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4

When he first heard Shaula’s name, something had come to mind. It wasn’t a name he was particularly attached to, but it was a word he had heard before.

Shaula was the name of a star that shone in the night sky he knew—a star that was part of the constellation Scorpio. And Scorpio was associated with a big, black scorpion.

It was an incredibly simple answer. It was so simple, it made him wonder about the naming sense of whoever chose that name. Of course, the main suspect was the same Subaru Natsuki who she called her master.

“Is that…Shaula?”

That short diversion in his mind wasn’t enough to distract him from reality. The massive pincers evolved for slaughter rubbed together ominously. Those red eyes watched their every move. The huge black body. This was the giant scorpion, one of the five obstacles assaulting the tower.

At the very least, he had initially counted it as a threat, since the giant scorpion had gotten in their way and tormented them in the other loops. It had even killed some of them.

He would never forget the powerlessness he had felt when Beatrice and Echidna were killed. For the enemy who had done that unforgivable act to be Shaula, of all people…

“Subaru, calm down. Deep breaths.”

“ ”

Beatrice’s soft hand held his, calling a time-out as his thoughts started to fall into chaos. He noticed she was rubbing his back, trying to help him calm down.

Feeling her touch, he came to his senses. One breath in, one breath out.

“I’m okay…I think. I’m still confused, though.”

“That’s fine. And are you sure that’s Shaula?”

“Yeah, there’s no mistaking it. I can sense Shaula… Well, assuming she didn’t get swallowed up whole by it somehow.”

“The fact that she might still be perfectly calm even if that really happened is what’s scary about her.”

Beatrice’s expression softened as she went along with Subaru’s desperate joke. The joke wasn’t enough to raise his spirits, but it was a step necessary in confronting the heavy reality in front of him.

Without that, he wouldn’t be able to bear it. The fact that Shaula, who had been so genuine and unruly, who had never shown any sign of restraint or concern around Subaru—it was unthinkable that she had been duping them all along.

The thought that her smile, her words, and her attitude were all fake and that she had been a traitor deceiving them all along was just too…

“Let’s ask.”

“Lady Emilia?”

Unable to watch Subaru struggle anymore with the roiling emotions of suspicion and faith, Emilia stepped forward. Not listening to Ram, she took a deep breath.

“Hey, you! Are you Shaula? Or not?”

“ ”

“…Ah, right. You might not be able to talk. Then raise your right hand if you are Shaula, and raise your left hand if you aren’t! That way, we can tell.”

Out of consideration for the silent scorpion, Emilia tried to talk first.

She could unleash a completely merciless attack on Batenkaitos, but she was fundamentally a pacifist, so perhaps it was more accurate to say her personality was full of mystery.

The response to her request was—

“—Lady Beatrice!”

“I know!”

Immediately sensing danger, Ram looked over her shoulder, but Beatrice was already reacting. Light streamed from her raised arms, and a crystal clad in a purple light appeared in the air. The next instant, the crystal was shattered by a white light that hit it directly, creating a furious dance of light in the passage.

“Whooooaaa?!”

“Get your head down! It’ll be bad if it hits!”

The shimmering white and purple lights flew wildly as the peal of shattering glass echoed in the air.

Behind that magnificent, eye-searing spectacle, Subaru could see that the beam of light that had laid Gluttony low had come from the scorpion’s sharp tail.

Beatrice used her magic to protect Subaru, deflecting, redirecting, and batting aside dozens of shots aimed right at them. Moreover, an overwhelming amount seemed to be targeting Subaru specifically.

“Does she have a grudge against me or something?!”

“Maybe it’s because you were always so cold to her! Try apologizing!”

“I’m sorry! My bad! It’s my fault! Please forgive me! How’s about now?!”

The shock waves rolled over their bodies as Beatrice and Subaru clung together. He tried following her valuable advice and apologized, but the white flashes didn’t abate.

But if the focus of the attack was still trained right on them…

“Just aiming at Subaru is mean. Don’t bully the weak!”

Emilia shouted and ran down the passage, slashing at the scorpion with a longsword of ice. Parrying the attack with its giant pincer, the scorpion skittered its legs as it retreated at high speed. However, Emilia gave chase with a beautiful ice attack, determined not to let it escape.

“Teya! Ey! Uryaa!”

A longsword, twin blades, a spear, and a war hammer that Emilia summoned shattered one after the other with a high-pitched sound. Silver hair fluttered amid the countless resulting ice fragments.

In response to that waltz of ice, the scorpion’s strategy was simple. Flailing wildly with its pincers and tail, it shattered Emilia’s weapons and tried to tear her apart.

A person and a monster. A fairy and a beast. A martial arts contest was unfolding between the two, creating a deadlock that went back and forth.

“If it’s a deadlock, then the balance is…”

…Easy to break.

Just as he was about to say that, he noticed something. The asset who ordinarily would have joined the fray by now was missing. The reason was plain to see. Ram was leaning against the wall for support. There was sweat beading on her forehead, and she was struggling to breathe as her wand hand trembled.

“Ram?! What is it?! Were you hit somewhere?! Are you hurt?!”

“…Don’t shout so loudly. It makes my ears ring. And I wasn’t hit.”

“Then why do you look so pained…?”

Rejecting Subaru’s outstretched arm, Ram shook her head. Looking her over, Subaru couldn’t find any sign of injury.

“I knew our healing was just a stopgap, but…I didn’t think it would only last this long.”

“—! Beatrice, do you know something?”

“…Put simply, Ram has a limit to how long she can fight.”

Subaru gulped at Beatrice’s short explanation. After witnessing Ram’s genius fighting ability in the battle against Batenkaitos, he had gotten his hopes up that they could count on her as a fighter equal to Emilia or Julius…

“Guess it was too good to be true… You should’ve said something sooner.”

“Me? Whine to you? …Impossible.”

“Good job keeping your tongue sharp even now. Up we go!”

Subaru fired back while he lifted her slender body in a princess carry.

“Let me go,” she spat with a scowl. “Disgusting.”

“Is this really the time?! People who’ve run out of battery should just be quiet while they get carried! —Beatrice!”

“I know!”

Shutting Ram up as she weakly resisted, Subaru shouted at Beatrice. Realizing what he wanted, she pointed her palms forward and unleashed her magic power.

The gleaming purple crystals that had caught the impending white flashes of death expanded again. The target for this mass of razor-sharp crystals was the scorpion clashing with Emilia.

It would have been best to use it to finish the scorpion, but…

“Subaru, your refusal to give up really is one of your selling points, I suppose.”

“…Sorry for the trouble.”

“None of that now!”

Because of the scorpion’s unexpected identity, Subaru was hesitant to finish it off.

Guessing as much even though he didn’t say anything, Beatrice generously forgave his weakness and prepared to support Emilia with a bombardment of crystals.

“Emilia! Can you match Betty?”

“Okay! I’ll give it my best guess!”

Despite its vagueness, that was a surprisingly reassuring answer. Emilia combined her ice arts with Beatrice’s purple missiles. The sound of the air freezing overlapped with the sound of frozen time being shattered.

The passage peppered with purple bolts hardened with an almost indescribable sound, drastically limiting where the scorpion could go with its massive body. Leaping forward on pure instinct, Emilia formed her thinnest blade, made of delicate ice, and slashed.

“ ”

With a sharp enough blade, a slash resembled the breeze.

Whether that was actually something an ancient swordmaster once said or not, that’s exactly what Subaru thought Emilia’s sword sounded like.

The joint connecting the scorpion’s pincer to the rest of its limb was severed, and a green liquid splattered as the pincer fell. It landed with a heavy thud. This was the fruit of their struggle.

An obvious sign of…

“If you don’t want to suffer anymore, then just—”

“—Emilia! It’s autotomy!”

“Huh?!”

Subaru shouted desperately as Emilia tried to convince the scorpion to surrender.

Destroying one of the scorpion’s primary weapons had been the trigger for a terrible tragedy in the loop before last.

“ ”

Entirely unrelatedly, the scorpion’s legs pumped as it skittered away. This was the same sort of retreat it had performed during the loop before last, too—in which case, Subaru knew what came next.

Hearing the word autotomy, Ram and Beatrice immediately realized the danger. Ram summoned a wind with the very last dregs of her strength, while Beatrice deployed a purple barrier.

“Emilia-cha—”

There wasn’t even enough time to finish his shouted warning.

The next instant, the souvenir the scorpion left behind glowed just before it exploded.

“ ”

The blinding light, the deafening blast, and a shock wave that shook heaven and earth. He desperately hugged the body in his arms close, enduring the pain he felt all over.

Lifted off the ground and sent tumbling by the blast, he slowly sat up as a dense smoke filled the air.

“Geh, ngah… I-is everyone…guh?”

“Where are you touching?”

Subaru fumbled around with tears in his eyes, when a palm thrust sent his jaw back lightly. As he bit his tongue accidentally, his eyes got even more watery.

“It seems we both managed to survive.”

“Y-yeah. Looks like it. Sorry, did I touch you someplace weird?”

“Yes. You touched my shoulder.”

“That’s gotta be the most innocent spot!”

Rubbing his jaw that had been hit for basically no reason, Subaru stood. He started to give her a hand, but since her condition wasn’t great, he lifted her up instead.

“Tch.”

“Save it! The others…Emilia-chan! Beatrice!”

Grimacing at Ram’s unendearing response, Subaru looked around for the others.

The destructive power of the scorpion’s lingering proximity mine was colossal, causing tremendous damage to the fourth floor. There was a big hole in the floor and ceiling of the passage they were in, and the walls looked like they might collapse at any moment.

“Emilia-chan! Beatrice! I’m begging you, say something!”

“Cough. We’re okay, Subaru. Me and Beatrice both.”

There was a response from the other side of the dense smoke, across the hole in the floor. The next moment, a figure appeared through the dust—Emilia, her clothes and hair the worse for wear. She was holding Beatrice in her arms, making for a curious mirror image of Subaru and Ram.

“Thank goodness…the both of you…nothing happened?”

“Mm, we’re fine, thanks to Ram’s wind redirecting the blast. That’s how I managed to make it in time with my ice wall.”

“Even so, it was still just barely enough. We survived by the skin of our teeth.”

Holding Beatrice, Emilia hopped across the gap. Seeing that neither of them seemed to have any notable injuries, Subaru breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he bit his lip in frustration as he realized the one who had caused this mess had quickly snuck away.

“This much from one pincer…that’s not a souvenir you can just laugh off. There’s no telling what other tricks it has up its sleeve.”

“I suppose that sort of obstinacy comes from her master.”

“ ”

Ram’s retort silenced Subaru.

Driving the scorpion back and getting more time to think did nothing to quell his doubts. And the biggest issue at hand was…

“…Umm, was that really Shaula?” Emilia asked.

That was the question on everyone’s mind. Or perhaps not everyone’s mind. Subaru had a different thought. Even if he wanted to deny it, it wasn’t in doubt for him.

“I’m sure. And she was definitely aiming at me.”

“It’s true that Shaula was clingy with you…but she should know that you would die if she did something like that.”

“You should have noticed yourself, Lady Emilia. That light attack is the same one that targeted us out in the Auguria Dunes.”

“That’s…true…but…”

Emilia lowered her eyes at Ram’s harsh statement. She didn’t want to admit it, but in her heart, she had noticed the cruel truth, too.

That giant scorpion was Shaula, and she had become their enemy.


But there was something that still didn’t make sense.

“ ”

Searching for an answer to resolve that unease, Subaru expanded the range of his sixth sense.

He could sense Ram in his arms, Emilia and Beatrice right in front of him. Echidna and Rem in a place that was presumably Taygeta. Patlash was near them, and farther away, downstairs, was Joseph. Turning his focus to the fourth floor balcony, he detected Meili’s presence.

“Meili is still fighting on the balcony…”

“…In which case, she wasn’t attacked by Shaula.”

“That’s what it looks like… What the heck was Shaula thinking?”

It was contradictory. Too many of her actions didn’t make sense.

He had even seen with his own two eyes how Shaula had been holding back the tide of demon beasts surrounding the tower. He didn’t know what change of heart she might have had, but she hadn’t hurt Meili.

“Umm, you two have been talking like it’s just normal, but…”

“It was bothering me too. What are you seeing, Barusu?”

Subaru and Beatrice had been talking as if his sixth sense was open knowledge, but Emilia and Ram made them slow down.

It was a natural reaction. If anything, Beatrice was the odd one for going along with it.

“If you were not just talking drivel when you said you felt Shaula, then you must have some sort of reason. Is it some odd new magic with Lady Beatrice…? You aren’t going to say it is a blessing, are you?”

“That is a rude way to describe our magic. And it’s not a blessing,” Beatrice answered grimly. “…It is an authority, I suppose.”

“Authority…?”

Emilia and Ram cocked their heads. They looked like they had not heard the word before, but the sound of it felt right to Subaru, for some reason. Almost as if that was the natural way to describe it.

“Beatrice, what is an ‘authority’?”

“…Think of it as something akin to a more effective blessing.”

“A what?”

Ram had a pensive look on her face as she glanced up at Subaru’s. But Subaru couldn’t tell what thought might be lurking behind her pink eyes. All he could say was that Beatrice’s explanation was probably not wrong.

“I don’t know the details, but Beatrice is right. The effect of this authority or whatever lets me generally tell where everyone is inside the tower. And…”

“Amazing… Ah, is that power why you thought that big scorpion was Shaula?”

“Pretty much.”

There was a mixture of concern and astonishment in Emilia’s eyes as Subaru nodded emphatically.

Authority, sixth sense…whatever it was called, Subaru could use it to sense that the light that was presumably Shaula had taken up a position quite a distance from them. Whether that was to heal the damage of losing its claw or for some other reason, he couldn’t say.

There was one thing he knew for certain…

“—It was probably after me.”

“ ”

He felt oddly confident of that.

It had taken time to accept that the giant scorpion was actually Shaula, but it wasn’t hard to swallow that its target was Subaru. As long as it wasn’t after any of his other comrades, then there was plenty to take advantage of.

“Right, and speaking of authority…”

He didn’t know the origin of the authority he possessed, but that wasn’t important now. What mattered more wasn’t Subaru’s authority—it was Gluttony’s.

There was no trace left of the remnants of Batenkaitos’s corpse in the hallway after the explosion. There was no need to confirm it, though. Gluttony had died before their eyes.

In which case, what about the scars gouged into the world by his authority?

“Ram, are your memories—?”

“If you mean Rem, I still can’t remember her.”

“ ”

Ram shook her head, rejecting Subaru’s faint hope. Looking over at Emilia and Beatrice, she surmised there wasn’t any change in their memories, either. There was still the possibility that the missing bits might gradually return with time, but…

“Doesn’t seem like defeating Gluttony is enough to recover what we lost…”

“A troublesome enemy… Vexingly so.” Ram grimaced bitterly.

This was what Subaru had been afraid of, but there was no changing the fact that Batenkaitos was dead. It was a simple fact that one of their options for recovering what Gluttony had stolen had disappeared.

“No, don’t get depressed.”

“…Emilia-chan?”

Emilia took a step forward and shattered the darkening mood. There was an earnest light in her purple eyes as she looked between Subaru and Ram.

“We have to keep it together, all the more so in a situation with such a hodgepodge of terrible things. Echidna and Julius and the others are doing their best right now.”

“ ”

“And we have to have a proper talk with Shaula, too, right?”

Emilia was single-mindedly positive, incapable of standing still, managing to pull Subaru up whenever he was on the verge of stumbling.

And not just this time. Last time. And the time before. And not just Subaru. It had probably been the same for the other Subaru Natsuki as well.

“Mm, all right! Let’s get fired up! Beatrice, cheek me!”

“Ch-cheek you? What would you have Betty do?”

“Give me a slap!”

“Horyaa!”

While Subaru was feeling moved, Emilia had an unreasonable ask for Beatrice. Beatrice went along with the request and gave Emilia a solid slap with both hands.

There was a crack, and Emilia groaned a little bit.

“All right, thank you, Beatrice. Do you want me to do it for you?”

“If you did that, Betty’s neck would be torn off, so thank you, but no thank you.”

“Ha-ha, silly Beatrice.”

Emilia laughed like it was just teasing, but Beatrice’s eyes were serious.

Either way, though, watching the two of them, Subaru realized that some of the tenseness in his shoulders had slipped away.

It wasn’t as if it was okay to relax completely, but getting too tense was also a problem.

“Lady Emilia is relaxed… Not that she ever isn’t, though.”

“I don’t think you’re one to talk, tho—owww!”

“Stop saying such rude things. So what now?”

Pinching Subaru’s neck from ultra-close range, Ram already seemed like she was back to her usual self. Subaru’s eyes watered a bit as he nodded and focused his attention on his perception again.

He also wanted to talk things through with Shaula. Unfortunately, that wasn’t their top priority.

Should we rendezvous with Echidna and the non-combatants, or check on Meili to see what happened when Shaula left?

“—Huh?”

Subaru was dumbstruck as he expanded the range of his sixth sense to search for contacts around the tower.

The ones who had not moved from their holding positions were fine. He could understand that the Shaula giant scorpion was probably healing its wounds, too.

But a different entity was moving through the tower at an absurd speed.

“—Above.”

“Get back, Barusu!”

The goose bumps he felt turned to confidence when he heard Ram’s warning.

Obeying, he leaped backward while still carrying her, at the exact moment the ceiling he was looking up at—the cracked ceiling almost destroyed by the explosion—split diagonally.

An instant later, a shock wave turned the stone that made up the tower into dust. The dust and rubble that had finally settled burst into the air again, blocking their vision once more.

There was no trace of the supposedly solidly built tower that was supposed to be indestructible. The scorpion’s explosive autotomy, the pitch-black shadow’s pressure, and this current destruction…

“Subaru…! And Lady Emilia and the others, too.”

“Julius?!”

Breaking through the dust cloud flying toward them was Julius, his white uniform stained red with blood. Immediately kneeling and wiping the red stain at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked at Subaru, who was also covered by rubble and dust.

“I believe it was just a few minutes since we parted ways, but I can see you have also had some excitement.”

“Not as much as you, cutting straight through the tower,” Subaru fired back.

Julius had appeared after crashing through the tower floors at a savage speed. It was movement in three dimensions that ignored all physical obstacles like walls and floors—something entirely at odds with the image of Julius that Subaru had in his head.

“There’s no mistaking it, but…I’m begging you, tell me you’ve claimed Reid’s head, please.”

“As a knight, I am afraid I must confess that giving a report at odds with reality is excruciatingly difficult.”

“…That is already answer enough, I suppose.”

Julius’s expression was quiet as he rejected Subaru’s heartfelt plea. And as if to confirm Beatrice’s bitter response, there was a sound of footsteps from the rubble.

The distinct sound of sandals.

“Hah! Rollin’ out all the babes for me? So you do know how to do this after all. I was just starting to get bored playin’ around. So now it’s your turn to entertain me? Huh?”

“…This is a terrible development.”

Ram’s blunt response was what everyone there was feeling.

The tall, red-haired man slowly emerged from the smoke, a ferocious, demonic aura emanating from his entire body, the incomprehensible judgment of God—

“—Reid Astrea.”

“Ka-ka-ka, don’t look so annoyed, small fry. I just came here since it seemed like the tower was getting busted up. I’m disappointed to see you here, too.”

“In that case, why not pull a U-turn and go back to the waiting room? An overwhelmingly powerful guy like you’ll get a bad rep stooping to something as lame as picking on the weak.”

“Sorry, but when you’re born like this, you can’t do anything but pick on the weak. No matter where I look in this world, there ain’t anything but people weaker than me.”

It was an arrogant and insolent declaration, but Reid had the air of strength that made it impossible to deny. Feeling it directly through this skin, Subaru gulped.

One after the other, problems were ostentatiously standing athwart their path. And the way they were steadily getting more dangerous was nasty.

“Reid…why are you here? I thought you couldn’t leave that room?”

“Oy, oy, don’t make me laugh, babe. I go wherever I want, cut whatever I want, and take whoever I want. You think I give a shit about anyone else’s standards?”

“That’s really selfish.”

But as Subaru gritted his teeth at the tense situation, Emilia stood up to Reid.

Gentle and pacific, and a maybe a little too calm. That was Emilia’s nature in a nutshell. But even she couldn’t help being put off by Reid’s outrageously arrogant philosophy.

And Reid didn’t seem to mind talking to Emilia, thanks to her pretty face, judging by how he answered her in a noticeably better mood than when he was talking to Subaru. Meanwhile…

“The situation looks awful, Julius, but I have good news and bad news and some more bad news.”

“That is one piece of bad news extra… Then let me hear the good news.”

“One of the Gluttonies who snuck into the tower, Batenkaitos, is dead. The corpse is all over the place.”

“That is…”

Julius caught his breath, but his yellow eyes widened at that news. And then he immediately touched his own chest and closed his eyes.

“…Then one of the pieces of bad news is that the stolen memories have not returned?”

“That’s right. The memories don’t come back, even with Gluttony dead. That goes for me, Rem, and you too. The second piece of bad news is that Shaula is an enemy now. Or at least tentatively.”

“She has changed appearance, so it is easy to distinguish,” Ram added. “If you see a very large scorpion, that’s an enemy.”

“I rather wish my ears were deceiving me.”

Julius’s refined visage tensed at the barrage of information. Standing beside him, Subaru kept his voice low in order not to draw the attention of the wild red beast.

“Anyway, given that, we’re going to have to be careful with our anti-Gluttony operations. Step one is gonna be searching for the other one that should be around here, but—”

“Regarding that, I have both good news and bad news of my own.”

“You two are the same…”

Subaru didn’t want to let Ram’s comment slide, but he didn’t have much choice and focused on Julius’s almost vengeful retort.

“Then I’ll also have the good news first.”

“I know the location of the other Gluttony you are searching for.”

“—! Seriously? Then where is he? We have to take care of him before he gets to the others.”

“The answer to that question is the bad news, I’m afraid.”

Subaru leaned forward, latching on to Julius when he mentioned the as yet undiscovered Gluttony, but Julius shook his head grimly and slowly raised the sword in his hand…

“The Archbishop of Gluttony, Roy Alphard, is right there.”

“…Huh?”

Julius pointed the tip of his knight’s sword straight forward.

“ ”

The sword was pointing at the massive man with a ferocious, sharklike smile. There was no chance of misunderstanding; he was pointing at that red-haired instrument of violence.

And as Subaru and Ram both fell silent, Julius continued.

“The first-generation Sword Saint Reid Astrea before us. He is the Archbishop of Gluttony Roy Alphard himself.”



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