Knife in hand, loathing in his chest, madness brimming in his pupils, he walked up.
"I'll kill them. I'll kill them. I'll kill them all. I'm definitely going to kill them…!"
The creaking whisper was a never-ending stream of curses.
If word-souls truly held power, the myriad curses he spat would drive his actions forward.
Every time he clearly uttered the word "kill," the force inhabiting the knife seemed to grow stronger.
"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill…"
Muttering, his advancing vision periodically blurred.
It was probably the combination of mental strain and the exhaustion of having crawled through the desert's underground for hours. There were moments when his head felt abnormally heavy, and Subaru shook his head again and again.
He couldn't afford to collapse here.
This place was a gathering of dangerous individuals from Subaru's perspective—an environment where he couldn't tell who was an ally and who was an enemy. It was practically a nest of adversaries.
To protect himself, he had to kill.
If he didn't, they would come to kill him.
"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill…"
It wasn't that he wanted to kill—he had to kill.
If word-souls required the correct use of words as a condition, then perhaps the word "kill" that Subaru kept uttering was wrong.
If it were to truly reflect his feelings, the word appropriate for this situation was not "kill."
—I don't want to die. That would be more accurate.
And so, having steeled himself to kill the first person who appeared before him, Natsuki Subaru arrived at the fourth floor.
And then, he saw it.
"—Ah"
A breath escaped him.
The knife clattered to the hard floor with a shrill ring. His fingers went rigid and wouldn't move. Subaru simply shook his head slowly, staggering backward.
The overwhelming stench of blood, and the chilling aftermath of ferocious combat.
Stone walls and floors shattered and cracked, bearing the lingering echoes of destruction that could only have been wrought by some fearsome entity—Subaru stood frozen in that space.
Standing there, he saw it.
—
Shaula's remains were so gruesome they made one want to avert their eyes.
Her long black hair, which had been gathered together, had come undone and spread across the floor like it was trying to blanket it. Her limbs were flung out lifelessly, but both arms had been severed at the elbows and wrists—the rest nowhere to be found.
Her white, healthy skin was carved with countless lacerations, and an enormous amount of blood had been splattered across the surroundings. The bloodstains extended not just to this spot where her life had ended, but deep into the corridor as well, proof that the fight had been prolonged, with locations changing again and again.
And then there was the head wound—the fatal blow that had likely claimed her life. The word "wound" didn't even begin to describe it; it was a lethal cavity that had violated her very existence.
If one had to describe it, it was as though a massive hammer had been brought down upon the head of someone lying prone.
He could think of no other method for crushing a head so completely, scattering it and splattering its contents everywhere. Some fearsomely enormous impact had obliterated that head.
Crushed, obliterated beyond recognition—Shaula's head was gone.
She had closed distance without hesitation, flashed that brazen smile—memories of those brief moments resurfaced— "—Bu"
Dumbfounded, stunned, crestfallen, Subaru stared at the corpse and sank to his knees.
Then, surrendering to the unbearable urge to vomit, he expelled the contents of his stomach onto the floor in one heaving rush. The bile-mixed slurry overflowed outward with a sour stench.
Some of it splattered onto Shaula's shattered corpse, adding one final indignity to her horrifying death.
"Ugh! Blegh, guh, ubu…"
But Subaru, crouching and retching, had no capacity to spare for such desecration of the dead.
All his effort went toward prying open his throat as far as possible and disgorging the searing sensation welling up inside, fighting against the stomach-crushing pain and the unceasing waves of nausea.
Eventually, having vomited until his stomach was empty, Subaru let his body collapse onto the floor. He spread both arms and legs into a star shape, glared up at the ceiling, and covered his face.
—He had witnessed death for the first time.
This was the first time Subaru had come face to face with a human corpse.
In most cases, the first corpse one encounters in life is that of an elderly relative. But until now, Subaru's grandparents on both his mother's and father's side had been alive and well, and he had never even attended a funeral.
He had never once stumbled upon someone else's death in any other circumstance either.
So for Subaru, witnessing another person's death for the first time was devastating.
And on top of that, the manner of death was clearly beyond the pale.
This was how cruelly life could be snatched away from a person.
"Me too, huh…"
Subaru, who had been covering his face with his arms, murmured those words and sat up.
He wiped the vomit from his mouth with his sleeve, shook his ringing head, and slowly pulled himself upright using the wall for support.
Subaru, who had been shoved from behind and sent plummeting far below— His own corpse must have become a mangled slab of meat beyond recognition. He felt a faint sense of relief that he wouldn't have to see his own body. If he were to witness his own death with his own eyes, there was no way he could stay sane.
Just understanding the fact that he had already died had sent his heart reeling with an impact threatening to shatter it to pieces.
"Anyway…"
Cutting off his thoughts, Subaru—while taking care not to let Shaula's corpse enter his field of vision—drew a firm conclusion from the fact of her death.
The truth that this tower harbored a fearsome internal threat. That was what he had confirmed.
And at the same time, he now understood clearly that this threat's aim extended not only to Subaru, but to others inside the tower as well.
—He hated to say it about the deceased Shaula, but this was actually good news for Subaru in his current state.
With no clue who had killed him, Subaru couldn't find peace of mind until every last suspect was eliminated. But with her death, one suspect had been removed from the list of seven.
Simultaneously, he could now be certain that whoever had killed Subaru was also hostile toward someone other than Subaru—or was a dangerous individual trying to eliminate everyone in the tower.
In other words, there was a chance that someone other than Subaru would kill his murderer.
All Subaru had to do was kill whoever remained. That way, he could rest easy.
Kill the culprit who was trying to kill him, and kill the candidates who might try to kill him—and then Subaru alone would be left in the tower to enjoy his peace.
"If that's the case… the ones getting in my way are
But Ram's defiance and Echidna's cunning presence were troublesome. Even if he struck at an opening, these two left the impression of being the hardest targets.
He couldn't say much about Julius, but the fact that he was the only male besides Subaru warranted pure vigilance. And despite being cheap-looking, the sword at his hip was a problem too.
However, on the flip side, if Subaru could seize that sword, Julius could be cornered easily. Since Subaru had practiced kendo, taking the sword would guarantee the upper hand.
And then— "Up above. That bastard up there."
The red-haired man sitting on the upper floors under the guise of examiner—Subaru considered eliminating him, then immediately shook his head.
Eliminating him was impossible. He was a transcendent being who lived outside the norm, untouchable.
By Natsuki Subaru's common sense, there was absolutely no way to beat him.
There were those you simply couldn't kill.
The only solace was that it was unlikely he was the one who had pushed Subaru. Someone like him wouldn't resort to such a trivial method to kill—that was the extent of Subaru's negative trust in him.
—Subaru picked up the fallen knife, stepped over Shaula's corpse, and headed deeper inside.
For a brief moment, he considered searching Shaula's remains, but it was hard to imagine the scantily dressed woman carrying anything useful. At the same time, his conscience balked at desecrating the dead any further.
She was dead. And the dead were no longer enemies to Subaru.
She had simply been unlucky. —That was all there was to it.
He wouldn't go so far as to press his hands together in prayer.
Subaru left Shaula where she lay and made his way slowly deeper into the tower, following the traces of destruction as he crept along the fourth-floor corridor.
The tower was so silent you couldn't hear a single sound—the silence was itself deafening.
A piercing ringing scratched at his brain, and he felt as though he could hear the blood circulating inside his body. And yet, strangely, his heartbeat was calm, as though his initial agitation had been a lie.
The dark, simmering hatred that had built up during his ascent to the fourth floor still clung to his chest like a stain.
He still had the resolve to carry out slaughter for the sake of his own survival.
He was prepared to stab, gouge, and take the life of the first person he laid eyes on.
And yet— —Turning a corner, he found Echidna's corpse, her body sliced diagonally, and Subaru's resolve crumbled into uncertainty about just how useful it could ever be in this hell.
Echidna's remains bore a wound as though she had been cleanly severed with some large blade, from her right shoulder down to her left flank, and had crumpled to the ground.
—When imagining a large blade, the first thing that came to mind was Julius's sword.
It had been cheap, mass-produced-looking, but it would have been more than functional for cutting through a woman's delicate body as slender as Echidna's.
The problem was that Subaru didn't know whether Julius had any reason to kill Echidna.
From what he had been told, Echidna and Julius had a master-servant relationship—though there were supposedly more complicated circumstances involved. Regardless, their bond should have been close.
Of course, if Julius happened to be a macabre killer targeting everyone in the tower, such circumstances would carry no meaning whatsoever.
"Ugh, b…haah, haah…"
Leaning against the wall, Subaru—who had once again lost to his stomach's demands—raised his head.
The condition of this corpse was somewhat better compared to Shaula's. Even so, it still took courage to look at it directly, but the manner of death gave a very different impression from Shaula's.
Where Shaula's collapsed body gave the impression of having been killed and left to rot, Echidna's remains bore signs of respect for the dead.
To put it plainly, her body had been covered with a white cloth, and her eyelids had been closed.
—Thinking about the difference in killing methods, the difference in how the dead were treated was equally stark.
Just considering which of the two was more "normal" in this context was enough to make one's head spin.
"Echidna is gone too…"
His breathing trembling, his voice hoarse, his limbs twitching in small spasms he could barely suppress, Subaru committed only the facts before him to memory and pressed deeper into the tower, searching for living survivors to kill.
Or perhaps—whether what he sought was the living or the dead, for what purpose, even the reason itself growing vague—Subaru kept walking.
—At the end of the corridor, he found Ram, her torso blown open from behind.
Her body had been torn open with a massive hole between her chest and waist, barely clinging together in a gruesome state. To Subaru, the wound looked identical to the one he had dealt the desert centipede.
She must have been sprinting down the corridor toward some destination when she was shot from behind. Her face, frozen in frustration with her lip bitten, seemed to carry a resentment bordering on a curse.
He vomited.
—In the hall where they had eaten breakfast and received their morning briefing, he found the bodies of Julius and Meili.
Julius's death was the most brutal yet. His body bore the marks of blunt force trauma and lacerations from an overwhelmingly sharp edge. His left arm, blown off at the elbow, had a crude wrapping of torn cloak fabric around the wound—an attempt at first aid. No single, definitive cause of death could be identified. If all those injuries collectively constituted the cause, then it was most likely blood loss.
And the desperate struggle he had put up—had it been for the girl collapsing behind him?
He vomited.
Meili, her back against the wall and one hand on her stomach, was the only one who appeared to have died with a peaceful expression.
A wound, soaked in bright red blood, was clearly visible on her abdomen where her small palm rested. Her cause of death was also likely blood loss. She had been wounded, and while waiting here for salvation that never came, she had lost her life.
And yet, the fact that her corpse's expression appeared serene was enough to reject all understanding.
He vomited.
—Corpses. Corpses. Corpses. Corpses. Corpses.
There were corpses. There were nothing but corpses. Nothing but corpses, scattered everywhere.
He couldn't comprehend what was happening.
He couldn't grasp what was real.
Ideally, everyone except Subaru dying would have been the condition for his peace of mind.
But everyone being dead—even without Subaru's presence—was incomprehensible.
Shaula, her head crushed, her entire body carved apart in a grotesque display.
Echidna, sliced from shoulder to flank, felled by a single devastating blow.
Ram, her torso blown open from behind, dying with frustration and curses.
Julius, who had fought fiercely across his entire body before finally succumbing.
Meili, who had simply lost blood from a wound to her stomach, accepting a slow, peaceful death.
What could have led to this?
Who could be the culprit—and who could accept this situation?
"Emilia and Beatrice…"
Five bodies found. Two suspects missing.
Could one of those two—or both acting in concert—have orchestrated this?
Could the two who had shown such concern for Subaru when he first woke up with no memory—the two whose hidden depths might harbor killing intent and madness—have committed these atrocities?
Five corpses. Four white cloths, each draped over one of the four excluding Shaula.
The four bodies besides Shaula had been carefully laid on the floor, their eyelids closed. There was respect for the dead. Shaula alone had been denied that.
When had this massacre even taken place?
"The blood…"
He thought it had dried.
Staggering as he searched the tower for the still-unfound Emilia and Beatrice, Subaru recalled the state of each corpse and turned it over in his mind.
The choking stench of blood and the vivid details of the corpses resurfaced.
They pierced into his brain, and his stomach twisted with pain—but the contents were spent. He couldn't even muster enough saliva to spit out the remnants of vomit in his mouth, and not a single bead of cold sweat appeared.
Subaru's body was parched to the point of cracking. Their blood, too, was dry.
Even if blood took longer to dry than water, there had been that much of it.
Several hours, perhaps ten-odd hours, must have already elapsed since the carnage. Subaru himself didn't know how long he had been wandering beneath the desert, but he couldn't say with confidence whether enough time had passed.
There was confusion. There was chaos.
His constrained consciousness demanded that he do something about the situation he couldn't control.
He had to buy peace of mind. He had to find it. To do that, he had to reduce the number of suspects.
If either of the remaining two—the ones who had created this situation—died, he would be freed.
—He entered a green room. A black lizard saw him and hissed.
Finding a living creature—it was the first time since returning to this tower.
"Heh. A lizard. Great."
Seeing the lizard alive, Subaru let out a parched laugh.
Ideally, he would have preferred to find a person, but at this point, encountering a living creature that turned out to be a lizard—what use was that?
He clicked his tongue and immediately turned to leave. There was no reason to stay in a room with nothing but a lizard. However— "Don't follow me!"
—As Subaru left the room, the black lizard, which had shrunk its massive body, tried to follow behind him.
Standing upright, the lizard was surprisingly large—genuinely the size of a horse. It lumbered along, moving its clawed feet, tailing Subaru.
Unable to bear the pressure, Subaru swung his arms and spat, trying to intimidate it.
"I don't have time to play with you! I've got to kill every surviving bastard in this tower! If you get in my way…"
He readied the knife and glared straight at the lizard.
The sharp-featured lizard glanced at the large knife in Subaru's hand—but then quickly shifted its gaze back to Subaru himself, not the knife.
"Ugh…"
The fact that the lizard was ignoring the knife entirely and fixing its gaze on him sent a tremor through Subaru's throat.
It was as though the lizard didn't care about Subaru's killing intent at all. That was deeply unpleasant, deeply unsettling, and it triggered the smoldering hostility deep within his chest— "You—don't screw with me!!"
Even as he screamed, Subaru raised the knife and brought it down on the lizard.
The blade's tip plunged into the obsidian scales. There was a slight resistance at first, but it broke through easily, and with a sickening sensation, the knife sank deep into the lizard's body.
The lizard, which had been motionless—caught a blade in its left flank. The knife had buried itself to the hilt, and fresh blood seeped from the serious wound.
"How's that…"
Subaru was about to say "How's that now?" when his throat let out a feeble, cracking gasp.
It was the first time he had taken action to kill a living creature. The excitement of that fact, combined with his violent heartbeat, was one reason for the interruption—but there was another.
The lizard, having been impaled by the knife, didn't so much as flinch. It stared at Subaru.
It showed no response to the pain, no response to the surprise—nothing at all. Those sharp lizard eyes simply watched what Natsuki Subaru had done.
Those unreadable eyes were condemning Natsuki Subaru.
"Shit… shit, shit, shit, shit! What the hell—what the hell is this!?!"
Clutching his head, Subaru lost control and erupted.
He scrambled backward, forgetting to retrieve the knife from the lizard's body.
No—he didn't have the courage to touch that knife. Those lizard eyes were terrifying.
"You, and everyone else here—dead or alive! Those who might be alive and those who might be dead, all of you—what are you thinking!? What do you want!? What are you trying to do!?"
He knew it was pointless, but Subaru hurled his words at the lizard before him.
As he wandered through the tower, as he stumbled through underground darkness where nothing was visible, lost in a world where he couldn't tell right from left—suffering under the weight of that reality, he poured out all the frustration and pent-up emotion.
"Everyone who tries to kill me—I'll kill them all! Everyone who tries to lean on me—I'll push them all away! Don't get the wrong idea! Don't get cocky! Coming at me all friendly like you know me—it's no joke!"
"I don't know a single one of you! I don't care what any of you are thinking—not one of you! Everyone just shoves their own problems onto other people…! If you're all so busy with yourselves—then I'm busy with myself too!"
He roared, he screamed, and before he knew it, Subaru was crying, kneeling on the floor.
Across from him, the lizard said nothing, its shoulders shaking as it watched Subaru breathe in ragged gasps. Subaru couldn't face the lizard's gaze, crouching down and pressing his forehead to the floor.
"Just leave me alone… Just leave me all by myself, abandon me…"
His tearful voice, squeezed out from the depths of his throat, echoed hollowly through the silent corridor.
After that, how much time had passed? Ten seconds? Dozens of seconds? Minutes? Unable to move, crawling face-down on the floor, Subaru suddenly noticed it.
A faint—truly faint—vibration, creeping toward him through the floor— "Oh."
In that instant, Subaru raised his head—and saw the lizard's maw, wide open right before him.
Rows of sharp teeth lined the lizard's mouth, bearing down toward Subaru. He watched with an almost detached calm, thinking that he would likely be killed as his head was crushed— "Ugh—!?!"
The lizard clamped its jaws onto Subaru's left shoulder and took off running.
His body was lifted into the air, forcibly yanked off the ground. The lizard's fangs bit into his shoulder, and the searing pain of flesh being gouged forced a scream from his lips.
"Gy—ah! H-Hiii!"
He had intended to kill it. He had considered the possibility that he might be killed instead.
But now, with actual fangs sunk into his shoulder, the terror of the pain completely overwhelmed his cheap resolve. His shoulder being torn open, his body being eaten, being chewed up and dying— Being eaten alive by a creature was among the worst deaths he could imagine.
The moment his entire body trembled with that dread— —The corridor where Subaru had been just moments before was blown apart from below by an enormous volume of black mist.
The violent detonation sent dust scattering, ravaged the floor, walls, and ceiling of the corridor, and then—as if seeking more prey—turned its aim toward Subaru and the lizard.
It looked to Subaru like a massive, black arm, forged from shadow.
"A shadow… arm…"
In his mind's eye, the image of the woman who had tormented him on the stairs flashed past.
The shadow woman, her face hidden behind a black veil, had systematically attacked Subaru's heart and carved fear into his very being. The shadow pouring forth before his eyes now bore a striking resemblance to hers.
It tore through the corridor at will, and it pursued Subaru and the fleeing lizard.
"You—!"
The lizard didn't answer. Clamping Subaru in its jaws, it tore through the corridor at blistering speed.
Being carried in the opposite direction from where he'd been heading, Subaru couldn't see where the lizard was desperately trying to go. In its place, he could see the raging pursuit of the shadow behind them, and the blood in his veins froze.
Being consumed by that shadow—it might be a fate worse than death.
Understanding that on pure instinct, Subaru pressed the lizard's fangs deeper into his own shoulder. His throat trembled with pain, but if he was shaken off, it was over.
At this point, his aversion to the lizard was nothing but a useless fixation.
—Directly ahead, the corridor exploded, and the shadow blocked their path.
In that instant, the lizard veered onto a side passage mere moments from being swallowed by the shadow, and tore through the surging black torrent at full speed.
But even as it ran, the space it burst into was— "A—spiral staircase!"
The massive spiral staircase connecting the fourth and fifth floors—Subaru was rendered speechless as he found himself hurtling into that space.
Of course, the fact that the fifth floor, far below, was visible from this height on the fourth floor—that he was witnessing the scene where he had once plummeted to his death—was terrifying. But that wasn't all.
Below, the staircase leading from the fifth floor up to the fourth was being swallowed and sinking into the black shadow.
In other words, the shadow—a massive quantity of it—was enveloping the lower half of the tower and pulling it under.
"Can't go down… but behind us too…"
The lower floors were already in the shadow's grasp, and the black torrent was closing in from behind through the corridor they had fled.
All options were exhausted. Completely cornered.
The only choices left were to be consumed by the shadow, or to die some other way—an absurd, unreasonable selection.
—For a fleeting moment, the possibility of self-destruction crossed his mind.
Rather than be swallowed by that shadow, wouldn't it be better to choose death on his own terms? And perhaps—if death came, maybe the possibility would remain.
"A-ah…"
The moment he seriously contemplated self-destruction, Subaru's entire body began to shudder violently.
What if he chose death and it was simply over? He vaguely believed that his current situation was the result of starting over, but was there any proof of that?
Or—just as he had first theorized, how could he be certain it wasn't a prophetic dream? Until now, the dreams had come with pain. If this had been the final one, it was simply over.
Above all—why did he have to die?
He hadn't done anything wrong. Why was it him who had to pay with his life in this situation?
"I don't want to… I don't want to die!!"
Without a shred of pride, Subaru screamed and wept.
There was no one left in the tower to hear him. Only the dead and the missing remained.
And so the only one who heard his scream was not human—it was the obsidian-black lizard.
With Subaru still clamped in its jaws, the lizard unleashed a roar from deep within its throat.
Then, with an incredible burst of acceleration, the lizard launched itself off the edge of the spiral staircase, vaulting into the void to escape the surging torrent behind it.
Naturally, no matter how powerful the jump, it would eventually lose momentum, fall prey to gravity, and plunge freely into the shadow below.
But the lizard broke through this seemingly hopeless crisis in an astonishing way.
The lizard's two legs drove its sharp claws into the tower's wall. Of course, clinging to the wall would only delay the inevitable fall—if the wall were vertical.
The lizard surged across the wall's surface at full speed.
Because its base had been swallowed by shadow, the colossal tower had begun to tilt ever so slightly. The wall that was nearly vertical—that had now slanted—the lizard gripped it forcefully, clawing and scrambling across.
"N-No way…"
Thrown about wildly, Subaru couldn't grasp the full picture of what was happening.
All he knew for certain was that this black lizard was giving everything it had to survive, pushing forward with every ounce of strength it possessed.
"You—"
The moment after the lizard passed, the black torrent covered the spot where it had just been. The torrent, searching for the prey it should have swallowed, realized the lizard had attached itself to the wall—and surged toward it.
In that instant, the lizard twisted its body, barely dodging the torrent's attack. A violent shockwave and gale-force winds erupted, and a massive hole was torn through the tower wall where the lizard had been.
Without a moment's hesitation, the lizard squeezed through the gaping hole.
Being violently shaken left and right, Subaru's inner ear lost all sense of balance, and he could no longer perceive the world properly. But even so, he understood two things: the lizard's reckless maneuvering was deliberate—designed to keep the shadow's attacks from hitting Subaru—and that the lizard was making no effort whatsoever to shield its own body from being grazed by the shadow.
They burst through the hole. Immediately, a gust of sand-filled wind greeted them, and Subaru's vision was scorched black.
He was in the open air. Had they actually been ejected from the tower? The lizard continued scaling the tilted tower wall, desperately—desperately trying to escape the shadow— "—Ugh, ah!?!"
The lizard's slender neck twisted violently, and in the next instant, the wind battered him with full force.
The fangs sunk into his left shoulder were ripped free, and the sensation of flesh being torn away sent a white flash of agony behind his eyes. But behind that pain and the feeling of the wind, his entire body collided with something hard.
He was thrown, tumbled, spat out—and drew a breath. He opened his eyes.
Through the flickering before him, he glimpsed a black night sky.
"A-Eh…?"
At the sight so far beyond his expectations, Subaru hastily sat up.
He looked around. The space was made of the same material as the tower, yet it was unmistakably outside—a balcony-like platform protruding from the tower's outer wall.
Having been blown through the hole in the wall, launched up the wall, and hurled into this space— "The lizard…!"
Trembling, Subaru rushed to the edge of where he had landed and looked down.
And there he saw the fate of the lizard that had thrown him to safety.
—The falling lizard, swallowed by a shadow even blacker than its own scales, vanished.
Driven by irrational fury, Subaru had stabbed it. Without regard for its own pain or fear, the lizard had thrown Subaru onto this balcony—then itself had fallen into the shadow.
Into the shadow, where a fate worse than death awaited.
"What… what is this?"
What is this? What is this? What is any of this?
Subaru no longer understood anything anymore.
From the balcony, Subaru watched the tower's lower half being consumed by shadow. Then, perched on the outer edge of the balcony beside him, a single white bird alighted.
Staring at Subaru with emotionless eyes—a white bird, and a large one at that—Subaru let out a small, hollow breath.
Dead suspects. Missing suspects. A lizard that had risked its life to save him. A white bird appearing out of nowhere in this situation. The tower, little by little, being swallowed by shadow and disappearing.
Savoring the sensation that the end was closing in, Subaru slumped down, drained.
He understood how desperately that lizard had tried to save him. He understood, but that effort would come to nothing. —Only a few more moments had been added to the time before death.
Subaru suddenly raised his head.
Behind him—an unexpected presence. Not a bird, not the lizard, not the shadow.
Something alive. Someone was standing there.
"…Who are you?"
Without even the energy to turn around, Subaru asked in a weak voice.
At those words, the presence behind him slightly trembled its throat and laughed. A voice Subaru had never heard before.
"—Try guessing next time, hero."
In that instant, a gust of wind tore through, and Subaru's vision soared upward, spinning, spinning, spinning.
His body felt unbearably light—rising through the air like a bird, he realized.
Someone behind him had just severed his head— —"Subaru! Hey, Subaru, are you okay?"
The reconnection of his severed neck and the switch in consciousness happened in an instant.
Waking on the soft, yielding surface of a bed of vines, Subaru was greeted by the very voice and person he had desperately searched for but could never find.
"Emilia…"
"Oh, Subaru, thank goodness. You're awake. I was so, so worried."
Through barely-open eyelids, the girl before him—Emilia—wore an expression of relief. She let out a long breath at the sight of Subaru awake, a smile forming on her lips.
—Staring at Emilia, he noticed her slender, beautiful neck with an unsettling clarity.
With a dry, hollow sensation, Subaru slowly extended both hands toward Emilia's thin neck. It fit so easily—entirely within the span of both his hands.
"Subaru? What's wrong?"
Emilia tilted her head, surprised that Subaru was gripping her neck, eyes wide with puzzlement.
She showed no attempt to resist. If Subaru simply exerted his full strength, this neck would snap with ease.
She was literally in his hands, yet Emilia's response was strangely sluggish—almost— "Emilia, it seems Subaru may still be half-asleep. After causing Beatrice and the rest of us such worry, the least he could do is not dawdle."
"—!"
The voice that suddenly came from beside him made Subaru release his grip on Emilia's neck.
He looked over and met the eyes of Beatrice, who stood beside the bed with her short arms crossed, snorting in exasperation. At her words, Emilia smiled wryly and said, "You're right."
"But if he's just half-asleep, that's perfectly fine. What if something worse had happened… When we found Subaru collapsed, even Beatrice looked like she was about to cry."
"There was no need to say that much, I suppose!"
Beatrice flushed red, bristling at Emilia's innocent remark.
The two of them, exchanging this banter, had absolutely no understanding of the impulse Subaru had just been seized by. More than that, they lacked any awareness that the situation was dangerous.
Their attitude toward Subaru reflected this clearly— "So in other words—this is…"
Once again, Subaru—Natsuki Subaru, who had lost his memories—had returned to the very place where he had first realized he had been summoned to another world.
And at the same time— "—!"
With a faint hiss and the sound of breathing, Subaru spun around in a panic, taking in the figure in his peripheral vision.
In one corner of the green room, sitting obediently with impeccable posture—the massive black body of the lizard that had run itself ragged on Subaru's behalf up until moments before being consumed by shadow, now stood there with quiet composure.
"I'm… honestly not sure how to feel. The credit for finding Subaru should belong to Beatrice and Emilia, shouldn't it?"
"Heh heh~ Don't be sulky. It's fine. Subaru and
Behind him, Emilia and Beatrice's conversation drifted over.
But Subaru couldn't respond to their exchange. He simply threw his arms around the lizard's enormous body, grateful—deeply grateful—for the fact that it was here.
—the only being in that place who had never once tried to hurt him.