2
“ Giiiiiii!”
As he heard the demon beast’s roar echo in his ears, Subaru was struck by a desire to avoid the reality in front of him.
Why does every demon beast have to have a cry that grates on the nerves?
The piercing, high-pitched cry like a multitude of babies all screaming at once washed over him.
And the source of that piercing cry was a being with an all too profane appearance.
“ ”
Subaru had encountered far too many demon beasts for his liking, but every one of them had had a regular, animal-like sort of form. They were all grotesque in their own way, but there had been a sort of natural morality, a set of rules defining their appearance.
Even the white whale and the great rabbits had seemed to follow that simplest and most fundamental of rules.
But the being crying in front of him didn’t fit into any of that.
“ Giiiiiii!”
If Subaru had to find something to compare the crying demon beast to, it was vaguely close to a horse. It had four legs with sturdy hooves for feet—and a thick torso supported by those legs. It had a long tail extending from its rear, and at least to that extent it resembled a horse. But where a horse’s head would be, it had what looked like the upper body of a human. But there was no head on that body. Instead, there was a twisted, giant horn growing out of the humanoid shoulders.
From what Subaru knew, it sort of resembled the mythical half-human, half-horse centaur, but it was a twisted imitation, like whoever had been creating it gave up halfway through.
It was twice as tall as an oiran bear, over five yards of grotesque monster.
“ ”
Subaru couldn’t speak as he looked at the profane creature that seemed almost like it had been modeled out of clay by a child.
“ Giiiiiii!”
The centaur let out an earsplitting screech and crushed the oiran bear’s ashes beneath its hoof.
The being didn’t have a head. Its cry was coming from its upper body—the part that looked like a human torso. There was a vertical slit from what would be a person’s chest to the stomach, forming a mouth with sharp fangs on either side.
In addition to its grotesque figure, the centaur’s upper body had a brilliant red mane of flames at its back. It burned the sands of the cavern at an unbelievable strength, making its surroundings glow red.
“Eep.”
As the illumination of it filled the space, Subaru squawked in shock. He had already realized that the burning smell was the stench of demon beasts being incinerated. But the space he was in served more purpose than that. All around him were far more ashy corpses than he could have imagined, scattered wildly everywhere he looked.
The word crematorium flashed in Subaru’s head.
A demon beast crematorium.
In other words, it was a trap, too— Sand time and the garden of demon beasts, the miasma path, and now this. They’re all grisly traps in order to keep people from reaching the watchtower.
“ ”
As Subaru reached that conclusion, the centaur’s upper body turned toward him.
Having killed the oiran bear, it had seemingly set its sights on Subaru as its next prey. Its hooves slowly rang out.
A death far more menacing than the oiran bear was drawing near to incinerate him. The demon beast was clad in a blazing heat and approaching fast, but Subaru did not move in the slightest as he waited.
Not because he had given up on survival in the face of an overpowering threat. It was the opposite.
“ ”
Not moving at all, Subaru collected himself, getting his breathing under control, trying to hide his presence from the demon beast approaching him. However, he wasn’t even hiding behind anything. Thinking about it normally, it was a meaningless attempt.
But not against that centaur.
“ ”
The demon beast stopped a few yards away from Subaru. Subaru had no way of guessing what thoughts might be going through the horn that took the place of its head.
But it didn’t immediately try to kill him. Not because of any doubt or hesitation.
It just wasn’t sure of Subaru’s presence. That was all.
—Subaru didn’t know anything about the centaur and had never seen one before.
Still, Subaru refused the idea that it was standard practice for him to be hopelessly killed by enemies he encountered for the first time. That he didn’t have any way of fighting other than using the experience of that death in order to figure out how to beat them. That was underestimating Subaru Natsuki far too much.
He was a hardened veteran when it came to sudden, unexpected brushes with death. The amount of illogical, incomprehensible deaths he had endured wouldn’t let him fall that easily.
He had at least amassed that much experience.
“ ”
Seeing the demon beast incinerated before his eyes, Subaru’s brain immediately started racing, looking for a way out.
Why did it go for the oiran bear first? Because it was more dangerous? —No.
Why is it leaving me alive? A sadistic streak? —No.
Why is it not trying to look at me? To play with me? To torment its prey? —No.
—It doesn’t have eyes. So it can’t pin down where I am.
“ ”
There’s no head where the head would seemingly be. It’s crying from the mouth it seemingly had pasted onto the upper body’s torso. It probably can’t see or even smell.
If the centaur was a demon beast that lived underground, then it might have been like a mole, losing its vision over time in the process of evolutionary adaptation. Either way, though, it was convenient for Subaru.
“ ”
Keeping his mouth shut, Subaru quietly swung his arm with minimal movement and threw the water bottle in his hand.
It was an individual-size, empty water bottle. It traced a gentle arc over the centaur’s fiery head and hit the mound of sand behind it with a thud.
“ Giiiiiii!”
The centaur’s reaction to hearing that was dramatic. It whipped around and leaped right beside the water bottle.
There was even a burst of flames as it landed.
“ Giiiiiii!”
Sand and ash rose into the air as the crematorium glowed brightly.
The centaur stamped its hooves over and over, tenaciously crushing the water bottle. Having done that, the cry of countless babies filled the labyrinth.
It was an absolute horror show of a demon beast, and there wasn’t anything at all to like about it.
“ ”
But because of that excessive reaction and attack, Subaru was able to prove his hypothesis.
The centaur didn’t have sight or smell. It was relying on its ears in order to attack.
“ ”
Its shrill whine filled the air as Subaru carefully turned just his head to look up. The top of the mound of sand he had fallen down, the opening to the passage, was a dozen yards up. And he met the gaze of two sets of eyes looking at him.
Ram and Anastasia were leaning out ever so slightly beyond the slope, looking down at the crematorium, holding their breaths as they watched Subaru’s bold experiment.
Fortunately, the two of them were far wiser than he was, and they had seemingly noticed the centaur’s peculiarity, so they had not done anything dangerous like calling out to him.
However, they were still stuck in the vexing position of not being able to do anything from where they stood.
“ ”
Meeting their gazes, Subaru silently pleaded with them to just watch in silence. He couldn’t really convey much detail like that, but judging from the anger in Ram’s pink eyes, he could guess he had successfully made himself understood.
He was a little scared of what waited if he managed to make it back safely, but that was something to worry about after he had made it through the pinch he was in.
“ ”
The centaur was standing unflinchingly in the middle of a mound of ashen corpses in the dark cavern.
Subaru was going to have to move in order to escape beyond the range of its senses. The question was whether he went up to Ram and Anastasia or whether he checked what lay ahead beyond the centaur.
“Come back at once.”
He could feel Ram’s powerful gaze burning into the back of his head, but it wasn’t that simple, either. This was a terribly dangerous situation with a high chance of being fatal, but it was also an unexpected opportunity.
There was no guarantee a convenient demon beast would wake up and draw aggro for him when he slid down the slope. Not even if he died and reset.
He had no way of guaranteeing they would move forward at the same pace and reach this cavern at the same time. And if they were too fast or too slow, it might just be Subaru getting incinerated instead of the oiran bear.
In that sense, this was a golden opportunity that might never come again.
“ ”
Carefully opening the change purse in his breast pocket, Subaru tossed a bronze coin in the opposite direction.
He was afraid the coin might not make any noise when it landed, but the centaur aimed for the coin tenaciously, incinerating it mercilessly, as if its mother had been killed by a coin.
The hot breeze it created tousled Subaru’s hair as he held his breath and gently started to move his leg forward. He didn’t want to let the opportunity slip away.
Even just a little bit—
“ ”
This time he could feel it clearly on the back of his head. Subaru’s leg stopped. Cautiously turning his head, he realized what the provocative gaze he felt had been.
The reason the gaze had been able to physically interact with him is because Ram was pointing her wand at him. There was a wind imbued in its tip, and it was prepared to immediately punish him if he tried something reckless.
Of course, if that happened, things wouldn’t just end at that for Subaru or for them. Ram was holding herself and Anastasia hostage to make him come back if he didn’t want to risk that.
“ ”
Subaru recognized she was playing hardball out of concern for him. And Ram was doing it knowing that he would understand her intent.
It’s mortifying, but she’s got my number.
He was also aware that he had not been keeping his cool, either.
We learned something about how the centaur works and that this place exists. Just take that, call it a solid B, and figure out how to get back— That’s the best plan.
“ ”
Having decided that, it was clear what he needed to do.
Pulling a second coin out of the purse, a silver coin this time, he tossed it in the opposite direction from the centaur’s head. Distract the demon beast and climb the sand mound was his chosen course of action.
Subaru took a path that wasn’t too steep while keeping his eyes alert for footing that was less likely to collapse.
“—Ngh.”
Suddenly, a wind pushed his body, and he let out a faint grunt. Looking up, he saw that Ram had unleashed a painless, unnatural wind.
I’m doing what you wanted, so why?
—Just then, though, his question was answered by a mass of flames that passed right in front of his eyes.
“ ”
It was a ball of flame the size of a soccer ball unleashing a wave of heat in its path as it flew by and then crashed into a wall of sand a few yards in front of him. It exploded with a violent burst.
Subaru’s cold body was broiled in the hot swell, and he gulped down the cry that almost escaped his lips.
If Ram’s wind had not stopped him, he would definitely have taken a direct hit from that fireball. He didn’t know whether it was strong enough to kill him, but it definitely would have caused serious burns. The exact details were lost on him, but there was supposedly a severity level to burns, and if a third of the body was covered in burns, it could be potentially fatal.
And there was no healer in their party at the moment. Gritting his teeth as he realized he had been saved, Subaru also felt a shudder run down his spine.
Why was there a fireball?
“ ”
The centaur should have been focused on the silver coin feint on the other side of the room. But when Subaru looked backed, the demon beast’s giant horn was facing him, and there was a humming sound.
It was almost as if it was sure that Subaru was there.
“ ”
It can’t be.
Subaru shook his head.
He cautiously opened the purse again, grabbed a few more coins to throw, getting them comfortable in his hand. He could feel Ram’s and Anastasia’s anxious gazes above him, but he couldn’t pay attention to that at the moment.
The multiple coins traced a gentle arc through the air, falling at a place far away from the centaur.
Naturally, the centaur’s focus shifted toward them, and the hideous demon beast leaped at the obvious feint.
That same flame erupted again, followed by the cry of babies again. And as that shrill sound reverberated in the space, Subaru relied on that to cover his footsteps, quickly scrambling to the sand mound.
One, two steps, as he started to move onto the slope—
“—Ngh!”
The next instant, a fireball grazed his body, exploding on the slope. The aftershock of it sent Subaru flying.
“Gah?!”
His body tumbled as the wave of hot air seared his skin, and the impact of the explosion felt like his whole body had been pummeled. He wasn’t fast enough to cover his mouth, and it was impossible not to groan after being hit by that.
Gritting his teeth, Subaru looked up as he steadied himself on the sandy floor with his hands.
“ ”
—Right before his eyes, the demon beast clad in flames was crackling as it looked down at him.
It clearly knew he was there.
How does a centaur that can only sense things by sound find me while it’s screech—?
“It’s cry…!”
“Barusu, echolocation!”
Just as Subaru’s suspicions crystallized, Ram shouted in a loud voice from up above.
As they both reached the same answer, the flames on the back of the centaur grew. The inferno swelled explosively, unleashing the true force of the labyrinth’s crematorium.
“ Giiiiiii!!!”
“—El Fulla!”
The violent wind slammed into the centaur’s massive body at the exact same moment it swung its flame down. The heat it unleashed caused the sandy ground to explode as the centaur was blown to the side by the wind.
“Guoooo?! Gaah! Damn ittt!”
Doused by the sandy explosion at close range, Subaru rolled across the ground, then used the momentum to leap to his feet and start running without looking back.
“—Ngh! Run run run run run ruuuun!!!”
Subaru intentionally shouted out loud to draw attention to himself as he ran through the cavern. Kicking the cold sand, the centaur’s hooves rang out as it chased after him furiously.
He had not thought through what he was doing. But he had to protect the others. And he couldn’t afford to die, either.
“ Giiiiiii!!!”
The ghastly chorus of babies grieving being born into the world engraved the meaning of death into Subaru’s soul.
The human upper body raised its arm, and there was a nasty sound of bones creaking. Glancing back, the humanoid arm was holding a lance made of transformed bone.
It was the same blazing bone lance that had incinerated the oiran bear, and that excessive force was being wielded mercilessly against Subaru as he tried to escape.
“—Damn it!”
Howling, Subaru pulled the whip from his hip and hit the centaur’s arm. It didn’t do any damage, but the end of the whip wound around its limb all the same. Its intense arm strength easily lifted Subaru off his feet.
“Ugh, whoaaaa?!”
Swinging through the air, Subaru’s cries echoed as he spun in a circle around the centaur. Unable to see what was happening, the demon beast was confused by the speed of the voice, and ironically it lost track of Subaru.
With that, the centaur’s actions were plain and simple. It started throwing fireballs all around it.
“Gwhoa?!”
Uncoiling the whip from the centaur’s arm, Subaru fell to the sand just in time to be caught up in one of the fireball’s explosions and sent flying.
He covered his face with both arms reflexively, but the hot air that erupted still entered his mouth and nose, lightly burning them. It hurt to breathe, and his sense of smell was temporarily out of commission with the mucous membrane scorched.
“Gh, gah!”
Rolling wildly on the ground as a terrible pain filled his face, Subaru looked up with teary eyes.
The mouth in the center of the humanoid torso opened wide, revealing a toothy hole and unleashing an earsplitting cry that almost sounded like laughter.
—No, it’s laughing.
Laughing at the weak human who lost to a demon beast in a test of knowledge and is now being toyed by its incomparable strength.
“—Invisible Providence.”
As he imagined those thoughts from the centaur, the dark feelings in the corner of his heart took shape.
Giving direction to the black power that responded to his murmur, he prepared to hit back at the demon beast that was casually following its prey.
It’s a one-note trick, but that’s fine. Since it’s a one-note trick that works on anyone the first time.
“ ”
A human torso and a horse’s torso. He didn’t know which one had the most important organs. With the head being a horn, it was unclear whether there was a brain inside it. But there had to be some sort of vital organ there. Targeting that, he reached out his invisible hand toward that horn to crush—
“?! Guh, aah, gah?!”
As he thought that, and just as he prepared to pass judgment on the centaur…
When Subaru looked at the centaur and reached the invisible hand toward its head, there was an unimaginably intense shock that rocked his head, and yellowish spittle foamed at his mouth as he slumped to his knees.
“Ghaah?! Gh, agha!”
Slumped down, he put both of his hands to his head, hitting his temples in order to try to deal with the pain. Rubbing and pressing against his temples didn’t do anything. He needed a sharper shock. So he hit his head, hit it and hit it, but he couldn’t overcome the pain.
A hellish bed of thorns had sprouted inside his skull, and he rolled around on the sand, writhing in agony, biting down on the sand inexplicably.
“Owww! Argh! It hurts! It hurtsss!”
He screamed until he was almost spitting up blood.
There was a massive amount of sand in his mouth, and he was grinding it between his teeth as he writhed, swallowing it to try to stave off the inexplicable pain. He couldn’t resist it, though. He was losing to it.
Naturally, of course, his Invisible Providence disappeared immediately.
And when it dissipated, it couldn’t interact with the centaur in any way. The demon beast seemed put off by Subaru’s sudden change, but it unleashed a fireball to incinerate Subaru on the spot.
The massive fireball robbed the cavern of its cold, heating the world around it.
Just as it was about to turn Subaru Natsuki into ash—
“ Giiiiiii!”
A black land dragon charged ferociously, tearing off the centaur’s arm.
“ ”
The dragon that merged into the shadows had silently sneaked up on the centaur and unleashed a painful strike. The demon beast lost its balance after losing its arm, and it dropped the fireball it had raised over its head.
The centaur was caught up in the explosion from the fireball that had fallen at its feet, getting blown back by the close-range blast.
The centaur spun as blood dripped from the wound on its arm.
Paying it no heed, though, Patlash sprinted across the sand, biting Subaru’s clothes as he writhed on the ground, and immediately started to retreat.
Subaru swung wildly as he was held up by the waist, still suffering from the splitting headache and struggling to understand what was happening as he looked back.
Behind Patlash, the centaur stood on wobbly feet.
He saw the wound where the humanoid left arm had been torn off bubble, and a new arm grew back almost immediately. Its monstrous regenerative ability worked on its other wounds, too. All of the wounds it had taken from the explosion quickly closed, and it was as good as new in just a few seconds.
And once that happened, there wasn’t anything left stopping it.
A fireball welled up in its hand, and this time it stretched vertically.
Looking closer, Subaru realized it had merged the fireball and the fire lance, creating a fiery weapon.
“ Giiiiiii!”
Raising the fire lance upward, it swung the point down at Patlash.
Matching the timing of the swing, Patlash ducked—avoiding the attack by crouching low to the ground, just barely slipping beneath it before accelerating.
But the moment the centaur saw it escape that attack, it kicked the land dragon in the side with one of its hooves. The force transmitted through Patlash’s sturdy scales, and she whinnied in pain at the internal damage.
But even so, she didn’t let Subaru go. And he didn’t have the leeway to worry about his trusty steed’s wounds right then. All he had was an unending pain in his head that seemed like it would go on forever.
Feeling the heat of Patlash’s breath and the blood she coughed up on his skin, Subaru was on the verge of passing out.
If I have to suffer this much pain, then I might as well just d—
“Don’t you die, Barusu! Don’t make Rem cry!”
“—Oh.”
Hearing that shout in his ear, those words managed to reach his brain through all the pain.
But what that voice evoked was a rage that matched the hatred he felt for the centaur.
“ ”
Even though you don’t know.
Even though no one remembers her.
—Don’t talk like you understand us!
“—Invisible Providence!”
Unleashing his emotions in a fit of rage, Subaru’s vision was hampered by a wave of tears as he slammed the black hand wildly into the demon beast that passed into his line of sight.
A crunching pain erupted in his head—but before he was swallowed up in the wild torrent of that pain, his invisible hand swatted the centaur’s lance from the front, landing one blow.
—But that was the limit of his feeble resistance.
“ Giiiiiii!”
In exchange for that enraged counterattack, he experienced another painful eruption for his effort.
The centaur slammed its front feet into the sand, and using them as a pivot, it forcibly rotated itself before unleashing its hind legs like a catapult.
Those hard metallic hooves gained speed and weight, flying straight at Subaru and the rest—Patlash and Ram and Anastasia, who were all probably close by as well.
It was an explosive leg strength that blew away a whole segment of the cavern, and everyone caught up in it was sent flying all around. Patlash finally let go of Subaru, and he was sent helplessly sprawling across the sand, slamming into the charred corpse of a demon beast in the aftershock of the impact.
“Agh, uuugh…”
The indescribable headache and the centaur’s kick.
Between the combination of internal and external pain assaulting him, Subaru could barely stay conscious. But as his consciousness flickered aimlessly, he could sense impending death approaching.
Destruction, a party wipe, death piled on pointless death.
Those emotionless thoughts swirled in his head, but—
“ ”
With his lungs seemingly having forgotten how to breathe, Subaru saw someone standing in front of him.
A small, delicate figure.
His consciousness was fuzzy, and he couldn’t make out the silhouette. But it was such a familiar figure that he quickly realized who it was. Ram. She was standing there unsteadily.
Her arms raised in order to protect Subaru.
—Dumbass, it’s hopeless. There’s nothing you can do, so stop it.
Subaru wanted to tell her to stop, but his throat wasn’t working, and he couldn’t speak. It was like it was filled with sand— No, it actually was filled with sand. He couldn’t speak now because, like an idiot, he had swallowed mouthfuls of sand to try to stave off the head-splitting pain.
“…W…hy…?”
The only voice he managed to force out was weak, barely as strong as a mosquito’s buzz.
It was all because of his mistake.
He had been impatient. He had been uneasy and unsure, too. And as a result of all that, his judgment had been off, leading to the situation they were in.
Ram and the rest had been caught up in it all because of his stupidity.
So why are you—?
“—It’ll make Rem cry.”
That quiet answer was all Ram said.
Ram was standing there for the sake of the little sister she couldn’t remember, to protect the person her little sister who she couldn’t remember loved.
Subaru couldn’t understand what drove her to go that far.
But even so, there was something he did know.
At this rate, Ram would die. And Subaru would, too. There was no escaping that.
“ ”
The centaur roared and created two new flame swords in its hands. Or since they didn’t look like swords, maybe they were supposed to be hammers or axes or something.
Either way, it was wielding two flame weapons. It would use them to cut through Ram, who was so small in comparison to it, and then it would scorch Subaru, too.
“…C-come on. There has to be something, right?”
In the face of impending death, he reached out his hand from the depths of his pain.
Rebelling against the pain, he scraped the bottom of his barrel. It was unrealistic to expect any help from someone else. Berating himself for those sorts of fantasies, Subaru looked for some sort of plan within himself. That was also obviously not very realistic, but there was at least some possibility to it.
“Come on. C’mon. Get your ass up…”
Slipping inside himself, he reached out into his murky body, pushing his way through the writhing, dark thoughts, seeking a way out of the hopeless scenario from inside himself. Not the invisible hand that he had overused, something different, something new to get through the pinch.
But his determined resolve was—
“—Ahh.”
Before his desperate struggle could yield any results, the centaur raised its swords.
The flames crossed over its head before flying toward Ram. It was a slash that scorched the very air itself, and it would mercilessly cut into her slender body, sending her flying, igniting her, erasing her feelings, her life, turning everything to ash.
As he saw that scene about to unfold, Subaru cried out at his powerlessness—
“ ”
The next instant, a white light traveling at a dreadful speed blew away the centaur’s upper body.
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