"That man showed me how to control the Magic Armor Beast, how to train it. I couldn't exactly talk about it in the village, so we met outside..."
"So what Jasmine saw was you back then."
Now that he understood the link between Gamba and the suspicious man, Hugo asked how things had spiraled so far out of control.
Choking back sobs over his own failures, the boy continued his story.
"The beast started listening to me. But the man who gave me the black crystal vanished before I knew it... so I just didn't use it. But then I heard Arachlaws were near the village. I thought it was finally my chance to take down my Mother's Nemesis, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. That was when you showed up."
The power to command a Magic Armor Beast was overwhelming. At the final moment, just before he used it, Gamba had wavered.
While he was caught in that hesitation, an outsider named Hugo had arrived. Hearing that Hugo was going to handle the Arachlaws sparked a sudden, competitive urge that drove Gamba to act.
He had secretly summoned that Grasshopper Magic Armor Beast and ordered it to wipe out the Arachlaws.
The beast obeyed his command faithfully. Gamba thought he had proven himself better than Hugo and could drive the outsider away, but things took a turn he never expected.
"You gave the order to the Magic Armor Beast and had it kill the Arachlaws. But you should have realized that would only invite more trouble for the village. What happened next?"
"I... I panicked. Everything you said at the meeting was right. I tried to save the village, but I only made it worse. I was terrified everyone would find out, and in my desperation to fix it, I called the beast again and gave it a new command."
"...What was the command?"
"I—I told it to 'eliminate everything that causes harm to this village.' I thought it was strong enough to kill any monster or beast that came after the Arachlaws. I thought if it just wiped them all out, everything would be fine. But then...!!"
Gamba had likely only meant to target pests like the Arachlaws.
However, the Grasshopper Magic Armor Beast had taken his words too literally. It had begun judging anyone who committed a crime or interfered with its mission as evil, attacking them indiscriminately.
The attacks on people trying to flee the village were almost certainly a result of that same logic.
In the beast’s eyes, those abandoning the village were harm-bringers. It would not allow anyone to escape.
Furthermore, the man who had given Gamba the black crystal had likely known this would happen. He was undoubtedly a mastermind, someone who knew Gamba would lose control and simply wanted to watch the chaos unfold.
"Can't you use the crystal to stop it? Doesn't it obey you?"
"I tried! But it won't even answer me now. That thing is completely out of my control..."
Instead of protecting the village, his actions had pushed it to the brink of destruction. And his own sister was caught in the crossfire.
"This isn't how it was supposed to go! I thought this power would let me protect everyone! I thought I could save the village without some outsider's help! But I failed Jasmine... she's hurt so bad she might die! I never thought... I never thought it would end like this!"
"Gamba..."
Hugo lowered his eyes, watching Gamba as he let out a hollow, pained groan.
He knew the boy was in agony, but there were words that needed to be said.
It was a message that perhaps only someone like him—someone carrying the weight of two souls, both the older brother Hugo Clay and the otherworlder Yugo Kurei—could deliver. Hugo spoke.
"Gamba... I think I understand how you feel. The grief of losing your mother, the distrust of outsiders that followed—I get it. I know you tried to control that beast for the village's sake. But... that was a burden you should have carried with your own strength."
Gamba gasped, his breath hitching.
"I know what it’s like to want to save someone, to protect something. But a person should only reach out to help as far as their own hands can actually touch."