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With crimson flames residing in both hands, Sirius bellowed in rage, her face as fiendish as an ogre’s.

She was enveloped by her own dazzling inferno, and the zeal in her eyes burned just as bright. The avatar of Wrath glared at Subaru’s party— No, that wasn’t accurate. After all—

“It reeks, reeksreeksreeksreeksreeksreeks—you reek, you shitty half-demon…!”

—as Sirius hurled more insults, Subaru’s existence didn’t even register within her eye.

Sirius’s undivided gaze, one that seemed capable of searing someone to death with looks alone, was aimed at none other than Emilia and Beatrice, the two girls standing at Subaru’s side.

“The hell’s wrong with her? This is totally different from what she looked like every other time…”

Subaru could not hide his uneasiness at seeing Sirius’s wrathful transformation and where her hatred was directed.

In a very short span of time, Subaru had confronted Sirius on three occasions, and during each encounter, she had been—though he hesitated to use the word—normal. In those fleeting meetings, even if it was extremely difficult to call her a person who possessed common sense, she had also never acted like a creature that had abandoned all reason.

She’d been logical to the end, a morally bankrupt person trying to impose her pet theories on ordinary folk who failed to understand her vision, and that was it.

The version of Sirius before his eyes now stood in stark contrast—this was Wrath incarnate.

“I burn you and burn you, and still, you keep crawling out like maggots… You must hold some grudge against me, eh?! I am sad and depressed, yet I cannot be allowed to even grieve! Just how much…how much will you take…?!”

“…I don’t have any idea what you’re trying to say.”

When Sirius began sending spittle flying with every word, offering nothing but blame and accusations, Emilia didn’t give any ground as she replied. She didn’t flinch or pull back a single step from the fiery verbal assault.

She steadily trained the sword of ice in her hand on the crowd lined up behind Sirius.

“If you’re angry about something, I’ll hear you out. I’m the one who attacked you all of a sudden, so it’s natural for you to be angry. But this has nothing to do with the people around us. Let them go.”

“Don’t look down on me from your high horse! If you wish for me to yield, then show it through your actions! It’s only natural to be angry? Then apologize! Grovel and beg for forgiveness! And then I’ll roast you from your ass to your bowels!!”

“Hmm. Words don’t seem to be getting through— In that case, I have ideas of my own!”

Enraged, Sirius blinked hard at Emilia’s casual change of tone during their brief exchange.

A moment later, Emilia leaped up from the ground, going from a low stance to lunge at Sirius. Emilia’s slender body cut through the air as she swung the sword of ice with her arm, tracing a beautiful arc toward the top of the madwoman’s shoulder.

“Emilia?!”

“—Tch!!”

Subaru’s shout of surprise overlapped with Sirius’s sound of irritation.

Seeing the icy blade approaching her left shoulder, Sirius instantly raised her left arm in an attempt to counter Emilia’s blow with blazing flames. However—

“You shitty half-demon!!”

“Don’t repeat that insult over and over. People will think I’m dirty or something.”

—the pale tip of Emilia’s blade did not lose to the flames as it collided with Sirius’s raised left arm. However, the coiled golden chains enveloped in wreaths of fire gave off a high-pitched creaking sound as the ice sword crashed against Sirius’s flaming limb.

But fire and ice battled for only one brief instant. A second later, Emilia’s weapon audibly shattered.

“Serves you right!”

Leaving only its hilt behind, the magic blade reverted to mana. Sirius raised a cry of victory and swung her flaming right arm at Emilia. It was a brutal attack with enough force to split stone walls. The moment it made contact, it would burn and gouge its target, leaving terrible wounds.

In the blink of an eye, Emilia’s unmatched beauty would be scarred forever—but something else happened first.

“Take that!”

With a voice profoundly out of place, she knocked away Sirius’s arm this time—thanks to what had once been Emilia’s ice sword.

“Aah, aaah, aaaaaah! How frustrating!”

Screaming, Sirius crossed both flaming arms above her head. Up above, Emilia was swinging her summoned hammer of ice downward with unspeakable force.

She’d produced a maul of ice with a broad, blunt face to replace her broken sword. Sirius flew from that heavy, crushing blow, only for Emilia to give chase.

“Yah! Hiyah! Yah! Take that! Uraaah! Hiyah!”

“You piece of shit! Half-demon! Maggot! Insect! Whore! Disgusting eyesore!”

With extraordinary body movements and her weapon’s centrifugal force, Emilia was displaying far greater close-combat capability than Subaru had ever expected. The swings of the icy maul were weighty, keeping Sirius on the defense. It was a one-sided battle after Emilia completely seized the initiative. Thinking that she might prevail at this rate, Subaru clenched a fist hard.

“We can win this… Wait, right now, that’s bad! Emilia! The people in the square are still…”

“Subaru, is it not a bad idea to let your guard down now of all times, I wonder?!”

If Emilia struck Sirius down, the people around them would share the same fate right then and there.

When Subaru tried to point out that danger, Beatrice’s expression changed as she scolded him. Wondering what was wrong, Subaru looked back, only then realizing that countless gazes were turned toward him.

“““““—You shitty insect!!”””””

“Aw, crap.”

The crowd shouted as they looked at Subaru as one, rage and vilification pouring from their bloodshot eyes. The madness they trained upon Subaru and Beatrice was identical to Sirius’s.

It was best to assume they’d been completely soulwashed by Sirius’s Authority. Then in accordance with their irrepressible rage, they shifted their hostility toward Subaru and Beatrice.

“So it’s not just resonance—she can brainwash people and make them into her own pawns?!”

“This is not the time for such musings. Without a plan, I suppose all we can do is buy some time!”

As Subaru clutched his head over how difficult this situation was, Beatrice jumped onto his back. He supported her light body with his hands as the throng came rushing at them all at once.

“Emilia, buy us some time, please!”

“Don’t expect me to do anything too crazy!”

Upon hearing Emilia’s dependable reply, Subaru sprang backward to escape from the mob. Fortunately, the movements of people who had lost their sanity were as slow and clumsy as a poorly controlled marionette.

“Whoa! Wow! Cutting through, here! That was close! But now we’re all clear!”

Dodging the outstretched arms, Subaru evaded with sideways leaps to keep the throng at bay. The sight of a crowd rushing with empty expressions made it look like a scene straight out of a zombie movie. A similar feeling of terror had soaked into his bones.

“Just running ain’t gonna cut it! At this rate, all we can do is wait for reinforcements once people notice the huge commotion!”

“Without a plan to deal with the opponent’s power, wouldn’t reinforcements only increase the casualties, I wonder? If we inadvertently cause Reinhard to come running, all that will do is turn Betty into a mere adorable little girl.”

“Then I’ll really become the Moppet Mage… For the moment, no worries about summoning that hero right this moment.”

After all, Lachins, the one who would be their best option for sending Reinhard a signal, was currently chasing Subaru, raving at him with a bright-red face. Carried by the rest of the crowd, he looked like he was on the brink of a clash with one or two of his impromptu companions.

When Lachins eventually pushed them back, his fellows immediately tripped over their own legs, causing them to tumble downward. Caring nothing for them, the rest of the crowd walked right over the two fallen while moving inexorably forward. It was a frightening sight.

“I don’t think they’re feeling pain from all that adrenaline, but it’d be pretty dangerous without that, right?”

“Given the way they are, it doesn’t seem strange for them to trample one another to death.”

“Well, that’s not good!”

Subaru didn’t want any casualties. That was the biggest objective he was fighting for so hard.

Of course, Subaru understood that there were things beyond his own reach. Indeed, there were far more people whom Subaru couldn’t reach.

There were so many things he wanted to protect. But there was a limit to what he could do.

“—Still, I don’t have any intention of deciding that limit myself!”

“There’s the Subaru that Betty knows best!”

Receiving the greatest encouragement possible from behind, Subaru drew his whip from his hip holster.

He had to save what lives he could. Accordingly, Subaru emotionally resigned himself to inflicting moderate amounts of damage. Charging toward the center of the throng, he locked onto Lachins, running at the head of the crowd.

His target was someone whose face he knew. He couldn’t call their relationship a good one, but Subaru’s heart struggled with the idea of harming him all the same.

“This is gonna hurt, but better than if it’s someone I don’t know! Sorry, Larry!”

“Who’s Larry?! I’m… Habhhh?!”

As Lachins shouted on reflex, Subaru unfurled his whip, wrapping it around his victim’s ankles. Subaru proceeded to yank the whip upward as hard as he could, dragging Lachins, who’d lost his balance, into the people surrounding him.

“Take a time-out and cool your heads!”

Charging toward him, Subaru rammed Lachins in the back, knocking him into the waterway. While Lachins raised a cry, Subaru kicked several others who were tottering down to join Lachins, removing more and more people from the front lines.

“Now that that’s taken care of… Lusbel!”

As he whittled down the number of pursuers coming after them, Subaru raced all the way to the time tower. His objective was to secure Lusbel, who was surely still there on the topmost floor—where Sirius had left him, intending to use him in her speech.

“Beako, hang on tight!”

Subaru called out to Beatrice, who was on his back, as the crowd blocked the way before him. Their arms and bodies mercilessly barred the way, but Subaru did not hesitate as he charged into their ranks once more.

“Now I’ll show you the improvised parkour that my mentor pounded into me!”

As he shouted, Subaru quite literally slipped past countless legs and bodies as he broke through.

These were the fruits of his daily training at the secret base in the forest. The skills that Clind had drilled into him greatly resembled the style of movement that Subaru knew from his world as parkour. Making use of his entire body, he stayed nimble and flexible to skillfully navigate the crowd, cutting right through it.

Still supporting Beatrice on his back, Subaru tumbled his way into the time tower with amazing vigor.

“I bit my tongue!”

“Sorry about that! But saving the hostage up top comes first!”

After answering his partner’s objection, Subaru raced up the spiraling stairs with great haste. The remaining members of the crowd pursued from behind, but all their jostling was preventing them from climbing the stairs easily.

Seizing the opportunity, Subaru and Beatrice stayed ahead of the pack until they finally reached the topmost floor. When he looked around, he saw that because Emilia’s initial blow had half-destroyed the place, the wind could now pass through, making the air quality far better than it was in Subaru’s memories.

For an instant, his blood ran cold as he considered the possibility that even Lusbel had been blasted to bits, but—

“Nngh! Nnngh!”

—the boy bound by chains was there in a space that had narrowly managed to maintain its original shape. Though it was probably a stretch to say he was safe, Subaru raced over after confirming the boy was alive and in one piece.

With Lusbel’s bindings already complete, Subaru undid the painful-looking gag and tried to choose the best words to put him at ease.

“—Behind you!”

“Bwah?!” “Gah, I wonder?!”

Lusbel’s teary-eyed warning made Subaru immediately lower his head, taking Beatrice along for the ride. Instantly, he felt the familiar presence of death whistle by his neck as something passed by.

When he looked back, he saw a fox-man who’d leaped onto the uppermost floor to unleash a massive sword strike. The man was one of the people initially at the square who seemed capable of fighting. His white tail swayed as he launched another attack.

“Beako!” “Shamak!!”

Giving up on challenging such skill head-on, Beatrice instantly activated a spell that quickly enveloped the fox-man in black mist. The beast person lost all fighting capability while lost in the void—proof that Shamak was effective.

“That’s the all-powerful Shamak for you! Doesn’t this mean the link to Sirius got cut?!”

“Who said anything about that, I wonder?! Even if he really is neutralized, the link is still active! I suppose it’s likely that if that degenerate dies, many others will follow suit!”

“Shiiit, what do we do?”

“I’m thinking as hard as I can!”

Leaving the unraveling of the mystery to Beatrice, Subaru could only trust in her and buy some time.


The problem was how Emilia was shaping up against the real enemy.

“Emilia is…”

Hoisting Lusbel up, Subaru climbed over the wrecked windowsill and raced to the tower’s exterior. Beneath him, fire and ice met each other in a furious exchange as Emilia and Sirius remained locked in combat.

Subaru knew that over the last year, Emilia had continually trained herself in between her lessons about governance. Subaru knew very well that Emilia was far stronger than he.

Even so, Subaru was worried for her. It wasn’t an issue of who was stronger. To Subaru, Emilia was the girl he loved. That was the long and short of it.

People might call such worries a trifling matter. But to him, that—

“Terya! Soya! Soooi!”

Raising shouts that, as usual, somehow came off as silly, Emilia looked like she was a raging gale as she hounded Sirius with ruthless ice attacks.

“Eeeiiiyah!”

Spinning her body, Emilia danced as she closed in with twin swords of ice. Sirius swung burning golden chains about, shouting insults as she intercepted the blades, only for Emilia to crouch down as she spawned a new spear of ice, which she immediately used to swipe at Sirius’s chest.

With a painful cry, the force and impact hurled Sirius across the paving stones, leaving her rolling to a stop on the ground.

—Emilia was making full use of her vast mana capacity, launching high-speed combo attacks, fully intending to destroy her ice weapons in the process.

When she used the martial art that Subaru had dubbed “Icebrand Arts,” the fleeting nature of shattering ice engendered such phantasmal beauty, it was like watching the dance of a fairy.

The remnants of ice that were smashed during the battle danced and scattered as glittering mana set the stage for the pair. Emilia and Sirius—fire and ice—employed contrasting weapons as they continued to pursue their deadly duel.

“Uyaaa!”

Pursuing Sirius as the woman rolled, Emilia twirled her icy spear around, lashing out with its haft. Down below, Sirius used crafty groundwork to evade the butt of the spear, then grabbed hold of it herself.

“It is seething zeal that makes the heart tremble! Aa! Aah! Aaah! Wraaaath!”

“Wha?!”

In an instant, the spear of ice transformed into a spear of flame in Sirius’s hands. When the heat made Emilia unwittingly let go, it was Sirius’s turn to go on the offensive this time.

The bandaged madwoman twirled the spear of flame, pursuing the leaping silver-haired girl to burn her to death in an aggressive counterattack.

“Those lascivious eyes! That seductive bell-like voice! That licentious, glimmering silver hair! That indecent white skin! That indecent face! Aah, what a filthy woman! Is that how you make men swoon over you so?! Is that how you stole my precious from me, you thieving cat?!”

“Wha?! Wait a— Please do not say such strange things!!”

Dodging the attack by letting it slide just past her chest, Emilia spawned another ice sword in her hand to intercept it. The three-pronged spear of flame was blocked head-on by a broad greatsword made of ice.

The ice creaked as it held against the hungry flame, leaving Emilia and Sirius deadlocked as they glared at each other.

“These eyes, this voice, this silver hair—all of them were praised by the people I love! They’re the same as the coolest woman in the whole world! If you say any more strange things about them, I’m going to be angry!”

“Anger?! Anger, you say?! Don’t make me laugh! That is mine! That is the treasure that I received from my most precious person! This duty, this name—everything I have was a gift from my precious! To try to take this from me… Stop! Stopstopstopstopstopstopstop!!!”

Sirius’s voice gradually became even more piercing still, eventually rising to a tearful shriek.

The spear of flame in the madwoman’s arms snapped, at which point she crossed her arms, slamming the shortened pieces together with both arms. To counter the flaming-sword combo, Emilia split her own greatsword in two, turning them into a pair of ice daggers.

But under that torrent of blows, it was Emilia who was on the defensive this time. It wasn’t because Sirius had become noticeably stronger. It was the opposite— Doubt had crept into Emilia’s heart.

Rage readily mixed with grief, and the surrounding people in the crowd moaned in agony as they cried tears of blood. That sight in the corner of Emilia’s vision threw her thoughts off slightly. It was then that—

“—Wah, aaaah?!”

“Emilia?!”

Subaru’s eyes went wide at the sight of Emilia raising a shriek and dropping her twin daggers of ice. When Emilia fell on her knees to the pavement stones, Sirius laughed loudly with both blazing arms raised high.

“Look! This is love! This is love! People loving one another, the ideal of the many becoming one! Bonds are forged by our shared feelings, so that we might experience one another’s joy and sadness! That is why this ending has been preordained! O pitiful half-demon, doomed to never obtain love—here, you shall burn!”

“…What love?”

“What?”

As Sirius crowed over the turning of the tables, Emilia’s words brought her pealing laughter to a halt.

Before the madwoman’s fixated, wide-open eyes, Emilia looked squarely at her opponent’s face and continued without fear.

“If I am hearing your words correctly, you seem to think I am mistaken… Why?”

The question that Emilia posed was born from her particularly acute sense of curiosity. But such an earnest plea only poured more fuel on the fires of Sirius’s wrath.

“That is because you do not even know the great truth! You filthy half-demon, living without even knowing what love is. And so you must perish! The very existence of a half-demon is a sin! Your birth was a mistake. It was a mistake for your father to meet your mother! When shit and an insect come together, a shitty insect is the only possible result. Your shit-smeared tale will now come to an end!”

“!”

These were insults that even the kindhearted Emilia refused to pass unchallenged. It was absolute slander, condemning not only her existence, but even her parents for giving birth to her.

“Ooh…”

A trail of light drew a tiny voice out of Sirius as she backed up a step.

Emilia had held her ice sword down low and slashed upward. The pale sword grazed Sirius, sending the fasteners of the madwoman’s black robe flying.

One more step forward, one lunge, and Emilia would land a clean hit. It was with this certainty that she raised her ice sword anew.

“—Eh?”

“Nnngh!”

—Then she saw the girl wrapped up in chains within Sirius’s arms, and time stopped.

“—Tina.”

Dazed, Subaru heard that murmur spill from Lusbel, who was still in his arms, and Subaru cursed Sirius for keeping the most sinister form of insurance on hand.

Matching the instant of Emilia’s sword attack, Sirius had suddenly yanked a chain out of thin air. Materializing from seemingly nowhere, a lone girl appeared right in Sirius’s arms as her evil gambit succeeded.

The golden chains that were coiled around the girl were the same as those that Subaru had seen wrapped around Lusbel inside the tower, and a flood of tears flowed from Lusbel’s eyes—the hostage was Tina, the very same childhood friend whom Lusbel had supposedly been protecting.

Right as Subaru realized the new hostage’s identity, anger consumed Emilia as she laid eyes on the crying girl.

“—That wrath is wasted on you.”

That was the moment Sirius smiled more wickedly than ever before. She then slammed her right arm against the ground, generating a blast of wind that sent Emilia flying backward.

The resulting shockwave kicked up black dust over the center of the square. Emilia rolled onto the paving stones, unable to break her fall. She came to a rest faceup on the ground with her limbs spread out.

“Ah…”

Emilia squirmed about a little, but she only stirred to cough painfully, barely able to breathe.

Seeing this, Sirius let Tina drop and roll at her feet as she raised both arms to the heavens. At that moment, the intensity of the flames enveloping them made them burn so bright, they seemed ready to split the entire sky asunder.

And with flames still entwining her arms, Sirius boisterously applauded Emilia.

“Such sweet passions are not for insects to embrace. Seeing that is just nauseating— Now then, let me say thank you, and sorry.”

Crossing both arms above her head, Sirius increased the potency of the inferno enveloping her.

“Emilia !”

That instant, realizing that he needed to save Emilia, Subaru leaped down from the top of the tower without hesitation. Trusting Beatrice to soften their landing, he focused only on getting to Emilia as fast as he could.

With Beatrice’s magic reducing his body weight to nothing, Subaru safely slowed as he approached the ground. He got ready to charge forward. Or at least, he tried.

“Move, legs, move!!”

Subaru’s limbs rattled and trembled, immobilized as if cowering in fear. The same went for Beatrice on his back and Lusbel in his arms. They couldn’t stop shaking with fright.

The emotions probably came from Tina, who had fallen at Sirius’s feet, spreading from her to them. As she shrank from unprecedented fear, their hearts became one, leaving Subaru and Beatrice unable to shake off the waves of terror.

“…E…milia…!”

With his throat convulsing, his uncontrollable sobbing and nausea left him unable to even shout the name of the girl he loved.

Subaru’s voice likely would not have reached Emilia either way.

What was Emilia thinking as she lay there, powerless before the approaching apocalyptic firestorm?

—This, too, would vanish in the hot white of the inferno burning everything to ash, remaining unknown for all eternity.

“ ”

The square was scorched by an incredible amount of heat. The heat wave seared skin and lungs alike.

The spectacle of flame was so awe-inspiring that it could only be considered a true enigma.

“Suba…ru…”

As Subaru fell to his knees before the sea of flames, Beatrice called out to him from somewhere behind him.

Subaru didn’t look back. He was still bent forward, every inch of his entire body ruled by fear. He had become desperate even as he denied the reality unfolding before his eyes.

Compared with the desolate alternative, he saw fear as salvation. If he didn’t have to sear into his own eyes the worst of all worlds that had ever come about, then it would be better to simply stay there, ruled by fear foreve—

“Suba-Subaru! Subaru!”

Even so, Beatrice continued calling out Subaru’s name with even greater urgency.

She smacked his head multiple times, but Subaru shook his head side to side. He couldn’t stand. He had no reason to stand.

…Even if, at that moment, the madwoman stood directly before Subaru’s eyes, ready to take his life.

“—I made it in time.”

The instant he heard that voice, Subaru’s heart gave in to his fear of not knowing.

He lifted his head, turning his eyes toward where the flame had fallen onto Emilia and wondering what had happened.

—There was a single man.

Calmly standing on the paving stones, which spewed black smoke, he acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And in his arms, the man carried the girl whom Subaru had presumed lost, the girl whom he was sure had vanished.

“Emi…lia…”

The girl whom he had despaired over, the girl enveloped by the flames that he had failed to save her from—she was still there.

Eyes closed, she had gone limp—unconscious. However, her chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly—an unmistakable sign of life. She was not dead. Emilia was alive.

“You’re…”

He was now looking at the person who had suddenly appeared to save Emilia from mortal peril.

Subaru was glad to see that Emilia was safe, but even then, the fear tormenting his heart had not subsided as he called out to the man’s back with a trembling voice.

In response, the man slowly turned around. He relaxed his lips.

“I have come for her. I am relieved I arrived in time. Truly.”

“Come for… What do you…?”

“—I have come to collect my bride. Is that not what one should do as a man—nay, as a person?”

Those unexpected words, spoken as if they were the most natural thing in the world, instantly brought Subaru’s mind to a grinding halt.

While Subaru was as still as a rock, a thin smile came over the young man with a shock of white hair.

“I am the Witch Cult’s Archbishop of Greed—Regulus Corneas.”

“As promised—I have come to make her my seventy-ninth wife.”



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