Frederica lowered her eyes as she spoke about her younger brother.
The emotions she harbored were a complicated mix—something that could be read as negative feeling, yet also as deep affection. If one were to call it a common sentiment toward family, perhaps that wouldn't be wrong.
"So you're saying that even though he could overcome the barrier on a physical level, the mental problem is what's stopping him from crossing it?"
"In fact, he did not respond to my calls. He followed me right up to the verge of leaving the barrier, but in the end, he chose to stay inside and spend time with the old lady rather than come with me."
"The old lady… you mean Ryuzu?"
"She may have a foul mouth, but she truly adores the old lady. Unless the old lady's heartfelt wish is fulfilled, there's no way he'd ever leave."
He was always grumbling and griping—Baba-baba this, Baba-baba that—but it was plain to anyone watching that Garfiel harbored a warmth toward Ryuzu that went beyond mere comfort. He'd been called a tsundere before, and that probably hit the mark.
Be that as it may, this revelation didn't change anything about the situation at hand.
"So in the end, the conclusion's the same—we have to break through the Trial and free the
"I'm sorry to fall short of your expectations. …If there's anything else you'd like to ask?"
"Within what you're able to answer, right?"
"I'm afraid so."
Subaru snorted at her blunt confirmation, then began mentally listing off questions. But given the pattern so far, the odds were— "Can I ask about Roswaal's true intentions without it being off-limits?"
"Lord Roswaal intends to support Lady
"The fact that your answer to 'true intentions' starts with that preamble means even you, Frederica, think Roswaal's recent actions don't exactly line up with that goal, yeah?"
"That he's chosen roundabout, difficult-to-understand methods—
Her reply carried a tacit evaluation of Roswaal's conduct, and her expression was one of visible strain. She seemed to accept Subaru's doubts as perfectly natural, yet was forbidden from even showing him the key to resolving them. In short— "So from there on, you can't say anything without Roswaal's personal permission."
"I'm truly sorry. But please know this much… Lord Roswaal is on the side of Lady Emilia and Lord Subaru. So long as you two retain the will to win through the Royal Selection, that much is certain."
"That's a tantalizing way of putting it… but fine. I'm getting the sense I can trust you, Frederica, even if I'm not sure about Roswaal. With someone like Ram being so deeply devoted to Roswaal, it'd be hard to trust her judgment—though setting aside my personal feelings."
As a person, Subaru liked Ram well enough, but the difficulty lay in the fact that didn't automatically translate into absolute trust. As long as her priorities placed Roswaal as the absolute top—and while he couldn't fully trust Roswaal right now—he had no choice but to hold off on his judgment of Ram.
"If you can't tell me Roswaal's true intentions… then what does it mean that the Sanctuary was an 'experimental facility'? Garfiel mentioned that."
"An experimental facility—yes."
"He also said it was a dead end for people who had nowhere to go. 'Nowhere to go' makes sense, given the earlier conversation about demi-humans. Roswaal being called a demi-human enthusiast, housing half-bloods with no place in the Sanctuary—that's all understandable. But—"
The ominous nature of the word "experimental facility," and Roswaal's purpose in gathering half-bloods there—amounting to nothing short of kidnapping and imprisonment—was beyond Subaru's understanding. Or worse, there was a possibility Emilia had allied herself with the wrong side.
"And honestly, if it ever came out that a facility with ties to a
"The very meaning of the word 'Witch' has turned into something purely negative, hasn't it? The Witch of Greed, with whom Lord Roswaal has a contractual relationship—I doubt anyone around would view that favorably. I believe that concern is exactly as you imagine it, Lord Subaru."
"I'm glad we're on the same page that the Sanctuary's existence is a problem. Does calling it an experimental facility overwrite that understanding even further?"
"…Originally, that place was a hidden village where the Witch of Greed gathered half-bloods to conduct certain experiments. What kind of negotiation took place between the Mathers family, who owned the land at the time, and the Witch is unknown, but on the basis of that contract, the Mathers family took on the management and maintenance of the Sanctuary across generations."
Subaru nodded along as Frederica spoke, organizing the information in his head. He'd already pieced together most of what she was telling him from the information he'd gathered from the people inside the Sanctuary. So the question became— "What the Witch was experimenting on half-bloods for, and why Roswaal has continued honoring that contract even after the Witch died…"
"The latter is simple. The contract's terms state: 'Until the Sanctuary is freed, maintain the Sanctuary in accordance with the oath made with the Witch.' Without regularly bringing people in, the environment known as the 'Sanctuary' cannot sustain itself."
"So that's why it doubles as a hideaway for troubled half-bloods. Listening to just that, Roswaal's actions almost sound like a charitable endeavor."
As long as discrimination existed, they needed somewhere to find peace. If Roswaal was fulfilling that role, then perhaps his evaluation needed to be reconsidered. Though— "Not all the half-bloods in there are clamoring to stay, from what I can tell. There are plenty who follow Ryuzu and want the Sanctuary freed, right?"
"…Prejudice against demi-humans has faded considerably. My brother and I entered the Sanctuary not so much because of our blood as because we simply had nowhere else to go. The Sanctuary's liberation will come someday. —That is precisely why I—"
Frederica shut her eyes tight and fell silent. Subaru mirrored her silence, and after a moment, he hesitantly spoke up.
"This might just be me jumping to conclusions, but… maybe when you left the Sanctuary, you were thinking about what would happen after it was freed?"
"…Why do you think that?"
"Because when you talk about the Sanctuary, you look so sad, and yet you cut ties with your homeland and came out here anyway. That could only be for your own sake or for someone else's. And…"
He scratched his cheek. The image that surfaced in his mind was a fierce-looking young man with golden hair cropped short. The kind woman before him and that stubborn, prickly personality—they were like mirror images, differing only at the corners of their mouths.
"If Garfiel's habit of hiding his true feelings is something he shares with his sister, then it wouldn't be strange at all if behind his actions lay an embarrassing amount of thoughtfulness. You… when the Sanctuary is eventually freed and the people who come out are in need, weren't you trying to prepare a place for them? Working here—sure, there's gratitude toward Roswaal, but it's more than that, isn't it? …That's what I've been thinking, anyway."
Midway through his rapid speech, Subaru realized his reasoning had become quite speculative. He stole a glance at Frederica, suppressing his embarrassment. If he'd completely misread the situation and she laughed him off, it would just mean Subaru had been too hot-blooded again. But— "When a new world eventually opens up… I wanted to be able to lend a hand to that place."
Frederica murmured those words softly, and a smile surfaced on her face.
But it wasn't directed at Subaru's off-target remark in scorn. It was simply the liberating feeling of being honest with herself and sharing that with another person.
"That place raised me. Now I want to help build an environment where those who leave that place can cultivate the desire to leave. If I can help build even a fraction of that environment, then perhaps I—perhaps the me who may have been born unwanted—has a reason for having been born after all."
"Unwanted, that's… you don't need to—"
"There's no need for comforting words. Given the circumstances, I can't imagine my mother desired my conception. In truth, she abandoned both my brother and me in the Sanctuary. That was the answer… but I didn't want to let that answer be the end of the story. That's why I'm here."
This was a question she had already answered for herself long ago.
Because of that, Subaru's surface-level sympathy couldn't reach her heart. More importantly, she had embraced her own answer and then chosen an option that went beyond just accepting it.
—you're strong, he thought, and meant it. A conviction to be admired.
"…Does Garfiel know about your true feelings? If he knows and still chose not to come with you…"
"I told my brother everything. That he still didn't come along was… the choice he made. He chose to stay and guard what could easily be lost rather than pursue something difficult to obtain. The brother and sister's paths diverged—that's all there was to it."
"Guard… guard, huh. Looking at the guy, you wouldn't peg him as the type to make that choice. But then again, you never really know what's in someone's heart just from the outside."
He stroked his chin, drained his teacup in one go, and suppressed a burp. Then he lightly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and picked up the thread.
"Before you sidetrack me—I want to get back to the 'experimental facility' business. Can you tell me what kind of experiments were being conducted? Or… do you even know?"
"Regrettably, I have no knowledge of the experiments themselves or their purpose. The moment the Witch of Greed died, continuing the experiments became impossible. The facility merely remained, and the Mathers family has been maintaining it. That's all."
"When you put it that way, it sounds pretty futile. I know keeping promises is important—believe me—but the other party's been dead for over four hundred years. Is there really any point in keeping it up?"
"At the very least, if Lord Roswaal and his lineage hadn't continued honoring that contract, I don't believe my brother and I would have had any peace in our childhood."
"Ugh… that's—yeah. I wasn't thinking far enough ahead. Sorry."
Subaru's honest apology drew a laugh from Frederica.
She then emptied her own cup, collected Subaru's as well, and stood up.
"We've talked for too long. Let's call it here for now. What will you do going forward, Lord Subaru?"
"I originally just came along to escort the villagers of Arlam back. Now that I've gotten what I wanted to hear, I'll head straight back… though it looks like it'll have to be tomorrow morning, given how today's gone."
"Is that so. Then Petra will be busy tonight and tomorrow morning. Whether that's a good thing, given her tendency to get distracted, is another question."
"It's great that Petra's making progress. Where is she now?"
"I expect she's gone back to the village to greet the people who've returned. That's what I instructed her to do."
Before Subaru had even expressed his intentions, Frederica had already read them. Impressive as always.
Watching her retreating back as she carried out the cups, Subaru also rose from his seat and counted off what remained on his fingers.
He'd gotten roughly half of what he'd wanted to hear from Frederica. Still, he had enough to advance his reasoning a fair bit.
All that remained was finding the last person who seemed to know the ins and outs of the situation.
"It'll take time, but I guess I'll just have to search every room in the mansion…"
Subaru's shoulders drooped before the prospect of heavy labor ahead.
As Frederica slipped out of the room, she glanced at his sagging back and murmured in a quiet voice: "An experimental facility where neither the content nor the purpose is known… yet the results are understood. When one learns of it, when it comes to light… I wonder what people will think."
Those words never reached Subaru, who was lost in thought.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ Everyone in the mansion knew how troublesome
His instinct when given multiple options—a matter of pure gut feeling—was one of the few things he could genuinely boast about. His uncanny knack for picking the right answer on multiple-choice questions with zero hints had, in a sense, made him terrible at "reading the room," but in this world it had proven useful in a different way: increasing his encounter rate with Beatrice.
That instinct, however, had been failing him ever since his return from the capital.
"Something's off. I should've checked every door in the mansion by now…"
Hoping this would be the last one, Subaru closed the toilet stall door and let out a sigh that carried his disappointment at his failure. After his return from the capital, his track record against Beatrice's door game stood at one win to a惨defeat. Considering he'd been batting close to a thousand before, "slump" didn't even begin to cover it. At this point, he had no choice but to concede.
"That damn girl is seriously avoiding me, isn't she?"
No one could break Beatrice's "Door Travelling" when she was truly determined—that had been Ram's words once. Yet Subaru had overturned that common wisdom without any particular justification. And there had been a subtle sense of superiority—less about breaking her door game and more about having an advantage over her compared to anyone else in the mansion.
"Just because the last parting went badly, she doesn't have to go into full lockdown like this… If you won't even show your face, I can't fight with you or apologize to you."
He didn't know which of his words that day had driven her to such complete rejection. He didn't know, and as long as they remained physically separated like this, the unknown would stay unknown. And that was unacceptable.
Setting aside the urgent reason of wanting information from her, Subaru simply wanted to see Beatrice and exchange words with her. Even hostile banter would do. Being talked down to would be fine too. A daily life he'd known had been lost, and he couldn't bear watching it disappear again in front of him—even though he recognized that, too, was a selfish thought.
"Pack and Beatrice—neither of them will give me the time of day when I need them most."
Pack, who had vanished without a trace, and Beatrice, who had withdrawn into another space entirely—neither would show themselves when Emilia and Subaru needed them most. Depending on them only in times of trouble was no better than treating them like gods, which was rotten.
But wallowing in sentiment wasn't an option when the situation was this urgent. With Elsa as a clear and present threat closing in on the mansion, if he couldn't defeat her, then evacuating everyone connected to the mansion was the top priority.
Surely Elsa wouldn't extend her blade all the way to
Getting
In a previous loop that had originated in the royal capital, Subaru had failed to get her out of the mansion. At that point, he'd been able to leave her behind because he knew the
But this time was different. Elsa had broken into the mansion and showed no hesitation about wielding her blade inside it. Emilia's absence as her primary target was irrelevant—her mind was focused solely on gutting anyone within the mansion.
Subaru didn't know how strong Beatrice actually was. He didn't know, but Elsa was a combatant who had fought evenly against Pack, who shared a contract with Emilia. In Subaru's estimation, she might even be a monster capable of going toe-to-toe with Wilhelm.
If Beatrice and Elsa faced each other head-on, Subaru simply couldn't picture a scenario where Beatrice came out on top.
"Maybe my aversion to Elsa is too strong. …Can't help it when she's killed me three times. —Right—"
Clutching at the phantom pain in his stomach, Subaru was walking down the corridor when he suddenly stopped. Ahead of him was the most opulent door in the entire mansion—the door to the central room on the top floor. Roswaal's office.
He was fully aware that sneaking in while the master was away went beyond mere breach of etiquette, but— "Come to think of it, there's something I want to check in that room too."
He spoke to himself as he casually took hold of the door handle and stepped inside.
The office's interior was, naturally, unchanged from when he'd been opening every door in the mansion. With Roswaal still absent, the room looked exactly as it had when Subaru had been putting Otto to work organizing documents.
The stacks of files and bookshelves that had once cluttered the room were now neatly arranged thanks to the meticulous Otto, giving it a freshly cleaned feel. Subaru glanced around, then made his way to the back of the room, where two bookshelves stood side by side next to a black ebony desk.
"There's a hidden passage behind this bookshelf."
He'd confirmed its existence twice before. He assumed it served as some kind of evacuation route, but how to activate it and where it led were still unknown.
"It was open during the last Elsa attack, so there's definitely an escape route from here… but the last time I went inside, I froze to death halfway through."
The memory of what seemed to have been Witch Cult members who'd crossed Pack's threshold—ending with Subaru as an ice sculpture. His fingers had been torn off, limbs shattered—a wretched memory. But the pain hadn't lingered, and much of it was hazy, so it wasn't enough to make him shudder. Still, death was death. He wouldn't trivialize it.
"If I can figure out where the evacuation route leads, I can prepare for worst-case scenarios. Or maybe I could use it to re-enter the mansion. …Can't imagine it coming to that, though."
With safety as the top priority, scouting the evacuation route was essential. He figured it probably led somewhere into the mountains behind the mansion. Ideally, there'd be emergency supplies along the way.
"I should go check the route now… but how the heck do I activate it?"
He gripped the bookshelf and tried to shove it with all his might, but the shelf, packed with heavy volumes, didn't budge even under his full strength. If he emptied it and moved just the shelf itself, it might work, but— "During an actual emergency evacuation, there's no time for that. There's gotta be a switch or something somewhere."
He rummaged behind the desk and around the back of the bookshelf but found nothing. At one point he discovered a false bottom in a drawer filled with gems—and quietly pretended he hadn't seen it.
"Guess I'm stuck… For all I know, the mechanism might not even be in this room."
"It's not in the room? What isn't?"
"Obviously, some kind of hidden switch. I want to peek at that secret passage behind the bookshelf, but if I can't find the mechanism, I'm stuck."
"Oh, you mean the escape route. In that case, it's this statue over here."
Petra tugged at the sleeve of the bewildered Subaru. Following her gesture, he looked and nodded.
"There was a conspicuously statuesque statue in the corner of the room… this has a mechanism?"
The figurine depicted a seated figure and was small enough to fit on a desk. In an office this sparsely furnished, it had stood out as distinctly odd. But Petra approached it without hesitation— "Here we go!"
—and with a small grunt, she twisted the statue's head.
The head spun around a hundred and eighty degrees to face backward, as if someone's neck had been wrung. Subaru grimaced at the sight, but immediately afterward— "The… the… the—"
A heavy grinding sound echoed through the room. Subaru spun around to find the bookshelf sliding apart to either side. Behind it, revealed in the wake of the shifting shelf, was a dark entrance just large enough for one person.
His objective—the evacuation route—had appeared before him, and Subaru clenched his fist in a small victory pump.
"That's it, that's it, that's it! This is what I was looking for—you're a lifesaver!"
"Hee hee~ See? I paid attention when Frederica-nee-sama taught me. She said to remember it as the escape route for emergencies."
"Nice, thank you. Now let's go check it—Petra, when did you—!?"
"Now you notice?!"
She'd followed so seamlessly that Subaru, deep in thought, had been slow to register her presence. At his oblivious reaction, Petra pouted and turned her face away.
"I hurried back just to help you, and you treat me like this… Lord Subaru, that's a bit mean."
"Look, I was having a conversation with someone and at some point wondered who I was even talking to. The joy of finding what I was looking for overwrote that, and I was late to notice. My bad, my bad."
Subaru apologized while lightly ruffling her head. Then he turned his attention to the passage that had been revealed.
"By the way, Petra—did Frederica tell you where this connects to?"
"Yes. Frederica-nee-sama said it leads partway up the mountain behind the mansion, to a small cabin. There's a barrier separate from the one that wards off magical beasts, so it's invisible from the outside."
"Got it. A proper hidden passage, then. But I should really go see for myself."
Confirming where in the mountains it emerged would make it useful both as an evacuation route and as an infiltration path. Subaru rolled up his sleeves with a flourish and headed for the entrance with a determined look. Behind him, small footsteps followed.
"Wait—Petra, you're coming too?"
"Can I not?"
"It's not that you can't, but there probably won't be anything interesting, right? We're just going to see where it leads and coming right back."
"It's break time right now, so I'm free to do as I please. I can come with you, can't I?"
She tugged at the hem of his sleeve and looked up at him with puppy-dog eyes. Having someone cling to him that earnestly made it hard to push her away. Subaru let out a resigned sigh and smiled.
"All we're doing is going there and coming back. You're pretty nosy, Petra."
"If I wasn't nosy, I wouldn't be living in a place like this… It's a good thing to be nosy."
Petra's reply was a little hard to follow, but Subaru smoothed it over with a smile and took the hand she offered. Together, they stepped into the passage.
The hidden corridor plunged into darkness and spiraled downward like a staircase. The walls themselves were made of a material that emitted a faint bluish glow—enough to see the path ahead, but knowing it extended underground, Subaru glanced back.
"It's a pretty long, dark staircase, so watch your footing."
"If I slip, will you catch me?"
"I'd just end up tumbling to the bottom with you in my arms, so please don't… If we ended up incapacitated, it wouldn't be pretty."
"Then I'd take care of Lord Subaru for the rest of my life."
"I appreciate the sentiment, but the process terrifies me!"
With that exchange, Subaru led the way down the stairs. A cold draft rose from below, and the thought that Pack—who shouldn't be there at all—might be waiting at the bottom sent a chill down his spine.
Not that he feared a frozen death that shouldn't exist— "Might as well talk while we go, since silence is boring and Petra might get scared."
"Lord Subaru, your palms are a little sweaty, you know?"
"Let's talk about—wait, why are you so observant?! So how were the villagers?"
Petra humored him with an indulgent smile, playing along with his transparently adult-concerned act. They continued their light conversation as they descended the spiral staircase for several minutes—until the stairs ended and they reached a narrow corridor that Subaru recognized.
After progressing some distance along it, they found a door. Beyond lay uncharted territory.
"Just from the feel of it, we're still under the mansion. If this corridor continues all the way to the mountain behind, it's gotta be pretty long."
"An evacuation route, or an escape route, or a tunnel—you can't decide on a name, can you?"
"Fair point. In honor of the wind that blows from Mexico, how about we call it Santana?"
"Oh, watch your step—there's a bump ahead."
Petra elegantly ignored his joke. Subaru felt a bittersweet mix of joy at her improving ability to deal with him and sadness at being so thoroughly deflected.
Carrying that nostalgia, he pressed forward along the corridor until they reached a slightly wider space. Ahead, a door loomed faintly in the darkness, confirming this was a small room. This space had previously been packed with frozen Witch Cult statues, but there was no trace of that now. He let out a quiet sigh of relief.
"As expected, the trauma switch didn't trigger. So this puts us about a third of the way to the mountain cabin?"
"The wind is cold… it must be beyond that door."
While Subaru was busy being relieved, Petra couldn't hide her excitement about stepping through the door into a new area. Subaru nodded.
"Last time, the moment I touched the door, things went sideways spectacularly. Beyond this point is completely uncharted territory… but let's see where it leads."
Then, without hesitation, he gripped the door handle.
He pushed it open, and a blast of cold air swept into the small room against his face— "—Huh?"
At the same moment as a soft sound, Subaru realized something had hit him in the stomach.
He looked down at his left side, where the impact had struck. There—sticking out of him like a skewer—was something that was still vibrating, as if to prove it had just landed.
—As the fabric of his clothing slowly darkened with spreading blood, Subaru's throat froze.
"You—!?"
Before Subaru could force a sound past the shock closing his throat, Petra's high-pitched scream rang out, pierced by the same sight. It echoed sharply through the narrow corridor, striking Subaru's eardrums.
In the split second before the pain surged upward, Subaru didn't understand what had happened. All his mental energy was devoted to figuring out what he needed to do.
Petra's scream lingered. In the echoing corridor, all other sound vanished—only her voice remained. A world where nothing else could be heard, yet he heard it all the same.
Footsteps, the sound of a blade being drawn from its sheath— "Now, then—let's fulfill our promise—"
The voice of a killer, trembling with the thrill of slaughter, as moist lips were run over by a red tongue.