5
Subaru noticed the change when he felt his shoulder jolt.
“…Ugh?”
Raising his head, he slowly stood up.
His consciousness found its way back to reality, escaping the fog of dreams.
“I was…asleep?”
Putting his hand to his chin, he was surprised that he had been sleeping.
He must have passed out at some point while talking to Rem. Because he had laid his head down, there were marks on his cheeks from the leaves. Running his fingers over them…
“I must have been pretty tired, too…huh, Patlash?”
Subaru turned to look at the reason he had woken up. Patlash had batted him with her tail. Why did she wake me up?
But he did not have to ask his beloved dragon to get the answer. It was obvious to see.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something strange and did a double take.
“…No way…”
Of the two beds in the room, one—the one Anastasia had been sleeping on—was empty. Subaru felt a chill.
“A-after I said all that to Julius…”
Because I took a nap, I didn’t even notice her going… No, it’s not just that.
“She woke up… So then what…? Where did she go? The bathroom? Without waking me up?”
Anastasia—or more precisely Echidna—leaving the green room without saying anything to Subaru, who was asleep there, too, wasn’t a good situation.
Why did she do that? It shouldn’t be the same reason Julius went out on his own, but…
“The bed is still a little warm… I have to find her.”
It’s still warm, and also Patlash woke me up. She probably didn’t leave that long ago.
“Patlash! Watch Rem for me! And thanks for waking me up!”
Waving at her short whinny, Subaru raced out of the room.
His mind was racing, but he could not imagine where Anastasia would be going. If it were him, the first thing he would want to do was make sure Emilia and Beatrice and the others were safe, so in her case that would mean checking on Julius first.
“But she’s Foxidna now. She wouldn’t be that straightforward. In which case…”
I can’t cover it all myself. It’s embarrassing that I fell asleep like that, but I should let the others know so we can all look for her…
“Huh?”
He was about to go downstairs to alert everyone when he caught his breath.
It was a stunned, confused reaction. A reaction to seeing something unexpected, something that should not have been there.
“ ”
As his eyes widened, something calmly cut across his field of view. It was a single bird with white wings spread, flying gracefully through a somewhat narrow passage.
“A bird…? Why here…?”
Subaru was taken aback by the bird that should not have been there.
There aren’t any windows or any holes in the outer wall of the tower. It is completely sealed off, and the only connection to the outside is the door on the fifth floor.
“…Ngh! W-wait!”
Sensing that something was definitely not adding up, Subaru frantically chased after the bird, which was getting farther and farther away.
He had hesitated for just a moment, unsure whether he should tell someone about Anastasia’s disappearance and the bird and if he should ask for help.
But Subaru chose to follow the bird. His instincts were telling him that if he lost sight of it, something terrible could happen, so he obediently gave chase.
Of course, the bird wasn’t kind enough to slow down just because Subaru asked. It continued to fly gracefully through the passage, leaving him behind as it moved farther and farther into the distance.
Subaru chased and chased with all his might, and finally…
“—?! It disappeared? That’s impossible.”
Subaru’s voice cracked when he reached the end of the passage.
The hallway was an arc that followed the outer wall of the tower, but it did not connect in a single loop. About halfway through the loop, there was a wall blocking the way forward.
Using a clock as a reference, there was a wall connecting twelve o’clock and six o’clock, creating a block no matter which side they were approached from. Already knowing that, Subaru had assumed he would be able to catch the bird unless it could somehow open a door or get inside a room, but…
“It doesn’t seem like it flew into the wall, either. What happened…?”
Unable to find a trace of where the bird disappeared to, Subaru looked around in confusion.
Unfortunately, he could not find a room nearby that the bird might have escaped to. It had suddenly appeared, and it had suddenly disappeared, too. It almost felt like a dream, but…
“…This is a feather, right?”
Picking up a white feather that had fallen to the floor, Subaru got evidence that the bird really had been there. He could at least take that back to the others to say that the bird had existed. But that did not solve anything.
There aren’t any clues as to where Anastasia disappeared to…
“No, wait… There has to be something here, where the feather was…”
Thinking that, Subaru started looking all around the floor and the walls near where the feather had been. He touched, poked, and prodded the stone floor, ceiling, walls, and rooms nearby.
But there did not seem to be anything hidden, and he started getting impatient as time passed. I really should have called for someone…
Just as he thought that—
“Ah?!”
He touched the floor where the feather had been with his palm. Just when his fingers were about to brush against the wall, they passed right through it.
It wasn’t an optical illusion. Slowly holding out his hand, he could not touch the wall.
“I’m sure I checked this wall already…”
Making sure he wasn’t going crazy, Subaru touched the wall again. The wall was there from his waist up, but below that point, it was a trick.
An illusion that seemed to block an entrance. It reminded him of the cultists Petelgeuse led who had created a hideout in a cavern using a similar trick.
“Nothing ventured… How many times is this now?”
Crawling on all fours, he was able to slip under the wall. He hesitated for a moment before deciding to go through and see what came of it.
The bird probably passed through here, flying low to the ground. If it goes outside or connects to another part of the tower…
“Pwuaah!”
It was dark after passing through the wall, but it was shorter than he had expected.
Passing through the fake wall, Subaru inhaled like he was coming up for air. For no particular reason, he had held his breath while crawling through the darkness.
And he noticed the outside air—a cold breeze—against his face.
“…Ohhh…”
Opening his eyes, he slowly let them adjust to the outside after the dark passage.
What he saw before him was a scene looking out at the night desert from a place far, far higher than he could have imagined. There was a black sky filled with shimmering stars.
And…
“ ”
On what could be called the tower’s balcony were Anastasia, her light purple hair swaying in the wind, and dozens of birds all around her.
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