Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World – Vol. 8 Ch. 2

Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World. Volume. 8.

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‘Chapter 2:- —FIGHT.’

 

 
Sub-chapter 1.

Let us rewind time to just before the end of the Anti-Witch Alliance conference.

“Oh, right! I forgot the important part!”

When Subaru palmed a fist, it was in the particularly quiet atmosphere immediately following his request to the expeditionary force—on the verge of setting off with great ardor to enter the Mathers domain.

I didn’t explain enough, he thought, feeling sheepish as he immediately backed away from his grandiose words, but Subaru could not be negligent about the most critical part. Thus, he addressed one and all:

“I called this plan Witch Cult Hunting Made Simple, but the ultimate target, the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins… I want to pick who goes after him real carefully.”

“Carefully?”

“Yeah. After all, whether we take the archbishop down decides whether this plan works or not. I want to pick our best members. What I mean is Wilhelm and some Iron Fangs who’re confident about their sneaking abilities. Ah, they have to be okay even if the archbishop’s staring straight at them.”

Subaru’s condition furled the brows of everyone sitting in the circle around him. Their expressions shifted to bewilderment, anxiety, and unease; the men sitting beside one another differed somewhat individually, but their faces surely added up to a sum total of “doubt.”

It was a natural reaction. Subaru, knowing he should explain further, scratched his face as he continued.

“Errr, you see. Just like I said, the plan itself is simple—I lure out the Witch Cult so we can hit them. That much is the same as with the White Whale, but…I think it’s pretty hard to expect their reaction to be as simple as a demon beast’s.”

“Ahh, well, that figures. Subawu’s scent made the White Whale lose track, but unlike a demon beast, the Witch Cult won’t go grrr quite that much, huh?”

“Well, that’s exactly how the White Whale reacted to me… Anyway, ideally, we hit the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins with a surprise attack and take him down the instant I lure him out. We have to absolutely make sure he dies instantly, so prioritizing that is another requirement.”

Subaru affirmed Ferris’s explanation and tied the logic together. The surrounding reactions to his plan turned sour, with disgust visible on the faces of many. The sternest face of all was Ricardo’s, bared fangs included.

“Wait, wait. We can’t do that. Can you leave us out of this one? We can’t be sneakily murderin’ people after gettin’ all fired up about a proper battle like this. No way. I didn’t hear about this.”

“That’s why I’m explaining it now. Besides, I mean just for the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins. The I’m-a-lure plan’s other ten parts depend on this. You’ll have lots of places to make noise.”

Subaru tried all he could to convince Ricardo, the dividing line inside the circle.

“Not that we can underestimate the other Witch Cultists, but the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins is a different story. I want to make extra sure we take him down.”

This time Julius interrupted his explanation to the jeering Ricardo.

“So prepare for all possibilities, is it? I commend that line of thinking, but what of your logic for selecting people? Of course, I have no objection to selecting Master Wilhelm.”

After glancing sidelong at Wilhelm, who sat with closed eyes, Julius touched his own slender knight’s sword as he looked at Subaru.

“I wish to hear the reason why I was not among your initial selections.”

“Seems like you’re not unhappy about that, but you’re not exactly pleased, either…”

The Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins was the main event, leaving Julius with some objections to being removed from the decisive battle. Ferris, seeing the two clashing in their opinions, patted Subaru on the shoulder before speaking.

“Hey, Subawu. If this is just you still holding a grudge against Julius…”

“I have no such vulgar suspicions. Such a possibility has never entered my mind…but I would be disappointed to find that you are a human being so obsessed with trivial matters that you lose sight of the greater picture.”

Subaru wasn’t sure how serious he thought all that, but he felt Don’t give half-hearted orders was the point that Julius wanted to drive home. Subaru, reflecting on having lost sight of the larger picture through obsession with small things in the past, raised a finger and responded.

“The magic of the Archbishop of Sloth…maybe it’s not magic. It’s not a spell or a spirit, but anyway, he has a special ability. That’s one reason I don’t want a big gaggle of people rushing him.”

“…Special abiwity? What? First I’ve heard of it.”

“Best I can describe it, it’s an ability to extend a bunch of hands invisible to the eye. With one exception, you really can’t see ’em, and if they hit you, they can rip your limbs off pretty easily. The range is pretty much as far as he can see.”

“Wha…?!”

Subaru’s off-the-wall reasoning left Ferris in shock, looking as if someone had poured cold water on him while he slept. Julius’s brows furled as well, and a not-insignificant shock took hold of the expeditionary force.

—The Unseen Hands under Petelgeuse’s control were literally an invisible menace. Subaru would never forget the sight of that nightmarish power cruelly toying with Rem’s body. And in a large-scale melee, the might of that menace could throw everything into utter chaos.

“That’s why I don’t want to go with numbers. It’ll just raise the number of casualties.”

“…You’re saying that with a completely straight face, huh? I can’t check without Lady Crusch here, but…”

“If Crusch were here my answer would be the same. That ability’s the biggest obstacle to taking Sloth down.”

Deep down, he didn’t think that was all there was to it, but even so, he was sure of that part. Taking it in, Julius, the first to have spoken up, lowered his eyes, sinking deep in thought before asking, “Incidentally, you said there was one exception. And that exception is?”

“Me.”

“I see. A simple tale.”

Faced with Subaru’s simple explanation, Julius could only make that curt reply. Julius sank into thought, but in the meantime, someone else clenched a fist.

“I get it!”

It was Mimi who had spoken, vigorously clenching her fist. With an impetuous laugh, she grabbed the shoulders of TB, standing beside her, and shook them hard as she said, “All right, Mimi and TB will go with Mister! And the old man, too! That’s best! What, not good? You won’t go?”

“Sis, you’re being impulsive again…”

TB, accustomed to his older sister’s lack of inhibition, made no move to refute her. Subaru was happy for the volunteers, but he wasn’t sure they fulfilled his conditions.

“Ya can rest easy. Besides me, Mimi’s the best of the bunch at everythin’. She ain’t my second in command for nothin’.”

“I can really trust you on that? She looks like the type who sneezes at the worst possible time.”

“Subawu, you’re not really one to talk, are you? …Ha, can’t be helped, meow. Ferri will go with you, too. That should make you rest a little easier, right?”

“Seriously? That’s a big help, but you’re all right with this? To be honest, we’re crossing a dangerous bridge here.”

“To think you would say that…”

When Subaru expressed his surprise at Ferris’s declaration, Julius’s eyes went wide at Subaru’s reply. “Huh?” went Subaru, turning his head at Julius’s reaction, but Julius said nothing more.

Julius let the matter of Subaru’s intent lie, proceeding to turn Ferris’s way.

“I shall leave Master Wilhelm, Mimi, TB, and him in your hands, my friend.”

“Yes, yes. Lady Crusch entrusted me with this from the beginning, so don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

“Even so, I must.”

“…Yes, yes. Then I’ll stick a little concern for you in a corner of my heart, Julius.”

Ferris gave a strained smile; Julius’s expression was the very image of seriousness as he drew himself up. The easygoing exchange demonstrated the trust between the two friends. Put bluntly, Subaru was a little jealous.

Either way, the brainstorming seemed to have resulted in Julius agreeing, too.

“Don’t feel like arguing anymore?” said Subaru.

“Since you are the only one who can see the archbishop’s power, it cannot be helped. If the numbers are increased further, you cannot easily instruct others to evade, I take it?”

“Glad you’re quick on the uptake.”

As might be expected, people who fought were quick to understand tactics.

Subaru could counter Unseen Hands by dodging the evil hands himself, but beyond that, the asset he brought was seeing the hands’ movements and getting other people out of their way. And for purposes of the operation, the fewer people the better. The Unseen Hands power was advantageous against numerous opponents, and that was another reason Subaru wanted to confront Petelgeuse with as few people as possible.

“So that’s why I wanted to insist that Wilhelm come with me, but…”

Julius, Ricardo, and others had ceased to object, so Subaru turned the conversation toward Wilhelm, who’d maintained his silence up to that point.

When he cautiously checked on Wilhelm, who had neither approved nor disapproved, the man’s eyes opened. The Sword Devil trained his clear blue eyes on Subaru, nodding without a single contrary word.

“—You do not need to ask about my resolve. I am your sword, Sir Subaru. By your will, I shall cut down your foe.”

“”

“Please, employ me however you wish.”

Granted such highly refined trust, Subaru could only nod, swallowing his astonishment.

When he looked back, he saw the siblings quarreling, Ferris’s shoulders slumping, and behind them Julius, Ricardo, and the rest of the expeditionary force entrusting Subaru & Co. with this crucial matter.

Accepting this, Subaru nodded strongly, this time without worry.

“Yeah, this fight—we’re gonna win this!”

Sub-chapter 2.

“Did we get him?!”

Subaru hastily covered his mouth with his hand after he unintentionally exclaimed out loud.

They were at the center of the rock-strewn place in front of the sheer cliff. Wilhelm had just leaped forward, his blade biting into Petelgeuse’s slender body at a sharp angle as he sliced it apart.

The madman’s body had been slashed from shoulder to hip. His posture swayed wildly from the deep, fatal wound. Even so, Petelgeuse’s eyes remained wide open, glaring at Subaru until the bitter end.

“This cannot b—”

But Subaru would never learn what the madman had intended to say.

A horizontal cut traced an arc, sweeping away blood as it parted the wind. That instant, Petelgeuse’s severed head spewed blood like a water fountain as it was sent flying.

The sight of a person being decapitated before his eyes left Subaru speechless. However, adamant denial seemed to drive the headless form forward, causing it to extend its withered, branch-like arms toward Subaru.

“Inelegant to the extreme—fall, like a man.”

The Sword Devil’s blade mercilessly dismembered the body struggling against its own death. The slice sent both arms flying from their shoulders; the blade returned to directly strike the torso, tearing it from the lower body at the waist, sending the madman-turned-sack-of-flesh tumbling to the ground, innards pouring out.

The gushing blood and muscular twitches soon stopped, leaving only the powerful stench of dead blood.

The spectacular manner of death, utterly lacking in any respect for humanity, made nausea well up into Subaru’s throat. But he somehow managed to avoid actually vomiting as he said, “I-it’s over…right?”

“If it’s not over by now, even Ferri will start believing in this favor-of-the-Witch nonsense,” Ferris replied from behind Subaru, who was timidly peering at the corpse. He moved beside the unsettled Subaru, examining the remains without hesitation.

“Though it’s not much of a surprise, he’s definitely dead,” Ferris observed. “You have it on the word of the royal capital’s greatest healer.”

“Oh…really…?”

The corpse, no longer retaining the shape of a person, seemed more like a prop than anything else. Reassured by Ferris’s words, Subaru felt the urge to vomit recede as he looked toward the forest.

As planned, their main target—the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins—had been taken care of. Those remaining were Petelgeuse’s fingers in the forest.

“Hope everyone else is doing all right…not taking too many risks.”

“Sir Subaru, they are not soldiers who would freelance in violation of your instructions. Even if unavoidable combat does take place, Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Julius are with them. A worst case is unlikely.”

Back from checking the severed head for himself, Wilhelm respectfully stood at attention. The Sword Devil’s guarantee was reassuring. Yet, it did not wipe away Subaru’s worry to any great extent.

The object of his worry was the other detachment—those heading off to deal with the Witch Cultists drawn to Subaru until he could make it to Petelgeuse and lure him out in person.

They had surmised that Petelgeuse’s subordinates were scattered around the forest, ten groups in all. Subaru had commanded the two fingers he’d encountered midway to return to base, and their actual retreat had already been confirmed. The idea was to let them go, follow them with the tenacity of a sumo wrestler’s leg hold, and use them to work out the locations of the rest—Subaru had strictly ordered his people not to attack, even if they held an advantage in numbers.

But if they were spotted by the opposition, combat was no doubt unavoidable.

“I’m seriously afraid of accidents if that happens. This is the plan I drew up, and it has one crucial hole in it…I don’t know what the Witch Cult people are thinking, and this unexpectedly large number of people fighting scares me…”

“Yes, yes, the plan maker must not show worry! Besides, I’ve heard this talk from Nervous Subawu over and over. It’s getting old.” Ferris sighed with an exasperated face at Subaru, who was worried about the other side now that his side was taken care of. “I understand you’re scared, but with Julius and them, fighting shouldn’t be a problem, meow. If Julius is fighting seriously, Old Man Wil’s probably the only one here who can take him on.”

“…That so? He’s that strong?”

Ferris had elaborated to address their young leader’s inexhaustible worry, but the details still left Subaru conflicted. In terms of his being a reliable ally, Julius’s strength was more than welcome—but given his deeply rooted sense of distaste to date, it was difficult for Subaru to accept Julius’s worth at face value. Even if the physical wounds from their duel had completely healed, untreatable phantom pains haunted Subaru even then.

“It really does run deep… Setting aside whether it’s unconscious or not, I do understand your aversion to him, though…”

“—? What’d you say?”

“Nothing much. In the first place, Julius and them should be much more worried about us! After all, Ferri thought this plan was reckless all this time.”

Ferris raised his brows and glared at the acrimonious Subaru, who knit his brow in response.

“…Yeah, I get it. But it worked out, didn’t it?” Subaru said as he glanced at the rocky place that had become their battleground.

“Looking at the results only. When the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins suspected you, you were nearly done for, weren’t you? It was definitely by the skin of your teeth. Ferri hates people in a hurry to die before his eyes.”

“I’m not in a hurry to die at all. Well, not that it sounds very convincing right now…”

The sternness of Ferris’s gaze told Subaru that apologizing further would be meaningless.

It had actually been Ferris obsessing over the operation’s little details right up until the end. Ferris hadn’t objected to the broad outline of the operation itself—Subaru “fishing” for Petelgeuse, luring him out as a decoy—but he was abnormally fixated on hammering out the specifics to raise their degree of safety.

In point of fact, Subaru couldn’t deny the low reliability of the plan, given that it greatly hinged on Subaru himself. Everything about luring out the Witch Cultists—locating Petelgeuse, the main target; slowing him down; gathering intel—was on Subaru’s shoulders alone. If even a single thing happened contrary to Subaru’s expectations, he would perish. Ferris really, really hated that.

In the end, no useful counterproposal emerged, so he hadn’t stopped Subaru from carrying out the plan, but—

“Subawu, you know how only going by results leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and still you…”

Ferris’s resentful words triggered a memory of other words that had come out of the healer’s mouth, spoken close to a half day before at the height of the battle with the White Whale. Ferris had spoken of accepting his role in battle.

Just like Subaru, Ferris was decisively unsuited to the field of battle. On top of that, belonging to the knights meant that, compared to Subaru, he had many more opportunities to feel utterly powerless.

The last words he’d thrown out had an echo of loneliness, as if he’d been betrayed by someone who shared his powerlessness—

“I’m a little surprised, though. I thought you hated me and all.”

“Don’t be absurd. I don’t choose who I heal based on whether I like them or not.”

“I wanted you to deny hating me, you know!”

Even if your worth was understood, how you accepted it depended on whether you acknowledged it yourself. When Subaru unwittingly gave a pained smile, Ferris had a sullen face when he touched his only weapon—the dagger on his hip.

“Whether I like or hate someone has no relation to whether it’s worth keeping them alive. It’s because…that’s what Ferri’s power is, that others recognize that power.”

“Ferris?”

“Besides, a lot of people died in the battle with the White Whale. When someone’s squished flat, or erased by the mists, even Ferri…even I can’t heal that.”

The usual composure in his voice absent, Ferris touched the relief carved into his dagger with a finger. This was the family crest of the Lion Rampant—the same crest on the treasured sword his master, Crusch, had carried.

The touch of Ferris’s fingertip seemed to put courage, and more than that, resolve on his face as he glared at Subaru.

“Don’t get conceited and think you’re the only one who doesn’t want people to die in this fight.”

“…I’m trying to keep that in mind, too.”

He was trying to, but in truth, trying might have been the extent of it. With Ferris’s gaze straight on him, Subaru could accept that he wasn’t the only one, but he couldn’t change his ways. No matter how much Ferris might object, he’d carry out the plan without deviating.

If it was Subaru’s own life on the line, he’d probably always bet that chip first.

“We’ve finished checking the cave. The people inside were completely crushed by falling rock. I feel kind of bad for them.”

“Oh yeah, it was perfect! Perfecto-mundo! They all went booooom!”

Just when the conversation was at a pause, the beast person siblings returned from checking on the buried cave. Greeting the pair, Subaru walked over to Petelgeuse’s remains.

Uncertain elements had been swept away, and the danger had been completely eliminated. Subaru was no longer feeling tense, and his stiff cheeks had finally slackened.

“Wiping ’em all out in an unexpected outside attack—to be honest, it was pretty unsportsmanlike, but don’t think badly of me. After all, you’re way, waaaaay worse than I am.”

With his opponent already a corpse, all he could do was make a hollow declaration of victory. That the victory had been earned with a surprise attack, practically an assassination, made it baser and hollower still.

Even so, Subaru couldn’t help but say it, because now it felt real inside him.

Petelgeuse had been struck down—the result Subaru had redone the world several times over to achieve.

“Wilhelm, thank you very much. Also, sorry for making you push yourself.”

“Push myself, you say?”

“Cutting him down with a surprise attack from the rear, it’s the worst, right?”

Wilhelm’s face became slightly clouded. He was complicit in no mere surprise raid, but a sneak attack. A knight would surely have that on his mind.

But Wilhelm’s expression immediately broke into a strong smile.

“I abandoned chivalry long ago. It is nothing you need concern yourself with, Sir Subaru.”

“But I’m the one who made you tag along and help with a surprise attack, so…”

It was a fact that the opponent was a heretic against whom honest, forthright measures were useless. Even so, asking others to cooperate in a cowardly scheme like this didn’t sit well with him at all.

“Well, Ferri didn’t mind at all, meow. Julius might have hated it…but I think he’s shrewd enough to accept it.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell him to do it. Well, I could sorta predict how you’d react, though.”

“Isn’t it better to be a little cowardly and have your friends live than to stick to chivalry and have them die, meow? Subawu, whether you or Julius is right is just a matter of your point of view.”

Having Ferris intervene was a big help. Wilhelm said nothing, whereas Mimi tilted her head as if she was wondering, Is there a problem with that…? She was a mercenary through and through.

And what TB then did deserved mention as even more mercenary than that; having finished looking around the area, the little cat-man walked over to Petelgeuse’s remains…and, without a moment’s hesitation, began fishing around in his pockets.

Subaru unwittingly gawked at the sight.

“Hmm, seems he wasn’t walking around with much on him…”

“H-hey, little guy, you’re checking a corpse’s pockets like it’s no big deal.”

“I am not ‘little guy,’ I am TB. And this is simply checking his belongings.”

With a practiced hand, TB searched for the spoils of war deep inside the blood-smeared habit. Mimi did the same. In contrast to their cuddly appearances, the mercenary siblings really did things their own way.

The inside of the habit was surprisingly deep, making TB’s hand unexpectedly busy getting everything out. That said, the contents taken out were all mundane articles.

“Field rations, lagmite ore… Ahh, he has a money pouch, too.”

“I’m surprised, his inventory’s filled with petite bourgeoisie stuff. So what, is pillaging a part of mercenary culture?”

“I believe that it’s normally ‘to the victor go the spoils’? …What…is this?”

As he made the statement, TB, well-suited to the mercenary trade, had nearly finished his perusal when a black book drew his attention. Seeing this, Subaru went, “Ah!” with a start.

“That’s probably the book Petelgeuse called his Gospel.”

“Myuu! This is a Gospel?! Uwaa, I touched it!”

When Subaru pointed it out, TB hurled the book away. He looked very much like a kitten as he bounced nervously, drawing a strained smile from Subaru as he picked up the book.

“I know the owner was icky, but you shouldn’t mistreat a book. Not even a weird one like this.”

“D-don’t touch it. I think you should let go right now. Touching it might make you go weird in the head…! It—it might be better to burn it…”

Ignoring TB’s concerns, Subaru opened it and glanced at the pages. However, he was unfortunately unable to identify the characters in which the words were written. They were neither I-script nor R-script, nor even H-script, but some other, mysterious language. They kind of looked like hiragana scribbled way too fast, so much so as to be illegible. On top of that, the latter half of the book was comprised of blank pages; a reasonable person might call it a misprint.

“…Well, I can’t read it anyway. I know it was careless of me, so both of you calm down, okay?”

“—My apologies.”

“Well, it’s your fault, Subawu.”

Wilhelm and Ferris dropped the combat postures they’d adopted when Subaru unguardedly opened the book before them.

It was for only a brief instant, but the hostility and enmity had been real. With a touch of cold sweat from that, Subaru showed the two the book in his hand, trying to wrap his head around it.

“Does either of you have a clue about this book?”

“Wait a—! Don’t just turn it our way like that! Subawu, don’t you do something stupid and try to read a Gospel! I genuinely don’t know what it’ll do to you!”

Ferris averted his eyes, raging like an inferno toward the book raised before him. Surprisingly, Wilhelm turned his back, displaying his aversion to the book as well.

“I know TB reacted like that, too, but what, the book’s seriously dangerous?”

The book was about as big and heavy as a pocket dictionary, with binding that was strictly ordinary. As it was from the Witch Cult, he would’ve expected a cover made out of human skin, but there was no sign of that.

However, the grimaces on the faces of all save Subaru made their sentiments easy to read.

“To the Witch Cult, having one of those books…those Gospels is proof you are a fellow cultist. Yes, I suppose one could say they are like holy scripture to them.”

“Scripture…?”

“Rumor has it that the Witch Cult sends them to particular people, meow. And when they arrive, that’s it…poof, another pious Witch Cultist is born! Or so they say.”

“Huh?!”

Subaru’s voice went shrill at the unexpected and astounding tale. These Witch Cultists were eerie, creepy people he couldn’t understand even the tiniest bit. Yet, they had once been normal human beings, their transformation triggered by the arrival of such a book. A deep reading of Ferris’s words suggested that the Gospels were books that brainwashed the human beings reading them.

If that was so, many of the Witch Cultists were brainwashed, ordinary people—

“If that’s true, then maybe all the people we buried alive in the cave were just…”

“Sir Subaru, you are mistaken. By the time the Gospel reaches them, they have already passed the point of no return. They are not innocent people brainwashed into obedience that can be saved. Sir Subaru, did that Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins appear sane to you?”

“N-nah. He didn’t, but…I thought maybe he was an exception.”

Brought back from the brink of thoughts of regret, Subaru passively shut his mouth. So Petelgeuse’s madness, far beyond the norm, was just one example of the dangerous mental states within the Witch Cult that didn’t involve brainwashing. Put bluntly, a part of him was reluctant to take their current conversation as absolute proof it was so.

“Now, Subawu, I know you did a great job as a decoy against the White Whale and the Witch Cult…but I feel like this is putting you in a lot of danger, meow, so don’t let the Gospel get you, ’kay?”

“I must ask that as well, Sir Subaru. Please do not make me cut you down.”

“I’ll try, but is being careful really gonna cut it…?”

It seemed that whether the book “got” someone or not depended on the recipient’s mood. If the other side was headhunting, it depended on whether Subaru accepted or declined. The notion left him distinctly uncomfortable.

Sighing at the various things being said, Subaru looked down at the book, which suddenly felt very heavy.

“I guess I’ll…keep it with me for now. Even if I can’t read it, it might be useful some other way.”

It had belonged to an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins. Just maybe deciphering the Gospel might bring him closer to the truth about the Witch Cult.

With that hope in mind, Subaru stuffed the book into his pocket, but no matter how much time passed, the suspicious gazes from the three, looking at him as if he were some crazed daredevil, did not disappear.

“So was there anything else on him that caught your eye? It’d be a super-huge help if he was stupidly walking around with, say, a map with hideouts marked on it…”

“I did not see anything like that among his belongings. Aside from the Gospel text, he was walking around with exactly what one would expect for a man in his attire,” TB replied to Subaru’s rebound as he checked the confiscated belongings.

Certainly, judging from Petelgeuse’s attire, it seemed he traveled light. But even if they wrung his neck, dead men told no tales.

“Hey, hey, can’t we just leave? No point fussing over everything here, right? Better to finally head back to everyone?”

At that point, Mimi, having stayed out of the conversation so far, spoke up while tossing dirt over the remains. Her tail sticking out from her hem, she pointed at Petelgeuse, now completely buried, and said:

“We’ve buried the enemy, so isn’t it best to check on how everyone else is doing? Hey, we really should! Really!”

“You say it so innocently, but you’re really heartless, wow. With your adorable looks, that contrast’s really slapping me in the face.”

“Hu-huu, calling me cute’s gonna make me blush!”

With convenient hearing, Mimi blushed at the part she liked, drawing a strained smile from Subaru. But it was a fact that she referred to a good opportunity. It really was best to ditch the place and regroup with the main force.

“…”

Looking back, Subaru stared at the place, now completely silent.

The cave was buried in earth and sand, the minions spectacularly crushed, their trump card rendered useless, Petelgeuse slaughtered before he could pull anything—clueless as to what was happening until the bitter end.

Via Return by Death, Subaru had seen what future lay before them if he employed his power to its full extent. They’d scored a complete shutout—and that meant complete victory against the Witch Cult.

It meant that, but—

“Er, no, this is me, right…? There’s no way it goes this smoothly. Up till now, no matter how hard I try, there’s always a downside. It can’t be this good…there’s gotta be a catch somewhere…”

“What’s with all the suspicion, meow? Hurry up, there’s still a lot to do, isn’t there?”

“A-ah, yeah. That’s right… You’re right.”

Ferris turned a disbelieving eye toward Subaru, who still couldn’t believe the fruits of his labors. Nodding at Ferris’s words, he tugged on the back of his hair as he departed the rocky place.

Victory. Yes, victory. It wasn’t an accident; he’d won. What was wrong with that?

“—Maybe he comes back to life as soon as our backs are turned?!”

“What are you going on about? Ferri is really angry already! Sheesh!”

“Ow, ow, ow!”

When Subaru looked back, unable to drop his suspicious mind-set, Ferris grabbed hold of his hair and dragged him along. It might have gone without saying, but neither the plugged cave nor Petelgeuse’s corpse showed any change.

This time, they would truly take their leave. And then, as the icing on the cake—

“Mister’s noisy about it, so just to make sure!”

Saying this, Mimi held her cane in her hand. Magic erupted from it—and Petelgeuse’s grave, along with his corpse, exploded.

This time, without exaggeration, Petelgeuse, the Witch Cult’s Archbishop of Sloth, was blown to bits.

Sub-chapter 3.

“From the look of things, it would appear you return with fair tidings.”

With a modest, composed smile, Julius greeted Subaru and the others, who were rejoining the rest of the group after taking Petelgeuse down.

They were stationed at an expeditionary-force field camp, constructed outside the forest and somewhat far off from the highway. With the Witch Cultists lurking in the forest, they were avoiding prying eyes from there and the highway to not give away their presence.

That said, now that Petelgeuse, their top dog, was dead, it was unlikely the remaining fingers would fail to notice for long. Their future movements required not just caution, but audacious haste.

“What about the fingers’ base spotted along the way?”

“One detachment is still keeping it under watch. They will surely contact us if anything occurs. But the other detachment made inopportune contact and engaged the Witch Cultists in combat.”

“Serious?! So what happened, then?! Did we lose anyone…?”

Having thought this a routine report, Subaru was stricken with nervousness when he heard it had come to a fight. However, when Subaru pressed closer, Julius gave a strained smile. Hand-combing his slightly disheveled forelocks, he gave his cavalry saber a slight tilt with his hand.

“You may rest easy. Several among the Witch Cultists were formidable, but all were dispatched without difficulty. The base in question was mopped up, so there should be nine fingers left.”

“…There’s no wounded? Also, none of the enemies got away?”

“Rest easy. We have thoroughly addressed all of your concerns.”

Julius was too classy to conceal his own failures. Hearing there had been neither casualties nor failures, Subaru sighed a breath of relief. Julius gave a slightly pained smile at his reaction as he said, “And you were not followed? All went according to plan against the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins?”

“Wilhelm cut off his head, and magic blew his corpse into teeny bits, so that should be it… It should be it, right? Any normal way of thinking, there’s no way he’d come back from that, right?”

“You witnessed it for yourself, so I am uncertain why you look so uneasy.”

Julius skeptically knit his brows at Subaru’s lingering suspicions. Then he continued to grimace when he looked at Ferris, standing at Subaru’s side.

“…Besides, though I understand the urge to be certain, destruction of remains lacks elegance. And you were with him, Ferris.”

“Sowwy, Ferri desperately tried to stop them, but Subawu just wouldn’t…”

“Don’t say it like it’s some tragedy caused by my violent nature!! What’s with all the excess theatrics?! I’ll have you know, it was the big sis of those kitty siblings that did it!”

When Julius scolded them for violating the dead, Ferris sold Subaru out with a tear in the corner of his eye. Subaru objected to his statement and pointed to the real culprit—Mimi, who’d returned along with them.

Incidentally, Mimi was sulking from having been scolded for her excess by everyone on the way back. Currently, she was curled over TB’s back out of spite, sulking to the point of refusing to walk under her own power.

“I see, Mimi, was it? Then it cannot be helped. She had her reasons, I’m sure.”

“Her little brothers do it, too, but don’t you and Anastasia spoil her a little too much…?”

“That is neither our intent nor fact. Incidentally, it was Master Wilhelm who struck down the archbishop…?”

Evading Subaru’s stare, Julius addressed Wilhelm, looking in the latter’s direction. Wilhelm reciprocated, pulling back his shoulders as he said, “I cut off his head, and without doubt severed the thread of his life. I know of no living creature able to live through that.”

“I am relieved. If Master Wilhelm speaks such a thing, there can be no mistake—so this time we have greatly impeded the future activities of the Witch Cult led by Sloth.”

“What, you didn’t believe it when I said it?! I’m not playing around here, so I checked the corpse with my own eyes! Two or three times at that!”

“I would like you to take my not checking with Ferris as a sign of my sincerity toward you.”

“Sincerity is based on the word sincere. You knew that, right?”

A vein bulged on Subaru’s forehead as he rebuffed the unapologetic Julius. But Julius did not reply to Subaru as he raised an expectant hand toward the other knights and mercenaries. At his signal, conversing voices died out, and with all eyes on Julius, he motioned to Subaru.

“They, too, await your report. It should come from your own mouth. Am I wrong?”

“You’re not wrong, but it annoys me to have you set the stage.”

“Petty stubbornness, meow…”

Ferris sent an exasperated expression toward Subaru and Julius, arguing regardless of the situation.

“Boys really can be so stupid. And Subawu, especially stupid.”

“Seen from the outside, a man’s pride might often be seen as trivial. Does this ring any bells with you, Ferris?”

“…Who knows? There might have been someone stubborn like that once upon a time…”

Somehow, Ferris’s reply to Wilhelm’s words sounded awkward. Turning his face away, seemingly to avoid the aged swordsman’s gaze, Ferris made a heavy sigh.

With that exchange taking place off behind Subaru, he reported the good news to everyone focused on him.

“So things went pretty much as expected. We took down the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins!”

“Ohhh—”

Narrating with poses and gestures, Subaru made his explanation as vivid as possible, conveying the high points of the success of their operation against the archbishop, bringing joy to the faces of those stewing at having to wait.

“W-wait, wait! No loud voices! They’ll hear you!”

“—!”

And they came to the brink of breaking into shouts of joy, which would have made their having camped outside the forest meaningless. No doubt was left that the result was optimal for them all.

“With that done, that leaves moppin’ up the stragglers, pretty simple stuff. If we don’t hurry, the lady’ll be the granny by the time we’re done… Ah, that’s just a stock joke o’ mine.”

“Somehow, I don’t feel like laughing at that one… Well, that’s fine, though.”

Setting aside Ricardo’s sense of humor, the fact remained that it was best to move nimbly from that point forward. Unfortunately, it was also a fact that the remaining job wasn’t as simple as Ricardo made it out to be.

“Just ’cause we beat Petelgeuse doesn’t mean everything’s wrapped up with a bow, after all.”

“Won’t do any good to be drunk on victory and trip over our own feet, meow. And if they know the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins died, the rest of the Witch Cultists won’t be lured out so easily, huh…?”

“Hey, these are Witch Cultists. Best to stop expecting ’em to have sane, rational thoughts.”

Ferris and Ricardo picked up where Subaru left off, apparently sharing his concerns. The faces of the others seemed to indicate agreement; not a single one seemed slacker at the news of their first victory.

“First off, smashing the fingers under his command is our top priority. Besides that, there’s no one here extreme enough to slaughter all the Witch Cultists, right? I’d like us to capture any of them we can…”

“I have a feeling they’ll just kill themselves, though… That’s what they’ve always done to date, after all.”

With Subaru plotting to capture some alive, Ferris’s lips thinned in dismay. This was not a rebuttal of the idea, but rather an expression of his disgust toward Witch Cultists who would kill themselves to seal their own lips.

To a healer such as him, such craftiness from the Witch Cult was probably a hard thing to take.

“I understand your skepticism, Ferris. But if we can refrain from taking their lives, it is incumbent upon us to do so. I agree that we should prioritize capture when we confront the remaining Witch Cultists. Having said that, we must not lose sight of the fact that our own well-being comes first, to avoid any sudden reversal of fortune.”

With Ferris sullen, Julius was considerate toward him while agreeing with Subaru’s opinion.

“—And while locating the fingers does come first, we should not neglect that the dragon carriages you arranged should reach us soon enough.”

“That so? There’s that, too, yeah.”

At Julius’s declaration, Subaru clapped his hands together, recalling the detachment heading to rendezvous with the expeditionary force.

The dragon carriages, which they’d recruited by gathering traveling merchants together from neighboring parts, were for evacuating Emilia and the rest. That said, with Petelgeuse struck down and nothing left of the Witch Cult but remnants, it seemed highly likely that there would be no need for a wholesale evacuation, making all that extra effort for nothing.

“Though that is as planned, it would surely be difficult for the expeditionary force to act in concert with the merchants concerned. We should order them either to remain at the camp, or to go into the village to proceed with the evacuation as agreed. In that case, we should take care not to cause a panic from the arrival of a large force. What do you think?”

“Think? …About what?”

“If there is someone familiar to both the village and the mansion, I believe unnecessary panic can be avoided.”

“…”

Having blithely followed Julius’s lead, Subaru now bit his lips, holding his emotions back. The implicit message was exceedingly simple: now Subaru could return to the mansion in the name of a just cause.

Considering that someone had to explain everything, sending Subaru to the mansion as an envoy made even more sense.

But—

“Don’t make me mix public and private business. I still have things to do out here.”

“Surely you too are in high spirits. None here would call it mixing the public and private.”

“I volunteered to be bait against the Witch Cult, and I’m still the best guy for the job… Besides, I don’t deserve to go back to the mansion yet.”

Shaking his head at Julius’s suggestion, Subaru looked toward the forest—and the mansion that lay beyond.

The proposal was Julius being considerate in his own way. Even Subaru wasn’t suspicious enough to view it as an act of malice. But neither was Subaru dishonest about believing he couldn’t show his face there yet.

“You still think so, after all this?”

Subaru’s moment of reflection made Ferris’s eyes go round as he spoke with a look of disbelief. Ferris spoke the words because he knew all that Subaru had done to that point.

He’d formed an alliance with Crusch and her people and cooperated in subjugating the White Whale and crushing the Archbishop of Sloth. Lined up in a row, these successes were more than enough to earn words of admiration.

But inside Subaru, their combined weight was not sufficient to wipe away his own stupidity.

“No matter what you do, you can’t change the past—when you make a mistake, you have to clean it up.”

“…”

“That’s what Anastasia said to me before. It’s harsh, but…I think that way, too. Over in the mountain of things I’ve piled up to date is a big blob of stupidity. That’s why I can’t let myself stop halfway.”

In reality, those words had been spoken to him the last time around. Accordingly, Anastasia had never scolded him so sternly in this world. But it was not so inside Subaru.

Even if no one else remembered, Subaru would not forget, nor was it something he ought to.

“So I finally can go back when the problem—taking care of all of the Witch Cult in the forest—is done.”

“If that is what you say, it shall be so. To begin with, it is a fact that having you is an advantage.”

When Subaru declined to return to the mansion, Julius honored his choice. Almost all those around Subaru displayed an understanding for his assertion.

Ferris, the only one with a dissatisfied look to the bitter end, said, “I’m a little worried you’re that hung up about it… I really can’t understand why you’d invent so many reasons not to meet the person you really, really, really like. You can just quit if you want to, meow…”

“Don’t harp on people like that. And it’s not that I don’t want to. You understand, right?”

“I do not. Ferri’s never had a breakup with Lady Crusch like that, meow. Don’t blame me if you have regrets for not meeting her when you had the chance.”

“…Don’t harp, geez.”

Perhaps Ferris’s anger was that of a healer who’d experienced so much human life and death. His words carried great weight indeed.

“Sir Subaru, there is no need to be overly concerned. When people are young, they are emotional, and their feelings lead them astray. However, these things are not irreparable.”

“Muuu, Old Man Wil, you spoil Subawu too much.”

“If I must say so, you are somewhat excessively strict with Sir Subaru—though I do appreciate the reason why.”

“…Don’t go talking like you understand it.”

Wilhelm’s words made Ferris fall silent with a guilty look. The conversation between the longtime acquaintances conveyed sentiments that only they could understand, flying well over Subaru’s head.

Though he didn’t know the details, Subaru gave Wilhelm a light wave and said, “Thanks for the follow-up. I feel a little better about it now… It’s not like it didn’t bother me at all.”

“At least you seem more at ease. After all, if all it took to solve misunderstandings between men and women were one piece of advice from an old man, far fewer human beings would need worry about such things.”

“Wilhelm, you felt bad when you argued with your wife, too, huh?”

The way Wilhelm seemed to speak from personal experience made Subaru inquire with renewed interest. When he did so, Wilhelm closed his eyes, seemingly reminiscing about days long past.

“Of course. In my case, my wife was physically invincible when brought to anger. She pounded me into the floor quite a few times.”

“Sword Saints don’t do half measures, geez!!”

“Afterward, I forced my arms around her, holding her close until her anger abated.”

“That’s like an Easter egg for married life?!”

Somehow, Wilhelm’s face looked brighter as he related the tale from life with his beloved.

The Sword Devil had plainly come to terms with events in his own past. Subaru, seized by envy, slapped his own cheeks. Awkward as it was, Wilhelm was being considerate to him. He’d be ashamed to call himself a man if he didn’t respond to those sentiments.

“I think this is still you thinking too much, Subawu.”

“Errr, it’s not like I made him just spill stuff out about his wife like that…right?”

“—Now then, it would seem we are prepared to depart.”

When Subaru timidly posed the question, Wilhelm pretended not to hear as he looked at the people standing by. Just as the Sword Devil had said, everyone was fully prepared for the next sortie.

That Wilhelm’s expression was, in a good sense, without tension was the result of the consideration they all showed for him. In a rather banal sense, the large number of adults had bailed Subaru out.

“Man, I sure come off as young and foolish, don’t I…?”

It was doubtless small of him to worry about looking that way in the eyes of adults. Even so, it wasn’t in Subaru Natsuki not to dwell on it.

“Well, anyway, that’s how it is, so…everyone, please and thank you for your cooperation so I can reunite with Emilia-tan on good terms.”

“It is mildly deflating to think of that as our objective.”

Subaru spoke flippantly to gloss over his blush, and Julius responded in kind. Instantly, the faces of all those lined up broke into broad smiles, and that served as their opportunity to head off.

—To annihilate what was left of the Witch Cult and claim victory with all members safe.

In that moment, Subaru believed without a doubt that they could pull it off.

Sub-chapter 4.

In the immediate aftermath, the Witch Cult hunting proceeded without a hitch.

Naturally, when the expeditionary force redeployed, their first stop was where the fingers had already been located.

Watched by lookouts from the expeditionary force, the fingers they’d encountered just before taking down Petelgeuse were in a field camp within a grove of trees, a frontline base with excellent sight lines in every direction.

But—

“Heya. It’s me. Everyone in a good mood?”

“—”

In lackadaisical fashion, Subaru exposed himself, drawing attention from all the Witch Cultists present. They did not regard him with enmity, but rather with indecipherable solidarity that only ran one way.

If Subaru had known nothing of their wicked deeds and acknowledged them as mere enemy combatants, he might have felt pangs of guilt. But Subaru knew the results of the Witch Cultists’ vile endeavors, and that their wickedness rendered them unworthy of sympathy.

“Sorry to trick you, but…no, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry at all.”

Pricked by their upturned eyes, Subaru tossed such words to the Witch Cultists standing in place. They mulled the declaration over, but it was already too late for them to realize that Subaru was hostile.

—A number of silver flashes crossed the battlefield, and the Witch Cultists, reacting too late, tumbled one after another.

“This was more effective than I…”

“Gah-ha-ha-ha! What the heck?! That’s the Witch Cult, and look at ’em! Hey, bro, this might turn into one helluva big achievement for ya!”

The conquest of the camp was finished in a matter of seconds. Julius’s eyes went wide at the Witch Cultists, cut down with little resistance, while Ricardo, carrying his great hatchet, grinned in high spirits.

By rights, a camp built in a grove like that was to be abandoned at the first sign of an attack. The terrain, open on all sides, made it easy to scatter and escape; worst case, some might slip through and reach other camps, alerting them to the enemy’s presence. Such measures had ended before they had a chance to begin.

It was all the result of being taken in by Subaru Natsuki, Cult Killer.

“Having said that, even I didn’t think it’d work this well.”

The overwhelming results scared Subaru himself more than anyone.

It was a perfect victory: the expeditionary force had suffered no casualties, and none of the enemies had been allowed to escape. If anyone there had doubted Subaru was the driving force behind their success, they doubted no longer.

However, sowing confusion immediately after contact with the enemy was the limit of what Subaru could do. If he had to put what that meant into words—

“—Ah, darn it! This one’s done for! And this one! What’s with these people?!”

It was Ferris, his tail standing on end, letting up an angry shout as he bound the Witch Cultists. Several black-robed figures rested tumbled at his feet, never to move again.

“They took their own lives?”

Slipping past the indignant Ferris, Wilhelm stripped the hood from one of the fallen figures in black, revealing the face of an ordinary-looking and very dead middle-aged man. Blood had flowed from his eyes, nose, and ears as he expired; if anything stood out, it was his neutral, expressionless look in death.

“The tongue is intact. No sign of using a blade on himself.”

“They probably all have magic crystals embedded in their bodies, the sort that kill you by sending poison through your system when activated. Antitoxins won’t work if the magical elements aren’t deciphered prior to death, so they took the time to plant different rituals for each one…the sophistication disgusts me!”

Ferris, mortified, vented as he checked the abdomen of the man-turned-corpse and found a faintly colored magic crystal. Seven Witch Cultists had killed themselves, but Subaru had no doubt that all ten of the cultists at the camp had such crystals embedded in them.

“Maybe it’s not just them, and these things are stuck in all of the other fingers, too…? So they killed themselves with poison even Ferris can’t stop.”

“Unforgivable. This is…blasphemy against life. What do they think life is…?!”

As Subaru’s voice trembled with shock, Ferris used the back of his hand to roughly wipe away the tears brought on by fierce emotion, transferring blood to his pale cheek in the process. However, viewed from the side, his righteous anger at those who would toy with life itself was covered with both ghastliness and exquisite beauty.

It was no doubt because, as a healer, Ferris knew the uncertainties and miracles of life and death more than anyone; he stared at his battlefield, one separate from sword and spell, with a different kind of resolve.

“—”

Standing astride that righteous fury, Subaru couldn’t take his eyes off the Witch Cultist corpses lined up in a row. Anyone could see that Subaru lacked the composure to look at them and say, Here are the fruits of my labors, victory without losing a single drop of blood.

With the hooded robes stripped from the lined-up Witch Cultist corpses, their faces, hidden in life, were exposed. But the faces that emerged were all those of ordinary men and women. It was hard to believe they’d idolized the Witch Cultist way of life.

“Sir Subaru, it may be best not to pay them so much heed.”

Wilhelm stood in the way of Subaru’s gaze, shaking his head.

“You are not accustomed to this, and there is no need to force yourself to be. If you feel responsibility or guilt, these too are unnecessary.”

“You mean because of the kind of enemy we’re facing?”

“That is correct.”

The firm, unhesitant reply to Subaru was Wilhelm’s idea of consideration. Subaru tried to give a pained smile at the harsh show of concern, but he failed. He could only sigh at himself.

“It’s not that I sympathize with them, or that I’m beating myself up with guilt. Even I get why I can’t be doing either of those things.”

Subaru had no right to lament the Witch Cultists’ deaths. He wouldn’t even if he did, but it was he who had asked the expeditionary force to annihilate them. Even Subaru wasn’t that stupid.

But looking at their corpses, Subaru was uncomfortable with the thought that he’d become accustomed to death.

“Not that I’ll ever be used to my own death…”

Subaru had already experienced over ten deaths, but he wasn’t used to death at all. The sense of loss from his death was always raw, and his fear of it would likely never diminish.

In spite of this, Subaru’s heart was becoming numb to the deaths of others, and this fact frightened him.

“Seeing their corpses lined up like that makes ’em look like dolls to me… That scared me.”

“Certainly, they might resemble dolls, doing whatever they are told.”

However, Subaru had not accurately conveyed his sentiment to Wilhelm. This time, Subaru managed a strained smile at the Sword Devil’s agreeing with that part.

As was exceedingly natural, their view of life’s worth differed. Subaru, seized by modern Japanese notions of life and death, accepted death differently from Wilhelm, a man who’d seen countless lives ended on the field of battle.

Accordingly, the chasm between their perspectives could not be filled. But Subaru didn’t think it needed to be.

“These Witch Cultists…”

When Wilhelm knit his brows at Subaru’s strained smile, Subaru continued without switching topics. Aside from matters of death, gazing at their corpses brought a different issue to mind.

“I wonder why they wanted to do all this stuff. The Witch is this weird being hated the world over, so why do they adore her so much…?”

“—”

His murmur deepened the creases of Wilhelm’s brow. Stern looks came over the faces of people around them who’d managed to overhear their conversation. But it was a young boy who broke the silence.

“—Perhaps they yearn for destruction?”

It was TB who spoke, his own cane in hand. He did not raise his kitty face, giving his monocle a slight nudge as he said, “The Witch Cult is infamous the world over, but as you can see, there is no shortage of new converts… Though, I believe such thoughts to be a luxury.”

“Luxury?”

“I believe it is a choice to make time for such thoughts when we could be taking action to destroy them. It is not as if they deserve such thoughts.”

Keeping his head bowed till the last, TB fell into silence. The sight of his adorable kitten face rejected further pursuit of the matter. Perhaps he was reminiscing about painful memories from his past.

“Hmm? What? Mister, something happen?”

Though, the fact that Mimi, who ought to have shared his circumstances, did not react to her younger brother’s words meant that even she couldn’t guess what he meant.

But TB had a point.

“Despair at everything and yearning for destruction…huh. I can’t say there’s no part of me that understands, but…”

Surely anyone pressed by despairing circumstances would have a yearning for destruction, a desire to lash out and wreck anything and everything around them. That inclination was especially strong in Subaru, so he could understand that part.

“—You don’t need to understand people like them one tiny bit. Don’t make me say it over and over.”

Listening to Subaru’s comment, Ferris turned stern eyes toward him. Having finished examining the Witch Cultist corpses, he glared at Subaru with a look full of exhaustion and anger.

“You can’t give Witch Cultists the benefit of even a single hair of your fur, or else you’ll be sucked into the darkness, too… You’re particularly vulnerable, Subawu, so be careful.”

“I get it already, you don’t need to keep pounding it into me. So enough with the suspicious gazes, please… It just bothered me a little.”

Responding to Ferris’s sharp glare, Subaru raised both hands, excusing himself as he looked at the corpses once more.

Now that the Witch Cultists’ faces were exposed, they seemed to truly be male and female, young and old alike. He couldn’t even guess at what had spurred them to join the Witch Cult. Considering the creepiness of that fact, dismissing them as incomprehensible monsters might be the wisest choice.

It was just that Subaru, the trigger for their deaths, felt that dismissing them as incomprehensible monsters was…running from it, somehow.

“Subawu?”

“Nothin’. Did any of the Witch Cultists have useful info on them?”

“Nothing whatsoever. They were walking around with nothing but weapons on them, not even a Gospel, like they never intended to return home alive from the start. So stupid.”

They’d reaped neither info nor a sense of success. From the smoldering anger and hostility in Ferris’s comment, it’d really gotten under his skin. So Subaru would let him handle raging toward them for the time being.

“Well, I’d better stay calm. Time to get moving and hit a different camp, I guess.”

Subaru did a few squats on the spot, switching mental gears to carrying out decoy duty on a larger scale. Unlike dealing with Petelgeuse and the finger at set camps, luring out the Witch Cultists lurking in the forest would be Witch Cult hunting’s main event.

Subaru began forging ahead into the forest, searching for a new fishing spot.

“You just watch, you miscalculating bastard. Don’t underestimate the power of my posse…!”

“Real roundabout way of talkin’. I can’t tell if yer worked up for this or not…”

Hearing the declaration, a fervent appeal to the power of others, left Ricardo beside himself as he grinned.

But despite Subaru’s fainthearted statement, their advance continued apace.

Sub-chapter 5.

“—Subaru, the traveling merchants you arranged have rendezvoused with the outer camp.”

Julius reported in just after the expeditionary force had annihilated the fourth finger.

After the camp in the grove, they destroyed two more camps—one on a riverbank, one in a marsh—and had determined two things about the Witch Cult: the groups called fingers were organized ten to each camp, and without an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins, the groups were more fragile than they’d ever expected.

This time, Witch Cultists plotting to assault the mansion and the village had very little ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances. With the scent of the Witch wafting around him, they pretty much did whatever Subaru told them from first sight. The effectiveness of Subaru’s decoy operation wasn’t a one-shot wonder but, rather, a recurring theme.

“Ohh! They really came!”

Secretly elated as he was that things were going so smoothly, Subaru’s voice leaped at the report.

He was the one who had arranged for the dragon carriages, but he didn’t actually know how many had taken up the offer. Hearing that they had actually assembled eased his feelings of concern.

“Seems like getting ’em all together might prove wasted effort, though. But the fact that they got here safely means that the plains are completely open, then?”

“There seems to be no mistake about that. The enemy has not realized the mist ended in failure. Accordingly, just as we imagined, they have left the highway unguarded, surely thinking it sealed.”

“Guess he really didn’t have any reason to lie to me. Petelgeuse is the last guy I wanted to take at face value, but that’s good news.”

The madman had spoken true. Now that this was clear, he wasn’t sure what to say.

Either way, Subaru wanted to meet the traveling merchants who had assembled at his behest. He needed to speak to them about the unique situation they’d become involved in, too.

“So we got back to the camp, but…”

Having broken off the decoy operation, Subaru returned outside the forest, scratching his face with a conflicted look. The assembled traveling merchant troupe was the cause of that look. The number of carriages was spectacular beyond his expectations, up to about fifteen. Apparently, the words Name your price had quite an impact. Not that he’d taken an accurate count, but the residents of Earlham Village were under a hundred—the carriages were more than enough to evacuate them.

“But they’re huddled awfully tight together.”

“They are intimidated by the turbulent atmosphere. You can hardly blame them.”

The group, clumped together in a corner of the camp, shrank from the sight of knights keeping strict guard. Seeing this, Subaru concurred with Julius’s explanation, twisting his neck as he tried to figure out how to explain everything.

He was grateful that they’d come together. But whether their mercantile souls were in it was another matter.

“If this is how they are about friendlies, won’t they head for the hills if they know this involves the Witch Cult?”

“Each individual has his own net amount of courage. But you are likely right to be concerned.”

When Julius agreed with Subaru’s concerns, the pair’s shoulders sank together. By rights, this was where Subaru would clear up the situation, asking them for their cooperation. But looking at them now, he couldn’t tell how many had the courage not to flinch from involvement with the Witch Cult.

“Well, having them run off is bad. We’d lose the hauling capacity, but more importantly, I don’t want the leftovers to get wind that something’s up.”

It was callous, but they were already involved in a callous situation. If ignorance helped them get cooperation on happier terms, it was doubtless better for both sides.

“You don’t like what I’m thinking, do you?”

“I would not call it elegant. But I am not foolish enough to dwell on that in an emergency. Everything has a time and a place. And in this case, I believe the conditions of time and place have been fulfilled.”

“Roundabout, but that’s a yes, huh?”

Accepting Julius’s roundabout consent, Subaru met the eyes of the other expeditionary force members to see what they thought of the matter. Fortunately, Wilhelm and Ferris did not raise opinions to the contrary; thus, the proposal to explain the circumstances while glossing over the important parts passed by consensus.

“To begin with, it’s possible I have to lie to the villagers to get them evacuated, too, so maybe I should just think of this as a rehearsal…”

Concealing the involvement of the Witch Cult was a necessary measure to avoid needless panic. Subaru told himself that for his own benefit as he stepped in the direction of the nervous merchants.

“Er, thank you very much for coming all this way. Since I’m the one who sent for you, I’ll explain the circumstances.”

“…You did?”

Seeing Subaru step forward as a representative, the traveling merchants looked at one another with surprised faces. Their reaction brought a pained smile over Subaru as he recalled the leading lights in the expeditionary force. With the aged Wilhelm and the chivalrous Julius present, no one had expected Subaru to represent them.

Accepting that as the natural reaction, Subaru switched mental gears. When he did so, he realized that the lineup of traveling merchants contained familiar faces, particularly one smack in the middle of them.

“You’re…right, I don’t remember your name, but you introduced me to Otto the first time. And a bunch of others were helping out when I ran into the White Whale for the first time.”

“First time? White Whale? What are you talking about?”

“Sorry, just talking to myself. So about what’s gonna happen from here on out…”

His deeply moved words threw the man off, but Subaru papered it over with a smile. Incidentally, he searched to see if Otto was among the traveling merchants, but apparently, he was not. Apparently, the connection between his fate and that of the young man hauling a large amount of oil had been severed. Subaru felt ever so slightly disappointed.

“Either way, this is an important business discussion for all of you, right? Anyway, the offer was name your price for what you’re hauling, so I assume you agreed with those terms?”

“Y-yes, you aren’t mistaken. And those terms, your side spoke the truth?”

“Of course. But the terms were to borrow everyone’s dragon carriages. I’m sure you’ve already been told this, but I want your cooperation in evacuating the nearby villagers during the mountain hunt.”

“Mountain hunt…?”

Skeptical voices arose, and the traveling merchants all cocked their heads at the discordant ring of the words.

It was true that, at present, they were engaged in a mountain hunt—to wipe out the Witch Cult. But he couldn’t just come out and tell them that, fueling the flames of their cowardice. So this was plan B.

“Demon beasts called Urugarum have built a nest in this forest. As you can see, we’ve put together a pretty large expeditionary force. I want you to help us get the villagers to safety during the mountain hunt.”

—A brazen, shameless exaggeration of the situation, some two months out of date.

“You put together a rather lifelike tale. Perhaps you have talent as a fantasist, or a writer?”

“That’s not a compliment, is it?”

That was how Julius assessed Subaru, who had eloquently persuaded Team Merchant and secured its cooperation. The details seemed to be resulting in a fight, causing a vein to bulge on Subaru’s forehead.

“Cut it out, Subawu. This is just Julius being his normal self. Besides, to be honest, Ferri thinks it was a well-done story, too.”

“Geez, both of you… In the first place, I didn’t have to make up very much. It’s a real story from two months ago.”

When Subaru received Ferris’s sad assessment, perhaps an attempt to smooth things over (and perhaps not), he let the comment slip with a look of resignation. As he did, the two knights exchanged glances at that particular detail.

“By a real story, were you referring to this forest being colonized by demon beasts?”

“I’m not sure I’d use the word colonized, but they were here, yeah. But barriers in the forest split the demon beast habitat away from people. This here’s a human being area, no problems at all.”

Seeing the wariness in the pair’s eyes, Subaru quickly explained why the area around them was safe. The explanation set Julius at ease, but Ferris thinned his lips in Julius’s place.

“Subawu, you’re not leading Ferri and the others blissfully to their slaughter, are you, meow? We can trust you on that?”

“That’s putting it way too harshly! Didn’t you say that Crusch decided to trust me, so you’re not going to doubt me, either?!”

“With all this coming after the fact, it makes me want to start doubting, meow… As for the demon beasts, though, I think Marquis Mathers has a screw loose for building his mansion near a demon beast habitat.”

Subaru grimaced at the sight of Ferris looking toward the mansion and talking like that. To be blunt, to Subaru, life at Roswaal Manor had felt like this world’s idea of common sense. Thus, he’d assumed it was normal to have a residence isolated from a nearby demon beast habitat by barriers, but…

“There’s no way that could be true, meow.”

“Without exception, demon beasts instinctively strive to slaughter living beings. They are simply dangerous creatures, unsuitable for domestication or sustenance. Barriers or not, placing residences next to them is unthinkable.”

The pair’s instant denials made clear just how nonsensical it had been to place the mansion and village there. Apparently, Roswaal’s eccentricity went well past his appearance and personality.

“Along with him not being around this time, I’ve got way too many things I’ve gotta say to that bastard…”

Feeling fed up, Subaru shoved the rising sense of weariness to one side. He did so because whether Roswaal was sane or mad, Subaru had experienced firsthand that he always had a convincing excuse. Though Subaru had his doubts about whether such excuses were even necessary, it wasn’t the time to think about it.

“Anyway, Team Merchant is happily lending us their resources. That said, we can’t bring them on the mountain hunt. So they’ll wait at the camp, ready to move any time we need ’em.”

“Then, we should demand no evacuation, no reward as part of the d—”

“As if I could do something that vicious! Verbal or not, a deal’s a deal. We’ll keep our promise… That’s right, it’s important to keep your promises! Understand?!”

“I—I understand, meow, but why are you so worked up about it…?”

Ferris cringed, cowed by Subaru’s dramatic overreaction to the issue of the contract.

Standing astride that exchange, Julius touched his own forelocks as he looked toward the traveling merchants. “But it would be careless to leave them here by themselves. Increasing the number of people to protect them all means that we need to divert more people to defending the camp…”

“Yeah, I think we should leave about half back at camp. Right now, the fishing is going super-well, and if we do find a finger camp, I want to have the option to fight or to run… Hmm, but…”

Julius closed his eyes and shook his head at Subaru’s lack of confidence. Just when Subaru thought the reaction meant rejection, Julius continued, “That is fine. We shall respect your wishes. I believe devoting half our numbers to defense is an appropriate choice. If the fingers are all groups of ten, double their numbers is more than sufficient to deal with them.”

“The way you act makes it super-hard to know whether you’re agreeing or not.”

“I am often told that it is charming.”

“It’s mysterious, at least. But with that handsome face… Yeah, I can kinda see it.”

Though he was compelled to agree, it rubbed Subaru the wrong way. Accordingly, he stuck his tongue out at Julius.

“The Iron Fangs are cut out for mountain hunting, so we’ll have the knights defend the place.”

It wasn’t exactly a pronouncement from above, but Subaru’s declaration reorganized the expeditionary force in short order. As directed, twenty knights remained at the camp to protect the fifteen dragon carriages. The worried expressions on the traveling merchants did not abate, but Subaru gave them an especially cheerful wave, so as not to scare them, before heading for the forest.

If things went sour, their cooperation would be indispensable. But the ideal outcome was for all the advance preparation with them to have been for naught.

And at that moment, Subaru was convinced that this was no mere dream, but a realistic prospect.

Sub-chapter 6.

“That makes—five down!”

“Indeed it does.”

Wiping blood from his treasured sword, Wilhelm, having ended his dance of the blade, reacted to Subaru’s celebrating shout by drawing himself up.

The place was a depression in the western part of the forest, and they had just destroyed the finger camp located there. Dividing the expeditionary force in half had had no effect on the outcome; they had half destroyed the Witch Cultists in the initial attack. That left the enemy with no time to regroup and recover; they fell quickly to the blades of the Sword Devil and “The Finest.”

“Ferris, how about it?”

“…Sorry. Still no good. They got us again.”

But as was now usual, success in preventing them from sealing their own lips remained elusive. Subaru and Julius watched Ferris lower his eyes in abhorrence; neither could find words to speak to him. If Ferris could not do it, no one could—but that was no consolation to him.

“Hey, don’t get bent outta shape, switch gears. Let’s head fer the next one.”

“Meow?!”

Ferris was still in the dumps when Ricardo roughly rubbed his head, making his slender body shoot to its feet. For an instant, Ferris was surprised by the pushy attempt to console, but he immediately slapped his own cheeks and began walking anew. Seeing Ferris like that made Ricardo bare his fangs, grinning in satisfaction.

Seeing him behave that way, Subaru could appreciate that Ricardo had long led his organization.

“Mmm, the wins are too easy, I need more exercise… How do you feel, TB?”

“I think it is good when jobs are simple. If I make my darling sister do dangerous things, our brother will raise a fuss, so this is preferable.”

“Nnn! You’re such weaklings for boys!”

Despite their clash of personalities—the uninhibited older sister versus the intellectual younger brother—the beast person siblings made quite a combo in combat. Mimi left no openings on attack or defense, and TB was surprisingly belligerent in his follow-ups.

Ricardo was leader of the pack in might and command ability, with the powerful sibling lieutenants following in his footsteps. It had been just as hard to get their cooperation as to get Wilhelm’s and Ferris’s.

As allies, they were incredibly reliable, and so a thought came to Subaru’s mind.

“I guess when this is all done we go back to being rivals, huh…?”

“It seems you have the leeway to worry about the future.”

As Subaru indulged in sentiment, Julius stood beside him, wiping the blood from his cavalry saber. His crisp handsomeness never seemed ruffled in the midst of combat. He brushed the edge of his white mantle with an elegant gesture.

Subaru hated to admit it, but Julius’s point was sound. He averted his gaze while scratching his cheek.

“My bad. Maybe I’m letting my guard down a bit because it’s gone insanely smoothly.”

“I did not go as far as to call it bad. As a matter of fact, we are functioning so well, none would think we were so hastily assembled. I can understand why you find the relationships between us to be…regrettable.”

“…Man, I didn’t expect that from you.”

Subaru had anticipated barbed sarcasm, but Julius’s show of sympathy made him widen his eyes. For his part, Julius’s shoulders sank, Subaru’s reaction having been an unexpected one.

“The royal selection has begun, and we find ourselves in rival camps. But wherever we stand in the dispute, we can accept the help of others in a common cause. Perhaps we should regard feeling this for ourselves so early after the start of the selection process as our good fortune?”

“…Can’t really think of the Witch Cult going after Emilia as ‘good fortune.’”

“I suppose not. I am sorry, that was inconsiderate of me.”

Julius immediately apologized for his faux pas, touching his own forelocks as he sighed. Subaru felt small for his reflexive indignance in contrast to Julius’s forthright remark.

Deep down, Subaru and Julius felt the same way.

Of course, they couldn’t ignore the menace closing in on Emilia and the villagers. With that tragic spectacle in mind, Subaru couldn’t call it “good fortune” to save his life. But if you set that circumstance aside, the relationships among the people assembled were by no means poor.

Enough to make you think it would be a waste for them to go back to being enemies after driving off the Witch Cult.

“Really is careless of me to worry about it, though. I’m being an idiot.”

No matter how smoothly things were going, they were still only halfway to settling the problem. Not that he was putting a wreath of laurel on his own head, but the enemy wasn’t even in checkmate; it was far too early to treat victory as assured.

In ancient times or modern, Occident or Orient, one rule held true: the danger was always greatest when you thought everything was in the bag.

“—Sorry for flaking out on you like that. I’ll get back to fishing, so I’m counting on all of you.”

Pressing a fist into his own cheek, Subaru used the dull pain to get himself going again.

“Fishing” meant casting Subaru as bait for the Witch Cult. In practice, that meant Subaru coming into contact with Witch Cultists without anyone else’s intervention. Accordingly, during the time they’d walked around the forest searching, Subaru had acted alone—or at least, with his allies nowhere to be seen around him.

The expeditionary force was tailing Subaru from a medium-to-long distance behind. His allies needed to leave no trace to find, the better to draw the Witch Cultists to Subaru like moths to a flame.

And the next time proved no exception.

“Oh—”

When they finished searching deep in the western part of the forest, he immediately judged that they should switch to the riverside. Subaru was just feeling the cool air around him when he saw shadows gliding in front of him.

“…”

Four Witch Cultists appeared, the largest number he’d bumped into. This development, differing from events at the three camps already crushed since the start of the “fishing,” made Subaru’s heart strongly leap.

“…!”

Clapping his hands together was the signal that something unforeseen had happened. But if the “fishing” failed once, the other fingers would become suspicious, and straight-up combat with the Witch Cult would become unavoidable. Therefore—

“—Heya. Mind if I take a look around?”

Subaru forced his contracting heart to expand, somehow managing to toss a smile their way. The Witch Cult looked fondly upon his smiling face, which they would have judged harshly in normal times. As was typical, the Witch Cultists were still silent; even in numbers, they displayed no enmity for Subaru.

“Good thinking, moving in bigger groups, but there’s no problem over here. There’s no problem, you can go back to your place. Mmm, yes, do that, please.”

“…”

“I outrank you here, right? Best to grease the wheels and do as you’re told, I think?”

“…”

The silence after he gave the directive was bad for his heart. As a matter of fact, stress and unease made its sound and pace skyrocket as cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck.

But the suffocating atmosphere did not continue as long as it felt like to Subaru. Within tens of seconds, or perhaps only ten, the Witch Cultists respectfully bowed and did as Subaru had instructed.

“—Phew.”

Relieved of the tension making even his lungs harden, Subaru wiped off his cold sweat. With the cultists on the move, he made the hand signal for success and quickly moved in pursuit.

Normally, the fingers only moved in a limited range from the closest camp. Most likely, these were not out on patrol, but had merely sensed Subaru’s presence and been drawn to it. When Subaru told them to return to their lair, they returned to camp without the slightest suspicion.

Thanks to that, it’d take less than five minutes to follow them to the camp. Though the number he encountered had been higher this time, their total would be the same as—

“—?! They split up?”

Subaru gazed in wonderment as the detachment of four people he was following behaved contrary to his expectations—a first. Suddenly, the group of four split into two, with three to one side and one the other. They began walking in different directions without the slightest hesitation in their steps.

“…”

With one acting solo and the others in a group of three, the risk of losing the solo one was far higher. After only a second of thought, Subaru immediately called his allies with a hand signal. Mere seconds later, members of the Iron Fangs lined up beside him.

“They split up. I’ll go after the one by himself. The other three…”

“Right on. We got this.”

The fox-man—literally a young man with a fox head—accepted Subaru’s instructions, heading toward where the group of three had vanished from sight. Before their own backs vanished from Subaru’s sight, he cautioned, “Do not lay a hand on them. If you spot their camp, regroup with the others.”

“You got it.”

Giving his slender mustache a flick, the fox-man leaped into the forest to Subaru’s right without so much as a sound. Subaru watched him go but had no time to rest on his laurels. He urgently resumed his pursuit of the Witch Cultist heading off solo.

Fortunately, he immediately caught up with the lone Witch Cultist. Gently and carefully, he followed the figure deeper and deeper into the forest. Keeping his head down, Subaru roughly wiped away the sweat threatening to get into his eyes.

In point of fact, it was pointless for Subaru to keep his breath down and tail the Witch Cultist in secret. Subaru possessed no ability to conceal his presence, and the Witch Cultist walking before him had probably been aware of Subaru’s pursuit the whole time.

He said nothing in spite of that because he was obeying the directive of Subaru, who “outranked” him. He’d judged that Subaru’s inexplicable actions were for the benefit of the Witch Cult. Not that he could see into their minds, but he could deduce it was probably along those lines.

—But if that was so, Subaru wondered even more why the four-man team would split up.

Not that it was his intention, but Subaru held command authority rivaling that of an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins. He didn’t know what would make someone go as far as to defy his orders to head off by himself. Subaru’s heart beat a little faster as he wondered if this was connected to some kind of fatal oversight on his part.

“…”

He squinted, focusing on the movements of the cultist ahead of him. The surrounding scenery was bothering him, perhaps because he was abusing his eyesight. The forest all seemed the same to him somehow, as if he’d stumbled into a place giving him déjà vu. He felt as if he was stepping into familiar territory—

—Is that really just a feeling?

As he went down a game trail unworthy of being called a path, stepped over big tree roots, leaped over a gully at his feet, and walked past mushrooms that looked poisonous, the unease inside Subaru changed to certainty.

It can’t be!

The biggest alarm bell in Subaru’s skull went off. He clenched his teeth and ran forward. When it seemed he might stumble, he toughed it out, plunging forward until the forest before him opened wide. Then—

“What the hell are you doin’?!”

When green fell away from his field of vision, he leaped into the ash-gray scene before his eyes.

Some several hours before, the rocky place that had become a battlefield had been a caved-in cavern and an unmarked grave. But the writhing Witch Cultists were defiling the grave, seemingly trying to unearth the remains of the madman buried there.

—For this was the final resting place of Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti.

“—”

When Subaru spontaneously raised his voice, the Witch Cultists’ eyes gathered upon him. The Witch Cultists defiling the grave numbered nine; the lone man he’d followed made ten—a finger.

They’d noticed Petelgeuse’s death. At the very least, this finger had to be annihilated.

“—”

The finger moved as one at about the same time that Subaru internally came to that conclusion. The Witch Cultists who knew Petelgeuse was dead instantly reached out toward Subaru.

Subaru didn’t know if they were trying to kill him or nab a replacement for their Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins. He would never know, for the results were permanently erased by the running silver slash that followed.

Blood spatter scattered as the diagonal blow severed a Witch Cultist in half. The black-robed figure spewed dark red as he collapsed. His silent death throes signaled the start of the battle.

“Sir Subaru, get behind me.”

Wilhelm, taking the first kill, lightly pushed Subaru behind him. As Subaru tottered, Ricardo’s huge frame and Julius’s slender physique slipped past his flanks, with their differing forms of enmity flying.

The battle was one-sided.

Because of Subaru’s blunder in impulsively leaping forward, the battle began under fairer conditions. But the expeditionary force paid no heed to this, crushing the Witch Cultists with overwhelming martial force. In a few tens of seconds, the battle was decided, and the battlefield soon contained only the fallen corpses of the cultists.

“What were they trying to do here anyway?”

Watching the end of the battle, Subaru raised his voice in the barren place turned battlefield once more.

No one replied to his question. The Witch Cultists were silent, saying nothing; the last one killed himself in Ferris’s arms despite the latter’s best efforts. They had no time to be elated at crushing a new finger.

“It is as if they were digging in the earth, searching for something…”

“What they were digging up is the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins’ grave. Well, I call it a grave, but Mimi just buried him with dirt, and it was Mimi who blew him up, too.”

Having been unearthed from the grave, the madman’s corpse was on the surface, lined up with the others. In the first place, the remains were nothing but a headless torso; as a result of the explosion, even that had been cruelly changed to fragments. Subaru couldn’t even guess what the cultists had been looking for among the fragments, little more than clumps of flesh. But—

“…I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

The Witch Cultists had disinterred the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins in search of something. They’d had a reason to unyieldingly persist in the work, even so far as to disobey Subaru’s command. There were four fingers left—

“Let’s regroup with the other ones following the group of three. Gotta hurry.”

The disquieting worry stirring deep inside his chest would not subside. Pressing a fist to his chest, Subaru forced himself to ignore the ache as he hurried to rejoin the fox-man’s detachment. They returned to the forest, following that detachment to a different site.

He trusted that the unease would pass once they caught up—

Sub-chapter 7.

“—”

The cruel scent of blood hung in the air.

Lukewarm air wafted among the trees, and the stench of scattered internal organs pricked at his nose. White-hooded leather outfits were strewn around the area, each with its “contents” still inside.

None remained in one piece. Some supernatural power had torn them limb from limb.

“…Don’t look like…any survived, huh?”

Subaru was in shock, unable to speak. In front of him, Ricardo spoke with a snort.

A dog-man like him, with sensitive smell even among beast people, had sensed something amiss before anyone else, breaking into a run. When Subaru and the others caught up, he looked back and spoke those words. They succinctly summed up the tragic end.

“H-healing… We’ve gotta…heal the wounded, or…”

“I told ya. No survivors. There ain’t no wounded here, man.”

When Subaru spoke with a shaking voice, Ricardo shook his head, his usual haughtiness muted. He wasn’t trying to rub it in; it was simply obvious at first glance.

Namely, that the comrades supposed to be there had been slaughtered, leaving not even a single survivor.

“—A disturbing situation. The fight was entirely too one-sided.”

“Agreed. Considering how well the Iron Fangs are trained, it is difficult to think they could be so overwhelmed.”

With Subaru’s mind struck by the surreal sight, unable to keep up, the conversation continued without him. When he looked around, he saw Julius and Wilhelm agree that it was disturbing.

“One-sided…?”

“It is precisely that. There are no corpses save those of Rajan and our other allies here. It is unnatural by any measure.”

“—”

“Even against the Witch Cult, it is unthinkable they would be killed without putting up resistance. The Iron Fangs are so elite, it is barely imaginable the enemy would strike down even one… A strange situation, is it not?”

When Subaru stayed silent, Julius mulled over the situation, but Subaru had no time to answer.

In the first place, it was something else that bothered him. It wasn’t simply the situation disturbing Subaru’s thoughts. It was the initial impact, well before that, which he couldn’t move on from.

“Why are you acting like this is normal…?”

“Subaru?”

“We came rushing and our buddies are dead, you know?! So why are you acting like this is no big…”

“We cannot change what has happened, just as one cannot change the past.”

Subaru was speechless, and Julius pulled his gaze away, walking toward Ferris.

Ferris had said nothing to this point, but unlike Subaru, he hadn’t been standing still. He was looking at one beast person corpse after another, examining their wounds.

—When joined together, these clumps of flesh would surely turn into their former comrades.

Subaru wondered if the young fox-man pursuing the Witch Cultists was the one Julius had called Rajan. Subaru recalled his aloof face and witty phrases uttered in Kararagi dialect. He and the other four beast people had been cruelly ripped apart to the point that they were unrecognizable.

“Ferris, have you learned anything?”

“…Let’s start with no survivors. Based on the state of the wounds, it seems like they were taken down by the same person, but these aren’t blade wounds. Of course, it wasn’t magic, either. They were torn apart by force.”

“Some guy was sayin’ there were demon beasts around, huh? Gimme a break…”

When Ferris calmly gave his report, Ricardo gave an appropriate sound through his canine teeth. Subaru, brought back to reality by the sound, wobbled into the exchange.

“Torn apart… You’re not saying this was by demon beasts?”

“These aren’t bite wounds, so I don’t think we need to worry about that. It feels more like brute strength. But it seems like they died pretty much instantly, so I don’t think they suffered much.”

“…Why are you mentioning something like that…?”

“Because I thought it might put your mind at ease a little, Subawu.”

Unfortunately, Ferris’s show of consideration had no such effect on Subaru’s mind.

There was nothing to death save death. As a result, whether they’d suffered or not was of little import. It didn’t change the fact that Subaru and the others had not saved them, or that they had died without putting up a fight.

“I…I should have been…more on top of things…!”

“Sir Subaru, I understand your feelings of regret. However, this is not the time or place.”

“Wilhelm…”

“A Witch Cult site is likely nearby. Since our allies were attacked, we should assume the terrain favors the enemy. We should pull back and regroup.”

With Subaru threatening to be engulfed by the scene, Wilhelm shook his head as he grasped the boy’s shoulders, making Subaru set his regrets aside.

The Sword Devil’s words were heartless, but true. If they persisted in standing still due to the deaths of their allies, they would only put their other allies in danger—a foolish exercise. They were already in combat with this finger. Just as with the finger at the rocky place, Subaru was useless, nothing but dead weight.

“Then let’s pull back fer now, come back for revenge later.”

With a heave of his jaw, Ricardo announced their departure from the tragic sight. He asked if any objected, but none did, certainly not Julius or Wilhelm, or even Mimi as she consoled a tearful TB.

“…We should at least take something of them.”

“That’s accounted for already. No more than rings or hair, though.”

Ferris quietly replied to the reluctant Subaru. When he gave a pocket a light pat, Subaru realized Ferris had taken care of it while he’d been standing stiff.

Having lost all reasons to remain, Subaru seemed to cling to the tragic sight as he looked back at it one last time.

“…”

The remains, lined up atop bare soil, were comrades he’d traded words with tens of minutes before. As he gazed upon that death, Subaru’s mind let out a heavy, painful scream.

Why was Subaru’s mind continuing such frenzied shouts that moment? It was because—

“Subawu, we have to go.”

“…I know.”

Neither time nor his allies gave Subaru any chance to wallow. Ferris called out to Subaru, still unable to find the words to give to the remains, and Subaru followed the others, the last to leave that place.

And then he noticed something.

The presence of jet-black hands slipping through the gaps in the trees, creeping closer without a sound.

“Get down—!!”

“—!”

When the evil hands seemed to slip out from the darkness, Subaru was in a daze as he shouted.

The ones able to instantly respond to the sudden directive were Wilhelm and the other heavy hitters. They didn’t ask why like a bunch of idiots—they instantly crouched, escaping the hands sailing over the ground.

However, the hands caught those who reacted too slowly, displaying their thoroughly wicked might.

“Gya—!”

Those who remained standing screamed—no, they were not screams; they were death cries.

The black-dyed arms stretched the necks of the slow-to-react knights, fatally gouging out their throats. The fingers seemed to move without resistance, rending human flesh with the ease of passing through water.

Blood spurted forth, and multiple lives were snuffed out right before Subaru’s eyes. Subaru was in shock from this, but immediately after, others unfroze and raised their own voices.

“—What is it? What happened?!”

“I don’t know! Blood spurted from their throats all of a sudden…”

They, aghast at the slaughter of their allies, could not see what had created this death. In other words, this was greater proof than anything that they were the black, evil hands known to Subaru.

Thus, Subaru thrust aside his feelings of disbelief.

“—It’s Unseen Hands!!” he shouted.

The black hands that had brought death to their allies—these were none other than Petelgeuse’s Unseen Hands.

But that was impossible. The madman controlling them had died for certain. His torso had been cut in half, and the only things they’d found left of his corpse were fragments. Ferris had firmly stated that recovery was impossible.

“So who the hell is using Unseen Hands then?!”

Subaru’s voice was raw with surprise. The pitch-black hands dancing in the sky reacted. Multiple hands moved like the heads of snakes, their fingers turning menacingly toward him.

Their numbers were probably thirty—an invisible menace in numbers somewhat above what Petelgeuse had controlled.

“Sir Subaru! Indicate the arms’ locations!”

Wilhelm shouted, sword poised, with Ferris tumbled at his feet. The Sword Devil’s request caused those who had initially taken flight to look at Subaru. Their morale was hardly broken, but they had no countermeasure beyond Subaru.

Understanding his duty, Subaru squinted at the evil hands. He would not let them add to the corpses of his allies. However, as if to mock his determination, the evil hands…

“They vanished…?!”

The hands made of black mist gently dissolved into dust from the fingertips down. In an instant, the thirty hands dissipated. Subaru, unable to discern his opponent’s intent, watched with a stiff face.

“Bro, what happened to the attack?! Where’s it comin’ from?!”

“They vanished! They were pulled back! I don’t know why!”

Replying to Ricardo’s angry shout with an angry shout of his own, Subaru desperately swept his gaze across the area.

Subaru was the only one who could detect Unseen Hands, which attacked with neither sound nor aura. The life or death of his allies depended on his actions. That fact made Subaru earnest in his efforts.

Accordingly, he neglected to care for himself.

“Ugh—?!”

The bad feeling suddenly arising at the back of Subaru’s neck made him raise a cry of pain. The next moment, his neck bones seemed to creak from the powerful grip raising him, pulling his feet off the ground. Floating in the air, he could neither kick at the ground nor stand firm. His limbs writhed and flailed, but Subaru’s body was pulled into the darkness in a single swoop.

“No! Subaru—!”

“Julius, don’t! The enemy’s here!”

Julius immediately reached out, but he was interrupted by Ferris’s bloodcurdling cry.

The instant before they were separated, Subaru’s eyes spotted a group of black figures bursting out of the forest—Witch Cultists attacking his wary allies from the flank.

“Shit! Let me go, damn it…!”

As sword began to ring against sword, Subaru alone was being pulled away from the battlefield. As he swung his limbs, they struck tree branches, picking up painful scrapes in the process, but he had no time to care about that.

The hand restraining him possessed tremendous physical strength, carrying Subaru with movements impossible for any man-made device. That, and the fact that he couldn’t break free, made it easy for him to guess what was pulling him. That very moment, Subaru was being whisked away by Unseen Hands. Therefore, his enemy was—

“Gu—aaah—!”

The impact forced an interruption in his thought process.

The forced floating in midair came to an end when his back was slammed against a large tree. After that, Subaru was pressed against the trunk, legs still off the ground, suspended in midair as he came face-to-face with his foe.

“Geheh! Shit! Who the hell is…?”

“Ahh—my brain—is—shaking.”

“—”

When Subaru coughed, turning his eyes toward his surroundings, that phrase froze his heart.

The nonsensical line seemed to flow into his ears as if it were teasing him, but it was far too evil to ignore.

Slowly, the darkness seemed to dissolve as a slender figure walked out of it.

So far as Subaru knew, the Witch Cultists all wore the same hooded black robes, and this figure was no exception. But this individual left the hood down, leaving a face exposed.

“—”

For an instant, Subaru hallucinated that this figure was Petelgeuse’s body double. But an instant later, he rejected the idea. The figure resembled the madman yet was different somehow. After all, the person appearing before Subaru was a young, redheaded woman with conspicuous freckles.

“So why…? What are you…? What the—what the hell…?!”

With strong pressure over his entire body, Subaru writhed, moaning in pain as he looked down at the woman.

The previous finger exterminations had already established that the Witch Cultists were male and female, young and old alike. Having a woman as his enemy was nothing to be shocked over, but Subaru’s fright would not abate.

The problem was not his opponent’s gender—it was that the woman and that madman were two of a kind.

The woman made Subaru feel disgust and terror rivaling those caused by Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti himself. They absolutely had nothing to do with the fact that the shadows wriggling at her feet were keeping Subaru bound.

“You’re…Petelgeuse’s…what…?! Get these hands off me…!”

“—A finger, you SEE.”

“Ah?”

Forcing his shudder back down, Subaru wrung out a raspy voice with which to speak to her. The instant after that voice raised Subaru’s doubts, the woman forcefully shook her head like a spring-operated doll.

Then she raised her right hand and put a finger into her mouth; this, she violently bit and crushed. The dull sound, the droplets of fresh blood, they were that madman’s blasphemous self-harm through and through—

“I am a finger! One rewarded with Her favor! A diligent diiisciple carrying out the trial, faithfully obeying the guidance of Her love! Ahh! Ahh, are you lazy?!”

“Uu…!”

The woman waved her bloody finger, scattering droplets of blood around as she instinctively unveiled her madness. The sight of the angrily raging woman who called herself a finger made Subaru squirm, forgetting all about how hard it was to breathe.

That madness, that insanity, that irritable behavior, repeating that same stupid phrase to vilify his opponent—it wasn’t just her ability to use the authority. Even setting aside the eccentric mannerisms, the woman had far too much in common with the madman to ignore.

Confidant. Successor. A Priest of the Seven Deadly Sins rather than an archbishop. Various possibilities raced inside his head.

But she didn’t fit any of them. If he had to put a more proper, more accurate label on what he felt—

“A dead ringer…a copy? With Petelgeuse’s exact personality…!”

He couldn’t help but think of the woman as Petelgeuse himself rather than someone who merely resembled him. Perhaps that itself was what the term finger signified.

Perhaps the fingers had literally been part of Petelgeuse…

“If that’s so, worst case doesn’t even cover it…!”

“Being able to recover you this early is a great relief! You are troublesome, you are dangerous, you are particularly vile! You can see Unseen Hands, can you not?”

“…No comment…”

“You cannot hold your SILENCE with me! You have been captured by Her favor, when by riiights you would be discarded as rubbish! Thiiiis cannot be mere happenstaaance! When it is not once, but twice, it is not happenstance, but inevitability! And inevitability INSTILLS diligence!”

Her inability to listen to others was just like the original’s.

As she opened her eyes wide enough that her eyeballs threatened to pop out, saliva scattered from the madwoman’s long tongue. Ordinarily, that would be bad enough, but the ugliness of her fury ran far deeper than that surface.

“Now, now then, then then then. Although THIS is extremely regrettable, there is something that I SIMPLY must confirm. Who are you, and what is your purpose?”

“What am I doing…?”

Subaru grimaced at the question, his disgust with his unsightly opponent plain. When he parroted the words back, the madwoman stretched a hand to the sky.

“Yes! That is precisely what I ask! The favor you wear is far greater thaaan that of an ordinary believer, rivaling the Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins themselves! If so, are you indeed this generation’s Pride? Pride, come here to carry out the trial in the place of Sloth?!”

“You pull this as soon as you make me think you’re gonna take it easy and spare my life…? And if you think I am him, why are you puttin’ the screws to me like this…?!”

“Even if you are an archbishop, it is an unwritten rule we do not interfere with one another! Beyond that, if this is to result in conflict, there is only greater diligence! To push forward and persist against any obstacle in THE way of love! After all, illogical clashes are far from rare!”

The madwoman responded to Subaru’s question with a loud, derisive, insane laugh.

Sure, fanning the flames of internal competition sounded great in theory, but she’d just proudly exposed her organization as a collection of egotistical maniacs. In other words, as far as she was concerned, if Subaru was Pride, that made him her enemy.

“If you are Pride, the empty seat among the sins has beeeeen filled! Once the trial is completed, we must assemble the remaining sins so that the Witch may display her favor to us! And for that, among other things—”

“—”

“I must begin the trial early so that you may sever your lingering attachments. Tomorrow? No, beginning right now! Naturally, I ask that you watch until the very end!”

The madwoman gleefully thrust her demand into Subaru’s face from a position of absolute superiority. This was a worst-case scenario. She meant to move up the trial—in other words, to rush the plan of attack. The madwoman continued to loudly extol her misunderstanding, making her murderous urges all too clear to Subaru.

Of course, he couldn’t let her go through with it. There was little merit in playing for time, keeping the madwoman tied down in that place. The worst thought to strike him was that it was possible this female Petelgeuse copy was not the only one who could use the authority.

Accordingly, Subaru had to convey this to his comrades without a second to lose—

“Even so…shit! Even if I see ’em, I can’t do anything about ’em from my end!”

The largest obstacle to regaining his freedom was the Unseen Hands still keeping him pinned. When he felt his neck grabbed and reached back, Subaru’s fingers passed through the haze, unable to affect it.

As Subaru cursed the wholly unnatural phenomenon, the madwoman nodded.

“So you can indeed see my Unseen Hands. I am exceedingly dissatisfied, disturbed, dismayed, discontented at the absurdity of this, but this proves you are iiindeed Pride!”

“Don’t make me say it twice… Ahh, it’s the first time for you, is it? I’m not your Pride—I haven’t even gotten my special admission book yet…!”

“What obstinacy! However, even you shall become more cooperative, and s—”

When Subaru resumed struggling, the woman’s visage twisted in wicked delight as she stared at the sight. But the instant her slender arm subconsciously groped in a pocket, the woman’s words were cut off, her expression vanishing.

“…That is right.”

The woman drew her hand out of her own pocket as she haltingly spoke. It held nothing in it. The fact that it held nothing made the madwoman claw at her own face, gouging the flesh as she shouted, “—Gospel!!”

“—?!”

Subaru’s body went rigid at the reverberation of the throat-splitting scream.

It was a sudden explosion of emotion. Her scratch wounds did not fit the rawness of the word, so the woman deepened the lacerations on her cheek as she looked up at Subaru, the object of her rage, flesh under the fingernail she turned toward him.

“Even if this diminutive body offers ten thousand words spent, ten thousand lives taken, ten thousand human laments, it is insufficient! A guide is necessary so that my foolish, immature self MAY properly repay Her favor! And for that purpose, the Gospel! Which is now beyond my grasp!”

“Uu…”

“If it was lost, then where?! Ahh, but I understand. My Gospel, the guide of my love! You, youyouyouuu must have seized it!”

When she directed her unstable hatred toward Subaru, the malice thrust through him, chilling his spine. The madwoman, rightful heir to Petelgeuse’s spirit, brought her bloody visage close to Subaru.

“Stay back…!”

Her approach made Subaru feel the presence of death, something he had not tasted in some time.

When death drew near, it had a scent that only Subaru could pick out. It was this death that hovered around the woman’s body as she came to seal Subaru Natsuki’s fate.

“It is futile to struggle any further. This is as far as youuu…”

Responding to the madwoman’s mocking voice, the evil hand’s grip made Subaru’s neck bones creak. He was on the verge of losing consciousness, sinking into a lethal abyss.

“—What is this?”

“—Aah—”

The questioning voice led to a slackening of the grip, letting Subaru breathe easier for that single instant. Subaru forced his hazy eyes open to see for himself what had created that time for him.

Then Subaru saw it: a wavering, flickering cluster of red light, right before his eyes.

“What th…?”

“Spirit—!!”

Before Subaru could figure out what the light was, the madwoman raised a vivid, hateful shout. For its part, the light responded with vibrant clarity.

The light surged, as if about to explode, burning Subaru’s and the woman’s eyes with white light.

Sub-chapter 8.

“—”

When the light exploded without warning, Subaru let out a shriek and bent backward. The pain, like needles stuck in his retinas, brought a flood of tears, making him cover his face with his palms—and the next moment, he was hurled free.

“Whoaaa!”

The instant Subaru, overtaken by the floating feeling, realized he had escaped from the hand, he moved to break his fall. He rolled feetfirst over the root of a large tree, minimizing the damage from the fall. Thanks to the Sword Devil’s lessons, he was an expert at breaking falls after being sent flying. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands and lifted his face.

“That was…er, uh-oh!”

When he lifted his head up to check the situation, the pitch-black hand came at high speed to mow him down. Subaru shuddered at the attack, which would have knocked his head clean off had it hit, and glared at the culprit in outrage. When he did so, the madwoman concerned was covering her face with her palms as she blindly flailed at the surrounding area with innumerable evil hands.

“Spirit…! Spiriiiiit!!”

The woman poured hatred onto the spirit, perhaps simply that aggrieved from the blow it had given her. However, the light was nowhere to be seen. The madwoman was merely wrecking the woods in anger, as if trying to inflict even a glancing blow on the offending spirit.

She’d completely taken her attention off Subaru. That moment, he was free to choose whether to attack or flee.

“I’ll run, then!”

A greedy choice, like evading the wildly flailing hands and landing a single blow to the madwoman’s vitals was beyond Subaru’s means. Rather than engage, the better option was to secure combat capability.

“We can’t let her be. But I need Wilhelm-level combat strength here! Should be that—”

“—You called, Sir Subaru?”

In his haste to rendezvous with the others, Subaru’s eardrums were greeted by the voice he most wanted to hear. When he turned around, his eyes were greeted by the sight of a white-haired, elderly man—the Sword Devil—slipping through a gap in the grove and rushing over.

“Wilhelm!”

“That was most concerning. I am very sorry I could not be here sooner.”

Wilhelm, carrying his treasured sword in pursuit, breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Subaru was safe. Subaru, delighted at the best reinforcements he could hope for, blinked hard when he noticed the red light floating atop Wilhelm’s head.

That glow was none other than that of the spirit that had just saved Subaru from peril.

“That’s the spirit from earlier… Wilhelm, don’t tell me you use spirits?!”

“Unfortunately, I have no talent beyond the sword. It is purely on loan from its proper contractor. However—it would seem you are in need of my specialty.”

Wilhelm had stepped in front of Subaru by the time he finished those words. The ghastly aura radiating from the Sword Devil was great enough that the madwoman, eyes seared by the light, noticed and turned toward it.

“Ahh, SO there you are… You, you shall not escape…!”

The bloodstained woman’s madness was directed at both Wilhelm and the spirit attending him.

“The enemy’s in the same league as an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins! You saw earlier how strong Unseen Hands are. Even you can’t just take her on from the fr—”

“No matter. Knowing they are invisible, I have ways to deal with them.”

When Subaru warned him of the seething woman’s madness, the Sword Devil made that firm reply as he stepped forward. The sudden move startled Subaru, and even amid her villainy, the woman was dubious as well.

“What is this? Your head, your life…do you come to present these to me? If so, that is a WISE and diligent choice! I would like to respond with all due respect. However…”

“Invisible hands, is it? A most interesting parlor trick—I must experience it at least once.”

“…Did you call this a parlor trick?”

For a moment, Wilhelm’s words made the madwoman’s madness vanish. Wilhelm responded to her utterance by lowering his sword, beckoning her with his open hand—Come on, he taunted.

“—! This foolish endeavor is to abandon all logic! And to discard logic is lazy!!”

“Wi—”

Mad with rage, the woman thrust both hands forward; simultaneously arms spewed from her shadow, assaulting the Sword Devil.

Their ferocity compelled Subaru to instantly shout for him to dodge, but he wasn’t in time. The black, evil hands ought to have grasped Wilhelm’s limbs, cruelly rending his flesh asunder—

But they did not.

A silver flash ran across the sky, and droplets of blood spurted from the woman’s neck.

“If the human launching the attack is in plain sight before you, it can be anticipated, invisible or not. By watching the movement of her eyes, feeling her hostility, reading how she breathes as she aims, it was all too clear.”

“—”

The Sword Devil made that frightening declaration having completely anticipated the pitch-black, evil hands, striking them down with his sword. Without exaggeration, his evasive timing was perfect; his talk of reading her breaths was no mere boast. His shocking combat skill had blunted the advantage posed by the invisible hands.

“How, how, how can this…?”

And without doubt, the madwoman’s shock was even greater than Subaru’s. She pressed a palm to the right side of her neck, taking in the feeling of the blood smearing it from the fresh cut. The very fact that the woman had dodged just prior to Wilhelm’s sword strike, the action saving her life, was itself abnormal.

“Damn it, she threw herself with her own power…”

In concert with the sword strike, the woman had leaped backward in an unnatural pose and with unfathomable speed. The shadowy arm had grabbed and tossed the woman’s body, narrowly saving her life from the Sword Devil’s blade.

However, as a consequence, the evil hand’s gripping power had crushed her left shoulder. It was a violent emergency evasive maneuver of sorts with no room for subtlety. However, the woman patted her crushed shoulder, glaring at Wilhelm as she said, “What…what a diligent concept, such diligent skill, aaa diligent way of life!”

Her cheeks flushed, the woman praised Wilhelm with delight in her eyes. Receiving what was, by her standards, unreserved adulation, Wilhelm grimaced in visible displeasure. However, the woman paid this no heed.

“None have ever challenged my love with such a method, such technique, such cunning! What diligence! Ahh, splendid!”

“Even this world is not so barren that I would waste words upon the likes of you.”

“Do not say such hurtful things. I want you to show me more! Of you! Your sword! All OF you! Captivate me more!!”

Her body half smeared with blood, the madwoman stretched her hands out to Wilhelm as if seeking his affections. The Sword Devil did not conceal his displeasure at her statement, giving his sword a swing as he charged once more.

“Then then thennnn! HOW about this?!”

Together with her pronouncement, Unseen Hands gushed out from the ground, forming a black wall in front of the woman. It was a wall Wilhelm could not see. If he kept charging in like that, he’d be enmeshed in the evil hands, unable to evade.

“She made a wall of arms in front! Go around!”

“—Understood.”

At Subaru’s shout, Wilhelm kicked off from the ground, evading just short of the black wall before his eyes. The Sword Devil proceeded to leap sideways, escaping from the arms’ range, thrusting his sword into the ground and swinging it upward.

“—!”

The angular sword strike gouged out the earth, sending a shower of dirt pouring onto the madwoman. He had kicked up a completely mundane smoke screen of dust. Naturally, the woman showed no signs of damage from it.

“—? Did that have a point…?”

“I hoped you would not disappoint me! Come! Come, come! Diligent old bones! You, the beloved child that knows love is the greatest thing in this world! Demonstrate your diligence to me!!”

The Sword Devil’s behavior drew comments from both Subaru and the madwoman. But Wilhelm said nothing to either set of words. The aged swordsman simply continued his nimble run as dirt showered down upon the woman over and over.

Brushing away the unpleasant downpour, the madwoman turned eyes toward the Sword Devil like a maiden in love. The arms of instant death obstinately pounded down wherever she was looking.

“Are you finished? Is there no more? If so, dismay! Disappointment! Despondency of the soul, despair! Ahh, AHH! Are you lazy?!!!”

“N-no way?!”

At the woman’s shout, shadow exploded; it was a terrifying volley of power that squarely locked on to Wilhelm. The hitherto sporadic evil hands now numbered above thirty, literally filling the sky in the narrow gaps between the trees. Subaru felt dizzy from the overwhelming number of them.

Fatally, there were thirty-odd of them, and Subaru could only point out one or two at best—

“Anyway, it’s bad, Wilhelm!”

At the same time as Subaru’s woefully insufficient cry, the evil hands cascaded straight down onto the Sword Devil. This time, malice that mercilessly destroyed all it touched would trample Wilhelm flat.

As he raced across the ground, Wilhelm looked overhead, his blue eyes narrowing as he said, “I told you.”

The Sword Devil’s tranquil voice rode on the warm forest breeze as he easily evaded the encroaching invisible hands.

“Huh?”

Both Subaru and the woman were taken aback; not even they knew which one had spoken the word.

The evil hands poured down on all sides, twisting around to assail the Sword Devil’s limbs. With superhuman agility, Wilhelm dodged, evaded, and overwhelmed them.

When he had finally shaken off all the ferocious attacks, a vicious smile came over the Sword Devil’s cheeks as he glared at the woman.

“—So long as I know the arms are invisible, I have ways to deal with them.”

Certainly, he had just proven that his earlier proclamation was in no way false. But the results were so majestic that Subaru could scarcely close his wide-open mouth. Even Wilhelm shouldn’t have had the super-senses to detect that many arms coming at him.

“Absurd. Absurd, absurd, a​b​s​u​r​d​a​b​s​u​r​d​a​b​s​u​r​d​a​b​s​u​r​d​s​u​r​d​s​u​r​d​s​u​r​d​s​u​r​d​s​u​rd…!”

Stricken senseless as she was by the foiling of her best move, the woman’s eyes lost all focus. Trembling, the woman crushed her remaining fingers in true Petelgeuse fashion, but her emotional outburst did not relent as blood flowed from her nose.

The nosebleed was still dripping when the woman thrust her blood-smeared right hand at Wilhelm.

“Impossibleimpossibleimpossibleimpossible! How could you escape my Unseen Hands?!”

“Of course, I evaded them by sight. Once I knew their nature, foiling them was mere child’s play.”

Wilhelm tediously made the declaration as he once again made dirt shower with the tip of his treasured sword.

Dirt poured onto the madwoman, incomprehension on her beet-red face. But after seeing it repeated over and over, Subaru finally understood Wilhelm’s objective in making that move. At the same time, he was in shock.

—The repeated showers of dirt were his opening moves for making Unseen Hands visible.

The hands themselves were invisible to the naked eye, interacting with whatever they touched by destroying it. In other words, the evil hands left a trail as they tore through the dirt showers.

Of course, even if he could see the ferocious attacks by thirty-plus hands, evading them was no easy task. And yet, Wilhelm’s superhuman, godlike combat capabilities made even this seem like child’s play.

“Now then, both of our tricks have been sufficiently exposed. I shall obtain vengeance for my comrades.”

Thrusting the tip of his treasured sword forward, Wilhelm threatened with suppressed anger. The hostility radiating from the tip of his sword sent a thrill through Subaru, not even the direct target of that blade. Naturally, his fear was nothing compared to that of the madwoman on the receiving end of that sword tip.

In spite of this, the madwoman spread her blood-smeared arms wide, laughing as if granting his bloodlust a warm welcome.

“Ahh, ahh, it is splendid! Your actions are diligence personified! To inflict this situation, this development, this predicament upon meee…! I, always striving to be first among Her adherents, to repay Her favor and love with diligence! And yet, you have…!”

“To repeat diligence and laziness over and over is foolishness.”

Exhaling once in the face of the woman’s unsightly cries, the Sword Devil gazed at her with enmity winning out against the bloodlust in his eyes.

“‘—If I do this, I will be loved. If I do enough, I will be loved.’ The frivolity with which you speak the word rots my ears. It is not love of which you speak. It is merely your own conceit.”

“What do you know about love?! Love is eeeverything to me!!”

Wilhelm did not reply to the woman’s shriek; rather he slammed his sword down and advanced. The dirt shower recommenced, and the Sword Devil put his foot down, carving a wound in the ground as his body shot out like a bullet.

Even though, like a whip, like a spear, like a maul, like a sword, the madwoman’s evil hands raced to mow Wilhelm down, he saw through them all, and was thus allowed to draw near.

And then—

“It is over, heretic.”

As he stated this, the treasured sword in Wilhelm’s hand plunged to the hilt, deep into the madwoman’s belly. The sword ran through her, coming out of her back; when he yanked it out with a twist, a great deal of blood and entrails poured out.

When Wilhelm pulled back, the woman fell to her knees and bent forward as she touched the wound with a hand.

“Ahh, this cannot…”

Her palm was impotent to stop her blood from gushing out, her intestines from pouring out.

Wilhelm silently looked down at the madwoman, unable to stem the spillage of her life. Having cut down so many lives, the Sword Devil knew that she had little time left to live.

“It seems you require a mercy blow?”

“—Mercy is unnecessary. My life drains away, my blooood, disappearing… My diligence, the heartbeat that sustains me, is stopping, vani…sh…ing…”

Refusing the Sword Devil’s mercy, the madwoman fell onto her side with a smile on her lips. The light proceeded to fade from the woman’s eyes. Subaru stood rooted to the spot as he watched her final moments.

“…!”

“Ahh, my brain is shaaa…”

While Subaru stared, the woman left only those final words before her breathing completely ceased.

It was the death of the second user of Unseen Hands, the second Sloth.

Watching until the end, Subaru let out his breath. The conclusion of the battle had made him practically forget to breathe. His body resumed its life functions, as if remembering that which it had forgotten.

“I-is it…over?”

“—At the very least, this woman has most assuredly ceased to breathe.”

Wiping the blood from his sword, Wilhelm replied thus to Subaru, who was nervously peering at the corpse. Subaru bit his lip, feeling as if the meaning behind those words bolstered his earlier deduction.

But Subaru immediately shook his head, switching gears. He knew it was no time to sink into contemplation.

“Setting her aside…anyway, we’ve gotta head back! I’m worried about everyone else. If we don’t link up with them…!”

“—No, Sir Subaru. I have just been informed that they have wrapped up their end.”

“Informed…?”

With Subaru agitated, Wilhelm offered a hand toward him. A pale light was floating above his hand. The spirit swayed left and right, emitting a faint red light, asserting its own existence.

“That’s the spirit from…er, a minor spirit? Anyway, you’re saying that this spirit told you the others are safe on their end?”

Subaru spoke toward the flickering light on Wilhelm’s hand in hope of a reply. However, the spirit did not reply with words; it merely floated into the air, entering the forest as if to lead the way.

“That means Follow me, doesn’t it?”

“—Let us go, Sir Subaru.”

Grasping that it wished to guide them, Subaru and Wilhelm chased after the spirit.

They returned to their comrades after repelling a foe rivaling an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins; considering the circumstances, it was good news to return with, but grave emotions were carved onto the pair’s faces.

“—Shit.”

But that moment, the only thing on Subaru’s mind was the state of the allies with whom he would be reunited.

Sub-chapter 9.

“—Who’s there?”

“Hold up! It’s us! Sorry to startle you!”

Checked by a sharp yell, Subaru came out of the thicket, showing himself with his hands up.

The knights who had sensed them returning from deep in the forest, and thus pointed their swords at them, immediately relaxed their guard, relief on their faces as they lowered their blades. But that relief was marred by sadness and regret.

Subaru had a feeling that the result of the fighting in the forest hadn’t been a pure victory, something to take joy in.

“It seems you have both returned.”

“Julius…”

As Subaru and Wilhelm surveyed the area, Julius ran over. Seeing that Subaru and Wilhelm were each without injury, he stood at attention without any change in expression.

“At the very least, it is good that you two are safe… Shall I make the damage report?”

“…Yeah, please do.”

Having confirmed the other was safe and sound, Subaru granted approval for Julius to shift to the damage report. Accepting, Julius indicated the forest-turned-battlefield with his hand.

…The forest littered with fallen trees and traces of bloodshed, the aftereffects of combat.

“Five died instantly from the initial, invisible attack. Two more died while engaged in combat with the Witch Cult in the attack immediately following—our total casualties for this engagement were seven.”

“Seven…”

Subaru had expected as much, but the number slammed heavily into his heart.

They’d lost five in the initial Unseen Hands ambush. It was a most cruel loss.

“…The Witch Cultists that tried to take you down?”

“All of the nine Witch Cultists here perished. Two were captured alive, but they killed themselves like all cases prior to this point…despite Ferris’s strenuous efforts.”

“So the enemy was completely wiped out. On our side, if we include the five scouts, our losses are twelve in total…”

“I cannot say that dividing our forces was a…poor move. Had we done otherwise, it is highly likely we would have simply increased our initial losses. Of course, it is also possible that the enemy would hesitate to attack greater numbers, but…”

Though the casualties stung deeply, neither Julius nor Wilhelm gave any hint of losing his cool. For his part, Subaru had been biting his lip enough to draw blood since the damage report began.

“That ends my report. And yours?”

“—! You don’t have anything else to say to me?”

“Necessary reports come first. I had thought to ask you for your report before all other matters, but…”

In contrast to the emotional Subaru, Julius had a very calm demeanor. But as he replied, his forelocks were slightly askew, and there were traces of blood on his royal guard uniform. Of course, even he had not come through unscathed.

Gazing at the vestiges of intense combat, Subaru restrained his scattered emotions.

“…At the very least, we beat the Sloth that attacked us just now.”

“‘The Sloth that attacked us just now’…you say. Not a report to take solace in, it would seem.”

Subaru’s gloomy reply contained nominally good news, but Julius immediately homed in on the problem therein. The authority-using madwoman who had launched a surprise attack on the expeditionary force, whisking Subaru away from the battlefield, was an evil on par with the assuredly slain Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins—a being worthy of the title of Sloth.

“The first stage of this operation should have taken out the Archbishop of Sloth. You were more confident of that than anyone…yet, in spite of that, you call the earlier foe Sloth?”

“…Yeah, that’s right. The one just now was a Sloth—a second Sloth.”

The last part of that statement—“a second Sloth”—made Julius knit his brows in dismay. But given the seriousness of Subaru’s gaze, combined with the events that had actually taken place, he offered no rebuttal.

“So the first Sloth defeated was a different person from this Sloth. You are absolutely sure of this?”

“I’d never forget the look on that piece-of-shit bastard’s dead face. Plus, the second Sloth was a woman. There’s no way you’d mistake one for the other. There’s no way you would, but…”

When Subaru had first encountered the madwoman, he’d hallucinated that it was Petelgeuse. That was because he sensed things beyond their appearances that tied Petelgeuse and the woman together. It felt as if their madness had sprung from a common root—

“The authority was the same, the words and actions were the same. I’ve got a reaaally bad feelin’ about this.”

“Perhaps the first Sloth we defeated was a double, and the second Sloth was the real Archbishop of the Seven Deadly… No, there is no way to be certain of that. Besides, in this case, the real issue—”

“—Might be in a whole different league than which one was the real deal.”

When Julius felt he might have speculated too far, Subaru picked up his conclusion and ran with it. The statement made sweat emerge on Subaru’s brow; even Julius’s face stiffened somewhat. It was a terrifying prospect. However, in light of current circumstances, it was also a logical conclusion.

Given the appearance of Petelgeuse the first time, and the madwoman the second, it was inevitable they would arrive at the same possibility.

“In other words, there are multiple Archbishops of Sloth—or perhaps the Archbishop of Sloth is actually a group with the same power, acting toward a common objective?”

“…The only Sloth I knew of was the sickly-looking bastard that came out first. But now that I’ve seen the next woman, I can’t tell you you’re wrong.”

The madwoman had called herself a finger and identified with the Archbishop of Sloth.

It fit. That’s what they would go with: that Sloth was multiple Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins working in concert.

“So without exaggeration, the fingers are parts of the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins. If it is a group composed of multiple archbishops calling themselves Sloth, it would explain the breadth of the upheaval they have caused in every nation.”

“So Sloth is the part of the Witch Cult carrying out the doctrine of the faith. Just the thought gives me chills.”

That it was the practical arm of a larger religious group was very much a flight of fancy. Subaru wanted to laugh, but even a dry laugh failed to emerge.

If Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti was but one Sloth among many, their pleasant, orderly advance had been nothing more than a farce. That was a terrifying prospect indeed.

“In the end, this remains no more than speculation. I would like to avoid carelessly spreading unease and unrest among the others.”

When the unpleasant thought closed Subaru’s mouth, Julius shifted his eyes toward the expeditionary force, clumped up in one group.

“We lost twelve men, with three fingers to go… This is a rate of attrition we cannot ignore.”

“—Not twelve, eleven.”

When a voice corrected the number of their losses, Subaru and Julius turned toward it to find Ferris walking over to them. His white coat was sullied with blood as he wiped the sweat off his brow and pointed behind him.

“I pulled one of the heavily injured ones back from the brink. It was a really, really close call, though…”

“That is good news. To stabilize someone in that condition…as expected of you, Ferris.”

“I said it meowself—I can bring back anyone who isn’t dead.”

When Julius said the words good news, Ferris gave a thin, wry smile. But his smile soon faded as he shifted his gaze in a different direction.

Subaru’s eyes, drawn there as well, were greeted by the sight of someone covered with a thin cloth.

“I can’t save everyone… Now I really understand the meaning of the captain’s words.”

“You have done well. It is not a role any of the rest of us could hope to accomplish.”

“Mmm, thank you.”

Ferris replied briefly to Julius’s consoling words, but everyone there knew that they were a small comfort.

Head bowed, Ferris licked his lips and, after a brief pause, looked at Subaru.

“…So about what you said earlier, where’s the body of the second Sloth?”

Immediately after, Subaru grimaced at the sudden change in the conversation.

“—In the forest over that way, but why do you wanna know?”

Ferris must have overheard the earlier exchange with Julius. He stared in the direction in which Subaru pointed, narrowing his yellow eyes.

“Just maybe, if I examine it, I might find some differences.”

“Differences? What kind of differences?”

“Between the fingers you’re worried about and the other cultists, Subawu.”

When Ferris pointed that out, Subaru’s breath caught. “Wait up, ’kay?” said Ferris, taking several companions with him as he went off to examine the corpse.

Perhaps examining the madwoman, the second Sloth, might give them a lead on the repugnant Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins, enabling them to form a plan of attack. Subaru wanted to believe that was possible.

“And besides that…”

Having watched Ferris go, Subaru went to the expeditionary force members clustered together. Subaru couldn’t look straight at the row of casualties lying right beside them. The lined-up remains were covered with thin cloths, the least they could do for those who would never awaken again.

There was nothing anyone could have done for the initial five casualties who had been ripped to pieces. However, the five lives lost in the surprise attack were another story. Subaru should have realized, if no one else.

“I should’ve known as soon as I heard the first five were torn apart with bare hands. I’m the one who was aware what power we were dealing with. I should’ve noticed.”

Subaru, of all people, should have recognized the cause of the deaths of those who had been slain without a single sign of resistance. But Subaru, shaken by the deaths of his allies, had let the chance slip, leading to more casualties.

On top of that, his own whisking away by the enemy had forced his allies to split their fighting strength, prolonging the combat. Had Wilhelm not pulled out, those lost during the engagement might well have lived.

“Even if it was a surprise attack, the opponent was small in numbers. Barring an exception, such as an Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins’ authority, there was no chance of defeat. It was precisely for this reason I sent Master Wilhelm to you.”

“—”

“Indeed, that authority, defying all logic, is a far greater concern. You did your duty, helping us evade it. The rest was our duty…as knights.”

Listening to Subaru’s murmurs, Julius set his disheveled hair in order as he offered his own view. Even Subaru was not so insensitive as to miss the consideration the words offered to him.

But it was also a fact that no words of consolation lessened the pain in Subaru’s heart.

People had died in the fight against the White Whale, too.

He remembered grieving over those deaths, but not nearly as much. He’d lamented the fact that, compared to his own deaths, the deaths of others had moved his heart so little, but these deaths weighed heavily upon him.

Death was the same whatever form it took, so why did these deaths bother him so much?

That was obvious.

“…Because I was involved with these people.”

Only then did Subaru Natsuki realize that he bore responsibility for those casualties.

When they’d challenged the White Whale, they had stood on the field of battle against the demon beast as a result of their own free choice. But the fight against the Witch Cult was different. These people had answered Subaru’s call, sharing in Subaru’s desire to save Emilia and the others; they had been cooperating with Subaru, nothing more.

“—So heavy.”

Subaru had used the information gleaned from Return by Death to cooperate with Crusch and the others in subjugating the White Whale. However, put differently, it was Subaru’s information that had triggered the outbreak of that battle, too. A battlefield was created, and numerous human lives met their end. Many lives were erased from the memories of others.

Subaru shared in that heavy responsibility. It was not only because he’d subconsciously averted his eyes from the burden that he had not noticed. It was more because Crusch had been so magnificent.

She led the fight against the White Whale, shouldering the responsibility for everything on that field of battle. She was aware of her own obligations, but her performance was so grand, it made you forget about all of that. And so, Subaru hadn’t noticed.

Return by Death was not simply a matter of changing fate. Naturally, if Subaru took an action for the sake of some choice, some hope, some purpose, he altered the world around him.

“…”

With that all-too-late realization, he was fiercely angry with himself for being so foolish and worthless.

He’d been careless. He’d left himself wide open. The fact that everything had gone too well should have set off alarms in his mind. There had been big talk about making sure everyone got out alive, but he’d underestimated the effort required to make that happen—and this was the result.

And as a result, eleven precious lives had been lost—the lives of people who’d stood by his side.

Regret filled his head to the brim. Remorse seethed deep in his gut. The thought that there had to be something more he could have done made him pound baseless rage against his soul. Enough that he wanted to die in a fit of anger that very—

“Sir Subaru.”

“—!”

Subaru was enveloped by rage sufficient to turn his vision red when that voice brought him back to his senses.

Wilhelm was standing before Subaru, staring straight at him. For an instant, Subaru’s heart shuddered as he wondered if Wilhelm would scold him for his ignorance. But the Sword Devil’s eyes immediately told him otherwise.

The Sword Devil’s eyes were as tranquil as the surface of a lake as he gazed right through Subaru’s dark eyes.

“You likely have a number of things running through your mind at the moment, none of them trivial emotions…but forgive my exceedingly great rudeness and allow me to say this.”

“—”

Wilhelm’s words made him unwittingly straighten his back. He didn’t know what would be said to him, but whatever it might be, he needed to give it his undivided attention.

Then, with Subaru bracing himself, Wilhelm said…

“—Fight.”

Spoken in a low tone, that word made the very air tremble.

But Subaru also received it as a blade—one that bit into his body, his heart, his very soul.

The ghastly aura pouring from Wilhelm filled the forest-turned-battlefield, wrenching its way into Subaru’s mind and body. The hostility swept over the whole area, and naturally, the knights’ eyes all fell on the two of them.

At the center of that vortex of gazes, Wilhelm continued, “Whether you feel regret, or are stricken with remorse, fight. If it is fated that you must do battle, that you must resist—fight with your entire body and soul. Do not give in for a second, a moment, a single fraction of time. Gaze at victory and crave it with every fiber of your being. If you can still stand, if you can still move a single finger, if your fangs are not yet broken, stand, stand, stand, stand, fight—fight.”

“—”

The words were very similar to ones Wilhelm had spoken to Subaru before.

When he’d been smacked around with a wooden sword in the courtyard of Crusch’s mansion, Wilhelm had spoken words concerning girding one’s heart for battle; that was the only moment Subaru had been allowed a tiny glimpse into the Sword Devil.

At the time, after Subaru had heard those words, Wilhelm pegged him as person with no drive to become stronger. In point of fact, Subaru hadn’t faced him with true earnestness. Deprived of willpower, Subaru had had no idea at the time what the Sword Devil thought or was trying to tell him.

But this time was different—and this time, he thought the message was different, too.

“You’re telling me to…become strong?”

“No—I am telling you to be strong.”

The frighteningly lofty and sharp demand thrust through his chest.

Subaru had always thought, I wanna be like Wilhelm. I wanna be like steel.

But now, with regret and remorse slamming against his heart, he did not think those words were the answer.

“I wanna be that way, too. But it’s hard. I didn’t want anyone else to die like this, but they did…because I wasn’t good enough!”

Once again, he’d made the mistake of getting full of himself as soon as things were going a little bit well. As a result of his mistake, people had died. If he made more mistakes, no one knew who would die for them next.

He’d desperately tried to think of a way to avoid that, and yet nothing came. He was out of ideas.

“If I don’t do it… I’m the one who started this!”

“You got them involved, you strung them along, and they died, is that it? You are incorrect.”

With remorse threatening to wrench Subaru’s heart out of his chest, Wilhelm spread both arms wide.

“Not a single individual here believes you involved us in this. Even if you provided the spark, we chose this battle ourselves. Everyone is here of his or her own will.”

“…”

“Please stop placing responsibility for the deaths on yourself alone. They do not wish you to be burdened by this. Simply make room in your heart so that you do not forget. That is all you need do.”

“Not forget what…?”

Their deaths? he wondered. But Wilhelm shook his head, putting Subaru’s notion to rest.

“—That they shared this burden with you. That is all.”

This time, his words made Subaru’s entire body numb, as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. With Subaru in shock, Wilhelm nodded to him and touched the sword on his own hip.

“Lending one’s strength does not mean merely swinging one’s sword. It means challenging the same foes, worrying over the same obstacles, sharing the wounds and the weight of the burdens. This we can do. This is the lesson I learned in the past.”

Wilhelm spoke those words and motioned with his chin. Overwhelmed, Subaru did as indicated, noticing that the gazes of all present were focused upon him.

Each and every one of those sets of eyes burned with the same emotions as Wilhelm’s.

—He felt someone had once told him not to try to fight alone.

At a disadvantage against a mysterious opponent, not a single person looked ready to cut and run. Not a single gaze said to Subaru, This wasn’t the deal, nor did wiser voices condemn him.

“…Having at least one wiser person seems like a good thing, though…”

He let out a sigh. Simultaneously, the dark clouds dwelling inside Subaru’s head rapidly brightened. This did not mean freedom from anguish. But he had left the dead end in which he’d trapped himself behind him.

Subaru had been reminded of the limits of his own head.

“Shit—!”

Subaru roughly scratched his head, gritted his teeth, impulsively stamped his foot, and turned to everyone, bowing his head.

“This is the only head I have to lower. It’s low quality, so I’ll lower it as many times as I need to.”

Subaru entreated his comrades, whose gazes remained unchanged, saying, We’ll fight.

Somehow, somewhere, he’d escaped barefoot from resignation and remorse.

“A lot of things…seriously, a lot of things have changed. The Witch Cult’s Sloth is seriously tough. To put it bluntly, we can’t even see the bottom. I get why they’re treated like gods of pestilence the world over. It shook me how much damage we took just taking ’em on. It shook me, but…”

It’d shaken him because he’d mistakenly thought he ought to think, counter, and fight all by himself. Thanks to everyone there, his limbs had finally stopped shaking.

Because they thought, Let’s fight.

“I still don’t have any firm idea what we should do. But I know we’ve got to do this. We have to beat them. We have to beat Sloth, here and now.”

However mysterious the opponent, it was Subaru’s side that had started it. All they could do was defeat the enemy, whatever it took, until the battle was decided.

“—”

Turning, Subaru looked at the remains of the comrades that had fallen in the forest, remains that had instilled such remorse and such a sense of responsibility that he’d been unable to look straight at them all that time.

This was Subaru’s inescapable sin. However you wanted to dress it up, Subaru was responsible for their deaths. And he would not permit himself to run from his sins any longer. Subaru wondered if he hadn’t been arrogant in thinking that borrowing someone’s assistance was no heavy thing.

Subaru had started this battle, and so he would shoulder it. But he didn’t think of it as too heavy a burden.

And so, he was determined to carry it, even if he himself knew not how great it would become.

“We’ll save Emilia and the others. We’ll smash the Witch Cult flat. And to do both of those things…”

“Let us do that which is needed…not for anyone else, but because you have asked it.”

And for that, our strength is yours, said Wilhelm’s nod, and those of the members of the expeditionary force.

He still had a mountain of things to think about, and the number of obstacles blocking their way was yet unknown. However, these he could overcome, because he need not challenge them alone.

If Subaru had been strong enough to stand alone, he’d never have gotten out of that blind alley. Therefore, for just one moment, he thought that…

“…Good thing I’m weak and puny, then.”

“—Shall we go?”

“Yeah, let’s go. And lend me your strength and wit.”

Death did not lighten. It remained heavy. So long as he knew this, he could struggle against it with his head held high.

Subaru Natsuki walked forward, resuming the fight.

And so their battle continued.
 

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Diamond. Diamond. Diamond.

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