the direction the rainbow had disappeared.

6

Pelliot stamped through the forest, panting for breath.

At least this time, he had entered the forest without Armando finding out. He shouted in his mind, How do you like that?

He’s always, always getting in my way.

He nimbly hopped along the rocks, brushing away the vines and dead grass with a stick he had picked up.

“When is he going to stop treating me like a child! I’m different from when we took him in!” Pelliot griped.

He could remember the day several years ago when they first found Armando, collapsed and bloody on the outskirts of the village, and took him back to their house. But he didn’t quite understand exactly what happened afterwards that had led to Armando becoming his guardian.

At any rate, before he knew it, Armando was always by his side, and always meddling.

When he had been young enough to need help changing clothes, Pelliot was utterly dependent on him, but recently Armando had been really irritating, always following him around crying young master, young master.

In the tiny village of Ordan, every day was boring.

Adults who knew him since the day he was born. Every day and the next ceaselessly unchanging. And whenever he tried to even just head into the forest, Armando always stopped him.

It was during one of those times that he had found that stack of papers in the barn.

Pelliot knew right away that it was something his mother had left behind.

And then—he remembered.

The lullaby his mother sang while she held him on her knee when he was very young. And her voice while she read him picture books.

Even after being confined to bed from illness, whenever he crawled into her bed she would smile and tell him various stories.

And among those stories—he had the feeling he’d heard that one too.

“When a rainbow bridge crosses the sky, you can meet the person you miss underneath.”

A person far, far away from you. Even someone who had passed away.

“So Pelliot, when you see a rainbow, please remember your mama.”

Rainbows appear far off in the sky after rain, and disappear within moments.

So it’s impossible to go directly underneath one.

But yesterday, Pelliot had seen one.

A distinct rainbow band rising straight up out of the forest.

As though it were right there. Like a bridge that you could hold onto.

It must have been the rainbow his mother had told him about.

If he went to it, he was sure he would meet his mother again.

Pelliot tripped over a pile of damp dead leaves and fell down. Since it was a rocky landscape, there were bare rocks sticking out here and there, and his fall seriously hurt.

“…!” He raised his head with tears in his eyes.

Then he saw the rainbow rise up.

Just beyond the grove up ahead, soundlessly.

A shining, continuous band of seven colors wider than the breadth of a grown man stretching out both arms danced upwards towards the sky.

“?!”

But that rainbow gradually diminished—its width became narrower, and soon, showing a triangular, sword-like tip, it smoothly disappeared.

“Wh-What was…that…”

Pelliot sank onto his butt and stared at the place where the rainbow had just disappeared, his mouth wide open.

“That’s not a rainbow.”

It had definitely shone with the seven colors of a rainbow. But after having seen it closely…

“It’s not…a cloth, either. Somehow…it was thicker.”

And there had been that tapered point at the end.

“It had some kind of thin border…I think.”

Then, the direction of the wind suddenly changed. A strangely lukewarm breeze blew from the direction where the rainbow had disappeared.

“…?!” Pelliot instinctively covered his nose and mouth with his hand.

A terrible fishy reek hung in the air.

“Like dried fish…”

It smelled like the dried fish and salt picklings which merchants along the ocean far to the west of the village sometimes came to sell.

Pelliot didn’t really like that distinctive odor.

He shuddered.

It wasn’t a smell that naturally occurred in the middle of this forest.

Unlike the fresh scent of the conifers and the damp odor of the dead leaves—it was a fundamentally different smell.

“Eeeek!”

Pelliot suddenly became frightened, and clambered to his feet unsteadily. Favoring his scraped knees, he tried to return down the path he had come.

“Huh?!”

A breeze reeking of fish blew into his face again, this time from his left.

Timidly, he looked in that direction.

With a swoosh a rainbow crossed right before his eyes.

The rainbow—or rather a band of seven shining colors—streamed from left to right, weaving its way through the grove about only fifteen feet in front of him.

No. It would be more accurate to say that it was swimming.

Inspected closely, only the top red band and the bottom purple band in the long, long rainbow belt undulated. The thing swam through the air by moving those two.

The band moved outside of Pelliot’s field of vision in an instant and vanished into the depths of the forest on his right. As he’d seen, its tail was a straight, tapered triangle.

It was something long and smooth, like a snake—

“A fish? Like a mud eel…” Pelliot recalled the large, slimy fish he sometimes saw in puddles of mud in the summer.

But that thing is rounder…

No, that wasn’t the main issue. First of all, no eels were that enormous, and secondly, they didn’t float in the air. This was impossible not just for eels, but also for other fish.

“It’s a monster!”

Pelliot finally came to his senses and ran off on unsteady feet.

He dashed down the slope, sliding on the rocky surfaces and tripping on the piles of dead leaves. He had to make it back to the village somehow. He had to go where there were people.

“Eeek!!”

Suddenly—right before his eyes.

A face appeared.

A face with enormous, glittering silver eyes, without eyelids, that stared down at Pelliot from mid-air.

“Ick…”

At first, only the lower jaw and its mere holes of a nose stood out fearsomely. Then the sharp teeth springing tightly upward. The mouth looked like it split to the very back of the eyes.

As he’d thought, it was the face of a fish.

It had a mouth that could swallow Pelliot whole, and its rainbow-colored body continued on and on behind eyes that were each as large as Pelliot’s head. The thing’s tail was hidden deeper within the forest and was no longer visible.

A purple pectoral fin sprouted near where the mouth ended. Smooth fins spreading out in a wide fan about four inches on both sides of its body undulated back and forth.

“Ahhh, stop it…stay away…Please stay away.”

On the verge of tears, Pelliot stepped back, trying to escape from that enormous encroaching face. But paralyzed with fear, he tottered and crumpled to the ground.

“Don’t come any closer…Nooooo!”

He grasped a small stone that his hand brushed, and threw it weakly at the thing’s face. The stone traced a wobbly arc and grazed the monster fish’s right fin before falling.

Its huge eyes shone and stared at him.

The monster opened its mouth. The bright red chasm opened to double the size of its face, its teeth forming rows upon rows inside.

“Eeee!”

It was all over. Pelliot resigned himself. He squeezed his eyes shut. He was going to be eaten.

Why did I come to a place like this?

Did I really want to meet my mother?

Maybe I just wanted to show up Armando.

It’s too late for regrets now.

“Save me, Armando!”

Just as Pelliot cried out, he heard an echo:

Boooooaaaagggghhhh…

It was the voice of the Mountain God.

“…!!”

When he opened his eyes, the monster fish’s face was no longer there. Without his noticing, it had retreated away from him—and was continuing to in a rush.

Pelliot couldn’t understand what had happened.

Several seconds passed before he realized it wasn’t that the monster fish had drawn back, but rather that something had grabbed hold of it and was dragging it away.

A giant in dull purple armor stood near a large tree a little off in the distance. It held the monster fish’s body in both arms and was trying to spin it around with all its strength.

However, the monster fish wasn’t so easily captured. It wriggled its long body back and forth, trying to shake free of the giant’s arms.

“Gah…Gah, gah…”

The giant dug its fingers into the monster fish’s rainbow body. Green blood spurted out. The monster fish squirmed violently and tried to wrap itself around the giant.

“…!”

The tail of the struggling monster fish came flying towards Pelliot at a terrible speed.

He steeled himself to be hit, but before he knew it he was floating through the air.

“!”

Someone was carrying Pelliot and had sidestepped the blow.

“Young master! Are you okay?!”

“Armando!”

The bespectacled servant looked at Pelliot and smiled.

“Armando…”

In relief, Pelliot began crying about how scared he had been. Carrying the boy in his right arm and jumping back another thirty feet, Armando surveyed the monster fish running amok and the Armor Giant trying to hold it back, and pushed up the bridge of his glasses with his left hand.

“Well, this is troublesome. With his strength, he will certainly win, but having that monster’s dead body here will be a nuisance—it will rot, and the smell will most likely reach the foot of the mountain or lure other monsters to come.”

“Armando?” Pelliot looked at him uncertainly.

Armando’s speech and expression were rather different from his usual self.

“But what is that thing? There’s no corresponding creature in my database. And my Searchlight can’t make head or tails of this inferior type of animal—uh-oh.” The monster’s tail struck down nearby again. Grasping Pelliot tightly, Armando nimbly dodged the blow.

“I’m scared!”

With Pelliot shaking in his arms, Armando shouted out to the giant, “Hey! Don’t kill it!”

“Uuuugghhh…” the giant groaned, struggling against the monster wrapped around its body.

“Guess there’s no choice. Shall I give you some assistance?”

Saying so, Armando sliced his hand through the air. Some type of power shot out from the end and tore off a part of the back of the monster fish wrapped around the giant.

“Gghiii…” Hit with the external attack, the monster fish loosened its grip. In that moment, the Armor Giant threw off the coiled-up monster fish.

The monster fish, unspooling itself completely, swam in the air around and around the grove of trees, its rainbow body madly flickering.

“Armando…”

Pelliot no longer had a clue as to what was going on anymore. He thought he was dreaming.

Still holding Pelliot, Armando danced nimbly through the air and landed near the Armor Giant. Then—

“Uugghh,” the voice of the giant mumbled out from under the helmet.

“Did you say something?” Armando asked the giant.

“King’s, sash, fish.”

“King’s sash fish?” Armando tilted his head to one side.

“King’s sash fish—a king’s sash? Well, this monster does resemble one, but those fish are supposed to be silver. And they don’t grow to be that large.”

The monster fish came back to attack with a gaarrgh. Armando made the same motion with his hand again.

Though it recoiled and retreated, the monster fish was still going around in circles, waiting for its next opening. The giant looked up at it and spoke with difficulty.

“Breeding season…males…kill each other…eat each other…grow bigger…rainbow-colored.”

“‘The rival males grow bigger during the breeding season by eating each other’? That’s the first I’ve heard of that. Then the rainbow colors on this body must be nuptial coloration. In order to attract a female?”

“Armando, what are you talking about?”

Armando raised his left hand high while fixing his hold on Pelliot. From the end of his palm, light expanded outwards, looking like a warrior’s bow.

“If that’s the case, this will be quite simple.”

Armando readied his bow of light and took aim at the monster fish, whose huge mouth was wide open, trying to attack from directly above.

“Rewrite Light,” he muttered in a low voice, and the bow drew back as if its string had been pulled. An instant later an arrow of silver light shot off.

The arrow flew into the wide-open mouth of the monster fish.

“…?”

The monster fish abruptly stopped moving.

All of a sudden, the monster fish moved its eyes as though following something. Watching whatever it was, it turned its body around and flew straight upwards to the sky.

From outside the forest, it must have looked like a rainbow soaring and disappearing into the heavens.

“What the heck was that? What did you do?” Pelliot asked timidly.

“That was a king’s sash fish—a fish from the spirit world called the king’s sash. Have you ever seen the black manta that some Holy Knights have tamed? It’s the same kind of thing, a type of fish said to be left behind in this world from back in the old days, when Britannia associated with the spirit and fairy realms.”

“King’s…sash?”

“Once I knew it was a male in heat, it was all rather simple. All I had to do was show it an illusion of a female. It’s a base animal. It’ll chase that illusion anywhere.”

Armando gently placed Pelliot down on the ground.

“Fortunately, he remembered that information for us. Thank you.” Saying so, Armando looked back at the Armor Giant. But the giant had already turned its back to them and was staggering away, groaning as though he had already forgotten what had just happened.

“Hmmm. I guess it was only temporary. He hadn’t been able to recover any of the memories of his time as a Holy Knight so clearly up until now. However—it seems that Pelliot being attacked must have been the trigger. He seems to have had a child.”

Armando sighed, squinted his eyes, and stared at the back of the giant receding into the other side of the grove. “However, it probably won’t happen again…The effect of the seal is rapidly weakening. That may have been his last act as a human.”

“Armando…who…are you?”

Pelliot was suddenly frightened and took a step back. This man was different from the nagging, somewhat foolish servant that he was familiar with.

“Are you really Armando?”

“I could answer that, but there’s no point in telling you right now,” Armando said quietly. “I don’t think it’s quite time yet.”

“Wh-What are you talking about?”

Armando narrowed his eyes behind his glasses and gracefully raised his right hand. In that instant, Pelliot thought something shone brightly from the tip.

He fell unconscious.

The last thing he saw was a beautiful rainbow-colored light.

7

“Young maste~r! Young master Pellio~t! Please, slow dow~n!”

“Shut up! Stop following me!” Pelliot looked back at the servant pathetically calling his name.

“It’s almost snack time! Where are you going?”

“To Thomas’ house. A knight from the capital has come! Papa left already!”

“Ehh?”

Pelliot saw Armando making a very displeased look for no reason he could understand, and laughed scornfully.

I’m sure he’s afraid of the knight, Pelliot thought. He really is a weak coward.

The events of that day in the forest had completely vanished from his memory. To him, Armando was still the same meddlesome, incompetent fellow as always.

As the north wind blew, Pelliot sped up and ran along the footpaths of the wheat fields.

From their houses scattered around the village, other villagers were walking in the same direction as he was.

“Pelliot!” Some children of roughly the same age as Pelliot raised their hands and came over: the scrawny hunchback Katts, the only girl of the group, Mera, holding her infant brother, and Tanto, slightly younger than them and always twitching.

“Let’s go together!”

“Is the capital knight a Holy Knight?!”

“There’s no way, he’s probably just a regular knight.”

Boisterous, the children walked off shoulder-to-shoulder.

Thomas’ house was located almost in the exact center of the town, and was the only shop there. Half of the first floor was a general store, the other half a tavern. It also served as a meeting place for the villagers.

“Wow, so many people have come already.”

About a dozen villagers had gathered in the plaza in front of Thomas’ house. A thin trickle of other villagers was coming in from behind Pelliot and his friends, too. Though there hadn’t been a particular announcement, it was a rare event for a representative to come from the capital to a remote village like Ordan.

“Hey.”

The tavern door opened, and the crowd stirred.

A young knight covered in lightweight armor emerged from inside. Following him, Pelliot’s father, the village chief, also came outside.

“Hmm, there’s a lot of people gathered here…Perfect,” the knight said pompously. Then he cleared his throat theatrically.

“As I’m sure you already are aware, I am here regarding the Seven Deadly Sins, the order of knights which ten years ago slaughtered the Captain of the Holy Knights, Master Zaratras, and ran away.”

Sighs and ohs escaped from among some of the villagers.

“Those seven Holy Knights that were said to be the strongest and cruelest of all Britannia…”

“But didn’t they all die?”

The villagers were starting to murmur amongst themselves, and the knight recaptured their attention by clearing his throat.

“Unfortunately, their deaths have yet to be confirmed even now. However, we knights of Liones will never forgive them. Their wanted posters are renewed every year, but for several years these posters seem not to have been delivered to this village, so I’ve brought the most recent ones with me here today. I’ve posted them on this tavern’s bulletin board, so be sure to burn their images into your memories too. And if you see someone who looks even slightly suspicious, without exception, remember to send a message to the capital.”

As the villagers bowed their heads and murmured their assent, the young knight nodded his head, satisfied. And then he walked off, rudely pushing his way through the crowd. The village chief hastily followed him.

After seeing him off, the villagers rushed into the tavern, each scrambling to be first. Undaunted by the adults, Pelliot also pushed his way in.

“Welcome, welcome!” Thomas’ parents hollered cheerfully. Thomas stood beside them. His parents seemed to have anticipated the rush and were forcing him to help out.

In the back of the store, the space in front of the bulletin board was crammed with people. Wedging between the adults and slipping through their legs, Pelliot and his friends managed to make it to the front of the crowd.

It was a bulletin board on which announcements from the village chief, or the schedule of merchant coaches, or the shop’s holidays and such were posted sporadically. Now those had all been torn off, and it was completely covered with seven brand-new wanted posters.

“So these are…the Seven Deadly Sins.” Pelliot gasped.

The brutal murder of the Captain of the Holy Knights had happened before he was born. He didn’t know much about it. The incident itself didn’t have much to do with a remote village like Ordan, anyway, and even if the adults spoke of it on rare occasions, the story was like a distant legend that had never really struck home.

However, now, seeing the villainous-looking seven and their descriptions on the wanted posters right in front of his eyes, the fact that they were out there somewhere, even now, became clear to him.

While Pelliot gazed intently at the wanted posters, someone called out to him. It was Ben, who until recently had been working in the capital.

“Those guys, I’ve heard that each of them is monstrously strong. All of them were brutal criminals guilty of crimes so heinous that even if they died multiple times over, they could never make up for them. His Majesty the King personally scouted them from all over Britannia and organized their group.”

“Really—brutal criminals?” Mera, who had been gazing at the posters with Pelliot, opened her eyes wide.

“That’s right. And each of them was assigned a name of a sin from that time. This was their captain, Meliodas.” Ben pointed to the poster, hung in the center of the seven, of a man with a brazen expression. “He’s the Dragon’s Sin of Wrath. And this is Diane, of the giant clan. She’s the Serpent’s Sin of Envy.”

Ben pointed at each of the posters while talking.

Fox’s Sin of Greed, Ban.

Grizzly’s Sin of Sloth, King.

Lion’s Sin of Pride, Escanor.

Boar’s Sin of Gluttony, Merlin.

And—

“This large man in armor is Gowther, the Goat’s Sin of Lust.”

“Gowther…” Pelliot stared at the picture of the armored form, wearing a helmet with one of its horns broken off.

I think I’ve seen that somewhere?

But, no matter how hard he tried to remember, the memory would not take shape.

Pelliot shook his head. Probably just my imagination.

Still—

“So cool!” he couldn’t help but shout out.

Some adults sitting down at the tavern’s tables, who had already distanced themselves from the bulletin board, turned their heads with a wry smile at his exclamation.

“Young master Pelliot, what are you saying?”

Armando, who had come up from behind without his noticing, stooped over and chided Pelliot. However, Pelliot shook off the hand Armando placed on his shoulder.

“They’re cool! The strongest, most brutal, criminal Holy Knights in all of Britannia—amazing!” Pelliot looked up at the bulletin board once more. Meliodas in the center in particular looked incredibly strong. And he was handsome.

“Melio”-das, somehow, is kinda like my name, Pelliot.

“All right! I’ve made up my mind! My name from this day forth will be ‘Pelliodas’!” shouted Pelliot, pumping his fist in the air.

“Young master?!”

With a sidelong glance at the adults bursting with laughter and the shocked Armando, Pelliot declared to his friends, “From this day forth, we are the Seven Deadly Sins.”

Mera’s eyes gleamed.

“Ooohh, that sounds like fun! If Pelliot is Captain Pelliodas, then who am I? Since I’m a girl, maybe Diane or Merlin?!”

“Let’s go plan it out!”

Mera, Katts, and Tanto ran out of the shop with Pelliot. Thomas, who had been helping out in the shop, also ran out with them despite his mother’s yells.

“Good grief…We’re no match for young master Pelliot.” The tipsy adults, who’d been drinking ale since daytime, laughed.

No matter how seriously and gravely the knight from the capital had appealed to them, for the villagers of Ordan, today’s event just seemed like accompaniment for their beer that revived long-forgotten material to populate their conversation.

“Mr. Armando, shouldn’t you go chasing off after them?” Thomas’ mother said with a bitter smile. She hadn’t been able to stop her son from going off after all.

“Hahaha…you’re right.”

Armando bobbed to the exit—then suddenly, halted and looked back at the bulletin board.

They were the portraits of his former friends. Some were just as he remembered them, other portraits were completely different.

He didn’t find it nostalgic. He didn’t have those kind of feelings.

He simply registered the information that even now, not a single one had been found.

Yet for those whose portraits are accurate likenesses, there is the possibility that their whereabouts are known. I need to be careful.

While he calmly thought this to himself, another idea drifted into his mind.

Perhaps the end is approaching.

He didn’t know whether that was a statement of probability he had deduced from objective phenomena, or whether it was something like what people call sentimentality.

If I were a real human…

If I had a soul, would I understand?

“What’s wrong?” one of the guests called, wondering why he was standing stock-still.

He returned his expression to Armando’s, and smiled. “No, nothing’s the matter. Well then, excuse me,” Armando said, bowing his head quickly.

Once again, he ran off after Pelliot and his friends with his silly, flapping gait.

Ending

“—And a little after that, the captain brought everyone to Ordan village. Everyone knows what happened next.”

With that, Gowther ended his story.

A few people listening, who had a suspicion as to the true identity of the Armor Giant in the story, cast their eyes down as though they were holding their breath. Seeming not to notice, however, the pink boar at their feet laughed hysterically: “That giant fish would have made a great meal!”

Hawk, a talking piglet who was the son of the giant boar that carried the tavern on its head, was always hungry.

“I don’t think it was fit for food, but for our Captain Leftovers, maybe it’d be all right?” Gowther was only giving his honest opinion, but everyone around him laughed, in a slightly strained manner.

Meliodas smiled cheerfully. “Pelliot, huh. That takes me back. I wonder how he’s doing.”

“I wasn’t able to meet him, I guess, since I was sick with a cold back then. I hope you can meet Pelliot again someday too, Gowther,” Elizabeth said.

Gowther tilted his head to the side, perplexed by her words.

“I wonder. When we parted, Pelliot said he would become a Holy Knight and capture me. Since I’m no longer a wanted man, that chance might be gone.”

“In that case, why don’t you go see him normally? Once this fight is over.” Elizabeth smiled.

“That’s right! We should finish this quickly,” Arthur, the young boy with a strange cat atop his head, proposed sunnily.

“I’m compelled to tell you that possibility is rather low.”

As Gowther stated the truth matter-of-factly again, Merlin gave him an exasperated look.

It seemed that their rainbow stories would continue for a while yet.