Looking at the smile directed at him, Subaru thought, for the first time, that
Her gentle smile carried none of the calculating or sardonic emotions one might expect. It was born purely from a favorable feeling toward Subaru. She was strikingly beautiful, there was no denying that, and the fact that someone like her was treating him with such sincere concern was enough to make any man's heart open up.
Of course, this didn't manage to displace the feelings Subaru already harbored for the two girls occupying the precious space in his heart.
"Still… I'd be lying if I said my heart didn't skip a beat just a little…"
"Did you just say something?"
"I said it'd be a problem if I had some kind of talent for wooing Witches. Being obsessed with someone I never even tried to court is just… Ah, if the six Witches wouldn't cause trouble out there and could lend me their power instead, though, that'd be nice."
Subaru turned his face away and deflected, spouting something convenient. He had only glimpsed the edges of their true power from
Though having his arms torn off every time and then punched back into health was something to consider.
"I'm sorry to say, but while I was alive I could, but after death I cannot interfere with reality. The fact that I'm inviting you to the castle in this dreamscape is the exception."
"I know that. I was just throwing it out there to see. Honestly, just getting someone to listen is more than enough to save me."
At the very least, having vomited up what he'd been carrying inside, the threat of a mental breakdown had receded. His doubts regarding the
As for the parts of the puzzle he still couldn't solve—he decided not to dwell on those for now.
Instead— "Can I ask a separate question about Return by Death?"
"As always, I can only offer speculation based on my own knowledge. If that's acceptable, then sure."
Echidna prefaced with her typically coy manner. There was a confident air about her expression, the bearing of someone important. Yet at her core, she seemed absolutely delighted by the format of answering questions—her foot tapped the grassland in an impatient rhythm, and her fingers busily toyed with her own hair.
For the embodiment of intellectual desire, she was remarkably easy to read. But perhaps that was simply how a Witch was supposed to be, he thought in a corner of his mind.
"When I use Return by Death, the point where I revive after the 'death' sometimes changes. So far… six times? I've revived at six different locations, each at different times. I want to know the conditions that determine when the save point shifts."
"Save… point—the conditions for changing the revival location?"
"Basically, once it shifts forward, I can never go back to the previous point. Say the save point was two days ago—if it moved to yesterday, I can no longer revert to the save point from two days ago. Do you have any idea what kind of mechanism causes that?"
Subaru faced the issue with a seriousness rivaling, or perhaps exceeding, the one he reserved for the question of Return by Death's limited uses.
The save point changing—this was an ambiguous, enigmatic aspect of Return by Death that even Subaru, who had begun to find some use value in the ability, couldn't find the faintest clue about.
"I can come back even after dying… I'm not going to pretend I'd be fine with dying over and over because of that. I'm not. But… if it ever becomes the only thing I can rely on, I won't hesitate to use it. However—"
What was Subaru supposed to do when he found himself in a situation where even that wouldn't help him recover what mattered?
What flickered through his mind was
After the battle against the
He would never forget the moment he plunged a knife into his own throat while standing before her sleeping form.
Even now, he couldn't believe he'd had the spirit to commit suicide out of such short-sighted despair. No—he'd killed himself precisely because he'd lost his will.
Blood gushing from his throat, caught between pain and suffocation, Subaru perished.
When he opened his eyes, he'd been returned to mere minutes before he'd stabbed himself.
Never had he hated the save point update of Return by Death as much as he did in that moment.
If it meant not losing Rem, Subaru would have challenged the White Whale and the madman alike as many times as it took.
No matter how many times he died in the process, no matter how many times he was broken, he would have fought on.
"Can you tell me the details of what was happening when your save point shifted?"
"Ah—ah, yeah. Right. So, the first save point, then…"
Recalling the memories prompted by Echidna's question, Subaru gave a brief summary of his Return by Death history—each time the time and location of the rollback.
In essence, that accounted for the vast majority of his life in this other world.
He'd glossed over quite a lot, but recounting those intense two months still probably took close to an hour of perceived time.
"So, right now, inside the Tomb… the save point is locked in right after I cleared the first 'Trial.' Based on what you told me earlier, it's the same this time."
"………"
"Does anything come to mind? At one point I completely lost it and started theorizing that maybe the old man was the key to the save point."
Kadomon, the scar-faced fruit vendor in the
Counting the times it was "in front of Rem" twice over might be fair as well.
"To me, it doesn't seem like it's determined by people, objects, time, or any of those kinds of conditions. If it were time, the number of days and intervals are all over the place. Whether it's people or events, I can't find any common thread. The conditions are completely vague."
"I agree—from my perspective, the conditions you've described don't share any commonality. If that's the case, then what's needed is to change the way we think about it."
"Change the way we think?"
"Think of it this way: if searching for a reason *why* you're sent back to that point doesn't yield an answer, what about considering that you're sent back because you've gained a reason to *surpass* it?"
"A reason to surpass…?"
"That save point—think of it less as a 'place to return to' and more as a 'wall that sends you back.' A wall that holds you back in the form of 'death' until you can break through it. A hole works too, I suppose."
Subaru furrowed his brow at Echidna's words, then sank into thought about their meaning.
A wall, or a hole. By returning to his revival point through Return by Death, Subaru had overturned countless situations he couldn't otherwise overcome. There had been just as many scenarios that would have ended in dead ends without it.
And each time the situation changed, the save point shifted.
That meant— "Return by Death… it shifts every time I change a situation I couldn't otherwise change?"
"In this case, Return by Death is merely a means to an end. What intentions are projected onto that means depends entirely on the thinking of the being who wields it."
"A being who wields it means…"
As Subaru was left speechless, Echidna nodded. She curled her lips in an expression of distaste and said: "There's no one other than the Witch of Envy. The Witch who makes you Return by Death wants you to change situations that can only be overcome by facing 'death.' And each time you do, she changes your save point."
"Bu—but… that still doesn't make sense! If that's how it works, then what about Rem?! I couldn't save her! If Return by Death is a power meant to change situations, why couldn't I save Rem in the timeline where the save point overwrote the chance to—"
It was Return by Death itself that had overwritten the save point, robbing him of the chance to save Rem.
That was precisely why Subaru had been so fixated on the timing of save point updates.
Echidna followed his objection with a "Sorry, but—"
"The Witch of Envy doesn't factor in the person you call Rem."
"………!"
"What the Witch of Envy desires is for you, and you alone, to escape the dead-end fate that traps you. Return by Death is a tool for that purpose. She doesn't include the suffering of anyone else in that equation. Saving someone else with that power—that's entirely *your* wish. The Witch has nothing to do with it."
"Oh…"
"So let me state this clearly."
Even as Subaru reeled from the impact, Echidna pressed on.
Subaru looked up at the white Witch with eyes that held a faint, trembling light. Echidna closed her eyes once, as if enduring pain, then fixed Subaru with her dark gaze and said: "Until you break through the problem standing before you and change the future that leads to death, your soul will inevitably return to my Tomb. But if, hypothetically, you were to accept many sacrifices and change the future on that basis…"
"…The chance to recover those who became sacrifices will never come."
"…That's right."
The Witch of Envy cared about Subaru—and Subaru alone.
If Subaru could overcome his fate of death, then everything else was trivial to her. No matter how backed into a corner he became, she believed he would eventually find a way to survive through infinite retries. No—even if he couldn't, Subaru would not be permitted to give up.
All the conditions for Return by Death were in the Witch of Envy's hands.
"Fine… If you're going to play favorites with just me, then my resolve is set."
"………"
"The gift of Return by Death you've given me… I'm going to wring every last drop of use out of it. And when the dust settles, I'll make my way to you without having let a single thing slip through my fingers. Yeah. It's decided. It's happening. Betraying other people's expectations is my specialty."
If Return by Death was the Witch's will, then how it was used would be determined by Subaru's will.
So build it up. Overcome it. Shoulder it all and charge through.
If the Witch's love would save no one but Subaru, then Subaru would save everyone else.
Only then could
"The change of situation… that means breaking through both the problem of this '
"Even if it's coming from me, that sounds incredibly harsh, doesn't it? You seem to have swallowed that pretty nonchalantly."
"I had a feeling it was something like that—it's just been made explicit now. Instead of losing my resolve, it's fired me up. That rebellious spirit of mine is roaring to life."
Echidna was rendered speechless by Subaru's declaration.
Watching the at-a-loss Witch with some amusement, Subaru cracked his neck and said: "There's nothing more to squeeze out of Return by Death. Either way, this was a huge help. Thanks."
"And I got to have a stimulating conversation that satisfied my curiosity. So we're even on that front. It was less showing off my knowledge and more just presenting a logical framework."
"Then next, I want to lean on that knowledge of yours for real."
The Return by Death questions had fallen outside the scope of her knowledge, which was why there had been so many ambiguous areas. But the next question Subaru launched wasn't like that.
This one absolutely required a clear explanation from her lips.
"The way I died during this Return by Death… do you already know?"
"I haven't actually witnessed that part, so no, I didn't see it. Your experiential accounts of dying in multiple ways are fascinating, but… I don't really seem to be in the mood for that right now."
"Talking about scars and ways to die like some kind of war story requires alcohol, and all we've got here is Dona tea, so that won't work."
"That's a shame. …Judging by the state of your body outside, it seems like the death—the ending—was one that involved considerable mental and physical suffering."
She'd softened the phrasing from "way of dying." Was that her version of consideration?
Subaru allowed the faintest flicker of a smile at this gesture, then quickly composed his face, nodded, and said: "Just remembering it makes me tremble… but this time, I was eaten alive."
"………"
"Like an idiot, by a tiny rabbit small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Omnivorous by nature, apparently, and it was hungry, too. It sank its teeth into every last inch of my body."
He'd replaced the raw details with softer phrasing, but the horror of it was beyond words.
The memory of teeth sinking into his entire body—rending flesh, bone, blood—still asserted itself in the deepest recesses of Subaru's psyche. He forced it down and somehow maintained his composure.
Echidna placed the back of her hand against her lips.
"…So you encountered the Great Rabbits."
"Great Rabbits?"
"Not 'great' as in big—'great' as in many. Many Rabbits, hence the name. One of the negative legacies left by the Witch of Gluttony,
"Great Rabbits…"
It was a name he'd heard before—from Julius, and from Echidna herself, right here in this place.
The White Whale, the
"I barely survived the White Whale, and now you're telling me it's Great Rabbits right away? Come on…"
"If it truly was the Great Rabbits, then you faced the worst possible opponent."
Echidna's expression darkened as she realized the true nature of the threat Subaru had confronted. Subaru felt a chill of foreboding at her demeanor.
"When I fought the White Whale, I had a similar kind of anxiety… but which one's worse?"
"In terms of pure combat power, the White Whale wins by a wide margin. But when we're talking about which is harder to destroy, that's unquestionably the Great Rabbits."
"Harder to destroy…"
Just as he had with the White Whale, Subaru was already thinking about how to kill them. Echidna raised a finger and said, "Listen carefully": "You've been treating them like ordinary magical beasts—just a slightly more troublesome version of the same thing."
"No, I know they're nothing that cute…"
"The Great Rabbits are, in the truest sense, a natural disaster. They always move as a swarm, driven solely by insatiable hunger—an instinctual mass. Every living creature is prey to them, and they do nothing but devour. After the Great Rabbits pass through, all that remains is empty wilderness. They don't damage crops or fruit. They eat only living things."
At Echidna's description of the Great Rabbits, Subaru swallowed hard.
Her grave expression told him the words were no exaggeration. He already knew that much.
The deserted Sanctuary. The swarm of small rabbits that had sunk their teeth into his entire body.
If those had been the Great Rabbits, then the emptiness of the Sanctuary was because those monsters had devoured every inhabitant who had been there.
Locust plague—the term suddenly flashed through Subaru's mind.
A locust plague, as commonly known, was the phenomenon of a massive locust outbreak. Strictly speaking, it wasn't locusts but rather swarms of grasshoppers that had undergone a special mutation; their mass emergence devastated farmland, destroyed crops, and triggered famine.
The Great Rabbits' behavior bore similarities to what Subaru knew.
The difference was that, unlike grasshoppers, the Great Rabbits consumed living creatures themselves, and their boundless appetite posed a far more immediate threat to life than any locust plague.
"Can't we fight them off somehow?"
"Individually, they're not much. But those creatures move as a swarm as a fundamental principle. Driving off individual rabbits is pointless. And more than that, once they've found prey, nothing stops them short of death or satiation. They *are* hunger itself."
"Wait, wait, wait. If the Great Rabbits move as a swarm, then there should be some kind of boss leading it, right? Take that out and the swarm collapses!"
In the human world's rules, removing the head meant the group fell apart. By animal kingdom logic, the second-in-command might simply step up—but still.
Subaru wasn't well-versed in magical beast ecology. He had no choice but to rely on Echidna's knowledge. But she shook her head.
"You're mistaken. The Great Rabbits are a swarm, but there is no concept of a boss. What they possess is truly only the instinct of 'hunger.' They consume other living creatures to satisfy that hunger, and there is no other mechanism. They reproduce by individual splitting, and when there's no prey, they cannibalize each other to endure the famine. They don't even have a sense of camaraderie."
"Cannibalize…? Why the hell would someone create a monster like that?!"
"Well, that's something only the creator would know. At the very least, Daphne herself didn't have nearly the same fixation on hunger as the Great Rabbits do."
Subaru shuddered at the horrifying ecology.
It was true that all living things survived by consuming other living things in accordance with instinct. In that regard, humans, animals, and magical beasts were no different.
But the Great Rabbits—organisms that reproduced by splitting rather than mating—didn't even share that basic logic. On top of reproducing to grow their swarm, the split individuals would devour each other to stave off hunger. It was utterly beyond the pale.
The Great Rabbits were monsters that had completely exhausted every possibility of being called living creatures.
"Hypothetically… hypothetically, if you wanted to destroy the Great Rabbits, what do you think would be required?"
"Honestly, that's roughly on the level of asking 'How would you evaporate every single raindrop in a torrential downpour?'"
He meant it was that hopeless.
Subaru pressed his hand to his forehead, dizzy from the sheer height of the wall between him and the annihilation of the Great Rabbits.
"If you killed every single one of them, you could destroy the Great Rabbits no matter how many there are."
"But that's far too reckless. To my knowledge, the only ones who could pull that off are
"Those two… I've asked before, but they really are monsters, aren't they?"
He recalled Sekhmet—the one who had once rested on his knee.
From what Subaru had seen, she was sulky and utterly averse to any form of effort, a Witch who embodied 'Sloth' in every sense of the word.
"Wait a second."
Recalling his encounter with Sekhmet sparked a sudden glimmer of hope in Subaru.
It was a faint, fragile light, but it was enough to illuminate the darkness of this dead end. And more importantly—this was something that could only be done here, only with Echidna's help.
"Echidna."
"What's with the serious face? …Don't even think about it. I'm a corpse and you're alive. The convergence of fate here is but a momentary illusion—a fleeting dream. So no matter how passionately you look at me, I—"
"No, sorry to interrupt the mood, but that's completely wrong. Seriously, completely wrong."
Echidna looked somewhat deflated, and Subaru, amused by her reaction, cut to the chase.
"Echidna—I want you to let me meet the Witch of Gluttony—Daphne."
"………"
"Before, at this tea party, you introduced me to the Witches of Pride, Wrath, and Sloth. Back then, you said you had all five Witches'—what was it—their complete records or something stored inside you?"
"…Collection, was the word I used. The life trajectories of those five during their lifetimes are indeed contained within me. If I were to channel them through this vessel of mine, manifesting them would be possible. However—"
At Subaru's proposal, Echidna furrowed her brows in evident discomfort.
Her gaze drifted, then she glanced at Subaru with a pained expression.
"I think it would be better if you didn't meet Daphne."
"Why not? I already had my fill of the Witches' eccentricities last time. I've steeled myself as much as I need to. No matter what comes out, I won't hold a grudge."
"Beyond grudges and such—my personal assessment is that you and Daphne would be profoundly incompatible. Worst-case scenario, I'd say. So even if you did meet, I seriously doubt a productive conversation could be had."
"You never know until you try. 'Trial and error'—that sounds like a phrase you'd enjoy."
Echidna conceded that action taken in pursuit of knowledge was worth endorsing.
Her pained expression told Subaru he'd hit a nerve. He scratched his head and added: "You're the one who gave me the guarantee that there's no risk of dying in this place, right? I'm not being overly optimistic, but as long as I don't need to worry about losing my life, I figure it's worth the gamble."
"I'm not ruling out the possibility of your mind breaking and leaving you a vegetable."
"Before that happens, I'm counting on you to pull the plug. Trust me, Echidna—when it comes to depending on others, I'm second to none."
With a quip and a thumbs-up, grinning to show his teeth, Subaru tossed out his trust.
Watching Subaru's utterly flippant attitude, the resistance gradually faded from Echidna's eyes.
"…Fine. I'll let you meet Daphne."
"Alright, thanks."
"But I'm laying down these conditions absolutely. Do not, under any circumstances, undo her restraints. Do not touch her either. And if possible, avoid making eye contact."
"Following all of that would make me the most terrifying person alive, wouldn't it?!"
There were also several impossible-to-ignore terms mixed into those conditions that Subaru wanted to press her on. But before he could form the words— Echidna finished her preparations first.
As before, when Echidna manifested a Witch, there was no preamble—no advance indication whatsoever.
In the space that had held her, a different figure now stood, the transition happening in the blink of an eye.
And so it was again.
However— "Whoa, whoa… this is a bit much, even by my standards…"
At the sight of the being before him, Subaru's cheek twitched as he muttered those words.
Before him, before Subaru's very eyes, stood Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony— A girl encased in a coffin, her entire body bound in restraint devices, both eyes sealed shut behind a tight, tight black blindfold.