"————"
The red-haired giant who appeared before them with imposing grandeur—
The unexpected arrival of this man, his sharp blue eyes that showed not the slightest consideration for their shock, his very presence—everyone, even Gluttony, was struck speechless.
"Oi, oi, what are you lot standing around gawking for? Is it really that surprising to see me here? It's only natural, yeah?"
Reid surveyed the frozen state of Subaru and the others, tapped a finger against his eye patch over his left eye, and kicked at the floor with his straw sandals.
It was a gesture carrying the implication that the entire tower was affected.
"With all this racket going on inside and out, a man can't even get a nap. You lot already took the booze, so I'm bored out of my mind—but this? There's no way I'd just sit tight for this."
"…That's your problem, not ours. We're in the middle of things here. Don't make it more complicated."
"Hah! Got something to say, little fish? Sorry, but your voice is too small—can't hear a damn thing. Well, even if I could hear it, I'd just pretend I couldn't anyway."
"You're insufferable…"
And it wasn't just his stubbornness that was the problem—his timing was just as bad.
The rebuke was too weak to be called a rebuke; the protest too empty to be called a protest. Subaru, rendered speechless by those rough, merciless words, realized with a start that he was feeling fear toward Reid.
His soul felt defeat in Reid's presence.
It wasn't just because of what Reid had put him through back when he'd been drowning in paranoia. Even in the previous loop, he'd faced that man's staggering arrogance head-on.
Back then, Subaru's feelings hadn't been colored by this kind of fear toward Reid.
So why—why was it only this moment that felt so perilous, so razor-thin?
The answer was— "—Because my soul recognizes you as an enemy. Plain and simple."
"Sure thing, little fish. I've got no plans of promoting you, but I'll give you credit—you're not stupid enough to mistake me for a convenient ally."
"Even if you told me to be happy about that, it's not like I could take it at face value."
"Hah! Listen to you."
Reid bared his teeth in a savage grin, laughing like a shark, and Subaru hid the cold feeling in his chest.
Reid's declaration just now was, in a sense, a proclamation of despair. But then, Subaru had never considered Reid an ally in the first place.
All that had been confirmed was that fact. He hadn't been mistaken about anything.
Just as this exchange between Subaru and Reid reached a lull— "Hey, Reid Astrea."
It was Gluttony, who had recovered their composure first, calling out Reid's name.
Standing right in the middle of the frozen corridor—dead center between Subaru's group and Reid—the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, Gluttony, directed those eyes gleaming with malice at Reid, who snorted irritably while looking back.
"Yeah? What is it, runt? …You're a grimy little runt, aren't you. What do you want, you dirty little runt?"
"You're the first Sword Saint, right? So why are you here? As far as we remember, you're the examiner—you shouldn't be able to come down from the upper floors."
Ignoring the humiliating form of address, Gluttony probed Reid with a provocative question.
The "memory" Gluttony had cited was clearly Subaru's memory, which was infuriating—but the substance of the question itself was the same one Subaru and the others had been turning over.
—Reid Astrea, examiner of the second floor, reaching the fourth floor.
Subaru had witnessed this in the previous loop as well, and had considered it one of the five obstacles he'd need to overcome.
How that phenomenon of the tower's examiner freely roaming about the tower worked was a complete mystery. However, that phenomenon only occurred at this particular juncture. That said, if someone were to suggest Reid had always been able to roam about but simply chose not to, that would be a different matter entirely.
"Some strange mechanism is at play, or maybe the tower's rules have changed. Either way, having you here throws everything off. We need to rethink our entire game plan. The appetizer, then the main course, then dessert—that's the standard order. Right?"
"Quit spouting nonsense I can't understand, you filthy little bastard."
"————"
"Can't come down, you say? Open your damn eyes and look carefully, you. See for yourself what kind of idiotic thing you're saying—oi, hey, you!"
Reid leaned forward aggressively toward Gluttony as he spoke. Baring his white teeth, glaring at his opponent with his one good eye—he looked every bit like a street thug.
However, the pressure emanating from the man himself was incomparable to any thug loitering before a convenience store. The sheer aftermath alone was enough to make one feel the terror of having their life threatened.
If one had to draw a comparison, the being standing there was a chimera fused from a tiger, a bear, a lion, and a dragon.
Clad in the aura of every kind of violence imaginable, Reid bared his teeth.
"Don't screw with me, you. I do what I want, the way I want to do it. I don't take orders from anyone, you. Don't make me laugh, you. And who the hell do you think you are, anyway? Who gave you permission to come making noise here? Oi, you—hey, you!"
"Ah-ha-ha! Amazing! Can't get enough! Totally incomprehensible!"
Gluttony converted the ice holy sword in their hand into shards of ice, then swept their long bangs aside.
Even Gluttony seemed to find a conversational partner this resistant difficult. They'd struggled with
And yet, Gluttony continued their sentence to this intractable foe with "But—"
"As prey, you're the ultimate delicacy! You're got our—our 'Gourmet's' appetite going absolutely wild! Gonna bite in! Gonna gnaw! Gonna lick you clean! Gonna savor every last drop! Binge! Gluttony!"
Snarling and raving, Gluttony dropped to all fours on the frozen floor, fixing Reid with a predatory stare.
A long tongue snaked out from between white fangs, and drool dripped to the floor as Gluttony's twisted appetite—the hunger to devour others' memories, something no ordinary person could comprehend—commanded them.
And then— "I, the Sin Archbishop of the
Whether that declaration was born of pride or arrogance, Gluttony—no, Lye Batenkaitos—announced their name, and the next instant, kicked off the icy floor and charged with the speed of an arrow.
It was a primal, feral dash, so wild it looked like a four-legged beast mid-hunt.
"Ugh, what a pain."
Reid stared down the onrushing Batenkaitos head-on, jammed his fingers in his ears, and muttered in exasperation.
"Fine then. I'm a swordsman—Hauroy Lariol."
"Who the hell is that?!"
"A guy who lived in the house next to mine back in my hometown."
At that absurdly brazen alias, Subaru couldn't help but shout, but Reid answered with an utterly nonchalant expression. Then he pulled his fingers from his ears and looked down at Batenkaitos, who was now right in front of him— "—Itadakimasu!!"
"I might listen if a pretty lady said it, but hearing it from a grimy little runt like you doesn't exactly make me thrilled."
"Ghk—"
In that instant, Batenkaitos's body, which had lunged forward with jaws agape, lurched violently sideways.
It was Reid's right leg, swung out in a crude but devastating kick that caught Batenkaitos squarely in the torso from the side and slammed him hard into the corridor wall.
"Gu—gh…"
"Don't make sounds like a chicken being wrung out, you. And let me make something clear—chickens are delicious once you wring 'em, but I've got no intention of eating you. Gluttony, my ass."
"Ggaah!"
"You're jumping at an adult! You should've been prepared for a spanking, you little brat!"
As he spoke, Reid pressed his kicking leg against Batenkaitos's body, pinning him to the wall, then began sprinting down the icy corridor with a speed that seemed impossible from a single leg.
Naturally, with Batenkaitos pressed against the wall—a wall with uneven patches of ice—he was unable to resist. The damage was immense. Destructive.
"GGAAAAAHHHH—!!"
"Oi, oi—don't be whining over something like this! At this rate, there's no point in talking! Back in my day, something like this wasn't even kids' play! Kids these days aren't just grimy—they're puny too! Oi, oi, oi, you—!"
Reid spoke with bored disdain and stopped, executing a quick half-turn on the spot.
His foot released Batenkaitos from the wall, and the Sin Archbishop's body began to slide down. Before it could hit the ground, Reid had already pivoted his axis and unleashed a left spinning back kick. The blow connected squarely with Batenkaitos's face, and the small body was launched like a rubber ball.
"————"
With inhuman force, Batenkaitos bounced across the floor without even managing to break his fall. The spinning Sin Archbishop sprayed blood as he shot between the standing Emilia and Julius, and finally bounced past Subaru and
The sight of him lying face-down in a sprawl bore not the slightest trace of his earlier bravado.
It almost made you wonder if he was dead.
"That guy was, just now, the powerful enemy that Emilia and Julius were struggling against with both of them fighting, right?"
"…That's correct. But more than that, it just means he was on another level entirely. So depending on how you look at it, the situation could actually be worse now."
"The matchup just changed, is all."
"Changed to an even worse opponent, probably."
Beatrice squeezed Subaru's hand, her vigil directed not at Batenkaitos lying motionless behind them, but at Reid ahead. Emilia and Julius did the same.
The battle had already shifted from the fight against Gluttony to a confrontation with this new powerhouse.
Even so— "You beat the Sin Archbishop, that's soooo great… wait, we shouldn't just make up like that, should we?"
It was Emilia who spoke to Reid first, in a friendly manner. Her characteristically peaceful offer, however, was met with Reid shaking his head, shrugging, and kicking the floor.
He deflected her offer with a triple-action use of his body, then scratched his head noisily.
"Hah—don't say something that kills the mood. …Also, what's with you? You're too damn gorgeous—what's going on? You're not joking, are you? You're a total knockout! Why the hell are you in a place like this? What are you even doing here? Stop playing around in this sandy, incomprehensible dump and pour me a drink tonight, will you?"
"Um, this is the second time I've heard something like that…"
"—I'm afraid she can't join you for a nightcap. Because—"
"Oh?"
"A phantom like you will never see a peaceful night."
Cutting through the crude proposition, a man stepped forward with knight's sword drawn—Julius positioned himself to shield Emilia, facing Reid with his sword intent sharpened to a razor's edge, his gaze piercing.
Reid's expression shifted ever so slightly as those golden eyes met his dead-on.
"…What's this? You've got a better look on your face now. Something good happen to you or what? A woman, right? It's a woman, yeah?"
"I won't deny that events have influenced my disposition, but I assure you, not all of it revolves around women. The embrace of a woman can heal a wounded heart, but the harsh rebuke of a merciless friend can serve just as well."
"You're still the same wordy bastard. What are you trying to say?"
"In other words, that I now hold my sword in my hand thanks to a friend—!"
The instant he delivered that response, Julius lunged forward with a sharp step, sweeping his knight's sword upward and unleashing a strike at Reid's neck—tracing a trajectory so beautiful it defied belief.
"————"
The objection that the opponent hadn't yet declared hostility was entirely unnecessary.
Anyone standing here could see Reid's intentions as clear as day. The sword intent crackling off him was so intense it lightly repelled the skin of onlookers.
There was no way a man brimming with that much killing intent would keep his blade sheathed.
—Reid was ready to fight. Just like in the previous loop, regardless of the situation.
That was why Julius hadn't hesitated to strike first.
It was the optimal choice. Against Reid, who maintained his effortless composure, shattering that facade was a precise opening strike in the攻略 of this first Sword Saint.
The problem was— "—Effortless composure. You even know what that means?"
"————"
"What it means is, no matter what anyone does, I can handle it easy—so no little tricks are gonna make a damn difference, you moron."
—The problem was that Reid had caught Julius's preemptive strike between a pair of chopsticks.
"Kuh…"
"Wasn't bad though, yeah? If I weren't your opponent, that would've landed. —Alright then, let's go."
"Tch!"
Grinning at Julius like a shark as the knight grunted in frustration, Reid took one chopstick in each hand, deflected the sword's trajectory, and surged forward—his chopstick strike flying out. The impact hammered head-on into the knight's sword, and a sharp crack rang out.
"————"
The slender wooden rods—tiny in blade length compared to a sword—became, in the grip of a master like Reid, weapons of devastating power that exceeded their actual size.
A piercing crack resounded, and the resulting shockwave whipped Julius's hair and clothes, shattering every frozen section of the corridor in its path.
—Truly beyond the pale, beyond common sense, an anomaly that could only be called a bug in the world.
Even having witnessed that power before, seeing it again in person left Subaru speechless.
The fact that such a monster existed in this world, and that the designer of this trial had the devilish malice to include surpassing this monster as a condition for conquering the tower—even made him nauseous.
But— "Huh, I'm actually a little impressed."
He didn't know how much of Reid's power had gone into that chopstick strike.
But even Reid seemed surprised that the strike had been fully parried, and he praised Julius's fighting spirit for deflecting the blow with his entire body.
Julius, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, narrowed his eyes.
"After all, if I can't defeat you, my calculations will go awry."
"You're actually planning to win? What a mouth on you."
"I am. But I must insist on your company!"
In that instant, Julius's blade flashed—and Reid deflected it roughly with his two chopsticks.
The sword's momentum was diverted, and one might expect Julius's posture to waver—but it didn't. Julius's knight's sword had already factored in the deflection, and it pivoted without the slightest lag, connecting the flash of steel into the next strike. And the next. And the next.
A sword dance—fluid, refined, with not a shred of wasted motion, like the flow of water.
"————"
Watching that exchange, in which countless attacks and parries were layered on top of one another, Subaru held his breath.
Only within the range his eyes could follow—only within that narrow limit—was this a testament to
—If Reid's sword intent was fire, then Julius's was flowing water.
In a simple matchup, water extinguishes fire. But if the flames burned hot enough, then the old adage held true: water poured on a red-hot stone would only evaporate harmlessly.
Most water-type swordsmen would have been evaporated by Reid's blazing sword intent.
But at least in this moment, Julius wasn't afraid of being dried up and vanishing. He hammered unrelenting attacks into Reid.
And then— "Don't think it's just me you're dealing with!"
"Hah! I haven't forgotten, Gorgeous! You're too pretty to forget!"
"Thanks for the compliment! But there's really only one person I've remembered!"
Into the sword dance between Reid and Julius, Emilia joined—bearing a mountain of ice armaments.
With that, Reid directed one chopstick at Julius and the other at Emilia. Whether that would be enough to counter the tag team—a question of such ordinary thinking was粉碎ed utterly by Reid's overwhelming sword power.
Ice cut into the dance of water and fire, and the colors of the battlefield shifted vividly once more.
With the cast of the sword dance changed—Reid replacing Batenkaitos as the enemy—Emilia and Julius's clumsy coordination continued, no—it evolved further.
Whether it was because the enemy had grown stronger, or because in those brief moments the two had drawn their fighting styles closer together and adjusted, their previously out-of-sync rhythm found its beat, and their coordination became genuine.
"Julius is adjusting to match Emilia."
"You can tell?"
"Maybe it's a matter of temperament. Emilia's become more decisive, and Julius is able to move like himself again. Probably, Emilia stopping trying to adjust was the right call."
"That's a pretty awesome commentary."
But if that was what worked, then that judgment was correct.
In the end, Emilia was at her best when she stuck to her own pace, hands off. And Julius excelled at clearly adjusting to others' movements while embellishing his own.
"Ha-ha! Nice, nice, you two! I'm starting to have fun too!"
"Yah! Sei-ya! Hyah! Urya urya urya!"
Reid brushed aside their synchronized coordination with evident delight and laughed uproariously. Emilia kept driving in strikes accompanied by spirited shouts that seemed far too powerful for their cheerful tone, but none landed a decisive blow.
Water and fire and ice intertwining in a beautiful, fantastical sword dance.
What rang out was the steel of Julius's knight's sword, the stick of wood that had become its equal by tracing a flawless arc, and the ice weapons that shattered and regenerated with every blow—each ringing, crashing, and clashing together.
So beautiful it was almost like watching a segment of an actual dance— "—Shaaaaaa!!"
That was why the dissonance that cut through the scene burned into their eyes and ears.
"You bastard—!"
The one who rudely barged into the space where three combatants exchanged blows was Lye Batenkaitos.
He should have been lying half-dead after taking Reid's kick. And yet the boy had gotten to his feet—and, of all things—joined the battle as though nothing had happened to him.
Batenkaitos wielded the daggers strapped to both wrists, combining them with nimble techniques using his short limbs, hurling lethal attacks at the three fighters one after another.
Emilia, Julius, and Reid each deflected them with visible irritation— "That's quite a stubborn will to live, Sin Archbishop!"
"Ha-ha! Trying to cut in and have all the fun without us—stop being so mean, big brother! Always hogging everything for yourself? That's not fair, seriously!"
"Reid! Can't you see? There's no point in us fighting each other here! At least help out, or if you won't do that, then just stay out of the way!"
"You don't make any sense, Gorgeous. I'm having a pretty good time right now, you know? Even if stars rained down from the sky, I'm not changing my mind!"
"————"
Four fighters clashed violently, each pressing their own will upon the others.
This was a scene of battle inseparable from the stench of blood—one where no easy compromise, no convenient middle ground could ever be reached.
From the outside, it was difficult to judge who held the advantage and who was at a disadvantage.
All they could do was wish for their side's victory—but— "—Gu!"
"Subaru?!"
Subaru, who had been forced to merely watch the battle unfold in frustrated helplessness, clutched his chest and sank to one knee.
Beatrice touched his shoulder as he hung his head, breathing in pain, and peered into his face.
"Subaru, Subaru! What's wrong? What happened?!"
"…No, this is—what is this?"
"Subaru?"
At Beatrice's desperate calls, Subaru gripped his own chest and blinked repeatedly.
There was no intent to deceive or deflect. He simply didn't understand either. A strange abnormality, a wrongness—an unbelievable heat was generating deep in his chest.
His heart was pounding as though it might burst, and every drop of blood flowing through his body seemed to be screaming at him something he couldn't process. The terrifying sensation triggered a bright red alarm in his brain.
"————"
He didn't understand. What was happening to his body right now.
This was something that hadn't occurred in any of his previous loops. Had some underlying condition kicked in, or was some kind of magical interference at work?
Mobilizing every scrap of knowledge he had—including things he shouldn't even know—he searched for the worst possibility, then shook his head.
No. This was probably not something bad. The alarm was alerting him to the significance of this change.
"Hah…"
He exhaled deeply.
Up until this moment, what had been searing Subaru's mind wasn't just worry about Emilia and Julius, who were fighting Reid and Batenkaitos before his eyes.
It was also his own powerlessness—standing there, watching, unable to do anything.
In that state, what had truly burned into Subaru's mind was the five obstacles—specifically, the two remaining ones—that were quite possibly progressing even as he stood there.
—Five obstacles.
One was the horde of magical beasts surrounding the tower. One was the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony attacking the tower. One was Reid Astrea, now freely roaming the tower. —That made three.
The remaining two were the giant scorpion rampaging through the tower, and the black shadow bearing down with terrifying force, threatening to engulf the tower.
He had to deal with these two as well if he was to untangle the problems threatening the tower.
The moment he'd been tormented by that thought—by the looming possibility of the tower's collapse—while standing helplessly behind Emilia and Julius's desperate fight, his chest had begun to pound fiercely, forcing him to his knees.
Throbbing, intensely pulsing heartbeat.
Layering his consciousness over that pulse, Subaru breathed slowly and closed his eyes. He felt, instinctively, that this was what he should do. And so he closed them.
"————"
Seeing Subaru's state, Beatrice stopped calling out to him.
She probably didn't have any certainty either. But she did it anyway. Subaru was fortunate to have such an understanding companion.
And behind Subaru's closed eyelids, a strange sensation welled up.
—It was a faintly pale light emerging from the murky darkness.
"…?"
A faintly warm, hazy light.
There was one right beside him, and two more ahead at a slight distance. And more remarkably, Subaru could sense that there were more behind him—four of them clustered together in that direction. And from far beyond that cluster, there was another. And another, and another— —And one more, bearing down from directly above.
"—Beatrice!"
"Hyah!"
For reasons he couldn't explain, Subaru trusted that sensation without hesitation and launched himself from where he stood, grabbing Beatrice.
Light—he caught the small girl's body in his arms, and without a moment's hesitation rolled across the stone floor. The next instant, he felt searing heat graze his right thigh, and a pained cry escaped him.
"Guh—guoooh!"
He realized immediately that the searing sensation came from a gash in his leg. Probably from the deep wound carved into his flesh. Deliberately averting his eyes from it, Subaru turned back while still holding Beatrice.
And pushing through his vision blurred by pain and tears, he saw it.
"————"
"I knew it, you damn scorpion!"
Subaru spat the words with loathing. Appearing before him was the giant scorpion—surely their second encounter—with its black carapace and red pinpoint eyes, scaling the wall on its many legs, looking down at them with contempt.
"Ah—"
Before that horrifying mass, Beatrice's eyes went wide. Her gaze fixed on the scorpion's claw—it had clamped onto the mangled flesh torn from Subaru's leg, dripping rivers of blood onto the corridor floor.
—The feared intervention of the giant scorpion.
The five obstacles he had to overcome had all converged on this single point.
"————"
Bad. This is bad. Bad bad bad. Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad.
Understanding how dire the situation was, Subaru tried to find a way forward through the pain-reddened haze of his thoughts.
But no matter how he considered it, he couldn't see any way to change the outcome.
Batenkaitos was there. Reid was there. The giant scorpion had shown up.
Even with Meili and
This approach wasn't going to work. He needed to try something different, something— "—Subaru!" "Subaru!" "Subaru!!"
Through Subaru's gritted teeth, he heard three voices calling to him.
Beatrice's anguished voice. Julius's tense voice. Emilia's pleading voice—each one calling his name. And then.
Batenkaitos moved. Reid moved. The giant scorpion moved.
As though cutting off
—and with tremendous force and impact, the entire tower shuddered violently, and a deafening roar echoed through the air.
"————"
The shockwave sent Subaru's body tumbling across the floor, blasted Emilia and the others backward, and even crushed the giant scorpion's carapace—the world itself seemed to fold in on itself.
A small body nearby threw itself against him, as though trying to protect him. Subaru embraced that soft form and opened his eyes wide within the impact.
*'—I love you.'* —There, a darkness holding nothing but blind love was about to swallow Subaru whole.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ —In that instant, the sensation and shock of the entire world—white and black, light and shadow, man and woman, love and hatred—being flipped upside down struck Natsuki Subaru, and he was cast adrift.
"—Subaru."
"—!"
"Hyah!"
At the call, and as though grasping toward it, Subaru seized the voice's owner.
Immediately, the body in his arms began to thrash in panic, and from within his embrace, a face looked up at him.
That was— "Bea…trice…"
"Yes—that's right. Don't suddenly scare me like that. It's not that I'm saying I don't like it, I suppose. I was just worried since you only just came back from the book… but I'm relieved you called Betty's name first."
"————"
Yes—Beatrice, in Subaru's arms, whispered softly to him. Listening to her voice, Subaru looked around himself.
What had happened? Just moments ago, he'd been lying collapsed in the corridor, his leg wounded, and then into that black, black darkness— "…The library?"
"For starters, could you at least clarify whether you're still half-asleep or fully awake? That way, we'd have something to work with, Natsuki-kun."
Surrounded by towering bookshelves, Subaru stared blankly around—and a voice reached him.
Looking up, he saw
"————"
"S-Subaru! Subaru, what's wrong? Are you feeling sick after all? Can you tell us what you saw in the book?"
"Yeah—no, well. I need to talk about that too…"
Subaru squeezed Beatrice's slender body tight, savoring the warmth.
And he accepted the reality he had no choice but to acknowledge.
—He'd come back. To this exact moment.
Having failed to overcome the five obstacles, Subaru had been cast back to this moment.