related to the actual Trial had lost their vibrancy. It showed on her face that she didn't want to talk about it—but that wasn't the only reason. She had gaps in her memories.
The Trial had likely shown Emilia happenings from a hundred years prior, before the forest was frozen. And yet, she did not properly carry those memories with her.
—She was stumbling, and she did not even know why. Truly, it was just like Ram had told him.
Properly speaking, she could not recall the memories that were causing her to stumble. And this was fatal to her efforts.
If things proceeded like every time before, Emilia would challenge the Trial in a fresh state each night. It would be as if Subaru didn't retain his memories after a Return by Death and only knew of the events in the current instance of a loop. He would be able neither to reflect upon nor improve on his prior efforts. It made perfect sense why she kept failing.
If this was a trap Echidna had set up, it was the worst kind possible, but
—
"—She's not the type to watch and laugh as you challenge an absolutely insurmountable wall, is she?"
Echidna's rotten personality was an established fact, but he trusted in the fact that there was a certain aesthetic to her wickedness. That Witch would never establish a Trial that could not be overcome. In that, the malicious Witch no doubt put on airs of godhood.
Then again, there she was, resting in a world of dreams even after death. Maybe her power really did rival those of a god.
"Even if you are some deity, I'm not praying to you. If I'm gonna pray, I'll pray to my own goddesses."
But at the moment, both of Subaru's goddesses had their hands full. That left Subaru to put his meager brain to use in both their steads.
"If Emilia has no means to search her own memories, then…"
Laying the audibly sleeping Emilia upon the bed, Subaru looked inward in search of an answer.
Had something in the past broken Emilia's spirit when she took the Trial? —The question made him recall the completely similar thoughts he'd had toward a different individual a scant few hours before.
Garfiel was haunted in the same way Emilia was. If there was a difference, it was that Subaru couldn't ask someone who had the means to know his past— "—Wait."
Having thought it through that far, Subaru's brain came to a halt.
Subaru had contacted Ryuzu in order to learn of Garfiel's past. It had resulted in a failure that took a wholly unexpected form, but the idea itself continued to have merit. And since he was facing a similar situation in Emilia's case, couldn't he try to adopt the same approach there as well?
"Even if Emilia herself doesn't remember…if I ask someone who does know…"
There were precious few who could possibly know what had happened in the Great Elior Forest.
The first was Roswaal, but their hostile relationship made getting an answer out of him rather difficult. Even where Ram was concerned, he couldn't expect her to know all the fine details. Given her position, just approaching her was difficult.
But there was one person—or rather, one creature who did.
He was a being who had been right by Emilia's side and whom she considered the same as family…a being who had spent a very long time with her.
"—Puck."
Surely, Puck—Emilia's contracted spirit, professed as her only family, that little cat who'd been present when Emilia awoke from the ice—would know the circumstances.
The problem was that, at present, there was no way to contact the spirit— since several days before traveling to the Sanctuary, Puck had neither shown himself nor answered Emilia's calls.
Puck's absence weighed heavily on Emilia's mind. Even setting that aside, it was necessary for Subaru to speak with Puck personally.
"Think, think, thinkthinkthinkthink. Think, damn it…"
Covering his face with his palms, Subaru desperately searched for a way. He wasn't responding to Emilia's call. It was meaningless to attempt to set Puck in motion through any normal means as a spirit mage. Therefore, he needed some other way to forcibly wake up Puck. —He dug through all his memories of Puck to date.
They included his first meeting with Emilia in the capital, their reunion and fighting side by side at the Loot Cellar, the repeated exchanges of words between them during the mansion loop, and the times, after the start of the royal selection, when Puck had even taken his life— "—How many times was it that you killed me?"
Murmuring to himself alone, he was referring to fact that Puck had been the cause of Return by Death more than once. Subaru was not rekindling his grudge; he was purely confirming to himself what had happened, and how deeply their fates were connected.
Three times, an angry Puck had taken Subaru's life. And in each of those cases—
" "
Subaru's breath caught, arriving at the possibility as he looked down at Emilia's sleeping face.
Emilia was peacefully sleeping, too deeply to dream. There was nothing more Subaru could offer her than that tiny measure of peace. —Or so he had thought.
"Sorry, Emilia."
With that brief apology to her sleeping face, Subaru drew close to Emilia. Then he put both hands on her slender neck. Feeling her smooth skin on his fingertips, Subaru felt like he couldn't breathe.
His heartbeats were so noisy. Sensing the fierce flow of blood with his eardrums, Subaru followed where that possibility led.
If Subaru's expectations were correct, this would summon Puck. All he had to do was put strength into his fingers— "—As if I ever could."
Immediately after, Subaru seemed to be enduring pain as he wrung out his voice.
The sensation was real. Feeling the sharp sting of clamping his molars together, Subaru breathed raggedly as he backed off. The palms of both of Subaru's hands were covered in white frost.
His hands burned like they had been immersed in a bucket of hot water; but in reality, the effect was the polar opposite. This was not agony from an excess of heat, but a biting ache from overwhelming cold.
And the one who had made it happen was—
"You knew what I was aiming for so you didn't need to go that far, damn it…!"
"—Hmm, I wonder. There's no guarantee that a certain mix of love and hate wouldn't result in harm to Lia, is there? And your love runs deep, Subaru."
"Hey, how did you know about my day care teacher's reply to the love letter I wrote her in kindergarten…"
"Ehhh…it really is scary to leave Lia by your side. Should I erase you, maybe?"
"Don't casually use the word erase, geez. Besides—"
Waving both his aching hands, Subaru trained his gaze directly before him in resentment. His gaze arrived at Emilia's neck—or rather, at the green crystal hanging from it.
The crystal was giving off a faint, pale light. —The voice reaching Subaru was most certainly coming from it.
Though, just as before, there was no tangible sight of him, for he had not materialized.
"Emilia-tan's all sad that the family pet ran away from home."
"Rather than leave, I have been right here the entire time, though. But, mm, yes, I should say this."
Replying glibly to Subaru's biting sarcasm, the crystal—or rather, Puck— would have probably been floating there with a big smile if he had taken physical form. In this strange atmosphere, he spoke:
"You have done well to call out to me. —I am happy, Subaru."
CHAPTER 4
LIES, LIARS, AND CON ARTISTS
1
—The first thing she felt when she awoke with her right hand empty was loneliness.
As she woke up, her head feeling blood-deprived, she had a hazy thought. Before she slept, and even while she slept, she felt like someone had been holding her hand. Realizing this was an extremely selfish sentiment to have, she rose.
"…What a terrible girl I am. That's incredibly selfish of me."
Her face reddened from shame and self-derision, the girl—Emilia— curled up in the center of the bed as she let those words slip.
The sensation on her palm was that of the boy who had spent time together with her until she slept. Just how self-centered was she to feel lonely because that sensation was gone when she awoke?
He'd stayed close to her all that time, yet she was still trying to cling to him.
This, right after speaking of such lofty ideals the night before to Subaru. She was always relying on him. She was truly relieved when he'd asked about what really happened in her past, wasn't she?
Once again, she harbored the selfish hope that Subaru—that someone— would come save her while she did nothing.
" "
Pursing her lips at the weakness of her own heart, Emilia subconsciously touched the crystal on her neck.
That faint sensation was connected to the spirit that had been at her side
for all that time—the part of her family whose face she hadn't seen in these last several days. That moment, she thought very strongly, I want to hear his voice.
"Maybe it was a dream… I thought I heard Subaru speaking at my bedside like he was talking to Puck…"
If her weak self really had hallucinated what she'd heard, her ears were being terribly convenient. It was not as if her ears, a little longer than those of others, were somehow deprived of the blood coursing through her body. It was just that she thought—
"…Why can't I remember properly?"
"—You mustn't blame yourself too much, Lia. I am partly responsible for this."
"Eh…?"
She suddenly someone speak, not with her eardrums, but through the echo of telepathy directly to her mind. Even though there was no audible voice to accompany it, Emilia immediately knew who it must have been.
"Puck…?!"
Emilia practically shot up as she placed the crystal upon her palm. Within Emilia's field of vision, a faint green light grew, taking form little by little, its power manifesting into a tangible shape.
"Hmm, this is a little smaller than usual? Well, I'm pretty like this anyway, aren't I?"
Speaking in high spirits, a gray-colored cat twirled around on top of Emilia's palm—with a long tail, round eyes, and a pink nose, this was the adorable spirit, Puck.
"Puck…ahh, Puck…!"
"Heya, Lia. It's been a while, huh. I forced myself out so we could have a little family discussion."
"Family…discussion…"
Their reunion after several days spawned joy, surprise, and a little bit of anger in Emilia's heart. But though she yearned for an explanation, the tearyeyed Emilia immediately realized something was wrong.
The Puck on her palm was smaller than his usual size, and moreover, his existence seemed ever so fragile.
"…Tee-hee-hee. Seems I'll hit my limit faster than I expected. Well, I willingly broke the pact, so it can't be helped that my perks as a spirit got yanked back."
"Broke the pact…? Wh-what are you saying? …No, never mind that.
More importantly, where have you been until now…and after that…"
"—Then, as now, I've always been by your side, Lia. I couldn't speak because of my own personal circumstances and your own issues, Lia. But from here, I…"
Putting his paws on his head, Puck's blushing smile went away. His innocent, adorable face turned serious, sending a distressing chill down Emilia's spine.
This was a face she had not seen once from Puck in all that—no, she had seen it before.
This was the face he had shown when Emilia, frozen in ice, awoke.
It was the face he had shown Emilia right before her life came under threat, and when the pair formed their pact.
And for Puck to show Emilia that face in that moment— "Eh…what, eh…? Wait a minute…"
Emilia's voice stiffened out of shock. Beneath Puck's feet, the crystal upon which Puck's tail rested had a crack running down it. This crevice was slowly, but inexorably, expanding.
"Oh, oh no! This is terrible, Puck! The stone, the icon…at this rate!" "I'm sorry, Lia. I really want to properly explain, but I don't have time. That's something I truly regret, but I'm entrusting you to…the child who holds you most precious after me."
"What are you talking about…? Such a person…! Such a person doesn't…!"
Even as she shook her head in denial, the crystal's destruction would not relent. Accordingly, little by little, Puck's entire form grew indistinct. The way he was vanishing didn't come off as a prank.
Puck really was vanishing, so very suddenly, and his bond with Emilia went with him.
She didn't know what had happened, or what was happening. Nor, with acceptance on Puck's face, did Emilia understand just how she looked to those black eyes that moment.
"—Lia. The pact between you and I is rescinded. I'm really sorry it's so one-sided."
" "
Emilia was overcome as a fear she had never even imagined turned into reality.
To be separated from Puck, for a day to come when the pact would end, was something Emilia had never thought of. After all, Emilia and Puck had made a promise.
"If I'm gone, the lid covering your memories will come off. I'm sure that will cause you a great deal of sadness, Lia. You might cry even more than you are right now."
She didn't understand the meaning of Puck's words. Puck softly floated up from Emilia's palm. Swaying his long tail, he hovered at the tip of Emilia's nose.
His little, white paws touched her cheek. It was as if he was gently trying to wipe away one of the teardrops coursing from the corner of her eye.
If she was going to lose this much warmth, even the frozen forest of her homeland was—
"—Emilia. I reaaally love you."
"—No!!"
As she tried to stop their bonds from fading away, she thought the unthinkable when a voice echoed in the back of her mind. The voice came from "someone" speaking to Emilia from her indistinct memories.
She was being made to choose. That instant, she was being forced to choose between the warmth before her eyes and the cold past sealed within the ice.
And the right to choose rested in Emilia's hand. That moment, if she reached out her hand, Puck would— "—Yeah. This is for the best, Lia."
Her arm would not move. Her shaking fingers would not reach Puck, even as he wiped the tear from her cheek.
She could not prioritize the warmth of that instant if it meant ignoring the voice that tied her to the past.
She had spent time together with Puck in the forest, watching over her neighbors, who had been frozen into ice statues, day after day. In all that time and in all the days that had come since then, he never made Emilia face her memories of the past.
—This was the moment those days came to an end.
"Lia. —In this whole world, you're the one I love the most."
" "
They were the words with which, in the past, he had conveyed his affection, and so, too, his love.
Instantly, the little cat's contours became a phosphorescent green, scattering as he seemed to melt into thin air. The crystal on her palm was split into two. —Already, it had completely lost its light.
There was no room for doubt. The crystal had split, Puck was gone, and the pact between them had been undone.
She felt no connection. The connection that she could always feel was gone, almost as if it were a dream.
"…But it's not a dream."
Training her fingers upon her own cheek, Emilia pinched herself. It hurt. She didn't wake up. She had been left behind in a silent room.
"…i…ar."
She released her cheek, her fingers covering her own face. She raised her head toward the heavens, almost so none might see it. But such concern was unnecessary. There was no one by her side.
Only her quivering voice filled the air.
"Puck… Daddy, you liar…!"
2
The first thing he felt when he awoke was irritation toward the hollow, empty feeling inside his chest.
"…Tch."
Clicking his tongue, he sat up, violently clawing at the short, blond hair on his head.
He was not the sort to wake up badly. But the nightmare had been bad. This, and everything else, was doubtlessly the fault of those uninvited guests who had disturbed the peace of the Sanctuary.
"Young Gar, are you awake?"
Then, as he sat cross-legged on the bedding with a curled back and a foul mood, a familiar voice addressed him. When he turned, she was visible at the back of the small, crude cabin and was wearing a white poncho—Shima, his grandmother.
Garfiel, his cheeks twisting at the sight of her, slowly rose from the bed.
"Sorry, dozed off there. Nothin' happened while I was asleep?"
"You worry too much over a few short hours. You'll lose your hair at an early age at this rate."
"…I ain't the type to strain or get too tense or nothin', but this is rattlin' even me, old hag. I mean, I heard straight from ya that the guy with the stupid smile on his face is drippin' with miasma."
Garfiel replied to his grandmother's teasing tone with a dead serious voice. Lowering the corners of her eyebrows at the sight, Shima said in an apologetic tone, "Sorry."
It was Shima who could literally smell the miasma coming off of Subaru Natsuki—the miasma that came from interacting with the Witch.
Shima had been concealed in the woods, performing her duty as one of the "Eyes" of the Sanctuary. Unlike other replicas, she possessed individuality just like Ryuzu and met with Garfiel regularly.
—He had first heard that someone tainted with powerful miasma was mixed in with Emilia's party on the first night of the Trial following their arrival.
Ever since, Garfiel's eyes bore a glint of wariness and enmity toward Subaru and those with him.
No matter who it was, he would not forgive anyone who brought calamity to those Sanctuary.
"…However. I have spoken of it already, but that boy…Young Su does not appear to bear any relation to the Witch. Besides, from what I have heard, there are much larger concerns."
"Much larger concerns…the princess, then? Ya heard somethin'?"
Shima's assertion made Garfiel twist his neck and look outside the window—up into the darkened, nighttime sky.
Properly speaking, Garfiel had no time to be catching a nap at a time like this. With Emilia having entered the Sanctuary, he was supposed to be one of the observers for her Trial at the tomb each night.
But there would be no such Trial that night. The schedule had suddenly been changed. And the reason for that was—
"—So the spirit mage lost her spirit. No good to us while she's in a panic, huh?"
Garfiel clacked his fangs, sighing deeply at the reason behind why the challenge of the tomb was being put off.
"Do not say that. You should have compassion where someone's mental foundation is concerned… Young Gar, you would cry like a baby if I were gone, would you not?"
"I would not!! I'm not a little kid. I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't, but…"
I ran my mouth without thinking, thought Garfiel, lowering his eyes. He did not care for the gentle eyes with which Shima gazed toward him. "Hah!" he snorted, standing fully.
"Young Gar?"
"Nothing's gonna happen tonight. Me, I'm gonna go check things out. Get some sleep, you old bag o' bones. Stay-up-late Rudy came to regret his short legs and all."
"And yet, it seems to me it is you who should not be up late, Young Gar."
Shima saw Garfiel off with a pained smile as he left the cabin. He hated being treated like a child, but his grandmother—only Shima and Ryuzu was special.
In terms of outward appearance, they were peas from the same pod, and they behaved nearly identically. Even so, Garfiel firmly separated Shima from Ryuzu as an altogether different person. He considered the empty replicas to be different beings as well.
As an Apostle of Greed, he had the right to issue commands to the replicas. He felt no pangs of guilt from employing that right to make the replicas do as he told them. They looked the same, but they were different.
He considered Ryuzu and Shima to be his grandmother while the other replicas were nothing more than dolls. This was a firmly held thought inside Garfiel. He told himself that one's true nature was on the inside. He told himself that this was the truth.
—That was why, when he spotted Ram leisurely loitering in the middle of the night, Garfiel's heart beat fast.
As far as Garfiel knew, it was she who had the most beautiful core of all.
"Heya, Ram. It's dangerous goin' for a nighttime stroll at an hour like this."
"—I suppose so. There are many dangerous nocturnal beasts roaming about, such as Barusu or Garf."
"What a sharp-tongued girl. That's good about you, but…"
When Garfiel called out to her, Ram, enveloped by the moonlight, turned around and narrowed her eyes.
The place they met was the path leading from Shima's cabin, which was concealed in the forest, back to the settlement. Normally, there ought to have been no reason for her to be in the area, so of course, it was unnatural for him to run into Ram here.
"Out for a stroll. After all, Barusu should be right at Lady Emilia's side right about now."
"…All right to leave her to him…? Isn't takin' care of her part of yer job,
Ram?"
"A job consisting only of holding her hand on a night of worry is something even Barusu can handle. Besides, he wants to do it, so I pushed the responsibility onto him. Win-win. Is there a problem?"
With her facial features composed, Ram boldly shrugged her shoulders. Unable to summon a retort to her gesture, Garfiel copied her and shrugged his shoulders, too.
Emilia had lost her spirit, the center of her mental support. Staying by her side was the black-haired boy with the Witch's miasma hovering about him.
—It certainly did not give him a good impression of either, but…
"…Looks like this ain't gonna work out, huh…"
Judging from the abandoned Trial and from her state the night before, Garfiel didn't think Emilia could overcome the Trial. He sympathized with the sight of her breaking into tears, crushed by her past.
Of course she had failed. The past was something you regretted, but could not change. There was no way to win against regret.
"Ram, do you have any regrets?"
"Why, all of a sudden?"
Abruptly, Garfiel put into words something heavy that rested inside him.
That hateful Trial was a collection of malice that made you vividly relive the regrets that haunted your heart. But would that even work on someone who had no regrets? Maybe it wouldn't work on R— "Of course, even I have my regrets."
"—! Y-you regret something…? Wh-what do you regret…?"
"I regret having to stand here answering Garf's trivial questions. In addition, my shoes have become dirty from entering the forest. This, too, I regret."
Letting out a sigh, Ram patted her chest as she lamented such things. This left Garfiel gawking at her, but he soon accepted a fact—she really didn't have any meaningful regrets.
Her lack of regrets made Ram pretty. This, her typical strength, was what charmed him.
"Something is missing. —I am unsure of just what, but perhaps that would constitute a qualm."
"Ahh?"
"Nothing at all. More importantly, walk me back. Or do you intend to make me travel this path at night alone?"
Declining to touch upon what he had heard her murmur, Ram immediately began walking toward the settlement. It was extremely self-centered behavior, but Garfiel walked after her without a single word of complaint. Along the way, for a single moment, his thoughts lingered on Shima, left back at the cabin. But Ram's unhesitant gait spurred him onward.
There was nothing going on that night. He was certain this quiet night over the Sanctuary would continue, unchanged.
3
"Emilia…are you really all right? It might be better to let all the hard stuff…"
"Mm-hmm, it's fine. Really…really, I'm all right."
With Subaru gloomily sitting in a chair at her bedside, Emilia shook her head. She smiled to try to put him at ease, but her trembling lips failed her.
The sight made Subaru's face cloud over even more.
—It had been half a day since the crystal had cracked and Puck had vanished, his pact vanishing with him.
When she touched her neck, her attachment to the cracked crystal remained. Though it had completely lost its warmth, and her fingertips only drove the loss home, she could not part with it even so.
"I'm sorry… I keep apologizing like that, don't I. But I'm sorry… Even though I really have to take the Trial tonight, too…"
She ought to have hardened her resolve, determined to make up for the prior night's failure at the Trial. Of course, being unable to make up for that, or even challenge it whatsoever, was disheartening to her.
However, as Emilia apologized, Subaru said "It's all right," gently smiling at her.
"No big deal! It's not like any of this is your fault, Emilia. The fault's with the guy who decided…"
" "
"A-anyway. You need to take it easy on yourself. If there's anything I can do…my hands aren't very big, but I'll lend you anything I can."
Hesitant to touch her wounds—that was how Subaru showed his consideration. Accepting this, Emilia sat on the bed as she lowered her eyes, making a little "Mm-hmm" in her throat.
It had been several hours since Emilia had lost her pact with Puck and was left alone before Subaru realized something was wrong—and during that time, over and over, Emilia had gone over her conversation with Puck before he had vanished.
It's been a while, he had said, yet the final conversation exchanged between them had not lasted all that long. Even so, the anguish of remembering the moment of their parting ways throbbed in her chest time and time again.
—That was not all, for the memories she had touched upon displayed scenes unfamiliar to her.
She heard a voice. A gentle voice, a soft voice, a voice full of love was calling Emilia's name.
This was—
"—Emilia? You really are tired, aren't you?"
Leaning forward, peering into her face, Subaru spoke, his voice echoing alongside the voice in her memories.
"Emilia?"
Subaru's voice was a little surprised. That was because Emilia had suddenly held onto his hand.
Numerous times, Subaru had been the one to hold hers, but the opposite was rare.
And right that moment, it was the other way around for once because Emilia wanted to be sure.
—Not about Subaru. Emilia wanted to be sure about herself.
"I'm sure…in the morning… I want to think that by morning…I'll be all right."
"Y-yeah. That's, mm-hmm, I get it. So…"
"Hold my hand. Would you stay here until morning? If you do that, I'm sure I'll…"
Entwining her fingers with Subaru's, Emilia infused the sensation with that prayer. It was a different sensation than the last time she had touched Puck's paw. But she felt like there was something there between them.
"Please, Subaru. I'm sorry. I'm sorry… Please."
"If that's what you want, granting your wish is easy. You don't need to apologize over and over."
Drawing his chair close to the bed, Subaru smiled as he continued holding Emilia's hand. With his other hand, he stroked her head, making Emilia close her eyes from the ticklish feeling.
"Morning…if it's till morning, okay. I believe in you."
To those gentle words, Emilia closed her eyes, the sensation on her palm calming her heart.
Instantly, she finally felt sleepy. —For what she would surely see from that point on was her past.
Before dreaming of her past, she wanted that feeling on her palm from that moment to be the last thing she remembered.
4
—She truly looked small as she walked amid the snow.
Her feet caught on the snow, and she tumbled forward, landing flat on her face. She was clumsy, with a look on her face like she was seeing snow for the first time. In fact, it was. That was the first time she had seen snow.
It was beautiful enough to make anyone tremble, yet so fragile that it crumbled to the touch, and cold enough to elicit tears.
—Emilia understood that this scene from her dream was a fragment of her memories of the past.
Puck had said the lid on top of her memories would be lifted the instant their pact was no more. Indeed, but a few scant hours later, Emilia was visited not only by pain, but by countless scenes unknown to her.
There was a humid, green forest with smiling people and girls with hair as silver as Emilia's, and those girls had happy conversations with men unfamiliar to her. Her homeland was daubed white—those were the moments of time within the dream.
"Emilia!"
Amid the dream, amid the snow, amid the past clawing at her heart, the young Emilia heard a voice call her name.
A woman with silver hair and violet eyes practically leaped through the air as she raced over. Besides these features, the same as Emilia's, she had short hair and almond-shaped eyes. The sight made her heart powerfully, audibly creak.
"I'm sorry, Emilia. I'm sorry. I never taught you any of the important things. I hid everything from you… I just wanted our princess to be happy… please forgive us…forgive me…"
The woman embraced the young Emilia tightly, pleading to her in an earnest voice.
"I love you. I wanted to protect you. I spoke white lies so that no one would hate you."
She desperately pleaded, but the young Emilia of the past shook her head from side to side. She rejected the desperate plea.
The woman loved her and wanted to protect her. Yet she had spoken lies, to avert hatred.
Emilia hated lies. She detested lies. Lies brought nothing but sadness. Lies left Emilia alone. Lies ruined anything and everything. That was why she hated lies.
"—Emilia. I really love you."
This, too, was a lie. All of it was a lie. Lie. Lie. It was a lie. —It was a lie.
Not that she wanted to believe that everything had been a lie…
"Mommy Fortuna, you liar."
Opening her eyes, Emilia spoke those words to the lovely woman seared into her memories.
"Puck, you liar."
Touching the split crystal with her left hand, Emilia spoke those words to the spirit who had rescinded the pact made with Emilia.
And then—
"—Subaru, you liar."
Staring at her empty right hand, Emilia spoke toward the boy who had made a promise to her before she slept.
She spoke to the boy not there.
"…Liar."
There was a moon outside the window, tracing a half-crescent. —It was still in the sky, with the promised morning far-off.
5
It was when Garfiel visited Shima's cabin in the morning on a whim that he realized something was wrong.
The great number of human outsiders currently present made the Sanctuary's situation different from the norm. Because of that, despite Shima being little indisposed due to her secluded life in the forest, he figured he ought to have another word with her at least.
"Old hag? Hey, where the hell'd you go?"
When he looked around the cabin interior, Garfiel twisted his neck, for Shima was absent. It was very early in the morning, but the bedding had already lost its warmth; there was no mistaking that she had left at quite an early hour.
Since going out on a stroll at a rather odd hour ran a high risk of strangers spotting her, Garfiel was internally conflicted. He didn't want to restrict his
grandmother's movements. He didn't want to, but—
"…Right now, there's Roswaal and the miasma bastard here…"
Touching the white scar on his forehead, Garfiel twisted his cheeks.
Touching his scar when he was thinking about something was akin to a force of habit. He'd borne the scar ever since the moment he entered the tomb in his youth.
He behaved like an idiot who did not know fear, but that memory was of the single most foolish thing he'd done. Haunted by the presence of the scar, he touched it to make himself remember to regret and reflect. Hence, it had become a habit.
"A stroll, huh? Days sure get long when ya get old. Maybe I should pour some tea 'n' wait…"
Spotting the teacup placed on the table, Garfiel felt a sense of thirst rising in his throat. Where are those tea leaves, he thought, but something struck him as wrong. —There were two teacups on the table.
Garfiel hadn't had any tea when he'd been there the night before.
"—!"
The sense that something was wrong made Garfiel put his nose to work, practically shooting out the cabin as he rushed outside. There were no footprints remaining on the forest floor. There was virtually no trace of Shima's replica scent, either.
If it was nothing, fine. But if it was something—
Almost flying as he raced through the forest, Garfiel made a beeline back toward the settlement. There were two potential destinations: the Cathedral, to which the outsiders had been exiled, or perhaps— "Tch! Like there's any doubt!"
Garfiel clacked his fangs as his feet carried him straight toward the back of the settlement. Then, just as his destination was coming into sight, Garfiel raised his voice in a "Hey!"
"—! Garfiel?!"
With a pale face, it was none other than Subaru who turned around. There were two others at his side: Ram, and that third-rate guy whose name he didn't remember.
The trio was standing in front of an empty house—the house currently being used as Emilia's place to rest.
"The hell are all of ya doin' out…"
"Hey, do you know where the heck Emilia is?!"
"—The…hell?"
Garfiel, all worked up trying to find Shima, was about to ask if they had any idea where she was when Subaru's words took him by surprise. This instantly left him at a loss.
Garfiel's reaction brought an irritated look over Subaru's face.
"What gives? Do you know where…you didn't abduct her, did you?"
"Don't talk stupid. Why'd I go abductin' the princess? What's goin' on?"
"—Lady Emilia has gone missing. It happened this morning, right under our noses."
In place of the uneasy-looking Subaru, it was Ram who laid bare the circumstances. But the explanation did not induce Garfiel to close his mouth. Emilia was missing. —That made two people missing.
"It seems Mr. Natsuki was holding her hand during the night. When morning came, Mr. Natsuki apparently went to switch with Miss Ram so that she might get a change of clothes…"
"…Well, that's your mistake, ain't it?"
When Third-Rate added more detail, Garfiel let that comment slip. Subaru hung his head with a pathetic look on his face.
To be blunt, Garfiel had suspected it might all be some kind of scheme, but he didn't think Subaru being shaken by Emilia's absence was a ruse. Who could put on an act with a face that pathetic?
If that was so, Shima and Emilia both being missing made this an emergency situation.
" "
No choice, thought Garfiel as he took the blue crystal in his loincloth into his hand. He didn't want to employ his rights as an Apostle of Greed, but if there was ever a time to use the replicas' power, this was it.
—He just needed to mentally order them. Order them to search for Shima, and next, Emilia…
For one second, he was tempted to order Shima to come to his side, but Garfiel forced the notion back down, throwing that option away. He didn't use his rights on Ryuzu or Shima. That was the moral code Garfiel had to protect at all costs.
"…So what, you lookin' for her with other people?"
"We only just found out! We're gonna ask the people from Earlham
Village to…"
"You do whatever ya want. Me, I'll do it my way. Ram!"
If they had their own ideas, he wouldn't object. When Garfiel called her name, Ram nodded deeply, seemingly guessing what he had in mind. Surely she could make use of everyone in the Sanctuary, native and stranger alike.
Garfiel would leave the matter of Emilia in their hands, for he had to search for Shima himself. —He would not divulge Shima's existence to Ram or the others. It was a secret of the Sanctuary, after all.
"If ya find somethin' out, lemme know! And don't do anythin' stupid, ya hear?!"
Driving that one thing home, Garfiel kicked the ground, leaving Ram and the others behind. Activating his explosive leaping strength, he made a full turn, this time racing back to the forest in one go.
He'd rendezvous with a number of the replicas, leading them in an organized search. As he resolved upon this— "—Damn it all! What the hell's goin' on here?!"
He couldn't get the others to search for Shima. Even the residents of the Sanctuary did not know of her existence. Ryuzu was the exception, but Ryuzu and Shima…he thought it would be cruel to make his two grandmothers meet each other.
He hadn't heard the particulars of the situation. But the gist was that Shima had once been Ryuzu but had stopped being Ryuzu somewhere along the line. Given the sad way she talked it, he didn't need to hear anymore.
All Garfiel needed to do was keep it to himself. That would protect the secret.
In that moment, it was for that sake, for the sake of secrets, for the sake of the Sanctuary, that Garfiel ran.
6
"This is…"
Wiping the sweat on his brow, Garfiel grimaced at the disagreeable scent.
Garfiel did not like this place. Better put, he hated it. The pungent scent hovering in its environs was akin to a mortal enemy to his sensitive nose, but the largest reason was the purpose of the facility's existence.
—The Ryuzu Meyer replication facility. That was the white building's role.
"Why would the old hag come here…? She hates this place as much as I
do, damn it."
Muttering curses as he entered the building, Garfiel squinted in its dimly lit interior.
Garfiel had met with the replicas at Shima's cabin to receive their reports as Eyes.
The replicas lurking in every corner of the forest bore the duty of being Eyes, observing the Sanctuary to find intruders from the outside or anomalies that might occur within. When he made proactive use of his rights as an Apostle of Greed, it was usually for that.
Ryuzu and Shima laughed it off, but in actuality, the Eyes had been very useful. On the first day that Subaru and the others had visited the Sanctuary, it was thanks to them that he'd been able to capture the group so quickly after they'd crossed the barrier. Finding out that Shima was at the facility right then was another result of their work.
The Eyes had not spotted Shima. But that meant by implication that Shima had gone to a place where no replica was on duty. That strongly pointed to the facility and its surroundings.
Of course, he'd made the replicas continue the search, but— "—It's open. So this is the place."
Having arrived at the spacious room in the back of the facility, Garfiel clicked his tongue in certainty. At the tip of his gaze was where a white wall ought to have been—but the entrance to the hidden room behind it was wide open.
Garfiel pretty much dragged himself there only once in several months to a year's time—to pick up a new replica created from the device within the chamber.
And only those with the same status as Garfiel bore could enter that place.
—For the conditions to enter were twofold: to bear a crystal and to be an Apostle of Greed.
Garfiel knew of only one person beyond himself who could possibly fit those two conditions.
"Old hag! Are ya here?! Can ya hear my voice?!"
Shouting loudly, Garfiel advanced to the back of the chamber with ragged-sounding footsteps.
He was halfway certain. He was being lured there. Some kidnapper had brought Shima into the facility, lying in wait as he came searching for her.
Knowing that much, he ought to have been cautious, but Garfiel was nothing if not bold and impetuous.
If it was a trap, he'd crush it underfoot; if a scheme, he'd clamp his jaws and shatter it. —His conclusion was plain and simple.
"Old hag! Old hag—!!"
Surely, there was no reason to inflict harm upon her. He could surmise no reason to do so. At the very least, she'd served the other party tea. Even if the opponent was some strategist with a devilish mind at work—
" "
Hearing no reply, Garfiel set foot into the chamber, resting his eyes upon the so-called magic crystal.
In its blue light, there was a girl hugging her knees sealed within. This was the girl from which all the replicas originated—Ryuzu Meyer.
Garfiel felt bad about the presence of the girl, one he took for granted, which he could call neither materials nor a corpse. He felt himself reflected in that presence: already ended, yet continuing to exist.
Perhaps it was because her existence jabbed deeply into his chest that he was slow to respond to the footsteps behind him.
"Who—?!"
Turning around and raising his voice, he immediately scolded himself for the stupid question. There was only one sort of person who would show up at that time and place. In other words, the presence belonged to Subaru Natsuki
—
"—I am terribly sorry I cannot live up to your expectations."
"—?!"
The whisper in his ear and the pat on his shoulder sent Garfiel into shock. In other words, this was proof he had been approached from the opposite direction of the footsteps he had heard. And the one who had done this was—
"The host of the banquet is absent. May I serve you in his place?"
Speaking these words, the gentleman with delicate features bowed, touching his hat to his chest. He remembered his face. His face was all he remembered. He did not remember his name. That was why Garfiel called him Third-Rate.
"Why are you…where is that bastard…?"
His surprise over the young man's emergence undiminished, Garfiel searched the room for any sight of Subaru.
The young man was unexpected, but he could guess who'd set this up. Of course, the uproar over Emilia's absence was a pack of lies, too; the shaken look on his face, and all the rest, was purely the product of acting— "Actually, this circumstance truly was unexpected."
"—Huh?"
"It truly was our blunder to let Lady Emilia slip out while our eyes were turned. To be blunt, I am tempted to wonder if even my fortune is so poor.
However…"
Cutting off his words at that point, the young man returned the hat in his hand back to his head.
After that, he rubbed his own nose with his finger, making what seemed like a blushy smile.
"My friend asked me to, you see. Knowing full well 'tis a minor role, I shall play it to the fullest regardless."
7
Dragging her feet, she walked toward the pale glow with darkness hovering all around it.
The exhaustion of her willpower robbed her of endurance as well. Even though she was moving but a short distance, her body felt heavy. Even so, the girl—Emilia—was unwilling to halt, forcing herself to move forward.
Puck's prediction had been correct. The lid on her memories had been lifted, and recollections came back to her one after another.
She didn't know what connected the two. She did not know why Puck's absence was related to her memories. Was it Puck who had sealed her memories? If so, why would Puck— "—Mommy Fortuna."
Instead of that doubt, what she put on her lips was the name of the woman who had been like a mother to her and was strongly carved into her memories. She was not her birth mother. She was sure she'd heard that from the woman herself. Those memories, too, would surely come back to her in short order.
Her memories of Fortuna were gentle, warm, and strong—to Emilia, she was the ideal woman.
—The mother who should have been turned into a statue of ice was somewhere in the frozen forest that very moment.
"Ugh…hkk…"
The memory of the sin she could never undo throbbed. A sob trickled out from Emilia's lips.
Not everything had come back to her yet. And yet, a feeling of guilt welled up from deep inside her chest. Even without her memories, surely her body, her blood, and her soul remembered.
It had always been like that. Always.
Desperately, earnestly, with all her strength, she didn't intend to hold back in the slightest, yet Emilia's hands could not even glance across the surface of that which she truly wished to reach.
That was probably why Puck, why Subaru, why Fortuna had slipped through her fingers—
"That's why I…"
Even as she sobbed and cried tiny tears, Emilia pressed on.
At the speed of a crawl, she headed for a particular place in the dense sea of green.
She did this because in her present state, that was the final stronghold in which Emilia could place her trust.
"…Liar."
There was no one to hear the word of blame that fell from her slender lips.
Nor was there anyone who clearly understood who the word was for.
8
"—Ya ain't got what it takes for this role, Third-Rate."
Immediately after recovering from the initial shock, Garfiel seemed to chew on the words before spitting them out.
The tone of his voice was intimidating. The young man on the receiving end of it made a pathetic-looking face.
"…Well, I imagined you might say as much. I, too, believe I am behaving rather recklessly in courting this circumstance. Truly, I had intended to settle this with dialogue between us."
"Dialogue, ya say?"
"Yes. Ryuzu…no, Shima should have been here. At Mr. Natsuki's initiative, we wished to have Miss Shima in attendance while we were to speak with you… However…"
Scratching his cheek, the young man let a weary sigh trickle out.
"The incident with Lady Emilia has completely thrown off my plans. Having said that, I have already engaged in wicked deeds all over, so I must adjust appropriately to changing circumstances…"
"…What of the old hag?"
"As I could not read the situation, I had her distance herself. There is no one here save you and I."
"That so."
He'd asked what he wanted to. If neither Shima nor Subaru, who had hatched the scheme, were present in this place, he was done here. Coming to this conclusion, Garfiel glared at the young man. However—
"That bastaaard…playin' his little games…!"
Putting his fierce, seething emotions onto his tongue, Garfiel raggedly vented his rage toward Subaru.
—Since the beginning. Yes, from the very beginning, Garfiel couldn't stand Subaru.
With sharp eyes in contrast to the soft look of his face, he always behaved flippantly and frivolously. Yet, in spite of that, from time to time, he had a look in his eyes like someone who'd gone through crises that Garfiel could not even imagine.
That gaze of his, as if he was staring off into some place far away, struck Garfiel the same as that of the man he liked least in the entire world. Of course it had annoyed him.
If he'd used his own hands to pinch and crush him sooner, none of this would have happened.
"I am inclined to thank you for not being quite that rash."
"What the hell did you stay behind for? The guy in question ain't here so there's no talk to be had."
"You have a point. And yet, right now…I wish to buy time for a man and a woman to have a moment with each other."
The young man raised a finger to his lips, winking with one eye. The gesture brought a questioning look over Garfiel's face.
But as soon as he understood the meaning of his words, and just which man and which woman he meant, the impact ran through him.
" "
That instant, what shot through Garfiel was intuition beyond anything he could explain. Hence, Garfiel, a man who judged things in accordance with his instincts, was certain it was fact.
That moment, Subaru was searching for the supposedly missing Emilia so that he might meet with her.
Meet her, and do what? What could that man, qualified to be an Apostle of Greed, do—
"Oh my! I cannot let you go as you please. I told you, did I not? However minor, I have a role I must play."
" "
"I feel obligated to warn you, I may not be much for direct combat, but I have a bounty of tricks up my sleeve. For instance, employing water and
wind magic to cast the sound of my footsteps into the distance…"
"Yeah? Here's what I gotta say, Third-Rate."
When Garfiel turned, seemingly intent on leaving the hidden chamber, the young man stood to bar his path. And as that young man attempted to recite some list, Garfiel said it in one, brief sentence—and one alone.
"Ya ain't got what it takes for this role."
"—Guh, ugh!"
The blow to his solar plexus elicited a trickling moan from the young man as he proceeded to crumple. He swooned, spewing the contents of his stomach. The punch had avoided his vitals. That was Garfiel's show of mercy and restraint.
"That's payback for the little trick with the footsteps earlier. See ya."
Leaving the fallen young man those words, Garfiel hurried, racing out of the facility.
He had to return to the Sanctuary. —No, it wasn't the Sanctuary he needed to head for: It was the tomb.
He knew intuitively. Garfiel trusted his intuition—that letting Subaru and Emilia meet, and giving them time to exchange words, would bring a bad situation forth.
Besides, Garfiel sympathized with Emilia. He pitied her.
His memory of Emilia looking heartbroken, the cruelty of the Trial pounded into her, was still fresh. Garfiel had tasted the same fear himself long ago.
They were similar. Even setting aside the blood that flowed through their veins, of course he'd harbor empathy for her.
That was why Garfiel thought he shouldn't let Subaru meet Emilia. It had nothing to do with their fondness and attraction for each other. —If you challenged the past, you got hurt. He'd put a stop to that.
"The replicas…!"
Garfiel thought that, in the time between leaving the temple and returning to the settlement, he ought to give urgent commands for the replicas to search for Subaru and Emilia. Shima weighed on his mind, but at this moment in time, the other two came first. In particular, he needed to mercilessly twist Subaru to the ground by force, even if he needed to use the replicas to do it.
With that thought, he rummaged through his pocket—and it was then that Garfiel realized that the crystal wasn't there.
" "
The instant he realized it, the blood drained from his face. He kicked a tree to kill the momentum of his sprint. He searched inside his loincloth once more. However, the crystal was not there, either. There was no way he'd have dropped something so precious.
After all, to Garfiel, it was part of a memory he could not afford to lose—
"—! That…third-rate bastard!"
Garfiel howled as his guess set his thought process ablaze.
In the hidden chamber, he'd deliberately thrown the sound of his footsteps with the aim of getting close. The various exaggerated gestures were all distractions—so that Garfiel would not notice Third-Rate pickpocketing his crystal.
Garfiel hesitated for a moment. But then he immediately cast it aside, turning back toward the facility.
It was not that he was afraid of being unable to give commands to the replicas. In the end, the crystal was a tool; all he needed to make a new one was to break a piece off of the magic crystal sealing Ryuzu Meyer within. Objectively speaking, there was no reason to be nervous.
But to Garfiel, it was not so. To Garfiel, and to one other— "Third-Raaate—!!"
He returned to the facility with enough force to break through a solid wall. But there was no sign of the man he had punched in the gut, the man who ought to have been lying there. He realized that the swooning had been an act as well. He'd been had.
Garfiel had been completely, utterly ensnared and was still being toyed with that very instant…!
" "
He raced out of the facility, whipping his head all around. His nose wasn't working. It was useless. The foul odor of the place violated his nostrils, rendering them unusable. He squinted, acting like a beast in search of even the slightest change around him. Casting all dignity aside, he went down on all fours and crawled. Footprints. Footprints from leather boots. These he followed.
Ferociously breaking through the forest, he trampled all manner of foliage, eyes bloodshot as he pursued traces of leather. Finally—
"I found ya!! Don't ya dare think about gettin' away from me!!"
Leaping, Garfiel twisted in midair, throwing up dust as he landed. His eyes were trained upon a gap in the trees standing straight before him. He'd caught sight of the young man in question.
From the nimble way he fled, the earlier punch had taken little out of him.
"You con artist…!"
"Calling me a con artist is quite offensive…er, no, perhaps I should puff my chest out in pride at my opponent claiming he was deceived, for such are my long-cherished goals as a merchant…"
Spinning worthless words, the young man calmly stood in defiance of the angry Garfiel. Garfiel straight-out admired his nerve. He admired it and, while admiring it, would crush it with his fangs.
"Give back the stone. That's my stone. I know that you stole it, you thieving bastard…!"
"Third-rate, and now thief…it is truly difficult to be appraised in line with my own ideals. —I understand how Mr. Natsuki and Lady Emilia feel."
"I ain't askin' about that! And I got no intention of playin' along so ya can buy time!!"
When the young man murmured disconcertedly, Garfiel glared at him, unreservedly yelling in anger.
He understood. He finally understood. These were enemies, and mortal enemies at that. The more the young man before his eyes, and Subaru, made Garfiel talk, the more these mortal enemies backed him into a corner.
Just as he entrusted his life to fang and claw, they entrusted theirs to words, tongues, and schemes.
That was why he had to settle the conflict right then, right there.
" "
The sharpness of the glint in Garfiel's eyes increased as he paid conscious attention to the young man's each and every word and action. In the earlier battle, all his gestures had been a trap. He could not lower his guard, not relenting for even one moment, one second.
"Finally…you are looking at me, Garfiel."
Seeing right through his hostility-filled eyes, the young man laughed.
Shudder went Garfiel, feeling a chill run up his spine. Why was this man laughing?
"Third-rate, thief, all that is fine. People like me do not even enter the vision of people like you. You are prejudiced toward opponents such as Mr. Natsuki and I. That is why you never paid me any heed."
He had no objection to the rambling words the young man spoke. It was all fact. Garfiel had never considered the young man someone he should pay the slightest heed to, let alone be wary of him as a potential foe.
And look where it got him. He'd been led by the nose, extensively toyed with, and reduced to his current state.
That was why, that moment, he was being so wary, absolutely not turning his eyes away for a single instant—
"A merchant reads his chances for victory, acting several moves ahead. I am no exception."
"Huh…?"
"Last night, it was Mr. Natsuki who spoke with Miss Shima over tea. I do not know what occurred in the immediate aftermath, nor does Mr. Natsuki know of my actions, I am sure."
Shaking his head side to side, Otto backed up bit by bit. Seeing this, Garfiel realized he had once again been slow to decide due to indignation at what he was being told.
—He needed to ignore the words. The man before him was his enemy.
Whatever the scheme, he simply needed to make his enemy submit.
"I'll deal with ya here and now. And next…" "Yes. That."
One instant, he made that assertion, stepping forward in pursuit of the young man—the next, he was assaulted by a floating feeling.
His right foot plunged through the ground he'd stepped on, causing him to lose his balance. Instantly, he stretched a hand to a nearby tree. Tree trunk and all, Garfiel was swallowed up by a frighteningly large cave-in.
"Uooaaaa—?!"
He made an anguished cry as the blow of the fall came immediately. He fixed his posture, glaring immediately upward. The depth of the hole was several yards; going back was trivial. But in that case, why had he made a hole like that?
—What was this hole, at a size and depth completely beyond human strength to dig, doing here?
As he had the thought, he squinted at the hole. It was then that Garfiel realized that something was off: not with the top, nor the bottom, but with the earthen walls. They contained countless points of light; these were countless
winged insects enshrouded by phosphorescent light—
"Since long ago, I have had few human friends. Instead, I get along quite well with my friends beyond humans."
Garfiel was taken aback by the voice coming down at him from overhead. He could not instantly comprehend the meaning of those words. But his instincts rang an alarm bell warning him of danger.
And once again, even that very instant, Garfiel was listening to his enemy's words.
Accordingly, the next moment, his just rewards blew up in his face.
"Now, the forest itself is your enemy. —First, have a taste of the Zodda bugs' warm welcome!"
Drowning out his sentence was the sound of wings, raging like a gale inside the hole. Garfiel raised an angry yell in response.
Yell and roar.
The reverberations echoed. And so—the Battle of the Lost Woods of Cremaldi commenced.
9
—When it felt like he heard a roar far off in the distance, Subaru's breath caught.
For an instant, he looked back; the urge to run there and confirm the situation raced through him. But he somehow managed to resist.
The die had already been cast. Garfiel had to have realized by then that Subaru was involved in Shima's disappearance. It was not difficult to imagine his anger over the number of covert activities and dirty tricks, which must have been driving him mad.
He'd truly have liked to settle things nice and properly at the discussion table beforehand, but that was no longer possible.
"Counting on you, Otto. Just don't do anything really crazy…"
Fully expecting Garfiel to be in an agitated state, it was Otto who had volunteered to take responsibility for explaining things. At the replication facility, Otto had made arrangements to await Garfiel's arrival. Surely, Otto would be able to soothe his anger. In contrast to that thought, Subaru was fiercely uneasy as well.
"After all, that Otto bastard is a total idiot with surprising disregard for his own life…"
He was worried about the fact that Otto often risked his life for the sake of others.
He'd said if he came into contact with Garfiel, he'd tell him everything and let himself be taken prisoner. But with the plan already thrown well off track, it was crucial for both of them to adjust to the changing circumstances thereafter.
"Don't make me pay for the incense at your funeral, Otto."
Even if it came to that, Subaru wouldn't be sending any money. It'd get sent to him and Otto both.
He didn't want it to come to that. And partly so that it never would—
"—Right now, I need to fulfill my role."
Spitting out words of resolve, Subaru stood boldly before his destination.
The entrance before him was open, dark, and filled with cold air. The instant Subaru stepped inside, his entire body felt languid, and he was seized by the alien sense that his blood was flowing backward.
"Nggh…"
Putting a hand to his mouth, Subaru forced himself to ignore the rising sense of nausea within him as he advanced further still.
His eardrums were violated by the hard echoes of shoes, sounds of his own making. The air licked at his eyeballs. Subaru put his hand to the wall, heading within as he struggled against the sense that the very world was rejecting him.
Fortunately, he'd kept his stomach empty in preparation for this. He became accustomed to the feeling of his innards being wrung and forced the sensation down with willpower, lightly closing and opening his eyes as he crept forward at a turtle's pace. And then— "—Ahh, I'm so glad. Finally found you."
After passing through a corridor that seemed to stretch for all eternity, Subaru let his shoulders drop in relief.
Before his eyes, leaning against a weathered wall, there was a girl clutching her knees in the dry corridor. When the girl noticed Subaru, she opened her violet eyes in a daze.
"Suba…ru…?"
Even though it was a faltering voice, he was satisfied knowing she had called his name.
After that, Subaru sat as well, right by the cowering girl's side. "All right, Emilia-tan. Let's talk, okay?"
CHAPTER 5
OTTO SUWEN
1
—To the young Otto Suwen, the world was a cradle straight out of hell.
"xxxxxxx" " " "***! ****—!!"
Unceasingly, twenty-four hours a day, Otto continued to hear incomprehensible voices.
Sometimes, they were weeping aloud; sometimes, they were crazed with anger; sometimes, they sounded like songs; sometimes, they sounded like death cries. Little by little, the voices forced Otto to be their audience.
No matter where he was in the world, the voices would not release the young Otto from their grip.
—How did everyone else live while taking such a noisy world for granted?
Such was the question Otto lived with in that hell, where he could not even hear the voices of the people next to him as he pleased.
When his parents picked him up, he could not hear whatever it is they said along with their smiles. No matter how deep the affection in their words, their voices were swallowed up by background noise, never reaching Otto's comprehension.
The reason Otto had grown up without a smile, without anger, without tears, and with virtually nothing worthy of calling an emotion was because to Otto, everything happening on the outside sounded like the exact same thing.
His parents struggled to understand their son's abnormality. They had him assessed by various healers, who strove mightily to ascertain the cause. But Otto's abnormality was a listening deficiency because he was hearing too much—something utterly incomprehensible to those who did not possess his blessing.
Hence, it was only natural that his parents' love shifted away from Otto and onto his older and younger brothers. Unlike Otto, his two siblings grew up without difficulty, thriving as they were raised with love for three.
He did not resent his parents or his siblings for this. One might say that he did not have enough concern for others to resent them, but even he was able to understand that his family had tried their best.
Even if he could not understand it in words, he was grateful—particularly to his older brother.
—If voices could not reach, perhaps he could express his thoughts through writing?
Realizing this, it was his older brother who began trying to read aloud to Otto. Taught by his brother, Otto began to learn the written word. However, learning proved exceptionally difficult.
After all, he could not use sound to comprehend the meaning of words. Even though Otto came to understand what individual words meant, it took ten times longer for him to learn than for a normal child as he spent day after day facing a desk.
Fortunately, this did not seem like suffering to him. Ironically, it was not because Otto was desensitized to hard work; to the young Otto, unable to live a normal life, study was a way to kill time.
"—Thank you for everything."
Otto remembered the day when his parents broke down in tears at the page upon which he'd written his clumsy words of gratitude.
He couldn't claim to have understood the emotion of gratitude. It was just that he was aware he was being treated in a way he ought to be grateful for, so it was his youthful judgment to put together an obligatory display of gratitude. And yet, his parents were brought to tears, their hearts shaken.
What was this? Why were these two people crying? What was it they were feeling?
—When he raised his voice and cried, it might well have been the first time he had cried since birth.
If so, to Otto, it was the cry of his second birth.
"Berukubikinodomesaesere" "NRTMKMEEIAA" "mi—mi—mu—me— mi—"
It was soon after that he discovered that the hellish, incomprehensible chorus did have a rhyme and rhythm.
By the time Otto became able to separate the countless noises he heard unceasingly and could completely able to isolate human words from the rest at will, Otto had greeted his eighth year of age.
Otto's life was still behind that of others of his age group, but his growth after conquering his blessing dazzled the eyes; he greedily absorbed all kinds of things like how parched sand absorbed water. He soon caught up to the rest of his age group—nay, the youthful Otto displayed talent beyond that.
—And he became isolated from that age group, grandly failing at human relations.
"Why does everyone take living in a difficult world like this for granted?"
He'd already made up for his supposedly lagging education. However, his problem was now human relations—Otto, who lagged behind his age group in terms of growth as a person, made a string of blunders that should have played out in early childhood.
And the biggest problem of all was indeed the blessing that had shadowed Otto since birth.
"There was a big light." "I came, I saw, I won." "Hey, a monster's coming."
When he reached ten years of age, Otto realized there was a change in the voices he was consciously filtering. Noises that had once been meaningless had changed into something that did hold meaning. And as he verified the change in the voices more and more, Otto learned he bore a blessing, and so, too, he learned the true nature of the hell of his youth.
Having discovered the existence of his blessing, Otto immediately spoke to his older brother about this power. When anything happened, his older brother, who had taught words to the young Otto, had become the one he could most rely on for guidance.
"Mm, I see. Mm…well, you see. Otto, this power, mm, it's amazing. Because I think it's amazing…you, ah, see. You really need to stop speaking to Zodda bugs where people can see."
When Otto revealed his blessing, his older brother's face went pale as he earnestly spoke those words of advice.
I see went Otto, greatly appreciative. A blessing was a boon from the world, but there were people in this world that might use such a power for evil purposes. As expected of his older brother, his words of advice, spoken to protect him from such malice in the world, were right on target.
—It was three days later when Otto's blessing was exposed to those around him, making him hated by all others his age.
The trigger was his little brother seeing him secretly conversing with the family land dragon. Seeing no other option, Otto spoke to his younger brother about the blessing, whereupon his brother carelessly let word slip to a friend of his.
Boys and girls gathered around. To prove that his younger brother was not a liar, Otto had no option but to prove that the blessing's power was real. To illustrate this, he called over every Zodda bug in the city.
—In a single instant, the name of the Zodda bug bastard who could not read the mood spread far and wide.
Thereafter, Otto concealed his blessing, determined never to make use of it again. Over the course of several years, he covered up his foul reputation, succeeding at erasing the abominable darkness in his past by the time he reached the tender age of fourteen.
—And during the wet season of his fifteenth year, Otto made an enemy of the daughter of a powerful figure in his city and was exiled from his homeland.
The extremely short version of the circumstances was this: He had become entangled in a love-hate drama between a man and a woman.
On the night of a birthday party for the girl in question, her lover hurled angry shouts into Otto's house over her being with another man—along with insults of You Zodda bug bastard!!
Accused of a crime he did not remember committing, with his dark past dredged up at that, Otto lost his presence of mind.
Accordingly, Otto released the seal, seeking the cooperation of the living creatures in the city so that he might clear himself of suspicion. And having established that on the night in question, the aforementioned girl had actually fooled around with seven other men, he stated loud and clear to the poor man, It seems you were the eighth!
On top of being punched by the man, he was targeted by an assassin hired by the girl for his exposing her relations with the opposite sex. Otto finally abandoned his homeland, and his father used his connections to get a merchant who was a friend of his to hire Otto.
After training under that man, he was sixteen when he set off as a traveling merchant—this marked the start of Otto Suwen standing as his own man.
His subsequent journey as a traveling merchant was truly a chronicle of one hardship after another.
It seemed Otto was born under a star with a great love of calamity and misfortune. If he hauled fruit, foul weather would come calling; if he took a shortcut through the mountains, bandits would attack him; if he camped with other traveling merchants, he and he alone would suffer insect stings all over his body.
Even as such days of misfortune befell him, Otto had managed to live on without going bankrupt because he was blessed with mercantile talent as great as his luck was poor. Even when making great gambles, he rarely lost, and while maintaining that noxious balance, four years as a merchant passed in the blink of an eye.
"Lad, go get some sleep already."
Such were the nighttime exchanges Otto had with his Fulfew, his beloved dragon and only traveling companion.
It had been five years since he had been exiled from home. Fulfew's presence loomed large in keeping Otto from returning home with a broken heart. Since it was the land dragon, Fulfew, who had been the trigger for his blessing being exposed to his little brother, they had, in truth, been a pair for the last ten years.
"If you don't, it'll hold you back. You have a large deal to make tomorrow, yes?"
Fulfew's considerate words made Otto nod with a smile. Otto was certain the big job waiting for him the next day would turn his fortunes as a merchant around.
And so, the momentous day came. —He'd been completely had and laden with a vast debt to boot.
The oil he'd hoarded became unsellable; in contrast, the metal wares he'd relinquished had precipitously climbed in value. Having misread the market trends, Otto knew his life as a merchant had fallen into grave peril.
If he did not turn things around in a single blow, he would inevitably have to let Fulfew go. Not only that—it was even possible he would be forced to return to his birth family in tears.
To Otto, that was something that had to be averted at all costs.
Otto loved his birth family. He was aware of their love for him. And so, too, was he aware that his younger self had brought his birth family trouble over and over.
In that span of a decade and a half, Otto had already caused his family an entire lifetime's worth of trouble. He needed to use the remainder of his life to make up for those fifteen years.
He would properly pay his debts in full. After all, Otto Suwen was a merchant's son.
—When an acquaintance told him of a lucrative offer, Otto immediately raced toward it.
The contract was not to secure merchandise, but to use his dragon carriage as transport. Otto hastened to arrive before anyone else. "Lad, stop this already," said Fulfew, but he would not listen, employing his blessing to make a beeline to his destination. And then—
"My, my, my…where are you going in ssssuch a hurry?" —And then, he landed in quite a mess.
Captured by a group with strange looks in their eyes, Otto firmly believed that his misfortune had reached its zenith. Separated from Fulfew, Otto was rolled up in a mat in a cold cave, despairing amid its tranquility.
Despair. Yes, he despaired. For the first time in his life, Otto despaired.
After all, at the time, the power of Otto's blessing had completely abandoned him. He rested his hopes on his blessing, seeking the aid of living creatures in the forest and the cave so that he might search for a way to escape, intending to use that nostalgic hell to find a way out.
—But in that place, he could not hear a single word of the hellish chorus he had found so irritating.
It was an overwhelming quiet of a sort he had never before tasted. In that silence, Otto, resigned to hell, found out what hell truly was. It was then that he understood that true silence was the sound made by the footsteps of impending death.
This is the end, he thought. Strength drained from his limbs, and light vanished from his eyes. Without having accomplished a single thing, he would pathetically meet his end in a cold cave. —And then, that despair suddenly came to an end.
"The hell? Thought them Witch Cultists were indiscriminate! They playin' around or somethin'?!"
A great voice echoed through the cave, bringing Otto, on the edge of oblivion, back to reality.
Lifting his face, he called out for aid with a raspy voice. The one who heard this and emerged was a large-framed dog-man who spoke in the Kararagi dialect.
"Bro, ya got some good luck! If we hadn't come 'ere, those guys would've killed ya for sure! Ya better give our boy general a big ol' thanks!"
"B-boy general…?"
"Our commandin' officer's still a kid, so boy general! And your savior, bro!"
"R-right…u-understood. Thank you very much. Then, I must also offer my…"
Thanks to that person, Otto was about to say, but when he lifted his face, he realized.
The dog-man before his eyes had a look of surprise trained toward Otto. Without Otto understanding what the reaction meant, the dog-man pulled a white hand towel from his pocket and tossed it over.
"Hey, if ya gonna cry, cry where people can't see. A man can't be cryin' in front of people."
"Er, erm…c-cry?"
"Tears are what ya use to clean yer heart! They say that in Kararagi a lot.
Gah-ha-ha-ha-hah!"
That was all the dog-man said before turning his back to Otto out of consideration. Clueless, Otto touched the towel he had received to his own face—it was then that he finally became aware of his tears.
His tears were trickling, falling out. The instant he became aware of that, their force began to increase all at once.
"Ah, da…wh-what—why is…why is…!"
Otto pressed the hand towel to his face, desperately resisting the ceaseless torrent of tears.
He did not know why they poured out. —No, this was untrue. He actually knew.
"I-I'm glad to…b-be alive…!"
He still hadn't accomplished anything. Otto had nearly met his end without even having found meaning to his birth.
Surviving like that had made him able to appreciate that.
—Otto felt that, as his tears flowed, his life was being reborn.
He had cried for the first time on the day he was born into the world.
He had cried for the second time on the day he learned the love his family had for him, discovering his own heart.
And on that day, he cried for the third time, for his brush with despair and death had taught him the meaning of the goal called living.
—On that day, Otto Suwen cried for the first time all over again.