"I heard, ya know~! That lady with the blue hair finally woke up, right? You've been worried sick about her the whole time, big brother, so you must've been relieved, yeah?"
"Yeah. Even now, I can still remember the fresh rush of emotion when
"…Wait a sec. Petra, big brother's been acting weirder than before he got sent flying, hasn't he?"
"Um, a whole lot of stuff happened. It'd take forever to explain, but there was cross-dressing involved, and at one point I was about as tiny as
"Huh?"
Meili, who had just joined up and was leaning her cheek on the counter, made a bewildered face.
Subaru wanted to protest being treated like a weirdo, but hearing only a bare-bones summary of what had happened to him in the Empire, Meili's reaction was perfectly understandable. The situation he'd been placed in and the way things had unfolded afterward just didn't seem to connect, and Subaru himself wanted to scratch his head about it.
"Well, if I explained from the beginning, I could put together a story that actually makes sense…"
"I doubt that. Betty heard everything from the start too, but the moment Subaru cross-dressed again, I thought the whole thing had gone beyond my capacity to understand."
"Why?! That part's the most logically airtight of all…"
The castle-city liberation operation—people just couldn't follow the reasoning behind it, even though the result had proven that Subaru, Abel, and Flop all cross-dressing was in fact the optimal strategy.
But Subaru's earnest plea fell completely flat with Beatrice, Petra, and Meili, who had just received her order of cold milk.
In any case— "Still though, going right back to that tower as soon as you return… Big brother, you're not gonna get sent flying somewhere again and make Petra all lonely, are ya~?"
"We already had that exact argument—well, maybe not to that extent, but yeah, we did. At the very least, I think the malfunction that was sending me flying won't happen again."
"That… that's almost more worrisome, the way you put it…"
Under Meili and Petra's concerned gazes, Subaru shifted Beatrice in his arms—originally, Beatrice's seat had been taken over by Meili, so he was now flanked by Petra and Meili with Beatrice resting on his lap—and gave it some thought.
To begin with, the event that had sent Subaru to the Vollachian Empire had been triggered by an extraordinarily irregular situation at the
Just before it happened—an irregularity in the Green Room of the tower.
That was— "—A misapplication of the penalty for speaking the words 'Return by Death.'"
That was Subaru's hypothesis.
Some time ago, he had participated in
His confession of Return by Death to Echidna had triggered its penalty, engulfing the entire Sanctuary in the threat of black shadows and plunging it to the brink of destruction. Subaru believed this was the same thing.
In short, Louis Arneb—who had encountered Subaru in the Corridor of Memories and learned about Return by Death—had appeared in the Green Room for some reason.
And the
Then the Witch of Envy's rampage and the power of the Divine Dragon
Ultimately, the reason Subaru had been sent to that forest of the Shudrak people in the Empire remained unknown.
Whether it was coincidental, or whether the Witch of Envy or the Divine Dragon had intended it, he couldn't say. But given what had happened afterward, he didn't think it was the Witch of Envy.
The Witch of Envy had lost sight of Subaru at the Gladiator Island—until he called out to her himself.
That was the first time Subaru had summoned the Witch of Envy,
Since then, though the nature of Return by Death hadn't changed, Subaru's awareness of the Witch of Envy—the one who presumably granted him that power—had shifted, just slightly.
That change was— "—Subaru? Your eyes are looking rather nasty."
Nestled in Subaru's arms as he fell silent and sank into thought, Beatrice turned to face him, pressing a finger to the space between his brows. At her touch and her words, Subaru managed a wry smile.
"The nastiness in my eyes isn't exactly news. Normally, people say something about my face being scary."
"Subaru's face is absolutely adorable once you get used to it. The notion that his eyes look nasty is just idle chatter from people who don't know him."
"Mm-hm, Beatrice's got a point. See, Meili?"
"That's right~! He's almost as cute as a magical beast, ain't he?"
"Beatrice and Petra are biased in my favor, so Meili's the one representing general consensus here. I've been living with these eyes for eighteen years. I'm not holding out any weird hope…!"
And he'd long since proven through over a year of experience that even the standard isekai trope of the "ugly-becomes-beautiful" reversal wasn't something he could count on.
His aesthetic sense was dead-on: beautiful people stayed beautiful, and Subaru's eyes remained the worst.
"Enough about my eyes. The point is, I don't think there's any more risk of getting sent flying, so the worry about me going to the tower and causing trouble for everyone should be off the table for now."
"Good~. Well, it doesn't really matter to me either. I've been doing my job properly while you were gone, you know~"
"Your job… oh, oh! Meili!"
Meili wore a vaguely boastful grin, and Petra's eyes lit up.
Subaru had heard about what Meili had been up to in the Kingdom during his absence.
She had been supposed to be selling her ability to safely guide people across the
Specifically, she was to secure a pardon for her past crimes in the Kingdom and a guarantee for her future livelihood.
"So that expression means…?"
"I did it~! I got those important people in the Kingdom—the Council of Wise Men, was it?—to promise me my freedom~"
"You did it! You did it, Meili!"
"Ack!"
Meili beamed with a model expression of smugness. When Subaru's eyes went wide at her report, Petra—happier still than Subaru—reached across him to take Meili's hand.
As a result, at Beatrice's belly, the two girls clasped hands.
"I'll quietly stack mine on top too, while I'm at it."
"It's awkward, but Betty will as well. You worked hard, didn't you."
Subaru and Beatrice joined in, and the four of them clasped hands together in a warm little circle.
The shopkeeper behind the counter was watching the scene with a puzzled expression, but Subaru consciously ignored it—there was no need to be overly self-conscious about prying eyes during a happy occasion.
With their hands joined, Meili said in a small voice, "Ah, thanks…"
"S-So anyway, my power over magical beasts is something the Kingdom is going to treat as very important. And since they're asking me to use it for them, they ought to be grateful to me~"
"Oh, quite the big attitude. But hey, I don't mind a big mouth. And of course, our gratitude goes without saying. Seriously, I reflected on what I did to you."
"What and where are you thanking me for, exactly?! You wanna get shoved down the stairs again?!"
It was tit for tat—and Subaru knew Meili's bravado was just a cover for embarrassment—but the memory of that horrendous tumbledown the staircase made every old bone in his body creak.
But the one who took even more umbrage at Meili's slip was— "Meili? Shoved down the stairs—what do you mean? What did you do?"
"Um…"
"Hey, about what happened at the tower—I just realized I never properly asked about that. Subaru said he was sorry he couldn't stop you from getting sent flying, but was there something else you needed to apologize for?"
"Uh, well, Petra, your eyes are getting a little scary…"
"Meili."
"Eek!"
Petra's hand—still resting on Beatrice's belly—tightened hard around Meili's, not letting her escape.
With Meili throwing Subaru a look for help, "O-O big brother… you too, big brother…"
"Sorry, Meili. The big shots on the Council of Wise Men might have turned a blind eye because they want your rare ability, but your friend here will make sure you're properly scolded. Friends like that are precious, y'know."
"Regret doesn't come before the act. You learn your lesson in advance, don't you."
"Hey, wait!"
Even as she said that, Subaru stood with Beatrice in his arms, pulled back his chair, and retreated from between Petra and Meili. Immediately, Petra closed the distance, and Meili couldn't escape.
Watching the two of them, Subaru sat with just Beatrice and sipped his milk— "She helped Meili back then. I'm glad for that."
"…Thanks."
Beatrice had echoed his sentiment in a small voice, and Subaru stroked her head with tender affection, smiling at the exchange between the girls— —And atop the tearful Meili's head, a tiny scorpion clicked its claws with a crisp, sharp sound.
△▼△▼△▼△ —The role entrusted to Garfiel Tinsel was a heavy one.
He understood in his bones the trust that his comrades had placed on his shoulders.
They believed in him. They believed that with Garfiel there, Subaru, Beatrice, Petra, and the rest of the party heading to the Pleiades Watchtower would not come to harm.
And Garfiel had his own resolve to answer that trust—to prove he could.
"Yo, ya better drink some water before we head out. The sand wind's made the air real dry. Can't exactly tell where your throat's gonna run dry, y'know."
Garfiel called to Al as he spoke, the latter sitting in the back of the dragon carriage.
In a single dragon carriage drawn by
He had been the Knight of Priscilla Bariel, a Royal Candidate. Having lost his liege before his very eyes, he was seeking the tower's Tome of the Dead to fill the void of that loss.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, Garfiel couldn't say.
"——"
When he had first heard about the Pleiades Watchtower's Tome of the Dead, honestly, Garfiel had thought he very much wanted to see those books for himself.
Circumstances had been such that helping the Subaru and the others who'd been sent to the Empire took priority, and there hadn't been a chance to seriously discuss it, but he'd certainly felt that way.
Garfiel had always loved reading about great figures from history. He remembered reading the "Legend of
And it wasn't just Reid. The thought that the memories of countless great figures who had left their mark on history were lined up in the library that housed the Tome of the Dead—that was enough to make his heart race with anticipation.
Yet Garfiel felt a faint resistance to Al wanting to read Priscilla's Tome of the Dead. By what logic did that feeling come about?
Was it because the person in question was someone he knew? Or was it precisely because the person was someone he knew?—Neither Garfiel nor Subaru seemed to have the correct answer to that.
So— "You ain't allowed to collapse before we've done what needs doing at the tower. Here."
Clicking his canines together, Garfiel tossed the canteen to Al. It spun through the air in a slow arc— "—Oh, sorry, bro. My throat was just about bone dry."
Al caught the canteen with a light slap, then deftly lifted his helm's chin guard with his right hand and pressed the mouthpiece gently to his lips.
He drank with surprising gusto, then let out a satisfied "*pahhh*."
"Ahh, that's life, that's life. Really, I owe you guys so much. On top of being the one who broke up the brothers' team and caused all that fuss…"
"Don't be like that—at least you've got some self-awareness."
"Well, it's not like I'm oblivious or anything. I'm more level-headed than some old man who ran off and disappeared, I'd say."
"——"
Shaking the nearly empty canteen before Al, Garfiel scrunched his face in distaste, feeling as though he were chewing on a bitter bug.
The person Al had brought up—the one who had disappeared—was Heinkel.
A member of Priscilla's camp, Heinkel had been thoroughly shaken after her death, and had vanished without a trace just a few days before Garfiel and the others had departed for the Empire.
Garfiel had joined the search, but in a city where thousands of people flowed in and out daily, even tracking a scent was next to impossible. In the end, they'd been unable to find him.
"
Heinkel's disappearance weighed heavily on Emilia's conscience.
Apparently, she had made contact with Heinkel at some point without Garfiel and the others knowing, and he had clung to her desperately. A third party's intervention had defused that particular encounter, but afterward, before any proper conversation could take place, Heinkel was gone.
Garfiel felt just as down about it as Emilia did. Heinkel was someone he had crossed paths with more often than one might expect, and they had stood together in the same place during the battle against the Great Calamity.
"Aren't you worried about the old man?" Garfiel asked.
"Hmm? Oh, worried, sure. But both he and I are well past our prime, right? Two old men worrying about each other—that's kinda pathetic, don't you think?"
"What's age got to do with anything?! Of course you're worried about your comrades! If you're gonna bring that up, Beatrice, Emilia-tan, even that old lady
"Fair point. Among us brothers, the whole seniority thing gets real complicated, real fast. Ahh, I think everything you said is one hundred percent right, bro. It's just…"
"What?"
"Sorry. I've got a lot on my plate myself right now."
With that, he raised the hand holding the canteen in a gesture of apology, and Garfiel was left at a loss for words.
After that moment, he felt embarrassed about having pressed Al so emotionally. That had been nothing more than Garfiel venting his own frustration at his own helplessness.
And beyond that— "You seem different from the big guy again, don't ya."
Narrowing his emerald eyes, Garfiel probed the sharpness of his canines with his tongue tip while carefully observing Al's demeanor, recalling what Otto had told him.
—Subaru and Al, both of whom had witnessed Priscilla's death, both bore deep wounds in their hearts.
Each had been shaken by Priscilla's death, but the wounds they carried were the most severe of anyone's, and the way they chose to face those wounds set them entirely apart.
Subaru had settled the score with "Sparca"—allowing the host of comrades he'd met in the Empire to beat him to a pulp.
That agonizing, reckless attempt had been retracted with the support and help of those around him, but Al needed something of equal or perhaps greater magnitude.
Talking to him like this, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with his responses—but when Subaru and the others had first offered to accompany him, Al had tried to force ahead to the tower alone.
Garfiel, who had heard from his companions about just how brutal the Augria Sand Dunes were, was certain that act would have been tantamount to suicide. Or perhaps Al had been in such a state of despair that he wouldn't have cared if he died halfway to the tower.
*"I want to respect Al's wish to read the Tome of the Dead. I'm taking him to the Pleiades Watchtower. …That's the most I can do for him—for Priscilla."* When Subaru had said that upon learning of Al's dangerous signs, no one had been able to stop him.
Not accompanying Al would have meant watching him die in the sand sea. —Another death was the last thing any of them needed. That had been the camp's consensus.
"Still though. The others went shopping, right? It'd've been better if the strongest one—ya, the strongest bro—had come along. The dragon carriage could run on its own, y'know."
"—. You want me to stay here alone, just a guy from another camp? I'm here to keep an eye on you."
"Treating me like an outsider—that's cold. We saved the Empire together, didn't we?"
And that was also the reason Al had lost everything he held dear.
Everyone grieves differently. Everyone despairs differently. Everyone regrets differently. Garfiel himself had once been trapped in a dead end, unable to move, consumed by despair.
To climb back out of that, Garfiel had borrowed the strength of Subaru, Ram, Otto, and the others.
This time, he wanted to be the one standing there for someone else.
"…I was hoping you'd feel that way too, old man."
Heinkel, who had disappeared—surely he too had his own despair. Garfiel could sense, vaguely, that it had cast a long shadow over his life.
And it was precisely because he understood that Heinkel—who had no choice but to carry everything alone—was all the more pitiable.
"It appears the atmosphere inside the carriage has become quite stagnant. Depressing."
Just as Garfiel was thinking this, the carriage door opened and a person peeked in with those very words.
Startled, Garfiel turned—and upon seeing that the face belonged to someone he recognized, he let out a breath.
"Don't go scaring people right outta nowhere! I'd think a gust of wind from the Uzrl Forest was coming or something!"
"My apologies. However, given the nature of your role, not being able to handle unexpected situations would itself be the issue, wouldn't it? Point."
"Ngh… th-that—"
"I apologize again. That was me grasping at straws. Apologies."
The man who pressed a finger to his lips and winked was Krend—a thin-faced fellow with neatly trimmed dark blue hair and a monocle over one eye.
He was the head butler serving Annerose Milord, a relative of Roswaal's, and he carried an unfathomable air about him. He was also someone on poor terms with his sister Frederica.
And he was the one they had arranged to meet in Mirula, the nearest town to this sand sea.
"What a coincidence—timing couldn't be more perfect. —Where's Meili?"
"She is en route. Naturally. The time allocation was nothing worthy of praise. As a butler, I merely performed my duty. Modesty."
"Flinging a whole dragon carriage from one end of the country to the other—I wouldn't want any other butler doing that sort of thing on a whim, you hear me."
Garfiel was exasperated as Krend placed a hand on his chest with exaggerated humility.
In bringing Subaru and Rem back from the Empire, Krend had played a significant role—so significant, in fact, he might well have been the MVP of the entire operation.
Krend apparently possessed magic similar to the "Door Crossing" ability that allowed travel through space, and through it, he had performed a prodigious feat of multitasking to help prepare for the journey to the Empire.
Their rendezvous here had the specific purpose of bringing Meili—who was indispensable for crossing the Augria Sand Dunes.
"Miss Meili went straight to Subaru and the others. I came to the carriage to report our arrival. Gallant."
"Much obliged. While you're at it, couldn't you bring Emilia-tan and Brother Otto too?"
"I'm afraid not. The compensation my master provided for this intervention was strictly limited to retrieving Subaru and the others who had been sent to the Empire. Bringing Meili here was the extent of the goodwill I could extend. Sincerity."
"…Got it. If there's a reason, I won't push."
Krend bowed deeply. His flat tone of voice remained unchanged, but there was a consistent note of apology in his demeanor, and it was clear there were reasons beyond his control.
Garfiel himself had once suffered the unfortunate habit of losing his reason during his beastification, but he had managed to overcome it thanks to a fortunate catalyst. He didn't know if Krend's restrictions were something similar, but having had a comparable experience, Garfiel didn't press the matter.
"Oh—can't just leave it at me, though. Let me introduce Al. He's one of our buddies, and he's real tight with that Roswaal guy."
"What an introduction that manages to be both oddly chilling and hard to deny. It's a pleasure—I'm Krend. Please regard me favorably."
Garfiel realized he'd been chatting away without introducing Al. He gave a faint, wry smile as Krend turned to Al and offered his greeting.
In Garfiel's view, it was strange that Krend—who had apparently been friends with Roswaal for ages—was now denying the "tight" label, but— "—Al? Puzzling."
Putting those thoughts aside, Krend was frowning in puzzlement.
The reason was Al's response—or rather, his lack of one.
Al had fallen silent and was staring fixedly at Krend's face.
Of course, his expression was hidden beneath his helm, but the atmosphere he was giving off—that close to surprise and confusion—was unmistakable.
What that reaction meant, however, was something Garfiel couldn't parse.
"What's up? You know Krend or somethin', Al?"
"—. No, I'm sorry, but I don't recall. Al, have we met somewhere before? Confirm."
Al shook his head, denying Garfiel's question through Krend.
If Krend couldn't remember, it was almost certainly the truth.
As mentioned, Krend was not only capable of special magic but also supremely competent as a butler. He was the one who had trained both Frederica and Ram as servants, and who had taught Subaru to use a whip. He might not be stronger than Garfiel, but it was clear from his bearing alone that he was no ordinary person.
If it wasn't in his memory, then at the very least, Krend had never met Al face to face.
And as for Al— "—Nah, no, we've never met. You and I are definitely seeing each other for the first time."
"…Then what was that meaningful silence just now all about?"
"Sorry—I just didn't feel like committing new information to memory. —Krend, right? I'm Al. I'm one of the brothers here, and I've been in your associate's care."
"I'm grateful for your patronage. I look forward to our continued acquaintance. Permanently."
"'Permanently' is a bit much, but nice to meet you too."
Al waved his hand casually, matching Krend's dry humor with easy familiarity.
Watching their exchange, Garfiel vaguely sensed something unnatural in Al's attitude but let the moment pass before he could mention it.
In any case, now that Krend had brought Meili, the real crossing of the Augria Sand Dunes was about to begin.
Meili's power could drive off the magical beasts swarming the sand sea, but there were many points to prepare for—like the "Sand Time," the vortex of sand winds that they had to pass through to reach the tower.
He had heard that on the previous expedition, Emilia and the accompanying Julius had played decisive roles.
"We're gonna do it! I'll protect you guys no matter what it takes!"
Garfiel slammed his fists together before his chest and roared.
The fervent sense of duty surging within him—that was the proof of the resolve pouring forth from the unshakable awareness that now drove Garfiel forward.
△▼△▼△▼△ —And so Garfiel had declared with great ferocity.
"All right, safe arrival! This time nothing happened at all, and I'm so relieved~!"
With those words, Meili hopped lightly down from the driver's seat onto the sand, standing before the enormous, towering doors that served as the entrance to the tower.
She had crossed the path to the Pleiades Watchtower at the eastern edge of the Augria Sand Dunes—the route that even the Sword Saint had abandoned—without breaking a sweat.
"Gahh…"
Garfiel, who had sworn to protect his comrades from any and every obstacle, should have been delighted by this outcome. Instead, he could only mutter with an expression that was very far from satisfied.