Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu - Volume 4 - Chapter 71.1

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INTERMISSION: TEA PARTY

“Parallel universes, is one school of thought. That, separate from the universe you're living in now, different universes which had followed along a similar track exist.”

The voice speaks, its intonation uninflected as utterly possible. Alongside the lecture-scented statement, fingertips rap against the table in pleasant, even rhythm.

“This sounds—huu—as though it's—haa—going to get complicated.”

“The idea's not that complex. You can consider these parallel universes as things being infinitely generated by just one difference in choice. For example, say there's a crossroads on the way to your home. At this crossroads, where either path ultimately leads to your house, there's a you who went right and a you who went left—these two approaches can already be called extremely small-scale parallel universes.”

“What. Then you're saying there's so many universes out there you can't even count them. This's just stupid.”

At the reply to the exhausted voice, a stubborn voice joins in with its hasty response. The lecturer smiles wryly, pointing their finger at the rash speaker.

“It isn't anything so ridiculous. While yes, the breadth of that last example may've been too narrow and not communicated the scope of the difference very well... you can assuredly apply this concept to larger situations, too.”

“Bigger situations... like?”

“Such as, right. —If you'd been capable of abandoning the isolated elves on that suicide mission in the Borloid Plains, I wonder just what would've happened?”

“—”

“...Hrm. My predictions had it that you'd be infuriated here.”

“It's simple why I'm not angry. No matter if that scene repeats tens, hundreds, thousands of times, I would always absolutely dive my fists right in. —These parallel universes you're talking about wouldn't happen!”

With that intense assertion, the stubborn voice's owner swings up their legs as they throw their feet down on the table, taking a reclining posture. The lecturer suppresses a laugh. Seeing their smile, the stubborn one's pretty eyebrows pitch sharply down.

“What's so funny!?”

“No, I mean that was very manly of you, but your pants are showing, Minerva.”

Minerva: “Auh, nnuh! What, stupid! I can't even believe this! Stupid! Stuupid! Stuuupid! You're so stupid! Just stupid! Stupid! You are so stupid! You're stupid and, um, stupid!”

While yelling curses which reveal the poverty of her vocabulary, the blonde girl—the WITCH OF WRATH Minerva—brings her feet off the table in tears, shoving her hands down to the crotch region of her short skirt as she closes her legs. She looks directly up and ahead with rage in her eyes—glaring at the white-haired witch. But,

Sekhmet: “Haa—Leaving aside who's correct in this spat and—huu—getting to the pants—haa— that was just sordid Minerva backfiring on herself—huu—Your resenting others for it is disgraceful.”

Minerva: “Sordid, now you're who I don't wanna be hearing that from, Sekhmet. Like you ever wear anything else... how long have you gone without changing out of that robe?”

Minerva's harsh gaze turns to the side of the table—aimed at the WITCH OF SLOTH Sekhmet, her face buried in her long, magenta hair. Sekhmet shifts her neck, looking at Minvera from a gap in the ocean of hair.

Sekhmet: “You just put it on over your head—huu—so this outfit is the easiest and—haa—Typhon wipes down my body—huu—so it's not as though I'm really dirty—haa.”

Minerva: “You go nitpicking about how others look after their appearance, and then about yourself you're just so... augh, aughhh, aughhhh, what do you want!? I'm to blame here? It's all my fault? You want me to punch you all better!?”

Sekhmet goes without answering the riled Minerva, instead looking away. A vein bulges on Minvera's forehead in response to Sekhmet's lack of energy to speak, but being fully accustomed to Minerva's rages, Sekhmet entirely abandons any intention to care. Taking over for the spent Witch of Sloth, the first witch to speak with Minerva—the WITCH OF GREED Echidna—claps their hands.

Echidna: “I do understand your anger, and that said I also find it nice. Now, I'm sorta thinking to continue what we were talking about before.”6

Minerva: “Hnmpf. You were the one bringing up this stuff about parallel universes so you'd have a reason to get me mad, Echidna. I am so angry. I'm enraged. I'm furious.”

Echidna: “Yes yes. Now, about the parallel universes. If that last example didn't work... right. What do you think would've happened if Flügel hadn't been able to form a covenant with Volcanica?”

Finger to her lip as she smiles mischievously, Echidna asks this question of Minerva. Minerva swallows her breath, her blue eyes narrowing.

Minerva: “If Volcanica and Flügel had no covenant, with only Reid to stop her it wouldn't be enough... the world would've been swallowed.”

Echidna: “Swallowed, and then who knows what. I suppose only a single person, the WITCH OF

6 Throughout this entire chapter, Echidna uses the pronoun 'watashi' instead of her usual 'boku'.

ENVY, would remain then. Potentially, even a world where that did happen exists out there as a parallel universe. And if it does, don't you just find that incredibly interesting?”

Minerva: “Your eyes get so gross when you're talking about her, Echidna. —I'm really not that mad at her. You're not gonna be getting me sharing that wrath with you.”

Echidna: “That is just another possible answer. —Your wrath is truly pleasant. That's why you were the witch most worthy of being loved.”

Says Echidna in past tense. Minerva gives a small snort as she averts her gaze and crosses her arms, emphasizing her abundant chest.

Minerva: “I'm not looking to be loved. What I want is for war to disappear from this world, for my fists to exterminate the wails of suffering and sadness and crying and pain. I don't need any path set for me except that. My rage, my wrath, my healing fists—are my everything.”

States Minerva clearly, with not a speck of doubt. Conviction with no indecision, hesitation, worry, trouble, and not any trace of anything to lead her astray. Indeed this is WRATH—directed at the world, an inexhaustible fury which formed this girl from the roots up.

???: “Well, you could say that, if you want I guess. That you get so ha-ppy, when peo-ple praise you, that you just start grinning so big, is your cute point, Ner-Ner.”

A voice cuts in from opposite Sekhmet, that is to say from Minerva's left.

Daphne: “Ner-Ner, your scale of not, be-ing hon-est, is in itself witch-tier. That's something about you I like so much, I just want to eat it.”

Minerva: “Shut up, Daphne. You were sleeping until now, why'd you have to suddenly wake up.”

Daphne: “But I've been a-wake, e-ver since, you got noisy and flashed your undies. You go around, wearing a t-i-n-y skirt, which shows them off if you par-ade a-bout a li-ttle, and you still have kuh¬yoo-tee undies, oh you Ner-Ner.”

Minerva: “Y-you're one to talk! You're younger, and yours are nearly obscene! The hell are those, they aren't underwear, it's a string! Stupid! You stupid! You're so stupid! You really are, just, so hopeless and stupid! Stupid! Stupidstupid!”

Face pure red and eyes full of tears, Minerva wails. Happily paying no mind to this is the WITCH OF GLUTTONY Daphne. She rests immobile in her full-body restraints, her eyes covered by crisscrossing blindfolds, her body settled inside a black coffin. With this thing casually hanging out at the table, to an outsider this tea party would certainly look surreal.

Run out of insults to sling (or really, she just said 'stupid' over and over, but), Minerva plomps back down in her seat, burying her face in her hands as she slumps forward over the table.

Minerva: “Just what, just what, just what!? It's like, am I to blame here? It's not that I'm doing it to get compliments, but of course you're going to be happy if people compliment you. What's so bad about thinking 'glad I did that' when someone tells you 'thank you'? Am I in the wrong? Is this my fault? I'm healing everybody but I want healing too...”

Echidna: “That you can't explode into a violent fit of self-neglect from that, I really think to be part of your charm. —Now.”

Leaving aside Minerva, who descends into a sea of soliloquy as she checks out of the conversation, Echidna directs her gaze to Daphne. Blindfolded Daphne shouldn't able to perceive this, but she nonetheless gives a few cute little sniffs.

Daphne: “Idna-Idna, what do you want, from looking at me? I'm not like Ner-Ner and Met-Met, I can't en-dure through, a con-ver-sa-tion for you. A-ct-u-a-lly... haa, haa... my calories are nearly burned out already.”

Echidna: “I already learned well enough before death that there is nothing more foolish than seeking cooperativeness from a witch, but... when the conversation is proceeding this poorly, it just makes me want to brag about you all.”

Says Echidna, as she raps the fingers of her right hand off the table. Instantly, a steaming teacup and a plate of cookies appears before Daphne, who abruptly gets very excited.

Echidna: “Naturally, I have no intention to make you wait, so if you would like to e...”

Daphne: “Snarfblarfomnomnomchewchewchewblahargle.”

Echidna: “Didn't bear mentioning. If you could, I would kind of appreciate you practice your table manners here, but.”

Echidna shrugs, the sight before her being Daphne—with her entire upper-body riding the table as she eats. —For Daphne, meals are quite literally full-bodied. Her mouth makes eating noises, but in actuality the tea and cookies aren't disappearing down her gullet, rather getting sucked inside directly through her skin. The offered tea, cookies, and teacup all disappear inside Daphne, immediately becoming nourishment for GLUTTONY.

Daphne: “Ahh, so yu-mmy, so ta-sty. ...Ah, I'm sorry. I got a little too en-thu-si-as-tic and gobbled the table.”

Echidna: “It's nothing to worry about. ...Isn't what I could go so far as to say, but from the instant I invited you I was more or less resigned this would happen. There's nothing I'd desire more from you than to be a little more prudent with yourself.”

Daphne: “Idna-Idna, do you go around, or-der-ing, birds not to fly, or fish not to swim?”

Echidna sighs. Daphne rocks her body back upright.

Daphne: “Alrighty,”

Daphne: “My stomach's got, food in it, so I'll have a conversation with you now Idna-Idna. —You were talking about parallel universes, or so-m-e-thi-n-g?”

Echidna: “That's right. Daphne, what do you think about it?”

Daphne: “I don't really think anything? Things went like this be-cause of this, or what would things be, if things ha-ppened here, thinking about that stuff, does-n't fill my sto-mach. Ah, but if I think of a split like, should I have red meat for dinner, or have fish, then maybe it's not re-a-lly a dumb idea.”

Echidna: “I've got no complaints on comprehension level when it's you, Daphne, but... genuinely, it's not pulling your interest enough for a discussion. That's another thing I had expected, though.”

Daphne possesses a very chill personality out of the witches, and she's easy to interact with. The problem is that her existence in itself is a detriment to all living creatures, and that her ferocious constitution is hopelessly not suited for coexistence with others.

Sekhmet: “So ultimately, then. Haa. No matter what you speculate about parallel universes—huu— it's a thing where thinking about it is—haa—entirely pointless.”

Cutting in to this sad struggling conversation is the Witch of Sloth, her body still slumped on the damaged table. Balled up in her own long hair, she says to the onlooking Echidna and onsmelling Daphne,

Sekhmet: “Even supposing you accept this school—haa—of thought and those split worlds as existing, you can't know or experience them in actuality—huu—Then, that untouchable bubble so called their potentiality of existing—haa—bursts and dissipates the moment that you touch it.”

Echidna: “Indeed, if you consider from the realistic perspective that's likely the case. Even if you can consciously recognize the existence of parallel universes, you cannot actually observe them. Parallel, is an apt term for it. Never intermingling, running on two divided lines—that would be an alternate universe deemable as a parallel universe.”

Minerva: “—But that's not what the second TRIAL is, then.”

Says Minerva, cutting in with her lovable face dyed crimson in rage.

Minerva: “If Echidna's going out of the way to talk about it, then this had to be going somewhere mean. Had to. I'm spot-on right. You're thinking I just prodded you somewhere where it hurts. But if you didn't want people probing around at you, then you could've just not done something so stupid as hiding your hurt!”

Echidna: “I didn't say anything, and having you get indignant on me is kind of a problem... but well, not that I can refute you. After all, the second TRIAL indeed uses that kind of mechanism.”

Minerva punches an indentation into the table as Echidna lightly raises her hand, a black-bound book appearing in her fingers. This was Echidna's forbidden text which chronicled the knowledge of every PAST, FUTURE, and PRESENT in the world—that is, the MEMORIES OF THE WORLD. Should the Thirst For Knowledge Incarnate Echidna ever feel to, she could learn any and every tidbit of information, knowledge, and history in this world. That said, due to issues of Echidna's personality, she harboured disgust for utilizing the tome's power.

Echidna: “The second TRIAL reads the deepest thoughts of the challenger, seeking juncture points in the path they have walked—or otherwise, moments classifiable as REGRETS—and the Memories of the World reconstructs an IMPOSSIBLE PRESENT resultant from a difference in choice at those crossroads. Compared to the first TRIAL which makes the challenger face symbols of their past mistakes, and the third TRIAL waiting ahead, this one is consequently rather easy to defeat.”

Minerva: “Easy to defeat, which means?”

Echidna: “Essentially it's the same case as for Daphne, a problem of clear rationalization. Sekhmet mentioned this already—but ultimately, parallel universes are untouchable, divided lines. There may be regret, there may be rue for it, but the lines remain beyond our reach.”

Minerva: “What's putting people so close to these unreachable lines is your TRIAL!”

Says an annoyed Minerva. Echidna shrugs, stroking her white hair as she speaks to calm the now-standing Minerva.

Echidna: “Defeating the second TRIAL is relatively easy for the ordinary person. Unlike the first TRIAL where you must overcome a past event which actually happened, the second TRIAL just means touching a something WHICH COULD HAVE HAPPENED. You're at liberty to interact with it while either rejecting or accepting the parallel world, but... all you really need to do is capably affirm your present, actual world.”

Minerva: “Actual, world...”

Echidna: “And so we return to the topic of problems of rationalization. And this rationalization is a simple one where Sekhmet or Daphne, or maybe even you could do it. —If you're capable of that, you can overcome the TRIAL.”

Minerva gives a reluctant, begrudging nod. Indeed, going off Echidna's statements alone, the content of this TRIAL would not seem anything so harsh. Should it be any of the witches here—or for argument not even one of the witches, but somebody with an unshakable grasp of themselves—defeating the TRIAL would be easy.

Daphne: “But then why, is Su-ba-ruun, having such a hard time with it? Subaruun didn't re-a-ll-y seem with-out self i-den-ti-ty.”

Echidna: “—So, his case.”

Daphne for some reason makes little chewy motions as she reminisces on Subaru. Ignoring this, Echidna closes her eyes as she considers only Daphne's words.

Echidna: “The second TRIAL is observation of parallel worlds. In a sense, it's the deed of observing what would come after your past regrets. And like we discussed before, you can easily preform a rejection or an affirmation of it. —Because you can explain it away by noting that events did not actually travel along that path.”

Echidna: “However,”

Echidna: “In his case alone, this doesn't apply. Even I hadn't predicted that the second TRIAL would sting him this much. —Truly, beyond my prediction.”

Daphne: “Sniff sniff... Idna-Idna, you smell like you're smi-l-ing, so happ-i-ly.”

Minerva: “I bet she's just happy 'cause she didn't predict it. She's nasty, weird... there's no helping her.”

Echidna: “Birds of a feather. Being that you are my friends, you're not exempt from that either.”

Daphne snickers, Minerva is in an angry huff. When they start hearing sleeper's breathing from Sekhmet's direction, and while watching the other witches' respective reactions, Echidna leans back in her chair. And,

???: “'Chidna~—Typhon's hungry too.”

Running down from the meadow up to the table on the hill is a girl, bursting in as she calls to Echidna. Short green hair and tan skin, her white teeth dazzling as she smiles. It's the WITCH OF PRIDE Typhon. She had gone without getting involved in the tricky conversation, killing her time out in the meadow. Echidna smiles at her.

Echidna: “Sorry for boring you. Typhon, do you want some tea... or perhaps something sweet'd be better. You can eat sweets normally, right?”

Typhon: “Alls good. Running a lot spent my strength—so—drink then eat then rest.”

Says Typhon with incredible energy as she pulls out an empty chair to sit beside Sekhmet. With one hand playing around with Sekhmet's hair, Typhon messily gobbles up the tea and sweets Echidna finger-snaps into existence. For anyone ignorant of Typhon's nature, it would be charming scene.

Echidna: “You must be tired too, from looking after Typhon?”

???: “Th... that's, n-not true... though? T-Typhon's a, good girl... and, her power... d-doesn't... no, um, it doesn't, get through... so, y-yeah? I-It's all, okay. I'm, just dandy.”

Standing beside Echidna, arriving at the tea party after Typhon, this character gives a faltering reply as a weak smile rises on their face. With her pink hair reaching down to her hips, this girl gives a shockingly ephemeral vibe. While her face lacks any outstanding or special features, for some reason it naturally attracts the eye. More than anything, the way that her actions and expressions are somehow reminiscent of a small animal's tugs at the heartstrings horrifically.

Echidna: “Have a seat, Camilla. —My calling you was intentional, after all.”

Camilla: “I-is, is something... s-star, starting... now? It wo... won't be, s-sc-scary?”

Echidna: “There will be nothing scary or painful. —I'd merely like your help to get the pieces moving.”

Seating herself beside Echidna as offered, Camilla—the WITCH OF LUST—timidly looks at the other witch. Echidna gives Camilla a smile as she easily flicks out her arms.