Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World. Volume. 8.
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‘Chapter 4:- A CRAFTY SLOTH.’
Sub-chapter 1.
When Subaru’s mind returned to reality, the first thing he took in was the powerful stench of something burnt.
It was like meat that had been barbecued to ash, stir-fried vegetables that had been fried black, completely and thoroughly burnt from too much heat inside and outside, a scent that brought one’s mood to its nadir.
“—”
He opened his mouth, trying to get his voice out. He couldn’t hear a thing. It was not that sound did not reach his eardrums, but rather that too great a sound had slammed into them a moment prior. A sound far too great to be termed ringing echoed through his skull at length, leaving Subaru to expect little from his hearing for the time being.
“—”
Subaru continued instinctively raising his voice as he relied on his other senses. His eyelids were open, but his field of vision remained pitch-black, ruling sight out. His sense of smell was dominated by the stench of something burnt, and there was a strong taste of rust inside his mouth. The fact that he lay faceup, limbs spread wide, meant he’d probably fallen onto the ground.
“—Aah.”
During the time he checked to see that his limbs could move, his own voice faintly slipped past the ringing in his ears. As the ringing began to fade, he began to be able to hear himself. At the same time, he began to hear the sound of his own blood coursing through his body, and the darkness in his field of vision gradually brightened.
His five senses were functioning. Sight and vision were returning, allowing him to sense the world around him. And then—
“—!!—!—!!”
As his hearing recovered, stringent shouts flew his way. Some voices were bloodcurdling; others were those of crying children. Screams. The mansion, burnt—instantly, his thoughts came to a boil.
“—! What the—?!”
When his thinking processes recovered, bolstered by his five senses, Subaru sat up with a start and looked around the area. His entire body, covered in burns and scrapes, pleaded for mercy, but the spectacle before his eyes made him forget all that.
—Right before Subaru’s eyes were the burning remains of a dragon carriage, with several land dragon corpses scattered around it.
“Ex—plosion…”
His memory from just before came back, allowing Subaru to properly grasp what had happened.
Explosion. Yes, an explosion. Explosion was the only word he had for the supreme might of the destruction wrought.
Such was the power of it that the dragon carriages lined alongside had been blown away and a good chunk of Earlham Village completely leveled. The homes bordering the village square had been engulfed by the spreading fires from the explosion, with flames licking at the familiar scenery.
The blackened, charred objects scattered around the area were partly the dragon carriages and the corpses of their land dragons, but that none were intact made him unable to differentiate between organic and inorganic matter. It was surely a foregone conclusion that the dense scent of burning flesh invading his nostrils was from the land dragons that had perished in the blast.
Aghast that land dragons had been blown away without a trace, Subaru bit down on his back teeth and said, “Ia! Come on out, Ia! You’re here, aren’t you?!”
When Subaru slapped his chest and desperately called out, the red common spirit instantly responded. The red light appeared before his eyes, making no complaint at being called on repeatedly as she silently asserted her existence with her heat.
—Subaru remembered that Ia had protected him, deploying a wall an instant before the explosion. If not for the common spirit’s protection, Subaru would have died in the explosion just like the land dragons around him. However, Subaru had not been the only one in the dragon carriage. It would be meaningless if he had been the only one saved.
“Ia! The person with me… Where’s Ferris?! Where’s…”
“—I’m here.”
Subaru was on his knees when a frail voice reached his ears. As it was truly the voice he’d yearned to hear, Subaru practically tumbled as he turned toward it. He heard the voice from the shadow of a ruined house.
“Ferris?! Are you all right, Fe—”
“All right…might be a hard sell, meow.”
When Subaru practically crawled in that direction, Ferris, the one he sought, revealed himself out of the smoke.
Subaru had feared the worst but was relieved to the bottom of his heart when Ferris emerged. But an instant after that relief, he realized that something was very off. He was happy Ferris was all right, but he was too all right.
“Ia’s magic wall didn’t deploy in time…? Some sort of super-powerful defensive spell, then?”
“Nothing of the sort…I died once, that’s all.”
Ferris, with one eye closed, bore no wound worthy of the name. Unlike Subaru, he surely didn’t have the protection of a common spirit, and yet his fur and flesh were in tidy shape.
But his attire was not the uniform of a Knight of the Royal Guard, but merely a tattered cloth wrapped around his naked flesh. Given the little time available, the cloth must have come from a dragon carriage curtain.
“Why are you dressed like…?”
“Well, I can’t help it! Clothes can’t be regenerated with magic! And more to the point…”
Ferris thrust his palm forward, interrupting Subaru’s question as he turned hard eyes elsewhere. Following his gaze, Subaru clicked his tongue. The situation was even worse than he’d imagined.
—In the blink of an eye, Earlham Village had transformed into a battlefield—a clash of fire and sword taking place.
“No retreat, push them back! Cut open a path! Evacuating the villagers comes first!!”
On the other side of the village square, one of the knights shouted to that effect as he and an attacker crossed blades.
A large number of people were gathered together in the square, knights included. However, the majority were noncombatants—villagers and merchants. The expeditionary force was surrounding them in a circle while resisting the enemy.
The attackers were dressed in black robes, carrying cross-like straight swords in their hands—it was the Witch Cult.
“How did they enter the village…?”
“That’s obvious: they were in the dragon carriage wagons.”
“Shit!”
His “insurance” had backfired in every possible way. Subaru cursed his own stupidity and god-awful luck.
They hadn’t placed any restrictions on the merchants aiding with evacuation. Realizing that the merchants had ferried the Witch Cult in made the phrase the Witch Cult is everywhere ring painfully true.
—Particularly if an Archbishop of Sloth was among them.
“Subawu, you don’t have time to get depre—”
“I know! Scrap the evac plan! Anyway, let’s get everyone up to the mansi—”
Poor strategy or not, they had no choice left but to go and hole up. The instant after he made that judgment, Subaru saw it.
Repeated spells by the Witch Cultists tore the knights’ circular formation apart, causing the combat strength resisting the Cult to collapse. The black-robed figures proceeded to leap into the village square, waving their swords as they assaulted the helpless villagers.
“Those bas—!”
Their short swords reflected the flames; their glints burned into Subaru’s eyes as he yelled at the top of his lungs. However, his voice could not halt the vile blades. Nor could the knights halt their wicked deeds in time.
Mother protected child. Husband shielded wife. Young stood before old. And crosses would impale them all—
“Al Clauzeria—!”
A brief moment before that tragic scene was to unfold, a chant resounded, and simultaneously, Subaru saw light in the sky.
Light spawned and swirled about in midair, swelling into a rainbow-colored aurora that poured down onto the village square.
The vivid aurora traced a beautiful arc, indiscriminately bathing the knights, villagers, and Witch Cultists with its colors. But a moment later, the effects upon them were at polar extremes.
The rainbow softly enveloped the knights and villagers, transforming into a wall for them. The Witch Cultists impaled the rainbow with their daggers, and the next instant, they were enveloped in an unimaginable shock wave that sent them flying.
The square upon which the Witch Cultists had intruded was conquered by the overpowering light of that rainbow. And this had been wrought by a handsome young man in white armor, appearing in the square as if he had flown there.
“None shall mar the beautiful radiance of the rainbow—this is the truth of the heavens.”
“The Finest of Knights,” master of the aurora, snobbishly spoke those words as he thrust his cavalry saber toward the sky. The cavalry saber that had swept the Witch Cultists clean was surrounded by the lights of five common spirits—all except Ia, who had been assigned to Subaru. The way Julius had turned the battle around at its darkest moment was truly worthy of his other name.
Seeing the result for himself, Subaru clapped his hands as he rushed over to Julius.
“Incredible! Good job, well done! You really let loose! I’m glad you’re here for once!”
“Somewhat vexing praise, but I shall accept. I am glad you and Ferris are safe.”
Julius, thanks to whom the front line had recovered, was relieved to see Subaru and Ferris rushing toward him. But unfortunately, there was no time to celebrate their safety.
“Sorry, I messed up. There was a Sloth with the traveling merchants, but I couldn’t deal with him.”
“It is the result of the enemy outthinking us. I have no intention of criticizing you. Right after the dragon carriage you and Subaru entered exploded, the Witch Cultists in the village went on a rampage. The damage from the explosion and the surprise attack is not shallow, but I had TB and Ram evacuate the wounded to the mansion.”
“There’s a lot of enemies, though. The evacuation didn’t go well, I take it?”
Julius had avoided spelling it out, but the authority of Sloth was without doubt the cause of their disadvantage. That power could change the course of battle all by itself, and Subaru’s eyes were the only counter.
And if he could not fulfill that duty, all they could do was await their fated destruction.
“Anyway, we’ve got to smash all the Sloths! I’ll do the looking! Julius, lend me your strength!”
“Of course. Ferris, link up with the evacuees and treat them. You are our lifeline.”
Subaru clenched a fist, Julius nodded, and Ferris winked. Acknowledging their mutual roles, the three instantly separated. Subaru and Julius were to wipe out the Sloths; Ferris was to bolster the knights and villagers and form a defensive line at the mansion.
“Now then, stand up! We’ll head to the mansion and hold out there. Run, run!”
With Ferris’s gallant voice at his back, Subaru turned his attention to the clashes of blades he heard all over the place. The combat, far fiercer than what had come before, showed that the Witch Cult had gotten serious.
“How many Witch Cultists are in the village, roughly?”
“The precise number is unclear. However, there were many participating in the height of the battle. The entire force of the remaining fingers has likely entered the village. Clearly, this is a difficult foe.”
If there were three fingers left, and each had ten people with them, the number of enemies had to be creeping toward forty. Beyond tangling with a force of that size, the expeditionary force had people to protect, a disadvantage that put it in a difficult situation. However, there was hope—if the enemy’s entire force was assembled in the village, at least.
“If we can take down the last three Sloths, we can win this in one… Ah?!”
Subaru saw a chance to turn things around, but that instant, he saw the sky ahead blotted out by blackness. Directly above the flames in the village, countless black hands were covering the sky. The numbers were straight out of a nightmare.
“—Unseen Hands!!”
When Subaru looked up and shouted that, Julius’s expression grew graver still. But his eyes were glazed; he could not see the same nightmare. In a sense, that was fortunate. After all, it would not be strange if seeing lethal violence on such a scale caused the heart to falter.
“Probably under there…!”
Subaru had to take Sloth on, but someone was taking Sloth on without him.
His intuition soon became firm belief.
The black hands cascaded from the sky, destroying trees, houses, and the ground itself with their overwhelming power. It was without cessation, over and over again, destroy, destroy, destroy—fueled by the anger of being unable to finish off one’s foe.
“We have to hurry! Wilhelm’s fighting right near there!”
There was only one human being who could take Sloth on without Subaru.
Sub-chapter 2.
Wilhelm broke through the downpour of invisible attacks by moving beyond the limits of his own vision.
He swayed from left to right, suddenly accelerated and decelerated, did as many flips as he could, toying with his enemy and drawing ever, ever closer through each repeated skirmish.
The authority known as Unseen Hands would be a dangerous attack even if it weren’t invisible. It could freely alter its range and direction, both able to overwhelm the enemy with numbers and destroy him utterly with a single blow. These constituted countless advantages in every kind of battle, making it the ultimate technique for bringing death to one’s foe.
Only because he was the more experienced fighter was Wilhelm able to manage.
“Accordingly, I shall nail you to the wall here and now, Witch Cultist—!”
“It cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot be! To think you would resist to this extent!!”
To the fore, farther down the road, a tall man stood opposite Wilhelm. His posture, with his head bent at an unnatural angle, resembled that of a doll that oozed creepiness as some human hand toyed with it.
In point of fact, the madman had lost free use of his flesh; instead, it was the authority that held his body in its grip and controlled it, but such considerations were worthless to the Sword Devil.
What he required was the fact that the man standing there was an enemy, and one of the three Sloths remaining—the man, dressed in traveling merchant attire, did not appear to be making the slightest effort to conceal his identity.
He’d slipped into Subaru’s painstakingly arranged “insurance,” craftily manipulating it for his own wicked intentions. Simultaneously, Wilhelm wondered about the safety of Subaru and Ferris, who should have been right by the dragon carriage that had exploded. But in the heat of battle he instantly thrust such melancholy thoughts aside, and the Sword Devil immersed himself in his own fight.
It wasn’t that he lacked concern. He would never be able to face his master, Crusch, unless Ferris returned safe and sound. However, his heart pleaded that he did not really need to worry too much.
They would break through that crisis, Subaru and Ferris both. Such was the great faith he had in them.
“Rrrrraaa!!”
He swung his sword, splitting the earth, kicking up a shower of dirt that allowed him to read the arcs of the invisible attacks. With superhuman evasiveness, Wilhelm broke through the wall of bloodlust burying the path between him and his foe and charged.
He didn’t need to concern himself with Subaru or Ferris. This had been the only thing he’d wanted to begin with. What he could accomplish was settled from the first moment he’d held a sword in his hand.
“Such favor, to increase the numbers so! Such tenacity in the face of them! Such conviction! As a diligent disciple, I cannot praise it enough! Ahh, ahh! Oh, love! My brain is shaaaaking!”
Different eyes, different face, different voice—even so, they shared the same madness-filled look. Though a different being with a different appearance, this Sloth was obsessed with Wilhelm just the same. As he received the repulsive praise, Wilhelm moved farther from the battlefield, pursuing the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins on his own.
Given the current balance of forces, he was the only one who could take the madman on. He was the only one who could keep the damage to a minimum and strike the man down.
Wilhelm glared at the insane man before him, increasing the speed of his steps. The invisible attacks slammed down, trying to pursue him, but the Sword Devil sprinted like an arrow, leaving them behind.
“—”
Heedless of the shower of dirt, Sloth recklessly repeated the invisible attacks. It was as if not only was he insane, but his tactics were stupid, as well. Of course, the duel would be settled just as stupidly.
“—!—!!—!!”
The madman made some kind of lament, but Wilhelm, running straight forward, did not hear. He stripped away all that was unnecessary, charging forward as he became a single blade, the steel that would rend wickedness asunder.
Naturally, as he drew closer the obstacles increased. The number of grazes grew greater, and the inside of Wilhelm’s body was bathed in sharp heat as he poised his sword, lashing out.
The earth split apart, and the madman’s posture tilted. Wilhelm turned his sword tip toward the center of the body’s mass, driving it home.
“—I have you!”
There was not even slight resistance to the tip of his blade. The feeling of rending a life was one the Sword Devil had oft tasted.
His treasured sword impaled the madman through the left of his chest, completely destroying the beating heart within. Not even Ferris could have pulled him back from the brink of death. The merciless strike had brought his life to a conclusion.
“…Yes, if it was you, then…”
Failing to die instantly with the blade running through his back, the madman spewed blood as he tried to say something. Wilhelm drew his sword back to cut his last words and testament short.
It was then that the madman said into Wilhelm’s ear, “When you focus on fighting invisible arms, you lose sight of what you can see… Lazy, is it not?”
“—”
His thoughts contorted for a second.
An unnecessary crack in the Sword Devil’s belligerence was pried open, as if he was trying to think of what the words could mean.
An instant later, the madman lunged at Wilhelm, his shaking arm raising a dagger. Then, without hesitation, he employed the dagger to stab his own left eye.
Through the eye socket, the tip of the blade invaded his skull, piercing his brain and cutting short his own life.
“Wha—?”
The instant the blade robbed him of his eye, and his life, light surged out—
Sub-chapter 3.
The instant he rushed around a demolished house and onto the broken road, the earth shook.
“—”
The shock wave coursed underfoot; the shudder in the air made it hard to breathe. Then, as Subaru sprinted forward, the delayed flames and wind from the blast followed suit, mowing down everything in front of him.
“Whoaaa—!”
“Don’t move! Aro! Iku!”
With Subaru frozen in place, Julius raised an arm before him, calling out to the spirits glowing green and yellow. A green blade came to be, and a bulwark of earth and stone rose before them. The wave of heat rushing from ahead was sliced apart before bouncing off the stout wall, protecting the pair from its wrath.
“What happened?!”
“I do not know. Just before the explosion, I felt like I saw a human silhouette pass through, but…”
As the reverberations of the blast relented, the two rushed past the broken ground toward the center of the blast zone. The surrounding area looked as if it had sustained a ferocious shock wave from the blast, enough to send the rooftops flying off brick homes. Naturally, there was a crater in the ground at the center of the blast, adding poignancy to the sad tale.
And when Subaru saw who lay at the center of the blast zone, his voice went cold.
“Wilhelm…?!”
Raising his shaking voice, Subaru rushed over to the white-haired, aged swordsman who was lying curled on the ground. He had sustained grave wounds from blast winds and flames over his entire body; it was almost strange to find his body in one piece.
His face was a grimy black; Subaru couldn’t tell if it was from blood, dirt, or burns. But he was faintly breathing. Knowing at least that was true, he let out a long, long breath.
“But he’s in big trouble at this rate! We’ve got to get him to Ferris, or—”
When Subaru went down on one knee, intending to carry Wilhelm, Julius stepped beside him and said, “It does not seem things will be quite that simple.”
Sensing the urgent warning embedded in those words, Subaru lifted his head.
Julius swept the tip of his drawn cavalry saber around the area. His reason for doing so was simple: the enemies he was holding in check hailed from several directions, not just one.
Carrying cross-shaped swords, Witch Cultists blocked them on each of four sides. But that was not the largest problem. A final person arrived with the four, removing her hood as she appeared.
It was a small-statured woman, with short hair the color of black tea.
The cultist’s hands were empty; she stood before them seemingly defenseless and wide open. However, her bloodshot eyes and the way she hurt herself, biting her shorn-nailed fingers, were all the proof they needed that she was the most dangerous of all.
After Petelgeuse, the madwoman, and Kety, this was the fourth Archbishop of Sloth.
The woman bit the nail of her right thumb, twisting her hand as she tore the nail off. The sight and liquid sound of blood droplets and exposed flesh made Subaru grimace in pain and disgust.
“Comin’ out one after another with timing like this… How many of you are there, damn it?!”
“Why, why, why, why…why is it youuu yet live? All of those measures, and yet…why is it you do not fall before my diligence?!”
“Well, that’s my line! Cut it out already! Doing continues over and over like this! You have some kind of grudge against us?!”
Probably words of complete and mutual hatred, enmity, and vilification were the only ones Subaru and the woman could share. Then Wilhelm stirred in his arms.
Perhaps it was due to external stimulus, but the Sword Devil was still unconscious when his lips faintly moved. The way his anguished breaths held increasing anger toward their foe felt ghastly to Subaru.
It was almost as if he was subconsciously trying to tell them something—
“Wilhelm?”
“Same…ne—per…”
He couldn’t completely make out what the trickling voice tried to say. And the Witch Cultists were not merciful or polite enough to wait for him to hear it once in coherent form.
Subaru was clutching Wilhelm on one knee when the woman turned a nail-less finger toward him and shouted.
“You! If the lazy you and the diligent you backed away, all would be firm! All would be decided! Everything arriving at its proper conclusion! Thus, scatter here! Scaaatter to the winds!!”
Spewing spittle, the woman put her hand into her own robe. However, she did not find what she was looking for. Pulling her hand out, she gnashed her teeth hard enough to break them. Subaru had a hunch as to why she was in such a mortified rage. That flash of insight let Subaru understand what role was his to play.
Witch Cultists were on all sides, whereas Wilhelm was gravely injured and Julius was exhausted. The only one left to take on the fourth Sloth was Subaru Natsuki, useless at anything but decoy duty.
But even if his Witch Cult attraction was of no use, there yet remained something he could do.
“Julius, can you fight off the four besides Sloth while covering Wilhelm?”
“Subaru?”
Shifting his gaze alone, Julius gave Subaru a slight, questioning rise of his brows. However, there was no time to explain the fine details. Subaru glared at his amber eyes and repeated himself.
“Can you do it? If you can do that…I’ll do what I can do.”
“—”
“Right now, you’re the only one I can count on. If you’re willing to put yours in my hands…I’ll put mine in yours.”
“Put what?”
It was obvious. Subaru responded to Julius’s words by pointing at Sloth and saying, “I’ll smack that idiot. I’ll fight and take your life in my hands. In return, I’m putting my life in yours—so can you do it?”
Subaru declared his determination to take on the Archbishop of Sloth single-handedly to Julius, his one and only ally. At his words, Julius drew back his sword.
His hesitation and silence lasted a second. Julius closed his eyes, opened them, and poised his sword.
“If I did not say I could do it, ’twould be my shame as a knight.”
“Fair enough—!!”
They were still at a disadvantage. Subaru knew it was reckless. But his battles had always been reckless. So once again, his disadvantage was like a tightrope. He’d simply cover his eyes—and run across.
Subaru, gently laying Wilhelm down on the spot, put a hand into his own pocket. The Witch Cultists were gradually tightening the encirclement, but he detected no sign of Sloth moving a step. Subaru did not underestimate her. Distance and range were meaningless words to Sloth.
But that only applied to every opponent who wasn’t Subaru Natsuki.
“Now, let us finally end this! Great love abooove all! Exalted love above all! Before my diligence, to repay Her favor! You were born worthy of being the first offered up to…”
“Hey, chick Petelgeuse— Look at this.”
Subaru called out to the madly raving Sloth with a snort. Then, he stuck his hand in his pocket.
—When he withdrew his hand, he was holding a book bound in black. It was the Gospel that Subaru had recovered from the corpse of Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti—
“You’re looking for this, right? The thing sent by Miss Witch you love so, so much.”
“Thief!! So IT truly was you who had it?!” Sloth screamed, eyes bulging.
The way she’d rummaged in her pocket had made Subaru realize something was off.
The other two Sloths had done the same thing. They’d searched for something that ought to have been in a certain pocket with their hands, been irritated not to find it, and raged at he who had stolen it. The object of their desire had been the same: that single book.
“Guess you even tried digging up Petelgeuse’s corpse to get the Gospel back. I’ve heard of book junkies, but come on, robbing graves to get a book back?”
“Silence! Cease your prattle! Give that book back, right—”
“Hey, don’t shout. If you get too angry, you know—your brain’ll shake.”
“—! You mussst die!!”
No one present could outdo Subaru when it came to taunts and provocations.
As Sloth exploded in a rage, the shadow at her feet swelled up. The shadow split into an innumerable horde above her head, seemingly covering the sky in pitch-black hands whose fingertips bore down on Subaru all at once.
But if the intent was to kill Subaru, that was the wrong call.
“My favor! The manifestation of my love! Crumble BEFORE them, sinner—!”
Sloth shouted, and the black arms pressed toward Subaru like an avalanche. The veritable manifestation of destruction loomed before him like a tsunami as it advanced.
To Subaru alone, it was all too visible. And even to him, the attack was far too obvious.
“Ra-aa—!”
The evil hands were countless, but slow. Now that he had witnessed, however imperfectly, combat between superhumans, they looked like stopped flies to Subaru. No, that was going too far. They were like flies in flight. But they were by no means impossible to evade.
Subaru took a large detour, evading the savagely onrushing horde of Unseen Hands. The Sword Devil would have leaped between them, but such inhuman feats were beyond Subaru. He used his endurance to make up for it.
The bombardment of power had missed its mark, the invincible authority wasted by its user.
“My authority…?! Then, you shall die at the hands of my disciples—”
“Unfortunately, I have been tasked with denying you that option.”
By the time the woman, realizing her failure, regained her composure and commanded her underlings, it was too late.
Sword in hand, Julius assaulted the Witch Cultists, vividly hindering them from pursuing Subaru. On top of that, the cultist in the direction in which Subaru had fled had been tragically caught in the wave of evil hands and dismembered.
“Huh, huh, huh?! You took out your own guy?! What kind of a sorry villain are you?!”
“G…gah…! How dare you, dare you, dare youuuu! My disciple of love!!”
“Don’t gimme that, you’re the one who mixed us up! Tunnel vision! What, are you lazy?!”
Subaru raised his middle finger as he rearranged the trademark phrase of Sloth.
Just as intended, the woman was incandescent with voiceless rage, savagely running after Subaru as he fled.
“—Julius! Manage your end somehow! I’ll handle mine!”
“A most vague command. But understood.”
To Subaru, thrusting a fist and raising his voice, Julius raised his cavalry saber aloft. Now that they had divided the battlefield between them, Subaru’s and Julius’s battle lines were wholly separate.
On Julius’s side were the wounded Wilhelm and three Witch Cultists. For his part, Subaru had one Sloth, mad with rage—the right person for the right fight.
After all, Subaru had no chance against the Witch Cultists, and had the best chances of anyone against the Archbishop of Sloth.
“See ya later!!”
“Fight valiantly!”
Vowing to meet again, Subaru left Julius behind and darted across the battlefield. Evil hands rolled across the ground like a surging sea, but Subaru could see them. He leaped over them and took off, unharmed.
“Wait, wait, waitwaitwaitwait, I say! You despiiicable, foolish knave!”
As Julius began his clash of swords with multiple opponents, Subaru drew the madwoman off to another location. To draw Sloth to a place where her attacks would ensnare no one else, unwittingly doing just as Wilhelm had. Subaru pressed a hand over his heart, seemingly ready to burst, and ran at full strength.
He had a destination. He would not go as far as to say that reaching it was linked to victory. However, if he arrived there, he could buy time for victory to come calling. For that reason, he ran and ran toward it.
“—! You can’t—hit me! You’re one—heck of a klutz!”
Behind Subaru, the madwoman chased after him on her own two feet. However, her speed was slow. In addition, for some reason, her deployment of countless Unseen Hands was sporadic, allowing him to narrowly evade them even while on the run. He was completely shaking off her ability.
The number of arms chasing him was some sixty or seventy, clearly the most of any Sloth to date. In spite of that, her skill in using them was the worst so far. The balance was all off.
That being the case, it must have been the first and foremost Sloth, Petelgeuse, who’d used his authority with the greatest skill.
“I guess Petelgeuse really was the main Sloth…not that it matters!”
He could think about that later. It didn’t change the fact that all the Sloths had to be wiped out. He didn’t have time to reach for anything else. If Subaru’s foe wasn’t in tip-top shape, all the better for him.
He curved around corners, darted down the straightaway, curved around another corner, and leaped.
“Made it—! But…”
Arriving at his destination, Subaru surveyed the area. There were signs of combat all over the place, and the fallen did not stop at one or two people. He saw not just Witch Cultists but knights and beast people among them. Subaru felt blame for his own powerlessness pressing upon him.
He closed his eyes and forced it back. The next moment, he leaped sideways and rolled, evading the evil hands striking where he had stood. The ground split open, causing a cloud of dust to rise. Behind it stood the hate-filled Sloth, huffing and puffing.
The number of arms stretching from her back was greatly diminished, limited to some twenty or so at present.
“Guess you learned you were wearing yourself out.”
“And ooonly for making me realize that do you have my thanks! However, your escape ends here! Or do you still possess some way to resist?!”
“Way to resist…”
When those words trailed off, Subaru blinked for just a moment. Along the line of his gaze was the madwoman, and behind her—
However, he immediately hid behind an impetuous smile.
“…love and courage, I suppose.”
Subaru licked his lips and made a big fuss as the madwoman stood with her arms spread wide, her eyes full of bloodlust. His statement sent the eyes of Sloth bulging wide, causing her creepy voice to begin to laugh.
“Very good! Then challenge my faaavor with this love of yours!”
“I said love and courage!”
Taking a breath, he went into a sprinter’s crouch and practically leaped as he rose, shooting his body forward. After having fled so thoroughly, he now charged straight forward, leaping into the woman’s flank. Sloth blinked in surprise and, perhaps thinking charging in was the height of idiocy, instantly flew into a rage.
“This is your love?! Your love has this little resolve?! No crafty schemes, simply running like a fool, ahh, your love is so reckless! So powerless! So thoughtless! In other words, lazy!”
“Ooooh—!”
Subaru let out a shout from the pit of his belly, as if to overwrite the despair the woman’s shout drove his way. Shout and shout he did, enough to make himself hoarse, calling out love, and calling for courage.
“Then you shall die, and pay for your laziness with your lo—”
“Now, Patlash—!!”
“—! What are—?!”
The impact cut off the latter half of the cry of surprise.
Sloth was triumphant one moment; the next, her diminutive frame was caught by the land dragon charging into her side. Its huge frame, several hundred kilograms in mass, slammed right into the defenseless woman’s body, blowing it away as if it were a leaf.
“—”
The woman proceeded to bounce along the surface of the village square, flipping over as she sailed into a half-destroyed house. The glass window made a sound as it shattered; the house, unable to take the blow, was smashed, and dust slowly rose from it after.
The blow, even greater than he had imagined, sent Subaru leaping to glom the land dragon’s head and rub her nose.
“You did great, awesome teamwork! Above and beyond the call, Patlash!”
“—”
With Subaru trying to kill her with compliments, Patlash raised her head and gave a high-pitched neigh.
Subaru returned to the village square he’d started from, luring the woman to Patlash, the dragon’s valuable legwork part of his escape plan. But having failed to locate her just after arriving, he’d started to worry that he’d been wrong, and she, too, had been burned to a crisp—
“When I saw you’d doubled back behind her—that was a seriously devilish move.”
The instant his shifting gaze located the land dragon behind Sloth, he seriously shouted like a girl on the inside. The next instant, with zero prep work, he and the land dragon did a combo attack, pulling it off perfectly. This was the result of trusting everything to love and courage—albeit love really meant “bluff” and courage meant “reinforcements” in this case.
“Now, it’d be great if that settled things, but…”
Climbing onto Patlash’s back, Subaru glared at the wreckage of the house Sloth had sailed into. If she’d died from the crushing weight of the mountain of debris, it would be a big help.
But—life just wasn’t that easy.
“…IT seems I was being prideful.”
The mountain of rubble collapsed, and from under the remains of the roof, countless shadows welled up all at once. The wriggling, pitch-black arms writhed like tentacles. A tiny figure rose up from the middle of that black mass.
It was the madwoman—bloodied and reduced to a state half-living, half-dead.
Her head was bleeding from lacerations it had suffered, and her left eye was completely taken out, impaled by a shard of glass. The right half of her body, caught up in the collapse of the house, was dyed crimson, and Subaru doubted her slender arms or legs were now of much use. From the looks of her, there was no doubting that she was wounded all over.
And yet, having said all that, the vigor and madness displayed by her right eye was greater than ever.
“You…yes, you certainly are a diligent human being. Yes, diligent! Compared to you, having come so far, using everything at your disposal to challenge your foe, I was so very careless! Architect of my own ruin! Neglectful! Insufficient! I was too prideful! Ahh, I was so lazy!”
“—”
Her demeanor and the statements themselves did not differ from those of the other mad people in any way. Even if she did have a new thought, he could deal with her the same way provided there was no extreme change in her tactics or repeated attacks. Now that he was riding Patlash, able to dish out speeds far greater than Subaru himself, it was even easier.
Having played for time, Subaru would deliver as decisive a blow as possible to defeat this Sloth—with neither having a decisive way to win, the fight would come down to whichever found a way to finish the other off first.
But the woman cruelly laughed in the face of Subaru’s resolve.
“I will show you my favor. That is the first thing you should accept. If you do not acknowledge it, adhering to the only love you know, and as a result sinking into laziness, that, to me, would be the greatest and vilest of acts…and furthermore, one I shall correct.”
“…Shit.”
As the madwoman continued her murmurs, the countless evil hands moved toward the sky. Watching the spectacle, Subaru cursed, suppressing the shudder in his creaking heart.
Before his eyes, each of the many arms took hold of the wreckage of the collapsed house.
“That’s her best option, damn it.”
An instant after his rueful declaration, the rampage began.
She hurled the wreckage of the house at them, the building becoming shrapnel that poured onto Subaru and Patlash all at once.
Sub-chapter 4.
The means Sloth had chosen was her best option against Subaru because it did not use Unseen Hands.
In other words, put briefly, all she had to do was stop Unseen Hands from attacking directly, using the evil hands to attack indirectly instead. The attack speed of Unseen Hands itself was less than that of a punch from a normal arm; if you didn’t panic, they could be dodged, even in great numbers.
But if the evil hands grasped things and threw them, the speed was incomparable. The pure physical might they possessed went far beyond human norms. The missiles they threw traveled with a speed rivaling that of a major-league fastball.
On top of that, what she launched at them was, at minimum, the size of a human head—a single solid hit would be fatal.
“Patlash! Out of the village, into the forest! Without cover we’re dead!”
“—!”
Subaru clung as tightly to Patlash’s head as he could; she accelerated at the same time he gave the order. She had probably come to the same conclusion before hearing his command, but either way, charging into the forest was the right call.
In the hands of those pitch-black limbs, broken pieces of the brick house served as fine weapons of murder. Fortunately, thanks to the thrower’s lack of technique, the control was awful. In spite of that, the flying rubble unleashed showered down like rain. As with a poorly aimed firearm, a few hits and you were just as dead.
“—”
A ferocious sound arose as flying rubble mowed down trees right beside them, exploding into the ground just behind them as they galloped forward. Bounding over the earth, they wove about as the entrance to the forest into which they had leaped turned to charred plains in the blink of an eye. Impact, destruction, impact, destruction—they alternated over and over.
“Guooo!”
Subaru lowered his head to narrow his profile even a little. All he could do at the moment was cling to Patlash. A piece of flying rubble grazed the land dragon’s black hide, gouging the hard scales and causing blood to spurt out. But Patlash’s speed did not lessen, nor did she raise any outcry.
Though they sprinted over poor footing, she galloped with the ease he’d been told about. Patlash’s contributions, which were beyond Subaru’s expectations, had saved him. But letting her literally shoulder all the burden wasn’t a solution.
When he looked behind him, the actions of the madwoman pursuing them were burned into his eyes. Even if he regrouped and found a way to fight, it meant nothing if he couldn’t predict her actions. At the very least, if she couldn’t keep up with Patlash, that’d make things go a lot smoother—
“—So much for Patlash’s speed!”
“Yesyesyesyesyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees—!!”
As Subaru made a disparaging shout, it was overridden by the hateful voice repeating itself. The mad voice was launched from a height surpassing that of the trees of the forest, literally right above him.
The woman was now far overhead.
Her diminutive, beat-up body was curled up with her hands around her knees—put crudely, a somersault pose. She remained in that pose as she used Unseen Hands to grab her own body, hurling herself through the sky—as in a game of catch, she tossed herself from one hand to another as she chased after Subaru and Patlash.
Whatever it looked like, it was disturbingly fast. Sprinting through the forest, Patlash was breaking sixty kilometers an hour. However, if you disregarded her moving only in straight lines at low accuracy, the speed of Sloth, flying like a human cannonball, was butting against a hundred.
It wasn’t much of a difference, but Subaru couldn’t shake her off at that range. At that rate, with her looking down at them, they’d be wonderful targets for her sniping. Furthermore, Subaru lacked the means to reach the madwoman as she moved far overhead.
“Can’t go back to the village. With her like that, no way we can draw her back now.”
Besides, Subaru would be at an even greater disadvantage if she linked up with the Witch Cultists. Subaru was the only one who was still a good matchup against Sloth after being backed this far into a corner.
“But at this rate, I’ll be hit sooner or—”
“—!”
As soon as he said it, “sooner” came calling.
A flying clump of brick hurled at them squarely connected with Patlash’s head, sending the leather helmet covering the top of the land dragon’s head flying. Her posture heavily tilted as blood poured from her head. Subaru bit back an anguished cry, earnestly pulling on the reins to keep them from bowling over.
“Patlash!!”
There was no way shouting to her would give her strength. It could not be so, but the way Patlash dramatically slammed the ground with her foot, refusing to tumble, he thought it just might be true. He’d have to praise the land dragon ten times as much for guts alone. But the flying rubble continued, and blood kept flowing. At that rate, victory was out of reach—
“After lasting this long, even if we get deep in the forest, at this rate…”
Continuing the war of attrition had poor prospects, but he couldn’t find any leads for a counterattack if they didn’t buy some time. However, the damage just now had already stamped a time limit on Patlash. He couldn’t expect the same performance from her as before. If he was going to have a flash of inspiration, it needed to be that moment, because if not—
But such a convenient turn of events had never happened to Subaru before, and it likely never w—
“—Just now…”
Subaru bit his lip in anger at the absurdity of it all. That instant, he saw something out of place in the background of the forest they were passing through. The question of what it was tugged at his mind; the instant suitable information floated up, he pulled back on the reins.
If things were as Subaru remembered, it was worth a shot. When a plan to achieve victory offered itself, you bit.
“Patlash, left!”
“—”
Patlash was bleeding when Subaru gave the order. For a single moment, she shifted her eyes in that direction, as if to ask, Are you sane? and Are you sure about this?
It was natural to wonder if he was sane. However, if sanity kept victory out of reach, madness was indispensable.
Subaru answered his favorite dragon’s silent question as he stood straight, giving the reins a heavy flick.
“That’s right! Patlash, head for the light in the woods!!”
He shouted, repeating and emphasizing the command. Patlash glared forward, and hesitation vanished from her eyes and gait. Apparently, she greatly esteemed Subaru’s judgment. She had put her life in his hands.
The land dragon’s feet seemed to scrape the earth as they drove into the forest floor, braking hard as they changed course. The wind repel blessing cut out, and Subaru gritted his teeth to endure the momentum threatening to throw him off. Right after he held on, on, on for dear life, they accelerated, running down to the left at a steep angle.
“No matter where you run, there is nowhere to hide!”
The madwoman did not miss Subaru and Patlash’s sharp turn and roaring descent. The angle of the hurled rubble shifted, and the trail of sylvan destruction followed suit. Verdant trees burst apart; the split, fallen trees were immediately recycled, grasped and hurled to spread the destruction further. Death followed close behind them.
“—”
Even as that cascade of destruction pursued them, Subaru ordered Patlash to follow the flickering light he’d seen from the corner of his vision—one that might prove a literal beacon of hope.
The land dragon zigzagged left and right as she ran, making herself a difficult target even without pulling farther ahead. Subaru wondered how arduous it must have been for his steed to go at high speed down a steep incline with a wounded body, but no matter how much his head might ponder, an answer would not be forthcoming.
“Do you not know when to give in? What is ALL this running, running, running? And where does it all lead?! Your actions only prolong the inevitable… No! No, I will not!”
Sloth looked straight down at Subaru and Patlash as they continued fleeing at full tilt. However, the woman’s words were cut off at that point as she jabbed a finger into her crushed left eye in apparent self-rebuke.
She proceeded to gouge out the flesh, causing blood to flow once more, her voice shrill with bitter resentment and delight.
“I must be neither careless nor prideful. My task unfulfilled, brought to death for the first time, I must part ways with my doubts, my fate, my distracted thoughts!”
Killing carelessness with self-mutilation, Sloth continued her attacks, hurling relentlessly.
The ground exploded, and flying rubble ripped through the air; a fragment clipped Subaru’s shoulder, making his bones creak. He threw his head back, bit down a cry of pain, and groaned as he endured. He would not cry out before Patlash.
But their chase scene was finally coming to an end—
“Gah—!”
A blow conveyed through the earth made the ground beneath Patlash’s feet disappear. A moment later, the land dragon’s huge frame floated skyward. By the time Subaru noticed, he didn’t even have time to scream as he rotated hard in midair, holding on to the reins as he thrashed about, and fell hard toward the ground, his entire body slamming fiercely into it.
“Aghh…!”
They vigorously rolled downhill. When they stopped, Subaru had lost track of which way was up.
He was hurting all over, but miraculously, he couldn’t see any sign of mortal injury. No matter how much his limbs were torn up, his head was still attached to his body.
But that good fortune seemed only to have managed to push his death a tiny bit into the future.
“IT seems that finally…the time to end this has arrived.”
“—”
Subaru lay faceup, watching Sloth descending from the sky.
When she landed, the woman dismissed the evil hand that had carried her, standing beside Subaru, still unable to move. Then she gave a bloody smile full of satisfaction and tendered a hand down to him.
“Now, return my Gospel. It is not for the likes of you to possess.”
“Gos-pel…”
Murmuring in a broken voice, Subaru obeyed the woman’s demand, putting his hand into his pocket. His fingers found the cover they sought. Fortuitously, it had not fallen from his pocket during all the time they’d been chased.
“If you want it…take it…!”
Grasping the book, Subaru pulled it out and mischievously tossed it into a thicket. The woman’s hand reached out, grasping nothing but air; she opened and shut her fist as she let out a sigh.
“It would seem your attitude regarding my favor, and the things of others, has NOT improved.”
The woman shook her head; her apparent lament had an echo of disappointment. Subaru coughed. He’d never imagined that the madwoman would make an appeal to reason and common sense.
The woman went over to pick up the book Subaru had thrown. Meanwhile Subaru moved his head in an attempt to locate the fallen Patlash. He found her; her breaths were labored, but she was all right.
And ideally positioned.
“Ahh, guide for my love, proof of my favor…! Finally within my hands… I am deeply MOVED!”
The woman clutched the recovered Gospel to her chest as she shed tears. Holding the written word, her crazed love in tangible form, the woman shifted her head, turning a mad smile toward the barely alive Subaru.
“You fought bravely. You fought well, worthy of such praise! You and your land dragon resisted so well, so diligently! In praise of your actions, I shall grant thee mercy!”
“…Mercy?”
“YES! Mercy! If you have any last words, I shall burn your words into my very soul, never to forget them for eternity! Now, say what you will!”
He was surprised that the madwoman would show her opponent compassion after a hard-fought battle. She only made room for it because she’d recovered the book and had victory right before her eyes, but it was an unexpected side of her even so.
Then Subaru, taking the madwoman up on her offer, lifted up a hand.
It was his left hand, opposite of that which had thrown the Gospel. He was holding something in it.
“Do you know what this is?”
The question made a suspicious look come over Sloth. The words were different from those she had sought, but the woman peered into Subaru’s hand. It held a magic crystal, small enough to rest in a palm.
Giving off a white light, it was—not a one-shot-one-kill trump card. By itself, it held no power to turn the battle around. In the first place, there were things like this all over the forest.
And properly speaking, it belonged among the others, not in his palm.
“This is…”
“A barrier magic crystal. They’re stuck on trees all over the forest. You didn’t notice?”
“…”
Subaru wondered if her silence meant that she hadn’t noticed, or that she didn’t understand what he was saying.
He didn’t really care which. The plan was already in motion.
“What are you sayi—?”
The woman, her disquiet at Subaru’s last words evident, suspiciously reached out with a hand.
Just before her hand arrived, the plan went operational.
“—!!”
Sensing something leaping toward her shoulder, the woman instantly tried to turn around.
She never made it.
From behind, the fangs of the demon beast breaking through the forest sank deep into her neck.
Sub-chapter 5.
He’d had his suspicions. The possibility had grazed his head several times while they’d been on the march.
The kicker was when Julius and Ferris looked as if they doubted their ears when he told them the area around the mansion and village was a giant demon beast habitat.
Demon beasts harbored nothing but hatred for all living things. The battle with the White Whale had soaked that terrifying aspect of their nature into his bones. But at the same time, he wondered…
The demonic, canine Urugarums in the forest, as well as the White Whale, hated Subaru’s physical makeup and saw him as an enemy. If so, didn’t the same go for the Witch Cultists, who saw Subaru as an ally?
—And now, firm proof of that hypothesis rested right before his eyes.
“Gaaaaaaa!”
Impaled by sharp pain and the sudden impact, the madwoman looked unaware of what had happened as she screamed.
With the leaping demon beast’s fangs in her neck, the small-statured woman could do nothing to throw him off. The black-furred demon dog was large enough that it made the tiny woman look like a child standing beside an adult.
The woman was swung up and down by the demon beast maw clamping down on her, slamming her into the ground several times. The woman went limp, drained of strength. Without hesitation the demonic canine held her down, withdrew its fangs, and went for the final blow.
With a growl, it opened its maw, this time aiming for the woman’s windpipe. Perhaps it meant to snuff her life out; perhaps its action was pointless, the fruit of its murderous instincts. Subaru could not tell which.
He could not, but the madwoman was not one to go down without a fight.
“Filthy beast…! Unseen Hands!”
Pressed against the ground, the woman shouted, and instantly, her wriggling shadow became evil hands that mowed the demon dog down.
Bathed in the invisible attack, the demon dog cried out very much like a puppy as it tumbled heavily. But it instantly got back on its paws, howling as it moved anew to rend its prey apart—
“Wait! That’s enough!”
But Subaru intervened, barrier crystal in hand, putting a halt to its aggression.
The demon beast was in a leaping stance as it growled, glaring hatefully at the white magic crystal in Subaru’s hand. The beast slowly backed away, perhaps compelled to do so by the power residing in the crystal.
Subaru and the madwoman might have been the pair the demon beast could least overlook. Even so, the demon beast did not leap at them. Its fangs quivered; it growled and drooled as it leaped backward. The demon beast proceeded to mingle with the thickets, its footsteps growing more distant.
There was no way it had let them go. It probably meant to watch and wait until he let go of the barrier crystal.
Watching the demon beast’s retreat, Subaru let out a long sigh before turning his head, looking down at the madwoman. Stopping the Urugarum demon beast from finishing her off had certainly not been an act of mercy.
There had been no need. From the way her guts were already spilling out from her belly, the woman must have already known this for herself.
“How can this be? To think, at a demon beast’s…”
“You didn’t do your homework. This whole area’s a demon beast habitat. They just isolate it with the barrier.”
The back of her neck bitten off, the woman was unable to move, covered in mortal wounds. Perhaps she was already blind; her one remaining eye, lacking any spark, did not turn Subaru’s way.
The results weren’t sufficient to call the operation a success. He’d been saved by happenstance and a flash of inspiration, clutching victory by a hairbreadth. After all their history, to think an Urugarum would appear in a place like that…
“Roswaal, you bastard…you said you’d wiped ’em all out.”
Cursing his all-too-secretive supporter, Subaru knelt on one knee at the woman’s side. He picked up the Gospel that lay right beside the woman, bloody and on death’s door.
Even if Subaru couldn’t play decoy himself, the book could still be used as bait in scenes to come. The battle with the woman had proven its worth well enough.
“I don’t know what happened to Kety, but at most, there’s two fingers left…we’ll smash ’em.”
“Mm-mm-mmm…”
Subaru looked down at her. “Oh, it’s reckless? Undoable? How many of you have I taken down? Learn already, geez. Though no point saying that to you now, I suppose.”
“—”
On the brink, the woman twisted her lips at Subaru’s words. The bleeding from them wouldn’t stop. Blood trickled from the corners of her lips as the woman smiled, boldly greeting her impending death.
When Subaru saw her like that, it sent the greatest possible chill up his spine.
“Go ahead…hold it, for now. But…soon…”
“…”
“Soon, I will taaake my love back.”
At the end, that part came out loud and clear before the woman’s smile faltered, her life signs coming to an end. It was death, plain and simple—an end from which there was no coming back.
It was the fourth, or perhaps the third, death of Sloth he had witnessed.
“Shit…what was she trying to tell me anyway?”
Subaru scratched his head as he looked down at the dead woman’s face. The inside of his mouth was dry, and he felt that his arteries had oddly quickened for reasons unrelated to stress and nervousness.
For the first time, without relying on anyone else, Subaru had brought another person to death in the midst of combat. That fact made his knees faintly shake. He clamped his teeth down and sighed at length.
The woman had set a curse upon Subaru just before her death. It was a curse he could not dispel right that moment.
“…Can’t stay standing around. Even if one’s down, there’s still Sloths left.”
Brushing hesitancy aside, Subaru turned his eyes away from the corpse and rushed over to Patlash. The land dragon looked pretty beat-up from the furious tumble, bearing countless wounds over the entirety of her body.
And yet, when the land dragon sensed Subaru’s approach, she stoutly rose to her feet.
“Sorry, Patlash. I really want to give you a break, but I still need you.”
“…”
When Subaru declared he would push her further, Patlash silently turned her back to him in response. He mounted, unable to count how many debts he now owed the land dragon after the last half day, the last several hours in particular.
Drawing the reins, he ordered the helmetless land dragon to return to the village. The barrier crystal in his hand was warm, steadily continuing to warn of the presence of demon beasts.
Perhaps the demon dog was lurking in the thicket, watching them that very moment. He paid no heed as they took off running.
“The Sloths left over, the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins’ fingers…probably one left!”
At the height of the battle in the village, Subaru and Julius had headed toward the source of the Unseen Hands. There, they found an explosion, and at the center of that explosion, Wilhelm. Subaru had no doubt Wilhelm had been fighting that Sloth until the instant just prior to that. He was sure the Sword Devil had struck down his foe.
He deduced that, just as with the dragon carriage explosion, something in Kety’s possession had caused it. If Kety had been defeated by the Sword Devil, he might have blown himself up to try to bring Wilhelm down with him.
If that was true, there was one finger remaining—and that ought to be the last Sloth left.
“If we can deal with that one, we just need to mop up the regular Witch Cultists and we win!”
He finally saw a beacon of certain victory. But that glimmer was far back in Subaru’s mind.
To escape the madwoman’s attacks, he’d had to flee deep into the forest. He was far from the village, where the battle was surely still raging. Every second spent running uphill felt like a lifetime.
“—?! Shit! He really did come out!!”
Clenching his teeth, Subaru glared up at the sky, shouting with anger and nervousness. The sight was even worse than he’d expected.
Once more, black hands stretched from the other side of the forest up to the sky before his eyes, pointed toward the village. Subaru was still far away. His shout could not reach the people those arms were aimed at.
If they swung downward, more would die. Knights. Beast people. Villagers.
Lives would be snuffed out. Lives that belonged to people Subaru knew.
Raising a voiceless scream, Subaru prayed for the black, evil hands to disappear.
As if responding to Subaru’s lament, Patlash, battered all over, increased her speed. They practically flew over the lip, charged down into the forest, and raced to the village on the verge of being violated once more.
“Sloth!!”
As they galloped, he yelled hard enough to rend his throat.
The village bore vast traces of destruction: human corpses were strewn all over the place; flames were raging, mingling with someone’s crying voice in the air. Even in a world filled with the sound of swords clashing, he instantly knew who the madman must be.
The fifth Sloth was a very thin, balding, middle-aged man, tearing at his bloody face as he laughed maniacally.
“—”
Subaru instinctively knew that this was the last one. The madman turned, seemingly drawn by Subaru’s certainty.
They exchanged gazes, acknowledging each other as enemies. However, the man played the most horrific of opening moves first.
“Ahh—my brain is shaaaaaking!”
Already, countless arms swung up, blocking the heavens before they came crashing down alongside an angry, unhinged shout. The attack became a cascade of death, no doubt intended to violate the village to its roots, crushing anyone and everyone to death by sheer force of numbers.
“Gotta stop him!” Subaru cried with determination, but it was a cry of despair, for he had no power with which to do so.
And a moment before the madman’s act of brutality proceeded to repaint the world in black—
“That is far enough, villain.”
—he heard a voice.
And that voice took everyone aback.
Standing in a daze, they looked up at the sky, unable to move.
“Enough—I will tolerate no more violence from you.”
For above the myriad wriggling black hands, the sky was covered in the pale glow of absolute zero.
◇◇◇
Diamond. Diamond. Diamond.
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