CHAPTER 8
FACES FASHIONED FROM SNOW
1
In the snow-marred Sanctuary, their fields of vision were filled by the great horde of demon beasts that were Gluttony incarnate.
But his trust in the lovely girl at his back and the warmth he felt in his palm were definitely the real deal.
—That was why Subaru Natsuki stood there without the slightest hesitation or doubt.
“You sure stomped the heck out of ’em, Emilia-tan…!”
Subaru’s face was buffeted by the thunderous blizzard as he praised Emilia’s valiant fighting.
The falling snow had instantly turned the Sanctuary into the front line of the Great Rabbit’s attack. But on previous attempts, by the time that situation arose, the destruction of the Sanctuary was halfway written in stone. This time, he’d averted failure because Emilia had fought valiantly against the demon beasts without retreating a single step.
“—You evacuating everyone to the tomb means you cleared the Trials, right?”
Emilia was taking on the demon-beast horde while shielding Echidna’s tomb at her back. At the tomb’s entrance, he could see people from the Sanctuary and from Earlham Village watching the state of the battle hand in hand. Ryuzu, who was standing at the congregation’s head, told him that this union between the two groups was the result of something that went beyond a simple weighing of pros and cons.
And the one who’d worked hardest to bring that situation about wasn’t Emilia or Ryuzu.
“—Ram.”
There was no reply to his call. Her eyelids were closed, and her body was limp, bereft of strength.
Ram had remained in the Sanctuary, vowing to fulfill her greatest wish. Now she was continuing to sleep in the arms of Roswaal, who was sitting on the steps of the tomb in a daze, his expression lost and empty.
Just what had happened between Ram and Roswaal? At present, Subaru had no way of knowing.
“Subaru, for now, could you focus over here, I wonder?”
Subaru was sinking into thought when he felt a tug from the little hand connected to his own. Hearing that familiar voice address him in unfamiliar fashion, Subaru replied with a spontaneous “uhyah!”
“…Why are you giving such a bizarre reply?”
“Er, having you call me by my first name is so fresh and vivid that I have to hold back my joy.”
“Is that all…? Could you indulge in such deep sentiments later, I wonder? …S-Subaru.”
“Beako, you are so cute.”
When Subaru voiced his honest opinion, Beatrice went red-faced, shaking their joined hands around with considerable force. Smiling at her adorable reaction, Subaru gathered himself and let out a breath.
“So, Beatrice. The opponent’s the Great Rabbit. You ready for this?”
“This is the worst situation possible. We have only just formed our pact, the opponent is one of the three great demon beasts, and we are unprepared. My contractor is an amateur, and it has been four centuries since Betty has been in a real fight.”
“And?”
“One might call this an appropriate handicap.”
Beatrice smiled impetuously as the clacking fangs pressed upon them all at once. Stepping forward as if to greet them, Subaru gave a thumbs-up to Emilia as she stood behind them.
“Me and Beatrice’ll send that horde packing. Emilia-tan, take down any that slip by us, ’kay?!”
“—Understood—leave it to me! So the rest is up to you.”
“Yep, we got this.”
The rule was to assign the right person to the right job. It also reminded him about the saying that the happiest wives were the ones whose husbands were well and often away from home.
Emilia exhaled deeply behind him as mana surged all about, forming an icy, defensive line. Standing in front of the zone of freezing cold, Subaru stood face-to-face against the demon beasts filling his vision.
In contrast to its adorable appearance, the Great Rabbit was ferocious, its very existence odious. Twice, he had lost his life to those fangs. His fear of slipping away as he was devoured was difficult to forget. But—
“Are you scared, I wonder?”
—as Subaru held his breath, Beatrice posed the question with a composed expression. Seeing her eyes and the profile of her face told him more than mere words—they told Subaru exactly who was with him then and there.
“Nah. I’m not scared.”
“Oh?”
“I have Emilia behind me and you beside me—gotta say, best feeling ever.”
“As it should be.”
Beatrice smiled wryly. Meeting her adorable, smiling face, Subaru donned a wicked smile of his own.
The Great Rabbit Horde raised a disturbing howl, leaping all at once toward the pair, who wore bold, fearless smiles.
Faced with that attack—no, that act of feeding—Beatrice and Subaru raised their joined hands, her left, his right.
“First, how about a minor test, I wonder? —El Minya.”
The moment the chant was complete, a vortex formed in midair, summoning purple-colored crystals all around the pair.
The gleaming crystals, which were shaped like icicles, resembled the purple arrows Beatrice had used on a previous go-around to skewer Elsa; it was a spell she’d called her specialty. Yet, the sheer number of arrows loading the sky was incomparable to what he had seen before.
Targeting took but an instant. Locking on to the heads of every demon beast that made up the Great Rabbit Horde, the purple arrows shot forward at the same time.
Each missile found a skull, slaying every one of the demon beasts. Their dead bodies turned into purple crystals, like the arrows that had felled them, then shattered, unable to withstand the raging snow. The world of white was filled with glimmering purple fragments.
With a single blow at the outset of the battle, the Great Rabbit vanguard was nearly annihilated. Of course, it was difficult to call this a painful blow to a demon beast that could infinitely propagate, but the spectacular feat left Subaru amazed.
“Th-that’s incredible—!”
“R-really? This is nothing at all. For Betty, this is but a piece of cake, I suppose.”
“Oh, come on, be real…what’s this magic that has so much power?! What element is that?!”
“The Dark element, of course. Also, is this even a fraction of its full potential, I wonder?”
Seeing Subaru’s animated reaction made Beatrice proudly puff out her chest.
She took pride in the magic Mother had taught her, the magic she had worked so hard to master.
“I shall demonstrate the mastery of the Dark element and show you that the power of Dark magic is the greatest this world has to offer.”
“What…should I do?”
“Would you hold Betty’s hand and not leave her alone, I wonder?”
Beatrice spoke such endearing words as she strengthened her grip on Subaru’s hand. Squeezing her palm back, Subaru glared at the menace before them, as if to tell Beatrice it was time to let loose.
Devouring the fragments of their comrades’ corpses, the Great Rabbit host prepared to advance as a ravaging horde once more. But before they could start…
“Subaru, this is a good lesson for a spirit mage—rather than use the spirit mage’s own mana, as is typical, shall I use magic to directly manipulate the mana in the air, I wonder?”
“I see—in that case, even with my busted Gate… Okay, I’ll leave Shamak to you!”
“Do not expect anything as paltry as Subaru’s useless Shamak! Can Subaru, who’s equally useless and nothing more than dead weight, do anything for Betty save showering her with praise?”
Beatrice’s imperious pop quiz left Subaru falling into thought a little. But as he pondered, the clacking of the Great Rabbit’s fangs pressed near, and with nothing but his direct experiences with impending death coming to mind, Subaru shouted.
“I don’t know the answer!”
“Then I should teach you, I suppose. Focus on Betty’s hand and imagine it. Imagine the weaving of mana, the power to shape it into the form of an arrow, the power to materialize and shatter our foe—imagine a mighty attack.”
“I imagined it!”
“Then is there anything left but to chant, I wonder?!”
Beatrice’s voice made Subaru snap open his closed eyes and thrust his left hand forward. Simultaneously, Beatrice moved her right hand forward, aiming it toward the Great Rabbit Horde—power surged forth.
“—El Minya!!”
The two chanted as one. Purple-streaked power manifested in the sky, pouring earthward upon the demon beasts.
The explosive, destructive force made the stage known as the Sanctuary glimmer with purple fragments—the ferocious battle had begun.
2
To Subaru, using magic had always been an act tantamount to whittling his own soul away.
Just as Roswaal and Puck had guaranteed from the beginning, Subaru had no talent for magic. In the end, he’d abused Shamak, the one spell he’d learned, finally wrecking his own Gate, closing the path of the magician to him forever.
Therefore, he’d never thought another opportunity to use magic would visit him ever again, but—
“Minya! Minya! This is tough to say, damn it! Minyaaa!”
Relying on the vast surge of mana, Subaru did the seemingly impossible, rapidly casting Great Magic again and again.
The purple arrows thus spawned opened one hole in the demon-beast force after another, turning the ferocious Great Rabbit into purple fragments. Glancing at these, Beatrice tugged on Subaru’s arm, and with a light step, they sailed into the air.
Strangely, Subaru was not surprised by the feeling of weightlessness brought by ignoring gravity. Stepping upon the sky, Beatrice twirled and wove to evade the fangs in what truly looked like the dance of a fairy.
“We’re crossing.”
“Got it.”
An instant after she made her announcement, space distorted, and the pair vanished from the sky. It was a short-range warp that differed from Passage. The jump through space threw off the Great Rabbit; the horde did not notice when Subaru and Beatrice emerged behind it.
“Will you take care of the left, I wonder?”
“Then I’ll leave the right to you.”
Giving form to the magic in his mind, Subaru influenced the world through Beatrice.
It felt like he was profiting with someone else’s hard-earned money, robbing the moment of any enjoyment. Subaru followed the power of his imagination, loading the sky up with purple arrows large and small, using them as deadly weapons to bore holes into the demon beasts.
In his mind, he was loading a gun. He felt like he was creating bullets of mana and then pulling the trigger.
But his imagination had an undeniable effect in reality, shooting down the onrushing demon beasts like he was hunting ducks.
The Great Rabbit Horde on the opposite side was being similarly attacked by the destruction wrought by Beatrice. Cracks came forth from thin air, and it was like hundreds of the creatures were being shut inside the surface of a painting. The picture fragmented, seemingly being broken apart, and the demon beasts inside were all returned to ash.
All Subaru could do was twirl his tongue at the breadth of her magical skill.
Unlike Subaru, an idiot who’d learned only one spell, Beatrice could employ multiple varieties in multiple fashions. It was as if she was going out of her way to make plain to Subaru all the cards she held in her hands.
“That said, blasting ’em without a plan won’t solve anything. Beako, you have a plan, right?”
“Of course I have a plan. Is the first stage of it not already complete, I wonder?”
The Great Rabbit increased its numbers every bit as much as they dwindled. As Subaru sensed this special nature put them at a stalemate, Beatrice made a reply that sounded quite dependable indeed.
He gave her a look that demanded an explanation, and in response, Beatrice sniffed proudly.
“All that is necessary is to assemble the demon beasts in one place. Have we truly gathered the entire horde in this forest…in this Sanctuary here in front of the tomb, I wonder?”
“Well, I suppose we have. But they infinitely reproduce. It’s not like we’ve taken a roll call.”
“—Infinite, you say, but that does not mean there is no limit.”
The sentence made Subaru narrow his brows; then comprehension struck him like a bolt of lightning. He looked at the horde of demon beasts. As usual, the white fur balls were visible for as far as the eye could see—yet, if they really were reproducing infinitely…
“It doesn’t add up… If they could really do that, they’d cover the whole planet and even space…!”
“Most likely, even if they can propagate endlessly, there should be an upper limit. Therefore, they will not increase beyond that fixed number. In that case…”
“Get them to that upper limit and wipe them all out in one go!”
Subaru’s eyes glimmered as he saw the strategy laid out before him.
“But the problem is in the second stage—how should we go about eliminating them, I wonder?”
Beatrice’s concern was just how to simultaneously strike down the Great Rabbit, which numbered in the tens of thousands.
If you had force on par with some kind of missile, you could just burn them away along with the Sanctuary itself, but if even one of them survived, they would recover in full. The risk was incalculable.
It was difficult to wipe them off the map with simple brute force. The other way would be to—
“Your face says you have thought of something.”
“Like usual, I settled on a plan that depends on you. Sounds good?”
Beatrice used magic even in the midst of their conversation to attract the demon beasts’ attention toward the pair. Subaru drew his lips close to her refined ear and whispered his idea into it. Beatrice nodded after a few moments of thought.
“Betty did think of something rather similar, I suppose. But even with Betty and Subaru, these numbers are…”
“Hey, hey, you’ve got something wrong here, Beako. You don’t get it at all.”
“—?”
“In a situation like this, it’s not like we have to settle everything with you alone or just the two of us, you know?”
Listening to Subaru’s reply, Beatrice let an “ah” slip out as her eyes shot open. Then the girl heaved a cloudy sigh as she turned toward Subaru with the faintest of pouts.
“Truly, Subaru…no one in the world is better at relying upon others than you.”
“I promise in the future I’ll become a vibrant, high-end contractor so you’ll never get frustrated again.”
“Did you really think that would sound even slightly convincing when it comes from the mouth of a serial promise-breaker, I wonder?”
She said that with a smile, and Subaru couldn’t deny any of it. Seeing his reaction, Beatrice pressed her palm against his chest, nodding deeply with a gaze filled with trust.
“Even Betty requires time to prepare for this. Would you serve as a decoy during that time, I wonder?”
“Relax. There ain’t a single person in Lugunica who can beat me when it comes to distracting powerful enemies.”
Beatrice closed her eyes and sank into contemplation. This was the first step toward putting Subaru’s operation into motion. Picking up her tiny body, Subaru powerfully kicked off from the snow.
Homing in on Subaru and Beatrice as they raced across the snowy plain, the approaching demon beasts clacked their fangs and moved in for the kill. Too slow. Considering the sticky situations he’d found himself in over the last couple of days, the Great Rabbit swarm he faced now just seemed tame in comparison.
“Outta my way, you little gnats! I don’t have time to deal with you right now!”
Evading their fangs, leaping over their heads, Subaru trod upon purple fragments as he raced through their pack.
Chanting and loosing purple missiles to force open a path, Subaru continued carrying Beatrice as he rushed right through the battle-worn clearing toward Emilia, who stood in front of the tomb.
“Eh, Subaru?!”
Subaru’s sprint made Emilia’s eyes bulge wide. Sliding to a stop right beside her, Subaru put Beatrice, still deep in contemplation, down on top of the snow, patting her head as he spoke.
“Sorry, Emilia-tan! It’s too tough for Beako and me to handle this on our own!”
“Th-that’s fine. But what should we do? Maybe I can…”
“Nah, I’ve thought up a way to beat them, so there’s no need for you to wear yourself out trying to land a knockout blow! Actually, please don’t even try. It’d make coming this far meaningless.”
It surprised Emilia that he had seen right through her and gleaned she was considering self-destructive techniques to win the day. He wasn’t going to let her do it. He absolutely wouldn’t let her, now or later. He fully intended to make sure she would never have to do it ever again.
He didn’t want any part of her thinking it didn’t matter how badly she was hurt as long as she could save everyone else.
“Everyone safe, everyone saved. That’s obviously the best outcome.”
“Subaru…”
“Emilia-tan, I want you to be just a little more selfish from here on. If you can’t, I’ll think a little harder, but if you can, I just want you to do your best. Let’s win this for everyone’s sake.”
“?”
Emilia put a hand to her chest and blinked as if she sensed something in Subaru’s words.
Subaru tried to hold the demon-beast horde in check with more purple arrows to buy time until she made up her mind. But when he turned forward, it was not purple missiles that smashed into the Great Rabbit Horde but icicles.
Emilia had a renewed determination in her eyes as she clenched her right fist and laid into the demon beasts with her magic.
“Got it. Let’s do it, Subaru. Tell me what you need. Anything!”
Emilia’s reply, containing determination and resolve, made Subaru clench his own fist.
“That’s my Emilia-tan—let’s do this thing!”
3
The upsurge in magical energy was so incredibly powerful that even Subaru could feel it.
Emilia was standing in front of the tomb. Subaru was holding Beatrice within his arms. Believing in Subaru’s plan, both of them were fully devoted to controlling their respective mana to bring it to fruition.
And it fell to Subaru to buy the time they both needed until they were prepared.
“C’mon, c’mon! I’m your opponent, same as usual! Follow meee!”
Smiling and waving, Subaru mercilessly pounded the horde with a vicious blow.
The explosive bombardment created a wild dance of purple light, which sent the demon beasts flying and made them wriggle as one. The horde moved like one gigantic body and began chasing Subaru in a mad dash around the Sanctuary.
This was the beginning of the operation. At the very least, his worry that they might hit the tomb first was gone.
“It’s not as if you can ignore the smell of mana and my stench, either!”
It was the Great Rabbit’s nature to be attracted by mana. It was Subaru’s nature to have demon beasts want to devour him. With Beatrice, her eyes still closed, resting in his arms, Subaru Natsuki was a veritable, mouthwatering feast on the hoof as far as the Great Rabbit was concerned.
He heard the clacking of fangs. Subaru heard the deadly footsteps chasing them from behind.
“—! For one of the three great demon beasts, you’re so slow! You half-wits, do you actually want me to make you extinct like ol’ Whaley?”
Biting fear back with his molars, Subaru hurled the unnecessary insults he kept in the far corners of his mind. If he didn’t flap his gums to maintain his calm, he’d never be able to conceal that he was trembling to the core.
He couldn’t look that pathetic to the girl behind him, nor to the girl in his arms.
“Subaru—!”
As Subaru put on his own performance, a voice like a silver bell reached his ears through the gale-like snow. When he looked in the snow-filled reaches of his vision, Emilia was thrusting a fist toward the heavens—it was the signal that her preparations were complete.
Receiving this, Subaru put more strength into his legs, with which he kicked at the snow—Emilia was ready, but until Subaru’s end was ready—a little more, just a little farther, just a pinch, go, go, go!
Without even time to let out his breath, Subaru laid a marker on the snowy plain at his own feet. With this, his do-or-die escape from the Great Rabbit, which was hot on his tail, had finally neared its end.
With that purple-arrow marker thrust into the snowy plain, everything had come together—so he shouted:
“Now, Emilia! Trace the lines—!!”
Plowing through the snow as he came to a halt, Subaru relied on magic for his last stand, commanding the purple arrow, “Let there be light!” The very next instant, countless purple arrows that had been shot into the clearing began to glow, forming a glittering cage.
A horde of tens of thousands of wriggling white demon beasts had been penned up inside that square cage—
“That’s Subaru for you! Really good job!”
Praising the splendid outcome, Emilia let up a voice of joy that she’d normally never ever make. Then as her eyes glimmered with equally rare aggression, she trained a graceful finger toward the demon beasts within the cage.
—And then she unleashed all the mana she had been forming while Subaru had bought her time.
“Cocytus!”
Applying that incantation, unfamiliar to his tongue, Subaru activated the vast amount of surging mana, transmitting power to the purple crystals, which were arrayed in a square around the clearing, one after another. The lines connected.
With a roar, the ground, the snowy plain itself, floated skyward.
“Amazing…”
Seeing this unfold left Subaru dumbstruck. The spectacle was so overwhelming, it left him speechless.
Emilia carefully supplied magic energy all along the sides of the cage of purple arrows in the clearing, shutting the Great Rabbit inside a snowy cage and lifting them into the sky. Of course, had they been normal demon beasts, they would surely have noticed the abnormality and escaped from the cage—but the Great Rabbit possessed no such decision-making capacity.
They were incarnations of hunger, felt inexhaustible urges of Gluttony, and were children gifted with Daphne the Witch’s empty stomach—
“That’s why now you’re all one step from a Giltirau and stuff!”
“—With this, there’s nowhere left for you to run!”
As Subaru raised a middle finger and levied his insult, Emilia put on the finishing touches.
Emilia used magic energy to weave together an icy lid she simultaneously slammed down onto the patch of snowy ground that had floated into the sky, completing the cage and trapping the massive number of demon beasts.
Even if the Great Rabbit had a will of its own, there was no escape now that the icy prison was fully formed.
From the snow-stripped clearing beneath the prison, he looked around. Stragglers, zero. Wriggling figures, zero.
The whole Great Rabbit Horde had been in one place, enclosed within a square perimeter about twenty yards per side. With this, the conditions had been met.
“Now, the final blow if you please, Great Spirit Beatrice—”
Rocking the girl within his arms, Subaru announced it was time to follow the appetizer with the main course.
Answering his call, the girl gently opened her eyes that had remained quietly closed up to this point. Then, when she set her gaze upon the spectacle before them, she cracked a smile.
She was not surprised whatsoever. She was merely following up on the result she was sure he would deliver—
“—Al Shamak.”
A moment after the incantation, the ultimate manifestation of the Dark element dyed the world black.
4
—For an instant, the Great Rabbit was whipped around by a feeling of weightlessness before all its weight was slammed against the ground.
That impact freed it from the sense of tightness pressing against the entirety of its form. First, it shook its body, ridding itself of the snow that caked its fur. It made a sound through its nose as it swiveled its head around.
With its eyes, nose, ears, and whiskers, it searched for prey and consumed it. This was its only desire. It surveyed the area with its red eyes, craving the luxuriant aroma of the mana of its prey that made its whiskers tremble.
It felt nothing. Until just a moment before, it should have been surrounded by a feast. The prey was tantalizing, offering soft flesh and sweet blood that might grant it a sense of fulfillment, a momentary respite from its eternal sense of hunger.
Its eyes saw nothing. Its nose smelled nothing. Its ears heard nothing. Its whiskers did not tremble.
Disappointment. Despair. Foul feelings resembling such things instantly overrode its sense of hunger. To keep the loneliness of its mouth and the emptiness of its stomach at bay, it bit into the clump of white closest to it for the moment.
It tore with its mouth, rending the flesh, sipping the blood, and savoring its innards. It violated the clump of meat to its heart’s desire, eating it clean, when it realized similar meals were occurring all about.
Its prey had vanished.
Following its instinct for survival, it was in a daze as it chewed on the white clump that had become its meal, swallowing it whole.
This happened over and over again, driven by insatiable hunger, feeding on the next prey, the prey next after that, the prey next after that after that, next after that after that after—
Finally, having at some point devoured everything in the surrounding area, it found itself alone.
Sipping on clumps of blood, licking up fragments of scattered flesh, it left behind neither dirt nor grass as it savored the fresh blood. If in so doing it had run out of things to eat, it was well and truly alone.
On the inside, it continued to be assaulted by a sense of insatiable hunger beyond its capacity for flesh.
It raised a cry. It clacked its fangs. The maddening hunger was torture—No, it was already mad. For all eternity, it was forbidden from sating its inexhaustible hunger and satisfying its limitless cravings; this was the madness of Gluttony.
—Did Mother also harbor such feelings?
For a single instant, reason bloomed in the back of its mind, which was ruled by hunger. However, it was immediately blotted out.
Its body trembled. As a consequence of its madness, it had subconsciously reproduced, creating a being separate from itself.
It ate this spawn without the slightest hesitation. There was not even an anguished cry as it stuffed itself with the flesh. Afterward, it suffered again from renewed hunger. Then, as a consequence of its hunger, it birthed another one of itself into the world.
It ate. It raged. It birthed. It ate. Over and over. It continued these things over and over.
It was alone. It was in a world without any others. There was forest. There was soil. There was air. All that was missing was prey.
It was alone. It continued eating.
It was alone. Finally, it ate the it that was different from itself, causing it to vanish.
It was alone. It was truly alone, yet it ceased to be lonely as its gluttony continued over and over again.
—Its insatiable hunger would never be sated.
5
The living darkness swallowed up the cage of ice and snow, compressing it along with the Great Rabbit Horde within. Finally, they vanished without a sound.
This, the creation of an isolated space, was the effect of Al Shamak—the greatest of the Shamak line of spells. Enveloped by the magic, the Great Rabbit Horde had been blasted into what was essentially another dimension.
Regeneration and propagation had lost all meaning, for both were literally sequestered in another world.
“I know the plan was to send them into an isolated space like the archive of forbidden books, but…”
“Are you dissatisfied, I wonder?”
As Subaru’s voice trembled in the face of the overwhelming feat, Beatrice tapered her lips by his side. Putting her hands on her hips with an arrogant posture, she seemed most displeased with Subaru’s attitude.
“It really is incredible…”
In Subaru’s stead, it was Emilia who voiced words of honest praise.
Being far more versed in magic than he, Emilia was doubtless more surprised than Subaru. Now that she had released her combat posture, the freezing across half her body had gradually relented. The worst-case scenario had been avoided.
Swiveling his head about, Subaru made sure the Great Rabbit, which once blanketed the clearing, was nowhere to be found.
Turning around, he also confirmed the tomb was safe. When he saw the various residents of the Sanctuary and Earlham Village were giving him a thumbs-up, he lifted a hand toward them in return. When he looked closer, he noticed Ryuzu replicas were mixed in among them. Sharing information about what happened in the Sanctuary is gonna be a pain, huh? Subaru mused with a wry smile.
And sitting on the steps on the tomb was Roswaal, holding Ram in his arms—Ram’s hand was touching Roswaal’s cheek. His clownish expression contorted, and even from a distance, Subaru could see the tracks of tears.
“?”
The scene swiftly gave Subaru the feeling that a great burden had been lifted from his chest.
It wasn’t that everything had been resolved. But it was just as he’d said to Beatrice. Subaru didn’t need to personally resolve every single thing. The Great Rabbit had been defeated through Subaru’s, Beatrice’s, and Emilia’s valiant efforts, just like how incredible deeds had been accomplished in the Sanctuary and at the mansion both.
More than anything, it was the sight of Ram smiling and Roswaal crying that told Subaru as much.
“Hey, Subaru.”
As Subaru exhaled at length, Emilia abruptly poked his cheek with her finger.
Emilia tossed him a pleasant smile as she used a hand to indicate behind him. Beatrice was still right there waiting for him, arms folded with a sour look on her face.
“I think you should say something to the one who worked the hardest.”
Subaru couldn’t help but give a short sigh when he saw her childish, cheek-puffing gesture. Then—
“Waa ah! ”
—sweeping an arm under her, he hoisted up her light body.
Ignoring her cutesy, plaintive cry, Subaru continued to embrace the girl as he twirled around on the spot.
“You did awesome! That’s my Beako! I love you!”
“W-wait a—! That’s not… W-would you let go, I wonder?! Betty is not…!”
“Good girl, good girl! You’re so, so cute! You’re wonderful, Beako! You’re the best, Beako! Beako forever!”
Grandly singing her praises, Subaru lifted Beatrice way up as he spun all around.
Beatrice’s face was beet red as she dangled from his arms. Emilia watched the worked-up pair with gentle eyes. Behind her, she heard the various villagers clapping their hands together and raising cheers.
And as the contractor continued spinning around with his spirit, expressing joy with the entirety of his body…
“Ah—!”
…his foot slipped, sending the pair tumbling headlong into the snow.
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