Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 12

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  The power and the knowledge to heal four centuries of isolation was too much to hope for from Subaru.

  Going back in time, using his means of redoing things, Subaru could create a “final” chance to exchange words with Beatrice any number of times. —But how should one heal four centuries of sadness?

  He couldn’t turn back the clock on the four centuries of time Beatrice had spent in the archive of forbidden books.

  “—Though I must envy her.”

  Almost as an afterthought, the murmuring voice crept its way into Subaru’s battered eardrums.

  Unable to believe what he just heard, Subaru lifted his face, staring at the mouth Roswaal had used to speak the words. But Roswaal did not notice his gaze, and together with a vague sigh, he carried on.

  “Beatrice was able to vanish, granting her long-cherished desire. That is the meaning behind the fact that you are here, am I riiiiight?”

  “Long-cherished…desire? A-are you?! Are you trying to tell me dying like, like that was her long-cherished desire?!”

  “That was the girl’s wish. Whatever end each person hopes for is not something others should belittle, and her desires were her own. It is impermissible to sully that girl’s demise, for you and for me.”

  “You killed Ram and Garfiel, and you get to say that to me?!”

  As Subaru shouted in anger and raised his finger in accusation for the slaughter, Roswaal shook his head side to side. It was as if to say, And were your own actions so noble that you can act so high and mighty?

  Subaru had heard Beatrice’s plea, her lament. And yet, why was Roswaal, the man who had done nothing for her, able to put on that face like he understood Beatrice?

  —After all, there was no sympathizing with Beatrice’s wish, her plea for death. That wish was not what she had wanted at all.

  —If it was, then why had Beatrice shielded Subaru in the end?

  “Like I said, I envy her. —After all, it would seem that my long-cherished desire shall not be granted.”

  “—?”

  Until that point, Subaru had been unable to comprehend a single word out of Roswaal’s mouth. There was only chaos in his mind.

  But even so, what he just said left a particularly strange and queasy feeling in Subaru.

  Granting a long-cherished desire. Fulfilling a wish. These felt wrong, discordant. As for his wish—

  “What…do you want, then? What the heck is your wish? Why—why do all this…?”

  “I shall not speak it. I have a vow to uphold, much like you. What has come out of my mouth so far is the greatest concession I am capable of giving you. But allow me to say this.”

  “”

  “I always do my utmost, always acting in the best interests of my long-cherished desire. My various schemes, blasphemies, aid, and support are all for its sake. I have never once turned my back on that.”

  Blatantly, boldly, and proudly, Roswaal affirmed every last one of his own actions to date.

  How could he say it with a straight face like that, shamelessly, brazenly? Pitch-black anger welled up in Subaru.

  For Subaru’s part, his anger seemed selfish, if not wholly disconnected from the contempt for the feelings and emotions for which he had come so far. But he couldn’t help himself.

  “What best interests?! Never turned your back on that, my ass! You…you too, it’s that book, huh?! You’re acting according to what’s written in the book, aren’t you?! Are you gonna tell me the same things that Beatrice did?! That what you’ve done until now, that what you’re doing in the Sanctuary is all…!”

  The first run when Subaru had discovered that book, Beatrice had told him she was doing everything as written within. That had been a lie. This time around, Subaru had learned her book was filled with blank pages.

  So what about Roswaal’s book, then? Was the future accurately detailed therein?

  “Is this snow according to the book, too?! Did the writing in the book tell you to make the snow fall? What the hell for?!”

  “That should be obvious. —To isolate Lady Emilia.”

  “—H…uh?

  “I suppose I must repeat myself. Making the snow fall like this inflicts harm upon the residents. This isolates Lady Emilia, causing her to fall into an unstable mental state. Without this snow, she would not, yes?”

  Roswaal’s conclusion accurately described the state of Emilia, left behind at the tomb, as if he could see it for himself.

  The situation had advanced precisely in accordance with Roswaal’s prediction. But the issue was not the effects. Subaru did not comprehend the meaning behind the thought process of Roswaal’s that had arrived at such an extreme.

  With Subaru perplexed, Roswaal spread his hands out a little.

  “This is a land connected to a Witch, and Lady Emilia is in the position of confronting the Trial to liberate the Sanctuary. For a great, unseasonable snowfall to arrive out of season in a place she is located…one can imagine what would happen?”

  “Wh-why, you…”

  “At a time like this, Garfiel’s lack of guile proves most useful. His suspicions would naturally jump straight to Lady Emilia, blaming her with a loud voice. This is where the memories of the people of Earlham Village would come into play. They know of the wave of localized cold that Lady Emilia…well, more precisely, the Great Spirit, can trigger.”

  Roswaal’s statement made a chill run through Subaru. The “wave of localized cold” he spoke of referred to the sight of out-of-season snow occurring alone in the environs of Roswaal Manor.

  It was a fun, peaceful time between the people of the mansion and the villagers. Roswaal was using that memory.

  —In point of fact, every last thing had gone in accordance with Roswaal’s scheme.

  Garfiel had suspected Emilia, and his voice propagated that suspicion through the residents of the settlement. The people of Earlham Village would want to believe in her. But they had memories that associated snow with Emilia.

  It was Emilia who had made the snow fall—and every plot of soil in that land, that world, carried a reason to pin every crime upon her, regardless of who might have committed it.

  This was the demon named Prejudice, which had caused Emilia so much suffering over many years.

  “And do what by isolating Lady Emilia, you ask? Lady Emilia is truly a weak person, you see. It is by no means mysterious for her to entrust herself to the hands of ‘someone’ who can accept her… And if that someone wished to support Lady Emilia with every fiber of his being, all the better.”

  “Wait, wait…wait, wait, wait, wait…!”

  As Roswaal continued his confession, the words triggered an instinctual fear, prompting Subaru to raise his hands.

  He felt like at that moment some preposterous tale, some outrageous fact, was being spoken to him.

  As if that moment, he had heard Roswaal’s true intent, and having heard it, there was no going back—

  “Once Lady Emilia depends upon you, you shall never push her away. Of course not… You love her, after all. If your beloved Lady Emilia entrusts everything to you, you will be unable to brush her aside.”

  “That’s not…”

  No. It can’t be true.

  That very moment, the present Subaru had resisted giving in to Emilia when she had clung to him back at the tomb. He had come this far after enduring it. Knowing that those were not Emilia’s true feelings, he could not allow himself to drown in feelings of love that were a pale substitute for the real—

  “Not today is surely your answer. That is an unfortunate development for me. It would seem that the current you is overly invested in extraneous things.”

  “Extraneous…? Wait, this is why you did something to my letter…?”

  “—Letter?”

  Suspicion slipped into Roswaal’s question to himself. Though he knit his brows, he immediately cast that suspicion aside.

  When Roswaal stepped forward, taking a single step into the pool of blood, Subaru’s body subcons
ciously flinched back. Roswaal, shaking his long arm, flashed a lonely, pained smile at Subaru’s reaction and said; “The current you is insufficient to bring about the future indicated in the text. Any discrepancy with that recorded requires a correction.”

  “You plan to kill…me?”

  “Killing you would be putting the cart before the horse, would it noooot? I would be inconvenienced were you to perish. I mean, I simply must have you seize the next opportunity, no matter what might befall you.”

  “—Eh?”

  For an instant, the words Roswaal said as he approached threw Subaru for a loop. But he immediately grasped what the words meant and, at the same time, recognized their variance with the facts.

  Based on some kind of notation in the book of knowledge, Roswaal had caught on to Subaru’s looping. However, he did not know that death was the trigger to activate Return by Death.

  Accordingly, Roswaal believed he could not kill him until Subaru activated the looping of his own free will. If it was like that, he had a chance to w—

  “—I shall not kill you. However, I can do anything to you besides that. Am I wrong?”

  The next instant, Subaru was struck by a blow that seemed to go straight through his solar plexus, slamming him into the wall.

  “G-ahh…”

  “Considering how our relationship will develop after this, I would not consider this course of action to be suave of me. Did I use the term correctly?”

  “Goaa! G-gyaaa!”

  Driving his fingernails into the fallen Subaru’s flank, Roswaal cocked his head like this was any other regular moment. Rather than the force of his kick, he was using precise gouging at weak points to meticulously increase Subaru’s suffering.

  And as Subaru writhed in intense pain, Roswaal rained more one-sided acts of violence upon him with punches, kicks, and sometimes a stomp to the head, causing tears of blood to flow out of his left eye cavity once more.

  But he didn’t die. Therefore, there was no Return by Death. The looping did not occur.

  “…I have done all this, and still you will not try again? You are quite obstinate.”

  “I… I—I…”

  “Ahhh, or is this already after you have made another attempt? Now that I think of it, I have no method of recognizing whether you have done it or not. Quite the miscalculation.”

  The pitying look Roswaal directed toward Subaru was a spiteful sight indeed. But what tugged at his chest even more than that, something that always had, spilled out of Subaru’s mouth.

  “Ros…waal… Y…you talk like I’ve tried again a whole…bunch of times…”

  “Oh my? This is becoming a rather important discussion? Do tell.”

  “I’m…the one asking you… What’s…with you…acting…planning on the premise that I…that someone else…can redo things? Do you actually…?”

  Finally, the terrible premonition that he’d dragged around with him all that time coalesced into a tangible suspicion.

  —And that suspicion was that Roswaal had a way to inherit memories.

  Just like Echidna, inside the tomb, who spent her time cut off from reality in her castle of dreams, did Roswaal also inherit memories of a prior world even after Subaru Returned by Death?

  For if not, Subaru couldn’t make sense of his plan that hinged on redoing things.

  “If that’s so…that’s fine. But if that’s really what it is, then I can’t…”

  Can’t forgive you. If they had both inherited those memories, their relationship could be extended no further.

  Roswaal had committed a great many heresies for the sake of an objective unknown to Subaru. This was not limited to the current run but was this man’s policy for every time moving forward as well.

  If that was so, the optimal future Subaru was aiming for and his goal were—

  “—It would seem that the conversation is at an end…”

  However, as Subaru’s broken words trailed off, Roswaal turned his head toward the room’s window. Then, in the corner of the fallen Subaru’s eye, he slightly narrowed his eyes and spoke a single word.

  “Goa.”

  In contrast to the whisper-like volume of his voice, the result created by that chant was an all-too-dazzling red.

  He unleashed the fist-size crimson fireball created via chant with the speed of an arrow, melting and breaking through the intervening window—and scoring a direct hit on the silhouette seemingly trying to leap into the room through it, burning the target completely.

  The silhouette, of a similar size to the fireball, was unable to resist the flames, burning to ash in the blink of an eye. But just before it completely burned away, it left behind only one thing: the sound of its kii, kii death cries—

  “Just now… Agh?”

  “I see, I see. —So this is how it ends?”

  Subaru gasped as Roswaal grabbed hold of the front of his neck, easily lifting up his body with one slender arm. Subaru groaned and thrashed, but Roswaal paid no heed to his resistance, dragging him to the door. At a rapid gait, he passed out of the house’s interior, violently dragging Subaru out of the building and into the cold, buffeting winds outside.

  Hurled into the snowy landscape, Subaru shook off something cold touching his head, somehow managing to sit up.

  And then he noticed it and gaped.

  “”

  He heard a skrtskrt sound, a discordant noise like that of hard things rubbing against each other. This was the song of fangs meant for tearing prey to shreds, a sound that Subaru knew from personal experience.

  The pure-white fur blended in perfectly with the snowed-in landscape of the Sanctuary. Their tiny bodies, small enough to fit into one’s palm, quivered as their round eyes surveyed the landscape. They were adorable animals—and indiscriminate weapons of slaughter.

  “Th-the rabbits…!”

  Subaru shivered, raising a shout at the arrival of the Great Rabbit, one of the three great demon beasts.

  As Subaru did so, just as his fright foretold, the hopping demon beasts leaped onto the snow one after another. “Kii, kii,” they cried out, and skrtskrt went the sound of the demon beasts’ fangs, their numbers already beyond counting.

  These monsters, left with no instincts save insatiable hunger, the demon beast horde known as the Great Rabbit, had arrived in the Sanctuary.

  “B-but…this is ridiculous. I mean, it’s only the second day… Why is this…?!”

  Subaru was sure that according to his memories, the Great Rabbit had attacked the Sanctuary on the fifth day. There should have been plenty of time to spare. Why were they in the Sanctuary with timing like that?

  “This snow is no doubt the cause.”

  “—! Daphne said the Great Rabbit eats magical energy; the bigger the mana the better…!”

  During his fleeting encounter with the Witches, the Witch of Gluttony, Daphne, creator and mother of the Great Rabbit, had told Subaru that about the creatures’ ecology. He had yet to turn the information about that trait of the Great Rabbit, its attraction to mana, into a means of opposing the menace of the demon beasts, but—

  “The snow… There’s no reason they can’t munch down on the great magic controlling the weather. That’s why…!”

  “To the Great Rabbit, this is a desirable feeding ground. From birth, those residents with demi-human blood are blessed with bountiful mana… And more important, they and the evacuated villagers are all gathered in one place.”

  “The Cathedral—!”

  As if the conclusion was propelling him, Subaru forced his creaking body to stand. Then, wiping his nosebleed with a sleeve, with the attack of the Great Rabbit imminent, he drew close to Roswaal.

  “Roswaal! Right now…just for now, a cease-fire! Anyway, let’s get to the Cathedral! Can we hole up there…? No, gotta rendezvous with Emilia at the tomb and flee outside…”

  “Flee? To where? There is the barrier. The residents of the Sanctuary cannot escape.”

  “—. Th-that’s…” />
  “There was not enough time, Subaru. So long as the Trial remains unfinished, the residents cannot leave the Sanctuary. In other words, the future you desire will never come to pass.”

  As Subaru hemmed, Roswaal pushed his chest away and calmly walked forward.

  Ahead of where he advanced, walking over the snow—the Great Rabbit pressed forward as an uncoordinated line of death.

  With his might as one of the kingdom’s preeminent mages, they couldn’t ask for anything more ideal than a target-rich battlefield; numbers meant nothing to him. Surely, with his overwhelming magical strength, he could mow down the horde and open a path.

  However, Subaru did not have any sense whatsoever that Roswaal had the willpower to resist.

  As he continued to advance, his very demeanor was clearly that of a man going off to his death.

  “Wait, wait, damn it, Roswaal…! We aren’t done talking yet!”

  “No, we are finished. At the very least, I have no more words to speak to you. Nor any reason left to live.”

  “E-even if I redo it, this way is the worst! If we talked more, talked properly…or maybe you just think you can do it next time, but…!”

  “—You seem to have a misconception about something, Subaru.”

  “Wha?”

  The term misconception made Subaru’s words catch. Standing still, Roswaal turned only his head toward Subaru.

  And with Subaru frozen, Roswaal continued speaking to him.

  “Even if you can try again, I cannot. The me waiting for you after a redo is not the me you see here. This is my end. —But that is fine.”

  Bewilderment, amazement, shock slammed into Subaru all at once.

  Roswaal himself was saying that redos applied only to Subaru; everything else in the loop was unrelated.

  In other words, Roswaal knew of Subaru’s looping and was trying to use it for some kind of objective, but what he was doing was no more and no less than that.

  For the Roswaal that died there, in that world, his life was over, his consciousness at an end.