Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World – Vol. 10 Ch. 2

Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World. Volume. 10.

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‘Chapter 2:- THE ROAD TO THE SANCTUARY.’

 
Sub-chapter 1.

As a result of the conversation with Frederica, they set off for the Sanctuary in the morning two days after.

“To be honest, I’m gettin’ restless just waiting around, but…”

Arms crossed, Subaru made a sound in his throat, the impatience in his heart unavoidable. But, according to Frederica, two days of preparation were necessary to get to the Sanctuary. Subaru could not dismiss her opinion.

“The Sanctuary is protected by a special barrier…the Lost Woods of Clemaldy. The barrier keeps outside presences away by leading them astray, hence why it is called the Lost Woods. Two days of preparation are required to nullify that barrier.”

Thus had Frederica explained, intuitively calming Subaru so that he was not tempted to let haste make waste.

Though at first, Subaru found the talk of the “barrier” rather fishy, Frederica’s explanation after the fact made him accept that it was the case.

“It’s a place with a history of accepting demi-humans… Huh.”

When he voiced the special way it had been expressed to him, Subaru vigorously scratched his own head.

It was something of an iron rule in fantasy worlds that there was friction between human and demi-human races. This world apparently was no exception. In the Kingdom of Lugunica, too, scorn against demi-humans was customary with many people. Subaru’s experiences to date had led him to form a particular conclusion.

The prejudice and scorn toward demi-humans was likely an extension of the deep-rooted enmity toward half-elves.

Even so, perhaps due to some kind of conciliatory policy in the capital, he’d seen quite a few demi-humans in the Merchants’ District and in the slums. However, he’d seen none in the Nobles’ District—

“From what I read in a history book, they had this civil war called the Demi-human War in just the last century, too. Come to think of it, I heard a song related to that from Liliana, too, didn’t I…?”

Liliana was a bard who had stopped by at Roswaal Manor during one of her journeys. He was certain that one of the songs she had sung during her stay at the mansion touched on that historical event.

“Kind of late to realize it, but…‘The Ballad of the Sword Devil’ sounds a lot like Wilhelm’s nickname. Maybe that song’s why he came to be called the Sword Devil in the first place…”

Subaru gave a satisfied nod as the manly sight of the swordsman he imagined melded with the heroic tale inside his head.

As a matter of fact, Wilhelm was indeed the main character of “The Ballad of the Sword Devil,” but Subaru, petty man that he was, dismissed out of hand the idea that he personally knew a man whose name was recorded in the annals of history.

“Ah, Master Subaru, so you were indeed here.”

Subaru was thrown off his train of thought when the door quietly opened and a voice spoke to him through it. When he looked back, he met the eyes of the girl peering in through the gap of the door.

The girl with reddish-brown hair and a ribbon on her head entered with an adorable smile as she addressed him.

“It’s almost time to leave, so I thought if you weren’t in your room, you might be here…”

“Servant lifestyle got me used to waking up bright and early… Wait, properly speaking, I still am a servant, so I’d better stop talkin’ like that…”

“But I think… I believe those odd clothes suit you better than a servant’s uniform, Master Subaru.”

“You’re payin’ attention to your words, but you need a little more practice choosing them, I guess?”

The girl gave a pained smile as she quickly corrected her own words as Subaru rose from his chair and gave his back a stretch. The young girl in the servant’s outfit—Petra Leyte—gazed at Subaru with her round eyes.

Petra was one of the children living in Earlham Village who’d long befriended Subaru. There was a reason she was dressed in a maid outfit that very moment.

“Gotta say, it’s only two days since asking for maid applicants in the village, and only one since you’ve actually been in the mansion… I’m impressed you were able to find me without getting lost. That’s almost too good for a girl your age away from your parents like this.”

“I’m already twelve years old, plenty old enough to be a working g—I mean, an adult. Master Subaru, please treat me like a proper adult.”

“I’ll think about it when you master polite speech and get Frederica’s stamp of approval. Until then, you’re an apprentice maid in on-the-job-training, so I’m gonna treat you as cute as I feel like!”

Subaru shot the precocious Petra a smile as he mussed her hair with strokes of his hand. Petra gave an enjoyable kya! sound as she squatted, perhaps certain she was making a clean getaway.

Either way, it had been a simple process to get Petra into the mansion as a maid.

Frederica was keenly feeling the limits of a single person’s power to manage the vast mansion. When she’d sought applicants from the village to help her, it was Petra who had responded.

At first, there was concern about her young age, but Petra’s personality and suitability for the job had both proved exceptional.

“Compared to you, Master Subaru, she is highly proficient, and her future prospects are bright. She stands out among all the girls I have taught to date… Ah, Master Subaru, please sit down and relax.”

That was the assessment Frederica had given after instructing Petra over those last two days. As a matter of fact, it was difficult to recruit someone like Petra who could grasp the details of the mansion and its environs in such a short time.

It was enough for her to understand exactly where Subaru had unconsciously let his feet take him—

“You came to say goodbye to Miss Rem, right?”

“…Well, somethin’ like that. I don’t plan to be away that long, but I wanted to see her face. I’m countin’ on you to take care of her while I’m gone, Petra.”

Subaru conveyed his words in a joking tone as he gazed within the bedroom—and at Rem lying on the bed within. Her appearance never changed no matter how many times he came, or how many hours he spent at her side. Even so, he visited when he had time.

“…Master Subaru, it’s almost time to set out, so…”

After Subaru fell silent, Petra tugged at his sleeve, indicating that it was time for him and Petra to part ways. Indulging in her generosity, Subaru said only one final thing:

“…Well, I’m off, then. Be a good girl and wait, ’kay?”

After saying goodbye to Rem’s sleeping face, he brushed his hair back as he left the room.

“Master Subaru, it must be pretty hard for you, having so many people in your thoughts…”

“I feel that’s like what people say to describe a playboy… Ah, well, it’s not like I’m splitting my feelings into two prongs or something, but I have to admit…”

Subaru, heading for the rendezvous point at the mansion entryway, cringed under Petra’s exasperated-sounding verbal assault, despite the fairly indirect way she put it.

That being said, Petra was not referring only to such things, but also to the context of the pair’s current actions.

“I kinda figured I wouldn’t find anything, but no luck here. You?”

“I checked every room, too… Is there really a mysterious room like that here? You’re not playing some kind of trick on me?”

“I can’t fault you for doubting me, but you know that Beatrice really exists, right? That’s the loli in drills you were playing tag with in the mansion a while back.”

“She was in a dress, not ‘in drills’…”

Petra made a stern face toward Subaru’s assertion as she closed the open door of the final room. With that, they had finished checking every door on that floor. Unfortunately, they had not found one that led to the archive of forbidden books.

“When she really wants to hide, it gets seriously rough… What’s up with her, sheesh.”

Looking like he was chewing a bitter insect, Subaru disparaged the girl who had not shown her face whatsoever.

Even though he and Emilia had decided to set off for the Sanctuary, Beatrice’s demeanor in their last encounter was another matter altogether. Over the last couple of days, he’d gone around the mansion searching for her room as much as he could, but the results had not improved.

So he remained in the dark both about her relationship to the Sanctuary and about the truth behind the sad face she’d made—

“I can’t talk to Rem. I can’t meet Beatrice… What the hell have I been doing?”

“Master Subaru?”

“Well, keep an eye out for Beatrice for a bit, would you? Maybe you’ll have a random encounter with her from opening one of these doors once in a while.”

Naturally, even Petra grimaced at Subaru’s unapologetic request. There were a lot of things for her to learn in a new environment. Subaru felt guilty about adding to her burdens, but…

“Sorry, I get it. But you’re the only one I can count on, Petra. I’m really sorry about this.”

“…I’m the only one you can count on?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Frederica was devoted to Rem, but having her pay extra attention to Beatrice was too much to ask. He couldn’t help but think that she was an unsuitable person to entrust Beatrice to at the moment. But Petra seemed a similar age to Beatrice, so excess politeness ought not to be any barrier to contact.

Those were the various factors he’d taken into account when entrusting Beatrice to Petra, but—

“Tee-hee-hee. I guess it can’t be helped… If you put it that way, just leave it to me.”

“Oh, really? Seriously, big help. You’re such a good, goooood girl, Petra.”

Petra’s demeanor suddenly softened. Subaru stroked the smiling girl’s head as he breathed a sigh of relief. Now no night would pass without anyone paying Beatrice any mind.

Though Subaru would truly have liked to have had a chance to exchange words with her one more time…

“Master Subaru, Petra. This way, please.”

As they engaged in such conversation, Emilia and Frederica were already waiting at the entry hall ahead. When Frederica bowed, Petra hurried to her side.

“Petra, you did well to find Master Subaru. A job well done.”

“Thank you, Miss Frederica. Anything about Master Subaru, please leave to me.”

“My, she’s reeeally full of confidence.”

Petra proudly pushing out her chest made Emilia and Frederica look at each other’s face with a smile. When Subaru immediately walked over, Emilia tilted her head a little and offered a greeting.

“Good morning, Subaru. Did you sleep properly?”

“I’m glad you didn’t oversleep from having way too much fun on that picnic, Emilia-tan. Feels like the other guy might’ve done something that stupid, though…”

“Ah, you mean Otto? It’s all right. Otto woke up a long time ago and has been preparing the dragon carriage in front of the mansion.”

“The hell? Sorry I worried, then. But, oh yeah…his life is riding on this, too.”

Talking business with Roswaal would make an enormous difference in Otto’s life as a merchant, be it for good or ill. His drive was that of a man taking up the opportunity of a lifetime, and Subaru felt his high motivation reassuring.

“Plus, I’d better think up some words of consolation for when he’s kicking himself at having come up short…”

“Could you not speak such awful things the moment I come back to call you?!”

Just that instant, Otto’s eyes were wide as he returned, barging into the hall. Subaru listened to the pleasant sound of the morning breeze, taking a deep breath before he made a declaration.

“Well, now that we’ve had our clichéd banter, let’s be off!”

“Do you not feel even a single shred of guilt?! Well, ahh, not that it really matters!”

Otto, splendidly swept up in the flow, was drawn along as everyone headed out to the mansion’s courtyard. The dragon carriage was already parked in front of the entrance, with a jet-black land dragon and a blue land dragon perfectly in order.

In particular, the black land dragon—Patlash—stretched out the tip of her nose when she noticed Subaru.

“Just like usual, you really act all friendly toward me, huh?”

“However, it seems the lady concerned is merely saying, ‘You may stroke me if you wish’…”

“Her breed’s supposed to be really proud. Is that really the only thing left from her rearing…?”

Subaru put on a skeptical face at Otto’s cross-species translation, an effect of his language blessing.

Everyone’s lips treated Patlash as if she was temperamental, but in truth, from the time he’d first met her, Subaru hadn’t felt any such thing, only great amiability. Even now, when he reached out his palm and rubbed her neck, the corners of her mouth were relaxed, and she was fond of people as far as he could tell.

“I really don’t understand why. What, did I save you in a past life or something?”

Putting aside the notion of reincarnation, he was in a different world, so it wasn’t likely a past life had anything to do with it. It’s probably just simple compatibility, thought Subaru, and he left it at that. And that was one of the few strokes of good fortune that had bounced Subaru’s way.

“Of course, to me, the number one stroke of good fortune was meeting Emilia-tan!”

“Eh? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear quite right. Can you say that again?”

“It’s pretty embarrassing, so I can’t force it out a second time! I’ll say it tomorrow!”

When Subaru hung his head, playing dumb as a defensive measure, Emilia went “Really?” with a mystified look. However, she immediately switched mental gears and turned to face Frederica.

“Well, please take care of the mansion…Rem, Petra, and Beatrice included.”

“You can count on me, Lady Emilia. Please take care on your journey— Also, take this…”

Just as Subaru had done, Emilia freshly entrusted matters to Frederica. Frederica accepted the responsibility with a bow; finally, she offered something that came from her pocket.

This was a necklace—a necklace adorned with a glimmering, blue, transparent crystal.

“With this, you will be able to penetrate the forest barrier and enter the Sanctuary. After that, I have instructed the land dragons as to the location, so they shall surely lead the way.”

“So that crystal is the condition for passing through the barrier, huh…? That’s what took two days to arrange?”

Subaru peered at the glimmering crystal in Frederica’s hand, twisting his neck slightly in artless skepticism. The crystal looked rare. She hadn’t left in those two days, so how had she obtained it?

Frederica covered her mouth and laughed in response to Subaru’s skepticism.

“Strictly speaking, the two days of preparation were not for this alone…but the two are not unrelated. At any rate, the place and qualifications are in order. The rest comes down to resolve and a strong will.”

“Pretty exaggerated way of talking. Not that I mind…,” Frederica said gravely.

“Mm, I understand that it’s reeeally precious to you. I will take proper care not to lose…Frederica?” Emilia said, knitting her brows and nodding.

When Emilia’s hand took the crystal offered to her, Frederica strongly grasped that hand.

“…”

Instantly, emerald and violet gazes intertwined, and Frederica’s cheeks faintly stiffened. But she followed the impulse to harden her cheeks by closing her eyes, quietly letting go of Emilia’s hand as she spoke.

“Lady Emilia, please take care of the Sanctuary. And do not forget about what we discussed.”

“Y-yes, it’s all right. Just what kind of place the Sanctuary is, and…”

“Please…be mindful of Garfiel.”

“Mm, I get it. I’ll give Garfiel my attention. Count on it.”

Emilia gravely accepted the repeated warnings as she stuffed the crystal handed to her into a pocket. Subaru was watching the exchange to its conclusion, at which point they were just about ready to head out—

“Um! Master Subaru…could you take this with you?”

Red-faced, Petra held up a hand as she offered something to Subaru. She was trying to emulate Frederica as she offered a plain, white handkerchief with her hand.

Subaru, suspicious concerning Frederica’s demeanor, went “Err?” as the gesture caught him completely by surprise.

“A white handkerchief to see you off on your journey. You can clean yourself with it along the way and return it when you get back—I understand it’s not done much these days, but it’s an old custom to wish for someone’s safe return from a journey.”

“Ohh, that sort of thing. Got it. Thanks, Petra. I’ll bring this back to you safe and sound.”

Having been taught the meaning of the handkerchief being given to him, Subaru wrapped it around his wrist. His reply made Petra lower her red face; she gracefully slipped behind Frederica’s back.

“Ah? What’s with that reaction all of a sudden? That difficult-age stuff’s leaving me out on a limb here.”

“From the looks of it, Lady Emilia, Master Subaru has no right to criticize you.”

“Me? Did I say something strange?”

Frederica sighed deeply as both Subaru and Emilia twisted their necks, wondering what was amiss. In the end, they went without an answer to that question as Frederica stuffed the pair into the dragon carriage, all preparations to depart complete.

“Yes, yes. Both of you hurry along now. The Lost Woods of Clemaldy that the Sanctuary is in becomes a dangerous place when night falls.”

“We get it, we get it, geez. On your end, take care of the villagers, ’kay? Also, make sure to dispose of the mayonnaise in storage before it goes bad.”

“I really have to wonder about lining up those two issues in the same sentence…”

With an exasperated voice, she pushed on their backs, and Subaru and Emilia boarded the dragon carriage. When Subaru looked back out the window, two maids, short and tall, stood straight side by side as they looked up at the carriage.

“I pray for your safe return. Please give my best regards to the master and to Ram.”

“Master Subaru, take good care of Big Sis, okay? Also, to the noisy person, good luck.”

“Is that not a horrible assessment of me?!”

Heedless of Otto’s reaction, Frederica and Petra quietly gestured, giving Subaru and the others a completely courteous send-off.

With that send-off pressed to their backs, the dragon carriage powerfully set off.

“Well, all aboard! Otto, we’re counting on ya!”

“I really cannot approve of this treatment…!”

Otto left behind his lament at his treatment, poor to the bitter end, as they departed from the mansion.

Sub-chapter 2.

“And just who taught you about that old custom?”

Right around when the departing dragon carriage vanished from sight, Frederica posed that question to Petra, still bowing right beside her.

The young girl’s big eyes went round at the question as she bashfully said, “I heard about it from Mother. She said it was how she won over Father.”

“So you get that tenacity from your mother, do you? However, it seems the man concerned did not realize its significance.”

“It’s fine. Even if he doesn’t know, if he thinks of me when he looks down at his wrist…”

The reply was more forceful than expected. Frederica gave a strained smile at Petra’s positivity. Truly, she was a precocious girl at a mere twelve years of age— It made Frederica think of Ram.

“She was a woman starting at a young age, too…in great contrast to her ability as a servant, however.”

“Miss Frederica? Is something wrong?”

“Not at all. I was simply thinking of your senior. She should be at the Sanctuary right now, dealing with a particular problem child.”

Thinking back to the girl who accompanied her liege, offering her life to him, Frederica exhaled in melancholic fashion. Her hand reflexively touched the breast pocket of her servant’s uniform.

“Now then, even if Lady Emilia and others are absent, there is still Lady Beatrice here at the mansion. I will have you learn all the basics within a week’s time.”

“Yes! Ready and willing!”

“What a wonderful reply this girl gives…”

With an invigorated look, Petra raised her hand and happily ran into the mansion. Frederica smiled and observed her positive demeanor before finally turning in the direction of the dragon carriage one last time.

Frederica’s beautiful emerald eyes faintly wavered, seemingly resisting the emotions filling her chest as her slender fingers took stationery out of her breast pocket. Then—

“With this, I have done as the master instructed. It all comes down to whether Lady Emilia can overcome the Sanctuary. There is nothing I can do now, save pray.”

Her fingers traced the edges of the letter she had read many times over. Finally, those fingers turned toward her own neck. However, the sensation she sought was nowhere to be found…

“Please, Lady Emilia…be heedful of Garf.”

Sub-chapter 3.

“So that Puck guy really hasn’t shown his face all this time?”

“…Yeah, that’s right. I’ve called out to him over and over, and I can feel the link of the pact…but I’m reeeally worried. It’s not often he doesn’t show his face for a long time like this.”

The interior of the dragon carriage racing toward the Sanctuary in good order echoed with Subaru and Emilia’s conversation.

Thanks to the intervention of the wind repel blessing, neither loud sounds nor shaking were conveyed to the carriage interior. In that quiet atmosphere, they were not trading words about their enthusiasm at approaching the Sanctuary—rather, they were discussing an anomaly that had occurred during the last several days: Puck’s absence.

In those several days, Subaru hadn’t seen any sign of him, Emilia’s contracted spirit and self-declared father figure. Beatrice’s plan had been to conceal herself through the use of Passage; this was different.

“Come to mention it, I hadn’t seen him before getting back to the mansion, either. Since we left Crusch’s, maybe?”

“Mm…since we returned to the mansion, maybe. I really wanted to talk to him about the Sanctuary, but I don’t feel like my voice is reaching him.”

“Does Puck normally disappear from time to time?”

“Errr, it happened a lot before he and I formed our pact…but the frequency’s reeeally gone down since then. Not meeting him for several days makes me a little concerned.”

Subaru folded his arms as Emilia broached the subject of Puck prior to their pact.

It was obvious, but there had been a time before Emilia and Puck were linked. He’d always seen the two together, so imagining them acting separately really didn’t seem right to Subaru, but—

“Do you know where Puck goes when he’s not by your side?”

“I think he’s probably doing something for the sake of world peace.”

“Sounds like a little girl with fantasies about her dad’s work, but if he ain’t here, that’s the least of our problems.”

Setting Emilia’s exaggerated expectations aside, she was the most precious thing to Puck in the entire world. The idea of him abandoning her to run off and do stuff somewhere sounded downright strange.

“Plus with Puck not here, I’m straight-up worried about our combat strength. Otto isn’t exactly a master of the fighting arts, and my insides are all rattling around. Emilia-tan, it’s tough for you without Puck here, right?”

“Subaru, it’s reeeally hard to set aside hearing that your insides are rattling around, but…”

When Emilia gave him an exaggerated stare, Subaru gave a vague smile and waved her off with a hand.

“Goodness…! But relax. Even if Puck isn’t with me, I have my contracts with the minor spirits. Those children can fight, too, so I’ll protect you no matter what happens.”

“Whoa, that’s a real man’s line…! Just wait, someday I’m gonna be able to say that with a straight face.”

“I know. I’ll wait, I’m reeeally looking forward to it.”

She raised a finger, and faintly glowing minor spirits floated all around Emilia.

Subaru figured that, compared to Puck’s, their power was like Earth compared to Heaven, but even so, they had fine combat strength on their own. All the same, it was pathetic to be relying on the only girl in the group, and the one he had his eye on, to do the fighting.

“As for ‘no matter what happens’…Frederica warned us, didn’t she?”

“About Garfiel, yes.”

Emilia shared Subaru’s concerns, lowering her voice as her lips spoke the name.

Garfiel was the name that they’d heard repeatedly from Frederica’s lips over the last two days, the person they needed to be wary of. As a matter of fact, Subaru had heard the name itself several times before that.

“Bunch of times it came up that Roswaal was off to have a chat with the guy. On top of that, Ram spoke the name when the plan to evacuate to the Sanctuary came up, didn’t she…?”

Ram had spoken the name as if he was someone she could trust. But the contradiction with Frederica’s warnings made Subaru question his own judgment.

It wasn’t simply a question of which one, Ram or Frederica, he wished to believe…

“I’ve been around Ram a lot longer, but her usual attitude makes me wanna shove that aside…!”

“I wish Frederica had told us about it in more detail, but…she said she was constrained by a vow not to speak about the Sanctuary, so it couldn’t be helped.”

“All the same, I sure have been hearing a lot about vows and stuff…”

Subaru leaned back in his seat as he made a sound of dissatisfaction in his throat.

In fact, Frederica hadn’t really said much about the Sanctuary. What she’d conveyed to Subaru and the others had been limited to the special characteristics and dangers of the place, where it was located, and the name of a particularly dangerous individual. She’d helped them pass through the barrier, but her cooperation had ended at that.

“Compared to that, she sure said to watch out for Garfiel a lot, including right before we left… Do people at the mansion have some sort of quota for cryptic statements?”

“I don’t think there’s any such thing, but that was Frederica doing all she could. We should be grateful she warned us as much as she did without breaking her vow.”

“I’d be even more grateful if she wasn’t bound by that vow, though…”

“Don’t sulk. A vow is a holy, inviolate pledge, not something one should breach for any reason. Vows, pacts, and covenants may bear different weight, but they should all be treated with equal respect.”

Emilia wagged a finger left and right as she spoke those words, seemingly for Subaru’s benefit.

It went without saying that Emilia was obstinate when it came to oaths of any kind. To Subaru, vows, pacts, and covenants were simple wordplay; the two appreciated their importance in very divergent ways.

“I’m not saying you should break pledges every which way, but…there’s a time and a place for everything, right?”

“Absolutely not. Oaths…promises are very important. Properly speaking, there’s nothing forcing you to uphold a promise, but people uphold their promises anyway. They work hard to uphold them, don’t they? Even if no one’s watching, even if no one notices, they do it, because the other party believes they will do so.”

Emilia touched her chest, staring at Subaru in dismay at his words. Her tone of voice was gentle, with no hint whatsoever of reproach. The words hurt all the more for it.

“It’s because people believe in you that you strive to uphold the promises you’ve made. A promise is like a ritual tying two people together through mutual trust, isn’t it?”

Subaru crept onto the carriage’s seemingly rock-steady floor and bowed his head straight down. When he apologetically touched his forehead to the floor, Emilia went “Ah,” touching a hand to her own lips. “Um, I’m not trying to criticize you, Subaru. Certainly, you didn’t uphold your promise with me, and if you do it again I’ll be rather annoyed, but…”

“The pain, the pain, my ears hurt!!”

“Also, I’ve reflected on being too emotional about it. I needed to make up with you right away, Subaru, but I was being stubborn. Sorry.”

“The pain, the pain, my chest hurts!!”

“Hey, um, I am a spirit mage, so oaths hit reeeally close to home with me. To a spirit mage, pacts with spirits are extremely important, so…yes, promises are really important. Subaru, you should reflect on that more, after all.”

“The pain, the pain, my heart hurts!!”

As Emilia began to sulk, perhaps from the deep melancholy of the time coming back, Subaru lay prostrate before her.

At that moment, he could truly appreciate why Emilia had flown into such a rage in the waiting room at the royal palace: unaware of just how insensitive he was being, Subaru had been trampling on the most important parts of Emilia’s psyche.

“You’ve reflected on the error of your ways?”

“I’ve reflected. Deeper than the sea, taller than the mountains, wider than the sky, vaster than outer space.”

“Then it is fine. I forgive you… I’m not sure what you mean by outer space, though.”

As Subaru wore a pathetic look on his face, Emilia nodded toward him and smiled pleasantly as she touched a finger to her own lips. The charming smile bore no hint of anger; the adorable gesture made the look on Subaru’s face crumble.

He was deeply grateful to Emilia for smiling and forgiving him for the way they’d parted ways in the capital. At the same time, he thought anew that she was not the only one he needed to apologize to for his behavior that day.

“It seems that we’ve entered the forest.”

As Subaru immersed himself in thought, Emilia’s voice suddenly pulled him back. Her eyes were turned toward the window; the change in the landscape had apparently told her they were nearing their destination.

The Sanctuary was said to be protected by a special barrier well within the deep-green forest.

There, in that place, were Rem and Roswaal, two other parties to whom Subaru needed to apologize.

“Well, setting Ram aside, I might have a duty to apologize, but I think I have just as much of a right to smack Roswaal in the side of the face.”

“…Yeah, I suppose so.”

“I’ll start with ‘Do you have any idea what I had to go through because you weren’t around?!’ And then, I’ll make him spill his guts about everything! I have a right to that much, don’t I?”

“…Yeah, I suppose so.”

“—? Emilia-tan, the side of your face is cute when you’re thinking. Can I give you a hug?”

“…Yeah, I suppose so.”

Subaru didn’t have the courage to go “I’ll help myself, then,” at her cut-and-pasted reply. The stiffness of Emilia’s cheeks and the stress in her eyes drew his attention.

“Emilia-tan, are you nervous by any chance?”

“—! That’s amazing, how could you tell?”

“I’d love to say I can tell everything about you, but I think anyone could in this case.”

Emilia’s look of surprise brought a strained smile out of Subaru as he prodded his own cheek with a finger. Emilia followed suit by touching her own cheek, whereupon she realized just how tense her own expression was.

“Sorry to worry you. I was thinking, we’ll be in the Sanctuary soon…a village only for demi-humans.”

“…Ahh, that so? I’m sorry, too. I hadn’t thought about that.”

When Emilia divulged the reason for her nervousness, Subaru felt pathetic for not realizing it himself.

According to Frederica’s explanation, the Sanctuary was not merely a settlement for demi-human races. It was a settlement where “demi-humans in particular circumstances” came to settle. So it was possible that—

There might be half-elves who went through the same stuff Emilia did…

“…I’ve…never met any half-elves besides myself. I hadn’t really…thought about it very much. But in the Sanctuary, it might be possible…”

Emilia’s voice trembled with nervousness. But he couldn’t tell if that nervousness was from worry or hope. Emilia probably couldn’t tell, either.

The only way to get a solid answer was to go to the Sanctuary and see. But—

“—! Emilia?!”

“Eh, ah… What’s this…?!”

The next moment, Subaru and Emilia simultaneously raised their voices at the strange occurrence inside the carriage.

The source of the occurrence was none other than Emilia, herself quite nervous. A blue radiance was welling up from inside her chest, instantly tinting the interior of the dragon carriage with a bluish glow.

Startled by the light, Emilia thrust a hand into her pocket—and pulled out the shining blue crystal emitting that light.

“The crystal’s shining… Subaru!”

“The hell… I have a really bad feelin’ about this! Emilia, I’m borrowing that!”

Thinking that the ferociously shining blue crystal looked much like a magic crystal on the verge of exploding, Subaru instantly snatched the crystal away from Emilia. Then he rushed to the dragon carriage’s window—

“If it’s nothing we’ll pick it up later! For now, I’ll toss it outs—wait, wha—?!”

“—aa…”

Just as he was about to throw the dangerous object away, the faint moan made Subaru look back, aghast.

“Emilia?!”

When he looked back, his gaze was met by the sight of Emilia listlessly collapsed onto the dragon carriage’s floor. Emilia was prone, limbs spread out and unconscious. It had happened suddenly without any forewarning—

“No, the forewarning was this?! Shit, Emilia, are you all ri—?!”

For an instant, Subaru hesitated in deciding whether to prioritize Emilia or the crystal. Prioritizing Emilia’s safety, he was attempting to rush to her side when—

“—Ah? Hey?!”

The instant he stepped forward, the blue, shining crystal emitted an even stronger light that enveloped Subaru’s entire body.

He had no time to regret his choice of priorities. The next instant, the world vanished.

“Emilia—!”

He stretched out a hand and shouted.

However, neither his voice nor his arm reached the fallen girl before the air connecting him to her was severed.

“”

It was over in an instant. Feeling the shine of the light, Subaru swiveled his head, but he couldn’t see a thing.

The world had been erased—no, rather, it had been temporarily blotted out by being bathed in a light too strong for his sense of sight. Blinking repeatedly, he finally realized that contours were gradually forming within his indistinct vision.

But regaining his sense of vision did not put his confusion to rest.

After all…

“…Where is this?”

He was not in the dragon carriage’s interior, where he should have been. Rather, Subaru was standing in an unfamiliar forest, alone.

Sub-chapter 4.

“—! Not the time to say that! Where’s Emilia?!”

Setting aside his momentary daze, Subaru surveyed the area, desperately striving to grasp the situation.

Trees suggestive of being deep in a forest stood left, right, and center around him. Moss and grasses stretched unhindered at his feet, without the faintest trace of human passage.

“Cheek… Ow, it hurts when I pinch! Meaning this isn’t a dream…!”

Ruling out the choice of avoiding reality, Subaru largely grasped just what had happened to him.

It was the shining crystal in his hand. The powerful light that had shone until just prior had already vanished, but there was no way it was unrelated to his circumstance. It was probably the blue, shining crystal that was the cause to begin with.

“—Teleportation. Kinda like Beatrice’s Passage.”

The mechanism was unclear, but Subaru, having been shifted by similar incantations in the past, made an educated guess. He’d experienced Passage a number of times during his dealings with Beatrice.

The problems were the reason and purpose behind the shift, and how to rendezvous with Emilia and the others.

“Plus, Emilia was on the floor when I left. I’ve gotta get back ASAP…!”

If the shift was from something similar to Passage, Subaru’s jump couldn’t have been that far. At the very least, it ought not to have been to some far-flung place on a map of the world. At the very least, he must be in the same forest.

“I mean, it was all Beatrice could do to send me as far as Earlham Village. There’s no way this rock has enough power to send me farther than that.”

Coming to that conclusion, Subaru smoldered with impatience as he gazed down at the crystal in his palm.

The crystal had been the cause of the shift. Having momentarily hesitated to throw it away, he’d ended up stuffing it in a pocket instead. Though walking around with it was dangerous, he was scared of throwing it away in case he might need it later.

Besides, he didn’t know Frederica’s intentions in handing them the crystal.

—Or even whether Frederica was related to the shift.

“Shit! Right now, gotta save the thinking for later. If I can at least figure out direction from the location of the sun…”

Brushing excessive thoughts aside, Subaru racked his brain to raise his chances of a rendezvous by any extent he could manage. Then, when he was about to begin walking in search of any clearing in the forest—

“…aa?”

The next moment, Subaru lifted his head, coming eye to eye with the figure appearing right before him.

“”

The unexpected jolt of meeting the unemotional eyes brought Subaru’s thought process to a complete halt. If the other party had intended him harm, the opening would have proved fatal.

But, fortunately, the opponent made no reaction. Save for backing away slowly, Subaru was the same.

“And you…are?”

When Subaru took a step back, the other person’s entire body entered his field of vision, and he comprehended this was a girl.

The young girl had long, rose-colored hair and looked like she was in her early teens. Her visage had almond-shaped eyes and a long, refined nose; her skin had a pale, fleeting look, as if it would break apart the moment you touched it. In height, she did not even reach halfway up Subaru’s chest. Her small body was clothed only in a white, poncho-like garment.

A doll—that was the impression he received, not from her beautiful appearance, but from the air hovering all about her. She had emotionless eyes, an emotionless, unchanging face, with a muted presence and so little apparent willpower that it felt insufficient for a person.

But she had one feature that strongly tugged at his attention. Namely—

“Those long ears… Are you an elf?”

“…”

When Subaru asked the question, the girl’s doll-like expression remained intact as she said nothing. However, the tapered ears, longer than those of a normal human, poking out of her rose-colored hair told Subaru that the answer to his question was, without doubt, a yes.

Subaru had been speaking to Emilia about the possibility of encountering half-elves besides her just moments before. Subaru’s thoughts were exceedingly thrown off by the surprise of encountering an elf in the flesh so very quickly. Furthermore—

“Aa…! W-wait! Where do you think you’re going?!”

Moving like an apparition, the girl turned her back on Subaru and ran off. It was so sudden that Subaru reacted late, and began pursuing the girl in great haste as she widened the distance.

“Wait! Please, wait…! Are you…are you someone from the Sanctuary…?”

The agile girl practically flew as she raced into the overgrown woods. Subaru, desperately pursuing her over bad and unfamiliar footing, felt pain rising as his breath rapidly grew louder.

“S-shit… Damn it all!”

How was the forest related to the Sanctuary, and to begin with, who was that girl—?

Knowing that asking would only deplete his endurance, Subaru gritted his teeth and focused his strength into his legs.

For several minutes, Subaru proceeded to chase the girl’s fleeting back as if his life depended on it. Then his field of vision suddenly widened.

“—! I got through the woods…but where the heck is this?”

Coming to a stop in the clearing, Subaru bent his knees as he breathed raggedly over and over. He wiped off the sweat coursing down his brow. When he raised his agonized, grimacing face, Subaru found a strange structure ahead of him.

The structure, constructed from stones piled onto one another, was a ruin of particularly primitive architecture.

Most of the outer facing was covered in green moss and vines; the few exposed portions of the rock face were spectacularly cracked. It was unclear how many centuries had passed since its construction, but, considering that the structure was half-overrun by the forest, it hadn’t been buried to start with, making it at least several centuries old.

The ruin, standing in the tranquil forest air, seemed like a temple, or perhaps—

“It kinda feels like a tomb. For a sec, I thought it was a pyramid… Hey, wait a…!”

Thrusting his admiration for the ruin aside, Subaru hastily looked for any sign of the girl he was pursuing. He’d arrived by following the girl there; she was the real priority.

But however much he surveyed the area, the girl who ought to have been there was nowhere to be found. Her presence, her lingering scent, and even her footsteps were absent. It was clear as day that he’d lost track of her.

“This is the worst… After I get teleported, I let my only lead get away…!”

Roughly scratching his head, Subaru despaired from the bottom of his heart at his own ineptitude. But he had no time to be down in the dumps. Even if the girl, his one lead, had vanished—

“Maybe I can hope for something from this ruin…? It kinda feels like a temple, so I can’t call it unrelated to someplace called the Sanctuary…”

Wishful thinking though it might be, Subaru cautiously began walking toward the ruin. Even when he saw it up close, his initial impression of the stone structure didn’t change all that much.

There was no sign whatsoever of human presence, of human handiwork, or any sense that a living soul dwelled there.

“Heyyy, is anyone here? If this is the Sanctuary, someone answer, please—!”

Though he called out to the ruin and the surrounding forest in a loud voice, it echoed fruitlessly in the air. Sighing deeply when he did not get the hoped-for response, Subaru grudgingly walked around the ruin—

“—Well, there’s an entrance…”

About halfway around the ruin, Subaru spotted a set of moss-covered stairs. When he climbed the stairs, careful not to slip, he found an opening with a dimly lit passage within—no doubt continuing into the ruin. He’d found his entrance.

Naturally, the interior of the ruin was not lit, and the corridor he saw from the entrance continued into darkness. Even when he timidly called out, he heard nothing but the lonely echo of his own voice.

Put bluntly, he didn’t have a good premonition in the slightest, but it is said that one can only get a tiger cub by going into a tiger’s den.

“Not that I really want a tiger cub…but if it’s the girl who brought me here earlier, turning back now would be giving up the store.”

Having come that far, Subaru did not doubt that the girl and the ruin were related. If the teleportation via the crystal was related to the girl as well, the ruin had to be related to the Sanctuary.

In the first place, it should have been Emilia, the one possessing the crystal, who was teleported.

“Then it being me instead of Emilia wasn’t part of the plan… Whether snake or Oni, only way to know is to see what pops out…”

The very fact that he’d been teleported had already limited their options. With no clear way to rendezvous with Emilia, Subaru decided it was best to accept the invitation and play along for the moment.

“…”

Breathing deep, Subaru clenched his teeth and stepped into the ruin.

He employed the trick of keeping his right hand constantly against a wall to never lose his way in the dark. The sensation against his hand was less of a stone wall than of the slender, delicate vines covering it. The vines had overgrown the passage so thickly that it was hard to tell where the original wall stood, and it felt more like the artery of a living entity—the bizarre atmosphere of the ruin itself made him feel like he was entering the body of some giant creature.

“…”

The only things he could hear in the darkness were his own breathing, his loudly beating heart, and his shoes.

He had lost his sense of sight due to lack of light, and the cold, serene air robbed him of all use of his nose. His sense of hearing loomed large in his mind, but at some point, he’d lost track of the wall that he’d been touching.

The feeling on his tongue was that of air mixed with sand and dust. Tasting nothing despite the sensation, Subaru relied more and more on his sense of hearing. The sounds of his shoes, his heartbeats, and his breathing were the only things he could depend on.

These things proved to him that he was connected to the world, not adrift for all eternity.

His sweating increased, his heart quickened, and his soul raged, pleading for release.

Where he was, what he was doing, whom he sought—these things grew vague.

But he was seized by a powerful drive not to stand still. Someone kept pleading with him not to stop, to grit his teeth and bear the weight he carried on his shoulders. At some point, his mind became churned.

The still-echoing voice, the warmth of a touch, an earnest plea, all mingled together when—

“I see. This is the desire that drives you. How curious, I must say.”

Amid the darkness, Subaru Natsuki heard the amused voice of a Witch.

Sub-chapter 5.

Returning to the moment in the story when Subaru found himself facing the Witch on top of a hill…

“”

A faint wind tickled the back of Subaru’s neck, rekindling the chill that traveled up his spine. His back was moist from a great deal of cold sweat, and the overwhelming pressure he was under had not abated at all.

He stood opposite the girl—Echidna—as she sat in a white chair, doing nothing besides tilting her teacup.

“It hurts to see you so on guard. However I seem to you, am I not but a single, innocent maiden?”

“…Sorry, but lowering my guard for a girl I just met declaring herself the Witch of Greed is seriously not happening.”

“Ah, I see. Certainly, that was another oversight on my part.”

Echidna touched the back of her hand to her lips as she giggled and smiled in an amused fashion. The sight of the nonchalant girl did not drain the tension from Subaru, who remained ready to rush her at any moment. He opened and closed his sweat-drenched hands, as prepared as he could be to instantly overwhelm his opponent.

The problem was that such preparations, full or not, were likely futile before Echidna.

“There are a mountain of things you wish to ask. However, you do not know what may cause me to take offense. Therefore, you watch how your opponent moves in silence… The demeanor of a bird watching its prey, is it not?”

“”

“And you ignore me? Goodness, that wounds me on a fundamental level. As you can see, I am nothing more than an innocent maiden. I cannot help but wonder when a boy gazes at me with such eyes.”

“You being a maiden on the inside is like a piece of paper with death flag written on the backside. Just so you know, my internal danger alarm is ringing like crazy.”

Having experienced death repeatedly since arriving in that world, Subaru had an acute nose for danger. It hadn’t diminished the number of his deaths at all, but it at least allowed his mind to keep functioning.

According to his senses, the danger posed by the girl before him rivaled that of the White Whale and Sloth—no, it exceeded them.

“It is natural for you to be on guard, but a coward like you can do nothing to me, can you? At the very least, I would like you to sit before the tea goes cold.”

Speaking these words, Echidna offered Subaru the empty seat opposite her. On the white table between the two rested a cup of steaming tea, likely poured for Subaru’s benefit.

Sit down, drink her tea, speak with her—that was what Echidna requested.

Nothing would improve even if he refused. Indeed, the odds things would get worse were higher that way. Subaru had virtually no choice but to accept.

“Let me ask you one thing… I was inside a ruin that was completely dark. Where is this, and when did I get teleported here?”

“Teleport… Ah, you mean that Dark spell. Unfortunately, you have misunderstood. What you experienced was not physical movement through space. I simply invited you into my castle for tea.”

“Into your castle…for tea…?”

Subaru knitted his brows at Echidna’s words, turning his eyes to the hill’s surroundings once more.

The hill stood at the center of grassland rustled by the wind that seemed to continue infinitely. In all four directions, the world was completely flat with no obstacles to be seen, full of a sense of liberation. It was downright surreal.

The fact that this didn’t seem like a real place lent weight to Echidna’s claim that he hadn’t been teleported.

“But there’s no castle here. If this is your territory, did some debt collector walk off with everything except two chairs and a table?”

“Tee-hee-hee. You are amusing. Except for fellow Witches, I cannot even count on my hands the number of those who would speak with such impudence before me. I never thought the number would increase after my own death.”

With a lighthearted laugh, Echidna counted the memories on her fingers, delighted with Subaru’s reply.

Subaru grimaced. He couldn’t simply ignore her demeanor, nor the significance of after my own death.

In the first place, he had to consider her self-declared title. When he combined it with the current supernatural circumstance, he had no reason to doubt Echidna’s identity or her power.

“Aw, shit! All right, all right already! I’ll sit! I’ll drink your tea!”

With no way to advance or retreat, Subaru did the only thing he could out of visible despair, sitting across from Echidna and practically snatching the steaming cup from the table, draining its contents all at once.

It was neither water, nor green tea, nor black. The drink had a mysterious flavor that wasn’t unpleasant.

For the first time, Echidna’s eyes went wide in apparent surprise at Subaru’s disdainful actions.

“To drink something offered by a Witch in one gulp… You are quite a brave soul.”

“Hah?! Like chickening out at this point is gonna do me any good. For starters, if you wanted to kill me, you’ll probably turn me to ash the next instant. No point being on my guard about one cup of tea.”

Subaru waved off the smiling Echidna’s words, saying “Thank you for the drink” as he put the teacup down.

“It wasn’t particularly good- or bad-tasting. What kind of tea is this…?”

“It is generated from my castle. I suppose you could call it my body fluids.”

“Damn it, why’d you make me drink that?!”

Subaru leaped from the chair to his feet, then went down onto his knees in what seemed to be an attempt to vomit what he had just imbibed. Echidna giggled and smiled at Subaru’s exaggerated reaction.

“You wound me. When I examine my appearance, I do not think I seem quite that evil.”

“No matter how beautiful the girl, I don’t wanna drink anyone’s fluids without being ready for it! Wait, I can’t drink anything called body fluids, prepared or not!! I’m not a damn pervert!!”

At the very least Subaru didn’t think he was inclined toward becoming aroused by secret ingredients like saliva and sweat.

“Shit, can’t vomit it out…! Hey, this isn’t gonna make me sick, is it?!”

“You may rest at ease. They are body fluids, after all, and thus readily absorbed by the flesh.”

“That isn’t exactly good news, so quit it with that face!”

Echidna’s demeanor came off as proud for some reason, which made Subaru wince. Echidna carried on.

“Putting that aside, you are indeed a mysterious individual. The fact that you can stand unaffected before me like this is proof enough.”

“What? Are you so beautiful that people normally shut their eyes when they see you? Just to make it clear, my eyes are fed a steady diet of the most beautiful girl around as far as I’m concerned. When I look at you, I can only go ‘Wow, she’s cute’ so many times.”

“No, a normal person in my presence would vomit. Amusing, isn’t it?”

“What’s amusing about that?!”

These exchanges, filled with concerning thoughts since the beginning of their time together, made Subaru feel exhausted in body and spirit as he slumped into his chair. He took another glance at the Witch before his eyes.

She had white, seemingly bleached hair, and a black dress that seemed like something a person would wear at a funeral. Somehow, she seemed at once fickle and baby-faced, yet also mysteriously seductive. She certainly possessed a face that stirred the heart.

But he felt pressure from her that was wholly undiluted, marking her as no normal being.

“Now then, while I am most pleased to have a fresh conversation partner like this, that is not the case for you, is it? You have things you wish to ask me, yes?”

“…That, that’s right! I got swallowed up by the mood, but that’s right. You’re… No, before that, where is this place? I should be in some weird ruin. How’d I end up in your castle?”

After the teleportation, Subaru had entered the ruin in search of clues about the Sanctuary. Somehow, he’d blindly stumbled into Echidna’s castle—the realm of the Witch of Greed.

“In the first place…are you really a Witch? According to what I’d heard, aside from the Witch of Jealousy, every other Witch in the world had been killed…”

“Whatever doubts you might harbor, you are not mistaken in that assessment. Jealousy destroyed the other six Witches, and I am no exception. This is merely my tomb.”

“Tomb… You mean I’m inside your grave?”

Echidna’s collected reply made Subaru recall the sense he’d had before entering the ruin—that the solemn atmosphere was suggestive of a temple, or a tomb.

His gut feeling had been right. The ruin was, properly speaking, a tomb. But it was the tomb of a Witch.

“After my death, my soul became a captive of this place, the Witches’ Tomb. It is not my body but my spirit that has invited you into my castle. Put one way, you are inside my dream.”

“Just the spirit, is that even possible? Meaning my body’s sleeping outside somewhere?”

“Why is it not possible? You know of a space similar to this, do you not?”

“”

Echidna’s probing question caused Subaru’s breath to catch, a reaction even he found suspicious.

Nothing came to mind. Yet, why was there a strange hesitance in his heart?

“…I don’t know what you’re referring to, but what you’re saying isn’t wrong.”

Echidna’s words were not lies. However, nor was Subaru’s answer any kind of deceit.

When told that he was inside a dream, Subaru was both surprised and quick to accept…as if his heart alone instantly understood the impression that world gave off.

As to why he thought so, he could not find the reason anywhere within his memories, but…

“I get that this is inside a dream and inside of your tomb. So how do I get out of here?”

“The method of awakening from a dream is simple. You must either strongly will yourself to awaken, or be awoken from the outside. Though it must be said, mine is a special dream. You might not be able to awaken unless I will it to be so.”

“—! Then don’t tell me you…!”

Subaru’s gaze sharpened as Echidna’s emotionless statement shocked him.

The words inside a dream and Witch’s castle suddenly weighed heavier in his mind. If Subaru’s spirit was a prisoner there, both Subaru’s flesh and his soul were in the palm of her hand.

“You don’t intend to let me escape, then…?”

“Ah, it’s not really like that. If you really want to go back, I’ll send you back. I mean, it’s not that I called you here. You intruded all on your own, you know.”

“Can’t you do something about my sense of tension? Mr. Serious can’t breathe like this, okay?”

“That is because, unlike you, Mr. Serious is not standing before me. Perhaps he is vomiting behind a tree?”

Mentally exhausted from Echidna smoothly spewing poison, Subaru was completely thrown off his stride. In the end, he still wondered just why Echidna had made contact with him.

Or was it really nothing more than the Witch responding to the arrival of a guest—

“You said you didn’t call me. In other words, the elf who was outside isn’t involved in this? Or this crystal?”

Subaru rummaged in his pocket, locating the blue crystal with his hand. Since she’d told him he was invited in spirit only, he was worried about what he was carrying, but Subaru had apparently arrived with everything he’d had on him.

However, when Echidna received Subaru’s question, she put an elbow to the table.

“Unfortunately, though my complexion is in good order, I am quite dead. I know little of the happenings outside of my tomb. Therefore, I am not related either to the elf you speak of or to that blue crystal. Are you satisfied?”

“I’m unsatisfied ’cause it means everything’s still a big mystery. But that’s the stuff I wanted to ask.”

Subaru nodded at Echidna’s reply, returning the crystal to his pocket as he rose to his feet. He was unsure whether the crystal’s teleportation was truly unrelated to the Witch or not, but he had no reason to stay there any longer.

Staying and chatting over tea left his primary objective, rendezvousing with Emilia, unaccomplished.

“At any rate, if you’re gonna send me back, then send me. I’m super-worried about the girl I got split off from on the outside. If I’ve got the time to drink your body fluids, I wanna meet back up with her at the earliest second possible.”

“I do not mind, but are you really fine with that?”

“With what…?”

“Leaving my little tea party—others wishing to speak with the Witch of Greed rarely have the opportunity, even if you do.”

When she said it, Subaru realized it for the first time.

He realized the true nature of the malaise he’d felt from the being called Echidna since arriving in that place—the strange oppressive feeling that continued without any hint of gradually abating.

“”

Echidna’s deep, black, bottomless eyes had a suspicious glint to them, as if they knew everything about Subaru.

The true nature of that ill feeling was Echidna’s inexhaustible curiosity.

It was her deep interest in the existence before her eyes that made her scrutinizing gaze feel so oppressive.

“What are you? …Do you know the things I want to know?”

“And so you ask me the nature of my knowledge— Truly, you are an amusing one.”

Subaru made his rapidly drying mouth move, wringing out his voice for the question he tossed her way. The words made Echidna giggle and smile, and Subaru’s entire body was wrenched by a sense of oppression even greater than before.

“There is no need to reflect deeply upon it. All that is required for questions and answers is for two beings to be present.”

That instant, the air warped, and the landscape—the vast, blue sky and the grassland—suddenly began to fall apart. The sky cracked, the grassland melted, and the horizon of the world was smashed into tiny pieces.

As the world crumbled without a sound, Subaru touched the table, seemingly clinging to the one certain thing left. The table, too, crumbled into dust, and Subaru closed his eyes, seemingly girding himself against a nonexistent tremor.

“All we need are words. Your curiosity, your hunger to know—I acknowledge your greed.”

Then he realized it: All that remained of the castle of dreams was the hill, and chairs for the two of them.

Subaru gingerly opened his eyes and sat in the opposite chair as he gazed at the Witch. Aside from her and the white chair, the world had been stripped down to its barest essentials, with nothing but gloomy, stagnant darkness spread over where the grassland had been. The one thing he was certain of was if he fell into it, there would be no coming back.

That sent a chill running up Subaru’s spine as Echidna, in high spirits, joyfully clapped her hands toward him.

“Now, what do you wish to ask about? Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony, creator of beasts in defiance of the will of Heaven to save the world from starvation? Camilla, the Witch of Lust, filled with love for the world, granter of emotions to they that are inhuman? Minerva, the Witch of Wrath, who, lamenting a world filled with conflict, sets people straight through her fists? Sekhmet, the Witch of Sloth, who, wanting a moment’s peace, drove the dragons beyond the Great Waterfalls for that reason alone? Or Typhon, the Witch of Pride, the young, innocent, merciless one who continued to render judgment onto sinners?”

He’d never heard of these—no, these were lost vestiges of history unrecorded in the present world.

Hearing her speak the name of one Witch after another, Subaru was speechless. Echidna smiled all the more as she continued.

“Or perhaps Echidna, the Witch of Greed, the embodiment of craving for knowledge, whose search for any and all wisdom lingers even after unto the afterlife?”

Touching a hand to her own breast, Echidna said the words in a self-depreciating fashion. “Or perhaps,” she continued, “the Witch of Jealousy, the abominable woman who destroyed and consumed the other six, and made the whole world her enemy?”

Sub-chapter 6.

Subaru Natsuki felt a powerful aura of death in the form of the girl seated before his eyes.

That was the desolate insight Subaru had gained about Echidna, proven by her own witchy ways.

She was a being nothing like him. It had nothing whatsoever to do with her enmity, or lack thereof.

In the face of truly inescapable terror, it was easy for a person’s emotional responses to go on lockdown.

“Awww. It seems I have intimidated you too greatly. It has always been thus; my lips grow too loose when I become interested in something. A Witch’s nature is truly a troublesome thing.”

With Subaru cowed into silence, Echidna remained seated as she voiced words of self-reflection. However, there was not a single trace of actual reflection. The wall separating the two remained absolute.

The true nature of the malaise he’d subconsciously ignored until he realized its presence was laid bare a second time.

“Knowing that makes me feel rather lonely. But you should begin to adjust to it soon. I hope that this circumstance, where you cannot even look directly at my face, changes somewhat…”

Echidna’s bizarre statement made Subaru grimace; the fear he tasted froze him stiff. But Echidna tilted her head, the black eyes she trained upon the uncomprehending Subaru indicating anticipation of some kind.

Her white, bleached, beautiful hair fell down onto her shoulders. As Subaru gazed at it, he felt as if the agonizing seconds would extend for all eternity—but this came to a sudden halt.

“Haaa—ah?”

“Mm, faster than I thought. That is a compatible person for you. It is helpful that you acclimated so quickly.”

“What…are you…talking about?”

As Echidna nodded and smiled in satisfaction, Subaru broke out in a cold sweat and restrained his chest with a hand. His heart was loud, as if it had forgotten how to beat for a while, and his painfully numb limbs pleaded for mercy.

However, he had escaped the fear that had held him in its grip until a moment before. It had vanished like magic.

“You drank my tea, yes? That activated your Witch Factor and strengthened your resistance. Now you and I can speak. My, my, a very good thing for both of us, is it not?”

“Wait, wait, wait… I’ve heard that term before… I can’t just let it go. What did those body fluids from before do? What did you to do my body?”

“Please do not misunderstand… I did not have you drink it with ill intent. If anything, I think rather fondly of you… That is a little embarrassing to say out loud.”

Echidna’s cheeks reddened a bit, and she looked shy at having spoken so affectionately of him. But at that point Subaru was well past reacting to her games. What he wanted was her true intent.

“You have killed someone possessing Witch Factor in the last several days, yes? Upon his death, the Witch Factor selected you as its new bearer. It is thanks to this that you were able to safely enter my tomb.”

“So you’re saying…the Witch Factor is the condition for being invited into this castle of dreams?”

“No, it is merely what qualified you to enter the tomb itself. You are an exception among exceptions. To begin with, you seem to have leaped quite a bit ahead of schedule—by rights, you should be aware of far more than you are…about me, about the tomb, and about the Sanctuary.”

“—! You know about the Sanctuary?!”

Pouncing on the term lobbed his way, Subaru closed the distance and grasped Echidna’s shoulders. When Subaru touched her slender shoulders and drew his face near, the beautiful Witch averted her gaze.

“…I have little experience in such matters, so I cannot decide if you are brave or simply brazen.”

“Don’t make light of this! If you know about the Sanctuary, that makes this simple! Is this…no, do you know about the forest outside of the ruin? Should I think of that as the Sanctuary?”

“You’re so cold. But you asked, so I shall answer: It is so. As you hoped, the area outside the ruin is the Sanctuary. Properly speaking, the Sanctuary is the name given to the place that protects this tomb.”

“Then…!”

If he got out of the castle of dreams, raced out of the ruin, and cut through the forest, he could rendezvous with Emilia and the others. Even if he didn’t meet Emilia, he ought to be able to meet those dwelling in the Sanctuary and get out of his predicament.

All that meant the elf who’d led him there was indeed a resident of the Sanctuary.

“All of a sudden, I wanna go outside even more. You said you’d send me there, right?”

“Eh? Ahh, I guarantee it… I guarantee it, but I would be very lonely if you simply rushed off like that. Um, is there nothing else you wish to ask me?”

“Sorry, but Emilia should be outside. I wanna link up with her more than I wanna talk with you. Besides…”

Echidna furled her brows in dismay, her words causing Subaru to scratch the tip of his nose as he carried on.

“You don’t know about things on the outside, right? It’s tough saying this after all that sound and fury, but to be honest, there’s not really anything I want to ask you…”

“…Eh? You’re kidding, right? That cannot be. I mean, I am the Witch of Greed, you know? People all over the world seek me to grasp at my knowledge: knights, people of privilege. You sit before me, permitted to ask anything to wish, and you say that?”

Taken back as she was by the unexpected reply, Echidna’s expression distinctly faltered for the first time. The Witch flailed about as she exhausted all the words she could to prevent Subaru from leaving.

“Calm down, let us speak. Certainly, I am ill versed regarding the present era. But in turn, I possess vast knowledge about the older era, to the point I can boast there is nothing I do not know about it. I possess historical truth no one remembers, undiminished after four centuries…and you possess an opportunity to gain that knowledge.”

“But I’m not all that interested in Witches. Even if we talk about them, they’re all dead, and there’s a lot of other things besides that I need to think about…”

“Ehhh…!”

As he made his farewells in earnest, the unsatisfied Echidna’s eyes grew tearful. Their positions had been completely reversed, with Subaru shrugging off the Witch who had felt so oppressive before.

The image of the Witch of Greed had thus been ruined. Without malice, it seemed she was just an ordinary girl.

Certainly, there was no lack of information he wanted to know. He’d like to know about the Witch Factor she’d spoken of, or the Sanctuary there to protect her tomb. Or perhaps, perhaps, perhaps—

“For example, that. Do you know details about the Witch Cult’s Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins?”

“Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins? Hmm, unfortunately, I do not know the term. Could you tell me about them in more detail?”

“Our positions really are reversed, sheesh… Well, if you don’t know, that’s fine.”

A smile came over Subaru at the sight of Echidna being thrown off—it hid the pain in his chest.

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

He’d hoped. But those hopes had been easily dashed. So there was no point staying there any longer.

If she knew nothing of the archbishops, she knew nothing of their Authorities, the damage they did, or ways to repair it.

—Meaning she didn’t know how he could save Rem.

“Can you send me out already? I’ll come chat with you over tea another time, okay?”

“Is that really a promise you can easily make with a dead person, and a Witch at that…?”

With Subaru in a hurry to make his escape, his words made Echidna sigh, all poison seemingly drawn out of her. Then, in a resigned fashion, she waved an arm, and Subaru felt wind behind him.

When he looked back, a single door had appeared in the world of bottomless darkness and a broken sky.

“Pass through that door, and you shall awaken outside. Goodness, I have never had a tea party such as this.”

“Sorry for not indulging in your hospitality. Incidentally, about this ruin… Can I ask, when I leave the tomb, where should I go to head toward the residents of the Sanctuary?”

“I told you before. I know little about the outside. Quite naturally, I do not know the location of the settlement, either.”

“Man, for a calm, collected know-it-all character, you really come up short…”

He meant to needle her, but Subaru’s shoulders sank at how Echidna amply puffed out her quite average breasts. After that, he raised a hand toward her in lieu of words of departure, thus announcing he was taking his leave.

Though he had been fiercely on guard at the beginning, it was a surprisingly gentle way to end a tea party with a Wit—

“—Now then, since you are heading back from a tea party with a Witch, it is about time I take the compensation due.”

Most improperly, it was a demand tossed toward him at the very, very end.

Subaru, feeling horror as the echo of her words terribly clawed at his spirit, turned his head alone toward her.

Echidna, the Witch, said not in malice, but with nothing more than a quiet, gentle smile—

“…It bears mentioning that I’m a pauper up there with the best of ’em. A Witch’s compensation is not paid in coin. What I seek from you is a pact. My terms are that you are forbidden from speaking to others about what took place at this tea party. You are bound by a similar pact, so it is a simple matter for you, is it not?”

“A similar pact…”

What Echidna described—facts known to him that he was forbidden to divulge to others—it was almost as if she was talking about Return by Death.

“The invitation to the tea party, the Witch Factor taking root… Considering my good fortune in getting to know someone deeply interesting such as yourself, I too have gained greatly. That’s right, I shall grant you one final souvenir…”

Stroking her white hair, Echidna stood up and stretched a pale finger toward Subaru’s chest. For some reason, Subaru found himself gazing at her slow movement, unable to budge an inch.

To a bizarre extent, he could neither reject nor rebuff the finger that seemed to glide toward him.

“I grant thee the qualification to challenge the trial of this Sanctuary.”

“The trial of…the Sanctuary?”

“Even if you do not understand now, you will realize the value this place holds. I wonder what emotions you will bear toward me when that time comes… I very much look forward to finding out.”

Pulling back the finger touching his chest, Echidna gently licked its tip. The gesture was seductive enough to give Subaru a chill, reconfirming in his mind her witchy nature.

However amiable her behavior toward him, however teenage her smiling face, what was before his eyes was—

“You really are a Witch, huh?”

“Yes, it is so. I am a very bad magic user, you see?”

Along with those words, Echidna used that finger to give Subaru’s forehead a very light nudge.

Subaru seemed to fall back, tumbling downward; the next moment, the open door swallowed him whole.

“”

He fell into the darkness. Then the darkness vanished within the light.

Cast out of the dream, the being called Subaru Natsuki floated upward—and outside, his consciousness awakened.

Sub-chapter 7.

The instant Subaru awoke, the first thing he felt was a hard sensation against his cheek.

“…aa, uu…”

Moaning with a half-asleep voice, Subaru became aware that he was lying prone. He blinked several times, and reality poured into his vision, awakening him over the course of several seconds.

Pressing his arms to the ground, he slowly lifted himself up—

“This, is… errr…?”

He brushed off the dirt on his cheek with his fingers and squinted into the darkness. When he looked, Subaru saw that he had fallen inside an old ruin—to be precise, several tens of meters into the corridor leading into it.

To his back was the entrance to the tomb, and it was from there that light entered into his eyes. Thanks to that, his escape route was plain to see, but it made for a pretty crummy ruin exploration.

“Anyway, I’d better get out and hook back up with Emilia and Otto…”

Shaking his heavy head, he placed a hand against the wall, wobbly as he rose to his feet. He had no business inside the ruin. The Sanctuary lay outside. Having gone astray, he needed to be outside to rendezvous with Emilia.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on why he was so certain of that, but—

“I feel like, someone said that to me…”

“Yo. Ya sure got some guts, comin’ straight out from a place like that, outsider.”

“Ah…?”

As he exited the ruin with fragmented thoughts, a voice called out to him the instant his eyes narrowed from the light.

His vision, accustomed to the dark, was hazy. As it gradually adjusted, Subaru found himself looking down at the surrounding landscape from the modestly elevated ruin.

In front of the ruin was a single dragon carriage, and a young male driver with a most pitiable look on his face.

“M-Mr. Natsuki…”

“Otto? What are you doing in a place like… No, before that, where’s Emilia?!”

“Inside the dragon carriage! I-it has been most terrible since that moment! I-I…!!”

When Subaru raised his voice at the unexpected reunion, Otto shouted back even louder. But thanks to that, Subaru was able to confirm Emilia’s presence, and this made his shoulders sink in relief. Otto was pleading about something, but that concern could wait. The immediate problem was—

“Hey, forget the whiny guy. I come first here, damn it!”

The individual standing right beside the dragon carriage spoke to Subaru with a voice that issued seemingly through clenched teeth. Turning his face toward the speaker, Subaru shrugged.

“What a coincidence. I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Hah! That’s ‘ganglion before you think’ for ya!”

“Gangl… Ah?”

As Subaru knotted his brows at the mystery phrase mixed in with the reply, the other party took a step forward. With a coarse manner of speech and a hostile glint in his eyes, the speaker’s external appearance in no way betrayed Subaru’s first, ferocious impression of him.

He had short, combed-back blond hair and a highly visible white scar on his forehead. There was ferocity in his sharp green eyes, and he was dressed in crude clothing Subaru could only call that of a country bumpkin. For a man, he was fairly short, especially in a stooped posture, but the dense, ghastly aura coursing from his entire body made certain others would not underestimate him due to his small stature.

More than any of those things, the individual had one external feature that set him apart. And that was—

“Hey, are ya shakin’? Well, yer luck definitely ran out. Here ya are in a place ya shouldn’t be, and now I caught ya!”

As the man spoke, his eyes narrowed, and he laughed—with a mouth full of sharp, extremely distinctive fangs.

Subaru had déjà vu. He’d seen a smiling face just like that extremely recently.

“Well, if yer gonna curse yer bad luck, do like ‘Bazomazo swept away right and left’!”

“Wait! Hey, you, listen to us bef—”

“‘Tear and tear but Kalran’s skin’s still blue’… I ain’t listenin’!”

Lending no ear to the voice urging him to stop, the fanged man stepped forward; the next instant, he vanished from sight.

An impact made Subaru’s breath catch. Before he realized it, he had been caught by his collar. When he turned his head to the side in surprise, the man’s ferocious glare was right beside him, close enough to share a breath—and his own feet were rising into the air.

“Oowaa—!!”

His view of the world was flipped upside down as he was hit by a powerful sense of floating, from which he understood that he had been hurled. Subaru proceeded to soar toward the dragon carriage in a powerful straight line. If he was to collide with it, he would suffer injury, be it light or heavy, but—

“You’re kidding—?!” “Da, huu—!”

The voice of utter shock was not that of Subaru, but that of Otto as he watched through the fingers of the hands with which he covered his own face.

With no way to stop it, Subaru thought he’d collide with the dragon carriage, breaking every bone in his body. But, by seemingly miraculous coincidence—no, it was an inevitable reaction that rescued him from peril—

“Patlash is simply too incredible!”

The pitch-black land dragon neighed proudly as Otto’s voice praised her exploits.

It was none other than Patlash’s benevolent decision that had saved Subaru from crashing into the dragon carriage. The land dragon had adeptly set the dragon carriage in motion on her own, thus ensuring that Subaru crashed into the door of the carriage proper. As a result, Subaru punched through the carriage door, sailing in only to have a seat bring him safely to a halt.

“Shit. That one was a little too… Hey, Patlash, wait!”

Tumbling out of the seat, Subaru looked out of the carriage to see the land dragon roaring and charging the man. With a twist of her body, Patlash had unhitched herself from the dragon carriage, seemingly consumed with rage toward the man who had injured Subaru, baring her fangs to bring them to his neck.

“Ha! That decision gave me chills. Yer a good land dragon…nah, a good woman.”

However, the land dragon’s biting attack missed its mark, and the left arm the man thrust out stopped her in her tracks. Even so, Patlash put strength into her jaw, moving her head as if to bite the man’s arm off.

But that head, and that jaw, stopped cold, her power inferior to the man’s simple brawn.

“I won’t hurt ya. Just put ya to sleep a bit.”

As the land dragon’s pupils contracted in fright, the man proudly made that statement. Then, with the land dragon still biting his arm, he tucked a hand under her broad head and hurled her huge body. With a softness that belied the heroic image, he tossed down her large frame, quietly rendering the land dragon powerless.

“He threw Patlash…?!”

“H-his skill is no joke… Eh?!”

Subaru and Otto doubted their own eyes as the man before the pair leaped very high, onto the driver’s seat of the dragon carriage. With the assailant so close, Otto adopted a combative pose in great haste.

“D-do not underestimate me! I may not look it, but I too am a merchant! I have ways to deal with midjourney violence! Fear the power of Suwen School violence repulsion ar—dahuu!”

“Shut up, amateur. Thanks to your land dragon, I’ll settle for half killin’ ya. Go to sleep.”

Otto was in a worked-up pose, but fainted in anguish as soon as the man flicked his forehead with a finger. It was less of a finger strike than a forehead poke, but its might was such that Otto went down in the blink of an eye without so much as a groan.

Now that he was past Patlash and now Otto, no obstacles remained between him and the dragon carriage.

“—Ugh!”

Biting his lip, Subaru looked back inside the dragon carriage. Where one section of seating had been removed in favor of the simplified bed used to carry Rem, right then a different girl—Emilia—slept upon it.

Otto must have laid her there after Subaru teleported. Even now, Emilia had yet to return to consciousness. Subaru had to protect her no matter what it took.

“Thank yer land dragon for fightin’ so hard. I’ll half kill ya and toss ya outside the forest. After I make ya swear that ya won’t tell anyone else about this place, ya hear me?!”

Just as Subaru hardened his resolve, the man bared his fangs and boarded the carriage. The sharp glint of his fangs at the tip of his upward swinging arm cleanly robbed his declaration about half-killing of all its persuasiveness.

Before the man’s wicked deeds, Subaru raised both arms wide to shield Emilia and shouted.

“Wait! You’re Frederica’s… You’re involved with Roswaal and his people, right?!”

“—! Huhhh?”

With a loud voice and a scowl on his face, the man stopped his blow right before it connected with the tip of Subaru’s nose. From there, the man gazed at Subaru for a while, surprise and anger residing in his eyes in equal measure.

“…What the hell is that name doin’ comin’ outta your mouth?”

“Hmm, I wonder why? Think about it nice and hard.”

“Already did. I dunno. I’ll think about it more after I smash your face in!”

“Cut it out with that nasty way of thinking!! We’re with Roswaal, geez!!”

When his opponent took a step toward him in earnest, Subaru hastily raised both hands high and pleaded his case. His words made the man’s sharp fangs audibly clench. After thinking it over for a while, he said:

“Aah? Wait, you’re sayin’ the one sleepin’ is that Lady Emilia chick?”

“You know…Emilia’s name?”

This time, it was Subaru’s turn to be surprised, because the man had referred to the sleeping Emilia as Lady. His reaction made the man cross his arms, nodding with a smug face as he answered.

“Oh yeah, heard all ’bout her. The silver-haired half-demon that bastard Roswaal’s taken in, right?”

“She’s a half-elf. Don’t call her that in front of her ever again.”

“Hah! Well lookie here, guess you can put some backbone into your voice.”

The man gave Subaru a sharp, scornful gaze before making a sound through his fangs and turning his back. Then, when he left the dragon carriage, Subaru suddenly rushed over, gripping the door and forcing it closed.

The man’s shoulders jumped at Subaru’s violent action. He shrugged, looking back.

“Relax already. I ain’t worked up no more. I don’t wanna have Ram yellin’ at me.”

“I really relate to how you feel about that, but…that doesn’t answer my first question, you know?”

“Ahh?”

Though the man spread both arms wide, asserting that he had no intention of fighting, Subaru did not lower his guard. Such behavior made the man sink into thought briefly, finally making an ahhh noise and nodding as if he finally understood before he spoke.

“—Me, I’m Garfiel. Haven’t you heard of me?”

“So you’re Garfiel…!”

Garfiel was the name of the individual he’d been told over and over again to be wary of back at the mansion. Subaru’s brow furled at the gobsmacking development of having encountered the man himself so soon.

His reaction made Garfiel click his tongue, then stare intently at Subaru.

“I’ve got somethin’ to ask you, then. How’d you know I’m related to Frederica?”

“…You’re…seriously asking me that?”

When Subaru batted the question back, Garfiel audibly bared his fangs in visible displeasure. Taking his silence as a yes, Subaru felt energy draining from him as he scratched his face and replied.

“Anyone could tell just by looking at your face, sheesh.”

The shape of his fang-filled face was undoubtable proof that he was related to Frederica by blood.
 

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Diamond. Diamond. Diamond.

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