4
“ ”
Reid Astrea appeared before them with a commanding presence. His sharp blue eyes paid no heed to anyone’s shock at his arrival. His bearing alone left everyone, even Gluttony, speechless.
“What’s with the stupid faces. It’s obvious I’d be here, ain’t it?”
Reid tapped the patch over his left eye and tapped the floor with his sandal.
“It’s gotten so noisy outside and insane that I can’t nap in peace. And there ain’t any booze, either, so it’s boring as hell. There’s no way I can take that.”
“…Sucks for you, then. We’re kind of busy here. Shouldn’t be that hard to see.”
“Hah! What are you spouting, small fry? Sorry, your voice is too quiet. I can’t hear you. Well, not like it’d matter if I heard it or not.”
“Stubborn ass…”
It wasn’t just that. The timing was bad, too.
Subaru’s shout had been weak, not forceful enough to be a real objection. And silenced by that merciless, rough comeback, he clenched his fists, acknowledging he was scared of Reid.
Now that he had come face-to-face with Reid, his soul was trembling. But not out of fear and terror. It was trembling with excitement.
“Deep down, I’ve already acknowledged you as my enemy…”
“Heh. Not bad, small fry. I still ain’t promoting you past small fry, but I’ll give you credit for not mistakin’ me as some convenient reinforcements.”
“Not like I’d just believe you even if you did say you’re here to help.”
“Hah! Listen to the kid go.”
Subaru hid the cold feeling he had in his heart as Reid grinned like a sinister shark.
In one sense, his announcement just now was despair-inducing. But Subaru had never counted on Reid as an ally. That would’ve been a mistake, and the man himself had just confirmed it.
Gluttony had immediately returned to his senses, and as their exchange ended, he spoke.
“—Hey, Reid Astrea.”
The Archbishop of Gluttony was standing right in the middle of the frozen hall—right between both sides. Reid snorted in annoyance.
“Yeah, what is it, kid? …You’re a dirty little rug rat, aren’t you. What is it?”
“You’re the first-generation Sword Saint, right? So how are you here? From our memories, as the examiner you shouldn’t be able to come down the stairs.”
Gluttony ignored the insult and questioned Reid.
It pissed Subaru off that the memories he was talking about were clearly his own, but everyone there had the same question.
It had happened in the last loop, too, but Subaru still had no clue why Reid, who was supposed to be the examiner for the second floor, was roaming freely around the tower. He didn’t want to think it was simply because Reid was that irrepressible…
“Is there some odd trick, or have the tower’s rules themselves changed? Either way, you being here is outside the plan, so we’ll have to rearrange the courses now. Appetizers first, then the main, and then dessert is standard, right?”
“Blah, blah, blah. Quit spewin’ that babble, you little shit.”
“ ”
“I can’t come down? Peel your eyes and take a good look. The hell are you saying? You can see the truth right in front of you.”
Reid leaned forward in annoyance. The way his white teeth flashed, the way he glared at Gluttony with his one eye—the man was a thug.
But unfortunately, the pressure he unleashed was nothing like that of a simple street tough loitering outside a convenience store. It already made Subaru feel like his life was in danger.
It was like a beast that blended a tiger, a bear, a lion, and a dragon in one body had shown up.
Reid bristled with an aura that threatened every possible sort of violence as he bared his fangs.
“Screw you. I do what I want, how I want. I don’t take orders from no one. This ain’t some joke. And who the shit gave you permission to start flappin’ your jaw, huh? Tell me. I dare ya.”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha. Wow, this is amazing. There’s no point in talking to you.”
Turning the holy sword of ice in his hand into fragments of ice, Gluttony pushed back his long bangs.
Even Gluttony had trouble dealing with someone who so adamantly refused to interact in any meaningful way. He had seemed to be struggling to deal with Emilia’s lack of interest in discussion, but Reid was orders of magnitude worse.
“But…you’re first-rate as prey. As Gourmet, our appetite is throbbing! Bite it! Gnaw it! Slurp it all up! Taste it! Eat it all! Gluttony!”
Howling and raging, Gluttony got on all fours and stared at Reid across the frozen floor.
His long tongue poked out past his white canines, dripping drool. He was thrall to an appetite for consuming others’ memories that no normal person could hope to comprehend.
“—Archbishop of Gluttony, Lye Batenkaitos.”
Was it pride or arrogance? Either way, Gluttony—no, Lye Batenkaitos—introduced himself, and the next instant, he launched himself off the icy floor and shot forward like an arrow.
His feral sprint felt almost like a ferocious four-legged beast on the hunt.
“What a pain in my ass.”
Watching Batenkaitos charge from head-on, Reid poked a finger in his ear, sounding bored.
“—Thanks for the meal!”
“If a hot babe was sayin’ it, that’d be one thing, but no one wants to hear that comin’ outta you.”
In an instant, Batenkaitos, who approached with his mouth wide open, violently shifted to the side.
Reid’s right foot was sticking out haphazardly, his kick catching Batenkaitos right in the torso, slamming him straight into the wall with terrific force.
“Gheh…”
“Keep that strangled chicken croak to yourself. At least when you strangle a chicken the meat tastes good, but you’re not even food. Whatever that crap about gluttony was about.”
“Giiagh!”
“You’re the one jumpin’ at a grown man. You better be ready for an ass-kickin’!”
Reid’s leg pushed Batenkaitos’s body against the wall, and he started running down the icy passage at a speed unbelievable for someone doing it on a single leg.
Of course, Batenkaitos couldn’t do anything to resist as he got dragged along the uneven surface of the ice. The damage must have been massive. Just devastating.
“Giigaaaaaaa!”
“Oy, oy, don’t start whining after this much. If that’s all it takes, then what’s the point? It ain’t over yet. In my day, this wouldn’t even count as child’s play. Kids these days aren’t just dirty. They ain’t got no substance, neither. Oy, you listening?!”
Sounding bored, Reid stopped moving and quickly turned around.
A backward spinning kick with his left leg slammed home forcefully into Batenkaitos’s side, sending his small frame blasting away like a rubber ball.
He bounced against the floor at an absurd speed, unable to stop himself. Spinning at high speed and spraying blood, the Archbishop passed between Emilia and Julius, past Subaru and Beatrice, and rolled farther down the passage.
There was no trace of his energy from moments before as he lay sprawled out, facedown on the floor.
Is he…dead?
“He was a powerful enemy, right…? Even fighting together, Emilia-chan and Julius were struggling…right?”
“…Correct. But that is just how beyond any scale that man is, I suppose. You could also say the situation has gotten even worse.”
Beatrice’s hand clutched Subaru’s. Instead of being afraid of Batenkaitos, who had fallen and had gone still, she was wary of Reid, who stood in front of them. Emilia and Julius were the same.
This battle wasn’t a fight against Gluttony anymore; it was becoming a battle against a new, even stronger enemy.
Despite being in the middle of that—
“Thank you very much for taking care of that boy… Can we maybe be friends?”
Emilia tried a friendly approach with Reid. He shook his head in response to the peaceful request that was just like her, and then he shrugged and kicked the floor.
Brushing off her request completely, Reid scratched his head and heaved a sigh.
“Hahhh, don’t go sayin’ crap like that… Actually, what are you, even? You’re way too hot. What the hell? You’re a straight-up babe! What are you doin’ in this shithole? Why are you here? Quit playin’ around in this crazy sandbox and drink with me tonight.”
“Ummm, this is the second time…”
“Unfortunately, she will be unable to accompany you for a drink this evening.”
“Oh?”
“There shall be no tranquil night for a phantom such as yourself.”
Interrupting his crude ramble, a man with a knight’s sword at the ready stepped forward. Julius Juukulius faced off against Reid, as if protecting Emilia. His eyes were sharp, and his sword was ready for action.
Looking right into those yellow eyes, Reid showed a slight change in his expression.
“…Ho-ho. Your face’s gotten a tiny bit better. Something good happen? A woman? It was a woman, wasn’t it?”
“I won’t deny that several things happened that affected my mindset. However, if a woman’s embrace can heal a wounded heart, then a friend’s merciless words can be just as good.”
“I see you’re still a wordy bastard. Spit it out already.”
“The reason I am standing here with my sword in hand is thanks to my friend—!”
As he said that, Julius advanced while swinging his blade upward, tracing an unbelievably beautiful arc with the tip of his blade as he unleashed an attack aimed directly at Reid’s neck.
“ ”
It was the optimal choice. Given Reid’s calm, composed demeanor, trying to take him down immediately was definitely the correct choice for defeating the first-generation Sword Saint.
The problem was…
“Do you understand what calm and composed means? It means never losing control, no matter what happens. It means tricks don’t mean anything. It means you’re an idiot.”
…Reid caught Julius’s preemptive attack with the two chopsticks in his hands.
It was an absurd technique, almost like the reenactment of a story about Miyamoto Musashi.
No, even Miyamoto Musashi didn’t stop an opponent’s sword with nothing but chopsticks.
“Ngrgh…”
“Well, it wasn’t bad, I guess. Anyone other than me would’ve bought the farm. Welp, let’s go.”
Reid grinned like a shark at Julius. And then, with one chopstick in each hand, he stepped forward while brushing aside the tip of the sword and unleashing an attack. The impact hit the side of the knight’s sword with a loud crack.
“ ”
The short, wooden stick was incomparable to a sword, but in the hand of a master like Reid, it became a lethal weapon far greater than its size implied, sowing destruction wherever it went.
Right after the ferocious crack, the resulting shock wave blasted Julius’s hair and clothes, shattering all the frozen ice coating the passage.
It was completely absurd. Utterly unreasonable. It wouldn’t be wrong to call it a glitch in real life.
Despite seeing it before, Subaru was still speechless and struck again by a stark realization…
A monster like this existed in this world, and they had to overcome it if they wanted to clear the tower. The malicious nature of the person who designed this damned place made Subaru sick to his stomach.
“—Heh, I’m actually a little impressed.”
It was hard to say how much of Reid’s full power was contained in that one attack. But he apparently had not expected Julius to be able to withstand it, and he even complimented Julius for managing to redirect it with his whole body.
A drop of blood trickled from the corner of Julius’s mouth as his eyes narrowed.
“As it happens, I have to win against you, or our calculations will be ruined.”
“You wanna win? Listen to you talkin’ big.”
“Indeed. However, I shall have you accompany me!”
Julius’s sword flashed, but Reid’s two chopsticks wildly deflected it.
As his sword’s momentum got diverted, Julius’s stance…didn’t waver. He spun as if even that parry had been woven into his calculation, unleashing the next attack without any hesitation. He followed up with more, chaining the attacks together seamlessly.
It was an elegant, practiced blade dance that flowed without a single wasted movement.
If Reid’s sword was like a roaring flame, then Julius’s was like running water.
In simple affinity, water would extinguish fire, but if the flames were strong enough, then it was more like a burning stone that could boil away the water, rendering it meaningless.
Most likely, many, many flowing water swordsmen had been evaporated by Reid’s blazing force. But in this moment, Julius showed no fear as he continued his unwavering attack against Reid.
“Don’t think Julius is the only one here!”
“Hah! I didn’t forget you, hotness! Your face is too good to forget!”
“Thank you for the compliment! But there’s only one person who really remembers me!”
Emilia joined Julius’s blade dance with an armory full of ice weapons.
Because of that, Reid pointed one chopstick at Julius and the other at Emilia. His swordsmanship shattered any pedestrian questions about whether that would be enough to keep them at bay.
A chill frost descended upon the sword dance composed of flowing water and raging flame, vividly transforming the battlefield.
There had only been a single change of cast, switching Reid out for Batenkaitos as the prime antagonist, but Emilia and Julius’s awkward teamwork started to find links. In fact, even that was changing.
Maybe because the enemy was stronger, or maybe because they had adjusted their fighting styles in an impossibly short amount of time, but their breathing was starting to sync up, and the initially unsteady coordination was becoming more and more certain.
“Julius is matching Emilia.”
“You can tell?”
“It’s a matter of personality, too. Emilia is moving decisively, and Julius is moving more like himself. It makes sense for Emilia to stop trying to match him.”
“That’s them, all right.”
If that was what it took to make it work, then that was the right choice.
In the end, letting go of everything and going at her own pace was Emilia’s style. Meanwhile, Julius was obviously skilled at aligning himself with other people’s movements and still maximizing what his skills brought to the table.
“Ha-ha! Nice, nice! This is startin’ to get fun for me!”
“Uyah! Seiyah! Toryah! Urya, urya, urya!”
Reid burst into laughter, enjoying himself as he matched their improving teamwork with force. Emilia’s silly shouts were accompanied by unbelievably deadly attacks, but there was no decisive blow.
Water and fire and ice intertwined beautifully in a mystical ballet of violence.
It was so beautiful, someone might mistake this for a real dance.
“—Shaaaaaa!”
And so the intrusion of dissonance stood out immediately.
“You…!”
Lye Batenkaitos rudely crashed into their dance. The boy who had been struck by Reid’s kick and who had tumbled away on the verge of death rejoined the battle as if nothing had happened.
Batenkaitos swung the blades attached to his wrists, using his short arms and legs to lash out at the three of them with a flurry of lethal attacks.
Emilia and Julius and Reid all defended in annoyance.
“You do not know when to give up, Archbishop!”
“Ha-ha-ha! Leaving us out of the fun, don’t be so mean, brother dearest! Always, always keeping things to yourself? Don’t be so stingy!”
“Reid! You can see, right?! There’s no point in us fighting here! Can you help us? Or at least be patient and wait?!”
“You just don’t get it, do you, hotness? I’m havin’ fun right now. I wouldn’t change my mind even if the stars fell out of the sky!”
The four of them traded blows as they crashed their determination into each other.
It was a battle soaked in blood. This was not something to approach lightly, and there was no simple or obvious point of compromise.
It was hard to tell from the sidelines who had the upper hand and who was at a disadvantage, who was winning and who was getting pushed back.
All he could do was at least pray for his friends’ victory.
“—!”
“Subaru?!”
Unable to do anything but watch in frustration from the sidelines, Subaru clutched his chest and fell to his knees. Taken aback, Beatrice touched his shoulder and looked into his face as he stared down, breathing painfully.
“Subaru, Subaru! What is it? What happened?!”
“…No, what is…this?”
“Subaru?”
Subaru clutched his chest and blinked over and over as Beatrice desperately called out to him.
There was no point in trying to hide it or dodge the question. But Subaru didn’t know what it was, either. It was strange. Something was off. There was an unbelievable heat coming from inside his chest.
His heart raced until it felt like it might explode. Every drop of blood in his body seemed to be pleading, as a bright red warning bell rang in his head. A terrifying feeling that he couldn’t bear was coursing through him.
“ ”
He didn’t know what was going on with his body.
This isn’t something that has happened in any of the loops. Is it some kind of sickness? Or is there some sort of magical interference?
Using what little intelligence he could muster, he considered the worst possibility and then shook his head.
No, this probably isn’t a bad thing. The alarm is just telling me something’s changed.
“Haaah…”
He exhaled slowly.
What had seared his mind just now wasn’t only concern for Emilia and Julius as they fought Reid and Batenkaitos.
He had been powerless to do anything besides stand there and watch.
What seared his mind were the two remaining obstacles that were, in all likelihood, approaching even now.
While Emilia and Julius were fighting so hard in front of him, the moment he considered the possibility of the tower still being destroyed, his pulse started racing, and he had to take a knee.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
The sound resonated in his mind as he slowly breathed and closed his eyes. That just felt right. Obeying that feeling, he kept his eyes closed.
“ ”
Seeing Subaru move with such deliberateness, Beatrice stopped calling to him.
She couldn’t have possibly known what was happening. Even so, she held fast. Subaru was blessed to have such understanding comrades.
And behind his eyelids, he felt something strange emerging.
—An oh-so-faint light looming in the indistinct darkness.
“—?”
Faint, warm, glowing lights.
There was one right beside Subaru, and two more in front of him, a short distance away. And mysteriously, even though he didn’t turn around, he could tell there were some behind him, too.
Behind him, there were four lights, all bundled together. And then one more even farther away. And, and, and—
—He could tell one more was approaching from above.
“—Beatrice!”
“Hyah!”
For some reason, Subaru trusted that feeling completely, leaping at Beatrice before bounding away.
Light. Holding her in his arms, Subaru rolled across the stone floor without a moment’s pause.
—The next instant, he felt a burning heat graze his right thigh.
“Gah, guooooo!”
He immediately recognized that the heat came from the wound to his leg. Most likely, he was intentionally distracting himself from the fact that his leg had been badly gouged. He spun around while holding Beatrice, and opening his eyes as pain and tears blurred his vision, he saw it.
“I figured you’d be coming, you damn scorpion…!”
Subaru spat those words at the giant scorpion that appeared before him for a second time—the scorpion with a black carapace and eyes like red lights crawled along the wall with its multiple legs, glaring down at them.
“—Ah.”
Beatrice’s eyes widened when she saw its large, ominous form.
Her eyes focused on the scorpion’s pincer that had left such a deep furrow in Subaru’s leg. The scorpion’s pincer tip had a nasty chunk of Subaru’s flesh in it, and blood streamed out, dripping onto the floor.
This was the giant scorpion’s intrusion that he had been worried about.
The obstacles they had to overcome were all gathering in one place.
“ ”
Understanding how bad the situation was, Subaru’s mind burned red hot with pain as he raced to find some way out.
But he couldn’t figure out how he could change the world in a way that would resolve this.
Batenkaitos was here, Reid was here, and even the giant scorpion had joined the party.
Even if Meili and Shaula were keeping the swarm of demon beasts at bay, Subaru was out of moves.
This isn’t good.
This won’t work. There has to be another—
“Subaru!” “Subaru!” “Subaru!!!”
He heard three people calling as he ground his teeth.
Beatrice’s sorrowful voice, Julius’s strained voice, Emilia’s plea—he could hear them all.
Batenkaitos, Reid, and the giant scorpion were all on the move.
They would cut off every avenue. However, before that could happen—
A thunderous roar shook the tower violently.
The crumbling floor caused his body to bounce, blew Emilia and the others fighting away, and even crushed the giant scorpion’s carapace. It was like the entire world was collapsing.
The small girl hugged him, as if to protect Subaru. Hugging her soft body, Subaru opened his eyes in the middle of the blast.
“—I love you.”
—The darkness that held only a blind love swallowed Subaru.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login