x - forme - CHERREADS

"Anyway, I think that characteristic of mine will probably work on the

White Whale, too. If I'm there, we can predict to a decent degree where the White Whale goes. But when we do, the demon beast's danger level is off the

charts, so expecting me to actually fight it is a little much."

An Urugarum was about as dangerous as a large dog. Even so, they had nearly killed him. Not that threats were proportional to body length, but the White Whale was thousands of times larger than an Urugarum. By himself, Subaru couldn't outrun the White Whale, let alone counterattack.

"That's why I'll take the land dragon you lent me and run around right under the White Whale's nose to draw its attention. While it's doing that, you'll go after it full force…or at least that's the tactic I'd recommend."

To be blunt, it was a plan he wasn't sure he could speak from his own lips. He was saying they couldn't count on him for fighting strength but that he'd be useful running around the battlefield as bait. It was a role that would make even those with a death wish turn pale.

"—I do not sense any deceit from you, which surprises me greatly."

Crusch put a hand to her chin, barely able to believe her eyes as she let out a sigh of resignation. She'd no doubt weighed Subaru's statement with the blessing of wind reading, considering how the truth or falsity affected its effectiveness for the operation.

"Many times in the half day since last night, I have wanted to doubt my own blessing. I do not claim it is infallible, but…"

"You've lost a little confidence in it?"

"No. I simply get tense when the world exceeds my expectations in various ways."

As she said those words, a smile came over Crusch that did not seem sore or bitter. It was the expression of a beautiful lioness, which she immediately hid under a gallant expression as she continued speaking.

"I heard from Ferris that you selected a fine land dragon even by my house's standards. If that is the role you desire, I have no objections.

However, I require that you obey my commands."

"Also, I guess it goes without saying with that outfit, but you're planning on fighting, too, Crusch?"

"Do you think I can simply sit in a chair at my mansion and await good news?"

Crusch flicked a finger off a fitting on her armor, puffing out her chest as if the answer was obvious. Subaru, seeing her so valiant, politely lowered his head for having asked about something so self-evident.

"—It seems everyone has assembled."

Accepting Subaru's apology, Crusch closed one eye as she murmured. As if taking those words as a signal, people trod into the mansion's great hall one after another. All of them were clad in combat gear and possessed stern visages. Their various pieces of equipment seemed well worn, giving off the impression of seasoned veterans. But Subaru was struck more by their ages. "Somehow, some of these members…don't look so young." Subaru gave voice to what immediately came to mind.

The people passing before Subaru's eyes were probably participating in the expeditionary force. In one line, there were ten or so men with a rather high average age; it was probably that none of them were younger than fifty.

It was unlikely that anyone had heard Subaru's comment, but suddenly, one of the men turned to look his way. Before he knew it, Subaru froze as the man stepped toward him.

"Lady Crusch, we have arrived— Is this him?"

"Yes, it is."

The one posing the question to Crusch in a sober voice was a middleaged man with both hair and beard graying. The man nodded to Crusch and faced Subaru once more, stretching a hand to his shoulder. Then, he spoke.

"Thank you, lad."

"Eh?"

"Thanks to you, our dearest wish has been granted. We have never been happier."

Subaru unwittingly lost his bearings as the hand grasping his shoulder conveyed the man's strong feelings.

"Thank you," said the man, patting a rocked Subaru on the shoulder before walking off.

From behind, Rem watched the men leave as she whispered into Subaru's ear, "All of them most likely have some connection to the White Whale."

"Connection to the White Whale… You mean, related to the old expeditionary force or something?"

"Though there were many who had already retired from fighting on the front lines, these are the warriors who answered Wilhelm's call to participate in the current expeditionary force. Their morale and level of training are in no way inferior to any currently serving as a royal knight."

"So it's some old men who are dying for a chance at vengeance, huh…?

I'm getting all fired up."

Subaru felt something stir within him as he glanced over, watching Crusch examine the soldiers. It was Crusch who had set her sights to even exterminating the White Whale so that Wilhelm might realize his vengeance. The old men joining the battle must have felt the same gratitude toward her for giving them a chance to fulfill their greatest wish.

It was probably partly the "kindness" of Crusch that Ferris had spoken of the previous night, and the will of "His Highness" who had so greatly influenced her way of life.

"You're not telling me that those guys are all the forces we've got for this fight, right?"

"Those that arrived here are the principal members. The remainder should have already set out for the Great Flugel Tree to facilitate the force's deployment along the Liphas Highway."

In other words, with the appointed hour impending, those assembled were the VIPs of the expeditionary force. The participation of the old veterans really imparted the feeling that the decisive battle was finally drawing near. As he might have expected, the tension in Subaru's heart rose, along with the feeling that it was a must-win battle.

"The time is ripe. I want both of you in the hall as well."

Crusch looked up at the time crystal above the entrance, speaking curtly. She was surely to address the troops before departure, a kind of motivational speech to boost morale.

Just as Crusch set out, Subaru saw Wilhelm and Ferris entering from the hall. Ferris was dressed in the same outfit Subaru had already seen him in when encountering him in the courtyard earlier, but Wilhelm was not.

Gone was the usual black uniform; instead, he wore a light, minimalist suit of armor protecting only the most vital of organs. On both sides of his hips, he wore a total of six slender swords, and he seemed almost too ready to fight.

"Oh, so you're here, too, Russel. Maybe we can chat a bit?"

Following behind Wilhelm and Ferris was dark-blond-haired Russel. He looked like he had been working all night, but with the great battle before them, his eyes were overflowing with vitality.

"If you're making that face, then it's probably safe to say that you held up your end. How about you, Anastasia?"

"Did you really think I'd come up short?"

"Not really, but I just thought I'd ask."

When it came to who seemed the most meticulous out of all the royal selection candidates, Anastasia was second to none.

With preparations steadily completed and the appointed hour fast approaching, the hall was tense with fighting spirit. In moments, all would be set into motion toward the decisive battle.

"But before that…"

Subaru had one thing he had to do.

Rem, standing beside him, tilted her head and glanced sidelong at Subaru as he called out to Anastasia just as she turned to head off as well.

"Anastasia. Would you mind letting Russel join us for a little chitchat?"

"Heh…"

When Anastasia stopped and looked back, her face was all business. She was acutely sensitive to the fact that Subaru had something to offer. The girly attitude vanished from her eyes, replaced by the glint of a merchant flicking an abacus in her head.

In that moment, the transformation was reassuring.

Subaru headed for Russel, an impish Anastasia in tow. Noticing the pair's approach, life returned to Russel's tired face.

Truly, merchants were a reliable bunch.

"I have something to discuss with you, as two merchants who are successful and possess a sharp eye for the future. You might laugh this off as counting my chickens before they hatch, but this is about after the whale's taken out."

With that preamble, he proceeded to "prepare the battlefield" on the eve

of the White Whale's extermination.

"—Four hundred years."

The appointed hour came, and with those words, she began to address the assembled troops.

Her voice was grave; the atmosphere, strained.

Amid sharp sensations akin to pain running up a spine being stretched, Crusch stood perfectly straight, chest thrust forward, as all eyes rested upon her.

Crusch stood upon the floor with a treasured sword bearing the mark of the House of Karsten, the Lion Rampant, and rested her hands upon its hilt as she slowly surveyed the faces of all present and said:

"Four centuries have passed since the Witch of Jealousy, the worst calamity in all of recorded history, threatened the world. During this time, the White Whale born of the Witch's hand has made the world its very own

hunting ground, dominating and savaging those weaker than it."

The Witch of Jealousy was the one who had apparently swallowed half the world in ages past. Her very name had been synonymous with fear for as long as anyone could remember. Having lost its master, the Demon Beast of Mist danced to its own tune.

From the Great Expedition launched fourteen years prior on down, the monster had given rise to many casualties in every nation, swallowing one's very will to fight.

"The lives the White Whale has taken are beyond measure. Perhaps it is better to say, the mist's vile nature itself ensures that we will never know the true number of casualties. Over the course of four hundred years, the number of names on tombstones, and the graves that do not even have names, have only increased."

Crusch's words made some old men stare at the ground, gritting their teeth as they held back sobs. There were others whose chests contained fierce, inexhaustible emotion, quiet anger they had carried with them, waiting for a chance to let it explode.

Their regrets, their hatred piled up with every corpse, began to envelop

the atmosphere of the hall in stagnant darkness.

However—

"But today, that time is over."

" "

"We shall bring it to an end. When we slay the White Whale, it will dispel so much sadness. Those who have never permitted themselves a moment shall finally be granted a proper chance to grieve."

"—!"

"We shall end this pathetic demon beast, unceasingly obeying the command of its dead master."

Subaru's chest was on fire.

Without saying a word, everyone conveyed the same heat that was burning inside him.

The old veterans were looking down; the warriors clenching their fists. The aged swordsman had closed his eyes—but now, all of them stared at Crusch, standing before them.

Accepting their gazes, Crusch thrust a hand out, speaking in a great voice.

"We march! To the Liphas Highway! To the Great Flugel Tree!"

"—Yes!!"

The stomping on the ground accompanying the roaring response seemed to make the very earth quake. Subaru realized that the hot fighting spirit surging within him had made him shout as well.

Among them all, Crusch stood stronger and taller as she raised her drawn treasured sword to the heavens and made a proclamation.

"This night, by our hand—the White Whale will fall!!"

The Battle of the White Whale, the largest operation since Subaru had been summoned to that world, had commenced.

CHAPTER 3

THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE WHALE

With Duchess Crusch Karsten at the head, the latest expedition to defeat the White Whale set forth.

It was the first operation of its kind since the Great Expedition of fourteen years prior, undertaken with the expectation of fierce combat few would ever see.

The expeditionary force assembled for the campaign was under Crusch's command—with Wilhelm van Astrea, member of the family of Sword Saints, appointed as captain.

The troops serving under Wilhelm were divided into fifteen platoons, with each headed by one of the old veterans who had attended Crusch's address in the great hall. Each platoon was composed of fifteen men, so the combined force under Crusch's command numbered roughly 220.

However, the total combat strength was not limited to that. A wagon train under Russel's command was apparently running ahead of them to the site of the decisive battle, the Great Flugel Tree, so they could begin transporting the supplies necessary for deployment.

On top of that, thirteen members of the beast-man mercenary group Iron Fangs, on loan from Anastasia, had joined under Ricardo's command.

Ricardo was in overall command with two lieutenants reporting to him.

And the "lieutenants" of the Iron Fangs were…

"I'm Mimi!"

"I'm Hetaro!"

With great energy, the two kitten-like beast people waved, then politely bowed.

They had orange fur, and their heads didn't even reach up to Subaru's hips. They had adorable faces, and really, the snow-white robes covering them up to their necks suited them very well, so if Subaru was to put his thoughts bluntly—

"They're so cute I wanna steal them for myself!"

"The miss says that a lot, too!"

"Th-there you go saying that again, Big Sis…"

The girl calling herself Mimi laughed vibrantly at Subaru's thought, with the young boy calling himself Hetaro appearing oddly ruffled as he rebuked her. Based on how he addressed her, they were siblings—probably twins. They looked like a tomboyish older sister with a straitlaced, docile younger brother following in her wake.

Subaru had no objection to the charm, but what mattered here wasn't appearance but ability. They weren't heading off to a picnic.

"So it's not that I'm doubting you, but…you're really lieutenants?"

"Mm? Mister, have you met Mimi somewhere before? Mmmm, I can't remember, but it really feels like it…!"

Mimi crossed her arms and cocked her head, but Subaru glossed it over with a strained smile.

It couldn't be helped that she didn't remember him. To Subaru, the first time he met Mimi was during the events of the last go-around. Furthermore, it wasn't an occasion he wanted to remember.

However, then and now, Mimi's bottomless cheer was completely unchanged…

"Don't worry about it. My name's Subaru Natsuki. So are you two good?"

"Okay, won't worry! And Mimi and Hetaro are the best! If TB's with us, we're even stronger! Super bestest! Ka-ching!"

"Errr, yes, that's right. Big Sis and I will both work hard."

The younger brother took the reins of his boastful older sister and somehow brought her under control. Watching the two, Subaru had to wonder if that world had any older sisters besides ones making the younger sibling follow in their footsteps.

"—? What is the matter, Subaru?"

When Subaru, harboring that question, looked at Rem, she tilted her head with a questioning expression and an adorable smile. At that point, Subaru cleared his throat, turning back to face Mimi as he said, "Well that is an awful lot of confidence. Lieutenant's not something you can be unless you're hot stuff."

"In place of the captain and Big Sis, I give orders out to everyone else."

"Ahh, I see… Tough job, huh."

Subaru imagined the older sister running alongside the belligerent giant, dashing across the battlefield with a hearty laugh. That would mean, lieutenant or not, Hetaro was the only one actually performing the appropriate duties. The cute older sister was like an image of naive recklessness drawn by a child.

"We will follow Lady Crusch's commands to the extent possible, but we have our own ways of fighting. I thought it was best to inform you of this to

minimize chaos, Mr. Natsuki… Er, Mr. Natsuki?"

"No, I'm just impressed you're so sharp and serious. That attention to detail is comparable to Rem."

"Mm-hmm, he's just amazing!"

"Now you'll make Big Sis get carried away again… So cute."

For some reason, Mimi was the one to puff her chest out in pride when she saw Subaru's frank assessment of Hetaro. Hetaro had a constrained look on his face from Mimi's reaction, only to slip in what he really thought at the very end.

Subaru added the drawback of overly spoiled big sisters to the list of high-spec misgivings he had about twins of that world. Hetaro was in Rem's league on that point, too. Growing up with Mimi surely had no small amount of influence on Hetaro.

Having finished meeting the siblings, Subaru glanced at his cell phone to check the time.

—Twelve hours remained until the White Whale was scheduled to appear.

They had about half the distance left to their destination, likely giving them about five hours after arrival until the decisive battle.

"Once we get to the Great Tree, we'll have to go over the operation one last time… It seems like having me running around is gonna create a fair bit of chaos."

"This time, you will have me by your side, Subaru—I won't allow a repeat of what happened when we fought the Urugarum."

Rem replied to Subaru's comment with quiet resolve burning in her eyes.

"I really am opposed to this. I believe using the scent of the Witch to lure the White Whale is too dangerous…and in the first place, the fact that the scent comes from you is…"

"I'll use anything I can. If it adds a tenth of a percent to the win rate, that's a bet I'll take. I come up short on so many levels, if I don't do even this, I'll never make up for it."

"You are amazing, Subaru."

Even faced with Subaru's determination, this was one thing Rem stubbornly refused to let go of. The way she seemed to pout as she turned her face away was a rare display of a flood of emotions, making Subaru's smile not so much strained as very, very soft.

Subaru felt all too keenly the obvious change in Rem's demeanor in the last half day. Ever since the demon beast incident, he'd been convinced Rem had opened her heart to him, but it was only the previous day that their hearts had connected in a true sense.

Perhaps Rem had sensed that where time had stopped, it had begun to move once more. Truly, it was so.

That was why—

"I wanna win this."

Quietly, Subaru voiced that hope.

At present, things had proceeded apace to a degree he couldn't even have imagined during prior go-arounds. Where no one would listen to him no matter how much he pleaded, this time, they accepted his request. Relations with the Crusch camp, destined for rupture, were good. Setting aside the exposure of all the embarrassing things inside him, it was no boast to say his relationship with Rem was now a far stronger bond.

But on the other hand, it was a fact that things had developed in a way more perilous than ever before.

Even in that moment, the menace of the White Whale was seared into Subaru's mind, clear as day. Even Rem's might had proved completely unequal to the task against its huge, flying frame, able to send a dragon carriage flying in pieces with not even an attack but a flick of its tail. Its open maw swallowed a land dragon and the ground under it whole; its death cries, when those vile, millstone-like teeth ground its flesh, would never leave his ears.

Just the thought that he was heading to face that thing made his limbs tremble, but he couldn't stop running forward.

Yet, even as Subaru's mind backslid toward weakness…

" "

Rem, sitting beside him, peered at Subaru as if she could see straight into his mind.

A weak, helpless Subaru Natsuki could not be permitted before Rem's eyes.

"Even I know that resolve doesn't make everything okay, but…"

Even if he'd stopped being a pessimist, that didn't mean his fortunes had improved dramatically. The route he was on held even greater danger ahead, yet he absolutely couldn't say preparations were ideal.

All Subaru could do was what he thought best in the limited time available to him, calling on the girls and their allies for aid and leaving all the rest that lay ahead to the power of others. That said, Crusch and the others sought nothing further from Subaru, which was absolutely not because they were maltreating Subaru as a useless troublemaker.

But when the time came, he'd do whatever he could with everything he had.

Because the things Subaru could do occupied such a narrow range, he had to at least firmly grasp the range's breadth, thinking of what he could do within those limits.

"In other words, it's the same as usual. Guess that goes without saying, though."

"What's up, bro—? That's a determined-lookin' face you got there."

Abruptly, Ricardo, riding alongside the line of dragon carriages, observed Subaru, laughing as he spoke.

Glaring back at the dog-headed beast man, Subaru firmly twisted the corners of his lips.

"That's right. Took long enough, but it's rock solid. I'm really something when I've set my mind, okay? Whatever happens, I'm not givin' up on the future, even if it kills me."

"That's a man's words there! The lady's gonna be real happy to hear that!

Like I figured, you're just the friend the lady needs!"

"I don't think shaking her hand away from the big stage is a bad thing, either… Ah, but if I get along nicely with Anastasia, there's a troublesome guy there, too…"

Remembering Anastasia made him remember the sight of a handsome man beside her as a package deal.

Even his beating at the parade grounds at Julius's hand seemed like a long time ago. He'd experienced time on the level of weeks, even though it had been only five days or so in actual time lapsed.

Then, Subaru's words brought a huge, irrepressible smile over Ricardo's big mouth.

From the reaction and the teasing look in his eyes, it seemed he'd heard all about Subaru's humiliation. Naturally, Subaru turned his face away in a visible sulk.

"If you're gonna laugh, laugh nice and hard. Even I can now appreciate just how little I read the mood back then."

"Hey, wait up! It's not that I'm findin' funny, it's somethin' else. Well, you'll figure it out on your own, so dumpin' it all out here would be just rude!"

Thus self-convinced, Ricardo stroked his own mane as he cut the topic off. The suggestive behavior tugged at Subaru, but even if he pressed the point, odds of a reply were slim.

"Incidentally, I've been meaning to ask you something since we set out…"

"What? Ask me anythin'. We're buds, bro! If it's not crazy stuff, I'll talk about whatever! And if it is, it depends on what nails I'm steppin' on!"

"That part sounds like the Kararagi in you talking… I was just thinking, those huge dogish creatures you guys are riding, they're really something else."

Subaru pointed below the enthused Ricardo's rump to the creature he was riding, unsure how best to broach the subject.

The beast mounts that Ricardo's Iron Fangs were riding were completely different creatures from land dragons. The closest comparison was to a huge dog, but the huge frames of the carnivores rivaled that of lions and tigers from his original world, and their speed and endurance were in no way inferior to that of land dragons.

Subaru's comment brought an understanding expression from Ricardo as he patted the beast mount on the back.

"You don't see 'em much in these parts. These critters are called ligers.

They're as precious in Kararagi as land dragons are over here. They're real territorial, so it's tough to raise 'em, which is why there ain't many in Lugunica or other countries."

"Ligers…"

When he blinked and looked, Subaru thought he was seeing some kind of offshoot of the Urugarums he had a history with. Fortunately, there were no signs of horns on their heads, and compared with those demon beasts, their faces were clearly more adorable. If the demon beasts seemed more like wolves, he could say that the ligers definitely looked more like dogs.

But having Ricardo, a dog-type beast man, riding on top of that superhuge dog was a little—

"Somehow, it's a really weird feeling, like someone should paint this… but don't you feel awkward?"

"Sometimes people mention that, but not really. I mean, I'm a beast man, this is an animal, big difference between us… Ah, now that you mention it,

some guys might get ticked off if you say that. I don't mind, though."

"Nah, I was wondering if I should say anything or not. Sorry, my bad."

"Gah-ha-ha, well ain't that honest of ya!"

Baring his teeth as he laughed, Ricardo gave the back of the liger's neck a good rub. The liger made no reaction to its master's action, but the way it silently indulged its owner certainly make it look like a good, loyal dog. Even with the size difference, it apparently hadn't lost any of its canine virtues.

"Ligers don't have the horsepower that land dragons do, but their agility's way up there. Just watch, a wild battle to send the whale packin' is right up our alley!"

"Horsepower, huh. Guess you still measure animal power like that, even with dragons and dogs all over the place… Not that I've actually seen a horse."

He'd heard straight from Emilia's mouth that they existed, but he hadn't actually seen one in that world yet. Apparently, their rate of use was fairly low.

After that, Subaru pointed to the expeditionary force on the march behind them.

"So less horsepower is why you have teams of dogs for pulling each carriage? Why not just have land dragons haul the freight? Don't want the dogs to get tired before the main event."

"Hey, we've gotta move our own stuff ourselves. Besides, don't worry, any liger haulin' freight is a liger properly trained for it. We don't spoil 'em, and no enemy's swinging 'em off their feet, White Whale or not."

With a gulp, Subaru somehow stopped his internal mental turmoil from coming out onto his face. On the other hand, Ricardo failed to notice Subaru's surprise as he spoke.

"You never know what you'll come across on the road, like bandits or whatever. If you take too much time, you'll be late, and that's the worst outcome of all. So we've gotta at least be able to carry stuff by ourselves."

"…No way there are any bandits who have the guts to attack a completely armed group like you guys. If they did, it wouldn't be brave—it'd be a death wish."

"Got a point there!"

Ricardo burst into laughter and, waving to Subaru, shifted away from the dragon carriage. He took up his post at the head of the beast mounts as other people around them looked over at the loud conversation.

"It would seem that Master Ricardo is going around speaking like that to alleviate everyone's tension before the battle."

" "

Watching Ricardo go off into the distance, Subaru heard Rem's soft whisper into his ear. A bitter smile crossed Subaru's face as he realized, suddenly, that the big beast man was looking out for him.

"And here I was thinking I'd hardened my resolve…"

Meaning, he still seemed awful green from his senior's perspective— even though the impending battle with the White Whale was but the first hurdle, with others waiting ahead.

"Geez, you can say, 'Set forth, hero,' but it sure is easier said than done."

Subaru murmured very quietly so that Rem might not hear, but his cheeks formed a smile.

The things he had to do and the things he wanted to do were one and the same, and he had someone at his back to urge him to do them—he supposed that made it all worth it.

Their morale was at its peak on the eve of the approaching battle. "—Now, let's do this, Mr. Fate."

Fortunately, the expeditionary force safely arrived at its destination without any undue trouble.

As scheduled, they arrived five hours early—the gleaming moon had just begun to rise on the night of the decisive battle.

The expeditionary force deployed, linked up with the vanguard, and proceeded to inspect arms and go over the operation one last time. Naturally, Subaru participated in the discussion, and when details of the operation were hammered out, how everyone would maneuver included, any time remaining before the fight was for free action.

And as he spent his time until the operation with various thoughts running through his head, Subaru— "It…sure is huuuge."

"You seem very happy, Subaru."

Looking up to the point that his neck hurt, Subaru almost couldn't see the top of the tree because the trunk was so tall. With how it jutted up from the earth, its great roots spreading all around its base, Subaru couldn't keep his honest feelings of excitement off his lips.

"Men are creatures impressed by big, strong stuff by nature. I was pretty impressed the first time I saw a land dragon, but Mother Nature ain't halfbad! That Flugel guy did good work."

As he touched the tree trunk, Subaru praised the work of the sage said to have planted the tree. Apparently, he was hot stuff, but no one knew what he'd done besides planting the tree; but even if that was his one great feat recorded in history, that wasn't a problem. The name Flugel was cool, too.

"Ah, gotta carve someone's name into the trunk, though. We're not students on a field trip, so it's just, well, proper manners. Rem, lend me a carving knife."

"Even for you, Subaru, I will be upset if you do that, as shall others."

Rem gently and properly chided Subaru for his burning, rebellious desire to have his name carved. Then, as Subaru pouted, she gave him a little smile and looked up at the Great Tree.

"This is where the White Whale shall come?"

"Yeah, it'll come. When it's time, this cell pho…this metia will ring."

Subaru took the cell phone out of his pocket, fingering the strap to sway it

left and right. The alarm had already been set to ring when the White Whale was due to emerge.

They were the same words he'd shared during the final meeting, and the explanation for Crusch he'd racked his brains to come up with. He felt guilty at not divulging the truth, feeling like he had to make up for it by getting results.

Of course, not exposing the truth to even Rem tugged at his heartstrings, but—

"So this metia will alert us to the presence of a demon beast…"

"Mm, that's right. Put bluntly, if it wasn't for this, my worth this time around would be right about…"

"—That is a lie, is it not?"

When Rem said that with narrowed eyes, Subaru was sure his heart had stopped. Letting out a voice that did not even amount to a gasp, his heartbeats belatedly restarted.

" "

What had Rem said to him just then?

I must have heard her wrong, Subaru vainly hoped, but the eyes with which Rem stared at him smashed that hope to pieces.

She had said it, and with conviction.

"Wh-what are you talkin' about? Ya know what they'd do to me if I was lyin' about somethin' like…"

"Resorting to Kararagi dialect does not suit you, Subaru."

"Er, fact is, even Crusch and the others accepted it, so it can't be a lie."

Glossing things over wasn't working on Rem. Even so, Subaru tried to see the lie through, for if the truth was revealed, there was no mistaking that it would herald a worsening of the situation. If the lie was exposed, Subaru would no longer be consistent with the circumstances known to Crusch and the others, for the only way to square those inconsistencies would be to explain Return by Death.

Of course, so long as he obeyed the taboo set in place by the Witch, he could not reveal Return by Death to anyone, all the more so because the pranks played by the Witch's hands had finally progressed to crushing Emilia's heart. If he had to guess who the next casualty would be, it was clear that it might very well be Rem.

—He absolutely couldn't let Rem know the truth.

And yet, Rem slowly shook her head at Subaru's excuses.

"Crusch and the others merely decided that it was not necessary for you to lie. If you risked that, you would make an enemy of not only Lady Crusch but Lady Anastasia and all the merchants in the guild, Master Russel included.

That would be meaningless." "That's…"

It was an undeniable truth.

Back at the negotiating table, Crusch surely could have offered any number of rebuttals to Subaru. Russel and Anastasia, seasoned negotiators both, could have done likewise. He could only conclude that the fact that they had closed their eyes to the inconsistencies and accepted negotiations regardless was not due to trust in Subaru but a judgment based on the circumstances.

Subaru had arranged the place and the people for negotiations. There was no necessity to Subaru deceiving them. Of course, the calculation that they would think that way was one of the pieces of insurance Subaru had employed.

But that was based on nothing more than the pros and cons of success aligning atop the thinnest of ice.

The type of "lie" Subaru was seeing through was based on a false initial impression. And it was the kind of lie that need never be exposed if it brought results…ever.

But it was different as far as Rem was concerned.

Then, as ever, Rem stood as Subaru's ally. Subaru was deeply aware that Rem was now the closest person to him in the other world.

To continue lying to Rem held a completely different meaning than maintaining the deception with Crusch and the others. Making her accept it after she had realized it was false left an entirely different impression: namely, that he didn't reveal the lie to Crusch and the others because the pros and cons aligned that way, but he didn't reveal it to Rem because he didn't trust her.

He couldn't help if it made her think that way, for whether she did or not, he absolutely could not reveal the truth to her…

"Rem, I…"

"It's fine, Subaru."

"Huh?"

Subaru planned to use words to somehow smooth things over and protect Rem. But Rem rejected that with a shake of the head, a thin smile coming over her lips.

With Subaru too surprised to close his mouth, Rem turned a sincere look toward him and spoke.

"I understand you enough to know when you are lying, Subaru. I have been watching you a great, great deal, after all."

With a bashful, blushing smile, Rem teasingly touched a finger to her lips. Then, she moved the finger in Subaru's direction and continued.

"I also know you won't tell me the reason for the lie. But the fact that you won't speak to me about it does not bother me that much, you know?"

" "

"After all, I believe in you, Subaru."

At the base of the Great Flugel Tree, a breeze passed between the two as they faced each other.

With Subaru stunned into silence, Rem gently put a hand to her breast and stated before him, "Subaru, if you say that you know where the White Whale shall appear, I believe you. If you say the Witch Cult is after Lady Emilia and the others, I believe you. Even should you say the moon shall fall and destroy this nation, I shall believe you, Subaru."

"…Well, I wouldn't go quite that far."

"Yes, I suppose not. But that is how serious I am."

The smile vanished, and Rem stared at Subaru with very serious eyes. Then, she silently lowered her hips, grasping the hem of her skirt with both hands as she curtsied.

"I adore you with all this body and all this heart, Subaru—furthermore, now and in the future, I shall never, ever doubt you, Subaru."

" "

"Therefore, it's not necessary whatsoever to push yourself into a corner to make me believe your lie."

Subaru barely managed to choke back the heat welling up from his throat.

He pressed down on the inner corners of his eyes, turned his face up, and opened his trembling mouth wide and exclaimed, "Ahh! Man, staring at this huge tree really raises the tension!"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"I won't be able to calm down unless I'm looking up at this tree! There's

no other reason at all, but I won't be able to look down for a little while!"

"Yes, I suppose not."

Subaru put on a show to keep his face turned up so that tears might not fall. It was a frail bluff on his part, but Rem, enveloped by gentle benevolence, did not call him on it.

That moment, Subaru understood the true extent of his own idiocy all over again.

If only he could have divulged everything to Rem from the very beginning. He couldn't have just told her everything, but if he could have at least conveyed to her the tragedy yet to come, Subaru would no doubt have been spared having the tragedy repeated a second and a third time.

Subaru couldn't explain the reasons why, so he thought no one would believe him if he said anything. Thus, he decided he had to go it alone, leading to various failures over and over.

But Rem was different.

She wasn't asking for a reason. She'd believe Subaru, even if he didn't explain. Just like that moment, she forgave Subaru, in her gentle, affectionate way, for not speaking the truth.

"This is when, instead of sorry, you say thank you, huh?"

Having desperately held back the tears, Subaru somehow managed to face Rem once more. Rem made a beaming smile and nodded at his reply.

"To be honest, I feel like I'll only be able to return super-tiny little pieces of everything you've given me, Rem…"

"That is not so."

Rem lowered her head slightly as she denied Subaru's words.

"I really do understand that speaking like this will only bring you suffering, Subaru. That I have spoken regardless is my own selfishness."

"I don't think of it like that at all. I'm the bad one for hiding stuff."

"But it really is selfish of me even so. I am sorry."

The words were self-effacing, but when Rem lifted her face, her expression was sunny. Seeing Subaru happily falter from the inconsistent sight, Rem tilted her head.

"I thought…it would be nice if you passed on to others a tiny bit of the load you carry. As I am now, that you had no one to do so makes me… unbearably sad."

"I…"

In that moment, Rem conveyed her resolve, the firmness of her feelings.

Subaru leaned against the trunk of the Great Tree and took a deep breath.

"I…love Emilia."

"Yes."

He revisited the words he had once exchanged with Rem.

He knew that the words wounded her deeply, that they were words that made her suffer, yet Subaru spoke them once more.

However—

"But…"

" "

"But when you're with me, my heart trembles… Go ahead. You probably think I'm a terrible guy now."

He wondered if the word terrible even cut it.

But they were Subaru's honest feelings.

For even though he knew he could not answer Rem's hopes, only her words had warmed his heart so.

Somehow, the breath Rem let out seemed hot as she said:

"Truly, you are a terrible person, Subaru."

"…I know."

"That is a lie. I love you."

"I…I know that, geez."

Subaru's face turned beet red as she stated plainly how she felt all over again.

If it were not night, that redness would have surely stood out. Subaru turned his back, as if trying to conceal the red surface of his face, and began to walk away from the tree.

"Time to head back," he said. "We need to get mind and body ready right up to when the White Whale appears."

Before he passed in front of Rem, he grasped her dangling right hand.

When her hand was grasped, Rem raised her voice in a little ah, but immediately hurried to match Subaru's walking pace, staring at the side of the young man's face, one he did not wish her to see, with teasing eyes as she said:

"Subaru."

"…What?"

"I am fine with being your second wife."

They were words to make a man unwittingly halt in his tracks.

When Subaru, unable to resist, looked toward her, Rem made a face like that of an adorable puppy, seemingly wagging her tail as she awaited Subaru's reply.

Oh, good grief, just how far is this girl gonna—?

"If Emilia-tan's a very generous first wife…"

"Well then, when we get back you must convince Lady Emilia. I shall try hard as well."

Rem clenched the hand not grasped into a fist, very animated as she spoke with a smile.

Speaking jokingly like that broke all the tension, driving home to Subaru how weak he was. He truly couldn't hold a candle to the girl.

No man could hold a candle to a woman, be it Emilia or Rem, in that kind of situation.

Not that he really minded accepting that particular weakness, compared with the other ones he had known to date…

With the approaching hour growing nigh, the area around the Great Tree grew taut with the tension particular to the field of battle.

Having taken meals and sleep in shifts, the condition of the expeditionary force gathered in the battle zone was tip-top. The land dragons and ligers for the cavalry were breathing roughly through their noses, eagerly awaiting the signal.

Everyone lowered their breaths and calmed their hearts, continuing to wait for the time to come.

In the night sky of the Liphas Highway, the strong wind made the clouds flow quickly.

As the clouds obstructed the moonlight, not a moment passed without gazes raised, checking to see that it was not the White Whale's giant body swimming in the sky above. That was how much vigilance ruled the hearts of all present.

"It is a short time until the appointed hour."

When Crusch made that small murmur, Ferris, standing beside her, nodded briefly, glancing from the corner of his eye. In that moment, not even Ferris, having served Crusch for so many years without ever losing that witty nuance, could voice a single jest.

It was not that he'd been swallowed up by the strained tension. It was because Ferris knew his role—that of one of the expeditionary force's lifelines—and had wholly set his heart upon fulfilling that duty.

It was more than likely true that Ferris's actions would alter the final number of victors surviving the battle.

Crusch believed that her force would emerge victorious. But she was not so conceited as to think they could slay the White Whale without sacrifices. Nonetheless, she held self-confidence that she could mitigate the number of casualties required.

That self-confidence came from the trust she held in Ferris, her knight, so perhaps one could question if it ought to be called self-confidence.

" "

The sword-armed Wilhelm stood in front of her, on the very front line of the expeditionary force.

Of the six swords on the aged swordsman's belt, he wielded one in each hand, poised to rush out in an instant. The quiet antagonism wafting around the Sword Devil was in a polished realm, honed to a fine point as he faced the moment for which he had so yearned.

Crusch could not fail to be enveloped by an out-of-place sense of admiration at the Sword Devil's sheer purity—that a person could maintain a soul so pure, so unswerving.

Crusch thought from her heart that one day she, too, would arrive at the same realm.

" "

The faces of each brave warrior of the expeditionary force alongside Wilhelm had an expression of hardened resolve, their morale high.

They obeyed Crusch's command, but as they awaited the White Whale, surely their hearts harbored doubts of their own—both about Subaru, the primary source of information for the White Whale's emergence, and the fact that they had far too little time to develop bonds of trust between them.

And yet, they obeyed without a single contrary utterance, for they deeply valued Crusch's judgment. Crusch was strongly aware of her own duty to respond to the trust they placed in her.

" "

As the time limit approached, the brimming will to fight was reassuring, but inside, Crusch was nervous.

Crusch touched the hilt of her treasured sword, ensuring by feel that the engraved crest of the lion was truly there. It was a habit from her youth, a little spell by which she poured resolve into herself.

They had to win.

She felt the presence of Ferris at her side and the legacy of the Lion King on her fingertips. However mighty the foe, it was all Crusch needed to fight.

And then— "—!"

Abruptly, it rang across the Liphas Highway, subsumed by the darkness of night.

She was slow to realize that the series of light sounds making her eardrums tremble resembled music of some sort.

When she turned her eyes toward the source of the sound, she saw Subaru putting his hand on the shining metia. It was from the metia in his hand that the music was noisily flowing.

It was the signal Subaru had said would announce that the time had come.

"All hands, on alert—!"

At Crusch's shout, the expeditionary force poised as one.

According to Subaru, the White Whale would appear within tens of seconds after the metia alerted him. If he was to be believed, it would not be strange for the White Whale's giant body to be swimming in the sky that very moment. With the metia having alerted him, the place had to be correct as well.

She had plenty of room for doubts, but Subaru had given her no reason to doubt him. Crusch set her misgivings and apprehensions aside, honing her nerves as she awaited the demon beast.

" "

Amid the silence, she felt no sign of the enormous demon beast appearing.

The expression on her face was not disappointment, properly speaking, but after a minute had passed with no change on the field of battle, Crusch could not help herself from being, for one, unnerved.

Discrepancies in the information. Mistaken assumptions. Some kind of random accident.

There was no change in the silence that had descended over the Liphas Highway; there was no sight of the enemy in the landscape around her.

As before, the moonlight was obstructed by clouds, causing a large, dark shadow to fall over the plains, but—

"—!"

Looking up, Crusch instantly cursed her own shallowness.

The moonlight vanished as a shadow fell over the plains.

The altitude of the cloud intercepting the moonlight was gently descending, coming before their eyes.

—But a cloud, it was not.

'Twas a demon beast, floating in the sky in the form of a gargantuan fish.

As Crusch sucked in her breath, virtually everyone in the expeditionary force came to the same understanding. Then, as if their minds were one, they tossed their gazes toward Crusch.

—They were waiting for the command for a preemptive strike.

They had succeeded in taking the initiative, catching the White Whale at the moment of its appearance. All that remained was to launch a surprise attack as planned, seizing control of the front.

" "

Crusch breathed in, as if to settle her heart upon the first command to unleash.

The White Whale had yet to notice the puny beings arrayed against it. The way the White Whale was moving its enormous head was as if to check where it was. And as it acted thus, its guard was down, full of openings— That settled it for Crusch.

"—All hands…"

Full-scale attack, she went to command when—

"—Nail it!!"

"—Al Hyuma!!"

As signal leaped ahead of Crusch, mana was simultaneously deployed via magical incantation.

The world made a sound as if it had frozen over, bringing forth enormous and incredibly dense pillars of ice. Each and every one of the icy pillars rivaled the central pillar of a mansion, with there being four in total.

Launched at super-high speed, the pillars raced through the sky and scored a direct hit on the White Whale's torso; with a slight delay, the demon beast's scream and spurting blood poured down to earth.

When Crusch hurriedly looked, the land dragon Subaru and Rem were both riding was galloping, cutting across the vanguard. As Subaru clung to Rem's hips, he raised a fist, and Rem, having succeeded in her own duty by launching the preemptive magical attack, wore a very satisfied expression.

How the two of them jumped the gun—rather, got the jump on the rest— rocked the expeditionary force.

At the sight of them galloping forth, Crusch could not keep her own mouth from twisting greatly.

Not in anger but in mirth.

"All hands, follow that pair of fools!!"

Crusch's order erased the unrest as the various members of the expeditionary force began the offensive. Dust kicked up in the process, and on the other side, the White Whale's cries grew loud once more, echoing across the night sky of the Liphas Highway.

After much waiting, the Battle of the White Whale had begun.

No matter how many times Subaru experienced the wind repel blessing, he could not help thinking of it as unnatural. Vibration, wind, posture—the impossible phenomenon blocked all those things from affecting them.

While Rem sat squarely on the land dragon as it ran, Subaru put a hand around her hip as he strained his eyes. He licked his lips, which had begun to dry, moistening them a bit as he sucked in his breath.

The cell phone alarm had rung as it was set to, and the White Whale had appeared in the twilight above the plains.

He could only describe the emergence of the giant body as splitting the sky and crawling out of the resulting shadow. Its massive body instilled primordial fear in Subaru, with all the memories of it having menaced his life surging back into his heart.

When he looked around, tension was running through the expeditionary force, noticing it just as Subaru had. As prearranged, they ought to be launching an all-out attack at Crusch's order.

But for a brief moment, the feeling of oppression had left even Crusch drawing a blank, her breath caught.

It could only be called a critical error, but such was the terror of combat the extreme situation had wrought.

Accordingly, Subaru patted Rem's shoulder.

"—Nail it!!"

"—Al Hyuma!!"

A half second before Crusch breathed out, that shout cut the covers of the gun barrels on the front.

Responding to Subaru's voice, Rem gave direction to the vast amount of mana she had woven together. This gave rise to four of those vile pillars of ice, with their sharply tapered tips mercilessly gouging holes in the White Whale's underbelly as it floated in the sky.

The ice collided with its stone skin, audibly shattering. However, just before the shattered pillars completely spread apart, the force of their stabs broke through the defense of the White Whale's thick hide—scattering its blood all over the plains.

The scream of the White Whale resounded across the plains. Even as the air shuddered enough to make one's eardrums go numb, the pitch-black land dragon Subaru and Rem rode advanced without fear.

—Subaru and Rem had not acted rashly.

The instant the White Whale emerged, a momentary lull occurred within the expeditionary force. Had they not acted during that time, the preemptive attack would have probably failed.

That pause was a watershed moment. And knowing that such momentary hesitation was a matter of life-and-death, even someone of such remarkable character as Crusch had her breath caught before the menace of the White Whale.

Even if she had been halfway confident the White Whale would appear, seeing the real thing created a ripple in the human heart. That ripple could create even tiny distortions in one's thought process, and distortion led to stagnation, and stagnation invited defeat.

If it had been so, the battle might have begun with their side at a disadvantage.

—If there was a difference between Subaru and Crusch that moment, he had to call it…love.

Crusch's split-second delay had been born from her inability to have absolute trust in Subaru and his metia. Even if her mind believed him, it could not force a statesman of her caliber to forget her misgivings.

But Rem had not even the tiniest smidgeon of doubt that the White Whale would appear the very instant Subaru said it would. Accordingly, Rem had prepared magic with the greatest firepower that she could muster, waiting for the moment Subaru had indicated, and slammed an attack into the White Whale the very moment it appeared.

If he could not call that Rem's love winning out, what could he call it? "But that analysis is super-embarrassing—!!"

"Subaru, please hold on to me more diligently. You'll be thrown off!"

In contrast to Subaru, assessing his own starting of hostilities, Rem shouted as she gripped the land dragon's reins. She announced that they were shifting from phase one of the operation—the preemptive strike—to phase two.

"Everyone—follow that pair of fools!!"

A half second later, as Subaru and Rem galloped like the wind, the expeditionary force behind them obeyed Crusch's order, loading one cannon after another—or rather, stuffing things like cannons with magic crystals, with the magic crystal cannons firing them like cannonballs.

With a roar, that fusillade landed, its destructive power violating the White Whale's flesh.

The instant they hit squarely, the magic crystals embedding into it transformed into the magical power of their corresponding mana, be it fire, ice, or light, widening the wound Rem had created, causing soot-black blood to pour down onto the highway.

Amid the drizzle of blood, Subaru and Rem's land dragon employed agile movements to circle around to the White Whale's rear. The movement was just as arranged.

"I'll get the White Whale's attention, making it turn so that its back is to the expeditionary force…!"

"The sky! They are using Night Repel! Please close your eyes!"

Rem took in the state of the battle, looking up and gazing at the horn on the

White Whale's brow as she shouted. Subaru hurried to follow her instructions, lowering his face and closing his eyes—and the next moment, the world became bright.

A white light exploded in the sky above, and that white glow instantly burned the night away. The light was so powerful that it permeated Subaru's optic nerves through his closed eyes, making his throat catch in surprise.

"Whoaaa! It's just as incredible as you said!"

All trace of night had completely vanished from the Liphas Highway. Whatever had happened during those several seconds, the worlds of night and day had swapped places, and a light as bright as midday shone onto the plains.

Above their heads, separate from the attacks on the White Whale, a special magical stone with an effect called Night Repel had been launched to shine in place of the purportedly sunken sun. Normally, it was simply a collection of light proportional to the mana infused into it, unable to shine with much more than a dull light, but…

"So when you abuse assets to put a mountain of 'em together, you've got a mini-sun on your hands?"

"It is difficult to track the White Whale in a dark sky, after all— Now, it has only just begun!"

Putting together two of the top merchants, even by the royal capital's standards, and having them run around gathering magic stones was playing to their strengths.

The effective range was the area around the Great Tree, and the time limit was a bit under an hour—more than enough time to end the decisive battle.

Having lost the twilight over the plains, the huge body was distinct as it floated overhead. That was— "That's…!"

To that point, he had not been able to clearly make out the White Whale even once, but now, it was exposed under the light of day.

" !!"

The White Whale's enormous frame shuddered as it bellowed, seemingly enraged at having been dragged out of the night sky.

The roar it unleashed surpassed the level of noise, closer to an act of raw destruction. The atmosphere rumbled, frightening even the trained land dragons, causing them to roar violently.

Though it appeared to be bleeding from its entire body, its swimming showed no effects from the wounds. The White Whale's head traversed the sky over the plains, calmly gazing down at the puny humans daring to challenge it.

"What…size…?"

Subaru's voice shook as it trickled out, unable to stop the feeling that his limbs were going numb, unable to move.

To that point, Subaru had seen, brushed against, and come to hate the menace of the White Whale, but faced with the full sight of it, he understood for the first time that he had seen only a fraction of the being.

The White Whale: Just as its name suggested, the demon beast's figure was covered all in white. Countless body hairs sprouted from hide that resembled finely chiseled bedrock. The pectoral fins extended from the underbelly like grim reapers' scythes, with the smaller dorsal and caudal fins shaped similarly.

Setting aside the disparity in savagery, the shape of the White Whale very much resembled that of the whales Subaru knew—but its size betrayed his expectations twice over.

As far as Subaru knew, the blue whale, the world's largest whale, was almost one hundred feet long, give or take, making it literally the largest mammal on Earth. However, the enormous body of the whale he saw in the distance easily surpassed one hundred feet, probably large enough to be close to one hundred sixty-five. Its giant frame was closer to a mountain than a living creature.

By some cosmic joke, a white mountain was leisurely swimming in the sky above.

"Subaru."

With Subaru trembling even then, unable to align his teeth as he bit down, a voice called out to him. It was the voice of Rem, her back facing him as Subaru clung to the hips of her small figure. She was already right in front of him, close enough for him to hear her breathe, so she didn't look back at Subaru when she asked the question. "Are you scared?"

It was not a taunt but a call for trust.

Firmly, Subaru clenched his teeth and twisted his mouth as he answered.

"Yeah, I'm scared—of my shining future, and the praise I'll get for bringing that thing down!"

Subaru met Rem's expectations by cracking a joke, patting her shoulder from behind.

"I'm putting my whole life in your hands! Now, let's make a run for it!"

"My life is yours as well, Subaru—now then, let's go."

When Subaru, his resolve hardened, declared they would run away in manly fashion, Rem softly made a little smile as she sternly cracked the reins. The pitch-black land dragon neighed, running across the ground, undaunted by even the fantastical White Whale.

The White Whale turned toward them as they galloped low and to the right of it, aiming to circle around to its tail. They dashed away from the expeditionary force, and the White Whale's giant eyes turned toward Subaru and Rem as they approached. The maw that could swallow a large dragon carriage whole opened wide, poising its mouth, lined with millstone-like teeth, for a roar.

Subaru, sensing baptism by destructive sound, braced himself against the land dragon he was riding.

And above their heads—

"To turn away, you must have greatly underestimated me—!!"

A moment after the valiant heroine's voice, the White Whale's head was shallowly cut by a single, horizontal slice. The invisible slash, grazing the solid, stone-like hide, drew blood from the White Whale's enormous frame once more.

When Subaru looked back toward the source of the attack, he saw a white land dragon running after him at the front of the vanguard—and Crusch, standing tall, with her arm out after following through the swing. But in her hand…

"She's not holding anything…?!"

"A formless sword that ignores range—Lady Crusch's famous

swordsmanship is able to fell a hundred men in a single blow." Rem replied in a low voice as Subaru gawked.

The anecdote Rem spoke concerning Crusch was news to Subaru, but the display was equal to the words. Though she appeared unarmed, such a statement was fitting for Crusch's skill and combat strength.

The invisible slash stopped the White Whale's initial response; with its movement halted, more attacks followed. The magic crystal cannons went to work once more, concentrating firepower on the White Whale and landing hit after hit, causing its altitude in the sky to drop as the damage and agony to the demon beast piled up.

The White Whale was at the same height as a cloud, but so long as its head was not pointed straight up, it was— "Within…blade distance."

A single land dragon ran across the ground and leaped, displaying agility that clashed with its large frame as it launched into the air.

Even so, compared with the White Whale, it had little size to boast. The land dragon soaring before its nose must have seemed little more than a fly to the White Whale.

—The vertical sword flash running straight ahead cut deeply up the White Whale's nose.

The sight of the flash of metal rending the white, stony hide with such ease made the sound of cannons, echoing across the battlefield, vanish.

This was no spell, no magic crystal cannon, nor even the slash of an invisible blade, but human training, proof that steel swung by man could reach even the demon beast.

Proof that human willpower, expended over the course of many years, had indeed reached the Demon Beast of Mist. "—Fourteen years."

The figure crouched as he thrust a sword into the split tip of its nose.

He maintained his posture, poising the cutting blade as the other sword thrust deep, and he waved off the demon beast's blood from his blade.

Behind him, the hostility he gave off was enough to warp the very air.

"For all that time, I dreamed only of this day."

As the figure straightened his back, the White Whale twisted its body, trying to fling off the figure that had embarked upon the tip of its head. The White Whale let out a groan as it barrel-rolled in midair.

But…

"—!!"

The White Whale arched as it screamed in pain, its tail dancing wildly in the sky.

A single, horizontal cut was added to the vertical one from before, carving a cross-shaped wound into the White Whale's brow; the figure stomped on the White Whale's back with a light sound of his foot.

Malevolent laughter came over the Sword Devil as bloodlust glimmered

in his blue eyes.

"Here you shall fall, and your corpse shall rot—filthy monster!"

Spitting those words out, Wilhelm poised his swords in both hands as his body became the wind.

He ran across the back of the White Whale from its head to its tail, slashing the demon beast's stone hide left and right with the blades in both hands. As he rent the purportedly hard, resistant hide with ease, sprinting as soot-black blood smeared the sky, he truly looked like a Sword Devil.

With Wilhelm clinging to the White Whale's body, it had no good method of shaking him off. Unable to dislodge the aged swordsman, even as it moved to somersault in midair with the force of a whirlwind, he proclaimed:

"Good of you to help me slice you more!"

A moment before the White Whale turned its body, Wilhelm made a short leap and stabbed his sword right under him. When the White Whale whirled its body, the thrust blade created a vivid slash down it, using the White Whale's own body in service of the blade.

Amid a scream and a mist of blood that mottled his own torso, the Sword Devil laughed. Laughing, his old bones continued swinging both swords as he headed for the giant frame's flank. With a swing, his blades carved a V shape into the flesh, leaving a reddish-black laceration behind.

A bellow tore through the sky as the White Whale aimed to slap the falling Sword Devil with its tail. But a moment before the tail was to strike him, a leaping land dragon snatched Wilhelm's body away. He had slipped away from the menace of certain death.

Upon landing, the land dragon instantly broke into a run. The White Whale gave into anger and chased after the elusive Sword Devil.

"Hey, don't look away, moron! Yer facin' the lot of us, too!!"

The single swing of the huge cleaver struck the White Whale squarely on the jaw with enough force to knock out several of the White Whale's enormous teeth, making a dull sound as yellow molars were sent flying.

It was Ricardo, riding a liger, who bellowed as they galloped onto the White Whale's face at an angle. Just as he'd said, the ferocious dog had greater agility than a land dragon, and it was using that nimbleness to the fullest extent, master in tow, traversing the White Whale as its body rose into the sky.

"Hey now, we ain't done with you yet!!"

Atop the sprinting liger, Ricardo gave a cry more bestial than a beast's as he swung the massive cleaver. The outer hide shattered and flesh was

gouged, all in a single charge. And following after Ricardo…

"All riiiight, let's goooo!"

"Big Sis, you are too far out in front! Everyone, now!"

The lieutenant twins, both on the backs of small ligers, split apart, issuing commands to the mercenary band behind them. With ferocious leaps, a pack of ligers grappled onto the White Whale and began to run rampant with its giant body as their foothold. They swung sword and spear, inflicting damage to the White Whale like a swarm of wasps.

Save for making its enormous frame dance, the White Whale had no countermeasure for shaking off the interlopers clinging to it. Its very size made small movements difficult, a weakness that was being exposed.

Furthermore, at that point— "All hands, move away!!"

When Crusch's order cracked across the field of battle, the Iron Fangs clinging to the White Whale leaped off its body as one. All the ligers landed agilely, and the White Whale, now freed of them, made a large turn, believing it was finally time to counterattack—but it was mistaken in that judgment.

"So you've exposed your flank—!"

Crusch's second attack struck far overhead, her diagonal slash running along the White Whale's side at an angle, and that stroke of her sword was the prelude to yet a third attack—this time, from the magic squad, which had not attacked until that moment, devoting themselves solely to concentrating on chanting.

"—Al Goa!!"

From the compounded chants from multiple squad members came a redhot aurora. In that world, with both a sun and a moon floating in the sky, a new, second sun was born, low in the sky and clad in incandescent flames.

Even knowing that it was the power of fire magic bundled together, Subaru could not turn his eyes away, gawking at the conflagration scorching the world before him. The waves of heat given off by the huge fireball, over thirty feet in diameter, could burn the skin even at a distance well removed, burning with enough heat to rob the moisture of his eyes, even with his eyelids protecting them.

That great fireball wavered, then it gained velocity.

"Uoooo!"

Velocity gave way to acceleration, and acceleration, to high speed. The fireball headed for the White Whale's side, then slammed it right in the belly. Through its accumulated wounds, the fire burned inside its body, and the White Whale screamed while its internal organs boiled.

Mercenaries hurriedly evacuated so as not to be caught up in the fragments of flame scattering over the plains. Subaru and Rem took part in that evacuation, even as their eyes continued to track the burning White Whale.

That overwhelming, even one-sided, circumstance meant nothing less than that the surprise attack had borne fruit. At that rate, might not the demon beast be subjugated without it being able to do a thing?

"Feels like that hit it pretty hard! Maybe it'll all go like this?!"

At a distance beyond the flames' reach, Subaru watched the White Whale from the back of the land dragon, shaking a closed fist.

Until that point, they'd completely overwhelmed the White Whale, surely inflicting no small amount of damage. With the failure of the Great Expedition fourteen years prior as precedent, he'd been on his guard, but this put him into an easy-win mood. It had bitten on the prearranged plan hook, line, and sinker, making him feel exhilarated that a quick victory was just before his eyes.

However, with regret, Rem shook her head at Subaru's optimistic viewpoint, glaring up at the flame-engulfed demon beast.

"No—were that the case, the surprise attack would have caused it to crash to the ground."

Her words made Subaru's eyes go wide. He turned his eyes to the White Whale, wondering what she meant.

Even then, half of the demon beast's body was being burned by the great magic, with no sense that the flames, spreading over its body hair, were dying out. The magic crystal cannons' direct attacks had inflicted many wounds, and the sight of blood trickling from them was downright painful.

But—

"The altitude…ain't dropping."

Looking up, he saw the White Whale calmly remaining in the sky.

It was not up so high that the cavalry could not leap up to it, but it would be very difficult for men to challenge it on foot. More importantly, without the demon beast falling to the ground, they could not shift to the next phase of the operation.

Ricardo pulled alongside, carrying his huge cleaver as blood spatter drenched the fur on his face.

"We played all our good cards right at the start. That it didn't go down means that thing was just tougher, huh." He snorted out of his canine snout, his pointy ears twitching as he said, "Feels like we scored a point, but it ain't easy breakin' through that thick hide underneath. 'Cept for a weapon like mine with brute force, or Mr. Wil's skills, it's a drop in the ol' bucket."

"Maybe that goes for physical attacks, but it looked like magic attacks worked, yeah?"

"I am quite doubtful that is the case. At first glance, they appeared to be spectacular strikes, but that white hair scatters the mana, dulling the force.

My magic did not do as much damage as it appeared, either."

Rem voiced with regret that the magic representing her own greatest firepower had been ineffective.

When her words drew Subaru's attention, he saw that there certainly were numerous shallow wounds in the White Whale's flesh, but none amounted to deep wounds that diminished its fighting ability. But at the very least…

"Looks like the fire spells from earlier are burning its hair off pretty well, though."

"It's simple—burn the magic-scatterin' hair off and we can have that fried whale flesh under it for dinner."

Ricardo ferociously bared his fangs as he concurred with Subaru's guess. With the massive cleaver in hand, he gave the liger's back a pat, hurtling toward the front line once more.

"All riiight, let's bring what we've got left in the sack just like earlier!

Crusch, give the big guy one more slug in the gut, will ya?"

Drawing up his own laundry list, he slipped under the White Whale and leaped onto its body once more.

When Subaru looked, Wilhelm, who he was sure had moved some distance off, was also aiming to get back on the White Whale, this time from the tail end. The expeditionary force had apparently come to the same conclusion as Subaru and Ricardo and was shifting to its next move—in other words, a second all-out attack.

"In this case, they'll be pouring firepower on the White Whale, so we'd just be in the way if we got close. Rem, can you slam magic into it like you did earlier?"

"It would take time for an incantation of identical strength, and water element mana cannot do damage when it is scattered. Anything of lesser

might would have insufficient firepower to begin with, so…"

If he went by Ricardo's earlier conclusion, the right thing to do was to have Rem join the front line, morning star in one hand, and add to the bluntforce attacks against the White Whale. However, if Subaru made her do that, he'd turn into her ball and chain. It was pathetic, but using his physical condition to implement a decoy operation meant Subaru couldn't send Rem off alone.

"It sucks, but I've gotta watch until there's a move I can make…"

As Subaru spoke, their land dragon eased away from the battlefield at a slow pace, and a different land dragon pulled alongside.

"That annoying feeling's the same for me as it is for you, meow." It was Ferris, riding a land dragon clad in heavily armored plates.

"Ferri doesn't have any ways to attack, so watching is pretty much all I can do. I'm kinda, sorta used to it, but it always bums me out, meow."

"Maybe so, but your healing is the expeditionary force's lifeline. Can't be havin' you go out in front. I'm begging you, focus on that job, okay?"

Subaru bluntly emphasized that to Ferris, taking that moment to approach in his normal demeanor. The reply made Ferris close one eye with a hmm.

"You really have changed in one day, meow. What happened to you?"

"If I've gotta put it in words, I became a bit more of a man."

As his eyes ran across the shifting battlefield, Subaru replied with a reflective expression, biting on bitter thoughts.

Subaru's behavior sent Ferris suggestively poking a finger into a cheek as he said, "Subawu, don't tell me Rem made a man out of you, meow?" The answer was both yes and a definite no.

Subaru was about to level an angry shout to shut Ferris up for the out-ofplace vulgarity.

"Master Wilhelm is—!"

But he was interrupted by Rem's urgent shout.

When he hurriedly sent his gaze in the direction Rem was looking, he saw the aged swordsman running on the White Whale's back.

With a sword, he stabbed the White Whale's backside, ripping the White Whale's body lengthwise as he ran. As Wilhelm ran from tail to back, the delayed spurting of whale blood made it look like he was being chased by geysers.

That moment, Wilhelm's works were truly those of an angry god.

The expeditionary force lifted their faces, with morale exploding higher at the Sword Devil's abnormal skill with the blade. The firing pace of the magic crystal cannons and the vigor of the mercenaries and cavalry unit's organized attacks grew greater still.

Unable to withstand the agony, the White Whale writhed in midair, completely unable to respond to the expeditionary force's attack.

Seeing the Demon Beast of Mist, the calamity that had caused continued suffering across four centuries, in such a pathetic state, Subaru firmly believed the tide was completely going their way.

"Cheeeeeiiiiii!"

With an energetic outburst, Wilhelm drew his sword in a line all the way to the White Whale's head, maintaining his momentum as his old bones leaped off from the tip of the enormous body. As the old man twisted and inverted in midair—

"There ya go!"

Ricardo's cleaver matched Wilhelm's timing, rising up to greet him from below. Wilhelm descended, aiming for the cleaver as it rose toward its zenith, the soles of the Sword Devil's feet meeting the cleaver's blunt, impending blow.

"Shii—!!"

Ricardo's brawn added to Wilhelm's leaping ability, sending the Sword Devil flying like a bullet.

Shot out, Wilhelm's dual blades whirled around, savagely slicing the White Whale's face. It was cruelly shredded from the tip of its nose up its cheek, with Wilhelm unleashing a stab toward its gigantic eye.

" !!"

The twin swords sank their hilts into the White Whale's left eye, and clear fluid flowed out of the ravaged eyeball.

Wilhelm instantly abandoned the two sunken swords, drawing two new swords in a flash—from right and left, his slashes cut above and below the eye; flipping the blades, he added vertical cuts to its left and right.

As a result, the White Whale's left eyeball was cut from four directions when—

"The eye's falling!"

Gouged out by four slices, the White Whale's left eye fell freely, and

Wilhelm along with it—

The shout, from whatever source, became truth, and the eyeball, spewing blood and fluid, collided with the ground, squishing and splattering.

Wilhelm landed right beside it, the Sword Devil driving a sword into the eyeball, threatening to lose all coherence, and raised it high so that the White Whale's right eye could see it. "—Pathetic."

Then, the corners of his lips turned up in a ghastly, triumphant smile.

The White Whale had been rendered helpless as the Sword Devil's sublime combat techniques made sport of it.

It was clear to all that their fighting strength was not determined by the overwhelming difference in the sizes of their bodies.

Perhaps it took the loss of its left eye for the White Whale to finally accept that fact…

"The color of the White Whale's eye is…!"

"It's coming!!"

"Subaru, please keep your head down—!!"

The instant Subaru noticed the change, Ferris shouted, and Rem accelerated the land dragon.

Because they had stopped, the wind repel blessing was not in effect. Subaru, clinging to Rem as he endured the ferocious wind and shaking, somehow managed to turn his eyes to the White Whale overhead.

Within Subaru's field of vision, the White Whale's state changed at once.

" !!"

The White Whale, angry at having an eye gouged out, let up a roar as its one intact eye was dyed deep red.

The eyeball, now the color of blood, shot like a dagger through the expeditionary force, pulling back to put distance between it and the beast. Immediately after, the White Whale's body quaked in hatred and rage as a change came over its flesh.

…the instant that change began, Subaru was unable to repress a sense of disgust that defied words.

The White Whale opened its mouth.

No, those words were both correct and incorrect. To more accurately express the truth…

—The mouths of countless cavities over the White Whale's entire body opened and began to raise their voices.

" !!"

Reverberations like shrieking voices poured out of the countless mouths created all over the demon beast's flesh.

The discordant sound one would not think existed in that world seemed to claw away directly at the listeners' spirits, coursing from their hearing to violate their cranial nerves.

The damage did not stop at human beings alone. The land dragons and ligers employed as mounts stopped in their tracks, seized by instinctive, primordial fear.

The expeditionary force was overcome by its worst instance of defenselessness since the start of the battle to bring down the White Whale.

And then…

"…Ah…"

Raising a chorus, the countless mouths spewed an immense amount of mist.

In the blink of an eye, the mist poured onto the plains, and the world illuminated by the effect of Night Repel was blotted out in white.

His vision obstructed, his entire body cowering, Subaru understood that the White Whale had acknowledged them as its enemies.

It was the Demon Beast of Mist raising its war cry that announced the true commencement of hostilities.

Loud laughter echoed across the Liphas Highway.

Discordant sounds trickled from the small mouths open across the giant body of the White Whale as it swam leisurely in the sky.

When it roared from its proper mouth, it came with such destruction that it made the earth shudder. But the sound given off by many mouths out of sync was twisted and repulsive, like being clawed by the very wind.

The unpleasant feeling was not a blow to the eardrums but rather, like having one's brain poked at by slender needles.

With that ghoulish change in the White Whale, Subaru sensed that the tide had turned.

They'd pounded that immense preemptive strike into it with the expeditionary force, from Wilhelm on down, adding their own concentrated attacks. The damage inflicted on the White Whale was by no means minimal. After all, the combined firepower was enough to kill Subaru a hundred times over; if comparing with other demon beasts, it was attack power sufficient to wipe out an entire Urugarum pack ten times over.

The beast, bathed in all that, had taken enough damage to lose one eye. If it was not enough to settle the battle, Subaru had hoped it would at least result in bringing the beast down to earth, but— "Crap, the mist…!"

Continuing to raise a shrill cry, the White Whale spread mist from its countless mouths.

The mist spread in a wide range across the highway, its encroachment progressing as it fell thickly from the sky. Subaru's field of vision became progressively whiter, and the effect of the Night Repel magic crystal waned.

—The Demon Beast of Mist had come into its own.

With visibility worsening, the expeditionary force was unable to maintain tight cohesion over the mist-shrouded plains. Moreover, didn't it look like even the White Whale was melting into the mist, vanishing from sight…?

"You're kidding me…?!"

"—Subaru, please entrust me with your life!!"

Rem leaned forward and shouted to Subaru, shaken by the vanishing of the White Whale. Subaru responded to her shout by deepening his arms' embrace of Rem's body.

Obeying Rem's snap of the reins, the land dragon whirled around, splitting the ground as it began to sprint.

Ferris, beside them until just earlier, similarly turned the head of his land dragon toward the interior of the mist. With the White Whale entering a state of combat, the counterattack would grow desperate. Naturally, casualties could not be avoided. That being the case, this was where his duty lay as he was called The Blue Knight, the greatest of healers. Yet, in spite of that…

"All hands, retreat—!!"

…a bellow from inside the mist resounded, halting them before they leaped into the sea of white.

It was Crusch's voice they heard.

What is she doing? was the look on the face Subaru lifted up, but the next moment— "Whoa?!"

Subaru's body was shaken by centrifugal force as the land dragon veered left in a spur-of-the-moment decision. In front, Ferris's land dragon was making its own emergency right turn, resulting in them going separate ways.

And white came violently surging into the corners of Subaru's tilted vision.

"—Hey now, hold on?!"

The middle of the path that had opened up by their splitting apart was blown away in a single gust of very dense mist.

The force of the tall wave of mist shooting through would have surely swallowed up the land dragons had they evaded even a second slower.

Without having seen the real thing in action, one might laugh it off as making a big deal about mere mist. But no one seeing the nature of that mist up close with their own eyes would ever dismiss it so lightly.

The surface of the plains grazed by the mist was gouged out as if melted away, with the highway surface vanishing all the way down to the foundation.

A human body fully bathed in that mist would invariably share the same fate.

"If we got hit by that…!"

Subaru thought he'd fully taken to heart the briefing beforehand concerning the threat of the White Whale's mist. But the real thing was beyond even his expectations.

"So this is the serious mist…!"

The White Whale, called the Demon Beast of Mist, had mist that broadly fell into two varieties.

The first was the wide-area mist it scattered to expand its own swimming area, such as what it had used to cover the highway. And the second was the annihilating mist, which had erased a good chunk of the ground before his eyes just then.

He hadn't seen the means of attack until then, but it was the latter, the annihilating mist, that wrought destruction. And though a single glance was sufficient to understand its destructive power, there was even more to it than that.

Namely—

"Yaaa!!"

In a vigorous flash, a gallant voice cut through the mist as something suddenly sliced open the white scene before Subaru's eyes.

It was a white land dragon with Crusch on its back that leaped out of the mist. She'd probably used the super-long-range invisible slicing attack to disperse the mist and secure her vision.

Crusch brusquely wiped off the sweat on her brow, panting atop the land dragon. Using her as a marker at the center of the cleared mist, the scattered elements of the expeditionary force began to hastily regroup.

Crusch looked across her subordinates from each of the assembled squads and asked, "—How many people were hit?"

"Our squad has twelve people—we're three short."

"…Who are you missing?"

"We don't know…!"

Faced with Crusch's impatience, a man in his prime seemed to wring out his reply as he shook his head.

Under normal circumstances, such an exchange would be

incomprehensible. The squad leader, cognizant of the number of people in his squad, was reporting that he could not remember the names of the lost

members. Surely such a crazy thing was not possible, yet…

"We have fourteen and have lost one."

"Two men in my squad. Similarly unclear."

"Six men… I am very sorry! Our position was deep, and we were unable to avoid the mist…!"

Similar reports came in one after another, with none able to remember the names of their vanished comrades.

It was that bizarre circumstance that was the true menace of the White Whale's mist.

"The annihilating…mist…!!"

In shock, Subaru's molars clattered as the murmur came running up his throat.

Those literally annihilated by the mist had even the memories of their existence erased from the world. Even if proof remained of those erased, no memories of their existence remained.

That was the true meaning behind Crusch organizing the expeditionary force in squads of fifteen men each. If the squads were to lose men due to the mist, they would be unable to even discern who had been hit. Even so, by having a set number in each squad, they could at least grasp the fact that they had lost people.

—Subaru knew that eerie fear for himself, for he had tasted it the previous go-around.

For Otto, the traveling merchant accompanying him on the highway, the existence of a fellow merchant fallen prey to the White Whale, and the existence of Rem, who'd stayed behind to slow the White Whale down, had been completely consigned to oblivion.

At the time, Subaru was of the thought that Otto had forgotten those inconvenient memories out of fear, but it made more sense that he was under the effect of the White Whale's mist. All memory of his fellow merchant, and Rem, was erased from that world—just like when, back at the mansion, even Rem's older twin sister, Ram, had forgotten her.

Now, the same thing had happened again. Yet, even in spite of that—

"I'm the only one…who remembers…"

In a daze, Subaru voiced the undeniable fact.

Just like in the last go-around, when Subaru never forgot the erased merchant or Rem, sacrificing herself so that Subaru could escape, he alone remembered.

Two of the squad leaders gathered under Crusch…had become different people.

Bathed by the annihilating mist, the original squad leaders had been erased. Everyone accepted the next in line as the squad leaders in their place, with no one noticing the sudden change in rank.

Faced with that abnormality, Subaru knew that the Witch and the White Whale really were cut from the same cloth.

Subaru Natsuki continuing to remember the things everyone else had forgotten—surely this was not unrelated to Return by Death, a trait possessed by Subaru alone.

Crusch looked over the faces of the expeditionary force and cut the conversation short.

"Now that it has submerged into the mist, we cannot know from whence it attacks. Crowding together is a poor plan—we shall disperse, and employ mana repulsion crystals."

Seeing everyone nod at the order in his peripheral vision, Subaru's eyes widened when he realized he didn't see Wilhelm or Ricardo among them.

Surely even those two were not erased by the mist…?

"So you have returned, Wilhelm."

But Subaru's nervousness was belied by a figure's timely return from the mist.

Having sliced through the dense fog, the Sword Devil seemed ghastly, his entire body bathed in blood. Wilhelm wiped off his blood-sullied swords, tersely smearing the blood from his cheeks as an afterthought.

"I ran too far ahead—our losses?" Wilhelm asked.

"A total of twenty-one… Essentially one squad was annihilated. We can no longer hope even to properly honor the memory of the fallen."

Being erased by the mist literally meant one's existence was wiped clean. With no traces left of them, even in people's memories, there was a complete blank where they had once existed in the world.

Subaru wondered if the bonds and feelings, even love, that had been so certain until then, vanished someplace.

When he looked closer, Subaru saw a pack of ligers behind Wilhelm, and among them were Ricardo, straddling his extra-large liger, and the two lieutenants. Apparently, just like Wilhelm, those fighting right up against the White Whale had endured minimal damage.

"The mist comin' out makes this rough. Mana repulsion crystals are scarce, and we've less than I'd like… If we use 'em in the wrong place, we're done."

"If we strike it with one more concentrated attack, it shall surely fall to the ground. Having lost sight of it, this is the right time to employ them, averting a surprise attack among other things. Objections?"

When everyone endorsed Crusch's judgment, her gaze turned to the support unit under Ferris's command.

"Ferris, launch anti-magic crystals from the magic crystal cannons. Twice only. We must employ them with care."

"Preparations are already complete~. Anytime, at your command."

Chapter 49 - x