Shaking free of Julius's arm and standing on his own, Subaru turned back to face the "trial."
Before his eyes, centered on the monolith he had touched, countless duplicate monoliths had spread out across the white space. Their number was, frankly, enough to make even counting them a chore.
"So this is the 'trial'... that about right,
"Sounds about right to me! I wanna see what my Master's got!"
"Don't start cheering like you're at a drinking party..."
He'd never been to one, so he didn't actually know, but that was probably the vibe.
With Shaula cheerfully rooting for him from behind, Subaru surveyed the room. As before, it was wrapped entirely in white — a tiered space where depth, elevation, and everything else seemed ready to buckle at any moment.
The only notable change was the scattered monoliths, but even those didn't really differ from the original. There were variations in size, bigger or smaller, but otherwise they were the same — floating in midair, made of the same mysterious material.
"If there's anything else that might be a hint, it's probably that thing from earlier."
What came to mind was the voice that had echoed inside his skull the instant he'd touched the monolith.
*"Touch the most radiant among the heroes who were destroyed by Shaula."* It wasn't sound conveyed through eardrums — it was closer to a whisper injected directly into the brain, inside the skull. Since what he'd heard wasn't technically "sound," it hadn't even registered as "someone's voice."
To put it another way, it had forced its way into his mind like a thought he'd produced himself. His own thoughts had neither voice nor sound. Therefore, he had no idea whose voice it was. If pressed, he'd say it was his own.
"So that voice I heard counts as the test question? In that case..."
"Subaru, I hate to interrupt your brooding, but there are a few things you should know first. Listening to those before you begin shouldn't count as a penalty."
Julius, who had been the one playing pranks on him earlier, spoke up as Subaru tilted his head.
Near the stairs leading downstairs, the others —
"Oh, right. While I was asleep, the rest of you were already taking a crack at it. No wonder there's progress."
"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call it 'progress.' But yes. Subaru, try touching the nearest stone slab — no, 'monolith.'"
"You're really that into these things? I mean, fine..."
Subaru squinted at Julius, who was oddly fixated on the proper name for the monoliths, then walked over to the one immediately to his right. It was a duplicate, separate from the original. Getting closer, he could see it was slightly smaller than the first.
"No trap where my arm gets swallowed the second I touch it, right?"
"It'll be fine. If something like that happens, I suppose
"Ah, and I'll be your left hand! Don't worry."
"That scenario means I've lost both arms!"
Reassured — or perhaps alarmed — by Emilia and Beatrice's confident guarantees, Subaru steeled himself and reached out toward the monolith. The act of touching it itself didn't worry him much.
If his companions weren't stopping him and were in fact encouraging him, there was zero reason to question the safety. The only real concern was whether the duplicate monoliths were hiding some surprising revelation, but — "Oh?"
With his anxiety still lingering, his fingertip made contact with the monolith, and the black slab blazed with a light so bright it scorched his eyes. In truth, the glare made Subaru catch his breath and reflexively cover his face with his arm.
And when the light faded, before Subaru's eyes — "Huh? Where'd the monolith go?"
"Heh heh heh, Master, it's behind you!"
"Behind...?"
After blinking, Subaru confirmed that the monolith that had been right in front of him had vanished. As he stared in surprise at this fact, Shaula — looking needlessly smug — urged him to look behind.
Turning around, he faced the front of the staircase — the spot where the very first monolith had stood. There it was, the original monolith, alone. Every other monolith had disappeared from the room.
"So... this means...?"
"It's returned to the initial state. In other words, the judgment is that you've failed the 'trial.' Naturally, however —"
Julius slipped past the dismayed Subaru and approached the original monolith without hesitation. The moment his hand touched its surface, that voice once again echoed through his skull — *"Touch the most radiant among the heroes who were destroyed by Shaula."* Simultaneously with the question being posed anew, monoliths began multiplying one after another from the original, spreading throughout the room at the same pace as before, distributing the "trial" once more.
In other words — a "retest."
"I see. So until you arrive at the answer, you can rethink it as many times as you like?"
"That has been our working theory, yes. I should add, though — this particular monolith will not lead you to an answer simply by touching them at random."
"Ah, so no spraying and praying."
Julius's measured phrasing was bluntly summarized by Subaru. Hearing this explanation, Emilia and Meili scratched their heads sheepishly.
The strategy of "just touch them all and see what happens" was definitely something they would have tried. The fact that it hadn't worked was telling.
"Since they're calling it a 'trial,' that means you have to solve the problem and give an answer."
"Apparently, the test-giver isn't fond of just throwing answers out without method."
"Oh yeah, there are those teachers who won't give you points on a test unless you show all your work, not just the final answer. Great for preventing cheating, though."
Arriving at an answer without a method meant relying on either cheating or pure intuition. Back in elementary school, there were occasionally problems where intuition alone could get you the right answer, but the point of math was to learn the method, not to muddle through each problem on the spot.
He'd been indignant back in the day when the teacher docked points for sloppy intermediate steps, but — "Looking back now, the teacher was right..."
"Natsuki-kun, I hate to pull you out of another nostalgic little daydream, but your turn is actually just beginning. Come on, snap out of it."
"Wha— oh, oops, sorry. My turn?"
Subaru, who had drifted off into distant eyes, was called back by Anastasia, hands on her hips. When Subaru tilted his head at her request, everyone exchanged glances and spoke.
Since they all said the same thing, he'd free-translate and consolidate.
In other words — "It's Subaru's job to pull out the name of the hero Shaula destroyed."
"We took the 'trial' multiple times before you woke up. But since this girl wouldn't even tell us whether she was Shaula, the key person wasn't talking."
"Within Betty's understanding, Shaula was the 'Sage.' We were thinking of the person engraved on the silver coin, so there was no connecting that to this girl."
That was the answer from Emilia's group, who had been unable to get Shaula to talk.
Ever since he'd woken up, Shaula had been acting not merely friendly but practically clingy, so it was hard to believe she'd kept her mouth shut about everything. But if the sole tower insider refused to speak, there was nothing they could do to move forward.
Still, Subaru had his own concerns.
Even if Shaula's tongue were to be unsealed and she could actually talk — "Well, let's try asking. Hey, Shaula. If you have any idea which hero you supposedly destroyed, just fire off names one after another."
"Leave it to me! Remembering the names of everyone you've killed? That's amateur stuff — top-class pros like me don't keep track past a hundred!"
"Right on!"
Shaula gave a vigorous reply, thumbs-up and a wink, and Subaru slapped his knee.
Exactly the response he'd feared — Shaula, head completely empty.
Judging from her way of talking and her attitude up to this point, he'd suspected as much. The possibility that Shaula, who should know the answer to "which hero Shaula destroyed," remembered absolutely nothing from the start.
"But we can't just leave it there or we'll never get anywhere. Lady Shaula, do you truly remember nothing at all? Even the smallest detail would help."
"Even if you say that, I really don't know. I was just Hell's Sniping anyone who got close to the tower, and the beasts outside took care of the corpses."
"Hmm, but doesn't that seem off? Isn't this whole 'trial' supposed to be about whether to grant access to the tower's knowledge? Why would the question be about something that happened after Shaula already started managing the tower? The timeline doesn't add up."
Shaula was pouting, insisting she had no idea, but Anastasia picked up on the oddity in her statement. Everyone except Shaula nodded in agreement.
Indeed, it was hard to imagine a problem inside the tower referencing events that occurred after the tower's management had already begun. That would place "Shaula destroying the hero" before the tower was even built.
"So we're talking about before the indiscriminate distribution even started. Come on, try to remember. All your blood and nutrients are going to your chest and backside, that's why your memory's so poor."
"This body was chosen by Mother! But but, honestly, even if you tell me to remember, it just won't come. Before the tower was built, right?"
"Yeah, before the tower. Back then, someone Shaula killed... destroyed — is there anyone like that?"
They gathered around the staircase, centering on Shaula, desperately trying to jog her memory. But Shaula, bearing the full weight of everyone's expectations, just groaned "Aaahn" with no sign of producing results.
"For real, you've been around for four hundred years, haven't you? If you went through the famous people of that era one by one, wouldn't you have killed two or three of them?"
"Master, what do you take me for? I'm a maiden who nibbles flowers in the moonlight!"
"That's not a maiden, that's a caterpillar or something."
"Subaru, that was a bit much, even for you. If she doesn't want to remember, maybe we shouldn't force her..."
"Emilia-tan's kindness is a super-virtue and a charm point, but this one's the type who just gets worse the more you coddle her! I know from experience! We're the same type!"
He struck a confident pose and declared this, though Shaula wasn't failing to remember because she didn't want to — she simply had poor memory capacity.
On the subject of memory-related issues, their group had several complicated problems, so it was a topic they should tread carefully on. But Shaula was a different matter.
"Honestly, maybe just throwing out random names isn't a bad idea? One of them might hit the answer, and we'd just have to see how it resonates with the monoliths."
"That's true, but even if Natsuki-kun figures out the answer, how does that count as 'touching the most radiant' one?"
Given that the monolith he'd touched had disappeared and the result looked like a "trial" failure, the final answer method was almost certainly "touch the correct monolith."
The problem was figuring out how to find that "correct monolith" — and Subaru couldn't see how digging through Shaula's memories would help with that.
"But, you know, brooding forever isn't going to get us anywhere! That nice lady over there is trying to help, and there's clearly stuff we could just ask about, so we should ask!"
Meili, still clinging to Shaula's bare shoulder, chimed in toward the adults who were stuck at the starting line. She idly toyed with Shaula's scorpion tail while gazing at the monoliths with a bored expression.
"There are no magical beasts, the conversation isn't going anywhere, and this place isn't really fun at all. Let's hurry up and finish so we can go back to the mansion!"
"————"
Meili's utterly, devastatingly matter-of-fact words left everyone speechless. Then Subaru reached over and patted her head as she turned around, asking "What?"
"...Something the matter?"
"No, I was just thinking you're right. That's exactly it. This dusty place, with dangerous magical beasts roaming outside — let's just wrap this up, solve all the problems, wake
Worrying before even trying was a waste of precious time.
That was exactly the kind of stalling the cruel person who'd set up this "trial" would want.
"Master, Master. Right next to that little one, there's a head that's just begging to be patted."
"I told you. You're the type who堕落s endlessly the more you're spoiled. Same as me. So from here on, we're going full Spartan. Remember faster."
"Nooo..."
Shaula puffed out her cheeks in discontent, thoroughly sulking. Though in about ten seconds she'd forget all about it and start humming, so at least she was easy to handle.
"Now then, we've had a request from our young lady. Let's not hold back in testing the possibilities right in front of us."
"Yeah, that's probably the way to go. It's not like there's a penalty for failing however many times we want. In most of life, it's one shot only... so this is a kind problem."
Spurred on by Meili, Julius and Anastasia also reached agreement.
Well then — it was time to make Shaula remember the "hero who was destroyed and forgotten by Shaula."
"Okay, off the top of my head... let's see. Oh, what about Reid? The first Sword Saint, or whatever — didn't you kill him?"
"Eeeeeek!!"
"Ack!"
"Foul on the play — that's a third!"
The instant Subaru casually dropped the name, Shaula let out a piercing shriek and leaped backward. The force of it was so great that Meili, who'd been perched on her, tumbled off, and Subaru made a diving catch.
Carefully setting Meili down on the ground, Subaru looked up to see that Shaula had fled to the far side of the room, shrinking into the distance.
"Hey! Sorry! I don't know why, but come back!"
"Don't, don't say such scary things! Master is so mean! The worst! A maiden in peril! This is a liability issue!"
She grumbled as she walked back, but her voice was thin and trembling. She was putting on a brave front but not quite managing it. What made her like that was unmistakable fear — dread, even.
Naturally, there was only one possible object of that dread.
"What, the first Sword Saint was that scary?"
"Don't be ridiculous. He was the founder of the Astrea family — the ancestor of both Reinhard and Lord Wilhelm. His swordsmanship went without saying, but his character as a person of integrity was beyond doubt. The anecdotes that survive paint him as rather bold and free-spirited, and there are parts that don't quite overlap with Reinhard and the others, but if that weren't the case, the Astrea family's history all the way to the present would be twisted, wouldn't it?"
"Well, but if you dig into history, even great rulers look pretty awful when you change your perspective — that happens even in Japanese history. Compared to that, these suspicions are way more mild..."
"Oh my, that's quite beside the point. Very well — let's have the living witness herself tell us, and that will settle it. Come on, let her speak."
Imagining the first Sword Saint's character from Shaula's reaction, Subaru was hit with a barrage of words from Julius. Worse, Julius waved off Subaru's attempt to hedge with a dismissive laugh.
For a moment, Subaru glimpsed the old, insufferably snide knight from the early days of the royal selection. He knew now that back then Julius had been playing the villain, but seeing him like this, Subaru thought — yeah, there was a fair bit of genuine attitude in there after all.
Regardless — "First Sword Saint —
"He was human garbage."
"I said I'd like to hear your unvarnished opinion."
"Don't brush that aside!!"
Julius tried to conveniently let that pass, and Subaru smacked his shoulder to bring him back to reality. Pointing at Shaula, who was pulling a face, Subaru continued.
"See? The historical truth you've been wanting to know is right there. She's a living witness. Ask her to tell you everything about the legendary tale of Reid Astrea, the peerless swordsman and paragon of integrity."
"...People of exceptional talent, greater or lesser, tend to carry confidence. That's not something they should be blamed for — rather, it's something to be proud of. When someone is the pinnacle of swordsmanship across history, such behavior is, well, appropriate when you consider the era's context —"
"This is the most desperate I've ever seen you."
Julius himself seemed unsure how persuasive he was being, stumbling over his words.
Setting aside Julius, whose ideals of history had taken a slight hit, Shaula's "Truth of Reid Astrea" continued to pour out without pause.
"Well,总之 he was a nasty piece of work. The personality of a brat who just grew up without changing, loved picking on the weak, and so on. From that scum's perspective, most opponents were weak, so no matter who he fought, he was bullying the weak. He did a number on me too."
"But Shaula, you're so strong — and even you just got beaten all the time? Oh wait, four hundred years ago, Shaula was still small, right?"
"I've been like this since the day I was born. So I haven't changed from back then to now... but he was just on another level. Seriously, total scum."
Garbage, scum — what terrible things to say about a legendary hero.
Perhaps those bitter memories were overflowing, because the darkness in Shaula's attitude wouldn't lift. It was the look of someone who'd been bullied recalling the deeds of the one who bullied them.
"You should remember that scum. The perpetrator might forget, but the victim never will — that's just a fact of life. That's what..."
"Reinhard exists as a precedent, so I'm not that shocked, but anyone who could push you around must have been a real monster. Reid Astrea."
"He was the absolute worst. But out of ten fights, I could make him use both hands at least once. I wasn't completely helpless, you know."
"...Right."
That was all Subaru could say. Making him use both hands once out of ten fights — was that an impressive feat or not?
Subaru couldn't imagine making Reinhard use both hands even once in a hundred fights, so he was willing to accept that Shaula had put up a decent resistance.
"Well, we can put Reid on the back burner. If you didn't destroy him, there's no point asking about it."
"You're... correct. There are more pressing matters at hand right now."
"Didn't that take a second too long to agree to?"
Whether it was scholarly interest or just personal curiosity, Subaru couldn't tell — but he judged that Julius would be useless for the time being.
He felt bad about shattering Julius's illusions, but right now, Subaru had no reason to worry about Reinhard's ancestors. No matter how impressive the bloodline, Reinhard himself was already more than impressive enough. Besides, at least when it came to "father figures," Subaru was confident he had the better deal.
"So then, let's leave the random hero guessing game to someone who actually knows stuff."
"Understood. I humbly accept."
"You haven't said you're willing yet, but whatever. Go for it. Beatrice, back him up."
"Understood."
Delegating the task to the motivated party — a brilliant strategic call. And adding Beatrice, who had four hundred years' worth of knowledge if nothing else, as support was the perfect assist.
"So what do we do?"
"I think we'll take a closer look around the room ourselves."
If Shaula was going to have Julius and Beatrice as her constant companions, Subaru wanted to focus on the hero-related lead while also investigating the room's layout.
The arrangement of the duplicate monoliths — if the uneven distribution meant something, figuring out the pattern would be worthwhile.
"Alright, so the one directly in front of the staircase is..."
"The monolith that gives us the question, right?"
They weren't lined up so closely that he had to worry about accidentally touching them, but Subaru led Emilia and Anastasia on a tour of the monoliths throughout the room.
On closer inspection, the scattered monoliths varied surprisingly in size. However, none exceeded the size of the original series, and the rest were one to two sizes smaller, scattered in great numbers.
"At a glance... the ones the same size as the original would be seven, maybe eight?"
"Seven or eight? Yeah, I think so too. The ones really far away all look small. If you touch those, you'd probably have to start over too..."
"Sounds like you've been there... ah, sorry. Never mind."
Emilia gave him such a sad look that Subaru cut off the rest of his sentence. Returning to the front of the original monolith, he put his heads together with the girls and thought deeply.
"'Touch the most radiant among the heroes who were destroyed by Shaula'... It's trying to sound cool, I'll give it that."
"It's definitely an abstract way of putting things. If Shaula's memory is what it comes down to, that's a pretty glaring flaw in the question."
"Yeah, that's true."
Calling it a "trial" while the actual solution relied on someone else — specifically, the very being stationed there as the tower's guardian — seemed rather unfair.
Subaru and the others had made friendly contact and ended up entering the tower without fighting Shaula, but that hadn't been by design. Under different circumstances, it could have devolved into a bloody battle. Even if they'd managed to get in, they might have had no choice but to defeat Shaula.
"And if that happened, passing the 'trial' would be impossible forever."
"If the intent was never to let anyone solve the 'trial,' then that would be the right call. Set up a powerful guardian as a defense mechanism, and then make it so you can't pass if you kill that guardian — a nasty catch-22..."
"But Subaru, you don't think that's the case. ...Right?"
"Mm, no."
When Subaru raised the security issue, Emilia looked at him with expectant eyes. Meeting that gaze, Subaru answered with a suppressed smile.
Emilia's soft eyes were Subaru's weakness. When Emilia or Beatrice looked at him like that, he crumbled. Rem did it too, and Garfiel and Otto occasionally did. Petra as well — and once he started thinking about it, there was no end. Only
"Ah, I think I'm starting to see the pattern."
"...?"
"No, just talking to myself."
This was Subaru's bravado, useless against anyone who could see right through him. Of course, having companions who looked at him that way was what saved him.
That said, bringing the problem back to the framework of the "trial" — "Setting aside exceptions, problems are fundamentally designed to be solved. If you truly wanted to hide something, the smarter move would be to leave no possibility of it being found."
"But this place is different from that... Is that how Natsuki-kun sees it?"
"The person who used to guard this tower told us — it's a great library where you can obtain any knowledge you want. Those wise-sounding words didn't come from Shaula herself; she's just parroting what someone taught her. Which means the '
The more he picked apart the possibilities, the more the current situation's unnaturalness stood out.
The creator of the
"From the start, only people who could get along with Shaula were meant to use it?"
"But Shaula was told to destroy everyone who came near the tower, right?"
Yes, that was right.
Shaula's orders had been to "eliminate without exception anyone who approaches the tower." The fact that Subaru's group had made friendly contact with Shaula was pure coincidence. If they hadn't been blessed with that coincidence, they wouldn't even have had the right to challenge the tower — a crude conclusion, but — "So what you need is fighting skill, luck, and the charisma to befriend Shaula? Those are some pretty poorly aligned prerequisites for a challenge, if you ask me."
"...Yeah."
If you lost to Shaula, if you killed Shaula, if Shaula refused to cooperate — any of those meant losing the right to challenge the Pleiades Watchtower —.
An extreme theory, but lining up all the conditions available so far led to that conclusion.
And yet, Subaru couldn't quite accept it.
Then — "Mm. Mmmm."
"Emilia?"
"I'm feeling so... frustrated. Around here, it feels gross."
She groaned unhappily, touching her chest as she spoke. Subaru started to glance over but caught himself before staring at her fair skin.
He cleared his throat and frowned at Emilia.
"Something on your mind?"
"Actually, yes. But I wasn't sure if it was relevant, and I thought only Subaru would understand if I mentioned it..."
"Right now, I want to hear anything and everything. My theory isn't necessarily right, and looking at things from multiple angles is fundamentally a good thing."
"Really?"
For some reason, Emilia had been hesitating, but her expression brightened a little at his words. Then she continued: "When you touch the monolith, you hear a voice in your head, right?"
"Yeah. Creepy mechanism, but that's how it is."
"That voice... doesn't it sound similar to the 'trials' at the
"————"
Emilia's observation struck both Subaru and Anastasia silent simultaneously. However, while the result was the same, the process behind their silence was different.
Anastasia was silent because she had no frame of reference, but Subaru's silence came from being blindsided — and from the sense of understanding it brought.
The "trials" — those were at the grave of
Facing his past and alternate presents through an inexplicable phenomenon, Subaru had dropped out partway through so he didn't know all the details, but according to Echidna, who'd been in the tomb, there had been a third "trial" as well, and Emilia had overcome it.
No — the contents of that "trial" and its hardships weren't what mattered here.
What mattered was the refrain: when she had challenged those "trials," the contents had been announced in "her own voice" — just like this.
"Now that you mention it, you're right. How did I forget that... because it's a bad memory?"
"Subaru, you really hate thinking about Echidna."
"——!"
"After going through the experience of finding out the savior was actually the mastermind, you end up like me."
Since the Sanctuary, Subaru and Emilia had only discussed the "Witches" once or twice. Even when the subject of the trials came up, Emilia would dodge the details, so he hadn't pushed.
What the two of them shared was the understanding that "Echidna had a terrible personality." Emilia phrased it more delicately, but for Subaru, that was simply the truth.
"Oh, you said Echidna's name and it startled me."
"Oh right. Anastasia's spirit is also named Echidna, isn't it? ...Your speech patterns are really similar, actually. Weird."
Whether "weird" was an adequate assessment could be debated later. But yes — if the trials were similar...
The moment he'd heard about the "trial," he'd thought it resembled the "ordeal." Now, learning that even the beginning was similar to the trials — this might be part of the same system, or even most of it, sharing common ground with the tomb.
"If you think about it that way, the 'trials' were also unlimited in attempts."
"And here, the 'trial' exists on the third, second, and first floors — three of them."
"————"
Could it really be that kind of connection? Subaru and Emilia exchanged glances.
The name of the "Sage," and four hundred years of time. Looking back at those, it was inevitable that the eras of those "Witches" would overlap, and history would intersect.
"Yeah, but I'm sorry. Even knowing that, it doesn't answer this question."
At that point, Emilia abruptly cut off her own train of thought with a flustered expression.
Even if this place wasn't unrelated to the tomb, it had nothing to do with the "trial" of this specific ordeal.
As before, the name of the "hero destroyed by Shaula" still relied entirely on Shaula — "...Is that not the case?"
"Subaru?"
"If this place was designed to be solvable, then we need to deal with Shaula somehow to clear it. But what if that assumption itself is wrong?"
This was the "Sage's" tower, and that had been the "Witches'" tomb.
Both test-givers shared a common streak of cruelty, but if their commonalities extended beyond that, possibilities arose.
The "Witches" had tested people with "trials," but hadn't inflicted hardships that made a result impossible.
If the "Sage" was testing people with an "examination," it shouldn't inflict hardships that made a result impossible either.
"A possibility of clearing the tower without Shaula..."
"Natsuki-kun, if you've thought of something..."
"Shh."
Subaru, deep in thought, pressed his hand to his chin and closed one eye, sinking into contemplation. Spotting a glimmer of hope in this, Anastasia opened her mouth to speak — but Emilia raised a hand to silence her.
Emilia pressed a finger to her lips in a quiet gesture, then watched Subaru's mind at work, her purple eyes gleaming with anticipation.
Unaware of Emilia's anticipation, Subaru's mind kept turning.
In this "trial," the presence or absence of "Shaula" was not the deciding factor. Or rather, challengers might even be capable of defeating Shaula if she attacked. Without even knowing Shaula's name — if that was possible — "Even without knowing Shaula as Shaula, Shaula is still there."
"————"
"We mistakenly believed Shaula's achievements were the Sage's. The 'Sage's' great deeds were sealing the Witch alongside the first Sword Saint and the Divine Dragon. But the 'Witch of Envy' was hardly what anyone would call a hero, and she wasn't 'destroyed' either."
That was where the possibility of a fundamentally flawed premise cut off.
Or perhaps Subaru simply didn't know about other hero myths that the Sage Flugel had pinned on Shaula, but the fact that neither Julius nor Beatrice had brought up anything like that was too unnatural — inevitably, a possibility emerged.
"Even without knowing Shaula as Shaula, if Shaula is still there..."
He repeated aloud what he'd said once before.
This wasn't his thinking going in circles. Quite the opposite — it was proof that he had discarded one possibility and arrived at another. And its implication was — "Beatrice! Come here!"
Following the possibility that had struck him, Subaru called Beatrice over.
Julius was still trying various approaches to unlock Shaula's memories. Beatrice, who had been beside him, perked up at the tone of Subaru's voice — a tone that said he'd found something. She hopped over, and — "That face — it's the face of the Subaru that Beatrice likes."
"You always like me, don't you?"
"Especially."
Without a shred of embarrassment, Beatrice said this, and Subaru reached out his hand to the girl standing before him. Beatrice clasped the offered hand, and her round blue eyes looked up at him.
Those eyes asked, "What do you want me to do?" So Subaru nodded — "It's simple. — Murak, and a nice high jump."
"...Don't tell me you've given up and want me to smash through the ceiling to go up."
"Don't look at me with such naked exasperation. Of course not. I want to look down at these monoliths from above."
"Look down at the monoliths..."
Behind Subaru, Emilia turned to look at the monoliths and murmured.
The result remained uncertain, but Beatrice didn't press for further explanation. She exhaled softly, tightened her grip on his hand, and — "Murak, it is."
A pale, light-purple wave emanated from Beatrice's incantation, enveloping Subaru's body.
A magic that distanced him from gravity's pull and sharpened his lightness. A mere light hop would send him a meter into the air, and a full-strength kick off the floor — "Hup!"
Still gripping Beatrice's hand, Subaru's body soared high toward the ceiling of the room. The height reached six or seven meters, yet his body — which should have collided with the ceiling — touched nothing.
In the endless white space, the tiered structure expanded as if the ceiling didn't exist at all. From this vantage, Subaru's body hung high above, looking down upon the full panorama of the room.
"Just as I thought."
"Did you accomplish your purpose?"
"Yeah. This place is the absolute worst."
In Subaru's arms, Beatrice heard the murmur and looked up at him. He answered with a wry nod.
The two of them descended vertically toward the floor, but the lightness that had aided the jump also cushioned the landing. Touching down without issue, Subaru set down Beatrice — who he'd been carrying bridal-style — onto the floor.
"I know the hero's name."
"You really do!?"
Having witnessed both his deliberation and his leap, Emilia's eyes went wide. Subaru spoke with absolute certainty.
Emilia gasped in surprise, and Anastasia's eyes went round.
Hearing the commotion, Julius and the others abandoned their conversation and gathered around.
"Big brother, you figured it out?"
"I've solved it. The nasty examiner's thought process and all."
"Master's incredible! So cool! I admire you!"
Thumbs up and head-bobbing — Shaula, with Meili riding on her back, swayed dramatically. Eyeing this, Julius looked toward the monolith cluster — "I have no intention of doubting you at this point. Tell me how you arrived at the answer."
"It's nothing that impressive. You guys aren't at fault for not solving this. There are very few people who even have the possibility."
In that sense, this was the most viciously designed problem of all.
You had to overcome the obstacle called Shaula, understand the nature of the question, and — at the most fundamental level — the pool of challengers who could even "possibly know the answer" was already vanishingly small.
"The hero destroyed by Shaula — his name is Orion."
"Orion...?"
At the word from Subaru's lips, everyone looked at Shaula with puzzled expressions. But Shaula herself shook her head vigorously under their stares. "Never heard of him!"
"No no no, I don't know this person! Even if I did kill them, anyone who couldn't even make it here being called a hero is laughable! So I don't think I'm wrong! How's that for reasoning! I'm so smart!"
"And yet, when we first suspected the one this un-smart person had forgotten, that wasn't it. The 'Shaula' in this question isn't referring to her at all."
"Shaula is only me! The name Master gave me!"
"And that Master's name for you has its own original source."
Subaru poked a finger toward the indignant Shaula's nose, then gently pushed her back. Stepping forward, he stood before the first monolith.
"Shaula's name's origin... is this something only Subaru knows?"
"Not only me, but most people don't know it either. —Back home, there's a star called 'Shaula.' It means 'the sting,' and what stinger it refers to is a scorpion's."
Scorpion tail — Shaula had forcefully asserted her hairstyle's connection to this. Whether that had been a clue in its own way or just Shaula being her natural self, the conditions that evoked "Shaula" = "scorpion" = "sting" were there.
"According to legend, the hero Orion was stung to death by a scorpion sent to harass him after he got cocky, and became a star. And the scorpion that killed Orion also became a star for its achievement, and even now in the sky, Orion is terrified of the scorpion — that's the story."
"When Subaru puts it like that, even a heroic epic sounds kind of pathetic."
"Anyway, there's this way of thinking where you shape stars into figures of people or animals — constellations. Or you could call it an asterism. And when I looked down at the monoliths from above..."
He'd made himself light with Beatrice's magic, then jumped to survey the monoliths from above.
Black monoliths scattered across a white world — opposite in color, naturally, but what he saw was a chain of dark stars set against a white backdrop. And the formation was familiar.
The same size as the original monolith — eight of them in total.
Their number and arrangement matched the principal stars that formed the constellation Orion.
And the question had ended with "touch the most radiant" — "The original monolith is dead center. If I had to pick, around Alnilam — then trace the constellation's shape... follow Orion's outline..."
"And then?"
"'The most radiant' turns out to be a deviously ambiguous phrase. Stars actually shine in different ways — some are constantly bright, while others flare up strongly from time to time. In that sense, there are two stars in Orion that qualify as 'the most radiant'..."
Looking straight down, there were two: Orion's right shoulder at the upper left, "Betelgeuse," and Orion's left knee at the lower right, "Rigel."
The consistently bright one was "Rigel," while "Betelgeuse" was a variable star that periodically blazed brighter.
The fact that either answer could work was an elegant trap in itself, but — "I'd go with Rigel."
That name, Betelgeuse — it brought back unpleasant memories of a similarly named something.
"————"
Having reached his conclusion, Subaru reached out and touched the monolith of Orion's left knee — "Rigel."
This might not be the answer. But it almost certainly was.
And in that moment, he understood.
The sheer viciousness of whoever had designed this "trial," and the height and severity of the obstacles waiting on the second and first floors.
"————"
The white room blazed with light.
Sound and scenery were swept away, everything was engulfed in a violent rush, and then — "...Whoa."
When the light faded, Subaru and the others stood in a stone-walled space — inside a building that extended from the tower, surrounded by countless bookshelves, in the very center of a grand library.