CHAPTER 4
NEXT TIME, I’M SURE WE’LL HAVE TEA
1
Sensing that the Trial had begun, Emilia’s mind instantly awakened.
This Trial felt closest to the first one. She was aware of her own existence and firmly conscious that she was undertaking a challenge. It wasn’t like the second Trial, when her own existence was far more indistinct.
However, there was clearly one point that differed from before—here, Emilia had no body.
Her five senses had vanished, and her body had been lost. What was present was her consciousness alone—it felt like her consciousness was floating in the sky.
Perhaps this was what it felt like to have one’s fickle soul cast into the water by its lonesome? In spite of this mysterious circumstance, Emilia felt no sense of danger as she strove to slowly grasp the situation.
Her nonexistent brain seemed to understand this place posed no danger and that her mind here was able to have such realizations.
Her surroundings were dark. A space of nothing save darkness spread forth, within which Emilia’s body did not exist.
That she did not lose herself even so was due to the multiple lights that were floating in the darkness.
These faint lights of various colors were hovering around Emilia.
The glow they emitted resembled that of lesser spirits, but Emilia felt no life force coming from these lights. They were inorganic; perhaps they were closer to magical crystals that gave off light? Either way, she and the lights were the only things in that world.
“?”
They continued swimming in that space, with nothing moving but the flow of time—Nay, in that circumstance, she could not firmly grasp whether even time was flowing or not.
The Witch who normally served as a guide had not appeared. In the darkness, Emilia hesitated over the unchanging situation into which she had been cast.
—The situation being what it was, her consciousness naturally ended up drawn to the lights.
“?”
Selecting a silver-colored one from the multitude of lights, Emilia was just a tiny bit apprehensive when she tried to touch it. The very notion of touching assumed you had a body in the first place. Was that even possible here?
—Rather than ponder, it was faster to try it and see.
Reaching that conclusion, Emilia immediately tried it out. Her consciousness overlapped with the light, and this indeed was not touch. It felt more like she was intermingling with it—
“Hate, hate, I hate you. I really hate you. Really. All of it is true. Always, since the moment I met you…I have hated you. I cannot stand the sight of you.”
The instant she came into contact with the light, a voice echoed directly into her consciousness. Simultaneously, a powerful, reddish scene leaped toward her.
She’d switched spaces, and a moment she had never witnessed played out before her.
The sun was unnaturally large. Smoke was rising from the scorched plains, and standing right beside an enormous, decrepit structure, bathed directly in the scarlet sunlight, was a silver-haired girl marred with blood—Emilia.
The grown-up version of herself she had only just seen in the second Trial was standing there, blood-ridden.
“I’ve thought this many times, and I’ve denied it many times…but the nightmare truly has come, so I will say it.”
A smile came over her bloodied face. It was a smile toward the person she hated most in that world.
“Perhaps it is true—we should never have met.”
At the corner of one of her purple eyes, a tear formed a single line as it gently fell.
The drop coursed down her cheek, and just before it fell from her chin onto the blood-marred ground, the world burst apart and vanished.
“—!”
Her consciousness, lacking a body, could not draw in its breath. All she could do was endure the desperate urge to do so with all her might.
As Emilia returned to the darkness once more, she found herself in a world with nothing but her consciousness and the lights floating around her.
What was that blood-ridden Emilia in the scene she saw beyond the light just then?
Thus far, she had seen her own appearance only twice, but she had definitely seen herself in that moment. The problem was that she had no recollection of anything like that ever happening. Or perhaps that was some kind of future that would never exist?
—No, Emilia instinctively thought.
Calming her chaotic consciousness, Emilia searched within her memories, turning back toward the very beginning.
The Trials had always indicated at the start what the challenger was to accomplish.
In the first, it was, First, face your past.
In the second, it was, Behold the unknowable present.
And this third time—it was, Face the calamity that shall come.
The calamity that shall come— Did that mean it was the future?
The Trials first showed a past linked to one’s greatest regret; then they showed a present that did not and could not exist; last, the challenger was shown a future she would inevitably have to confront head-on. These were the entirety of the Trials the tomb had prepared for her.
Would that future, of a place enveloped with some kind of twilight, a future where she would tearfully hate someone, actually come to pass one day…?
“?”
After a time, neither accepting nor rejecting it, Emilia’s thoughts were interrupted as she realized something.
The light Emilia had touched earlier was gone, leaving only a palpable void. Even so, the lights numbered twenty, so there were still plenty to go. This was the moment she suddenly grasped the meaning behind the phenomenon.
The lights. Each and every one of the lights hovering in the darkness was a future that awaited Emilia.
This Trial probably would not come to an end until she had witnessed them all.
—Were the futures she would bear witness to all different from one another? Or would they be continuations of the one she just visited?
The answer would come once she touched another light and saw its future.
When she moved to the next light over from the blank space, it became a clear blue passage, like an azure sky—
“It’s just like you said. That kid’s our enemy, and our wounds run deep. I can’t use healing magic, so even if we back out now, I might not be able to save you.”
“Then…”
“But that kid’s still a kid—Isn’t this enough?”
The scene differed from the one before, with two figures standing atop sheer cliffs with a commanding view.
One of them had his back turned toward the deep forest behind him—she could not see his face. But she remembered his voice.
It was one of the people closest to her. Perhaps not as much as the other person, but she definitely remembered him…
The person atop the opposite cliff was on one knee, and as he knelt in this position, he was looking down at the other. Though she could not see his expression, Emilia could tell both of them were making terribly melancholic faces.
“You’re…you’re a hero. You can’t be…anything but a hero…!!”
“I…”
“Thank you…for saving me, damn it!!”
When the other figure reached out with his hand, the figure with his back turned lobbed words of gratitude his way.
—It was a parting of nigh-unbearable sadness. It was a moment of parting marred by indelible despair.
“?”
The projection had run its course. She returned to the world of darkness.
She had…pathos and melancholy both. But more than that, she held a question toward this Trial.
She did not see herself anywhere within the world she had just visited.
Neither of the people in that place was Emilia. She could guess who they were, but why had she witnessed a scene, a future without her?
Was she being shown a “future” that was the result of her own choices?
Then how was she supposed to face the calamity that would inevitably come?
“?”
Amid that silence, the blue light vanished. Just like the initial silver light, a void had been born. Nearly twenty more lights continued to surround Emilia.
—Awaiting within each and every one was a tragic future that was the result of her choices.
Determined to accept them all, she stretched her consciousness toward the next one.
In one future after another, Emilia’s choices, and the calamity they would invariably bring about, awaited her.
2
—She saw the future.
“—without that, have you not even a sword to swing, you damn thief?!”
“Subaru and Emilia are both tired, right? Sorry. And yet, even I’ve become a burden on you. I always, always wanted to say I’m sorry for never measuring up…”
“Mm, mm… My granddaughter, my pride and joy…has grown to be…a good child…”
As she touched the variously colored lights, Emilia continued to see different futures.
“Sorry. I’m so sorry I can’t kill you because I’m weak. Sorry. Even so, I’ll keep you to myself—for all eternity. I’m sorry I’m so weak…”
“What, you feel like this is fulfilling your promise? If so…then you should have left me to die wrapped in a mat in that cave! If… If you were going to show me a dawn like this, it should all have ended there! Damn it! Damn it all!”
“I absolutely will not allow you to die for some nonsensical reason like a curse!”
There were wails. There were angry shouts. In different forms, they indicated endings, renewals, meetings, and partings.
“Oh look, I won again.”
“To think someone I want to kill this much turned out to be such a gentle person…what a nightmare.”
“You have bent your knees before irresistible despair, and you have lost even your sword… Just what is it you still cling to?”
She asked herself whether the things awaiting her, the futures at which she would arrive, were not some kind of mistake.
“Am I really that greedy? Do I really ask so much? I just don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to become alone… Is that so hard to understand?”
“I’ll kill you, just as I promised!! Got that, Subaru Natsukiiiiii?!!”
Was there really nothing but despair in these futures? Was there anything beyond the sadness, beyond the suffering?
“I merely realized something… The days I’ve spent until now were by no means days I walked aloooone.”
“In the end, ’twould seem we must atone with every last drop of our blood, does it not?”
What had gone wrong? Did she wish for the wrong things?
“Why…why won’t the soul take?!”
“Whether it’s with justice or villainy, ya can’t solve every problem under the sun. That’s what you just stepped in. If you block my…our path, I don’t care if you’re a Witch or a dragon. I’ll crush you.”
She was being shown untold tragedies and calamities. Amid that deluge of despair, which was enough to make her want to cry, she came to doubt everything she had done. If all that awaited the end of her journey was tragedy, that was simply—
“—I believe praying for one’s desires is arrogance. Prayer is for seeking forgiveness.”
In the future of the final light, a girl her waking self should never have set eyes upon spoke those words.
It was not fleeting enough to be hopeful and too bold to be despairing. Her nonexistent pulse quickened.
After all, she’d seen nothing, nothing but sad, agonizing futures in all that time.
—I want to have a proper conversation with you, no matter what the future holds.
She thought if a certain boy was with her, they could speak together and laugh about the futures they hoped for.
Even if all that awaited her were worlds of tragedy, she felt in her heart that if she could at least have that much—
3
—When her vision opened up, Emilia was standing right in the middle of grass rustling in the wind.
She had arrived immediately after the darkness, and the continually switching worlds had stopped. At first, Emilia thought she was being shown yet another future—but she immediately realized this was something else.
“I have actual hands and feet…and my voice is coming out. So this must be…”
Clenching both hands into fists, Emilia confirmed she possessed physical flesh. Then she surveyed her surroundings, realizing this grassland was unfamiliar and the presence of a little hill right behind her. Atop the hill, a large parasol was spread; naturally, this drew her to go closer.
Climbing up the hill, she found a white table and chairs under the parasol, and the faint whiff of warm tea wafted in the air. Naturally, she surmised Echidna might be here, so Emilia was on guard, but—
“No one’s here?”
There were six chairs arranged by the round table. Set atop the table were confections and cups, equal in number to the chairs, leaving the distinct sense that she had shown up right before some kind of tea party. Yet, it seemed as if everything had been abandoned midway without even cleaning up, leaving nothing of the participants but empty seats.
“?”
When she touched a cup, which still had some tea in it, she felt a faint trace of warmth—it felt like anyone would be shaken if they saw what Emilia was up to.
“Echidna was having tea with someone. And then?”
She understood as much already, but for a dead person, Echidna sure had considerable freedom of action in this place. She was amazed that beyond her work as the administrator of the Trials, she’d go as far as to invite her guests to tea.
Here, the dead—or their ghosts—were, to the greatest extent, free.
Deeply moved by that fact, Emilia reached a hand toward one of the sweets without particular thought—
“—You might be trying to act like a Witch, but put so much as a finger on those, and you’ll regret it.”
“—?!”
Shocked by the unfamiliar voice suddenly calling out to her from behind, Emilia tried to instantly turn around—and her shock deepened further, for a finger touch to the back of her head rendered her body completely immobile.
“…Ah.”
It wasn’t that she was being restrained by force—she was held in place by the sheer overwhelming pressure.
The person standing right behind Emilia was a being beyond her comprehension. Gleaning this just from her aura and the touch of her finger, Emilia felt her entire body rapidly go numb.
She sensed if she turned around, or at the slightest whim of the person behind her, she would be instantly and utterly annihilated.
“Good girl. You are correct not to look back. For I…”
“Y-you are…?”
“I am, well, you know—A Witch so terrifying, she makes every hair on your body stand on end.”
Witch—that single word entwined tightly around Emilia’s heart, making it even harder to breathe.
Emilia, often slandered as a Witch because of her appearance, had complex feelings where the term was concerned. However, even so, the being she was standing in front of seemed completely beyond all her preconceptions.
Were all the beings worthy of being called true Witches shrouded in such immense miasma?
“…Hmph, I guess that’s that, then. It really is the boy with the foul look in his eyes who’s the strange one.”
“Foul…look? Are you…talking about Subaru?”
“Heh…”
Letting out a snort, the Witch admired Emilia’s ability to wring out her voice.
“The instant you hear that boy’s name, you perk up? That’s marvelous, but you don’t really have a good grasp of the situation, do you? And…and what do you think of that boy anyway?”
“Subaru told me he loves me… He’s a very precious boy to me, but…”
“O-oh…? Heh, hmm, so that’s it. Well, really it’s all the same to me!”
To Emilia, it was not at all clear why she would dismiss with ragged breath the question she herself had just posed.
However, at the same time, she felt her fear toward the Witch at her back faintly diminish.
She did not know the reason. Perhaps she could simply tell the being was not impervious to dialogue.
Relying upon that sense, Emilia swallowed once; then, hardening her will, she began to speak.
“You’re a Witch, aren’t you…? Does that mean you’re one of the friends Echidna spoke of?”
“Hmph. It’s not like that girl ever called us frie… Wait, I bet she did! And with a smug face, too, I’m sure!”
“I don’t know about a smug look…but if you’re here, where’s Echidna?”
In the first place, Echidna had been in a foul mood every time she’d come into contact with Emilia. Therefore, she felt when Echidna had let slip about her “friends,” it hadn’t been with pride or with a boastful face at all.
Hearing Emilia’s reply, the Witch went, “Now hold on,” the tone of her voice lowering just a bit. “She said she doesn’t want to meet you. It looked like she had a pretty rough time in the Trials.”
“…It seems that way. Echidna seemed really hurt the last time I met her.”
Emilia couldn’t forget the hatred that filled Echidna’s voice and expression at the end of the second Trial.
If that was truly the last time she would speak with Echidna, Emilia would be left with terrible regret.
Even so, the relationship between Emilia and Echidna had been one of accepting the results head-on without anyone else’s intervention. Even if Emilia ended up being hated, she wanted to take responsibility for her choices.
“It’s not that she doesn’t care. It’s that she’s accepted the results… You’re quite admirable, you know. Even though that rascal said nothing but mean things to you…”
“That’s because Echidna spoke with me. I find it much harder to deal with the people who won’t talk to me. If I could, I’d love to face you and talk with you, too, but…”
“—You absolutely cannot do that. If you do that, my fists, which have let so many people die, will cry out.”
She spoke in a hard voice, but it was one that betrayed no hint of fabrication. Goose bumps broke out over Emilia once more.
The Witch’s words truly did carry the weight of having let a great many people die. That weight remained as the Witch led off by saying, “One really should fulfill her duty, though. Echidna tossed the duty of administrator away, so I am taking it up in her place—What did you see in the third Trial?”
“I saw…many sad worlds. The voice said this was the calamity that would inevitably come. Are these…? Will everything I’ve seen really happen? Are they really the future?”
“In Echidna’s view, it is possible they might happen.”
The Witch made a heavy sigh as she replied to the question Emilia harbored. It was close to confirmation, yet vague enough that one could not say for sure. If they had been mere fabrications, it would have been easier on her heart, but…
“The futures you saw could all come true one day. Or you might not see a single one happen ever. However, they are not fabrications. That girl is very fair about these kinds of things. Well, the fact that she showed you only futures that’d leave a bad taste in your mouth is definitely because she has a bone to pick with you.”
“Fair, but… Echidna is a really naughty girl, isn’t she?”
“Does naughty even cover it…?”
The Witch offered a wry comment in response to Emilia’s assessment of Echidna but said no more of the matter.
Also, from Emilia’s perspective, the current Witch’s explanation was good news.
“Why do you seem so relieved?”
“Eh?”
“I’m asking, how can you act relieved after what you just heard? That’s strange, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve been shown nothing but terrible futures, yet, in spite of that…”
“But they’re not certain, right?”
Emilia had seen nothing but tragedies. It had been an unrelenting series of lamentations and tears of blood.
It had been enough to make her question whether she was making the right choices.
But—
“The futures I saw were a result of choices I’ve made. But there are also futures that won’t turn out that way. Now that I know that, I’ll be okay. I can clench my fists and fight.”
“?”
“Someone really insisted that I have to do that, you see.”
They might have all been painful futures, but even then there was still hope. That was what she had learned.
If Emilia seemed ready to falter, her memories of her parents and her older brother would sustain her. And if she was ever inclined to give up, the feelings scribbled on those walls would ignite a fire in her heart.
“If sad futures await, I’ll run around them. If that doesn’t work, I’ll leap over them with all my might. If people have fallen along the way, I’ll pull them up. If I keep doing those things, I’m sure I’ll wipe away all those tears from before.”
“You say that so full of confidence, so recklessly… You might end up broken in no time flat.”
“If it was just me, maybe—but I’m not alone.”
Emilia puffed her chest out in response to the Witch’s provocation.
Just as in the past and present, Emilia surely wouldn’t be alone in the future. And she had a large group of dependable people around her.
That wasn’t to say it was good to blindly depend on them.
But if they relied on her, and she on them, they would be together always.
Even as she depended on others, Emilia would develop her own self-reliance.
It was a choice she could never have made before, what with her lacking confidence and fear of the future.
“…You’re strong. That part of you isn’t like your mother at all.”
“—! You know my mother?”
The unexpected connection surprised Emilia, leaving her voice slightly hoarse. Her reaction made the Witch hesitate for a time, after which she let out her breath.
“Yes, I know her well. But I will say nothing of her—I’ve promised not to.”
“?”
The depth of emotion and the echo of unhealed wounds infused into the Witch’s voice made Emilia’s words catch in her throat.
If she was honest, she did want to know about her mother. But…
“Mm, I understand. I won’t ask anything, then.”
“…You’re fine with that?”
“I can tell it isn’t that you don’t want to tell me. It’s that you can’t. Besides…”
For a moment, she paused and closed her eyes and pictured her mother.
“My mother…is Fortuna. The Trials helped me remember her. That’s plenty for me.”
In her younger days, she was proud of having had two mothers. Even in the present, she might be able to say she had two—no, three fathers. Even so—
“I remembered Mom, I remembered Dad, and I remembered my big brother and everyone in the forest. That’s plenty… This was all because of Echidna’s Trials, so…”
“I see… So even that girl’s… Even Echidna’s wicked deeds result in something good once in a while…”
As Emilia touched a hand to her chest and reminisced about her family, the Witch’s voice seemed to almost crack for a moment. Perhaps Emilia had misheard, but it sounded like a sob.
“…Could it be that you’re…crying?”
“…! I’m not…crying! I don’t cry. I don’t have the right to cry…not anymore.”
“No one needs a right to…”
Cry, Emilia was about to say as she turned, wanting to wipe away the Witch’s tears.
She no longer felt the grand, overwhelming presence that had dominated her first meeting with the Witch. She wanted to stand with her on equal footing.
But when Emilia tried to turn to face her, the Witch—
“—Mnfff!”
As Emilia turned, an arm wrapped around her head, holding her face close against something soft. She immediately realized she had been pulled into a hug.
Her face was pinned against the Witch’s chest, completely preventing her from moving.
“I told you…not turning was the right choice. What a badly behaved girl you are.”
“…You hate the idea of me seeing you cry that much?”
“I don’t want you to see me at all! I can’t face anyone with… Ahhh, good grief! If only Echidna had taken care of things properly! And Sekhmet, and Daphne, and Typhon, and Carmilla, too!”
The Witch’s yelling made her ears tremble. It sounded like angry shouting, but it wasn’t. Emilia felt undiluted love for each of the unfamiliar names spoken by her.
“Are you…done crying?”
“I’m angry; my tears dried up. But now I just feel indignant. I’m so furious, every hair on my head is shaking.”
“That’s really scary.”
“I’m serious. We’re done here.”
Her voice was gentle. Emilia could feel no anger from it. But something happened that proved her words were no lie.
As the Witch hugged Emilia against her chest, Emilia realized a change had arisen in the place right behind her—where a tea party should have been set up—as a powerful wind blew through the space.
“That is the way out of Echidna’s castle. Turn and walk forward, and you will be able to go back.”
“?”
“You don’t have time to hang around in a place like this, do you? You…you still have things you need to do. Why not try taking the first step?”
She felt the Witch’s voice right above her head fade. There was warmth within the arms hugging her and a faintly audible heartbeat coming from the chest her head rested against—which was strange, given that the Witch was dead.
“…Hey, are you listening to me?”
“Eh, ah, I’m sorry. I felt oddly calm just now…”
“That part of you is so…”
“—?”
I made her angry, thought Emilia, but the Witch’s words softened. They felt nostalgic for some reason.
Before she could press the point, the Witch declared, “Okay, time to go!”
“Wah!”
“Walk straight forward. With this, the Trials have ended… The barrier will open.”
Something grasped Emilia’s head and turned it right around with such swiftness and precision that she never got a look at the Witch’s face—Instead, what she saw before her was a single door.
Standing right there atop the hill between her and the tea-party preparations was a door all by its lonesome.
“If I…leave through there…”
The Trials would end, and the barrier would be lifted. These were the results that Emilia had sought.
Then, whether they liked it or not, a choice would be forced upon the residents of the Sanctuary. She did not know how many of the people gathered in the clearing would leave in the very end. Nor did she know if doing so would bring uncertainty to their lives or if all this was truly in their best interests.
But just as Subaru had told Garfiel, Emilia had something to tell them, too.
Time was ever in motion. And amid that passage of time, everyone needed to come to terms with themselves.
And if no solution presented itself, Emilia wanted to join with them and search for one together.
If pulling people by the hand or pushing them forward was too difficult, she could still walk with them side by side.
—Even though she was unreliable, gutless, and had only barely begun to demonstrate she was suited for the throne.
“It’s fine.”
“?”
Emilia had not voiced any of the swirling emotions in her chest. Despite that, the Witch’s affirmation carried power.
“Mm, thank you. I think that’s how I prefer to live anyway.”
After smoothing out her silver hair, Emilia stepped forward. That she did not turn around, never seeing the Witch’s face to the very end, was her way of respecting the Witch’s will.
She no longer felt any of the fear that came unbidden when first encountering the Witch. She simply puffed out her chest and walked with pride.
Then, when she moved her hand toward the door leading outside, she said the thought that suddenly came to mind.
“Hey, Miss Witch. If you run into Echidna, can you tell her something for me?”
“What is it?”
“If we meet again, next time, let’s have tea together. Even if she haunts my dreams, I’m sure I’ll welcome her—If possible, I’d like to have it with you and the other Witches, too.”
“—!”
For a moment, Emilia’s request made the Witch hesitate. And then—
“Yes, I’ll tell her exactly that. And if she doesn’t like it, I’ll grab her by the scruff of her neck and drag her along anyway!”
The Witch confidently spoke those words with conviction. The tone of her voice made plain that she was being quite serious.
Emilia smiled pleasantly as she received the reply. She pushed the door open, stepping into the unfolding darkness beyond.
She did not hesitate. Emilia understood precisely where it led.
—Having overcome her past and selected the present, this was the door that continued into the future.
4
When she awoke from the Trials, it felt different than coming out of sleep.
Her body had not been sleeping; rather, her soul had been separated from her body. With the soul split from the body, and the consciousness remaining awake, one might say it was natural that it would feel different.
If she was sleeping normally, Emilia, never a morning person, would have been in peril of losing precious time. In the past, she had Puck, but she would have to deal with such things herself thereafter.
“…Ah, oh no. It feels like I’m about to cry.”
Clenching her teeth, Emilia shook her head, as if to ward off the sense of loss she had yet to recover from. From there, she rose to her feet, stroked the writing on the wall with her palm—and then turned her gaze toward the back of the stone room.
The stone room in which the Trial was conducted, one she had already passed through several times over, had another door at the back leading farther in. It had been firmly closed and seemed completely impassable. Yet, now—
“…It’s open. Is this saying, Come on in?”
The Witch atop the hill had said going through the door would lift the barrier. But though the tomb had changed, Emilia did not see any sign that the barrier had been lifted.
Yet, at the same time, she felt something else: In a true sense, what awaited deeper within was the key to lifting that barrier.
“I mustn’t get all worried. Anyway, I’ll go, see, and do. Okay, let’s go.”
Pushing back against the faint unease in her chest, Emilia spurred herself on and passed through the door.
Inside was a path that was more cramped than the one that led from the entrance to the stone room, which Emilia could pass through because of her relatively low stature. It was not long until she arrived at a new stone room.
This was a little chamber substantially smaller than the one in which the Trials had been conducted. The other stone room had by no means been large, but a scant two of the large beds from Roswaal Manor would have left no legroom whatsoever.
But such stray thoughts vanished as soon as she saw what was placed in the center of the room.
To Emilia’s eyes, it looked like a coffin.
The coffin was transparent, probably made from magic crystals of some sort. The purity was so high, it made her shudder from a single glance, rivaling—or even exceeding—that of the stone Puck had used as his icon.
Within the coffin constructed from magic crystals of such abnormal composition rested a single woman—naturally, she was not breathing. Her pallid face bore no signs of vitality; this was an empty shell devoid of life.
She had long, glossy hair as pure as any snow. Her skin was reminiscent of porcelain, and her face was so lovely that just seeing it was enchanting. Her torso and limbs were covered in a dress that seemed pitch-black, making her a woman of black and white, the extremes of the world, with her ethereal beauty unmarred by anything extraneous.
Without thinking, Emilia let a sigh of admiration trickle from her lips.
If she looked in a mirror, she would be greeted by one of the beauties of the age, but Emilia had little appreciation for her own face. However, her heart was now trembling from the immaculate beauty of the woman before her.
It was a face she had met many times over in the Trials, that of the Witch of Greed—
“—She looks like Echidna, but who is this?”
—Though reminiscent of the Witch, Emilia had never seen this woman before.
“?”
Accompanied by faint surprise, Emilia’s thoughts strayed from the coffin as she surveyed the room’s interior. It was a cramped room. She hardly needed to look around to tell the coffin was the only notable object within. There was no sign of a door or a path leading deeper. This was the innermost part of the tomb—the room in which its mistress ought to have been laid to rest.
“And yet, this isn’t Echidna…but she does resemble her. An older sister, maybe?”
Her memories of the Witch’s appearance were still fresh; there were many commonalities between her and this woman. With her eyelids closed, her face, from her eyes to the bridge of her nose down to her lips, seemed constructed in a similar fashion. But in contrast to Echidna, who looked to be in the latter half of her teens, this woman was old enough to be in her midtwenties—though there seemed no doubt they were connected by blood.
“It’s really weird for an older sister to be resting here even though it’s Echidna’s tomb, but…”
With no other conclusions coming to mind, Emilia tilted her head at the mysteriousness of it.
Then she tilted her head further as she noticed the ritual that spread throughout the entirety of the tomb, with this coffin as its center.
“Ah…,” she went, her voice slipping out unconsciously. Both the scale of the ritual and the level of its complexity were impressive. Accordingly, Emilia was certain this was the key to the barrier constructed in the Sanctuary.
“Incredible… It’s amazing; I don’t have any idea what to do…”
Though she was a spirit mage, Emilia strove to have a decent understanding of magic beyond her specialty. However, the complexity of the ritual before her eyes was far beyond anything like the fundamentals that Emilia was familiar with.
If it was stopped once, it would never activate again—of course, there was no need to do so regardless…
“This. If I stop the flow here, that should break it…”
Touching a hand against the coffin, Emilia found the core of the precisely crafted ritual. It matched up with where the woman sleeping in the coffin folded her hands over her chest—that was the nucleus.
For one brief moment, she hesitated. If she broke the ritual, the barrier would be lifted, and the tomb, bereft of its duty, would become dormant. If that happened, she would lose her only means of going to the tea party as well as all leads about the Witch who knew her mother—
“…That has nothing to do with any of this!”
Emilia slammed a fist against the coffin, seemingly to drive her hesitance away.
That instant, the core of the ritual shattered, and cracks spread across the crystalline lid of the coffin like a spider’s web.
The shattering of the core made the flow of mana go completely out of control, sending a torrent of dazzling light surging within the room. This light disturbed the serene atmosphere, making Emilia’s silver hair glimmer, before finally, it suddenly vanished.
The tomb’s functions had come to a halt—that was what Emilia read from the shift in the air.
“This time, it’s over… Mm, it has to be.”
There was no change visible to the eye. Yet, something was unmistakably different. Clenching her teeth, Emilia was certain that the room had become a simple resting place for a coffin—that the tomb itself had become a mere structure.
With this, the barrier imprisoning the residents of the Sanctuary was gone. The choice whether to accept that result and live outside the Sanctuary was now theirs.
Of course, with Roswaal’s support at her back, Emilia intended to respect the decision the people made, no matter who they might be—
“Come to think of it, Roswaal mentioned a teacher… Is this person his teacher?”
Roswaal had spoken the word when he’d directed biting sarcasm and ferocious insults at Emilia just prior to her challenging the tomb. He’d said, in the beginning, it was just him and his teacher. She didn’t know any details about what it was the two of them had started.
But if he meant the Sanctuary itself, the ties between this woman and Roswaal ran deep.
“On that note, I need to speak to everyone…to Ram and Roswaal especially.”
The woman in the coffin was secondary. Her top priority was to tell everyone the fact that the barrier had been lifted and to get the people remaining in the Sanctuary out—Subaru hadn’t explained the fine details, but he had said this was necessary.
And that probably had something to do with Roswaal’s odd behavior. She needed to hurry.
Turning, Emilia slipped through the passage with urgent steps, heading through the stone room on her way outside. The people of the Sanctuary and Earlham Village should have still been in the clearing, with Ryuzu and Milde representing them.
Then, as Emilia raced out of the tomb—
“—Eh?”
—the skin-stabbing cold and the ferociously blowing snow covering the Sanctuary made Emilia let out a white breath.
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