3
—An unknown silver-haired girl.
“Huh?”
Subaru’s mind halted for a moment at Ram’s unexpected phrasing.
If it had just been “a silver-haired girl,” it would have been an unhelpfully indirect phrasing, but it wouldn’t have made Subaru feel quite so odd.
But adding that extra “unknown” changed the meaning dramatically.
“An unknown silver-haired girl…?” Subaru murmured.
“Yes.” Ram nodded. “Someone I’ve not seen once in this tower. At the very least, she didn’t seem to be an enemy… In light of the situation, I retreated for now. However—”
“—even with help, it’s a different story, with an opponent like Gluttony.”
Julius picked up for her, his expression grave at having heard the word Gluttony. Touching the knight’s sword at his hip, he pursed his lips.
“It is an unexpected encounter, but if we are to meet him here as an enemy, we cannot allow him to escape. Our goal is to find a method to undo the damage done by Gluttony and Lust. If one has appeared, then we should ask directly.”
“Agreed. I have no intention of letting him leave alive, either. We have to make sure he regrets so casually showing his face before us.”
“W-wait! Wait a second! I get the enthusiasm! I get it! But…”
Subaru suddenly pulled the brakes as they let their powerful animosity toward Gluttony fly.
Julius, who was cut off from the world, and Ram, whose memories of her beloved sister were stolen, both had a lot of motivation to go after Gluttony.
But the problem here is…
“Emilia’s name is missing from your conversation. Why?”
“ ”
Getting a bad feeling, he just came out and asked.
Ram’s unnatural description and Julius’s lack of reaction had tipped him off. Looking around, Beatrice and Echidna didn’t seem like they noticed anything strange, either. They just accepted Ram’s statement about an unknown silver-haired girl.
“—Who is Emilia?” Ram furrowed her brow.
“—!”
Subaru’s throat clenched in shock. Looking around, Julius, Beatrice, and Echidna were all staring at him in confusion. He couldn’t hide his shock.
“But…”
It was barely just a minute. Seconds ago, we were talking about Emilia. Wasn’t the whole reason we left the balcony specifically to meet up with Emilia and Ram?
“Subaru, is…?”
The first to notice the change was Beatrice, who was holding his hand. But the others quickly realized that the name he’d said had to be crucial.
“Emilia… Is that the silver-haired girl’s name?”
“…That’s right. If there was a silver-haired girl, then she’s Emilia. Our comrade.” Subaru’s voice was wavering. “That’s why she told you to run and stayed behind. That’s why she’s still fighting.”
“That is…possible. It is a feeling I’ve experienced myself.”
Julius touched his hair, as if hearing something difficult to believe. He couldn’t hide his surprise, and Subaru was reminded again just how terrifying Gluttony’s power was in its reach, effect, immediacy, and vileness.
Honestly, even though he was aware that his own memories had been stolen, it still didn’t feel real. It was impossible to forget the misunderstandings and paranoia he had felt in losing his memories, as well as the negative feelings he had directed at all of them. It was a dark moment he would rather never think of again.
But even with that, it didn’t feel quite real. There was something indefinite, hard to describe about searching for something you didn’t have. Like fishing out at sea on a moonless night.
That was why it had not really felt quite real. But not this time.
Forgetting Emilia, someone they had just been talking about, a comrade they had struggled through adversity with until now, in just an instant. —Is there anything this disgusting?
Mowing through other people’s bonds in search of their own happiness was an unforgivable sin.
“—Ugh, ngh.”
“Ram?!”
As Subaru grasped the shock he was feeling, Ram suddenly fell to her knee. She was breathing heavily while leaning against Patlash’s leg.
“What is it? Are you all right?”
“…Just a little…headache.” Ram shook her head. “Thinking about that unknown person.”
“About Emilia…?”
Subaru furrowed his brow as Ram looked like she was in pain. If Gluttony had stolen Emilia’s name, Ram should have seen it happen.
Maybe that’s the cause?
“Subaru.” Beatrice touched his shoulder and slowly shook her head. “It would be better to not force her to remember more. She’s missing too much.”
“Missing…too much…?”
“The incompleteness of Gluttony’s authority is showing. There are too many pieces of memory involving the person stolen that can’t be patched. Discrepancies are forming.”
Subaru was at a loss for words, but he quickly realized what Beatrice was getting at.
Ram was Emilia’s caretaker—she had been a close servant, essentially. What they felt toward each other might have been difficult to understand, but their relationship had an unmistakable warmth to it.
After losing all that, there was a void inside Ram where Emilia had been. The fruitless effort of searching for that something crucial to the structure of life was eating away at her.
Echidna stood next to Ram, whose face was still twisted in pain.
“I’ll stay with her.”
Subaru was surprised, but she just shrugged.
“We don’t have time to debate things. All the more so with Gluttony here and one of our comrades fighting them, even after her name was stolen. We can’t stop now.”
“Please take care of Ms. Ram, Echidna. Take Patlash and get far away from the battle.”
“Yeah, leave it to me. I know this is a critical moment for you, Julius, but don’t get too heated.”
“I understand. My fighting spirit is chilled to the core. Just like my blade.”
Julius immediately accepted Echidna’s suggestion and turned his gallant face forward. The desire to fight seeping out of him was so powerful that Subaru hesitated to say anything.
“Ram.”
“It’s vexing, but I would just be a burden right now. Leave me. But don’t kill Gluttony. I want to make him regret ever being born.”
“The enthusiasm’s reassuring, but take it easy for now! We’ll be back!”
“Yes. Go take care of it.”
Subaru nodded at Echidna, rubbed Patlash’s neck, and looked at the sleeping princess on her back. As always, her eyes were closed in a never-ending dream, and she was breathing so softly, it was almost imperceptible.
That’s enough for now. I’ve already heard the words I needed to hear from her.
“Just you wait, Gluttony…! I’m sick of letting you eat everything!”
Honestly, the more he thought about it, the more questions he had.
Why did Gluttony’s power not seem to affect Subaru?
Emilia’s name had been stolen, and she had disappeared from everyone else’s memories, but her name, appearance, and voice were still clear as ever in his mind.
And the faint feelings he felt toward her were still lingering in his breast, too.
“Is it because I’m from a different world…?”
Maybe the rules of this world didn’t apply to him.
If memories in this world were a record of life that was removed from a dead person’s soul in the corridors of memory, then Gluttony’s power to snatch them away didn’t influence Subaru because he was an irregular existence who hailed from a different world.
In which case, what about the old Subaru Natsuki’s memories? Supposing he’s dead, are they etched into the corridors of memory?
Or else…
“…Is the reason I can come back because they can’t be stored there?”
It was a chilling theory.
If that was the answer to the mechanism behind Return by Death, then he would be trapped in the cycle of this world forever.
Bluntly, no matter how many decades he spent here, he wouldn’t even be allowed to die of old age. Standing beyond the rules of the world, Subaru could try to live his life to the fullest, but was Subaru Natsuki without a world for his—?
“Icebrand Arts!”
A sharp, clear voice rang out, tearing through his thoughts.
Looking up, he saw the passage to the green room up ahead frozen white and felt a tremendous chill wind pass over his skin.
And the source of that wind was a snow fairy, spinning as if dancing through diamond dust. No, that was no fairy. It was Emilia, twirling as her silver hair fluttered behind her.
“—Urrya! Hah! Ey! Ey! Yah!”
Holding twin blades of ice in her hands, Emilia unleashed a torrent of attacks. Her grunts sounded almost comical, but there was nothing cute about how fast her blades sliced through the air.
Her attacks were precise, flying toward her opponent with the singular intent of bringing him down.
“That’s…”
As Emilia spun with ice swords in hand, the passage froze over, creating a scene that felt like it was a world away from the tower in the middle of a desert.
The ice magic she used even affected her surroundings. And it seemed to be abnormally powerful, even for this world, judging by how Beatrice and Julius caught their breaths in seeing it.
But even more than that—
“Ah-ha-ha! Not bad, not bad, not bad at all, because it’s not bad, and you’re not bad! That’s why it’s worth our while to eat you!”
The sneering creature easily parried and deflected her ice slashes before making a dramatic announcement.
It was a boy with long, disheveled, dark brown hair and a mad smile on his lips. He seemed to be in his midteens and looked shabby, even filthy. He certainly didn’t look healthy, but more important was the loathsome gleam in his eyes. It was a glimpse of the despair and desire he felt toward life that made him scorn everyone. That was why he didn’t feel anything when he consumed people.
It was obvious at a glance. It almost went without saying. Subaru found it hard to accept the fact that there could be anyone other than Louis Arneb with eyes like that.
“—The Archbishop of Gluttony!”
“Aha! A guest! Or maybe it’s the main dish! We’ve been wanting to meet you, too, mister. It seems you took good care of our sister!”
Hearing Subaru’s howl, Gluttony deepened his evil smirk as he parried another of Emilia’s slashes. Seeing that reaction, Emilia noticed they were there.
“Ah! Everyone! Umm, you probably don’t know who I am, but he’s the enemy! A bad person! Leave this to me…even if you probably don’t know who I am!”
Emilia understood the position she was in as she spoke with her comrades. She surely had experienced the shock of Ram’s memory of her being lost. It was an experience Subaru couldn’t even begin to imagine. But even so, she not only courageously bought Ram enough time for her to escape, she was also concerned for Subaru and the others who rushed over, even as she continued fighting Gluttony.
With a flood of emotions in his heart, Subaru shouted.
“It’s okay, Emilia-chan! I haven’t forgotten!”
“ ”
“I’m never going to forget again! No matter what happens, I will never forget you!”
Raising his fist, he shouted at her back.
Emilia’s eyes widened when she heard it, but they creased an instant later.
“Nnn!”
Subaru couldn’t say for sure what sort of emotion she felt in that moment. But seeing the smile that crossed her face and how she eagerly charged at Gluttony, he was fairly sure that at least it wasn’t a bad feeling.
Watching the same scene from behind Subaru, Julius had a smile on his face.
“I doubt you are aware just how powerful your words were just now.”
“Huh?”
Subaru turned to him, because it sounded like it had some sort of deeper meaning to it, but Julius didn’t respond. Instead, he drew the sword from his hip, and tracing a beautiful arc, he held it at the ready.
“It goes without saying, but she is our ally, isn’t she, Subaru?”
“Yeah, that’s right. There’s no way someone that cute would be our enemy!”
“Understood.”
Julius nodded, and then his shape faded. —No, it was just an optical illusion.
The next instant, he accelerated with a single step, leaping into the icy melee with a thrust that Gluttony caught by crossing his arms in front of his chest before being flung backward.
“Whoops, mister…”
“I have been waiting for this moment, Gluttony!”
Julius’s intense attack slammed into the smirking Gluttony, but the Archbishop leaped backward, mitigating the force of the impact. He landed with his feet on the frozen wall as his gloomy voice called out.
“Whoa, don’t be in such a rush. Sorry, but we don’t share what we eat. We don’t remember you. Whatever it is, it’s something Roy did, not us, right?”
“—!”
“Well, saying it doesn’t much matter is one way to look at it. Roy aside, we don’t really have much interest in you, mister. You don’t really meet our standards for food.”
“Your standards?”
“Yeah, that’s right. And…”
Gluttony let his arms hang limply, the short blades fixed to his wrists biting into the floor. He stared at Julius, talking about an awfully ominous-sounding standard. Then…
“Hiiyah!!!”
“—?!”
Emilia lowered her hands, blasting a chunk of ice at the cultist without hesitation.
It was a merciless shot, and the hall wasn’t very wide, so she was about to crush the enemy. Interrupted in the middle of his speech, Gluttony showed a changed expression, and he leaped to the side, just managing to save himself.
“Tch! We know, since we ate you, but you really don’t hesitate, do you, Emilia?! If you attack like that, people will think you’re scary…”
“Just be quiet! You should know I’m used to people thinking I’m scary! The important thing is what I think about everyone! And…”
Gluttony slipped past the ice only to have Emilia’s white knee right in his face. Blocking it with his arm, Gluttony was blown backward, and Emilia glanced at Subaru for a single moment.
“The person I want to remember me the most hasn’t forgotten who I am. Right now, I’m really fired up!”
“This is why the ones who act on emotion are awkward to deal with. They’re always the most trouble.”
“—Is that how it is? However, I am in agreement with her.”
Gluttony’s expression twisted in irritation when Julius slipped behind him. The downward slash he unleashed was caught by an arm that Gluttony immediately swung backward.
However, an incomplete block couldn’t completely stop the blade, and it bit deep. The cut reached his elbow, spilling blood. Gluttony groaned, even as the next attack followed—
“—Forgotten by everyone, I lost sight of where I belong and even felt that my very existence had been negated. But there was never any need for me to doubt where I stood.” Putting his quiet resolve into words, Julius increased the keenness of his attacks.
“Tch! Ugh, gah!”
Gluttony couldn’t match their speed or intensity, and when one landed solidly on his chest, he let out a cry.
Julius and Emilia continued their furious assault, steadily cornering Gluttony. I would love to finish things in one quick push here…
“Subaru, even if we tried to intervene…”
“…I know. I can’t do anything in that mix.”
“…As long as you understand.”
It was frustrating, but that was reality. With his skills, he couldn’t contribute in a battle between transcendent fighters. That was still true even with Beatrice’s support. So he could do nothing but watch.
Emilia and Julius were taking down Gluttony. Then…
“Icebrand Arts.”
It was the second time he had heard that attack’s name, but this time, the one who said it didn’t have a silvery voice.
Gluttony was bleeding, but he was still composed, and that smirk never left his face. He had been the one to call out that attack name. An instant later, an ice spear thrust upward from below Gluttony’s feet. Julius cartwheeled to avoid it, while Emilia turned her spear into a hammer of ice and shattered the icicle with brute strength.
Even though the surprise attack had been blocked, the shock it brought didn’t disappear.
“That was my—”
“Ha-ha! How does it feel getting a taste of your own special attack?! How is it, how do you like it, how’s it feel, how?! Eat it all! Gluttony!”
Before Emilia could even get the words out, Gluttony drew another weapon of ice from the floor. The shape of it left Emilia and Julius confused, and left Subaru mind-boggled.
Because it was—
“A…a pile bunker?!”
“Icebrand Arts itself is Emilia’s technique, but the one using it is us, who have eaten you, mister! Knowledge is a weapon! We’re a high-IQ Archbishop, after all!”
Gluttony turned the weapon from another world on Emilia and Julius.
There was an explosion, and a stake shot out, violently forcing both of them to back away.
“Aaaahhh!”
“Sorasorasorasora, go, go, gogogogogogogo!!!”
Laughing loudly, Gluttony summoned weapon after weapon that didn’t exist in this world. Emilia and Julius caught themselves and got back in position to fight, but the change wasn’t just in Gluttony’s weapons.
He freely adapted his fighting style to the weapons, forcing Emilia and Julius onto the back foot.
“His movements…can change this much?!”
Julius’s shock was an expression of just how terrifying Gluttony could be in adapting other people’s memories.
Emilia’s technique that created weapons out of ice, combined with Subaru’s otherworldly knowledge—that gave birth to infinite possibilities.
On top of that, Gluttony had probably absorbed the lives of many warriors, effectively installing the fighting power of countless martial artists without any load times.
Because of that, just by pulling out the most effective memory from his stock, he could immediately become an expert with any weapon, freely blending offense and defense.
And there was another reason why things were looking bad for them.
“Julius! Not there!”
“Ngh…”
Julius stumbled as Emilia cried out.
Even though they both wanted to defeat the enemy more than anything, their teamwork was clumsy.
Their fighting styles were poorly suited to each other. Emilia’s style relied on intuition, while Julius was a schooled fighter who had honed his skills with endless training. Of course, if they at least knew each other’s habits, it would have been relatively simple to adjust, but…
“How unfortunate. Did you really think you could work together? Knowing someone and trusting them run along the same lines, but they’re totally different things. Because you don’t know each other’s thoughts, there’s no unity. Because you don’t know each other’s habits, you can’t adapt your moves. And then you crash into each other and get in each other’s way… Ha-ha, that’s no good at all, you two!”
“Ngh…”
“Knowledge is power! Memories are bonds! By sacrificing memories, we grow stronger! Spreading our wings, flying high, and going wherever we want!”
Leaping up, Gluttony hit both of them with kicks at the same time.
His frame was small, and his legs were not particularly long, but his soles landed solid hits on both of their shoulders, sending them flying.
“Dangerous! Saucy! A hard fight! What do you think of what we’ve got?! And the mister who’s just watching over there, are you satisfied just feeling frustrated on the sidelines?”
“You…”
“You talked a big game about not forgetting, but how much will that actually help? In the end, experience tells the tale. Gathering superior knowledge grants abundance to life and sets people apart as winners. In other words, we’re the greatest!”
Spreading his hands and baring his fangs, Gluttony sneered while his words tore into them.
So that’s his philosophy? It’s a bit different from what Louis talked about, but the essence is the same. They use other people’s lives as stepping stones and gorge themselves. Just the worst stuff.
From the bottom of his heart, he thought it was a loathsome—
“What are you gettin’ cocky about?”
“…Huh?”
Gluttony had been laughing like the whole world was his oyster, but the moment he heard that voice, his eyes went wide. Subaru and the others were no less surprised.
A titan of carnage had suddenly broken into the space, like it was the natural thing to do.
There was a crunch beneath his sandals as the towering red-haired man stepped onto the ice. Appearing from the other side of the passage, he hemmed Gluttony in with a ferocious smile on his face.
“The greatest ain’t some twisted little brat like you. The greatest and the strongest, the highest and the best—those are all words that exist for me.”
The man who shouldn’t have been able to descend from the second floor stood there with the grin of a villain.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login