Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World – Vol. 11 Ch. 5

Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World. Volume. 11.

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‘Chapter 5:- THE WITCHES’ TEA PARTY.’

 

 
Sub-chapter 1.

Atop a small hill jutting up from a verdant plain, a gentle wind reminiscent of spring blew.

Subaru’s forelocks and the tall, green grass swayed in the wind as cumulonimbus clouds danced, racing toward the blue yonder.

“”

Subaru touched his forehead, tickled by the wind, and narrowed his eyes at the dazzling sun rays. Then, he slowly brought his gaze down from the sky, reorienting it straight ahead.

At some point, Subaru had come to sit in a white chair. It was large, resembling an easy chair, and before his eyes, there was a small pure-white table. Across from the table, in an identical chair, sat a figure with her long legs crossed.

She was a beautiful girl with long hair, precious little of her white skin exposed, and beyond that, everything was covered in black clothing—

“—That’s not quite accurate. More like, you’re a bound spirit that’s spent four centuries unable to move on.”

“Quite a greeting, such short shrift the very moment we are reunited? In the first place, where I am concerned, I was nineteen years of age at the time of my death—therefore my outward appearance is that of a young maiden much the same age as you?”

“Dying at nineteen is straight-up heavy stuff… Sorry. I shouldn’t joke about the dead.”

“—? Quite a laudable response. I suppose we have not known each other long enough for me to say that is not like you?”

As Subaru leaned forward, his fists opening and closing, the girl—the Witch Echidna—narrowed her eyes in apparent deep interest. She rested an elbow upon the table, and her cheek against her palm, provocatively looking back at Subaru with a sidelong glance as she spoke.

“It is rare for the same guest to be invited to a tea party twice. It does not happen often at all. You should be proud!”

“A host shouldn’t be so blunt to the guest. If I stop being honestly thankful, where will you be then?”

“Oh, my! Then you intended to be honestly thankful to me, yes?”

“Ugh…”

When Echidna hit the bull’s-eye, Subaru averted his gaze from her suppressed laugh. Thanks to his mental state just prior, he’d blithely let the words slip. But that “mental state just prior” was the very issue at hand.

“I…was in the tomb…”

The words he was too frightened to add were, going crazy.

As a matter of fact, Subaru’s spirit had completely broken down. That was how much death that time around had carved indelible wounds into his soul, combined with how repeated Return by Death experiences had beaten him down.

He’d rather have his mouth rent than ever speak the words accustomed to death. But he thought he was prepared for it.

So very easily, that assumption had been ripped away—

“But right now, I’m fine. So normal it feels bad.”

“You don’t like that? You would rather lose your cool, fall into a panic, pathetically bawl your eyes out?”

“…I’m not saying I want stuff like that. I thought you understood, Echidna.”

“I suppose so. Right now I’m being an evil tease. Sorry, I just wanted to smack you around a bit.”

Sensing the rebuke in his voice, Echidna raised both hands as if to declare surrender. Then, with a flutter of her palm, she went, “It’s just,”—tilting her head as she said—

“I did not invite you to this tea party merely to tease you. Had I not done so, your mind would have shattered… You are aware of that, perhaps?”

“That’s why I was honestly going to thank you out loud, sheesh. Then you…”

“I see. It seems my words and deeds carry the same faults as they did in life. Now then, I would like to properly hear your words of thanks right now— Well, knock yourself out.”

With a wry smile, Echidna puffed out her chest, a posture for accepting words of thanks. Staring at the smug, proud look on her face, Subaru took in a deep breath, exhaling at length.

If he had to break it down into raw terms, she was being a very witchy witch.

“—? What is wrong; anytime is good?”

“…Is the reason I returned to form the instant I came here that I drank your tea before?”

“Ahhh, I would suppose so. The tea set your Witch Factor into motion to promote stabilization. Leaving and entering the tea party does not cause it to lose its effect… Incidentally, the words of thanks?”

“That so? I’m just a little relieved. Should I understand that to mean it’ll continue when I go outside?”

“Because we are discussing your mental state. Since you have regained your cool…… I suppose if you were to remember about this place, you might retain your peace of mind even outside of the dream. So hey, the thanks?”

The reply, including how she said it like it didn’t concern her, made Subaru’s breath catch.

If he were to remember this place, Echidna had said. As a matter of fact, that made things very difficult. The fact he’d come into contact with the witch twice, forgetting both times, proved the vow was at work.

The vow had made Subaru forget Echidna. As a result, Subaru had lost sight of even himself.

“—Echidna, is there a way to rewrite a vow?”

“Huh?”

“Is there a way to leave here without forgetting about you? As long as the vow makes me forget you, my mind will break. Isn’t that right?”

“Well, it is, but…”

“Besides, it’s not just an issue of my mind. Even setting that aside, I want to remember you.”

“—Eh?”

Yes. It was not an issue of Subaru’s mind alone. Remembering Echidna’s existence was a necessary piece to unravel the mysteries of the Sanctuary and prevent it from changing into that hell.

That was why Subaru thrust his hands onto the table, drawing near enough to the Witch’s face he could feel her breath, and made a firm declaration.

“If you need compensation, I’ll pay anything else. In return—”

“”

“Don’t hide my memories.”

“—O-okay…”

In the face of Subaru’s strong demand, Echidna acted particularly awkward, nodding meekly.

Her demeanor gave him an odd feeling, but the reply was a yes. I did it, thought Subaru, clapping his hands as he celebrated.

“Got you to say it! Big help! No taking it back!”

“I would not do such a shameless thing. I would not, but…you are somewhat underhanded, I think.”

Subaru cocked his head in confusion at the sudden accusation. His response made Echidna turn her face with a fairly sour look. Then, the Witch indicated the opposing chair to Subaru as she said,

“Anyway, I understand what you have said. For now, do sit. Let us take our time and speak.”

“Yeah…er, I don’t have time for all that. More importantly, gotta take care of the vow business…”

“—I prefer you do not misunderstand, Subaru Natsuki.”

Her lackadaisical demeanor quickened Subaru’s mood. Echidna called out to him when he tried to hurry things up. The words brought him to a halt.

For some reason, her tone of voice carried a power that was difficult to defy. Then, as Subaru swallowed, Echidna—or rather, the Witch—continued.

“Rewriting a vow is not a difficult thing in itself. Nor do I mind how you are boldly stating things that are difficult to say. But I will not have statements ignorant of your position.”

“”

“In the end, you are a guest invited to this tea party. And this castle of dreams is my territory.

“Under my rule. If you say things that are simply too selfish, it becomes an issue of my honor.”

Her voice was quiet, with no change in its tenor; only the voice’s power had changed.

Having changed the atmosphere to such an extent, her eyes of bottomless darkness gazed up at Subaru.

—Therein rested the supernatural being known as a Witch.

“…a, uu”

The feeling of oppression grabbed firm hold of his soul, making Subaru recall the initial impression he’d had of Echidna: namely, his terror toward an overwhelming menace outstripping even the White Whale and the Witch of Sloth.

And that Echidna, the Witch of Greed, the Witch of white and black before his eyes, lived up to both name and title.

“Having been invited to this tea party, you have a duty to behave politely. That only makes sense, yes?”

With Subaru’s spiritual body marred with an unbecoming level of cold sweat, the Witch stroked her own white hair as she continued. With his throat and tongue feeling dry and his breathing ragged, Subaru barely managed to wring out a reply.

“Politeness as a guest, you mean…”

“It is quite simple. I am the hostess; you are the guest— Let us behave as such.”

The feeling of oppression was intact as Echidna slowly reached out with a hand. The Witch’s slender fingers touched the table, tapping upon its surface thrice.

Her fingertips indicated a point atop the table—upon which rested an untouched, steaming cup.

“…Ah?”

“If you are a guest to a tea party, you should begin by accepting tangible proof of your invitation. Is that not proper?”

“…! You’re not easy to understand.”

“I am a Witch, after all. It would be a shame for normal girls if you were to lump me in with them, would it not?”

Smiling as if she’d pulled a fast one on him, the sense of oppression from Echidna’s demeanor dissipated. Subaru felt like the mental anguish she’d inflicted as revenge for his rudeness was completely over the top, but at any rate…

“Shit… I get it, geez!”

Clicking his tongue, he snatched the cup from the table and poured the liquid down the hatch. Even though time had passed since its pouring, its temperature had not diminished at all, as might be expected of tea served by a Witch.

Subaru strongly gulped it down, concerning himself little with the taste, and raggedly wiped his lips with his sleeve.

“Well, I swallowed it down. Now you’ll accept me as a guest of the tea party?”

“Having my bodily fluids swallowed down with such fervor… Mmm, it makes me blush a little.”

“Gehhh! I forgot about that—!!!”

The Dona Tea Trap was at the first tea party, and upon his second arrival, Subaru had fallen hook, line, and sinker for it once more.

The sight of her guest earnestly retching on the spot made the Witch hostess’s shoulders sink in chagrin. After that, the Witch abruptly clapped her hands together, seemingly just remembering something as she spoke up.

“Come to think of it, your words of thanks? I feel as if I have not heard them yet…”

“Thank you for pouring me tea that tastes like shit! You damned Witch!”

Though he thanked her just as she told him to, Echidna was less than thrilled with the words of gratitude he provided.

Sub-chapter 2.

Beginning with Subaru and Echidna sitting on opposite ends of the table once more, the tea party recommenced.

Just like the previous time around, he had been unable to expel the Dona Tea he had absorbed no matter how desperately he retched. Pretending that nothing had happened, Subaru sought to blot out his sense of nausea with his sense of duty as he attended the tea party.

“Having the bodily fluids I offered rejected to that extent wounds my maidenly heart.”

“A maiden wouldn’t talk about offering bodily fluids once in her whole life. More importantly, I want to continue talking about important stuff. About the vow issue, you promise to… Nah, you’ll do it, then?”

“You have an aversion toward the word promise, do you? This, too, I accept.”

The joking exchange weighed on his mind, but Subaru was relieved he’d gained a firm promise from her: that even when he woke from the dream, he would not forget Echidna’s existence. This would surely prove a necessary key to finding the answer to the Witch’s laboratory known as the Sanctuary.

Having gained confirmation on that point, there was one other thing he wanted to confirm with the Witch—

“—Echidna, how much do you know about my circumstances?”

“What I know is how much I want to know about you. And how much I want to know is all there is to know in the entire world.”

“Don’t kid about this. I’m sure you’ve realized how weird it is that I’m here at all.”

“That is not so. You fulfilled the conditions to be invited to the tea party—you reached my territory, and in that place, you were filled with such longing for some reason. And that desire aroused my Greed—”

Echidna made a play on words, whereupon Subaru placed his hand on the table once more.

By this he indicated he didn’t mind playing along with the tea party…but he had no intention of playing along with a farce.

“It is strange. I mean, from your point of view, I only just left, right?”

“”

“I returned from the Trial…from overcoming my past. And here I am, right after that.”

The reference point for that loop was set to right after he’d overcome the first Trial.

Even though Subaru had returned, he ought to have been in the stone room in the tomb. That was both immediately after his conversation with Echidna had concluded, and to the Witch, an extremely quick reunion—

“You’re so smart, there’s no way you wouldn’t find that strange. If you don’t, that could only mean…”

“…Could only mean?”

Hesitating to continue his words, Echidna gave his hesitant back a proverbial shove. He breathed in, then out.

If Echidna did not harbor suspicions about their reunion, that meant—

“—You know the circumstances that caused it.”

“”

When Subaru pressed onward, Echidna made a tiny smile and maintained her silence.

—The basis for his suspicion was the words he’d exchanged with Echidna in the virtual classroom at the height of the first Trial, when she’d stated that world was nothing but a charade.

Even that very moment, the answer he’d conveyed to his parents in the past had not changed. They rested strongly in his chest. Accordingly, it was not that which weighed on Subaru’s mind, but how that world had been constructed. Echidna had created a different world using Subaru’s memories as a reference, recreating even his school’s uniforms.

If that was the power of the Witch of Greed, sleeping eternally within the tomb, then—

“—You have the power to see my memories. So, you don’t think this situation’s strange.”

If she had the power to use his memories as a reference, she knew that from Subaru’s perspective, their reunion was not directly after parting inside of that classroom. She also knew he had spent several days since then, letting everything slip through his fingers as “death” greeted him once more.

—And so, too, did she know that Subaru Natsuki had Returned by Death, going back in time.

“”

Subaru hesitated, sealing his words away. His heart beat ferociously, as if to tell him that going any further was dangerous— That if Subaru revealed much more, he would most certainly brush up against the taboo.

He would expose Return by Death. That would violate the one inviolate rule that the Witch had laid down. And should Subaru break it, he would taste agony to his very limits as punishment.

Or perhaps he would invite a different tragedy, and those evil hands would take the life of someone precious to Subaru, as they had with Emilia.

“Haaa…haaa…!”

His spiritual body’s brow was drenched with sweat. The droplets fell onto his cheek, rolling down to his jaw.

The state of his soul vividly reflected that of his body. That was how far he was backed into a corner.

That moment, what backed Subaru’s mind into a corner was not fear of the taboo, but fear of the unknown.

Subaru’s tongue rejected spinning the words in that unknown state. After all, the current situation was different from any other situation he had encountered relating to Return by Death.

If Subaru spoke, willingly breaking the taboo, his heart would be crushed.

If Subaru pleaded from his heart that he wanted to reveal the truth—the evil hands would take the life of someone he cared for.

Then what happened if he said aloud that Return by Death had been exposed via a completely different tangent?

It was a complete unknown, a circumstance beyond all imagination—

“Why do you not try it?”

“—?!!”

To Subaru, afraid of the taboo and the unknown, Echidna casually tossed those words.

Taken aback by the casualness of it, Subaru was indignant next. Echidna didn’t understand. She didn’t comprehend what might arise if he just tried it, how horribly unprofitable the prospect.

But in the face of Subaru’s anger, Echidna shook her head and said,

“To test in hope of a result is an action to be praised. We only covet that which has value.”

Without even knowing if she herself might be harmed, she criticized Subaru’s inde— No, that wasn’t it.

The Witch Echidna had seen right through to Subaru’s reason for indecision.

She knew it was possible that it would be her, not Subaru, who might be in peril. And, knowing this, she had said to do it nonetheless. She said this, because her conviction was unshakable.

The “Witch of Greed,” the very epitome of hunger for knowledge, would gamble even her own life on an action with no way to foresee the result.

“You might not have time to regret it…?”

“If that time comes, may I expect that you will break down in tears before my remains?”

To Subaru, hesitating until the last moment, Echidna replied in a tone that was sunny to the bitter end.

Her position was one she adopted out of consideration for Subaru, so that her personal feelings might not excessively sway his decision.

That was less sympathy toward Subaru than the Witch’s sincerely not wishing for an external impurity to skew the result wrought by his decision. There were no expectations, nor wishes, attached.

He saw that it was her way as a Witch to seek the purity of the result. And that gave his back a shove.

He felt like her way of life, not harboring the slightest of doubts, was mocking his own smallness—

“Echidna. I Return by Dea—”

He spoke the words that were taboo.

Just as he had done many times before, he spoke the words, the special phrase, that walked across the prohibited line.

Several times had he done this: to serve as a decoy for the demon dogs, to lure in the White Whale, to deceive the Witch Cultists.

In the course of doing so, he was robbed of words, and the world’s time came to a halt—

“—th.”

Firmly closing his eyes, Subaru gritted his teeth against the ferocious pain he expected to come.

However, his touching resolve amounted to nothing.

“…Eh?”

He opened his eyes. The world had not changed. Time had not stopped. There was no pain.

And this being the case, he shifted his gaze toward the Witch sitting directly in front of him, who went…

“Hmm…”

Sitting in her chair, the Witch recrossed her long legs as the eyebrows of her refined visage grimaced ever so slightly. However, that was her only reaction. Even when he glanced at the area of her breasts, there was no change in the Witch.

“…If you keep staring at me like that, I shall be embarrassed. Though I am rather proud of my outward appearance, I have no such confidence about my figure. Unlike Sekhmet and Daphne, that is.”

“I ain’t starin’ at you for a reason like that. No, more importantly…”

Subaru responded to her misdirected demeanor, his thought process still at a halt.

No punishment of the taboo had been applied within the chest that Echidna hid from Subaru’s gaze with her arms.

In the face of that fact, his thoughts slowly began anew as he touched a hand to his mouth.

The roots of his teeth, and his voice, were shaking.

“When, when I die, I go back in time, and I restart the world. I Return by Death.”

“I heard you. And I perceived it before I heard. I see—it is an exceedingly rare circumsta…”

“I! Return by Death! Return by Death! Return by Death! Return by Death!!”

“W-wait a—?!”

Echidna was horrified at Subaru repeating the forbidden words over and over. Her composure from the moment before was lost; the Witch’s eyes opened wide as she hurriedly urged Subaru to calm down.

“C-calm yourself. I understand how you feel, but…”

“I’ve! Returned by Death! Over, and over, I die and restart! I! Return by Death…”

“I get it already! So let’s advance the conv…”

“I…! Return by Death, starting things over, over and over……!”

“”

He shouted numerous times, unable to contain himself. As Subaru shouted, hot droplets poured from his eyes. The droplets trickled down his cheeks, rolling down to his jaw, and fell— This was not sweat. These were tears.

“All this time… I’ve…!”

He’d seen this dream so many times. He’d anguished so many times, wanting to shout it out. He’d probably begged for it many times over.

Yet he could reveal Return by Death to no one.

He thought he was forced to defy it, alone—

“I…!!”

“—I understand.”

His revelations became lamentations, and his shout scattered into sobs midway.

Faced with Subaru’s voice, the Witch quietly nodded.

As Subaru wept, the Witch stood at his side. Her fingers touched his black hair, seemingly ready to enter it. Then, her slender, delicate hand gently stroked his head.

“I know, the footprints you have made until now. I saw them, after all.”

“”

“But, I have merely seen them. If possible, I would like you to tell me about them from your own lips. I want to know what you thought, what you felt, how much you embraced.”

Stroking his head, the Witch added, “I mean,” and continued, “—I am Echidna, the Witch of Greed, she who craves knowing everything in this world.”

Sub-chapter 3.

Bit by bit, Subaru spoke the words in what had to be an exceptionally plodding process.

However, as a long period of time passed, the Witch lending her ears to Subaru’s clumsy tale did not speak unnecessarily even once, nor had she done anything to hurry him.

Until the very end, she simply listened in silence as Subaru spoke. Then, seeing from Subaru’s lowering of his head that he had finished his tale, she offered a short remark.

“—How awful.”

The voice with which she spat out the words was tinged with unconcealed disgust.

For a single moment, the words made Subaru concerned. He feared the Witch was disparaging the footsteps Subaru had laid down up to that point. But his reaction made Echidna go, “No,” shaking her head sideways as she said, “I am sorry to have misled you. I was not speaking of your tale just now. I simply feel anger that is difficult to bear toward the being that made you walk such a path of suffering.”

“The being that made me walk a path of suffering…”

“—The Witch of Envy.”

When Echidna’s voice became like a whisper, Subaru came to a complete stop.

Amid the sense that his body, his breathing, and even the beating of his heart had come to a halt, Echidna’s black pupils narrowed.

“I am sure that you, too, understood long ago. The power to rewind death… No, the power to deny you the peace of death, could only come from Envy.”

“…That’s because I’ve heard so much about the Witch from so many different people. I’ve never met this Witch face to face, but I figured as much from the ‘outstretched hands’ that appeared once in a while…”

The shadowy woman who appeared in the world of stopped time to inflict the punishment for breaking the taboo—

On the one hand, the shadow granted him agonizing pain; on the other, it touched him lovingly. At first, it was only one arm, but now he could see two arms and the contours of a torso that was progressively drawing nearer.

He suspected that, as he Returned by Death more and more, a time of reckoning was approaching.

“I have absolutely no idea why she’s infatuated with me, though. Do you know the reason?”

“Not really. After all, understanding that thing’s way of thinking is beyond not only me but all others as well. Even if I could, I would prefer not to.”

Averting her gaze, Echidna spoke with invective. Subaru raised an eyebrow at her attitude.

“Man, for someone who declares she wants to know everything in this world, you sure have a thing against the Witch of Envy. Well, she is the one who killed you, so that is kinda natural…”

Echidna was purportedly a supernatural existence in a different dimension than what mere mortals could ever achieve. Even if ‘castle of dreams’ was an exaggeration, the Witch had transcended death to construct an entire world while only a soul, yet she bore personal likes and dislikes the same as any normal human being.

Seeing a glimpse of humanity like that, Subaru felt an odd sense of closeness to her. However, Echidna herself noticed nothing of Subaru’s sentiments, sighing as she said spoke again.

“I believe you harbor no small grudge either, but speaking of her depresses even me. Therefore, let us discuss something else. If there is something you wish to ask, ask it, whatever it may be.”

“Something else, huh…”

When she sought a change in subject, Subaru fell into thought. Put bluntly, he was disappointed.

By divulging Return by Death, Subaru had broken free of the sense of being besieged that had plagued him for so long, filling him with a sense of liberation at his confined world opening right up.

Accordingly, Subaru had gotten his hopes up for a dramatic change. But Echidna had affirmed that the Witch of Envy was the cause of Return by Death like it was nothing, opening her heart to other conversational topics.

The complete lack of dramatic developments made all those tears seem like they were just his imagination.

“For example…yes, how about, if there was a way to remove the powerful Authority that inflicts the never-ending agony of repeating death, would you be curious at all?”

“…Even if a way did exist, that’s a problem. Not interested.”

With Subaru at a loss for words, the Witch made a proposal, but he shook his head, refusing her statement without hesitation.

Certainly, the power of Return by Death brought Subaru great agony. But even so—

“It galls me to say it, but I need Return by Death. There’s a lot of results I couldn’t have gotten without it. There’s also a lot of people I wouldn’t have been able to save.”

“”

“Without that power, there’s a lot of people I want to save that I couldn’t. So I need it.”

Putting it into words made him aware of the fact all over again; Return by Death was Subaru’s only weapon.

At the same time, it gave rise to something he wanted to ask, making him think of a question he’d always harbored.

“Echidna, do you think there’s a limit to the number of times I can Return by Death?”

“…I see. That is a logical question for you to arrive at.”

Since arriving in that world, Subaru had already experienced over ten Returns by Death. Tasting agony and a sense of loss, Subaru had restarted the world via death. The fear he harbored, that this time might be his last, was a natural emotion.

“I mean, that figures, right…?”

He’d already overturned the bounds of death many times over, something that by rights happened no more than once.

Over the course of each death, Subaru tasted the sense of despair from perishing with his objective left unfinished— Just how terrifying would death be, if it could erase that sense of despair along with everything else?

And just how long would that power of heresy against death postpone that moment for Subaru—

“Let me precede this by saying this is, in the end, purely my own speculation. My knowledge of the principles of your Authority is too vague for me to do anything but extrapolate. So I first wish you to forgive the vagueness of my reply.”

“…Yeah, please tell me anyway.”

“Your Return by Death, as a power that triggers according to specific conditions, I believe it likely has—”

He sucked in his breath as he awaited her reply.

Echidna’s eyes were looking straight at him. The brief pause in her modest words made Subaru feel like he was waiting for an eternity.

And at the end of his nervous waiting, she said—

“—No limit.”

“”

“Your deaths will never end. No matter how many times you die, no matter what results, your soul will go back in time, seeking to restart until such a time as you break past the fate that led to your death, no matter how cruelly you might be slain, or how mind and body might be broken.”

For a time, the inside of Subaru’s head was wholly occupied by a blank space that resisted comprehension of Echidna’s conclusion. Then, the conclusion spread forth, pushing into that blank space, causing it to break down little by little as comprehension permeated him.

At that point, he finally let out a quavering breath as words trickled out of him.

“—That so.”

“You accepted that surprisingly easily.”

“The thin reaction wasn’t to your liking? Sorry ’bout that.”

He finally returned to a state of mind that could manage a strained smile. That strained smile was still on Subaru’s face when he assented to the Witch’s view, running his thoughts over Return by Death being unlimited.

It was the most favorable conclusion among the hypotheses inside of Subaru. But—

“—Strictly speaking, what you said wasn’t unlimited; you said subject to specific conditions. What are those specific conditions?”

“…Though it vexes me, the Authority that allows you to Return by Death is rooted in the Witch’s wild delusion. If the Witch’s delusion were to expire, you would cease to reject death— I do not know what would occasion such a thing, but…”

“We don’t even know the reason she’s obsessed with me, so it wouldn’t be weird if she suddenly dropped me like a hot potato, you know?”

“Perhaps you have somehow picked up on that being utterly impossible?”

Subaru could not summon a retort to her teasing banter. In point of fact, he was oddly certain of it.

The Witch would not permit Subaru to truly die. By the same token, she would not permit Subaru to leave her grasp, either. That baseless yet absolute confidence had been driven into the innermost reaches of Subaru’s being like a nail.

“…What do you think this power is for? What do you think about it?”

“The power is for not allowing you to die, for not allowing you to do wrong.”

“Why would the Witch…the Witch of Envy hand me that kind of power? It might disgust you to guess, but do you know the…meaning, of my power?”

Gradually speaking faster and faster, Subaru feared the sense of evasiveness toward the odd certainty dwelling inside his chest.

Subaru gradually lost the composure in his demeanor, or perhaps it had never been there to begin with. At this, Echidna knit her brows and said,

“—I do not understand what you are afraid of. What has you so frightened?”

“I’m afraid? Yeah, I am afraid! I’m afraid of! I’m afraid of…”

Echidna’s inquisitive bent mercilessly sliced open the part of Subaru covering his fears. In place of red blood, her slice resulted in the emotions stuffing his chest gushing out instead.

Fear, regret, unease, sadness—nothing but negative emotions flooded out.

“Even if I die, I’ll come back… I didn’t want to indulge in thinking I can die any number of times. I didn’t want to think it… but if it’s the only thing I can rely on, I’ll rely on that. But…”

Even if death was without limit, gradually the Witch’s shadow would take shape, and Subaru would inevitably have to confront it.

Besides, Return by Death was not omnipotent. It could leave situations where something could never be regained. And the greatest thing that he was unable to get back was—

“—I…couldn’t get Rem back.”

The biggest problem Subaru had with Return by Death was that it had not returned Rem’s existence to him.

Subaru could never forget, knowing Rem was lost to him, the impulse to stab his throat before her as she slept; nor could he forget the despair when, immediately afterward, he’d returned to the point just before stabbing his throat.

“Why couldn’t I get Rem back? If Return by Death is the power for me to restart my fate, why’d it put me in a place where I couldn’t get her back…!”

“So that is the reason for your fear? …It is both the fountainhead of your remorse, and the source of your desire, I see.”

Gripping his fist so much his nails dug into it, Subaru spoke through clenched teeth. Echidna narrowed her eyes.

The Witch’s words made him raise his head. When black pupils crossed with black pupils, the Witch said,

“I am about to tell you something that is very cruel.”

With that preamble, the Witch’s expression hardened as she continued speaking to Subaru.

“—That thing does not take into consideration your regret at not saving the girl from her fate.”

“—!”

“What it seeks is that your fate is not held captive to a dead end. The Authority is a means to that end and thinks nothing of the harm to anyone beyond you. Employing this power to save others is strictly your own doing, your own desire… The Witch of Envy has nothing to do with it.”

“aa…”

“Therefore, I shall declare one more thing.”

Subaru was still reeling from the blow, but Echidna continued speaking of cruel things.

That moment, it was what Subaru needed. The Witch of white and black closed her eyes but once, her expression seemingly enduring pain, whereupon the black eyes beheld Subaru within them.

“Hereafter, no matter what damage may occur, you will likely challenge fate without limit, breaking through its deadlocks. However, even if you do change fate, the numerous sacrifices that permitted you to do so…”

“—You’re saying a chance to get those sacrifices back will never come my way.”

“…That would be the end result, yes.”

Echidna thus firmly declared that the Witch of Envy held regard for Subaru’s fate alone. So long as Subaru overcame his fated death, everything else was trivial.

She trusted that no matter how much things looked like a stalemate, Subaru, challenging without limit, would break past his destiny. And someday, as he repeated, her shadow would thicken, become complete, and then the time of their reunion would—

“—Fine. If that’s how you want it, being partial only to me, I’ve decided in my gut.”

“”

“This favor, the Return by Death you gave me… I’ll use it till it breaks.”

As a result, he’d arrive before the Witch, not allowing a single thing to fall from his grasp. That’s what he’d show her.

“Yeah, I’ve decided. I’ve decided— There ain’t a soul under heaven who can betray other people’s expectations like I can.”

Turning supposition into conviction, the flames of anger, resolve, and decisiveness were lit within him. Subaru Natsuki was back.

If Return by Death saved nothing but Subaru, Subaru would save everything else himself.

If the Witch showed no such discretion, Subaru would…and he’d use the Witch’s love to do it.

Obsession, obsession: he’d grab onto it and never let go. He’d pile it higher and climb over it, carrying everything with him.

—This would be Subaru Natsuki’s first act of payback toward the Witch of Envy.

“…You certainly recovered rather easily…so, too, your recklessness in regard to this despairing situation.”

“There’s nothing easy about it. Maybe I’m just duct-taping my own heart, same as always, desperately stopping my heart from breaking like it did this time. But…”

That moment, the fact that he was not alone loomed large. He no longer had to bear Return by Death alone.

Somehow, that fact alone had been of great relief to Subaru’s psyche.

And, considering just who was responsible for that—

“”

“Mm? What is it? I mean, what? Hey, go on, won’t you?”

“You totally know as you’re saying it, don’t you…?”

Subaru clicked his tongue in irritation as Echidna, talkative and in a jovial mood, prodded him to continue. The Witch saw completely through him, even as to what that click of the tongue meant.

Namely, that in having listened to him reveal the forbidden, Echidna’s existence had been of great relief to him.

That was something he had absolutely no intention of saying to Echidna’s face.

“Anyway! I’ll take your opinion to heart, and the help with my resolve. I’ll thank you for that.”

“That is all? Those are all the words of thanks you wish to speak to me? Hey, really-really?”

“Shaddap! Be quiet! Yeah, that’s it! Let’s talk about the next thing!”

Yelling in anger at the pesky Witch, Subaru furiously pressed his hips down upon his chair.

Then, as the Witch went booo, he looked up at her, went “Please,” and continued his words with, “Lend me your wisdom. I can’t rely on anyone but you.”

“What convenient words. Though you say this, I believe I have entertained you more than enough as the hostess of this tea party. If you seek any more from me, then…”

“I get it. I’m sure I said it at the start about the vow. If you need compensation, I’ll pay whatever it takes. So please, that included, lend me your strength.”

Putting his hands to his knees, Subaru bowed his head deeply. Of course, if that proved insufficient, he was resolved to scrape his forehead against the ground, too. At a point like that, what value did pride have?

He needed a Witch’s wisdom to break through a Witch’s scheme— To save everyone, that was the best hand to play.

“”

Echidna gazed down at Subaru, silent for a time as he conspicuously bowed his head in request of her aid. But finally, the Witch let out a sigh, seemingly unable to endure her own silence any further.

And then—

“…It may well be that you have a talent for sweet-talking Witches.”

Her lips loosened, and a charming smile came over the Witch, the words trickling out as she reluctantly gave in.

Sub-chapter 4.

There was no end to what he wanted to discuss with the Witch.

But, at that juncture, there was something Subaru first wanted to confirm that was completely separate from the rest.

“I know you called me to the tea party right after Return by Death. But what’s happening outside during the time I’m here talking with you?”

“Did I not speak to you of it previously? This is my castle of dreams, and you and I are merely souls at present. During your time here, you are isolated from the outside, even the passage of time thereof. I will not say that time does not pass whatsoever, but the effect on the outside world is meager at best. Therefore, it is unlikely to the extreme anything is happening outside at all.”

“That so… If that’s the case, at least I’m not leaving Emilia on a cold floor for long hours at a time. That’s good news.”

Since the restart point had not changed in any way, Subaru’s body was on the floor of the stone room that very moment. Emilia, challenging the Trial, lay right next to him, presumably writhing in a nightmare from which she could not wake.

He was worried that his chance encounter was prolonging that nightmare, which would be tragic.

“Such charming consideration for your Princess is unnecessary for the time being. So what is it you wish to borrow my wisdom about? Surely it is not the Princess’s sensitivity to cold that is on your mind?”

“Well that might be true, but that’s a pretty thorny way of putting it.”

“Not really? It is simply, from a normal person’s point of view, is it not poor form to pay attention to a different girl immediately after seducing a Witch?”

“I don’t remember seducing you, and in the first place, you’re the one who said it’s rude to compare a Witch to a normal person.”

He already had his hands full with obsession from a Witch of Envy he didn’t remember knowing. Where would he be if he let Echidna’s banter just then intimidate him? It was high time to set the teasing aside.

Just as Echidna had said, it was time to seriously discuss something about which he had to speak with her.

“This time around, there’s so many things I don’t understand. But among them, the biggest comes last… The stuff that ate…ate me to death.”

“”

“It’s pathetic, but I was killed by fist-size rabbits. They seemed omnivorous and acted like they were raised by someone who starved them. Thanks to that, they cleaned me right off the plate…”

Subaru used frivolous words to describe the experience, which was horrifying to even remember.

He’d used a gentle expression, but it was just plain difficult to express the sheer gruesomeness of it. Having fangs bite into his entire body, the memory of having his flesh, bones, and blood violated left a deep mark on Subaru’s soul.

It was so bad, he was virtually certain that had it not been for the tea party, for Echidna’s intervention, his mind truly would have shattered.

“‘Raising’ is overstating it. As a matter of fact, Daphne did not train the Great Rabbit Horde whatsoever.”

“…Great Rabbit?”

“Correctly speaking, the Great Rabbit is plural, not singular. Great Rabbit Horde morphed into Great Rabbit. The demon beast Great Rabbit is considered one of the three great demon beasts, the negative legacies left by Daphne, the ‘Witch of Gluttony.’”

“So that was the Great Rabbit of the three great demon beasts that Julius talked about before…”

He remembered hearing about it. The name of the demon beast had popped up during the conversation when Julius had met up with them after the subjugation of the White Whale. From that, it posed a menace equal to that of the White Whale, worthy of being named among the three great demon beasts.

From Echidna’s words, she knew that a Witch had created the legacies that had gone on to cause much trouble for others.

“Three great demon beasts…? This, right after the White Whale was beaten? Gimme a break…”

“Even I cannot help but sympathize with your plight. Furthermore, the Great Rabbit is the worst of foes.”

Subaru clutched his head at the peril being beyond all expectations. Somehow, Echidna’s expression seemed very dark.

“I have a bad feeling from the look on your face… Between the White Whale and the Great Rabbit, which is stronger?”

“In terms of pure combat power, the White Whale wins by a substantial margin. However, what should be prioritized under the circumstances is not combat power but the difficulty of subjugation. In that, the Great Rabbit is overwhelmingly victorious.”

“Difficulty level of subjugation…? You mean it’s hard to beat.”

It seemed the best result would be subjugating the Great Rabbit as had been done with the White Whale. As Subaru had such thoughts, Echidna went, “Now hold on,” and raised a finger as she said, “It seems that you humans think the three great demon beasts are merely a little more problematic than normal demon beasts.”

“Nah, I know they don’t really fit a lovely assessment like that, actually…”

“The appropriate term for the three great demon beasts would be ‘natural disasters.’”

When Echidna continued after his interruption of her words, he couldn’t laugh off her statement as an exaggeration.

It was precisely because Subaru had directly confronted the White Whale, and thus knew how frightening it was, that he could not laugh the Witch’s words off.

“The Great Rabbit always operates as a horde, fueled by an insatiable hunger that makes them consume all. To the Great Rabbit, all other living things are food. Aside from eating others and sating that hunger, it has no other desires whatsoever. It simply eats. There is nothing in its wake save uninhabited wasteland. You have surely seen this firsthand.”

“An uninhabited wasteland, you don’t mean… You’re talking about the Sanctuary from then?!”

When Echidna spoke of the damage characteristic of the Great Rabbit, the look on Subaru’s face changed as he shouted.

In an uninhabited Sanctuary, those rabbits had consumed Subaru’s entire body. What if those demon beast fangs had been turned against the people of the settlement and that desolate scene had been the result?

Then Emilia, Roswaal, Ryuzu, and the bestial Garfiel were no exception.

With no one left out, they too had felt the agony and sense of loss from that horde of fangs shaving their lives aw—

“O, ee…!”

The instant the thought came to mind, Subaru was assaulted by a stomach-wrenching sense of nausea. Precisely because it had happened to him, he vividly sensed, and understood, just what pain everyone had experienced.

Locust plague—as Subaru retched, that was the term arising in the back of his mind.

A locust plague was said to be the phenomenon of a huge explosion in locust numbers. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t referring to the locusts themselves so much as their sudden appearance as a horde, and that enormously large horde became a calamity that devoured cultivated fields, ruining the farmland and causing outbreaks of famine.

What Subaru had just learned about the Great Rabbit greatly resembled what he knew about locust plagues. Though, unlike locusts, this was a true natural disaster that consumed not fields but the flesh and blood of animals.

“Isn’t there…some way to drive them off?”

“It is very difficult. Each individual Great Rabbit is not all that powerful, but the problem is its power to survive… Each individual is able to multiply without limit. You can hunt them to no end and it still won’t be enough.”

“Individuals…multiply without limit?! What are they, amoebas?! N-no, wait a minute! They’re a horde, right? You can’t take down the boss of the horde and they’ll scatter?”

According to the rules of the human world, take down the head and the group will crumble. In the animal world, it might mean the top one or the top two of a horde, but which living creatures did demon beasts take after?

Faced with Subaru’s hypothesis, Echidna went, “Unfortunately,” shrugging her shoulders as she said, “I did call them a horde, but the Great Rabbit does not fit that concept. I said it, yes? It is a demon beast that can infinitely divide from a single individual. In other words, they all began from the same individual creature. The countless Great Rabbits share the same sense of hunger, and if they have no prey, they make do by eating each other. That is their nature.”

Even cannibalism was not beyond them. Their terrifying ecology left Subaru aghast.

Certainly, it was an iron law of living creatures that life was linked to consuming other life-forms. But infinite division and propagation from a single individual, then consuming each other to satisfy their hunger, was an insane concept.

—The Great Rabbit was a monster completely devoted to eliminating the very possibility of life.

“If you were to destroy the Great Rabbit, it would require destroying the thing in its entirety. I believe that would be an act on par with vaporizing the lot of them, not allowing a single droplet to fall.”

It was exaggerated talk for the sake of argument. But that simply represented the scale of the problem.

Accepting Echidna’s explanation, Subaru felt dizzy at just how difficult it was to beat the Great Rabbit. With subjugating it so difficult, the only realistic option to deal with a Great Rabbit attack was to flee.

But if the horde of Great Rabbits appeared inside the Sanctuary—

“—There’s the barrier. As long as that’s there, Emilia and the others can’t go outside.”

It was almost like a cage, meticulously set in order to obstruct those within.

The Great Rabbit’s ecology and the Sanctuary’s environment could not mesh in a more horrible manner.

There was a murderess coming to the mansion, the Great Rabbit coming to the Sanctuary, and both menaces would arrive in five days hence.

Before that, the Sanctuary’s barrier had to be lifted so that Emilia and the others could flee.

Before that, he had to assemble the combat strength to drive Elsa and company from the mansion.

—In that loop, that was Subaru’s duty, one only he could accomplish.

“”

He absolutely would not vent weak words like, Can I do it? It was Subaru himself who decided as much, for he had sworn to overcome, no matter what travails might stand in his way.

However, in contrast to that determination and that vow, just what ought he do to address the situation—

“—Echidna?”

Subaru, plunged into a labyrinth of thought, abruptly realized that something about the Witch sitting opposite to him had changed.

Echidna, so leisurely exchanging words with Subaru as she sat in her chair, had a faint crease on her brow. Subaru thought it was an expression of hesitancy about something in regard to him.

“Did you think of something?”

“…To be quite honest, it is not something I particularly wish to recommend.”

“But it’s something meaningful for breaking this situation open…isn’t it?”

Closing her eyes, Echidna neither affirmed nor denied Subaru’s words. Her demeanor was tacit confirmation in and of itself.

The Witch boasting vast reserves of knowledge had come to a possibility Subaru had not realized for himself. When Subaru leaned his body over the table, Echidna instantly thrust out her palm to hold him at bay.

Then, as she squished the tip of Subaru’s nose, the Witch continued, “Please hear me out.”

“I do not wish to recommend this means. It is truly dangerous.”

“I’m aware of the dangers. That’s why…”

Of course, he couldn’t come out and say, That’s what Return by Death is for. However, that prevarication aside, Subaru had no doubt conveyed his true intent. Receiving this, Echidna shook her head from side to side.

“The danger is not external. It is here. Danger would befall you in this place.”

“Here…? What the heck are you trying to tell me…?”

“—What if I said I could grant you an opportunity to speak to Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony?”

“”

Offered an impossible proposal, Subaru felt the rhythm of his breath thrown awry.

Before this Subaru, the seriousness on Echidna’s face did not falter. It didn’t feel like a joke. That being the case, the contents from the Witch’s mouth were genuine. And if that was true, then—

“All the other Witches are supposed to be dead. There’s no way I can speak with that Witch.”

“If that were true, how are you speaking with me right now? How do you explain this circumstance? Surely you know quite well the fact that I am already among the departed, and yet you claim there is ‘no way’ you could be speaking to me.”

“That’s, well that’s true, but…”

“Sekhmet, Minerva, Typhon, Camilla, Daphne—”

As Subaru hemmed and hawed, Echidna touched her chest, reciting the names like she would for those dear to her.

From their previous chance encounter, Subaru knew that these were the names of Witches from long ago.

“—They are dead, but their souls are here with me in this castle of dreams. So that I might not lose them, I gathered them all into my own flesh before Volcanica destroyed my body and sealed me away.”

“You gathered their souls…so you can call them here…?”

“Yes, albeit by allowing myself to serve as their avatar. During that time, I would be literally replaced by them.”

“That’s…!”

If that happened exactly according to her words, it would be quite an incredible thing. And more to the point, if he could speak to the Witch of Gluttony, he might be able to get a hint as to how to defeat the Great Rabbit.

However, in contrast to Subaru leaping at the ray of hope, Echidna had a truly unenthused look on her face.

“…For the one who proposed this, you really don’t look thrilled with it, you know.”

“I told you, it is dangerous. You probably harbor a misconception as to what kind of being a Witch is. You only know of me and that thing, neither holding any animosity toward you.”

“You’re saying the other Witches will hold animosity toward me?”

“…If you treat them the wrong way, it can be dangerous, safe, very dangerous, extremely dangerous, or absolutely dangerous.”

“The fact that ‘safe’ is part of that lineup actually makes it sound worse… So what about Gluttony’s case?”

“Absolutely dangerous.”

Closing her eyes, Echidna rubbed her brow at just how temperamental these Witches were. But her demeanor toward those Witches had been friendly just before. It wasn’t as if the Witches got along poorly with themselves.

Subaru had a number of cases where friendships and positions were badly mismatched, too. It had to be something like that.

“I understand why you’re concerned. But can I ask you to do it anyway?”

“If you truly desire it, I cannot stop you from doing so. Besides, if I may say something extremely personal—I am not disinterested in what you might think after meeting the other girls.”

Speaking thus, Echidna beheld Subaru in her own black pupils. The dark glint in her pair of eyes was inquisitiveness that knew no bottom—but this did not overwhelm Subaru as he twisted the corners of his mouth.

Faced with that witchy smile, he, as a guest to a Witch’s tea party, responded with his dignity intact.

“Incidentally, what happens if I die here?”

“Only your spirit has been invited into this world. It is a world unrelated to death. Naturally, however, if your spiritual body suffers wounds enough to make you believe you have died, those cracks in your mind will remain even after returning to your body.”

“In other words, I’d be a complete wreck? That’s, like, a lot more risk than anything external?”

“So do you wish to stop?”

When Subaru raised his voice, the risk of becoming a wreck was pointed out to him, and Echidna sent a provocative smile his way.

That smile lit a fire in him. He couldn’t back down.

“Do it.”

“—I pray for your good fortune in battle.”

It wasn’t set in stone that her final smile was really meant as a prayer for his good fortune. The joyful craving in it—that of a girl waiting expectantly in ultimate delight for the result—was too strong for such an assumption.

Besides, Subaru immediately lost the free time with which to pay any heed to such a thing.

“”

Echidna’s charming smile suddenly melted into the air. The particles from which Echidna was composed unraveled, and her very being was dismantled…only to be reconstructed into a completely different shape.

Right after that veritable blink of an eye, appearing across the table from Subaru was—

“Ohh, we finally meet…”

“…Huh?”

“Huh? What do you mean, ‘huh?’ Huh, what? Wow, aren’t you a rude one?”

These words spoken, bare feet wiggled in front of Subaru as the other party’s cheeks puffed up.

There sat a little girl maybe ten years old—a being one would never think a Witch.

Sub-chapter 5.

The little girl had brown skin and a bright, adorable face—the very image of youth and innocence.

Her deep green hair mixed with big round red eyes. She wore a lovely white dress with blue flowers at its hem and similar blue flower decorations on her head.

The young girl was the epitome of the words pure and innocent, a sight that made Subaru’s breath catch.

If what Echidna had said during their exchange a moment before was true, the little girl before him was—

“You’re…er, you’re a Witch, too, right?”

“Mm, you heard from Dona, right? And you’re… I know, you’re Baru! Baru it is!”

Dona had to mean Echidna, and Baru had to mean Subaru.

The way her reply came off as young—or younger than her apparent age—threw Subaru for a loop. Certainly, Echidna had portrayed making contact with the other Witches as a difficult battle.

“She didn’t mean in the sense of having to deal with kids, right…? So uh, do you know what Echidna and I were talking about?”

“Kinda-sorta? I heard from inside Dona, so yeah.”

“The inside Echidna part of that info kind of weighs on my mind but…anyway, I’m glad we at least have some basis to go on. So to get right to the point, about the Rabbit…”

Subaru leaned forward with every intention of asking about the Great Rabbit. But his action made the little girl tilt her head. “Incidentally,” she went, bringing him to a halt.

“Baru, are you an evildoer? I’ve been wondering about that the whole time, you see.”

“…Evildoer?”

The question, from a completely unanticipated angle, made Subaru unwittingly drop his jaw. As he did so, the little girl swayed her legs, which did not reach the ground, and her chair rattled as she began rocking it back and forth.

“I’m asking if you’re an evildoer or not. Which is it…?”

“You mean like a bad guy…? Er, I’m not sure what you’re getting at with that question, but…”

“Hmm, I get it! I’ll check something out, then!”

She turned him an innocent smile, making painfully clear just how difficult it was for Subaru to converse with this Witch.

Ignoring that sentiment, the little girl leaped off her chair, trampling the grass with her still-bare feet, and walked over to Subaru. Then, going “Nn!” she showed her teeth as she smiled at him and put out her hand.

“…You wanna shake hands? You’ll know something if we shake?”

“Nnn!”

“I-I get it. I get it. If that makes you happy, hear me out, ’kay?”

He truly felt like he was touching a little girl. Nervous from how she gave off an air younger than the kids of Earlham Village, Subaru took the little girl’s hand. Her hand was small, and her palm was soft. But the body temperature was high, like a baby’s hand. He thought idly, So spiritual bodies have body temperature, too, huh—

“—I take this in compensation for your sins.”

“What?”

Failing to pick up what she’d said, Subaru initially tried to ask her to repeat it. But before he could, he felt a light blow. Together with the feeling of his arm being ripped off, he felt a sense of liberation, as if freed of some heavy burden.

He gazed down at the girl, wondering what had happened. The little girl had a smiling face as she clutched a single arm to her chest.

It was an adult male’s arm, the area where it had been torn right from the shoulder fully exposed—Subaru’s right arm.

“—?!!”

“Ohhh, the fact it didn’t hurt means you’re not an evildoer. I’m so glad…”

In that emergency situation, Subaru looked at his own right shoulder—and the wound left from his stolen arm. The jagged surface of the severed arm was exposed, but just as the little girl had said, he’d felt no pain from his arm being torn off whatsoever.

There was no pain, no bleeding, no sense of anything different from before.

As he gazed at the bone and arteries marking the fresh, bloody flesh of the wound, it was like looking at meat in the window of a butcher shop.

Faced with the abnormality of what had occurred to his own body, Subaru screamed.

“A—aaaaaaaaa! M-my arm…my aaaarm?!”

“Hey, it didn’t hurt, right? If you rant in a huge voice like that, Dona’s gonna hate you!”

“Y-y-you?! What are you sayin’…? G-give it back! Give it back!!”

The little girl’s easygoing and bizarre worldview blew a hole in Subaru’s unaccepting brain. He instantly determined that he needed back the arm she was clutching to reattach it to his shoulder immediately.

A human body was not a simple enough thing that this alone would heal it, but he was too confused for that to sink in.

Anyway, I’ve gotta get my arm back, went Subaru, attempting to grab hold of the girl when—

“—Thou shall not be among the condemned.”

The next instant, both of Subaru’s legs shattered from the knees on down.

Having lost his right shoulder, then both his lower legs, Subaru lost his balance, tumbling forward. The blow cracked his hips, sending a fissure into his chest, and his face was flattened at an angle.

“K—aa…!! Wh…ut dud…”

“Oh, you’re not an evildoer, but you have a guilty conscience anyway! Awww, Baru, you’re so nice, you poor thing. It must be so haaard…”

There was no pain from his shattered legs, his cracked torso, or his head. They were simply broken and lost.

Squatting, the little girl gently stroked Subaru’s head as he lay on the ground. The earnest benevolence in the stroke of her hand, and the voice she cast toward Subaru, became frightening.

He could not comprehend. It didn’t compute. He couldn’t cope with the abnormality.

“Typhon’s completed her goal— After that…eh? Ahhh, I get it!”

Standing up, the girl brushed off her knees and said something, but his mind wasn’t paying attention. The little girl seemed to have lost interest in Subaru, too.

In the view from lying faceup, the little girl vanished, and in her place, he saw the clear blue sky.

“”

Perhaps Subaru felt no pain because his body was a spiritual one, formed from his soul alone? He’d been advised that if it was wounded enough to make him think that he had died, it would be something that couldn’t be undone.

It’s all right, I’ll endure it, you’ll see, he thought, and this was the result.

The cracks on his limbs, his hips, his torso, his head, were growing, until finally, within the dream, he would become fine particles of dust—

“—Oooone! The absurdities of the human world must be punched!”

There was a voice. The voice strongly reverberated through Subaru, on the verge of shattering to dust.

The voice continued. It was imposing…imposing without a hint of shame.

“—Twooooo! Nefarious misdeeds can go to hell!!”

The voice echoing in the distance gradually grew nearer. Moreover, it was a voice with a high-pitched echo.

“—Threeeee! Be it unsightly or beautiful, all is part of this transient world!!”

As he broke, Subaru listened to the voice.

As his limbs turned to dust—his torso having already lost its shape—and his soul received wounds rivaling death itself, there was a great rumble as something stepped close. With wide-open eyes, Subaru saw something twirling around.

“—Do not think! You’ll just! Get away with this!!”

As Subaru lay faceup, the fist made a direct blow to the bridge of his nose, penetrating to the back of his skull and making the ground behind it explode. A crater was formed in the grassy plain, and a plume of dust rose from the destructive force of the explosive blow.

“—?!!”

He didn’t understand what had happened. But with his psyche on the verge of death, he was caught by his neck and forcefully swung about. It was as if he was being dragged away from death…as if it was too soon for him to die.

He was dragged up and pummeled. Fists punched wildly, continuing to dig into Subaru like rain.

Engulfed by the impact, he completely lost his bearings. His psyche was dyed white. His field of vision beheld only the unrelenting fists—and the side of the face of the girl hurling them, drenched in sweat and tears.

The girl’s tears glistened as they scattered into the sky. The girl wept as she swung one fist, then another, pounding the nearly dead Subaru over and over and over and over again.

“Through my fists, the world is reborn! Through my anger, the world is cleansed!! My wrath! My healing fists! This is my answerrrr—!!”

Putting her hips into what truly deserved the wording, she slammed a mighty blow into Subaru’s face.

I’m gonna blow, thought Subaru, utterly certain the impact would do just that.

“Eh?”

However, the blast he was certain would come never arrived.

His skull was intact, as was his life that was surely disintegrating, the fists affecting nothing at all.

—No, they had an effect. His arm, his legs, his torso, his head, his face—the cracks had vanished from them all as they returned to their former state.

Subaru’s soul, breaking apart to become dust of the dream, had been pieced back together.

“Th-this is…”

“Arm and both legs are fine, huh! That’s me for you. My work is awesome!!”

As Subaru sat cross-legged on the ground, confirming his limbs were safe and sound, he heard a powerful force come at him from behind.

When he nervously looked over his shoulder, he saw that the speaker truly was standing close enough to touch. When he looked up at the other party, what immediately leaped into Subaru’s eyes were—

“…Breasts?”

“—!! Wh-where the hell are you looking?!”

The other person was so close that he saw not her face, but the breasts that obstructed his vision before it. Subaru’s dumbstruck voice made the owner of the breasts go shrill as she leaped backward. Finally, he could see her entire body.

“P-please look at someone’s eyes when you speak with them. Eyes! Goodness! Men are always like this, that’s why I can’t trust them!”

Yet another unfamiliar girl raged, venting her naked anger at the male gender.

The beautiful girl had gleaming golden hair, worn in a side ponytail that rubbed against her face, and vivid, nearly transparent blue eyes. She wore a short skirt that prioritized ease of movement, wearing a white-based tunic over her torso. She looked similar in age to Subaru, though she was a fair bit shorter—and she had big breasts and a large butt that lent her a very appealing figure.

Combined with the person’s demeanor, Subaru felt he ought to call it a healthy sex appeal.

The girl’s hostile demeanor and actions put Subaru at a loss as to what he ought to say to her first. During that time, a change came over the girl. Her blue, fairly slanted eyes moistened dramatically.

“Y-you’re crying…?”

“I am not crying at all! I’m simply angry! That’s right, I’m angry! It’s Typhon’s fault! Hurting you this much when I hadn’t had any intention of coming out…! Stupid Typhon! I hate the world that makes her do these things! I really hate everybody!”

Stamping her foot upon the ground, her tears flowed profusely as she made the ground tremble beneath her feet. When Subaru looked with greater care, this, plus the blow to him earlier, was causing extreme damage to their surroundings.

The hill upon which he’d had the tea party with Echidna had been flattened, and the table and parasol had been sent flying. It was abnormal for there to be such damage yet for it not to have any effect upon Subaru.

Between the exchange just prior and the girl’s current behavior, he somehow guessed what the girl before him was.

“Th-thank you for saving me? But this must mean you’re also a…”

“I am Minerva, the Witch of Wrath! No one is worthy of invoking her name!!”

“You did it just now, didn’t you?!”

“Anyway! I healed your wounds! My duty is finished! You no longer have so much as a trace of a bee sting on you! That is a Witch’s promise, so there!”

“Don’t talk so casually about Witches and promises! Do you even know how much both of those things scare me?!”

Averting her face, the girl—the Witch Minerva—vented her anger in adorable fashion.

However, the abnormal claim was true after all. He’d felt the effects of literal “tough medicine.” After receiving a thrashing that left the area around him destroyed, his wounds had been healed. As far as mysterious phenomena went, this was something else.

But he could only think of events up to that point as having been broken and healed according to the whims of others—

“Gaaah…! I get it!”

Minerva abruptly glared at the sky, looking like she was exchanging words with an invisible person. When this made Subaru grimace, the girl finally pointed right at him as she delivered a scolding.

“Now see here, don’t do anything rash from here on out! Or next time I’ll heal everyone!”

“Don’t say that like you’re gonna slaughter everybody…”

With that finger thrust toward him, he was overwhelmed by her voice and the powerful will infused within. When Subaru somehow managed that mumbling reply, before his eyes, the sight of Minerva swayed like a mirage—

“…Seeing your face makes me feel so relieved it’s like I’m back at my own house.”

“…That appraisal leaves me somewhat conflicted. I was somewhat nervous that we would not be able to converse anymore.”

Before the exhausted Subaru, Echidna appeared with displeasure upon her face. The Witch twirled her long, white hair around a finger, not looking in Subaru’s direction very much.

Subaru sighed at the Witch’s timid demeanor.

“Your warning was correct. I almost died and got zero to show for it… Pathetic.”

“That could not be helped… More to the point, an issue came up, which forced that result. Even though my objective was to let you speak to Daphne, the instant I relinquished my body, Typhon ran on ahead and…”

“Mm? Wait, that was Typhon, not Daphne?”

When Subaru, seeing that the name was off, tilted his head, the interrupted Echidna nodded.

“The first Witch to appear before you was Typhon…the Witch of Pride. I believe you know this from your contact with her, but she is such a child. She set off running, wanting to meet you with all her heart.”

“Meaning I almost got killed by a girl not even related to this stuff…?”

Strictly speaking, he was in peril not of death but of becoming a wreck of a man, yet the effect was the same. Besides, had she mistaken wanting to meet him for wanting to kill him…?

“She named herself, but the one who saved you from the verge of death was Minerva, the Witch of Wrath. In terms of what I explained earlier, that girl is the Witch you would be ‘safest’ with.”

“Yeah, she came off like a, hmm…a fresh-feeling explosive, Tsundere, big-breasted loli healer. Thanks to her, I didn’t have to die but…”

Subaru broke off his words and looked around the area. There was no little hill left anywhere to be seen on the grassy plain.

Sensing from Subaru’s gaze what he was getting at, Echidna flashed a strained smile and snapped her fingers.

Instantly, there was a puff of wind. Simultaneously, for a brief moment, the world was enveloped in darkness as if a curtain had fallen. Then, when the curtain lifted—everything was back as it had been for the tea party of dreams.

“Ohhh…man, you really are a Witch.”

“I am shocked you would doubt such a thing after all of our conversation together. Well then, what now?”

“What do you mean, what now?”

“Do you wish to continue? I can firmly state that this time, I can grant you an audience with Daphne for certain, without interruptions…but Daphne is more dangerous than Typhon.”

Subaru audibly gulped. Naturally, Echidna’s words had given rise to fear.

“…If Wrath was safe, where did Pride land on the scale?”

“Typhon was ‘very dangerous,’ I suppose? Just not as much compared to Camilla and Daphne.”

“Hearing that really makes a guy think, huh…”

When he was told he’d spoken to Typhon, conversation seemed like a distant memory to him. If he dealt with someone even less inclined toward proper speech, his life truly would be in danger.

Even if that was not the case, she was still the creator of demon beasts, which were collections of murderous instincts. Perhaps it truly had been a reckless challenge that Subaru had been doomed to lose from the beginning.

Then, just as he began to think of his battle as one with no chance of victory—

“—That’s why I have to pry the door open, damn it.”

If it was just a matter of victory or defeat, Subaru Natsuki couldn’t win against anyone. It was Subaru’s manner of fighting to challenge so that odds of victory might be born.

“Your determination is firm, then? Understood.”

Before Subaru’s eyes, Echidna’s provocative stance gave way to a sigh with an air of resignation.

However, the Witch then went “However,” raising a finger as she said, “I do want to make this much very clear. You absolutely must not free Daphne of her restraints.”

“Restraints…”

“Moreover, I forbid you from touching her. If possible, I would like you to avoid meeting her eyes as well.”

“If I upheld all that I’d be a guy so creepy I’d wanna die, you know?! “

In the first place, she hadn’t explained the word restraints, something he could not dismiss. But before he could pursue the matter further, Echidna had finished preparing on her end. The Witch’s form slowly wavered, her existence unraveled, and the world melted as she switched places with a different Witch.

Then, with Subaru’s body hard and tense, it slowly emerged before his eyes.

“…Come on, isn’t this a little excessive?”

Drawing back his chin, Subaru let those words out in a quivering voice.

If it was truly the Witch of Gluttony that had appeared before his eyes, the sight of her was truly difficult to ignore.

“—Subaruuu, is there something youu want to ask Daphnee?”

With a sweet voice, Daphne—the Witch of Gluttony—asked with a sniff of her refined nose.

—The Witch was inside a coffin, firmly bound by chains, both eyes sealed by a black blindfold.

Sub-chapter 6.

It wasn’t that there was nothing distinct about her. Rather, the Witch’s external appearance was peculiar in very awkward ways.

The coffin was shaped closest to the torture device known as an iron maiden. The Witch, packed into the vertically standing black coffin, outwardly looked thirteen or fourteen years old.

She wore her ashen hair back in two tails that reached down as far as shoulder level. A pitch-black straitjacket worn over white clothing was affixed to the coffin with chains. Both of her eyes were covered by a blindfold wrapped to cross over the center of her face, lending her appearance an ominous witchiness greater than those who had preceded her.

“I came out because Donadona said to, even though sleeping felt really goood… I don’t want to be up that looong, so don’t talk about anything boring, okaaay?”

“Y-yeah, thanks for the trouble of coming out. That statement sounds more like Sloth than Gluttony, so…you’re the Witch of Gluttony, right?”

The other party was blindfolded and surely not at liberty to step back. But there was Echidna’s warning just prior, so Subaru carefully closed the distance by only a single step.

But that move made Daphne, inside the coffin, murmur “Ahh,” humming through her nose before saying,

“…This might be poison for Daphne’s body—Centipede Coffin.”

“—!”

She called out, and Subaru’s surprise at the subsequent spectacle made his throat catch.

To put it matter-of-factly, all Daphne did was move backward, seemingly to maintain the distance with Subaru. However, it was how she moved that was beyond Subaru’s expectations.

“”

The lower part of the coffin binding Daphne suddenly floated up off the ground. The cause was the legs that sprouted on the bottom of the coffin—legs moving like those of a crab or a spider. With these legs, the coffin moved backward.

It was like a mobile iron maiden—or, more accurately, it moved like a living creature.

“Can I…ask you what that is…?”

“Meaniiing? Daphne cannot see, so say it in a way Daphne can understand.”

“That um…super-aesthetic coffin you have there. From what little I know, coffins don’t have feet, and they definitely don’t move like insects at amazing speeds like that.”

With a creaking sound, the coffin set itself down, as if having reached its destination, drawing the legs it had sprouted back inside again. The action was like a turtle hiding in its shell, but vastly more repulsive.

“Daphne cannot move freely, so Daphne made the Centipede Coffiiiin for thaaat. It moves from Daphne’s sweat and pee, very convenient, yeees?”

“Suddenly I feel like that’s waaaay too much information.”

The gist was that it was a creature living off its host’s waste products. Inside his head, he mulled whether it was just poorly phrased, but the abnormality of it was conspicuous indeed.

The greatest abnormality was surely the part about her having “made” it.

“When Subaruu is by Daphne’s side, Daphne’s body throoobbbs… It’s a scent that Daphne really, reaaaally likes… It makes Daphne want to eat youuu.”

“By eating you mean, ah…swallowing me up?”

“Swallowing youuu…”

Daphne replied with a red face, almost like someone drunk. The words probably meant something different to her than they did to him.

Her expressions were adorable, but the Witch had said without hesitation she wanted to “eat” Subaru. This indicated that she meant nothing beyond the literal meaning of consuming food—in other words, cannibalism was not too far for her.

Common sense or ethical considerations would be of no aid to him. Seizing hold of the pace required a preemptive strike.

“I get that neither of us wants the conversation to drag too long. I get it, so I’ll get right to my question. It’s about the three great demon beasts you made.”

“Three…great?”

“—!! The White Whale, the Great Rabbit, and the Black Serpent, those demon beasts! You made them, right?!”

Her demeanor, like she didn’t remember them, set Subaru off, making him shout the names of the demon beasts. At those names, Daphne tilted her head left and right a number of times as she answered.

“Ahhh, you mean Whaley, Buuunny, and Snakey?”

“That’s what I’m telling y…”

“But you called them by strange names. I don’t knoooow the names other people giiive them. I mean, those children just picked uuup and left Daphne all on their ooown…”

Squirming inside the coffin, Daphne seemed to try and evade Subaru’s anger. Apparently, she didn’t have much self-awareness about creating life being a veritable act of God.

—Meaning that in creating the demon beasts, Daphne wielded power rivaling that of proper deities.

“Geez, why did you create guys like that, anyway…?”

“—? Whyyy?”

“Why! Did you let! Guys like that loose on the world!”

Unable to bear her attitude any longer, like it was someone else’s problem, Subaru rang out an angry shout at the mother of demon beasts. Wrath made his face red, as he pointed a finger at Daphne and howled.

“Even if you’re dead, it’s been four hundred years! How much rampaging do you think those demon beasts have done?! All the people, tens of people, hundreds of people! The casualties are still increasing even now!”

The ferocious clash with the White Whale on the Liphas plains rose to the back of his mind.

He remembered Wilhelm’s tenacity, his shouting the name of his slain wife, the days of lament and anger spent by the knights participating in that battle—and the source of it all was the Witch in the coffin before his eyes.

“What for! What did you make a monster like the White Whale for?!”

“—? The bigger a creature is, the more people it can feed, riiight?”

“—Uh, wha?”

The thoroughly mystified look on Daphne’s face brought Subaru’s forceful, sharp recriminations to a halt. When, as her demeanor rendered his vigor fruitless, he murmured, Daphne inclined her head even farther as she said,

“The White Whale, it’s big, right? A lot of people could be satisfied from eating it.”

“What are you…”

“The Great Rabbit, weeell…they just multiply more and mooore. As long as it’s around, no one will go hungryyy. Isn’t that wooonderful?”

“That’s because the Great Rabbit ate so many of them!!”

Daphne’s speech was incoherent. If he took the words at face value, the reason she created monsters was to resolve the problem of hunger. To save people from the anguish of starvation, she’d created monsters as a source of food— And yet, so many people had fallen victim to those monsters.

“You got everything totally backward! The number of people taken by monsters is way higher than the people whose bellies were filled by…”

“You’re going to eat the other oooone, but you don’t think it’s possible you’ll be eaten yourseeelf… Isn’t that a little too unfaaair?”

As Subaru wore a bitter face, Daphne smiled charmingly, speaking the words as if they were the most natural in the world.

“”

Drinking down her statement, Subaru strived to understand, and he finally understood that he could not understand.

He’d been mistaken. From her appearance and her capacity for words, he’d thought he could speak to her person to person.

But he was wrong. The girl before his eyes was not a “person” at all.

“That’s animal logic…”

The strong eat the weak—this was truly the concept behind Daphne’s actions. Furthermore, it was not that she saw value in a world where the strong ate the weak; her eyes were solely focused upon eating.

Now he understood Echidna’s explanation: Daphne really was dangerous, someone who could not be reasoned with.

Subaru and Daphne had different values.

She was a Witch. Even among the Witches, of which there were only seven in the world, she was a true Witch.

“Subaruu…don’t you think about easing everyooone’s Gluttony, toooo?”

“”

“In liiiife, Gluttony is the most important craving of all, you knooow? I meaaan, if you can’t satisfy thaaat, you can’t live, can youuu?”

“”

“Even if you have no peaaace, even if you are not loooved, even if you can’t vent your emoootions, even if you can’t respect yourseeelf, even if you can’t get what you cooovet, even if you can’t get excited about aaaanything, that won’t kill aaanyone. But…”

“”

“If you can’t eaaaat, you die, riiiight?”

Of all the seven deadly sins, only the sin of Gluttony was directly connected to life itself.

In a proper sense, Gluttony meant a craving for food beyond that which was necessary. But in this case, Daphne truly believed it to mean the craving for food that was necessary to sustain life.

She had a point, one he could not refute. However—

“What you’re saying is partially right. I acknowledge that. But that’s just…”

“Subaruu, you should try hunger up to the very limit ooonce. Then you’ll understand what Daphne’s words meaaan… What kind of world Daphne and Buuunny live iiin.”

Certainly, when she referred to starvation in the utmost extreme, Subaru lacked any words to speak in reply. Subaru had never experienced hunger to the point that it had threatened his life. In a normal household in modern Japan, a lack of food to the level of starvation basically didn’t exist, and even once summoned to another world, he’d been blessed with the good fortune of meeting Emilia in short order and being taken in by Roswaal Manor.

—Even if hunger pangs assailed him that very moment, inflicting difficult-to-endure anguish, it wouldn’t make him understand the Witch’s psyche.

“So that monster, the Great Rabbit, was created out of your own hunger, then…”

“All those childreeen took after Daphne after they were born, especially Daphne’s empty stomaaach… You can understand how they feel when they eat each otheeer…”

“…Doesn’t that make your conscience hurt? How you made the monsters you created feel that emptiness in their stomachs.”

“—? Even if Buuunny’s stomach is empty, it doesn’t make Daphne’s stomach emptieeer?”

“…I was stupid to ask.”

They were talking past each other. No matter how long he tried, he’d never understand this Witch.

To Daphne, even the monsters she had created were nothing more than emergency rations there for the nabbing whenever her belly was empty.

She gave birth to them, she ate them. It was the ultimate in self-sufficiency—truly, this was the mother of the Great Rabbit.

Perhaps it was pointless to exhaust words upon Daphne any longer, but—

“If I said I want to send that Great Rabbit packing, any hints you could give me?”

“Ehhh, you want to destroy Buuunny? That child, it’s weak but easy to eaaat and spreads so easy, tooo. It’s Daphne’s masterpieeeece.”

“If you’re gonna push that weak-eats-the-strong, eat-or-be-eaten stuff, then I’d like you to acknowledge that killing so you can live is basic survival instinct.”

Toward Daphne, who was stubborn in her off-the-wall judgment, Subaru framed his rebuttal in sophistry.

Their values were different, so they couldn’t communicate in the same realm. Trying to play ball and establish space between Subaru and Daphne where they could see eye to eye was a long shot, likely fruitless for both parties.

However—

“—The Great Rabbit relies on mana to search for prey, you seeee.”

“…What got into you all of a sudden?”

“I meaaan, if you have to eat to liiiive, you have to accept you have to kill to live, tooo, or it won’t make seeense?”

Subaru was suspicious about Daphne coming right out and telling him about the Great Rabbit as he’d asked. As he did so, Daphne nodded over and over, apparently accepting Subaru’s sophistry from earlier. He’d expected some kind of instant counterargument, but he’d apparently filled the chasm between his and Daphne’s values from different realms.

Ignoring Subaru’s surprise at that, Daphne spoke about the characteristics of her child as the mother of demon beasts.

“It’s attracted to large amounts of mana, sooo you could use a strong magic user as a decoy to lure them togeeether. Then you could take them out all at oooonce?”

“…I heard they increase with no limit. Won’t there be guys away from the pack?”

“No matter how many bodiiies, there is only one miiind. So it’s liiiike, one set of thoughts is shared across the whole hooorde. It doesn’t have any smarts for keeping it from being destroooyed.”

“That so. So if we do take them out, it won’t be like, they all come back from one survivor like something out of a cliché horror movie …”

It was an obligatory plot in a monster panic movie, but combined with the Great Rabbit’s characteristics, it wouldn’t be funny at all.

But the information from just then was a huge contribution for how to deal with the impending Great Rabbit. It didn’t mean he’d worked out a sure way to eliminate it yet, but the data was plenty to make all that worth the effort. He saw a tiny glimmer of hope.

“Fuwaah… Is it all right if Daphne rests noooow?”

To Subaru, his head pondering how to subjugate the Great Rabbit, Daphne yawned and spoke thusly. To the bitter end, she did things at her own pace—or rather, was heedless of all around her.

To Daphne, just like the Great Rabbit, all began and ended with her individual existence. Accordingly, the Witch had utterly no interest in the results; not for Subaru, not for the Great Rabbit.

Perhaps the only thing that interested her was insatiable hunger. What did that even mean for a Witch who was no longer alive?

“Yeah. Took a while, but I’ll keep that tucked away. Thanks—also.”

One was alive, and the other was dead; the eras of their lives were different. Had it not been for such a fashion, Subaru and Daphne were two lines that would never, ever have crossed. Hence, there was no issue whatsoever with giving up on their different values and parting ways.

There was no issue, but—

“—I will destroy the Great Rabbit. I already killed the White Whale. I won’t accept any complaints from their mommy dearest.”

“”

“Four hundred years ago, you might have thought you did a good job. If you didn’t, well, setting that aside, they’ve rampaged on and on. They’ve done enough— I’ll erase them, with no trace left.”

There was a vast chasm between their values—and, fully aware of this, Subaru spoke.

Not knowing whether it would reach, he’d wanted to fire off at least one arrow at the Witches toying with him until the bitter end.

Faced with Subaru’s declaration of war, Daphne showed him a reaction like none before it.

“…Uppity human.”

The murmur that trickled out was utterly bereft of the sweet atmosphere up until that point.

The Witch’s mouth opened broadly to one side, and for the first time, he caught a glimpse of tangible will beyond mere Gluttony.

“—Do iiiit, if you can.”

Baring her all-too-sharp fangs and sticking out her red tongue, the Witch of Gluttony laughed with delight.

Sub-chapter 7.

“”

A powerful wind blew, and Subaru unwittingly threw up his arms, obstructing his field of vision.

His eyes followed as the gust buffeted the grassland, and a swirl of wind made the petals of wild flowers dance aloft in the sky. He watched until they were swallowed by the light of the sun, whereupon his gaze returned. And then—

“—Sorry for insisting, Echidna.”

“I need no thanks. In this place, it is good for the girls to exchange words with someone besides me once in a while. Of course, if it was not a being like you, he or she could not stand before us.”

“…You pulling my leg?”

“It would be great if all could be solved by pulling legs, but many things cannot.”

Echidna, manifesting in Daphne’s place, spoke in a jesting manner as she shrugged her shoulders.

At the very least, though Subaru felt the same sense of oppression from his first meeting with Echidna, he did not receive the same urge to vomit. He’d felt the same when meeting the other Witches.

He’d felt fear due to the girls’ abnormality. But there had been no instinctive sense of rejection. That was the difference.

“So did you pick up anything from that talk with Daphne?”

“I suppose so… First, I picked up that among the Witches, you’re incredibly sane.”

“Ha… Goodness gracious, this will not do. I cannot have you look at me more lightly from such lovely-to-hear words putting me in a good mood.”

At Subaru’s deeply felt reply, Echidna made a sound through her nose, plus some small jest. After that, the Witch hummed a tune as she put fresh tea and cookie-like treats onto the table.

The tune wasn’t very good. At any rate, she was an easy-to-understand Witch.

“But I’ll pass on your body fluids and cookies with who-knows-what mixed into them.”

“I have not put any hair in them.”

“At this point I’ve gotta second-guess each and every thing you tell me!”

From that moment forward, Subaru firmly swore in his heart that he would not eat or drink again at that tea party.

In contrast to Subaru’s determination, Echidna made a pained smile and narrowed her black eyes. With those dark-colored eyes staring at him, Subaru grimaced, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

“I don’t really like how those eyes seem to see through everything.”

“If I could understand everything about someone by staring, I would stare at you until you burst into flames… Besides, I really must say, you have little self-awareness, do you?”

“—? What are you talking about? Self-aware of what?”

“Perhaps the distorted situation? For instance…if you had a mind to, you could calmly exchange words with even Typhon, provided she said she wants to speak with you. Am I wrong?”

With Subaru tilting his head, Echidna tossed him a question. Accepting it, Subaru twisted his head one way then the other, pondering. What did the Witch want to say, or what was she trying to make him say?

“…If she wanted to talk I think I’d hear her out. What of it?”

“After Typhon did all that to you? Normally, a person could never accept someone who shattered his arms and legs and nearly killed him, not even if those wounds had been completely healed.”

“”

The instant she pointed that out, Subaru’s breath caught.

His reaction made the blackness of Echidna’s eyes thicken in ever-deeper interest. During that time, Subaru slowly remembered something he had forgotten—how to breathe.

“It seems you were not wholly unaware of it.”

“…I wonder if it’s an issue with how my mind’s working right now. Certainly I’m self-aware that my thinking is a little less than sane. But I can’t just come out and say certain stuff, right?”

What would happen if he said in anger about Typhon, who’d nearly taken his life, that he couldn’t forgive her?

Even Rem had killed Subaru once upon a time. And once upon a time, Ram had helped her do so. Even so, Subaru had forgiven them both. Love toward them had won out against anger. He’d chosen a tomorrow he could spend with them over a tomorrow without them.

“Of course, it’s different with Witches I only just met than with Rem and Ram. I’m not gonna put up with talking to Typhon unless she apologizes. Tell her that.”

“…Understood. I do not know if she will listen or if she will desire to speak with you again, but I shall have a firm word with her about the matter.”

Puffing out her chest, Echidna undertook to do as Subaru said in a most commendable manner. Nodding at her reply, Subaru abruptly looked down at his two hands.

He had an odd sense that something was off. He opened and closed his fists, knitting his brows with a questioning look.

“The heck? I’m getting this weird, creepy feeling…”

“—It would seem that the time for you to awaken draws near.”

“Awaken? …Meaning…”

Subaru felt dizzy as his upper body swayed. Tasting something like dizziness from getting up too fast, Subaru, still seated in his chair, blinked, as he wondered what was going on.

Awakening meant liberation from the castle of dreams. But what was strange about that was—

“According to what you told me, I can’t leave here so long as you haven’t given permission?”

“That should be the case, but there are exceptions. For instance, in the case that your flesh and blood is being urged to awaken from without……but that is odd. Certainly this time we have spoken at length, but even so, this is not a common occurrence by any means.”

“Woken from the outside…? Don’t tell me, that means…”

Subaru’s eyes opened wide as Echidna’s explanation made him think of something.

In his present condition, Subaru was only a soul invited into Echidna’s dream. The flesh and blood meant to contain it ought to have still been lying on the stone floor in the tomb, limbs spread like a snow angel. Time flowed differently between inside and out, so he figured it was basically impossible someone had sensed something wrong and entered the tomb.

In other words, there was only one person who could be waking Subaru up.

“Emilia’s trying to wake me? No, wait, in the first place…”

That was when Subaru realized a strange fact. There was no mistaking that Emilia was challenging the tomb’s Trial. Subaru had entered there during that time, after all.

But if those events were happening in the castle of dreams during that Trial, then—

“Weren’t you playing the part of the examiner for the Trial? What are you doing here, then?”

“Mm?”

“I mean, Emilia’s challenging the Trial, too, right? What are you doing here instead of supervising that? Isn’t that weird?”

“…Ahhh, that is what you mean. But I already see the result, so…”

“You see the result…?”

The terribly blunt reply left Subaru unable to continue to the next phrase. This was because Echidna’s apathy about Emilia’s trial came from referencing Subaru’s own memories.

So far as Subaru knew, Emilia would be unable to beat the Trial for three days hence.

Even if one thought she could do it with more time, the Great Rabbit would rob her of the time required.

“Therefore, I am no longer interested in the result of her challenge. I surely cannot expect her to have a breakthrough in three days, even through trial and error. Or perhaps you could do it?”

“”

“Would you, he who has decided to redo over and over, spread your wings for the cowardly Princess’s sake?”

The sarcastic, teasing way she said it made Subaru shut his eyes. On the back of his eyelids, all that floated up was the image of Emilia crying, her heart broken by the Trial.

To make her overcome the Trial, would he die over and over, to avoid making her wear that face?

His heart strongly implored him not to behave in a manner so cruel.

“I hate to be a sucker for your taunt, but I can’t let you make Emilia cry anymore.”

“Er…mm, it is not as if I am the one making her cry, however.”

“For that sake, I’ll challenge your bad-taste Trial. I meant to do that last time around, anyway. People got in my way, so I couldn’t then, but I’ll make it happen next time.”

“You really did not have to say it is in bad taste…”

Echidna commented with a pout, but that did nothing to dampen Subaru’s resolve.

Either way, the declaration he had made to Echidna was genuine.

This time, Subaru wanted to take the Trial. He’d already overcome the first Trial. If he broke past the second and the third, the Sanctuary would be liberated from the barrier.

After that, he could race to the mansion and, borrowing Beatrice’s power, send Elsa and the Beast Master packing.

For that, he’d challenge as many times as he needed to. The last thing to tug at his mind was—

“…Garfiel.”

Even then, having restarted, he couldn’t pin down how he ought to act toward the man who could bestialize into a giant tiger.

The fact was, the more he Returned by Death, the more the miasma thickened, prompting unnecessary disputes between him and Garfiel. If so, in spite of the overwhelming power gap between Garfiel and others, he wound up turning his claws against Ram, Otto, and the villagers.

Even if he survived, the other guy wouldn’t listen—even if the circumstances changed, how could he reconcile with such a man?

“…There’s no way.”

At the very least, Subaru was incapable of forgiving Garfiel in his current mental state. Of course, it wasn’t someone he ought to be antagonizing, either. He’d have to avoid confrontation as best he could.

There was no chance of victory through arms. He could not yet bring himself to imagine Garfiel becoming an ally, but…

“Shit, not good… My mind’s really breaking down.”

In the middle of such thoughts, his mind swayed. He was struck by the sensation that he was falling asleep. From the sight of Subaru, Echidna said, “It seems our time is at an end,” and continued, “From my perspective, this time was particularly fruitful, and this after not even being asked a question last time. Have I lived up to the name of the Witch of Greed, at least a little?”

“I suppose you have… Yeah, to be honest, it’s a big help…both for making a plan and for my psyche.”

Compared to the previous occasion, when he’d indeed exchanged words with Echidna for only a short time, they had spoken long. During that time, a number of people who had not shown themselves before Subaru to date had revealed themselves. Most of all, he’d divulged Return by Death. His eaten-to-death psyche’s wounds had also apparently healed.

Even if the outside world would doubt his sanity for the thought, he didn’t find being aided by a Witch to be so mysterious.

“One Witch’s power makes me redo from death; another’s saves my psyche, huh?”

“What was that?”

“Nah, just talking to myself— Echidna, what should I do to come here again?”

“”

Through Return by Death, Subaru would be certain to return to the tomb. But an invitation into Echidna’s territory required qualifications beyond that. Opening the door of dreams required a key, just like his desperate struggling had acted as a trigger that time around.

“I know it’s selfish to ask. But down the road, a time will come when I want to borrow your wisdom again. You know a lot of stuff, and besides…”

“—Because I know about your Return by Death, yes?”

“…Yeah, that’s right.”

Until that point, Subaru had no one who knew he Returned by Death that he could also actually converse with. But that was possible with Echidna, the Witch before his eyes.

Echidna was sharper-witted than Subaru. Her power was necessary to overcome the current loop.

“I do not mind the feeling of being relied on. However, the living should not so easily welcome the dead into their thoughts or lend them their hearts…particularly when dealing with a Witch.”

“You mean, it’s no good?”

“I am not saying it is no good. But I believe it will probably be more difficult from here on.”

With dejection and hope both dwelling in Subaru’s eyes, Echidna’s cheeks went taut as she made a strained smile.

“The conditions for inviting a guest steadily become more difficult. The first time, I am free to call someone, but from the second onward, it is not so. This is the second time you have been invited. Your voice and its heartfelt craving to know reached me. The third time requires it be even greater than the second— Do you think you are capable of this?”

“A bigger voice than this time around, meaning I have to die with a bigger impact than being eaten by bunnies? …Even if I could, I would, um, prefer not to.”

In the first place, when he’d died this latest time, it was enough to spark madness. He’d been in a veritable oblivion, his soul shaken to the very core of his being as he cried out, why— Just what kind of pain and loss would he have to arrive at to one-up that?

“Since you have rejected it, this may well be the final time you and I come face to face. But if you engage with the Trial according to your plan, that might not be so.”

“—? Ahh, I get it! So that’s how it is!”

He palmed a fist. He understood what Echidna was getting at. He’d have a chance to speak with her outside of a tea party.

Just like during the first Trial, if Subaru challenged the Trial in Emilia’s place, his desire for reunion would be granted when he met the Witch during the second and third Trials.

“So if I do that, then? That said, there’s more to that than a cup of tea…”

“If you insist, I am willing to pour you some there as well…”

“Nah, the more I see of what goes into it, the less I wanna drink that stuff.”

When he thrust out the palms of his hand, rejecting her offer, Echidna wore the most dejected face she had to date.

He had no idea why the Witch was trying to supply him with her own bodily fluids to that extent. Maybe it aroused her to have part of herself become part of another. That would be sinful indeed.

Either way, he’d put the next opportunity on his to-do list. There was one thing left to do before he departed.

“Feels like I’m about to wake up for real. So Echidna, please, before that.”

“—?”

“Hey, don’t leave me hanging! Compensation for the tea party! You’re the one who said it!”

“A-ahh, compensation. Of course, obligatory for a Witch’s tea party. It would be bad if I forgot such a thing.”

For an instant, he was nervous that she had genuinely forgotten, but Echidna spoke those words with a suspicious-looking smile. Normally, Subaru would have wanted her to forget about making him pay compensation before being swept outside, but this time, the “vow” business was included in the compensation. He couldn’t omit it.

The vow would be rewritten, and he would return outside of the dream with his memories of Echidna, and the tea party, intact.

Worst case, if he forgot about the conversation with Daphne, the only future waiting for him was being eaten by the Great Rabbit a second time.

“Last time, I forbade you from speaking of the tea party. This time, you desire that I unbind you from that vow, and I have given you a warm reception in other ways still. I must have appropriate compensation.”

“Just thinking of it all makes me nervous about what I’m gonna pay for it.”

“Perhaps after you die, I shall collect your soul, and you may enjoy an eternal party with us…”

“Sorry. I can’t die, remember?”

“I suppose not. I find that thing’s obsession even more detestable than before.”

He thought it was a joke nonetheless, but as penultimate choices went, it was frightening compensation indeed. Just thinking about spending all eternity there with the Witches left him unable to stop shaking.

If I have to offer compensation on the same level as that— Just as Subaru was worrying along those lines, Echidna went, “In that case,” stretching out her hand as she said, “I really had my eye on that one, but I suppose this will do?”

As she spoke, Echidna’s fingers touched the white handkerchief wrapped around Subaru’s wrist.

Given to him by Petra, the proof of his promise to her to return safe and sound had followed him even to the world of dreams—

“This will do…? It’s just a handkerchief, right? There’s nothing special about it at all.”

“Then there’s no harm in giving it to me, is there? If there is nothing special about it.”

“Er, well that might be true but…this is…”

Echidna’s behavior, clinging to obstinacy, made Subaru shield his wrist as his words grew awkward. The handkerchief was infused with a promise, one that would carry him back to Petra without fail. It carried Petra’s thoughts wishing him safety on his journey. He couldn’t simply hand it over.

After all, returning it to Petra safe and sound was one of Subaru’s goals.

“Besides, how can compensation be something physical like this? This is a mental world. You can’t actually keep something from the world outside, right?”

“How perceptive of you. Certainly, even if you hand it to me here, the handkerchief will not vanish from your wrist when you return to the outside. But there is the wish infused within.”

“The wish, in the handkerchief?”

Unlike with Subaru’s figurative thoughts, Echidna nodded with a completely serious look of conviction.

“The one who conferred this to you has heartfelt concern for you. The feelings behind her wish for your safety become a power that protects you. Such charms existed even in my time, but you must not mock them.”

“Had no intention of doing so… But, that so, huh?”

When Subaru gripped his wrist, handkerchief included, he felt the consideration from that adorable girl within. Gradually, his chest was filled with warmth.

In his heart, he vowed anew. He would rescue the girl from her tragic fate.

“This may be my territory, but that does not mean I am completely free to do as I please. Just as I cannot deny you your freedom, I cannot do with the feelings infused within the handkerchief as I wish. Therefore, no concern is necessary.”

“I’m a bit concerned about that preamble, but in that case, how does the handkerchief become compensation for you?”

“It lets me be certain of the existence of those feelings, and perhaps…interfere, somewhat?”

Replying thusly to Subaru’s question, Echidna touched Subaru’s handkerchief with her supple finger. The Witch proceeded to gently close her eyes, lowering her head as she stood right beside him.

The feeling of proximity and the Witch’s scent made him uncomfortable. Internally, he prayed for her to hurry up, but Echidna, unaware of this, took a full ten seconds before going “All right” and pulling back from him.

“With this, I have collected my compensation. There is a new vow between us. Do not forget this!”

“…Um, my old vow was to forget this stuff, you know.”

Using invective to paper over his embarrassment, Subaru took a step away from Echidna.

Already, Subaru’s vision had warped. The world lost its shape, save for Echidna alone.

“Well, big help. See you next Trial, I guess?”

“It would be nice if your challenging the tomb went smoothly, but…”

Subaru made a pained smile at how she could lob mental millstones with such ease. Then, it felt like this time he was truly being cut off from the dream—

“—Subaru Natsuki, if you ever come for a third tea party…”

“Eh?”

The instant he was enveloped by a floaty feeling, Echidna, fading from view, said something to him.

When Subaru spoke back, the Witch, growing misty, smiled as she continued.

“—If such a time comes, it shall be I who wishes to speak with you about something.”

“”

With those final words seemingly tugging at the back of his hair, the Witch vanished from Subaru’s field of vision.

A misty feeling remained in his chest. But Subaru turned his way, facing overhead.

He lost the floaty feeling. He did not know if he was rising or falling.

But the dream was ending. And as the dream ended, the determination he embraced was—

“—Next time, there won’t be any mistakes.”

The murmur accompanied his resolve. The next moment, he heard a sound like ice cracking, and all at once, his vision went white.
 

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Diamond. Diamond. Diamond.

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