——The sight of the girl trapped inside the crystal was so captivating that Subaru forgot to breathe.
That was how terribly, breathtakingly beautiful the scene before him was.
A girl sat with her knees folded beneath her, sealed within a translucent crystal that carried a faint bluish tint.
Packed in ice——that was perhaps the closest comparison, but unlike ice that would melt and set one free, the crystal was eternal unless shattered.
And shattering this crystal would undoubtedly mean shattering the girl's body along with it.
"Why... would someone do... something like this?"
The words slipped out in a murmur, tinged with a faint, barely contained anger.
Subaru was quietly, but undeniably, feeling rage.
The girl encased in the crystal could never be safely freed from it. He didn't know what intentions the person behind this had, or what kind of relationship they'd had with this girl. He didn't know, and yet it clawed at his heart viciously.
"Is it... you, Ryuzu?"
He stepped into the room.——Unlike his previous memories, there was no gaping hole in the floor. Where the hole should have been, the crystal was instead mounted on a pedestal.
The tall, vertically elongated crystal was supported by an iron base, and the apparatus alone seemed to have been meticulously maintained——it shone with a near-new luster despite the facility being little more than a ruin.
Before the crystal stood a row of desks, and Subaru recognized them as the ones that, in his previous world, should have been destroyed and rolled into the corners of the room.
The lightless room was covered, just as before, in a thick growth of luminous moss on the walls, providing a reasonable amount of visibility.
Tools and medical instruments scattered along the wallsides were still present, and after comparing against his memories, Subaru arrived at a single conclusion: namely, "This place is going to be destroyed within the next six days, and whatever 'something' was being done here will be wiped from history."
Someone had good reason for this place not to be discovered.
That person intended to destroy and discard the critical parts of this facility in the days between now and when the
This time, Subaru had managed to reach it ahead of schedule.
"The most likely suspect is... Garfiel, isn't it?"
This entire search had originated from Subaru's unease over Garfiel's suspicious behavior.
Garfiel, who showed both a fierce will to protect the "Sanctuary" and an irrepressible affection for Ryuzu, could conceivably do such a thing based on facts Subaru didn't know.
Added to that was the simple fact that the destruction of that facility itself would be nearly impossible to carry out without someone of Garfiel's caliber.
If there was one remaining question, it was this—— "I have absolutely no idea what this facility was even for."
Despite the fortunate fact that it hadn't yet been destroyed, Subaru's inspection of the room had yielded no notable discoveries so far. The crystal containing the girl who was Ryuzu's spitting image was bolted in place within the room, but beyond that, there was nothing particularly remarkable.
Glancing past the desks toward the far wall, Subaru could see the exhaust duct he'd crawled through before. If he kept going, he'd end up back in the waiting room where he'd entered.
"I'm just realizing it now, but the layout of this place doesn't add up, does it? Just this one big room and the waiting room—no matter how you look at it, that's too little."
The size of the facility as suggested by its exterior didn't match the arrangement of rooms inside.
Tracing the mental map of the facility against its outer appearance, Subaru vaguely but unmistakably sensed the discrepancy.——There was a space large enough to hide an entire room somewhere that he couldn't see.
Crossing the room, Subaru stood before the wall where the hinged duct door was located and patted the surface, feeling for any seams. The moss-covered wall felt less like grass and more like animal fur.
Even knocking on it produced no echo, suggesting it served purposes beyond merely being a light source. In terms of position, if there was a hidden space, it would be on the other side of this wall.
"If I consider the distance I crawled, there should be a room about half the size of this one. Unless the wall rotates or something, there's no way through from here, though..."
If that was the case, the only possibility would be from the waiting room side.
Last time, Subaru had been in no mental state to examine every corner of each room. In the cramped waiting room, he'd had no capacity to search for hidden passages.
Though still worried about the girl in the crystal, Subaru decided he had to check the waiting room first——and turned around.
"————"
The instant he did, his eyes met those of another person who had entered the room.
"...Huh?"
"————"
Meeting those emotionless eyes head-on, Subaru involuntarily let out a sound.
The figure gazing back at him with round pupils——a girl with long, pale red hair, her body wrapped in nothing but billowing white cloth.
She bore an uncanny resemblance to Ryuzu, but the aura she gave off was distinctly different from that of the woman he knew. No, rather, there was no aura emanating from her at all.
She was simply standing there, like air itself. In other words, "Oh, Ryuzu's..."
The word "clone" flickered through his mind, and Subaru hesitated on what to call the girl before him. Even "clone" was merely a product of his own imagination. With the girl's true identity still unconfirmed, using such a label made him feel a twinge of guilt.
"But then..."
He didn't know what else to call her, and the words caught in his throat.
As Subaru stood there at a loss for words, the girl remained perfectly still. Her expression didn't move; it was doubtful she was even breathing. She was a being defined entirely by stillness.
A girl who hesitated to speak, waiting for someone to speak to her.
——The standing figure before him appeared so much like a doll that steeled himself and opened his mouth.
"You... no, you there? Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"————"
"What's your name? Can I ask what you're doing here? For that matter, what even is this place?"
"————"
"...'Sanctuary,' Garfiel, Ryuzu. Do any of those words sound familiar?"
"————"
Three questions met with three silences.
He'd hoped that at least one might cause some flicker of expression, but the girl's face didn't so much as twitch at any of them. It was as though the muscles of her face didn't function at all.
Pushing on a bead curtain with his arm——Subaru was utterly stumped.
Just then, as Subaru roughly scratched his head and let out a sigh, the girl suddenly moved.
"...?"
He instinctively tensed, but the girl's steps were slow and languid.
Having entered through the same door from the waiting room that Subaru had used, the girl walked into the room at a leisurely pace, heading toward its center——directly before the crystal.
The girl sealed in the crystal and the girl approaching it were, once again, spitting images of each other.
Before the girl locked in a sleep from which she would never wake, the girl who was free bent down and extended her hand toward the base of the crystal's pedestal.
"————"
With a click, a section of the pedestal came away, and Subaru's eyes went wide. It appeared the lower part of the pedestal was a hinged door of sorts, and something had been stored inside the hollow space within.
As the girl crouched to work, her body blocked Subaru's view, so he craned his neck. He shifted position and stepped forward to get a look inside the pedestal, ——"Ugh!"
A foul stench pierced his nostrils without warning, and Subaru recoiled, clutching his face.
The acrid odor invaded the mucous membranes of his nose——less a smell than pure pain. His eyes watered, he gagged, and a pressure so intense it felt like the contents of his stomach were rising up made him tremble.
That stench——he remembered smelling it before. It was the very same putrid odor that had once permeated this facility. The kind of smell that suggested exposure to harmful substances, as if someone had spilled chemicals everywhere.
He'd thought it was coming from the collapsed underground of this room, but "In reality, it was coming from inside that pedestal... meaning, from the area around the crystal."
Subaru covered his nose and reached his conclusion, tears still streaming down his face.
Amid the eye-watering fumes, the girl continued her work without so much as a change in complexion, and Subaru shuddered inwardly at the sight. Then, leaning in quietly from the side to peer at her hands, his eyes went wide.
——What the girl was fiddling with inside the pedestal was an interior surface etched with mysterious patterns, along with magic stones mounted at various points throughout.
The magic stones glowed faintly as they expelled the mana stored within them, though some had apparently been drained dry and no longer emitted any light. The girl was carefully removing those and swapping in replacements from a supply stored inside the pedestal.
Studying the complex patterns, Subaru recalled that he had witnessed them before, during his previous loop, within this very facility.
A magic circle——a staple of fantasy isekai stories, a technology so common it was practically a given. And yet in this particular world, he had never once encountered one. All the more striking for its novelty, he'd been curious about what kind of effect it produced.
"Judging by how it's connected to the magic stones like this... it gives off the impression of machinery, or circuitry. If the magic circle is the mechanical component and the magic stones serve as the battery or energy source..."
Once he framed it that way, it was hard to think of it as anything else.
Perhaps a form of magical science, or magitech.
As Subaru tilted his head in thought, the girl appeared to have finished her work. She removed the spent magic stones and closed the hinged door.
Then, after a pause of a few seconds, Subaru noticed a tingling sensation prickling across his skin.
——The atmosphere was vibrating, faintly and in rapid, tiny oscillations.
"This is... like when magic is used."
It was close to the sensation he'd felt during the large-scale spells——Julius's Nect during the fight against the
Most likely, some interference with the ambient mana had triggered a response that his body was sensitively detecting through the movement of mana itself.
In this case, there was no need to even guess what the mana was responding to.
Before his eyes, Subaru watched the crystal's faint glow rapidly intensify.
Though it had always been a transparent blue, the crystal's radiance——previously subdued in the dim room——grew brighter and brighter, rendering the girl inside with increasing clarity.
The magic circle that had existed inside the pedestal now manifested on the upper portion as well, supporting the crystal, and a piercing blue-white light flooded the room.
"...A save point."
The words tumbled out before Subaru could stop them, but what resident of the modern world could fault him?
A crystal mounted upon a magic circle, emitting a blue radiance that illuminated the room——to Subaru, it was nothing less than the save points he knew so well from his gaming days.
Despite such a visually spectacular display, the fact that it all happened in complete silence only heightened its mystical quality, and Subaru stood there, breathless, unable to even voice his thoughts.
And just as Subaru stood frozen before this breathtaking spectacle, "————"
The girl, having finished replacing the magic stones, casually walked past him toward the room's exit, completely ignoring him. The spent magic stones she'd removed were simply tossed aside wherever convenient——a characteristically careless disposal.
Noticing the faint footfalls of her retreating figure, Subaru hurriedly reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
"Hey, wait a—I touched her."
"————"
Given her almost nonexistent life force and presence, Subaru had half expected his hand to pass right through her. Fortunately, his fingertips firmly gripped her shoulder, and he succeeded in stopping her in her tracks.
For an instant, he remembered the encounter with the
The girl turned to look at Subaru with her quiet eyes, showing not the faintest sign of bursting apart.
Relieved by that, Subaru stared straight back at the girl who seemed like she might vanish at any moment.
"I'm sorry for interrupting your work, but I'm continuing my questions. This time, try not to ignore me completely, okay? I'm not exactly swimming in free time here."
"————"
"What were you doing just now? Why did you make this crystal light up? Do you know anything about the girl inside here?"
"————"
A repeat of pushing on a bead curtain.
No matter how many times Subaru posed his questions, the only responses he received from the girl were silence and her gaze. It wasn't that she was refusing to answer——she seemed to not even possess the option of doing so.
His impression of her as a "doll" was not entirely unwarranted.
"At least if she'd respond with a 'yes' or 'no,' we might be able to work with that..."
In the current state of affairs, even that was impossible.
Keeping a grip on the girl, who might simply walk away if he let go, Subaru turned his gaze back toward the crystal.
The crystal continued to emit its dazzling radiance. Though the girl inside showed no change, the increased brightness had revealed something with painful clarity.
No breathing, no heartbeat, no circulation of blood.
——The girl sealed within the crystal was devoid of all life functions.
"Suspended animation... no, that's far too optimistic."
It wasn't as simple as warming a frozen body back to life. And in this girl's case, her very body had been crystallized.
Freeing her would be a dream within a dream.
"Am I... powerless once again?"
Crushed by an unbearable sense of helplessness, Subaru pressed his fingers against the surface of the crystal.
The cold transmitted through his fingertips, the fact that it was constantly eroding the girl, her complete inability to even feel it——he didn't know whether to feel relief or outrage.
Just then, as that wave of sentiment swept through him, "Huh?"
The cold that had traveled through his fingertips suddenly became heat, surging up his arm and racing through his entire body.
"Wha—— ah——?!"
What had initially felt like warmth instantly transformed into the searing heat of flames, engulfing him completely.
The sensation of being traced from the inside by fingers of fire made Subaru writhe on the spot, groaning in agony.
The heat produced a suffocating tightness in his chest, and his screams echoed through the room.
Too distressed to care about the filth on the floor, Subaru collapsed onto the ground, limbs splayed. He convulsed, his vision flickering——and then, "——Uh?"
Without warning, the seemingly endless hell announced its conclusion.
The raging heat rapidly dimmed its intensity, and Subaru's body was suddenly freed from the storm of pain.
"What... in the world... was that?"
Sitting up and testing his limbs, Subaru muttered to himself.
The pain from moments ago, and its abrupt end——he knew neither the cause, nor the course, nor the result. All that remained were questions and the memory of agony.
"It doesn't bother me anymore. But if it doesn't bother me, then what was even the point?"
The pain had come immediately after touching the crystal.
The cause was most likely the magitech apparatus centered on the crystal. Perhaps he'd touched a power component and suffered something akin to an electric shock.
But having reached that point in his reasoning, Subaru suddenly remembered that, in his preoccupation with the pain, he had completely lost track of the girl who resembled Ryuzu.
"Oh no——"
"————"
He hurried to stand, but when he raised his head and saw the girl still standing there, the tension in his shoulders eased with relief. And before that loosened tension— "————"
——He watched the girl kneel solemnly on the spot and bow her head.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ Staring at the girl who was kneeling with her head lowered, Subaru was bewildered.
If he wasn't mistaken, the gesture, the posture—it could only be read as a display of respect and submission toward the Subaru standing before her.
"What's this about all of a sudden?"
After she'd refused to listen to a single word Subaru had said, this sudden reversal in her attitude put suspicion and wariness ahead of surprise.
It warranted that level of caution. There was a wide gulf between Subaru and this girl. Neither of them had shared anything about their backgrounds or identities. And yet here she was adopting this stance—could he really trust it?
"————"
Before the wary Subaru, the girl rose from her knees.
She then tilted her gaze slightly upward, looking toward a point behind Subaru's head. He followed her line of sight, but there was nothing there.
It seemed the gesture had been, in part, simply glancing up at the sky while lost in thought. Subaru turned his head back. And then, "Whoa?!"
"————"
Right before his eyes, at a distance close enough to feel her breath, the girl had appeared again, and Subaru recoiled. But the girl's hand shot out and seized his outstretched arm, "...? You want me to follow you?"
"————"
Without a word, the girl tugged at his sleeve in a gesture that clearly said *come with me.* When she responded to his questioning with a silent nod, Subaru stood rooted in place, thinking hard.
The fact that she'd been so stubbornly silent until now might mean she was unable to speak. And yet, she seemed to understand the meaning of Subaru's questions. Which meant that this attempt to lead him somewhere should be interpreted as a willingness to engage with him in some form.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Subaru muttered.
"That's my line.——Alright, lead the way. I'll follow."
When Subaru nodded in return, signaling his willingness to go along, the tugging girl began to walk. Following in her footsteps, Subaru cast one final look back at the crystal.
——Unchanged, bathed in its blue-white glow, the girl within remained in her eternal sleep.
Led by the sleeve, he exited the room, passed through the facility's corridor, and emerged into the waiting room. From there, the girl ahead continued to guide Subaru toward the outside of the facility.
"Outside, huh... I don't mind going out, but..."
If she took him toward the "Sanctuary," it would expose the fact that Subaru had snuck into the facility. Of course, he could act nonchalant and claim he hadn't done anything wrong, but given his relationship with Garfiel, that wasn't the best option this time around.
As Subaru fretted over what to do if the girl headed toward the "Sanctuary,"
"My, what a difficult expression you're wearing, Suba-rou."
"Of all the timing..."
He stepped outside the facility, and no sooner had he been exposed to the open air than a voice called out to him.
Turning toward the voice, Subaru's lips relaxed when he saw who it was. Whether it was from relief or some other factor, he wasn't sure, "There's much to talk about, I imagine, but we should probably change venues first, shouldn't we?"
"Yeah, let's do that. Seriously, I've got way too much to get off my shoulder."
Subaru shrugged in agreement.
He wondered what he must look like through her eyes.
——Standing alongside a girl who was her identical twin, bathed in moonlight, what must the original Ryuzu make of the sight before her?