"Wakey wakey, wakey wakey..."
There is no experience worse for the heart than waking yourself up with your own scream.
"...My left hand's... still here, right?"
His left arm had been extended into the void as though grasping for something.
The same went for the left half of his body—the half that had been torn away and scattered. The loss of his limbs, even though it had lasted only the briefest of moments, had dealt Subaru an unparalleled sense of loss.
He sat up and swung his uninjured left arm around from his shoulder to confirm. There was no sign of damage to his left flank, and of course no fang marks remained on his reattached left hand.
If there had been scars, he could have written off the sensation of his left half being blown away as just another nightmare—something a careless Subaru had stumbled into by dozing off on a night that mattered.
"But here I am, back again... No, I should say I've managed to come back."
The disappearance of the scars meant exactly that.
He had been defeated by fate, and once again, time had been forced backward for him. In this case, perhaps he should consider himself fortunate—granted the chance to challenge his defeat once more.
It was when his thoughts had gone that far that Subaru suddenly became aware of what day and time it was.
Based on his experience with Return by Death, he should have returned to "the first day at
In any case, he needed to check the time first—and just as that thought crossed his mind— "Oh, sorry. Good morning."
He finally noticed the twins huddled together in a corner of the room, clinging to each other and eyeing him warily.
A man who had been unconscious suddenly waking with a scream would be terrifying, no matter who you were.
Despite Subaru's half-hearted greeting, the two girls said nothing, huddled together like small animals seeking comfort.
He scratched his head and frowned, wondering what to do.
They had probably forgotten him again. That thought brought a faint ache to his chest, but Subaru pushed past the throbbing and put on a smile.
A friendly smile. An earnest one, offering his sincerity first.
Because even if they had forgotten everything, he still remembered.
"Sorry for the trouble! Natsuki Subaru, reporting for duty!"
He launched himself off the bed, blanket flying, and landed with his arms raised in the fierce pose of a hawk. The twins flinched at the intimidating stance, and from that very pose he addressed them— "So, what day and time is it, anyway?"
—And so the third first day at Roswaal Manor began.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ —Let me recall, once more, the night of the fourth day.
He had exchanged a promise with
It was a strategy as gradual and merciless as strangling someone slowly with cotton wadding—incrementally, inexorably drawing the life from them.
If he had stayed alert and awake, it would have been one thing. But falling asleep and helplessly succumbing to that condition? He would have been swallowed by oblivion forever without ever waking.
However— "The sound of chains... that's what I heard..."
He could extrapolate about the wasting, but on that front he was completely lost.
The distinctive metallic sound of long chains clinking together. He remembered that much—its echo rattling his eardrums. And right after that came the impact, and his left half had been torn away.
Just reliving that scene was enough to make his left side go numb. His body shouldn't have remembered the experience, but his very soul refused to accept that memory.
Unconsciously cradling his left arm with his shoulder, he murmured— "So there was an attacker... Can't say if it's the same one who wasted me, but at least they're probably on the same side."
His only gain from this loop was the confirmation that someone had been responsible.
It had likely been an attack on the manor, and on the night of the fourth day, Subaru had apparently been added to the victim list. Whether the other residents of Roswaal Manor were also targets, he couldn't say for certain.
"But if I'm on the list, everyone probably is too... Probably. And it's probably connected to Emilia-tan's Royal Selection, same as the Loot House."
He didn't know how much resentment Roswaal had drawn from the surrounding nobility, so he shelved the grudge line for now. If he was going to get caught up in it all anyway, he'd rather be caught up in a cute girl's problems.
But then Subaru stopped and held his head in his hands.
He had identified that an attack was coming, and that Emilia and the others were likely the targets. That much was a success. But— "Even knowing that, I don't have evidence to back up an explanation, or any means to prevent it beforehand."
The crux of Return by Death's difficulty lay precisely in the fact that he couldn't explain it.
This time, he had even witnessed the attack on the manor in advance. If he desperately tried to convince Roswaal to take precautions, and the attackers then called off the assault upon seeing those measures—would there be any way to prove any of it?
He was prepared to accept being treated like the boy who cried wolf, if it meant protecting Emilia and the others. That was the sacrifice he was willing to make.
And directly repelling the attacker was completely off the table. First of all, Subaru knew full well he had no combat ability to speak of. On top of that, he didn't know a single thing about the enemy's nature.
He had been reduced to a blubbering, pants-wetting mess before being killed with a gut punch—that was the easy-to-digest summary of the last loop. Even by his own standards, that was a brutally poor recap.
"To top it off, I didn't even get a look at the enemy's face, let alone what they were after. A literal dog's death."
If he couldn't see through the enemy's identity, he couldn't even begin to formulate a plan of counterattack.
He crossed his arms, craned his neck, rotated his hips in circles, and shuffled around the room doing a moonwalk. And then, in the middle of all that— "You're so annoying I could die—hurry up and either leave or be killed."
From the center of the room, smack in the middle of Subaru's circular orbit, a girl spoke with absolute disgust.
Subaru turned to face that hostile girl.
"Sorry, sorry. But you know, when I rotate everything except my head like this, weirdly enough my head starts working too. So cut me some slack. We're practically family, you and I."
"What possible bond could there be between Betty and you? We've only met twice."
"That's what you say, but the heart knows what it knows. You invited me into your room without hesitation, after all."
"I did no such thing! You barged in and broke through my Door Traversal all on your own! How does that even work? I can't believe it!"
True to form,
He had come to the Forbidden Library.
He had told himself he was being reasonable about it, but having
"Well, I'm not planning to cause you any trouble. Just pour me some tea and let me relax a little."
"As if I would ever do such a thing. Ugh, you're insufferable."
Beatrice scowled, tugging at her long golden ringlet as she twisted the corner of her mouth in irritation. Watching her like that, a thought suddenly struck Subaru.
"Hey, you don't exactly look the part, but you're a mage, right?"
"If you mean I can use magic, then yes. But I'd appreciate it if you didn't lump me in with any two-bit amateur."
She sent him a sideways glance, nose held slightly high. She must have been quite confident. Subaru grinned at her proud display of self-assurance.
"You don't have many friends, do you?"
"How does that topic even follow from what we were just talking about?!"
"Well, I don't have any friends either, so I get it. But your approach needs some work. Playing the high-and-mighty card at your age is going to bite you later, you know—"
He teased her relentlessly, and Beatrice let out a long sigh. Seeing that reaction, Subaru cut off the banter, prefaced with "Right then," and got to the main point.
Yes—the thing he wanted to ask the mage about, earnestly and directly.
"Is there a magic that weakens a target and kills them while they sleep... something like that?"
He wanted to determine whether the weakened state he had fallen into—the one caused by sickness, or perhaps by magic—was genuine.
The sudden chill and fatigue that had seized him out of nowhere—he suspected their true nature was magic.
His reasoning: there was no identifiable cause for a sudden infectious disease, and if it was poison, the onset had been far too delayed.
With poison in particular, he couldn't find the moment it had been administered. Dinner was buffet-style, and the soup had been ladled from a single pot. Or perhaps the tea and sweets he had shared with Emilia had been tampered with.
"But in that case, they'd need to predict exactly when I'd eat the sweets or drink the tea."
It was unreliable. As a method, it fell short—especially on the second night, where there had clearly been an intruder, unlike the first.
If the intruder didn't know that Subaru was in a weakened state, the poison would serve no purpose at all.
Subaru's question made Beatrice furrow her brow. She was probably suspicious about why he was asking. But noticing, perhaps for once, that his expression lacked its usual flippant energy, she exhaled through her nose and shrugged.
"If you're asking whether such a thing exists, then yes—it does."
"It does?"
"It's closer to a curse than magic. Curse Users have more of these types of techniques than ordinary mages. It sounds like the kind of underhanded method a Hexer would favor."
A new job title—Curse User—had appeared, and Subaru was thrown. Beatrice raised a single finger as if delivering a lecture.
"A Hexer—or more precisely, a Curse User—traces their origins to the northern nation of
"But they can actually curse someone to death, right?"
"That's precisely what makes them defective. Their only practical use is harming other people. As far as approaches to Mana go, can you think of a more despicable technique?"
Her hatred of curses ran deep—there was not a shred of willingness to compromise in the way she spoke. Subaru had no intention of defending curses either. Right now, he just wanted more information, and he leaned forward to press on.
"So with that Curse User thing, could they do what I described earlier?"
"I suppose it's possible. But there are simpler methods than going to the trouble of summoning a Curse User."
Seeing Subaru's furrowed brow, Beatrice smiled meaningfully. Then, without warning, she opened her small palm and held it up in front of Subaru's face, obscuring his vision. Immediately after— "Nnh—"
A sudden, disorienting wave of loss washed over him, and Subaru's upper body swayed violently before he crumpled.
He caught himself on one knee just in time, but the sensation was enough to nearly drag him under. He blinked several times. There was some residual fatigue, but his body moved—he judged he was fine.
"How does it feel, having experienced it firsthand?"
Looking down at Subaru from above, Beatrice let out a small, amused hum. Her hand pressed to her mouth in a graceful little smile—the gesture itself was elegant, but given what she had just done, calling it "cute" would have been going too far.
"What the hell was that...?"
"I simply absorbed some of the Mana inside your body. If I repeated this excessively, you'd end up in the same state as earlier. It's far easier and more reliable than relying on those unsavory Curse Users."
Beatrice spoke with a triumphant air. Subaru glared up at her resentfully, but he didn't have the energy for any further resistance.
Why was he this powerless? He thought about it, and then it hit him.
In this timeline, the first time Beatrice had absorbed his Mana—the infamous "Mana Drain"—was just before he had lost consciousness. In other words, she had Mana Drained him right before he went to sleep, and now she had done it again the moment he woke.
"Are you trying to kill me?!"
"I'm moderating it, you know. If you turned into a corpse in here, I'd have to climb over your dead body every time I wanted to reach for a book, and that would be terribly inconvenient."
"Don't call me a corpse! That sounds like something you'd say about a bug!"
Receiving a look that suggested she truly thought of him in exactly those terms, Subaru wondered—had he really been so naive as to consider this place a sanctuary?
He checked his limbs, confirmed that he could at least move them properly, and stood up. He stomped his feet lightly, tapped out a quick rhythm, then— "You weren't the one who killed me, were you?"
"If you were already dead, you wouldn't be here being a nuisance. Unfortunately, Betty is far too busy to waste her time killing you."
Beatrice clasped her hands behind her back, slipped past Subaru, and turned to face the bookshelf. The hem of her gothic-lolita dress swayed as she stretched, her small hand reaching for a spot just above her own height. Then— "Is this the right one?"
"It's the one next to it. Just hand it over already."
"Yessir."
He pulled a surprisingly thick book from the shelf and handed it to the pouting girl. Without so much as a thank you, she walked past him again toward the stepladder at the back. Rather than a chair, the top of the stepladder seemed to be her preferred perch—and indeed, whenever Subaru visited the Forbidden Library, she was almost always reading in that spot.
"What are you reading there?"
"It's a guide on how to驱除 bugs that have infested your room."
"Wait, wait—bugs in a library? That's the worst! What kind of bug?"
"It's black, it's big, it has a bad look in its eye and a foul mouth. Its attitude's even worse, I think."
"That's a pretty distinctive bug..."
He looked around the room, thinking he'd like nothing more than to have that problem dealt with right now.
The Forbidden Library was nothing but an inaccessible collection of unreadable books to Subaru—but even so, as a book lover, he wanted to avoid seeing books suffer.
He meant that from the bottom of his heart. Beatrice, who had been watching him out of the corner of her eye, let out a small sigh.
"Do you still have business here? If not, I'd like you to leave."
"Yeah, um... Right, that Mana Drain thing you do—can anyone use it?"
"That expression is truly insulting. In this manor, only Nii-cha and Betty can do it. Roswaal didn't have the talent for it, I believe."
"Huh. I heard he was some kind of all-rounder, though."
Maybe even Roswaal had his vanity. Such a disrespectful thought toward one's employer—though Subaru hadn't even met the man yet.
"Still, seriously. You,
"...So Nii-cha has also been collecting Mana from you?"
"Yeah. That cat of mine—she used the fact that I was suffering from Mana overload and went all 'oh, don't mind if I do~' on me, ignoring my protests the whole time... What's wrong?"
As Subaru spoke with the indignant air of a man describing a villain tying his belt tight, Beatrice's porcelain face flushed a faint pink, and she looked down. Both hands pressed to her cheeks, she murmured— "Oh, how terrible. —I've indirectly collected Mana from Nii-cha."
"What's with that indirect-kiss vibe?! At this rate, my position is like an aluminum can that someone shared a drink from—no thanks!"
"Now that you mention it, it did seem to have a rather mellow flavor... Shall I do it again?"
"I'll dry up! Seriously, I don't have enough blood right now! Blood!"
"Oh. I did restore all your insides, but the blood didn't come back, did it? Well, Betty isn't quite that omnipotent."
At her regretful sigh, Subaru tilted his head.
Something about the phrasing didn't add up.
"The way you said that, it kinda sounded like you were the one who healed my wounds. Stealing Emilia-tan's thunder like that is pretty cold, you know."
"That half-breed little girl doesn't have the power to heal fatal wounds yet. The girl and Nii-cha sealed the wounds, and Betty healed them... What's wrong?"
"Honestly, it's way too complicated."
He had just inadvertently uncovered the hidden backstory of his own survival.
He had been so sure it was Emilia who had healed him—the same way she had treated his injuries from the back alley. But the girl returned his squinting suspicion with an unwavering gaze. Unless she was the most iron-nerved liar in existence, she was telling the truth.
In other words, Beatrice— "You're the most iron-nerved liar I've ever met. Seriously, your personality is the absolute worst!"
"And you have a lot of nerve, turning down genuine kindness like that!"
Their bickering escalated until they were on the verge of a physical altercation. In the end, when Subaru tried to actually lunge, Beatrice's magic sent him flying spectacularly.
He hit the door upside-down, and before his world stood Beatrice, swinging her long golden ringlet with a flourish.
"I believe it's about time you left. Your hands have stopped trembling, and you should be able to hide the fear by now, I think."
"...You knew?"
"Were you trying to hide it? It's truly insulting that you assume I'd be so easy to fool."
She sniffed dismissively and waved him off with a shooing gesture.
Watching that gesture, Subaru rolled himself to his feet. He raised his hand in front of his face—the fingertips were steady now. The trembling was gone.
Dying was becoming a recurring habit, making this his fifth time. But it was never something you could get used to. If anything, each new death piled on top of the last, and the mere thought of touching that terror again made his legs go weak.
And this time, the manner of death had been particularly cruel. Subaru's heart and courage had been ground to pieces by despair. His fingertips and feet refused to carry courage. Who could blame him for that?
"Whatever—excuse time's over. You're so mean, honestly."
A bitter smile. He left his excuses behind with that, and raised his face.
His hand found the doorknob. Before stepping outside, he turned back to the girl one last time.
"Sorry. But thanks. I'll be relying on you again."
"My compensation is indirect Mana collection. Next time, I might take everything you've got. So don't come waltzing in here anymore, all right?"
Without looking up from her book, she tossed off the line with a cold tone.
Smiling where she couldn't see, Subaru opened the door and passed through the Door Traversal. And then— "Wait—one more thing! That bug you mentioned earlier... was that ME?!"
"Now get out before I blast you through that wall!!"
He was blasted through the Door Traversal.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "Um... can I ask if you're okay?"
"Seriously, that kindness is the only thing keeping me sane right now. This is so not okay."
Facing the silver-haired girl in the garden, Subaru let his shoulders drop.
Blown away by Beatrice's magic and launched through the door, Subaru's body had been shot out from the second-floor terrace entrance of the garden. From there, he had tumbled right into the flower bed.
Fortunately, the soil was soft enough that he hadn't been seriously hurt—but given the way he had landed, it wouldn't have been strange to jump straight into his third reset. Cause of death: argument.
"My suspicion that she was the one who killed me is getting stronger by the minute..."
"Can you stand? Is it pressing on your stomach wound?"
"The wound has reopened—no, wait, that hasn't happened. A healed wound being torn open by the person who healed it? That's just... I'm a toy to you people. Ah, sorry, but if you could lend me a hand, that would be great."
"That flower bed... yesterday Rem scattered animal droppings in it as fertilizer, you know..."
"WHOOOAA—ABNORMAL PLAY!!!"
He yanked his right side free of the flower bed and rolled out of it. In front of Emilia, who was watching him with a subtle, distant gaze, Subaru shook off the dirt—and probably things that weren't dirt—from his reddish-brown tunic.
"No counts! That doesn't count, right?! It was yesterday—it's purified by now, isn't it?!"
"You know, Subaru, there's this way of looking at things where you could call that 'the final piece falling into place'—reframe it as good luck, and—"
"Emilia-tan has already shifted to consoling mode?!"
In other words, the verdict was out.
Feeling sorry for the half-crying Subaru waving his sleeves, Emilia etched a wry smile onto her refined face and slipped a hand into her robe. Then— "Puck, wake up."
From her outstretched palm, the green crystal resting there began to glow softly.
The light gradually took shape, forming a small silhouette. After just a few seconds, the glow faded, and a hand-sized cat with grey fur materialized.
The cat stretched its body to its full extent, yawning in an exaggerated display.
"Mmm... morning, Emilia. Oh, and Subaru—you're awake."
"Morning, Puck. Sorry to hit you with this right away, but could you wash Subaru for me?"
She held Puck up in front of her face and made her request with a playful wink. Subaru couldn't help but be mesmerized by the gesture. Puck, unfazed, turned around, took in Subaru's mud-caked state, and nodded with understanding.
"Alrighty, time for a bath. Ready?!"
"'Time for a bath'?—when you say it so casually, I—whaaat?!"
Puck thrust both paws forward. From his palms, a magic circle展开ed before Subaru's eyes—and from it erupted a torrent of water.
The water struck straight and true, blasting Subaru's right side with the full force of the stream, washing away every impurity clinging to his body— "FLASH FLOOD?!!"
He screamed, and the impact on his right side spun his body around.
"Oops, off-balance."
Even as he spoke, Puck adjusted the water's angle. Now the left side took the brunt, spinning Subaru back around on a reverse trajectory.
Each time his center of gravity shifted, the water followed, making micro-adjustments— "See? All clean!"
"Right and left... my body... my soul... tossed around and around—bleaaagh..."
Subaru collapsed onto the soaking wet lawn, his semicircular canals in revolt, and dropped into a vomiting posture. But his stomach was empty, so only bile came up.
Still, the repeated dry heaving did help him recover a little. Subaru wiped his mouth with his sodden sleeve, and finally, laboriously, got to his feet.
"That first deluge was insane... I thought my arm was going to come off. Hey, don't tell me you two are actually the culprits."
"I can't tell what you're even suspicious about, but does Kit really look like some malevolent, depraved Spirit to you? How insulting! How utterly insulting! Hmph!"
The cat who had just tormented Subaru with a water stream stood with its paws on its hips, delivering that line with perfect composure.
Subaru flicked it on its narrow forehead, drawing a "Nyeoww!" of protest, and then turned back to face Emilia.
The reunion hadn't exactly gone as he had hoped, but whether he could recover from here depended on Subaru's powers of persuasion.
First time and second time alike, he felt like he had gotten along well enough with Emilia. He would use that as his foundation and push forward boldly.
So, what should his opening line be—just as Subaru steeled himself for that— "Pfft—"
"Huh?"
"Ahaha! No, sorry, I can't—ahahahaha! What are you two even doing... My stomach hurts. No, I'm gonna die—"
Before the girl who had suddenly burst into laughter, all of Subaru's resolve evaporated.
Pointing at the drenched Subaru, Emilia let loose every last bit of her suppressed laughter in an explosion of mirth.
If they hadn't been outdoors, she might have fallen over from laughing so hard. Subaru stared at her, momentarily stunned. Then, noticing that Puck had been floating in the air this whole time, he locked eyes with the cat.
"First contact: success! Thanks for the assist, dear father-in-law!"
"As if I'd hand my daughter over to you so easily."
Puck puffed out his chest with a self-important air and declared as much.
At the sound of his words, Emilia's bright, ringing laughter echoed through the garden once more.