7
The giant scorpion was the one to fire the first shot of the chaotic struggle.
“ ”
Its red compound eyes blazed, and a white flash erupted from its tail that swung upward the next moment.
Subaru had a lot of bad memories involving that deadly flash. Without putting too fine a point on it, he remembered that around half of the fifteen repeated attempts he had gone through in the tower had ended because of it.
But after getting killed that many times, he had learned a couple things. For one…
“The sign of an attack, and its velocity…!”
The compound eyes and the tail, their light increased just slightly the moment the scorpion attacked.
It was so minute as to seem like imagination, but Subaru had staked his life several times and had painstakingly won that knowledge and that slenderest of lifelines through trial and error.
“Sorry I couldn’t live up to your expectations!”
He apologized to the other him who wanted an all-powerful Natsuki Subaru when all he could manage was this crude style of fighting. But in his arms, Beatrice, who was facing the same deadly challenge with him, snorted.
“What are you saying? You’ve never failed to live up to my expectations.”
Beatrice said the nicest things. And at the same time, she raised her tiny hand that wasn’t holding on to Subaru’s and cast a spell.
“Murak.”
Freed from the yoke of gravity, the two of them soared above the point where the white light passed through, floating up above the balcony.
“Meili!”
“I know, I know!”
Subaru floated higher in a burst, blown by the explosion of the flash. Beside him, weightless from the spell, too, Meili whistled on her fingers. Just above them, the winged moles latched on to their prey, as if to kidnap them up into the sky. With a sudden acceleration, the three of them leaped out into the air over the sands.
This was another thing he had learned in those fifteen deaths. The scorpion wasn’t to be faced in a cramped space. Whether fighting or fleeing, it was suicide to face it outside of a wide-open area…
“But even so, this is a pretty suicidal move, too…!”
Hanging beneath demon beasts, they descended more than a hundred yards in one fell swoop. Battered by the intense, sandy wind, they heard a loud, rushing sound in their ears as they descended at full speed toward the desert. If Subaru had been afraid of heights, just the attempt alone might well have killed him.
“Mister!”
“Wha-gaaah?!”
Just barely catching Meili’s voice in the torrent of wind, he felt an impact. Looking up, he saw that something had pierced the winged mole’s body. The small monster exploded from the inside out, spraying chunks of flesh, and sent Subaru and Beatrice flying out into space. A follow-up attack by the scorpion was the cause.
Left behind on the balcony, it had taken aim at them in their descent. Readying the next terrifyingly precise attack, it shifted its gaze to Subaru. His instincts cried out that it would hit if he didn’t do anything. Subaru immediately hugged Beatrice tightly to him:
“Beako! Original Spell Number Two!”
It was a card he could only play three times in one day, but he couldn’t afford to die because he screwed up the timing.
Power swelled in Beatrice’s eyes as she came to the same conclusion herself and prepared a a spell that would make Subaru invulnerable for a limited time…
“ Giiiiiii.”
“Whoa?!” “Whah?!”
Just before the spell activated, Subaru and Beatrice were snatched up, and an instant later, white light passed through the spot where they had been standing, just barely missing them.
“Ph-phew. What happened…ugh?!”
Held by something that felt almost rubbery, Subaru looked around to see what had happened, only to shout in surprise. Beatrice, who he held close to his chest, had the same wide-eyed reaction.
What had saved them from the scorpion’s attack was a demon beast with bluish-black skin and a vicious appearance, that had galloped down the outer wall of the tower—a gabaou.
“Gah-ga-ha-ha-ha! When I saw you for the first time underground, I never would have guessed I’d be fighting alongside you in the climax!”
“ Giiiiiii.”
The gabaou whinnied in that earsplitting shriek as Subaru put on a brave front. It placed Subaru and Beatrice on its back, and then accelerated even faster, running down the tower.
“Oh, ohhhhhhh?!”
“Wababababababa?!”
The gabaou ran straight down, its body swaying right and left as it went, and each time it did, Subaru and Beatrice let out a shriek as a white flash just barely grazed them.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they reached the end of the line, and a powerful impact shook both of them. The ravenous horse lord had run down the entire tower, landing in the desert.
“Th-that was unbearable. That was more nightmarish than an actual nightmare…”
“Argh! You two were about to use your trump card right at the start, right? Be more careful!”
Having survived that grand experience, they were met by Meili riding another gabaou.
He had to tip his cap to Meili, who had taken control of the high-power gabaou, flying winged moles, and sandworm underground, all while holding off the stampede.
That ability to adapt and the breadth of her tactics were exactly what he wanted out of a partner right now.
“Meili! You and me might make a pretty good team!”
“Uwah, stop it. I don’t want Petra to be mad at me later.”
Meili wholeheartedly rejected Subaru’s praise with a grimace.
Hmm, she doesn’t look so good.
On closer inspection, he noticed her wipe the sweat off her brow, and her breathing was a little ragged. Not just because she was focused on a life-or-death fight, either.
“Otto joked about the world being hell when he couldn’t control his blessing, but…looks like it can be real bad if you overuse it, too.”
The comment Otto had let slip one time when he was drunk was something that Subaru might have to pay closer attention to.
If what Otto said was right, then there was a limit on how much he could just rely on Meili in this battle. If she collapsed in the middle of the fighting, they would have their backs against the wall in an instant.
“This battle is gonna come down to how much we can pamper Princess Meili!”
“That sounds like a plan Betty can’t let pass without comment!”
“Well, if you can make it easier on me, that would be nice…but we can’t just win by running away, right?” Meili remarked with a sour look.
“Yeah.” Subaru nodded. “We can’t do anything about Shaula…that big scorpion, if we are just stalling. That’s why Emilia-tan holds the key to everything.”
“…That silver-haired lady from before?” Meili asked, unconvinced.
“That’s right. Emilia-tan and the fifth rule are the key to it all.”
Nodding, Subaru held out his hand with five fingers raised. Each one was a rule of the tower placed on them, the challengers.
“No leaving until the examination is complete. The examination’s rules cannot be broken. Disrespecting the archive is not permitted. The tower must not be destroyed. And…”
Meili had heard the first four rules already. But no one other than Subaru knew the fifth rule. No one other than Subaru had forced it out of her in another iteration, even though she had hidden it so earnestly.
The fifth rule that she had held back, not telling anyone was…
“The destruction of the examination is not forbidden. Meaning this tower’s rules can be nullified.”
The examination restricted the challengers’ movements, but at the same time, Shaula was also bound as an examiner. So even if they wanted to avoid killing Shaula, they still had to play by the rules.
But if that was the chain that had bound her these four hundred years…
“—! She’s coming!”
Right after Beatrice’s warning, a tremendous cloud of sand erupted before their eyes. A shock wave caused by the giant scorpion not racing down the tower but leaping directly from the balcony without any hesitation.
From the depths of the cloud, there was a creaking sound as the pincers opened and closed.
The scorpion slowly came into view, its eyes ignoring all the demon beasts surrounding the tower and focused purely on the three of them—no, just on Subaru.
“Beako! Meili! We have to buy time! Emilia-tan is our win condition!”
“Roger!”
“When you say time, how long, exactly, is that supposed to be?”
“As fast as Emilia-tan can take care of it.”
Emilia was always earnest and serious. So there was no way she would hold back or compromise. She poured her all, every bit of energy she could muster, into everything she did.
Loving, caring for, and trusting in her, he would hold his ground here.
“Now, let’s do this. We’ll crush fate—no, the system of this tower!”
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