Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World – Vol. 14 Ch. 3

Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World. Volume. 14.

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‘Chapter 3:- THE DAY ALPHA ORIONIS LAUGHED.’

 
Sub-chapter 1.

—The tale now returns to the forest of a hundred years past, the time of the Trial that was being visited by a single girl.

“I am a member of the Witch Cult, the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins who has been entrusted with Greed—Regulus Corneas.”

—The way the boy introduced himself with a laugh was the quintessence of an anomaly.

At a glance, the boy had assumed no discernible stance, instead looking full of openings. His eyes were filled with composure and conceit that would be nonexistent in a wary person. His face projected that he could not even conceive of the slightest harm being done to him.

In peaceful times, or if he was inside a formidable fortress, there would be no problem with that whatsoever. However, the boy was an uninvited guest, and right in front of him was Fortuna, her enmity high and a grave look in her eyes.

To maintain that posture even under such conditions blew right past composure into the surreal.

But the man—Regulus—was anomalous in having forced others to accept his existence.

And Emilia also remembered the title this man bore.

“An Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins from the Witch Cult…that’s like the people who attacked the mansion and Earlham Village…!”

She’d heard that Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins was a title granted to the leaders commanding the Witch Cult—the group that had turned its enmity toward Roswaal Manor and Earlham Village, and thus, the trigger for the villagers taking refuge in the Sanctuary. The other thing she’d learned was that one of those Archbishops had been personally after Emilia and that another was a bitter foe responsible for Rem’s unnaturally long sleep.

“Why is a person like that in this forest…?”

“—Archbishop Regulus Corneas! Why are you here?!”

It was Geuse, standing in the forest of the past, who shouted in a shrill voice the question Emilia also desperately wanted to ask. His expression was grave, as if he were a wholly different person than the one who had shown such benevolent love toward the young Emilia and Fortuna.

“I was promised that no one save me would involve themselves with this forest and this incident!”

“Promised? That’s an arrangement you arbitrarily declared and started with an arbitrary decision, right? Quite a conceited little spirit, aren’t you, trying to push that onto other people and make them obey it. There are limits involving other people’s wills and thoughts, so would you stop intruding upon my mind and body already?”

“That is not an answer! If you do not like the arrangement, then you should have raised the issue at the church! Yet, you showed your face here! To start with, who told you about this pla…?”

The angered Geuse and the sour Regulus seemed to be mutual acquaintances of some sort. But there was not a single shred of affection between them, nor did their conversation hold any hope of compromise.

However—

“—That is because I instructed him to do so.”

Abruptly, the gentle, bell-like voice of a woman interrupted the heated exchange.

A look of fright appeared in Geuse’s eyes, and Fortuna’s were filled with anger. Inside her mother’s arms, young Emilia’s teary eyes became clouded, and Regulus’s lips curled into a vile, malevolent smile.

And as she viewed the past, Emilia gasped in shock; Echidna merely gaped.

—Slipping through gaps between the trees of the forest, the sight of a single girl appeared at that place.

The girl came to a halt, lining up side by side with Regulus to face off against Emilia and the others. She was a girl with inhuman, terrifying beauty, enough to make those who set eyes upon her unable to stop themselves from trembling.

Her long, seemingly transparent platinum hair gave off a soft glow like sunlight personified, creating a waterfall of light that traveled from her slender shoulders down her back. Her eyes, rimmed with long eyelashes, were deep blue, almost like they were trapping the world within. Altogether, her facial features were excessively lovely and seemed like the ideal image of “beauty” harbored by human beings.

Her small body seemed so delicate that the thought of carrying her felt precarious. She was clad in but a single sheet of fabric, yet the very idea that anything was permitted to touch her bare flesh seemed unreal.

If, truly for instance, it was possible to kill through beauty alone, it was such “beauty” she possessed.

“What is the matter, Archbishop Romanée-Conti?”

The girl with looks that could kill inclined her head, posing that simple question.

Her tone, the casual glance, the mere fact this girl had made time for him—these things had the potential to give a normal man such an overwhelming feeling of happiness that it wouldn’t be strange if his heart simply stopped.

Anyone could understand with one glance—this was a dangerous being who could not be allowed to exist in that world.

“Why…why are you here…Regulus Corneas?! Why have you brought her?!!”

Geuse gritted his teeth, seemingly to reject the difficult-to-resist urges welling up within him. This blood-tinged rejection made Regulus snort with a thoroughly exasperated look on his face.

“Are you saying I brought her here? Now, just hold on a minute; I resent people who arbitrarily decide those kinds of things. You know I despise coercing someone more than anything else, right? Her accompanying me is of her own volition. Do you have a grudge against me to make anything and everything my fault?”

“Archbishop Corneas, our friend seems confused. Do not be too hard on him.”

It would not have been strange for such a statement of rebuke to set off Regulus’s temper. In spite of this, Regulus respectfully bowed, and the corners of his lips curled in enjoyment.

Written or spoken words were no longer sufficient to describe the abnormality of the vile man.

“This is… Is this not too cruel even for you, Lady Pandora…?!”

Geuse’s voice, nearly out of breath, made the girl break into a thin smile.

The girl’s charming smile encouraged a feeling of happiness that rivaled all the blessed things in the world. The forbearance of the girl named Pandora, forgiving all that surrounded her, was a boon to the world.

She spread her slender hands, as if her dainty arms could embrace anything and everything.

“Now, bring the Key and the seal here—so that the Witch Cult’s greatest desire may be fulfilled at last.”

“Pandoraaaaaa—!!”

The girl’s gentle declaration overlapped with Fortuna’s harsh cry.

Shielding young Emilia behind her back, Fortuna howled as she summoned blue lights around her. These bright points transformed into long stakes of ice, in such great numbers that they filled Emilia’s vision, their sharp tips aimed toward Pandora.

“Oh my.”

“I’ll make it up to Brother by turning you into a pincushion!!”

As Pandora casually stood there, Fortuna mercilessly launched a magical barrage at her.

The ice stakes, each as thick as an adult’s arm, bore down on Pandora with incredible force. The sharp tips impaled the astounded girl’s face; fragments of shattered ice daubed the forest white.

“With this, you will be no more—!!”

Furiously contorting her beautiful face, Fortuna cruelly brought the glimmering scene to an emphatic end. The forest sky parted, and a giant mass of ice fell, directly striking Pandora. The cold gravestone smashed into the earth.

The spectacle left young Emilia, and the Emilia of the present, unable to make a sound.

Even borrowing Puck’s power, could Emilia employ magic to rival what her mother had just done? She hadn’t intended to underestimate Fortuna, yet her combat ability was far above her expectations, shocking her. But—

“—Now, hold on. Right now, you’re not even paying attention to me, are you? Yet, the fact is that despite this, you attempted to involve me in your attack regardless… What’s with that? That’s trampling on my life, my existence, my rights, and my very humanity, is it not?”

They heard deeply resentful lines emanating from within the white haze. The next moment, the fallen glacier broke apart. The sight of Regulus standing leisurely in the middle of that surreal scene of glimmering ice fragments was terrifyingly abnormal. And Pandora, standing behind him unharmed, was similarly disconcerting.

Though Regulus lightly brushed off his jacket, not only was he unharmed, but his clothes were not marred in the slightest in spite of the tremendous attack. All Pandora did was fix her hair, askew from the wind.

Regulus had likely stepped in front of Pandora to shield her, but the phenomenon was not a matter of defensive ability alone. Emilia couldn’t even begin to grasp what had happened.

“So that is the Greed of this age. When I consider this encounter is normally impossible, it is deeply interesting indeed.”

“…Echidna, do you know what happened just now?”

Emilia posed the question to Echidna as the latter departed from the shade of the trees, shifting to a location from which it was easier to observe the battle. Echidna lifted the corners of her lips as she frowned at Emilia, who’d moved right beside her like it was the natural thing to do, but she immediately sighed and spoke.

“I can hazard a guess, but I am far from certain. I would have liked to observe the situation a little longer before speculating about his Authority…but it would seem the circumstances will not permit it— They are on the move.”

Emilia felt vexed by how authoritatively Echidna seemed on everything they were watching but decided to focus her attention on the past.

Fortuna gritted her teeth at her initial attack being fended off. Geuse stretched an arm before her.

“Lady Fortuna! Please take Lady Emilia and retreat from this place! At present, we are entirely too powerless against Regulus Corneas!”

“No…! Are you telling me to back off with that woman in front of me?!”

“Please think of the situation! Who are you protecting right now?!!”

“Urk…!”

Geuse scolded Fortuna for her aggressive position. His comment made her open her eyes wide; Fortuna remembered that her beloved daughter, right behind her, was clinging to her clothes.

“M-Mom…”

“Emilia…”

As Fortuna picked young Emilia up into her arms, Geuse spoke with a calm voice.

“Please withdraw. And immediately seek aid from the settlement. I and the believers who came with me share a common wish. They will surely be of aid to you.”

“But if we do that, what will become of you?”

“—Rest at ease. I do not intend to simply stay behind without a plan.”

Countering Fortuna’s morose gaze, Geuse responded with a smile, even while tension oozed from every pore he had.

In response to that proudly smiling face, Fortuna closed her eyes tight, as if severing all reluctance asunder.

“I will come back to save you— I will.”

With young Emilia in her arms, Fortuna raced into the forest, leaving those words behind.

Writhing within her mother’s arms, young Emilia desperately shouted toward the fast-receding Geuse.

“Geuse—!!”

That youthful, tender love brought a peaceful smile to Geuse’s face as he raised his hand. From there, Emilia receded deeper into the forest, from where she could see Geuse’s slender figure no more.

In spite of that, the scene, which Emilia surely had no memory of, continued on. This threw her into confusion.

“Geuse got separated from us… What’s going to happen to the Trial now?!”

“Naturally, it will continue. This is a past you did not set eyes upon, but the book of knowledge is working to adjust the course of this replicated world. Considering this is a Trial, however, you should pursue your own self. What will you do?”

Replying to Emilia’s question, Echidna unexpectedly stated she should go after Fortuna.

That option tempted Emilia’s heart. Of course, Emilia’s objective was to break past the Trial. She had no room to doubt that she should pursue her own past for that sake.

However, this was where Geuse had fought so boldly, a battle for which he had put everything on the line so that Fortuna, and moreover, young Emilia could escape. Besides—

“Heh, you’re staying?”

“Echidna, from how you spoke just now…it feels like you are saying there isn’t a particular reason to do so.”

“”

“Perhaps I’m overthinking this, but it’s almost as if you want me to go that way…”

“—You are free to think as you please. Besides, even as you linger, events are already in motion.”

Echidna took a step back, putting some distance between them without replying to Emilia’s question. This was so that she might occupy a position with a commanding view of the battleground that the space had become.

And as Geuse stood still in the battlefield that spread before the Witch’s eyes, the fiendish, white-haired man uttered a mocking laugh.

“Hmm, putting on a decent show, aren’t you? But you know, who are you rejecting in allowing them to escape? Any way you think of it, my business is with them, not you. In other words, your interference is a violation of my actions, of my rights.”

“Put it however you please, Regulus Corneas. I shall wager my very existence. I will not allow you to advance any farther toward them!”

“Don’t say that. You might have been one of the founders of the Witch Cult, and you may have your seat because of a few past services you contributed, but if the question of who deserves it more was to come up now, that seat would be mine! Do you think you can beat me if you try hard enough? What kind of head do you have on those shoulders?”

“That…I will show you from this moment forward.”

To Regulus, who was whipping himself into a frenzy with self-serving logic, Geuse gave a simple, quiet reply.

“No… Geuse, what are you…?!”

Geuse put his hand into his habit. Recognizing that his expression was that of a man resigned to death, Emilia instantly reached a hand out toward the past. But she had no way to interfere with a tale recounting a past already long over.

The hand that had once held hers slipped away. Her outstretched hand stood untouched, unable to halt his determination.

“Hey, don’t tell me that you…!”

Geuse had taken out of his habit a small black box. Setting eyes upon that little box, Regulus momentarily knit his brow, but he immediately gazed in astonishment as he realized just what it was.

Geuse shot Regulus, all his initial composure fallen away, a look of determination.

“Surely, you feel it? After all, this is something you, too, once held in your hands.”

“I can tell what it is. It is because I can tell that I have no words for the level of your stupidity. Did you convince yourself that this is your trump card? I wonder why you don’t get it……given that you are the one who said, who decided, that you aren’t qualified to have that!”

“Certainly, I lack compatibility. Accordingly, I have always simply carried this on my person, protecting what I was entrusted with. However, doing so was for the sake of a time like this.”

Unlike the aura of indignation Regulus had borne up to that time, Geuse was composed as he shook his head side to side.

It was as if black, stagnant anger and determination like a blue flame were smashing together inside him—

“—Archbishop Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti.”

Pandora, having not moved a step from her initial location, smiled as she spoke to Geuse.

That was his name. Addressed as such, he lifted his head. Pandora spoke gently to Geuse.

“I bid you a pleasant journey.”

They were words of blessing, filled not with malice, not with enmity, not with ulterior motives but with goodwill.

That strange dissonance was why Emilia could not stop shuddering from the ring of those words. It was the same for Geuse.

With an expression revealing the pain he tasted as Pandora’s blessing sliced into his heart like a blade, Geuse opened the black box in his palm— There was a wriggling black something within the little box.

“—Master Flugel. Please forgive me.”

Speaking this, Geuse pressed that black something against his chest, tiny box and all.

Instantly, the mysterious murk scattered as if water had splashed on Geuse’s chest, explosively increasing in volume until it enveloped Geuse’s entire body. The sight of Geuse seemingly engulfed by a slimy living creature made Emilia raise an incoherent cry. Something was mercilessly blotting out Geuse’s very existence.

“Fool.”

For the first time, Regulus spat out but a single, brief word of disparagement.

At the tip of his reproachful glare, Geuse raised both arms to the heavens, screaming from his open mouth as something swallowed him whole. It was as if his existence were being clawed away, giving way to agony, delight, and indescribable feelings that were neither.

—Abruptly and eerily, the sound of out-of-place clapping mixed with that of the scream.

“Marvelous.”

With a murmur of admiration, Pandora’s eyes were moist, like those of a maiden in love.

Staring at Geuse, gasping as his very existence fell into chaos, she surreptitiously let out a heated, excited breath.

“Lady Pandora?”

It was not only Emilia and Echidna who found this abnormal. Even Regulus seemed to feel the same. The white-haired young man shot her a questioning look, to which Pandora responded by interrupting her applause, pointing at Geuse.

“Archbishop Regulus Corneas.”

“Yes?”

“He’s coming.”

The next moment, Regulus found his body suddenly inverted as he was hurled high into the sky.

“Huh—?”

It was as if some angry child had grasped a doll by its feet before hurling it with all the force a child could muster.

Sent flying, Regulus made it clear on his face he had no idea what had transpired as he flew past the tops of the trees, instantly reaching a zenith, and from there on, he precipitously fell toward the ground. Cast down as if his feet were still in a child’s grasp, there was nothing Regulus could do as he was slammed headfirst into the ground, kicking up a large cloud of smoke.

With a roar and a tremor, the ground exploded, and one tree fell after another, caught up in Regulus’s point of impact. The man was crushed under the additional impact of the great trees, and silence befell the boisterous forest.

“—Ah.”

Emilia lost her voice as she desperately tried to piece back together the string of scenes that had just happened.

—She hadn’t seen any of it. But there was a single thing she did understand.

“It is aaaas…I told you.”

She saw the front of the man in the black habit kneeling on the ground, tears of blood flowing from his eyes.

Glaring at the cloud of dust kicked up between the gaps in the trees, that single man—raggedly coughing at the victory he had won in exchange for all his resolve—rose to his feet, pulling away from the agony of the black something eating away at him.

His breaths were shallow, his legs unsteady. However, his soul burned hot from the flames of unyielding determination.

“Here lies hope…and the great, unforgettable debt of gratitude I owe to the people of this place…”

Mixed with his blood-tinged coughs was a sense of solemn duty that seemed to claw at his mind even as he spoke. Over many years, his feelings must have grown and grown; just how deep they ran, none could see.

None save the man himself, who gave himself over completely in service of that wish so that he might not forget what was dearest to him for even a single moment.

“Those days, that bond, that wish…these, they gave, granted unto me. No matter how much time passes, I shall forget nothing… That is why, this moment, if I am still fit enough to cough blood…”

Tears of blood flowed freely. His blood and flesh were at their limits, and the man heaved up a clump of blood as he stubbornly clung to blessings beyond his reach.

His eye sockets were vivid crimson. Drenched in blood, his pupils were unfocused; even as he gazed straight ahead, it was doubtful whether he truly saw the world as it was.

“Just what do you see with those scarlet-hued eyes, Archbishop Romanée-Conti?”

“—Love.”

It was none other than Pandora, standing at the receiving end of that gaze, who gathered astutely that his crimson eyes were not looking at her. When she paid no heed to this and posed her question, the man replied without hesitation.

Ironically, it was an exchange between two people who had been brought to the same place, two people who could absolutely not accept the other’s way of thinking.

“In this world, at this moment, it is likely me who loves you most.”

Enraptured, Pandora made her confession with heated breath. Those words made the man close his eyes but once, whereupon the man bared his fangs toward the woman who dared to act like she understood him most in the world.

Geuse—no, this man’s name was Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti.

“You will not go after them. You…shall…not…pass!!”

Sub-chapter 2.

Crying tears of blood and having let a black something take up residence inside him, Geuse howled.

That ghastly sight combined with the solemn determination beyond anything she’d imagined sent a chill running up Emilia’s spine.

Though Geuse had absorbed that something mere moments before, he had by no means tamed it. He’d merely allowed it to violate his being from the inside rather than the outside.

“Geuse…what—? What have you done? What did you…?”

What had he taken inside him? What was the power he had used to bury Regulus with a single blow? It was as if something had happened that she could not see, and yet, Emilia had a feeling of déjà vu nonetheless.

—Somehow, it resembled the blow with which Subaru had settled his duel with Garfiel.

“You have splendidly proven your resolve, Archbishop Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti.”

However, Emilia’s thoughts were interrupted by a bell-like voice.

Watching Geuse as he panted and literally coughed up blood, Pandora remained aloof as she voiced her praise. She hadn’t even batted an eye at the death of Regulus, who’d stood right at her side; her natural beauty had not been blemished in the slightest.

“You, without qualified flesh, have done well to accept the Witch Factor into you. In the name of the Witch of Vanity, I hereby honor your resolve and resolute will by granting thee the seat of Sloth.”

“Did you think I desiiired such a seat? This moment, I desire but a single thing without a shred of doubt…tranquility for that mother and daughter—!!”

Thinking of Fortuna and Emilia, who had departed from the battlefield, Geuse poured the blood of his heart and his very life into his resolve to give the pair a chance to escape, thrusting both his arms toward Pandora.

“Love. Such a marvelous thing…”

“It contains warmth that your falsehoods will never attain!”

When Pandora murmured with an expression of ecstasy, Geuse yelled as he turned his thoughts toward offense. The next moment, Emilia could sense an abnormal pressure materializing from thin air, but she could not see anything.

Nothing had happened. Nothing could have happened. And yet—

“The forest is being torn away…?!”

A wave of destruction spread, almost as if giant, transparent serpents were writhing all around Petelgeuse.

Trees were mowed down, the earth was split, and clumps of dirt, flowers, and grass were scattered all about. In accordance with Geuse’s will, this gradually transformed from indiscriminate destruction into destruction of a more targeted kind. The forest’s collapse, as if some giant were trampling upon it, thrust forward in a straight line toward Pandora, who was standing still.

Accordingly, the destruction would proceed to transform Pandora’s little body into a cloud of blood—

“Now, just a minute.”

“—!!”

“I came here. I am here. What is with this line of thinking, advancing the conversation while ignoring me? I think it’s time even someone as generous and unselfish as me should get a little…angry.”

Just before the invisible blow was to reach Pandora, a white figure intercepted the strike.

The next moment, there was an explosion. The air rebounded, and the aftershock seemed to reshape the forest’s very topography.

In spite of this, the young man bearing the brunt of that might from the front—the supposedly dead Regulus—made no move to retreat. His body displayed no wounds from events prior or even a single blemish.

“You’re kidding…”

Emilia could force herself to accept the fact that he had shrugged off Fortuna’s initial blow without a scratch. If the gap in strength between two fighters was far enough apart, perhaps fending off ferocious, lethal attacks was indeed possible.

But Geuse’s invisible attack was another matter entirely. Emilia had most certainly seen Regulus being slammed into the ground, unable to do a thing about it— Why wasn’t he wounded? He wasn’t even dirty.

Regulus had some kind of trick that kept attacks—no, something preventing everyone from affecting him at all.

“Regulus Corneas…!!”

“How unpleasant. You, the one who refuses to acknowledge the Witch Factor, ignored its cost and forced it into yourself, yes? Is this not showing contempt for we who rightly hold our seats? Does this not wound my tiny yet unshakable self-esteem?”

“You may say it is futile, but I—!”

As Regulus spoke provocatively, his head violently snapped back from some invisible blow. But when Regulus returned his twisted neck to its previous position, once again his face showed no trace of the strike. The vile man merely grimaced in open displeasure, standing defenseless as he continued to be showered by Geuse’s attacks.

Standing still and unguarded, he made no attempt to defend himself, yet even as his entire body sustained blow after blow, Regulus did not fall. The power Geuse had wagered some undefined thing to obtain was ineffective, yet he showed no sign of being daunted, either.

Even if Geuse could not advance, he could slow his opponent down. He continued launching his attacks so as to pin Regulus in place.

“—This is going nowhere. During this time of stalemate, there seem to be developments where ‘you’ have gone.”

The battle consisted of Geuse’s valiant onslaught and Regulus’s ruthless rebuff—as Emilia observed the fighting, Echidna spoke to her from behind.

Her emotionless statement made Emilia raise her refined eyebrows and grit her teeth.

“Are you telling me to leave this place? Even though Geuse is fighting with everything he’s got?!”

“There is room for me to argue that the strength of one’s feelings bears no effect upon the results, but unfortunately, I have no intention of debating that with you. I have little interest in bullying the weak, and I find your voice extremely unpleasant.”

“Then why don’t you just shut up and watch?! I…!”

—She wanted to remain in that place and watch over Geuse.

“—!”

When she tried to speak those words, Emilia froze, stopped by none other than her own heart.

Instantly reaching her hand up, she touched the cracked crystal at her neck. The sensation reminded Emilia of her objective. Emilia had come to challenge the Trial and to come to terms with her regrets about the past.

Perhaps this moment was her one and only chance to watch Geuse’s battle until its conclusion. But she would be betraying both Subaru, who had seen her off at the tomb’s entrance, and Geuse, who was sacrificing everything to let young Emilia and Fortuna escape.

There was a past beyond Geuse’s valiant struggle, a true past that Emilia had forgotten.

“—Surely, even your deficient mind can understand which course is wiser.”

“…I think you were right after all. Let’s go after Mom and me. Geuse is…”

“This is a battle between two Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins. The scales shall not be so easily tipped. That said, if the remaining person became involved, that would be a different story…but it is inconceivable that she would join in.”

Emilia had lingering regrets as Geuse’s one-sided offensive against Regulus increased in ferocity before her eyes. His tears of blood continued, and blood also flowed out from Geuse’s nostrils and the corner of his mouth. The more that something infringed on the inside of his body, the more the force and the accuracy of the invisible destruction rose by leaps and bounds.

But in contrast, Regulus’s inexplicable defensive might was unwavering. It was a total stalemate.

“Haaa…”

Then just as Echidna had pointed out, she noticed how enraptured Pandora was while watching the fighting continue; she did not show even a smidgeon of intent to join in the battle. The abnormality of the scene made Emilia feel a shudder.

“Echidna?”

“—. Let us switch locations and go after you and your mother. They were fleeing into the forest, yes?”

For a moment, something else seemed to have captured Echidna’s attention. However, it was truly momentary. When addressed, her consciousness switched back, and Echidna snapped her fingers right before Emilia’s eyes. The next instant, Emilia’s vision swam, and the scene shifted.

Then, as they were split off from the battlefield of such fierce combat, the first thing that reached Emilia was—

“No! Mom, no! Please don’t leave me!!”

Hearing the high-pitched, tearful voice of a child, Emilia reflexively turned around.

Right before her, Emilia saw a familiar, great tree—and in front of the door that led to the Princess Room, Fortuna was trying to get the sobbing young Emilia to listen to her.

“I’m begging you, do as I say, Emilia. It’s all right; very soon…yes, very soon, everything will be over, and I’ll come back for you. So please, just for a little while, stay here and hide.”

“No! Absolutely not! Mom, you have the same face as Geuse! Why do you look like you’re not coming back?! Wh-what are you going to…leave me here for…?!?”

Using the entirety of her tiny being, Emilia desperately clung to her mother so she wouldn’t slip away.

Considering that she was a young child, shrugging her off should have been a simple thing. Even so, Fortuna could not bring herself to be callous to her own daughter. The reason why was right there, filling the woman’s eyes.

Fortuna was Emilia’s mother. That was why she could not simply cast aside her tearful daughter’s hand.

“Don’t leave me! Let me go with you! I won’t lie anymore! I won’t break any more promises!! I’ll be a good girl! I’ll be a good girl, so…please don’t leave me…!”

“Emilia… Emilia, Emilia, Emilia…!”

Wanting to stay with her mother no matter what it took, Emilia offered up everything she could think of. Her voice made Fortuna spontaneously hold her daughter tight. Had she not done so, Emilia would have seen the state her face was in.

—Her daughter would have seen her mother sobbing a flood of tears.

“Mom…”

And so with clear eyes, the Emilia of the present beheld the scene that young Emilia could not.

To Emilia, Fortuna was eternally admirable, imposing, strong… Her mother was someone she revered, and she’d believed without a doubt that there was not a single weak bone in her body. She’d never imagined seeing Fortuna this hurt, this stricken by nigh unendurable grief as hot tears flowed freely.

Through the prism of the past, her mother’s crying tore open Emilia’s heart. Though she instantly brought both her hands to her face, she could not stop her own tears.

Seeing that scene, witnessing her mother’s face from the present, Emilia keenly understood.

She had never doubted it, but in that moment, she gained renewed conviction.

“Mom…you’re my real mother…”

It didn’t matter any longer who’d actually given birth to her.

No matter how much Fortuna had claimed to be nothing but a stand-in for her mother and however much she asked Emilia to not forget her real mother, this would never change.

Even though she treasured and respected Fortuna so much, those words alone, she could never accept.

“Mom…I love you…!”

“—Lady Fortuna! And Emilia, too!”

Fortuna was still unable to peel Emilia off her when a voice called to her from behind.

The voice made Fortuna vigorously wipe her tears away and rise to see who was there. It was Archi, the young man with swaying triple braids. Nervousness rested in his green eyes, but the sight of Fortuna and Emilia together made him say, “I’m so glad,” visibly relieved.

“Archi! The forest… Is everyone in the settlement safe?!”

“—. No, I am sad to say. Those who came with Lord Archbishop are engaged in combat with a group of men!”

No doubt Archi noticed the traces of Fortuna’s tears, but he did not press the issue, prioritizing his report. Hearing the details made Fortuna lower her eyes, which conveyed her worries to Emilia as well. In an attempt to comfort the young girl, Archi reassured her.

“Emilia, there is no need to be so afraid. It’s all right. Believe in me and everyone in the settlement. Plus your mother is a very strong and scary person.”

“O-okay…”

“Archi, scary is excessive. Goodness…”

As Archi smiled at Emilia, his words made Fortuna indignantly cross her arms. Having regained a portion of her usual composure, Fortuna exhaled sharply at Archi’s show of consideration.

“I suppose that even if I return Emilia to her room, it won’t keep her hidden for long…”

“It pains me to say it, but if she is in this forest, they will eventually find her. Their objective…”

“—Is the seal, I imagine. I don’t know how they heard of it, but even that woman came crawling out…”

Fortuna’s anger toward the assailants—in particular, Pandora—was incredible. Something must have happened between them to cause Fortuna to lose her calm like that.

Even if that was not the case, combat was breaking out in every corner of the forest. Emilia’s homeland had already been turned into a battlefield.

“Fine. At any rate, I’m heading out. I have the greatest fighting ability of anyone in the forest, so this is not the time to dawdle in a place like this.”

“No! We will fight! Lady Fortuna, please take Emilia out of the forest!”

“If we run from here, what then? All that will accomplish is allowing this peaceful land to be stolen. If we lose, it means the seal will fall into their hands. This time, the world will be destroyed!”

When Archi tried to get her to reconsider, Fortuna silenced him with an even stronger tone of voice. After that, seemingly embarrassed by her angry retort, he added, “I am sorry.”

“You resent me, don’t you? You should never have been caught up in all this. All because you took Emilia and me in… This is a hardship you never needed.”

“—!! No one— There isn’t a single person among us who thinks that way!!”

“Archi…”

Archi met Fortuna’s regretful voice with a fierce retort, as if that was the only thing he could not allow her to say. Archi was indignant, his face red up to the tips of his long, pointy ears, a trait distinctive of the elves.

“Please stop treating us like strangers! It’s true that compared to our long life spans, the time we spent here may seem as brief as the blink of an eye! But—but even so, have you forgotten the time we have spent together in this forest?!”

“”

“Who could think of you…of family as unwanted?! You, your older brother, and… Do not make us out to be ingrates who would forget the debt of gratitude we owe to Emilia’s mother!”

Archi’s emotions exploded, his voice tearful and pleading. The young elf, still a boy at heart, went down on his knees, sniffing as he gazed at Fortuna. His face left Fortuna wide-eyed.

“I’m sorry—I came very close to once again rejecting my family.”

“Lady Fortuna… I—I said too much…”

“No, you helped me remember something very important. I have always disappointed those who love me. Even though I have regretted it many times, I forget again soon after. That’s why…”

Shaking her head to the kneeling Archi, Fortuna slowly went down on one knee before Emilia.

“Emilia, listen carefully. Mom has a duty to protect everyone. It’s very important. That’s why I’ll be away, just for a tiny bit.”

“N…no, Mom. I—I…!”

“Please. Do as I say, just for a little while. I want you to go with Archi and head outside the forest. This forest…is really dangerous, so please.”

Fortuna spoke to Emilia, who shook her head with teary eyes, then looked back to Archi. Seeing the resolve resting in those violet eyes, Archi felt his slender body stiffen.

“L-Lady Fortuna… I—!”

“Archi…it is a little soon, but I entrust the duty of Guardian to you. Please take Emilia with you out of the forest. It is a difficult world to live in, but surely, there is hope. I know there is. So…”

“Please don’t speak as if this is the end! I’ll stand with you and everyone until the very…”

“Take care of Emilia. For my brother, my sister-in-law, and me, she’s our precious, irreplaceable daughter.”

Fortuna spoke in a frail, fleeting voice, so removed from her usual strong and sublime self.

Hearing Fortuna, both as a mother and as a woman, brought Archi to tears. He sobbed, covering his face with both hands.

“That’s low…! You know that if you say it that way, there’s no way I can refuse… I—I want to fight with everyone, too…! Yet…!”

“I’m sorry, forcing so many burdens onto you children like this. Forgive us for being so unfair.”

Placing a hand on the crying young man’s shoulder, Fortuna painfully asked for his forgiveness. Archi said nothing, but his unceasing tears were proof that he had already accepted her request.

“Emilia.”

“No!! Mom, I wanna be with you! Please! Pretty please! I’m asking nicely! Please let me be with you!! I don’t want… I don’t want to be alone!!”

“You’re not alone at all. Listen to me.”

Weeping and wailing, Emilia covered her ears, trying to block out her mother’s parting words. Seeing this made the Emilia of the present want to go and pinch her younger self on the cheeks.

It was not that she wanted to scold her unwillingness to listen. It was because she wanted to convey that all the words Fortuna was saying, every word and every phrase, were things the girl absolutely had to remember.

“Emilia.”

Fortuna bent down low, gently embracing Emilia and pulling her close.

She grabbed Emilia’s arms, though the girl was desperately trying to cover her own ears, and nestled her head in her daughter’s silver hair. Then she brought their faces close, rubbing cheek to cheek with a gentle touch, as if she was taking care to not damage a thing more precious than anything else in all of existence.

“Mom is always by your side. When you close your eyes, I’ll be there, inside your memories. When you hug yourself, I’ll be the warmth inside your chest. When you call, I will be the echo under the sky. Mom is with you. Always, always, forever and ever, together.”

“Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar… Mom, you liar…!”

“Emilia—I promise.”

Emilia refused all her mother’s reassurances, but that last word made her breath catch.

Her smiling mother offered a palm right in front of her, seemingly drawing in Emilia’s palm until they finally touched.

“Mom and Emilia will always be together. I promise you.”

“W-we’ll really…be together…?”

“Yes, really. Emilia… Lia, Mom really loves you, more than anyone in this world.”

The gentle voice with which she called her Lia made Emilia, and Emilia’s emotions, fall apart.

Sobs spilled out, and the two Emilias, past and present, collapsed into tears on the spot.

“Mom… I—I love you, too… I love… I love…!!”

“I love you. I love you, Mom. I really love you so much…”

Present and past, the two Emilias’ emotions overlapped, desperately trying to return those feelings of love.

They strained their voices as much as their bodies would let them, as if they knew that if they failed to pour it all out now, if they didn’t share with their mother everything they felt, they would never have another chance.

“—Lia, I love you.”

Fortuna gently touched her hot lips to her daughter’s cheek, eyelid, and brow.

They touched. They embraced. At that late stage, Fortuna did so to display her motherly love—this was the only moment Fortuna allowed herself to be Emilia’s mother.

“…Archi, please.”

“—Yes. I understand.”

Having expressed her undying love to her beloved daughter with all her being, Fortuna stood up and addressed Archi.

The tearful young man accepted Emilia from Fortuna, firmly holding that tiny body in his arms as he deeply bowed his head.

“You will probably get away safely…”

“Yes……I understand! Emilia…this girl will absolutely not be harmed by anyone!”

As Archi shouted it like a vow, Fortuna relaxed, her relief visible on her face.

After that, she pointed in the direction that led outside the forest.

“Please. Go.”

Archi, who no longer had words left to speak, broke into a run in the direction Fortuna pointed.

Held tight by the young man racing through the woods, Emilia looked back over his shoulder one last time— She looked at her receding mother, raising an incoherent voice.

That voice made the sharp look in Fortuna’s eyes truly soften gently.

“—I love you, Emilia.”

Sub-chapter 3.

Held by Archi, Emilia desperately gazed in the direction of her mother, who was no longer in view.

Perhaps if she kept staring over there, the sight of her unseen mother might pop out somewhere without warning. Perhaps her mother was chasing after her. Those were the hopes she clung to.

“Emilia…!”

The little girl’s earnest hopes reached even Archi as he clutched her tiny body. What could anyone say to a little girl who’d been separated from her beloved mother? No one had a good answer to that.

“Why…why…?! Why did it end up like…this…? I-is it because I broke my promise…because I left the room…?”

“No. You’re wrong, Emilia. Emilia, it’s not your fault! It’s not Lady Fortuna’s fault; it’s not anyone’s fault! There’s no reason for you to blame yourself!”

“Then why…? Why are they leaving me…? Mom, Geuse… Is—is it because they hate me…because I did all kinds of bad things…?”

The all-too-sudden separation had pushed young Emilia’s heart right up to the breaking point.

She looked back on her own actions, trying to find some way she was responsible, the reason why everything had gone so badly.

She’d broken her promises. She’d left a room she wasn’t supposed to leave any number of times. She’d gone to a place deep in the forest she was forbidden from going, discovered a seal she wasn’t supposed to know— She couldn’t help but think all these things put together had brought this about.

“Would it be better if I’d been alone…alone locked in that room the whole time? If I’d done that, could I have been with everyone…not losing anyone…?”

“Emilia…!”

“Was I a bad girl…? Is that why everyone hates me…why I’ll be alone?”

“You’re wrong… You’re wrong, Emilia. No one— No one hates you at all. This world doesn’t exist to make you suffer. This world, and everyone in it, is here to make you happy…!”

The girl’s tears kept falling as Archi desperately tried to get through to her. Part of it was because he wanted Emilia to stop crying. More than that, it was also what he so dearly wanted to believe in.

It wasn’t just Fortuna or Geuse. Everyone related to Emilia in the past loved her, protected her, and would do anything to help her.

“You, youngster there—!”

As Archi sprinted through the forest, there was a sharp voice as someone leaped out onto the path.

Archi immediately shot a wary look toward the individual in a black habit who had slipped through a gap in the trees. But the other party greeted him by lifting both hands up.

“Wait! I am one of Lord Archbishop Romanée-Conti’s ‘fingers’!”

“The Lord Archbishop’s…”

“Yes, be at ease. You are safe he… Wait, could that be…?!”

The man in the habit identified himself, bringing Archi some measure of relief. It wasn’t long before the man noticed him carrying Emilia in his arms and reacted with shock. Archi solemnly nodded at him.

“Lady Fortuna entrusted her to me. She is assisting the others in battle. It shouldn’t be long before she sweeps the forest clean of enemies …”

“…It pains me to say this, but that will be somewhat difficult.”

The man made a bitter face, which caused Archi to go, “Eh?”

“We have confirmed the presence of one of the Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins: Greed, head of the radical faction. The Lord Archbishop has engaged him in combat, but the situation cannot be resolved by simply driving him off.”

“An Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins…but what problem is there beyond him?”

“The demon beast Black Serpent has been released into the forest.”

“Th-the Black Serpent—?!”

The man’s words rocked Archi. He gazed back toward the forest with a look of disbelief.

“That’s crazy—it’s not possible! The Black Serpent is a pure calamity, even more than the White Whale and the Great Rabbit—a natural disaster that obeys no one. The timing of its arrival, right as this attack is going on—that’s…”

“A being…a Witch, who can make that possible, has come to this forest.”

“Witch? Witch, you say? That’s even crazier talk! The witches besides the Witch of Jealousy are long destroyed, and the Witch of Jealousy should herself be sealed in the sands of a far-off…”

“There was a hidden Witch— Her name is Pandora. She is a part of the Witch Cult, the world’s forbidden Witch.”

The man spoke as if he were wringing out every word, leaving Archi agape, like a bucket of water had roused him from his sleep.

An Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins, and even a Witch he had never heard of before, had arrived—and what kept Archi’s heart from crumbling into despair was the small heartbeat he could feel through his own chest.

He’d been entrusted with something. Archi could not back away from it.

“…Lady Fortuna entrusted me with Emilia so that she might escape. Whatever happens to our homeland, I must at least protect this girl…protect our hope!”

“…I shall accompany you. Old as I might be, I am still part of the Romanée-Conti family.”

The man was roused by Archi’s words and he bowed deeply to the young elf who literally nestled his bundle of hope against his breast.

With a flutter of his habit sleeve, the aged man leaned forward and impressively kicked off the ground. Then he trained his eyes toward the path leading out of the forest, intending to guide them—

“—No!”

The instant they broke into a run, the man suddenly shouted, and the urgency in his voice made Archi immediately stop. As Archi opened his eyes wide, wondering what was going on, the man stood, both arms spread wide.

“What a blunder… To think it would come so quickly…”

“What has…? Wha, huh?!”

The man murmured in anguish, bewildering Archi—a moment later, the man’s arms fell from their shoulders. Like a doll with bad stitching, his outstretched limbs detached completely, just like that.

No blood spewed from the fallen arms or from where they had been severed. In fact, the arms were shriveled in an unnatural way that had nothing to do with age, rotting like tree roots starved of water.

“The Black Serpent’s vicious tongue…! Please flee!”

“But!”

“It is too late for me…”

Forcefully shouting for Archi to run, the man looked back, his face rapidly losing all color. Red and black spots came over his neck, which poked out of his habit, and his face was collapsing to the point where it seemed his eyeballs might fall out.

“Bu, bubu…aaa, bu…!”

Moaning in anguish, the armless man collapsed onto the ground, his upper torso writhing. Black blood gushed out of his eye sockets, nostrils, earlobes, and more places, until finally, he stopped moving at all.

The man’s final moments left Archi, let alone young Emilia, in a panic.

“The crucible of disease…the plague-bearing demon beast the Black Serpent…!!”

In a raspy voice, Archi covered young Emilia’s eyes as he invoked the name of the enemy that had slain their companion.

Of course, it did not react to his voice. However, in the gaps between Archi’s and Emilia’s ragged breathing, a distinct sound echoed, like a gigantic creature licking its lips.

It felt like a hunter, waiting for its prey’s fear to heighten before it—

“—Sh-shit!!”

Realizing the approaching danger, Archi yelled a curse and fled. He did not know which way to run. This was the enemy’s hunting ground. They’d been herded into it unawares.

He’d put as much distance as he could between him and the man’s corpse. If possible, he’d leave the forest entirely. Focusing only on the rigid presence of Emilia pressing against his chest, Archi desperately fled from the menace.

Flee, flee, the young elf continued to flee, resisting with all his might—

“Ah—”

While getting ready to launch himself forward, he felt a scalding heat run up his right ankle. The instant he realized he’d been licked, his willpower crumbled.

The wicked tongue was slithering up his bare flesh. The illness it caused spread across his skin, manifesting as reddish-black burn scars.

The instant he saw what was taking place, Archi turned a palm toward his own right leg.

“…Fulla!”

Without hesitation, he used a blade of wind to send his diseased right leg flying off from the knee.

Needing support to remain upright, he angled his falling body against a tree. Archi, breaking out in a thick sweat at the excruciating pain of losing his leg, gritted his teeth, enduring the sensation of his brain catching on fire as he continued to chant.

“Hyuma…!”

With the sound of air cracking, he froze the stump of his own severed leg. White steam rose from his wound, and Archi raised up a renewed scream over his extremely crude method of stopping the bleeding.

It had been a bold, drastic decision. The speed and the means he employed proved the depth of his resolve and his skill—and then there was the fact that he had not let go of Emilia once during that entire process.

“Archi…?”

With her face firmly pressed against his arm, Emilia could not see what had happened. Archi forced a smile onto his face, sitting up as he downplayed the greatest agony he had ever experienced.

“It’s nothing… It’s all right… It’s all right, so…!”

His words fragmented, Archi lied to Emilia that nothing had happened. His actions were worthy of respect—and yet, cruel fate would greet his determination, no matter how incredible, with scorn.

The remaining part of his frozen right leg was losing color above the knee, desiccated like a baked stone. It was as if the very earth was drying up. The remainder of Archi’s right leg had begun dying; the disease would not stop there.

“…Emilia. Um, you see the white flowers on the other side of those two trees?”

“…Y-yeah.”

Released by Archi, who sat with his back against a large tree, Emilia put both her feet on the ground and looked in the direction he pointed. Gazing at the pair of trees and the white flowers beyond, she nodded.

“Can you run in the direction of the flowers? Past the flowers…straight ahead…”

“R-run… I can run. But…”

“Then run…”

Staring at the white flowers, young Emilia caught her breath as Archi spoke those words to her.

They were brief words with which to send her off. Even as hesitance hovered in her eyes, it dawned on her that Archi’s state was nothing like normal as she looked between him and the flowers over and over.

If she ran, she would be alone. Once again, someone would disappear from her life.

“It’s all right, Emilia. You won’t…be alone…”

“Archi…”

“Now, run. No matter what you hear, don’t turn back… Run!”

Archi’s sharp voice made Emilia jump. She took one step forward, then broke into a run. She forced herself to not look back because Archi said not to.

Archi’s voice, Fortuna’s voice, Geuse’s voice—all reverberated in the little girl’s mind.

—She wanted to believe that if she did as she was told, everything would go back to how it used to be.

“That’s right. There you go. Run, run…just like how you always ran around and gave us so much trouble…”

Archi spoke those words through a thin smile, staring at the back of the girl who was already hard to see in the distance as he stripped off the sleeves of his tunic.

The shriveling corruption had already reached his lower chest. He no longer felt like he could move either leg. His flesh had lost its color, its texture becoming like stone, thoroughly reminiscent of some kind of repulsive demon beast.

He heard a sound. Sss, sss. It was the sound of a demon beast licking its lips after spotting its prey right before it.

It came as if to steal away the escaping girl, the forest’s hope, and to rob all meaning from the tiny, remaining flicker of Archi’s ending life.

“As if…anyone would let you pass…”

Eyes burning with the will to fight on, Archi ignored his immobile legs, using the strength of his arms alone to sit himself up. The ominous sound stopped…as if the beast was taking renewed interest, captivated by the prey it had presumed stricken down.

It was because he sensed his own impending death that he’d sent the girl as far as possible away from her own.

“Lady Fortuna…that girl…will probably be all right.”

Sss, sss, was the sound that heralded the approach of the end.

Hearing this sound, knowing that it represented nothing less than the greatest peril to his life, Archi proudly smiled.

“”

Exhausted as that smile might have been, it never faded.

Sub-chapter 4.

—The forest had already changed so dramatically that it seemed to have forgotten its original form.

It was a land in a mournful state, as if some angry, rampaging, giant serpent had violated the earth in its passing.

Numerous trees had been mowed down; many rested upon their sides, snapped at the roots. A number of great holes with no visible bottom pockmarked the surface of the ground. If someone claimed that this was the aftermath of some unnatural being purging the surface world, the overwhelming destruction would have convinced many of the preposterous explanation.

A single man—the one who had wrought the shocking spectacle—stood at the center of the destruction. His face marred by fresh blood, out of breath but his spirit undiminished, he was the great sinner who had embraced inside him a Deadly Sin that suited his body not, gaining power at the cost of whittling away his own life—Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti.

With sheer force of will, the man named Geuse forced down that unnatural power as he stood. The Authority one perhaps ought to call invisible arms had given Geuse the means to defy an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins—

“—You know, it really is time for you to acknowledge this is useless.”

Even having obtained power at such great cost, his target Regulus was completely unharmed and even scornfully laughing at him.

Standing amid a hovering cloud of dust and unnatural destruction, Regulus seemed bored. The sight of him unaffected by any of it was so warped that it was as if someone had put a sticker onto a finished painting.

“Even after doing…this much…!”

“It’s time to face up and realize it already, yeah? We’re different. You and I are actors meant for different stages. It’s not an issue of whether you can beat me. No one can beat me. No one can hurt me. Sword Saint or dragon, it’s all useless. All of it, every last bit…useless.”

Speaking bluntly to Geuse, who was coughing up blood, Regulus nonchalantly waved an arm. The gesture, as if shooing a fly, instantly put Geuse on guard, offering his flesh to the black power wriggling inside him. He prepared to deal with it, come what may—then his right arm was sent flying.

“Wha…?!”

“I’m bored stiff of seeing that reaction, too. I went through the trouble of giving you time to spend with your wife and all. I wanted at least some kind of reward for that, but it looks like I got my hopes up for nothing.”

“Ngh…what are…? Guh, agh! Whoaaa!!”

Pressing down on the remains of his severed arm, Geuse tumbled spectacularly. Upon closer inspection, he had also been wounded in both his legs, where ugly gouges marred his thighs as if beasts had hungrily torn the flesh off them.

He endured the pain, blood frothing at his lips all the while. The pitiful sight made Regulus grimace.

“In the end, see, this is all your resolve and determination and all that stuff amounts to. But don’t mind that too much. It’s not you; it’s everyone. No one can hold more than their own two hands can carry. You have to live within your means. That’s normal. You understand, right?”

“Gah, aah, aah…”

“Really, I hate all this. Maybe you think I like hurting other people out of some kind of sadistic hobby, but you would be mistaken, and I would take great insult at that mischaracterization. I’m not doing this because I particularly want to. It only seems like I’m bullying you because you’re weak. I don’t have any desire to do things like this any longer. For good or ill, I, a satisfied man, do not want to interfere with anyone else. I am content, without want. You need to accept that.”

The force of the bleeding had weakened, and Geuse’s voice had grown too meager for yelling. His raspy, ragged breaths and the spasms of his body invited pity, like an insect on the verge of expiring.

With Geuse thus on the brink of death, Regulus looked down at him, speaking without malice or enmity or anything else. He felt there was no need for personal emotions to come into play when he was merely listing off facts.

To Regulus Corneas, Geuse’s desperate actions were the same as a breeze—no, such a gentle wind would have at least rustled his forelocks. Accordingly, his actions did not even amount to that.

As she stood in the destroyed forest, Pandora showed no more sign of change than Regulus did. The very embodiment of beauty, her lovely visage, let alone the white cloth that enveloped her small, slender torso, remained utterly unaffected.

“Among the masses, not everyone can think like you, and certainly not everyone will reach the same lofty realm. You are more special than others. You should be content that you are so. Your completed form is marvelous. And they, the incomplete, are marvelous in their own way.”

“I do not seek your praise, nor do I endorse your opinion that they are marvelous or anything of the sort. At any rate, neither I nor the Black Serpent needed to show up, Lady Pandora. You could have handled this much all by yourself.”

Showing no sign of joy over her words of praise, Regulus indicated the forest with both hands as he spoke to Pandora. She gracefully acknowledged his words with a nod.

“Yes, that might well be the case. However, I needed to see with my own eyes just how earnestly people strive for their revered goals and just how lovely they can be while doing so.”

“The gist is, you wanted to see the desperate faces of people backed into a corner, didn’t you? Ha-ha-ha, if that’s all, you should just put it simply so people can understand. Making a needless excuse feels like it only wastes my time.”

“I find that way of taking it to be quite adorable.”

As a smile that could charm the heart came over Pandora, Regulus replied with a wicked smile of his own. From there, he turned his eyes toward the collapsed Geuse, walking over to inflict the final blow.

“Well, even if this body dies, it’s not like you don’t have spares. Dragging what’s inside you and keeping a grip on the scruff of your neck will make dealing with you easier. For someone who made me use up all this time, you really are a talentless hack.”

As he spoke, Regulus lifted his foot over Geuse’s head. It was clear he would squash Geuse’s head like an overripe melon— Just before that, a voice interrupted.

“Al Hyuma!!”

In accordance with the chant, the world accepted the transformation of mana; with a cracking sound, it became destruction made manifest. The sound of the atmosphere crackling made Regulus lift his head, scowling in disgust.

“If it’s not one thing, then it’s another…!”

Regulus clicked his tongue— The next moment, a mighty spear of ice sufficient to blot out the sky slammed into his face, and the resulting quake, having nowhere else to go, became a ferocious shock wave that enveloped Regulus, completely crushing his slender frame.

There were blasts of wind and tremors of the earth, repeating so much as to completely lose count. Fragments of shattered ice scattered all across the ground, changing the scenery to the point that one would doubt it was ever a forest to begin with.

Light reflected off the glimmering ice, and in that chaotic, luminous world—a silver-haired woman stood at the fallen man’s side.

“Geuse! Geuse, hold on! What did they…? Ahhh, what should I do…?!”

“Lady Fortuna, is that you…?”

Responding to that voice, light returned to Geuse’s eyes, though he was barely breathing. It was unmistakable that his life was in peril even so, but as Geuse barely kept his consciousness tethered, Fortuna nodded to him several times.

“Yes, yes, that’s right, it’s me. Geuse, to see you like this…”

“It iiiis fine… A body of flesh must someday perish… The finger who entruuusted this body to me surely understood as much… More importantly, is Lady Emilia…?”

“I left her to Archi…the next Guardian, so she could have a chance to escape outside. I’m sure they’re all right, thanks to you.”

“Iiis that so…? That iiis very…good.”

“—It’s not remotely good whatsoever!!”

As Geuse relaxed his blood-ridden face in relief, his words made Regulus cry out with an angry voice.

Blasting apart the ice-covered soil, Regulus brushed away white mist with both arms, his expression indignant. He plucked at his head, enmity resting in his eyes like nothing before.

“Who do you think you are, coming back and pulling that out of the blue? I was about to stomp and crush his head just now! With what right, with whose permission, do you dare! Interfere! With me…me me me me me me me me me me ME?!!”

In a fit of rage, Regulus squatted and plunged both his arms into the ground. He proceeded to swing them upward, tossing soft soil toward Fortuna and Geuse.

His demeanor was truly like that of a child, throwing a tantrum and scattering earth about—

“No! That debris… You must evade all of it…!”

“Eh?”

Fortuna was ignoring the shower of dirt and trying to refine her mana for a counterattack when Geuse pushed her down. The action he chose over counterattack, over defense, was to push her straight to the ground without even breaking her fall— Fortuna raised her voice, questioning Geuse’s decision…and then she saw.

The sand and pebbles Regulus threw had opened “countless holes” in the surface of the ground.

These were literally countless holes. Almost like the marks raindrops left upon parched soil, the dirt Regulus had thrown gouged the ground with such penetrating power that she could not see where they bottomed out.

The might of the attack was obvious from one glance at the fallen trees caught in its area of effect. They had been turned into wood chips from the countless, tiny holes punched into them; a human body subjected to the same would have surely turned to bloody mist.

It was nigh unbelievable destructive power, and most frightening of all was—

“Hey now! What did you go dodging it for?! Just soak it up and turn into mincemeat! That goes for the talentless hack Petelgeuse and that woman over there, too! I would’ve been fine adding you as my seventy-ninth wife, so what’s with this stupid behavior, huh? Huh?!”

Whining loudly, Regulus thrust his arms into the ground’s surface once more— He could do this consecutively.

He was a being who could not be harmed by some of the deadliest spells in existence yet could kill by scattering some dirt and pebbles. In spite of this, his mental state was as immature as an infant’s, destructively egotistical beyond anyone’s reach.

This dangerous being, like a badly raised child who was liable to bite anyone depending on his mood, had been granted power on par with a dragon—that was how Fortuna appraised the vile man before her.

“If you don’t like me taking one limb off, I’ll take all four! I’ll make you regret making a fool out of me…out of Greed!!”

“—Please wait, Archbishop Corneas.”

“Aah?”

Just when Regulus was about to resume his attacks, the platinum-haired beauty urged him to wait.

Still squatting, Regulus looked back at Pandora. His eyes were still thickly colored with anger, and it seemed even his ally, Pandora, was in danger of winding up on the receiving end.

With that dangerous look still in his eyes, Regulus spoke to Pandora, his lips trembling.

“…What is it, Lady Pandora? Right now, I am in the middle of punishing the louts infringing upon my rights. What do you want from me? Whatever you intend, watch your words and answer me right now…!”

“Please restrain your anger, Archbishop Corneas. I will not permit you to kill him, or her, in this place. Do you not feel anything when you gaze upon them?”

“”

Pandora’s words were unexpected to Fortuna and Geuse alike. It was unthinkable that she, an enemy to both of them, would plead with Regulus to spare their lives.

Yet, in response to her words, Regulus, who had given himself over to rage, stopped moving. Then he looked at Fortuna and Geuse, finally turning back to Pandora.

“Did you just…order me to restrain my anger?”

His tone was quiet, sounding emotionless to the ear. However, that calm crumbled a moment later.

“—You’ve got some nerve butting in where you’re not wanted, woman!!!”

In that situation, where everyone was trying to have their own way, Regulus’s short temper hit its limit and exploded in the worst way possible.

Though they had been both on the same side, though he had paid respect to his superior, Regulus hurled sand toward Pandora without hesitation, seemingly having forgotten their relationship entirely.

The might of the earthen shrapnel was immense. The dirt he scattered ravaged any part of the forest that was in its line of fire with overwhelming force, bearing down upon the beautiful girl—and this girl, a goddess of beauty, a living masterpiece, was cruelly transformed into a cloud of blood.

“—You’re kidding me.”

Defenseless and showered by the soil, Pandora was flayed apart, leaving Fortuna agape. It was a natural reaction. Her reviled opponent had died a dog’s death at the hands of a former comrade.

Her supernatural nature was rendered meaningless, the girl’s dead flesh fated to be eaten amid a ravaged forest.

“This is what happens when someone gives me lip. Why can’t people just treat me with the consideration anyone else is due? Don’t get in my way. Don’t interrupt when I’m talking. Don’t object to what I do. Is that so hard to ask? Hey, you two over there…what do you think?”

Having murdered Pandora, though the madness residing in his eyes remained unexhausted, Regulus turned back toward the other two.

There was no room to appreciate that the number of their enemies had been reduced by one. Even if they no longer faced two mighty foes, they could not overcome their predicament without some means of dealing with their seemingly impervious enemy.

Twice, Regulus had endured Fortuna’s surprise attacks unharmed. She hated to admit it, but she could not defeat him—nor could Geuse, and any further attempt to do so would put his life at risk.

“Let us buy time so that Emilia might escape…”

“In that case… Lady Fortuna…leave this to me…”

Geuse had arrived at the same conclusion as Fortuna yet continued onward to a different choice for bringing that outcome about.

“No matter how much blood I must shed…until this flesh of mine yields, I…I will buy time…so please, Lady Fortuna, escape…”

“Don’t say stupid things.”

To Geuse, who lay within her arms and had resolved to be a stone to cast away, Fortuna spoke in a gentle voice, her cheeks softening.

Despite the situation, she found the fact that she could smile even so somewhat mysterious and something to be proud of.

“Are you saying to leave you here and run? If I was going to do that, I’d never have come back. I even parted ways with Emilia to return. How can you tell me to run now?”

“But…why iiis it, then, you have returned…? I am…”

“—To not let you die…and if you must die, to be at your side.”

With Fortuna’s violet eyes staring at him, Geuse’s eyes, misty with blood, opened wide.

Fortuna held Geuse, who was lighter from the loss of one arm and so much blood, pressing him close to her as she spoke.

“What awaits me in a world without you, in a forest where you will never come? I am too weak to live long in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”

“You, weak…?”

“I am weak. All I did was put up a brave front for you and Emilia.”

Fortuna lifted Geuse up, looking at him with a face that somehow seemed freed of all burdens. Trembling, Geuse leaned on her arm for support, the two embracing each other as they faced forward.

Gazing at the pair, Regulus clicked his tongue, disgusted from the bottom of his heart.

“Not only do you ignore my question for a prolonged period of time, but now you’ve gotten yourselves all worked up? Makes me wonder what in the world could you be thinking? What’s the meaning of this? I’ve already shown you the superiority of my power, explained everything in easy-to-understand ways, so why are you going We can do it over and over? What the hell are you thinking?!”

“What a tiresome and noisy man. Get a clue already. For us, there is only one answer.”

“Yeeees, I suppose so…”

Fortuna and Geuse exchanged glances, their voices in tandem as they spoke to the indignant Regulus.

““—Who knows and who cares, moron?””

Their voices overlapped, and Fortuna stuck up her middle finger for good measure.

Uttering those biting words together, Fortuna and Geuse gathered their power in their taunt, making Regulus’s face red with rage.

“Fine with me! I’ll make both of you indistinguishable puddles of blood and use you to fertilize this filthy forest—”

“—I told you to wait, did I not, Archbishop Corneas?”

For her own convenience, Pandora impeded Regulus for the third time— Dancing softly in the sky, she pressed her slender hand down upon Regulus’s head, forcing the disturbing man’s body to sink without any apparent resistance from the ground. In an instant, he was buried from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head. As Pandora landed right beside him, Regulus stared up at her from directly below.

“Over and over again… What does it take to kill you…?!”

“I forgive your violent actions, your violent deeds, all these things. You have already fulfilled the purpose for which I brought you here. It is fine for you to go now.”

“After calling me here, you tell me to go now that you’re satisfied? Just how much do you think you can make a fool out of me…?”

“Is it that unacceptable? Then I shall take care of it. Archbishop Corneas cannot possibly be here. He is spending time at his mansion, surrounded by his wives.”

“Wa—”

The instant she made that one-sided argument, Regulus tried to shout something as he suddenly vanished from sight.

It wasn’t that he sank deeper into the ground. His very presence had truly, suddenly disappeared. As a matter of fact, the place where he had assuredly been bore no trace of burial at all.

It was as if, when Pandora said, …cannot possibly be here, the very world had affirmed her words.

“At my request, the boisterous one has departed the stage. Now we can take our time to chat, yes?”

“…Before that, may I ask one thing? You should be dead and in pieces, yes?”

Fortuna posed that question to Pandora, who was smiling gracefully and standing there like it was the most natural thing. Surely, that smile, along with that graceful body, had been turned into fragments of bloody flesh and scattered around the forest in its entirety.

And yet, the tragic state Fortuna was certain she’d witnessed was gone, and the dead had unnaturally come back to life. To Fortuna, who was unable to conceal her shock at that fact, Pandora tilted her head.

“Perhaps…you are ‘mistaken’ about something?”

“—!”

Pandora’s words, spoken without malice, sent a deep shudder through Fortuna.

Though it should not have been so, the world had changed out of respect for Pandora’s opinion. The scene Fortuna herself had seen with her own eyes had been denied, and history had been supernaturally rewritten with a scene she had no recollection of seeing.

—A corpse had been erased, and Pandora had returned to life. Regulus had vanished, along with all traces of his presence.

Moreover, the consequences did not end at Pandora being safe and sound, with the hole Regulus had been in now buried. When she first realized the effects, Fortuna nearly let out an unwitting yelp.

Opening her eyes wide, Fortuna moved her trembling fingers toward Geuse, who was assuredly on the brink of death— His torn-off arm and the grave wounds to his legs had been healed and restored.

“It is a simple matter. If Archbishop Corneas was never here, it follows that all the results of Archbishop Corneas’s actions would also vanish. Although, you may consider the healing of your wounds a gesture of goodwill on my part…”

“G-Geuse, that arm…”

“There’s nothing amiss. My body…is sound, aside from what resides inside it.”

“I have not gone so far as to overwrite the fact that you incorporated the Witch Factor into yourself. I wish to praise your actions and the actions of the woman who returned for your sake. Please think of this as a kindness from me.”

Geuse was bewildered by Pandora’s elegant smile even as he acknowledged that his own body had been healed. Fortuna heard the words from a distance as she felt the ground crumble under her own feet.

Pandora, her hated foe, was not an opponent Fortuna could take on. Everything that had happened in the forest that day had far exceeded Fortuna’s puny imagination.

Or perhaps, at that rate, everything that had happened would simply vanish into thin—

“Lady Fortuna, please get ahold of yourself!”

“—! Geuse!”

As Fortuna wavered, Geuse used his restored right hand to pinch her cheek. Fortuna was surprised by the pain as Geuse grasped both her shoulders and continued.

“I am sure you have doubts. I am sure you are bewildered. However, these are thiiiings we must leave for another time. Right now, what is important…is that we do what we can for Lady Emilia’s sake!”

Little by little, his desperate plea restored Fortuna’s waning vigor.

Yes. It was just as Geuse had said. She was afraid, not knowing what this incomprehensible foe might do. But surely, she already knew the most frightening thing of all.

—If this woman’s objectives involved her own precious, beloved daughter…

“Whatever happened, I don’t care. Right now—!”

“Iiiit falls to the two of us to strike her down! If she iiiis defeated, the militants assaulting the forest will surely retreat! —We wiiiill save Lady Emilia!”

Geuse’s words, and her feelings for her beloved daughter, made Fortuna’s internal hate grow white-hot.

Before, she’d resigned herself to never seeing Emilia ever again. Up until a moment before, she’d intended to see that resolve through. But now, her hopes and her ideals resounded powerfully in her chest.

She’d save Emilia. She’d return home to Emilia. She would be together with Geuse and Emilia again—

“—O ancient, mystic ice, so cold and white even time shudders, ice so great the soul sleeps eternal.”

The mana she had gathered up to strike down Regulus whirled about, seeking a place to explode. She gave that latent energy form, purpose, duty; it took shape, ready to freeze the world.

The sky, the very air moaned, giving birth to spears of ice so enormous, a giant might have wielded them. The tips of these spears, exceeding ten in number, pointed toward their foe, like a bouquet of flowers inviting the opponent to split asunder and rest in an eternal, icy grave.

“My life, my duty, my love… For all their sakes, I…!”

At Fortuna’s side, Geuse embraced his own shoulders with both hands as he spun those words of bloody resolve. Power raged under his tattered habit, and his healed body began falling into ruin once more. Blood gushed, bones cracked, and life dissolved.

Seeing the pair’s resolve, Pandora merely spread her arms wide, her cheeks flushed.

“Now, come— Let me taste the embrace of your tenacity until the bitter end.”

Intending to rip that smile off her face, the pair’s power made the world tremble.

And then—

Sub-chapter 5.

—She had already gone well past the white flowers Archi had pointed out.

And yet, her legs did not cease. She was told not to stop running, so she kept doing as she was told.

Her breath leaped. Emilia earnestly stretched her tiny gait as far as it would go as she ran through the forest.

“Uu…uuuu!”

She shook her head. Tears were flowing. She desperately held back the sob that was threatening to leak out from the corner of her mouth.

What was going on and why was all this happening now?

Everyone probably knew something that she did not.

She didn’t know anything about what she should do. Was there really nothing she could do?

Who was the one bullying Fortuna, Geuse, and Archi? What did she need to do to get those people back? What were they after—?

“Se…al…”

Back where she’d gotten separated from Geuse, the frightfully beautiful girl had said that word. Hadn’t Fortuna and Archi both mentioned the same seal?

“”

She’d been told to keep running, but then she stopped. Even if she looked back, she’d long left behind the place where Archi was. She could not see him. Nor Fortuna. Nor Geuse.

“But…if—if I don’t do…s-something…”

If the seal was connected to the people who had come into the forest, Emilia knew where she should go. If everyone was being hurt because of a thing like that—

—If they wanted such a thing, why not just give it to them?

She didn’t know how to open the door. She didn’t understand what meaning the seal held. She didn’t know if it would change anything for the better. But the term seal was plenty.

Wanting to believe she could do something was not what drove the little girl to action.

It was hope—the hope that by going there, then surely, something would change—that pressed against the girl’s back.

“If I go to that place… Ahhh, but…”

Thus deciding, Emilia tried to dash off but hesitated before taking the first step. She’d done too much running around blindly. Already, this forest, the forest that Emilia had grown up in, was not the forest Emilia knew. She’d lost track not only of where the seal was but also the settlement and the locations of her mother and Geuse.

“Uh, hu…!”

Confronted with her pathetic powerlessness, young Emilia could restrain her sobs no more.

Even though she had something she needed to do, she lacked the power to do it. Her mother was not there to rescue her in her time of need. She needed to do something for that very mother, and yet…

—It was then that Emilia’s wholehearted, earnest feelings set into motion the being watching over her young, valiant spirit.

As Emilia wiped her flooding tears with a hand, her eyes widened as a faint light abruptly passed before them. When she lifted her face, she saw that her body was surrounded by countless glowing lights.

“Fairy…?”

Emilia called out to the fairies, the supernatural beings that Fortuna and Geuse had termed lesser spirits. They did not possess words, yet they responded to Emilia’s will, gently moving deeper into the forest—

After a slight delay, Emilia grasped the intent of the phosphorescent lights, which were blinking seemingly to guide her.

“You’ll tell me where…?”

There was no reply. The lesser spirits only formed a trail of light leading deeper into the forest.

“If I go that way, I’ll get to the seal? I’ll be able to save Mom and everyone…?”

The trail of light grew brighter. Emilia wiped her tears away with all her might.

She couldn’t stay there sobbing forever. She had her mother and Geuse and all kinds of other people to save, and when she’d broken down crying, the fairies had come to help her. How could she keep hanging her head?

“Yeah… Yeah, yeah!”

Nodding with a mix of thanks and determination, Emilia broke into a run, following the belt of light. She earnestly followed the brilliant path that was created by the phosphorescent glows, believing it was the sole hope she could cling to.

Leaping over holes and climbing over inclines, she made herself smaller as she raced through the gaps between tightly packed trees.

There were many paths where the lesser spirits could pass but Emilia could not. She tripped, branches scraping her cheek, and she fell, spitting out the dirt in her teeth as she rose once more.

“Huu, huu…!”

Her lungs hurt. Fluid dripped from her nose. She wiped off her teary and muddy face, getting angry at her scuffed knees as she ran.

With insufficient oxygen, Emilia found her vision wavering, and her consciousness was like a daydream as memories resurfaced.

Emilia remembered all the time she had spent in that forest, in that settlement, loved as she was.

—She remembered Fortuna’s love.

She remembered days when she’d been scolded. Emilia also remembered crying and apologizing and Fortuna spending the whole night holding Emilia in her arms, continuing to stroke her head until morning, seemingly so that she would not wake alone.

Fortuna had not spoiled her and had been strict, but she had also given her such precious things. Even though she had a habit of saying she was not Emilia’s real mother, Fortuna was Emilia’s mother, her first and most important mother.

—She remembered how Archi and everyone else in the settlement were kind to them.

She understood there was just the tiniest bit of distance between them. She knew they were hesitant, now knowing exactly how to approach her. But everyone had always been gentle to her, and they had absolutely never hurt Emilia or Fortuna. Even the Princess Room was something everyone had worked hard to improve so Emilia would have an easier time. It was difficult being in that place, but she’d liked it anyway.

—She remembered hating Geuse so much.

He was related to the things the adults were hiding, and he’d gone and drawn out the smiling face that was for Emilia alone, so she thought she could never forgive him. Yet, when they’d met by chance, he’d cried the moment he set eyes on Emilia. He cried and cried, crying out of happiness, and so Emilia forgave him.

After all, those were kind tears. Remembering how Fortuna had put her at ease when Fortuna was hugging her, she’d stroked Geuse’s head. She wanted to be at his side so that the crybaby wouldn’t be lonely.

She’d thought he was so helpless. She’d thought she just couldn’t abandon him.

—She remembered she loved everyone so much.

Fortuna. Geuse. Archi. Everyone. They were Emilia’s precious, precious people.

“I can…still save everyone…!”

She wanted to sleep in the same bed with Fortuna again.

Next time, she wanted to invite Archi and everyone to the Princess Room.

Next time, she wanted to stomp on that impertinent crybaby Geuse’s foot with all her strength.

She wanted to meet everyone again.

“I’ll be a good girl, so…”

Her vision hazy with tears, she slipped beyond the usual branches and trees of the familiar forest, her feet halting where the forest turned white. Her breath was ragged and her face was red when she finally reached the seal she’d been seeking—

“—Welcome. I have been waiting for you.”

The girl with platinum hair stood waiting before the seal, spreading her arms wide, seemingly to welcome her arrival.

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Diamond. Diamond. Diamond.

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