2
Blown up into the air by a blast that came from directly below him, Subaru’s mind flew into a panic.
“ ”
It was a complete panic—he had thought panic was just the normal state of things for him now, but his sense of confusion just kept growing.
There was an effect called tachypsychia, where the world appeared to move in slow motion, like during a traffic accident. And with the world flipping upside down and seemingly moving frame by frame, Subaru saw it.
It was a creature with a terrifying, powerful body that appeared out of the sands. It had slippery-looking skin, no limbs, and a mouth-hole filled with ferocious fangs. A giant worm.
A monster more than thirty feet long.
“Gwahhhh!”
The shock of something so far-removed from reality was interrupted by a physical one. Landing on his back in the sand, his lungs spasmed and he couldn’t breathe.
The worm had leapt out from below ground, sending Subaru into the air, and he ended up falling on the ground. And what he needed to do next was…
“You bastard!”
That worm had been unmistakably waiting underground for prey. And at this rate, Subaru was going to become worm food. The only way to survive was to run back into the tower.
It had just been two steps outside—but with how far he’d been thrown by the worm, he would have to cover the distance between the door and where he fell.
“Dodge the worm, get back inside, close the door…?”
Like a curse, his head filled with the looming question of whether he could even manage that. But the next instant, his instincts concluded that was the only chance he had if he wanted to survive.
“One shot, just one shot. One shot. One shot…”
Pulling the scarf around his neck up to cover his mouth, he carefully watched the worm’s movements with bloodshot eyes.
That monster’s gonna go for me, and I have to use that one opening.
In order to live, Subaru Natsuki put his body and soul into it—
“ !!”
There was an unimaginable, ear-splitting screech as the giant worm charged at Subaru. Hearing a thunderous crash and wind howling, he searched for an opening between the worm and the desert in order to escape—and the moment he saw it, he envisioned twisting himself through that gap.
Fully focused, he kicked off the sand, dodging the worm’s first attack just like he’d pictured. The shockwave and sandstorm kicked up by the attack sent him flying. But he was alive.
“Haah…gh!”
His body moved more responsively than he remembered.
For a split second, the year he couldn’t remember flashed in the back of his mind. He managed to make use of the experience that Subaru Natsuki had gained surviving in such a harsh world.
“Now—”
Keeping his momentum, Subaru started to run toward the entrance to the tower.
Just sixty feet. I can sprint that mu—
“—ch”
The next moment, the sand exploded, not from the worm’s head, but from its tail that was still buried underground. The tail broke the surface, clipping his legs and sending him flying again.
As he screamed, Subaru saw the worm’s head below as the world spun around him. It was opening its giant maw, as if to usher him into its toothy mouth.
“—Ah.”
—I was too naive.
Thinking he could escape a beast that survived in this crazy environment when he’d been raised in a world that might as well be a hothouse. Just stupidly shallow and thoughtless. And the price was going to be his life again.
“No.”
As he fell, he kicked his legs like an insect that had lost its wings.
I’m going to die. Again? Even if I do, will I really die? What happens if I do actually die here? Could I endure that?
If all that awaited after this time was just eternal darkness…
“Nooooooo!”
He reached toward the night sky, screaming desperately for help.
It was not something that could be reached. In his shrouded vision, he couldn’t see the stars in the fuzzy sky above. All alone, he fell.
Abandoned even by the stars whose name he shared, he would be swallowed by a monster and disappear.
As that despair sank in, a white light flashed.
“ ”
The flash of light blew the giant worm’s head off.
Bathed in the white glow, its head warped like a melting sugar sculpture and then exploded. Nasty-looking blood and flesh splattered, and its hideous face was erased. But that was not the end.
Lights flashed one after the other, shooting holes through the worm’s giant body. The worm’s body twisted as it turned into Swiss cheese, tore, and became filled with holes.
And that Subaru was not also hit by the barrage was mere chance, a silver lining to the darkest, deadliest clouds he could imagine.
“—Ah.”
The same shock as earlier, slamming defenselessly down into the sand, happened again. Narrowly avoiding the fate of being eaten by a monster worm, Subaru fell splayed on the sand.
Up above, he still couldn’t see any stars in the sky.
Even though he’d managed to survive for some reason, he was still abandoned by his namesake.
People grew exasperated with him, putting their hopes in him, abandoning him, hating him, caring about him, distancing themselves from him.
Did he want to live or die? Did he want to be or not?
“What do you want from me?! If you’ve got an answer, tell me already!”
Covering his face, he screamed at the blank sky.
There was no answer. No one could give him the answer he wanted. If there was anyone who even had it, then it was just—
“—Tell me, Subaru Natsuki. “
It was right after that pitiful, hoarse plea.
Beneath Subaru’s feet, there was a giant tremor that shook the sand. It was the shuddering of the headless, hole-ridden worm’s corpse. Thanks to the timely help of the white light, Subaru had managed to survive. But that was not the end.
“—Ngh.”
The tremors after the giant body hit the ground did not stop, and finally even Subaru’s world started shaking.
His vision wobbled up and down. The cause was the ground that had been weakened by the worm moving beneath it. The worm’s body slamming down had been the last straw.
“Ugh, uwaaaah!”
The surface broke and the worm’s body slipped underground. And Subaru, as if caught in an antlion’s trap, was dragged down too, unable to resist the furious torrent of earth.
He desperately tried to fight it, but it was hopeless. Everything he tried to cling to was swallowed up in the sand, too.
His arms and legs were buried, and he couldn’t move. Facing up, he frantically gasped.
“Help, someone, help…”
Everything after that was muffled as he slipped into the sand and fell.
And the stars above didn’t pay any heed to Subaru pathetically struggling down below.
“Kahah.”
The first thing he felt when he regained consciousness was an overwhelming, stifling pressure, and the taste of sand.
Coughing, he managed to clear out the unpleasant feeling in his mouth. Forcing his eyes to open, he teared up as he looked around. It was dark.
As best he could tell, he’d been dropped into a terribly dark and cold place.
“This is… Right, that giant worm almost ate me…”
Shaking his aching head, he thought back to what had just happened.
He’d decided to abandon everything and run away from the tower, but on his very first step out of the door, he had been blocked by a giant worm. And just when he was about to be eaten by the worm and die, a white light had saved him…
“Beneath…the desert…”
The sand had given way and he’d been pulled underground. It wouldn’t have been strange to be buried alive, but Subaru had just barely managed to survive by the skin of his teeth.
Though at present, Subaru was dubious whether he would actually die even if the worst had happened.
—Starting again from that room?
“ ”
Pushing through that oppressive, curse-like resignation, Subaru dug at the sand around him.
The pressure he felt earlier was due to being buried in sand from the waist down. In the darkness with no source of light, he carefully, slowly extracted himself.
There was still the unpleasant feeling of sand in his clothes, but he managed to break free. Then he started feeling around to check his surroundings instead of relying on his eyes.
It was dark, and he couldn’t see anything.
It honestly makes me wonder if I’m really still in the world of the living.
“…It is another world, after all. It wouldn’t be weird if there was a hell here.”
In the world of myths, it wasn’t rare for there to be a land of the dead underground. Maybe his falling had been into that same sort of space. His body felt cold and dead to the touch, so maybe that was why.
“What, am I stupid? No…I’m definitely stupid… It’s obviously just because I was buried in sand.”
Shaking off those pointless delusions, Subaru rubbed his chilly hands together. The cold sand had robbed him of body heat. How long was I unconscious?
I guess not being eaten by some other monster living underground is a silver lining to this crap.
“?”
As he thought that, his knee, which had been resting on the ground, hit something. He stretched his hand out to confirm what it was and felt a leather bag between his fingers.
It was the pack of food and water he’d carried with him out of the tower. He quickly pulled a water bottle out and put it to his lips to wet his parched throat. Just a tiny bit of water ran across his tongue.
“Shit, it leaked? …What about the food…?”
Sitting on the sand and rifling through the bag to see what was left, he noticed what was wrong.
The leather bag stuffed with several days’ worth of supplies was empty. All of the emergency rations he had packed…were gone. But they hadn’t been swallowed up in the torrents and become scraps lost in the sand.
They were scattered all around. Haphazardly. As if someone had rummaged through everything.
“…Huh?”
Because of the darkness, Subaru couldn’t grasp what was going on with the mound of sand he’d been buried in. But the rations he had brought with him were scattered here and there, all around it. They had been torn into, eaten up, and strewn wildly around him.
Subaru gulped.
—Not good, not good, not good, not good.
Fear consumed his mind as he stood in the middle of all the food that had been eaten.
That giant worm crawled out of here. It wouldn’t be weird if something else was down here.
The skin-crawling situation he found himself in could even be a message from some mysterious monster.
“I-I have to get outta here…”
He scrambled to shove what food he could into the bag. He didn’t want to risk standing up in the dark, so he crawled around on all fours, checking the ground.
Literally groping in the dark, he crawled away, fleeing in abject terror.
He crawled in the darkness, confirming the ground below him and his own existence. Crawling. Crawling.
Unsure whether he should head above ground or just for somewhere else not there, he simply ran. He couldn’t do anything but run.
—I can’t do anything…but run.
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