CHAPTER 3
THE MAW OF THE WHITE WHALE
1
Anastasia’s introduction had led him to borrow the largest dragon carriage he had yet seen.
Boasting a huge size, the land dragon’s hind legs thudded along, making the ground shudder as it raced across the grassy plain.
“It’s as fast as it is huge… That’s great, but could it do something about kicking up all this dirt?”
The dust dancing upward clouded his field of vision, making Subaru squint in the driver’s seat.
“This appears to be a land dragon normally used to haul freight. Therefore, its manner of running has no consideration for passengers, and since it is specialized for speedy travel, it has not been trained in running quietly…”
“It was the last one, and it’s running without a break. Beggars can’t be choosers, but…this is still kinda tough.”
Fortunately, thanks to the land dragon’s blessing—a special power belonging to particular individuals and species of that world—the dust did not directly affect them, though Subaru could not help but be annoyed at the poor visibility.
Subaru wound up looking at the sky, hoping for any change. The clouds flowed overhead as the sun gradually changed its angle. These signs meant the passage of time, and thus, Subaru’s heart smoldered little by little.
—Surely they were moving far quicker than they had during the previous iterations of the loop.
They had not been able to gain reinforcements, but departing by dragon carriage on the second day was a major departure from before. They would be able to make it over the highway in half a day, arriving at the mansion on the dawn of the third day. They were gaining more than half a day over the first time around—surely enough time to get Emilia and the others out of the mansion and to flee from the Witch Cult.
“The problem is…the possibility of encountering the Witch Cult along the way like last time.”
According to his vague memories of the second time around, he’d been inside a cave when he truly regained consciousness. If he had been en route back to the mansion, it was possible that the same thing could happen this time, too.
When he thought of how Rem had been killed, and how he had spent nearly an entire day pulling her along before they left the cave: “It means they must have infiltrated the area outside the mansion days in advance.”
But he didn’t know exactly which day that was. The tragedy would fall the morning of the fifth day. The second time around, Subaru’s deduction that it had taken him a day’s worth of time to get out of the cave put his encounter with the Witch Cult between the third and the fourth day.
“In other words, even if we arrive tomorrow morning, that doesn’t mean that we’re any less likely to bump into them…!”
Not knowing what they could expect made him grind his teeth hard enough that blood seeped into his mouth.
Subaru glanced to the side at Rem, who was holding the reins and concentrating on driving. Once again, were they to encounter the Witch Cult, he’d have no choice but to rely on Rem.
Subaru had thought of making clear beforehand that they might encounter the Witch Cult, but when he tried to speak the words, he realized that his voice simply wouldn’t come out.
It was not fear of the penalty for divulging information gained via Return by Death.
Certainly, he was terrified of that pain. No sane person could endure the agony of that squeezing on the heart. He didn’t even want to think about tasting it again.
But that pain was not the reason Subaru hesitated to speak of the Witch Cult. He had another reason, one he could not escape.
—Would Rem really believe what Subaru told her?
“—!”
Just thinking about it sent a chill running up Subaru’s spine. Unable to endure it, he hugged his own shoulders.
His heart rate quickened to a stupid degree. The urge to vomit seized his innards. The stress of his extreme situation had kept him from getting a wink of sleep. The physical fatigue was rotting his mind and body alike.
At that moment, Rem was the person he could trust most in that entire world. Even Emilia had cast him aside. After Crusch, Priscilla, and Anastasia had rejected him one after another, Subaru had fallen into paranoia, doubting anything and everything.
In that moment, Rem was all Subaru had.
Rem was the only one he could call an ally beyond suspicion, someone in whom he could unwaveringly place all his trust.
If he revealed things about the Witch Cult to her, and her face became clouded with suspicion, what would it do to him? It frightened Subaru to even think of it.
“This isn’t the time to get cold feet…!”
Venting in a hoarse voice was the only thing he could do to drive away his cowardly emotions. The land dragon drowned out his voice, fainter than a whisper and reaching only Subaru’s ears.
Afraid as he was, he couldn’t keep it to himself. Now that the possibility of encountering the Cult remained, keeping his silence was nothing less than a betrayal.
After all, Subaru had lost his life and returned to take hold of the best possible future.
“R-Rem… I need to talk to you ab—”
“Subaru—there is a gathering of people on the road ahead of us.”
“Eh?”
As Rem glared to the front, Subaru followed her gaze to see a number of silhouettes hovering in the cloud of dust. He gaped openly. Was it really the Witch Cult lying in ambush?
Though Subaru had lost his voice at the too-soon turn of events, the contours of one of the vague silhouettes gradually grew more distinct, finally becoming a clear figure. This figure stood right in the middle of the road, waving both arms and loudly calling for the dragon carriage to halt.
“Heyyyyyyyy! Can you stop your land dragon so we can trade information?!”
The man, with a delicate face and gray hair, was Otto Suwen, traveling merchant.
2
“Ahh, I’m so glad. These days, most people are heading to the royal capital, and there’s precious few coming out of it. So I thought I’d ask you a couple of things if possible.”
With the dragon carriage stopped, Otto came to greet Rem and Subaru with a handshake and a smile as he spoke. He seemed neither drunk with wine nor in sorrows about the world. He didn’t strike Subaru as a wounded man. Rather, Otto the peddler felt alive and well.
The memory he’d expunged of Otto desperately trying to stop him the first time around returned. Subaru tried to wash away the bitter taste of it while surveying the people behind Otto.
“Is everyone in this whole group a traveling merchant?”
“Indeed they are, every last one. We’re headed to the capital with a yearning for profits in our hearts.”
Otto replied to Subaru’s question with an amiable smile.
There were various dragon carriages stopped on the side of the highway, and the men, presumably the dragon carriage owners, were gathered together. There were more than ten of them, ranging from the young to men in their forties.
Judging that Otto, Subaru, and Rem had concluded their pleasantries, they congregated around the latter two, introducing themselves by name as they began establishing the topic of conversation. The contents mostly concerned the current situation in the royal capital and changes thereof. Furthermore, the merchants spoke mainly of things like trends in coinage prices and the atmosphere in the marketplace.
Put bluntly, every minute wasted there was precious. Now that he had confirmed Otto was safe, he would have been happier to pass on such mundane conversation and leave. But…
“You’d head out now…? Isn’t that dangerous? It’s night already. We plan to camp here tonight. You could remain with us if you like.”
Just as Otto said, the sun was already sinking in the west, with night creeping over the highway. The Liphas Highway would soon be subsumed by night. They would have only the light of a magic crystal lamp and the stars to rely upon.
The traveling merchants had already begun preparing to camp, lighting a brilliant fire in the center of the group. With this many people, even wild beasts and bandits appearing along the highway could surely do little. But even time spent in safety was time Subaru could hardly afford.
“So you say, Otto. You’re just trying to pawn off some of that oil you bought at the wrong time, aren’t you? Don’t pull that oh-so-friendly face on me!”
The instant Subaru declined the invitation, a chorus of voices started needling Otto, and raucous laughter spread through the group. Otto, the butt of the joke, pursed his lips and made a sour face.
“That is not my motive at all. This is purely well intentioned. Well…you’ll need food and lanterns. Though I grant you…if I could interest you in even a small bit of oil, I would like that very much.”
As Otto lowered his shoulders and voiced his obvious dismay, Rem inquired, “What is this about oil?”
“Oh, I simply wound up getting something of a short straw. At present, the merchandise I am carrying is a somewhat large quantity of oil. I’d really meant to trade it in Gusteko for a large sum, but now, my very life hangs in the balance, and I must mitigate the loss as much as possible…”
It was plain as day that he was seeking sympathy for his plight…and a buyer for his oil. No doubt Rem understood this full well. Sympathetic as she might be, she would offer him nothing beyond perfunctory condolences.
“I do not know if I will be able to sell all this oil even if I go to the royal capital. If I sell it for the price of dirt, I will be bankrupt—bankrupt!”
Repeating himself for emphasis, he opened the door wide for a highly generous person to take all the oil off his hands. Though the man had helped him during the first time around, it was precisely why Subaru sought to avoid getting deeply entangled now. He could pray for Otto’s prospects, but at that moment, Subaru and Rem’s futures came first.
To get to the Mathers domain as soon as humanly possible, they could not avoid rushing along the highway at night. But just as Subaru was about to say his good-byes, he suddenly realized something.
If trust wasn’t enough to put things into motion, maybe he should move them with money…
“Otto, there’s something I… No, I have a business proposal.”
Otto’s eyes opened at how the expression on Subaru’s face vanished, and the air around him changed. But perhaps sensing from Subaru’s voice that he wasn’t joking, he immediately adopted the posture of a salesman.
“If it is business, I will listen to anything you have to say. Dear customer—how may I be of service?”
“I’ll buy every drop of oil in your dragon carriage. In return, give me a hand.”
Subaru pointed to Otto’s land dragon, which he remembered, and then opened his arms wide, shouting in a voice loud enough for all the merchants setting up camp to hear.
“Every merchant with a land dragon here… If your services are for sale, let me buy everything you have!”
3
At first, the merchants looked at one another and laughed at Subaru’s “business proposal.” But when Rem, sensing what Subaru had in mind, lifted up her sack and showed everyone the coinage within, the expressions of all the men who’d dismissed it as a joke changed in an instant. After that, Otto acted as the ringleader and recruited those willing to participate.
As a result, of the fourteen traveling merchants in that place, ten decided to go along. The conversation had a rocky start, but Otto’s proposed split of the profits neatly resolved the issue.
“Everyone will entrust their cargo to the four with the largest dragon carriages. The net proceeds from joint sales in the royal capital will be distributed at a later date. The sales will offset the freight cost of accompanying Mr. Natsuki.”
Thanks to Otto’s skill in bringing everyone to a consensus—no doubt an effect of his desperation when faced with the chance of a lifetime—he was unanimously voted to represent the group.
Seeing Subaru with his arms folded, concerned about their departure time as he watched fellow peddlers transferring their cargo, Otto asked him, “I’m pleased that you’re buying up my oil, but what do you intend to use all these dragon carriages for?”
Subaru touched his chin as he mulled over the question.
“We’re on our way to the Mathers domain. I happen to be a manservant working for Marquis Mathers, you see.”
“I’m aware of him. Marquis Roswaal L. Mathers, with his ‘penchant’ for demi-humans. They say that he is an eccentric, even by the standards of Lugunica nobility.”
Had Ram overheard that appraisal, she would have no doubt been indignant. Subaru’s shoulders sank at Otto’s description.
“Well, no denying that. It’s true he comes off as a perv.”
“But he is your employer, you say? Er, I broached the subject because I rather expected a reply of that sort. Though I must confess that you do not look like a nobleman’s servant, Mr. Natsuki.”
“I’m still in training. I only make the grade in sewing and making beds so far.”
“Either way, I’ll trust your story about serving the marquis… But why hire all these dragon carriages? A marquis can surely afford his own?”
Otto’s probing questions were proof that he doubted Subaru’s true intent.
“Like I said, we need a bunch of dragon carriages. We have a lot to haul, so it’s best to have them as empty as possible. In your case, that means having to buy up all your oil.”
“For which I am very grateful. What is the freight you intend to transport, then?”
From Otto’s repeated questions, it seemed he did not doubt Subaru’s station. He appeared to be pressing out of simple concern that the freight to be transported might be dangerous.
“—”
There was no need to conceal it with a lie. He couldn’t let this talk foster doubt and lead to the deal being called off.
“We’re transporting…people.”
“Don’t tell me this is slave trading?!”
“Nothing shady like that. There’s a village near the marquis’s mansion. It’s a small settlement, and the villagers put together don’t even number a hundred. I wanna get those people aboard and move them out.”
—That flash of inspiration was why Subaru had hired Otto and the others.
The large dragon carriage for commercial freight that Subaru and Rem were using could run with more than ten people aboard. With similar dragon carriages put together, he figured they could evacuate every last villager.
“You are not telling us to carry corpses, I take it. If so, I would have to decline with deep regrets…”
“…I want you to bring them out of there so it doesn’t come to that.”
In his haste to reunite with Emilia, Subaru had forgotten about the villagers. He was upset with his own lack of consideration, but coming across Otto and the others was a very considerable stroke of good fortune. Be it coincidence or fate, Subaru was fortunate to be on something’s good side for once.
“Actually, we’re planning on doing a large-scale mountain hunt in the area around the marquis’s mansion in the near future.”
“A mountain hunt, you say?”
“There’s been a bunch of demon beasts breeding in the wilderness around there since way back. Barriers isolated the people from the demon beasts until now, but… Not long ago, those monsters injured some people in the village.”
“And this ‘mountain hunt’ is the result of that? But…”
Otto couldn’t quite let it go; he seemed to be having trouble with something in Subaru’s explanation. Subaru remained silent as he rolled up the sleeve over his right arm, showing him the cruel scars the beasts had left on him.
Otto drew a small, sharp breath at seeing the deep wounds of claw and fang. Many more had been carved into Subaru’s body that would never fade.
“In his goodwill, the marquis sent me off to the royal capital to be healed. Now that I’m partly recovered and no longer at death’s door, I’m on my way back.”
“I—I see… Er, but why, then, are you procuring dragon carriages along the highway without the marquis being directly involved…?”
“The marquis decided to start the hunt right away before moving the residents. That’s why I want to make sure it’s covered. It’s not that I don’t trust my master; I just have prior experience with this.”
As Subaru offered that humble statement, lowering his eyes, Otto made a small sound and sank into thought.
“Understood. Sorry for prying into things you didn’t want to speak about. I shall explain this to the others without mentioning the scars.”
A pained expression came over Otto’s good-natured face as he made a show of consideration for Subaru. No doubt he regretted unintentionally dredging up Subaru’s past trauma.
Subaru thought that his sudden change in demeanor, shifting from thoughts about commerce to simply worrying about his business partner, showed that Otto was a real softie at heart.
“Don’t sweat it. Please just explain it to everyone straight so that no one gets any weird doubts.”
“Well, if you insist, though I’m not really cut out for that.”
Making light of Subaru’s decision, Otto smiled apologetically.
Subaru thought himself a far greater villain for internally making excuses.
—Namely, that he wasn’t really lying; he just wasn’t telling the whole truth.
4
It was another two hours until all preparations to pull out of the campsite had been completed.
After the freight was transferred to the four large dragon carriages, Subaru and the others departed along the highway by night.
There were eleven dragon carriages heading toward the Mathers domain. They might prove somewhat cramped, but they should be more than enough to get all the villagers out.
Otto called to him as his dragon carriage ran parallel to Subaru’s.
“By running through half the night, we’ll probably arrive in the Mathers domain near morning…”
It was the land dragons’ wind repel blessings that enabled them to have a normal conversation while two dragon carriages ran side by side. They did more than nullify the effects of wind and vibrations on them, apparently.
“Sorry to make you keep running without a break.”
“Not at all! I have no complaints. Now that I can dispose of my stock and defray the freight costs, I am invincible. I could keep this up for three days and nights!”
“And then you can fall asleep right after the deal is done?”
“Huh?! Did you read my mind?!”
The punch line to a classic joke was stolen right out of Otto’s mouth. From there, Subaru shifted his gaze toward Rem, holding the reins beside him. He could not read any emotion from the side of her face as she stared straight ahead. To Subaru, it wasn’t a very pleasant situation.
“—Subaru.”
“…Y-yeah. What is it, Rem? Something’s up?”
“No. It is quiet, so I wondered if you might be tired. The dust makes for poor visibility, but with other land dragons about, the path is not uncertain. If you are sleepy, it is all right for you to rest.”
“I’m happy to hear you say that, but it’s not cool to make you do all the work.”
“But Subaru, you are still convalescing, so…”
Rem’s considerate stance toward Subaru made him shut his mouth. Her manner of speaking was gentle, but there was a stubborn, steely will behind it. He keenly understood that she wished to reduce the burden on him as much as possible. But her tenacious efforts made him fearful that he didn’t know her true intentions. The thorns he could not dislodge from his chest were the product of both wanting to know and not wanting to know.
“Rem, do…?”
“Yes?”
Subaru’s breath caught as Rem’s pale-blue eyes stared at him, as if seeing right through him. He wanted some way to redirect her attention from his doubting, hesitant silence, but Subaru shook his head, brushing aside such thoughts.
If he doubted Rem’s intentions enough that it hurt, it was far better to get them out in the open.
“Rem, do you have any doubts about what I’m doing? I didn’t explain anything to you. Not about the Witch Cult, not about the traveling merchants…”
He was painfully aware of how Rem had kindly indulged him in spite of his duty to explain himself. That was precisely why he was worried about how Rem felt about following him without question or debate.
Rem closed her eyes but once at Subaru’s question.
“Master Roswaal told me to respect your actions in the royal capital.”
“—”
Subaru’s expression stiffened, the reply leaving him lost for words.
“Roswaal…told you to…?”
“Yes. He did not command me to do any specific thing, but rather, to go along with your plans in the royal capital, whatever they might be. I also planned do so as much as I could.”
“Roswaal’s orders…”
Rem’s words somehow weren’t sinking into his skull. Instead, the fact that Roswaal had ordered Rem repeated itself in his head, over and over.
Rem’s lack of dissent toward Subaru’s actions was because her master had directed her to shut up and obey. Did that mean, in other words, that Rem’s actions to that point had not been of her own will? Hell, even her staying by his side at that very moment might not have been…
“Subaru?”
As Subaru fell silent, Rem peered at him, her shapely eyebrows drawing together. Yet in that moment, Subaru was unable to take even that expression of concern at face value.
“I-I’m all right. It’s nothing.”
Shaking his head to flee from Rem’s gaze, Subaru gave a perfunctory reply to keep the peace.
Her caring concert, her support when he was on the brink of collapse, her being by the isolated Subaru’s side, were all of these because of Roswaal’s orders…? Beyond that, deep down, did Rem approve of what Subaru was doing…?
“—!”
As paranoia brought bile up from his stomach, Subaru swallowed down the acidic liquid filling his mouth. With his nausea having nowhere else to go, fright and despondency raged inside his body. His limbs felt numb, his vision narrowed, and there was an unbearable, physical itch in his brain. His breath was ragged as he fought the urgent desire to crack his skull open and jab his fingers in to scratch at it.
He didn’t want to think. About anything.
The more he thought about things, the more he mulled them over, the more he sought answers—the more distant his desires would become, the more his ideals would turn to fantasies and his dreams to hopelessness and despair.
“Subaru, did you fall asleep?”
He hated it. He wanted no more of it.
He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to doubt. He didn’t want to trust. He didn’t want to be betrayed.
He clutched his head, shutting himself in and cutting off all responses to the outside world.
Rem called his name several times. Seeing that there was no response, she gave up after a while and shifted her gaze back to the highway.
By then, Subaru had finally, and by his own hand, become truly alone in that world.
5
“—ru. I’m sorry, Subaru. Please wake up.”
Subaru sensed someone calling him and shaking him awake.
The touch on his shoulder roused him from the abyss of unconsciousness. When he absentmindedly rubbed his eyelids with his hand and opened his eyes, he found the face of a familiar girl right in front of him.
“…Rem, huh. What’s wrong?”
The instant he was sure it was Rem, Subaru remembered their exchange before he slept. He felt a dull ache in his chest.
Rem, not noticing how hard Subaru was working to endure that pain, lowered her head apologetically. After another brief apology for waking him, she said, “We are about to reach a fork in the road. As it is a landmark that cannot be mistaken even in the dead of night, it should be all right…but I want to be certain before we reach it.”
The area around them was filled with deep darkness. Even with Rem sitting right beside him, her face seemed indistinct. The crystal lamp hanging from the land dragon’s neck and a simple light attached to the dragon carriage itself provided the only illumination. It was very little to go on—if not for land dragons with good night vision, then certainly for the humans.
“I see your point. What do you want me to do, though?”
“I want to check the map, but I cannot take my hands off the reins… I put the map in the sack at your feet. Could you get it out for me?”
“At my feet. This, huh?”
In the dark, he pulled over a fairly heavy sack. He set it on his lap and thrust in his hand to fish around, but finding what he was after proved rather difficult.
“I can’t even tell what’s a map and what’s not. Isn’t it too dark to even read it?”
“That is… Mm, that could be a problem. What shall we do…?”
“Yeah, what can we…? No, wait a sec.”
Rem’s expression was clouded when a light suddenly turned on in Subaru’s head. Once again, he searched at his feet, picking something out of a different sack—the one with Subaru’s personal belongings.
“Oh, I found it!”
He took out the object, cool and hard to the touch, and thrust it in Rem’s face. Right in front of her wide eyes, Subaru pressed the power button of something he hadn’t held in ages.
“It hasn’t been charged in a while, so I hope the battery isn’t dead… Ohh!”
After a single tense moment, the boot-up sequence appeared on the screen. A few seconds later, a dazzling light shone from Subaru’s hand.
Rem looked at Subaru with surprise at the brilliant sight.
“Subaru, what is that?”
“Lost technolo… Er, future technology. A cell phone. Looks like it still has a little juice left, luckily for us.”
The cell phone had been off ever since his generous use of it on the day he had been summoned to this other world. It was one of Subaru’s few possessions from home. He had a few other personal belongings, but this was by far the priciest and most useful—at least, as long as its battery held out.
“I never imagined the next time I’d use it would be as a flashlight, though.”
Using it in a manner inconsistent with its original purpose, Subaru shone the light of civilization upon the contents of the luggage. After he easily found the map he’d been searching for in the sack, Subaru spread it out over Rem’s lap.
“I’ll shine this on the map, so take a look-see.”
“Yes, thank you very much.”
At that moment, Otto poked his head in from the side, his interest keenly piqued.
“Mr. Natsuki, what is that? I’ve never seen such a thing.” Leaning over from his dragon carriage, immediately to the left, he tilted his head in confusion. “A crystal lamp I have never seen bef— No, not a crystal. It seems to be made of some material unfamiliar to me.”
Noticing Otto’s reaction, a man in his prime with a bandanna wrapped around his head pulled his dragon carriage along the right side as well. The eyes of the driver glimmered as his gaze remained pinned to Subaru’s cell phone.
Ordinarily, their reactions would have doubtlessly brightened Subaru’s mood, inspiring him to casually show off and brag. However, the current Subaru was in no mood for such pleasantries.
“Sorry, it’s a secret item the marquis gave to me. If I told you about it, you might vanish without a trace. Best to forget you ever saw it.”
“Whew, that secretive explanation just reeks of money…”
Otto’s interest seemed to have only deepened. But before a long cover-up conversation became necessary, Rem lifted her head from the map and nodded.
“I realize where we are now. A little farther and we should be able to see the Great Flugel Tree. From there, we take the road northeast and enter the Mathers domain shortly after.”
“The Great Flugel Tree?”
Subaru inclined his head at the unfamiliar term. Otto raised a finger.
“The Great Flugel Tree is a huge tree found along the Liphas Highway that seems to pierce the very clouds. The tree really is huge like you wouldn’t believe. According to legend, a sage named Flugel planted it.”
“So that’s why it’s the Great Flugel Tree . Why’d the sage do that, anyway?”
“Er, well, this was hundreds of years ago, you see. Aside from the story of how he planted the tree, next to nothing is known about Flugel, not even why he is treated as a sage.”
“The hell is that? Why treat him like a big shot if you don’t even know what good he’s done?”
Subaru was itching to hear the rest after Otto’s incomplete account, but when he saw that Rem and the other merchants weren’t adding to the story, it was apparent that his exploits really hadn’t been passed down.
Subaru mulled over the thought, and around half an hour later, he saw the Great Tree for himself, to his shock.
“Whoa… Yeah, incredible is about the only word I can use for it.”
The venerable tree, its branches rising into the night sky, towered over Subaru and the others with an overwhelming presence. Its size dwarfed the trees from his old world that were often said to be more than a thousand years old. According to Otto, this specimen was centuries old, making Subaru wonder if plants grew at a much faster pace in his current world. Before he realized it, he was seized by a considerable sense of awe.
The enormous tree had put down its roots not in a great forest, but alone in an open field. Along the Liphas Highway, there was no landmark more prominent.
Passing by the calmly towering Great Tree, the dragon carriages headed northeast in accordance with the map. As the distance to the Mathers domain lessened, Subaru finally began to feel a little regretful at leaving the Great Tree behind.
“Geez, this isn’t the time to get all sentimental. Er, ah?”
If he had been less troubled, he might have taken a picture of it with his cell phone. Subaru, who was sitting on the driver’s seat when he had the thought, felt uneasy as he redirected his attention from the Great Tree.
“Where’d the bandanna guy to the right of us go?”
Subaru could see no sign of the dragon-carriage owner who had shown interest in his cell phone while running on their right. Subaru checked behind him to see if it had suddenly slowed down, but he saw only the dragon carriage that had been running behind the bandanna man; he was gone from the convoy, leaving an empty space.
“Don’t tell me he was so enchanted by the big tree that he wandered off?”
“What is it, Mr. Natsuki? Are you looking for something?”
“Not something—one of your guys, the one who was running on this side till just now, a manly looking guy with a bandanna. This ain’t the time to go tree climbing like a little kid.”
Subaru harshly answered the carefree Otto with sarcasm, inwardly scolding him for poor management. But Otto, on the receiving end of that annoyance, stared blankly and tilted his head, as if he had no idea what Subaru meant.
“What are you talking about? No one’s been on the opposite side of you.”
“—Huh?”
Subaru’s mouth hung open, and the meaning of the reply failed to sink in.
“What are you sayin’? He was all curious and staring at my cell phone just earlier, same as you.”
“Ahh, so it’s called a cell phone ? Wait, ah, can you guarantee my safety for having heard that? I don’t want to disappear…”
“Don’t play games with me!”
Subaru roared at Otto, who was casually ignoring Subaru’s question as if he thought it was all some big joke. Subaru looked to the right again, but the gap was as wide as before, and the carriage that should have been there nowhere to be found.
“—?”
Then, as Subaru stared at the gap, his field of vision suddenly became indistinct. He sensed a blur, as if there was a haze right before his eyes. Subaru blinked several times, but that did not wipe away his unease.
The dark empty space continued to run parallel to Subaru and Rem’s dragon carriage. The darkness was terribly ominous, and he couldn’t help the nervousness welling up inside him.
That was why Subaru opened his folded cell phone, shining light upon the gap to drive away the darkness.
He meant to look for a trace of the person who should have been there, and to ascertain the source of the uncanny feeling that just wouldn’t go away.
And within the shining light—
“…Ah?”
There, floating in space, Subaru met a truly gigantic eye.
The next moment, something roared, and mist covered the Liphas plains.
—Mist.
6
Bathed in a powerful gust of wind, Subaru felt like he’d been smacked in the face.
“—!”
Pounded by the gale, Subaru’s body floated up, in danger of being tossed from the driver’s seat altogether. He instantly reached out, but his fingers found nothing to grasp; Subaru’s body flew straight forward, hurtling toward the darkness—or it would have, if she had been a moment later.
“Subaru!!”
His collar was grabbed from behind, forcefully pulling him back down. The hard impact of his butt upon the seat made him see stars; amid them, he saw Rem, holding him down while handling the reins.
Rem’s mouth was open as she abandoned her usual neutral expression, howling desperately. Her shouts became a chant. Mana gathered according to Rem’s will, transforming the world around them with magic to create spears of ice as long as Subaru was tall.
In the blink of an eye, three frozen missiles formed in midair, shooting out like arrows with incredible force. The ice spears raced through the sky, landing with a sound like steel smashing stone—and the darkness before them was shattered.
“Oh, wahhh?!”
The next moment, Subaru was grabbed by his neck once again and instantly hoisted straight up.
As he floated upward and away from the driver’s seat, he saw the dragon carriage beneath him. The land dragon, not realizing its passengers had vanished, continued kicking up dust as it sprinted along the highway with all its might.
In the next instant, a hit from the side with enormous mass behind it reduced the dragon carriage to splinters, sending the land dragon hurtling along with it. The unadorned vehicle for hauling commercial freight was torn apart like paper; the huge animal, slammed into the ground, burst apart from the impact, turning into a smear of blood, innards, and fragments of flesh on the highway.
Subaru’s mind went blank from the overwhelmingly unreal spectacle.
“Left—!!”
He thought he heard a shout from right beside him. A second later, his body landed on a hard floor. The dull pain coursing through his shoulder and hip dragged his mind back to reality.
However, the blows assailing him one after another gave him no opportunity to lift up his head. The dragon carriage he was now riding made a sudden turn, and the centrifugal force flung Subaru to the side. When the vehicle tilted, the rope wrapped around his fingers was the only thing keeping him from being hurled right out.
Turning his head, he came to realize that he’d leaped onto Otto’s dragon carriage.
Wrapping the rope for securing freight around his wrist, Subaru tried to get up amid the shaking.
“No, Subaru, you mustn’t! The dragon carriage’s blessing has given out. It’s dangerous for you and Rem to get up!”
When he looked, Rem had impaled the floor with her own right arm to support herself. It was difficult for her to keep steady during the rocking, even with her physical abilities.
Without the effects of the wind repel blessing enveloping the land dragon, Subaru’s body was mercilessly subjected to the ferocious wind and shaking. He grew ill; he couldn’t even try to stand.
Rem had clutched Subaru and leaped from their dragon carriage to Otto’s. If she’d made that decision even a second later, she and Subaru would have shared the same fate as the pulverized cart.
“Wh-what happened?! What the hell’s going on here?!”
The overwhelmingly destructive change had happened in mere tens of seconds. Subaru couldn’t even begin to wrap his mind around the sequence of events.
“Don’t you get it?!”
Otto responded to Subaru’s confused question in a near scream. When Otto looked back, his face was white as a ghost, his teeth chattering as he pointed to the sky.
“The fog appeared! That giant thing swimming in the sky can only be one thing!”
It was as if Otto was convincing himself because he refused to accept it; he grudgingly shook his head, convulsing with fear as he desperately drew air into his lungs and shouted with all his might: “—The White Whale!!”
As if responding to Otto’s shout, the White Whale’s roar shook the air, echoing across the plains.
—The White Whale.
Subaru knew he’d heard the name during the first time around. The name of the monster shrouded in mist that had shut off the highway.
With the highway blocked due to this creature, he’d had to take a huge detour to get back to the mansion. One might say it was the reason he didn’t get back before the Witch Cult’s onslaught.
But until that moment, Subaru had never laid eyes upon the monster itself. Furthermore, Subaru had forgotten its existence; he couldn’t deny that he’d been too naive. Namely, that…
“How could it come out like this, right now?!”
Subaru knew that the highway was closed whenever the White Whale appeared. The first time around, the blockade had occurred on the third day of Subaru and Rem’s journey back due to the appearance of the White Whale’s mist along the road. And that moment was the night of the second day—no doubt the royal capital would be informed of the appearance of the mist in the morning, with the highway sealed during that day.
That night was the only one when they were unaware of the White Whale’s presence, and they had blundered into the menace.
“To think…running into the Wh-White Whale… O Dragon, O Dragon, please deliver us…!”
With hollow eyes, Otto murmured a prayer to the Dragon in search of salvation. As Otto lost the will to fight and even his very spirit, Subaru saw with his own eyes how, among traveling merchants, the existence of the White Whale was synonymous with absolute terror.
The previous time around, Otto had indicated how the White Whale was an evil omen among all merchants.
Otto’s lips trembled, his mind somewhere else as he managed the reins. His land dragon, sensing the presence of the White Whale, had fallen into a state of terror, exhausting its remaining strength to kick the ground and propel them forward at an unsustainable speed.
The White Whale had sunk into the night, its giant body nowhere to be seen.
“Shit… Just when it starts coming after us, the fog comes out…!”
Subaru scowled as he felt cold droplets of sweat on his brow, wiping them off with the palm of his hand. With few sources of light to begin with, the emergence of mist made maintaining visibility all but impossible.
Subaru looked behind, to the side, and above, searching for any trace of something that resembled a fish.
“Rem! Do you see the White Whale?!”
“I cannot; it is too dark! But…!”
Rem replied bitterly to Subaru’s question, but for some reason, she trailed off. The catching of Rem’s breath tugged at Subaru, but when he tried to look at her, all he could see in the deep mist was a silhouette; he couldn’t tell what was on her face. The mist grew even thicker, to the point that he wasn’t sure where his own hands were.
“—”
When Subaru had first met the White Whale’s gaze, it was bigger in circumference than Subaru’s arms could reach. If the giant eye was anything to go by, the White Whale had to be truly as large as the name implied.
It struck him that such a monster was hiding without any sound or sign of its presence, and it was able to swim freely through the night sky. They’d lost sight of the White Whale in the deep fog, a fact that aroused even greater terror.
“But I believe my preemptive attack struck… It is possible the creature has retreated.”
That was surely too optimistic.
The might of the ice spears Rem had rammed into it with her incantation was on par with the most powerful magic Subaru had yet seen. If he were ever the target, it’d be enough to kill him three times over.
Perhaps even a gigantic creature like that might hesitate to pursue them too far.
“What happened to the other dragon carriages?!”
“They seem to have scattered and run for it. If you split up and flee the instant the mist arrives, you might be able to escape without the White Whale pursuing—if you’re lucky.”
No doubt it was standard operating procedure when encountering the White Whale.
It made sense. Certainly, the dragon carriage that had been running parallel to theirs was nowhere to be found. The other vehicles that had followed behind them until that point seemed to have obeyed the unwritten rule and scattered to the winds.
—Subaru clenched his teeth at the fact that he’d lost the carriages he’d worked so hard to obtain.
The timing was a disaster. His plan to evacuate everyone in the village had fallen to pieces once more.
“No point crying over spilled milk. Anyway, right now I’ve gotta focus on a way to get out of this fog…”
As the rocking jostled his internal organs, Subaru pushed aside all other concerns until after they escaped. They had few cards to play to deal with the immediate crisis. Now that his own dragon carriage was unavailable, he needed at least Otto’s to get back to the mansion. That was why, right then, they had to get past that dangerous fog—
“—!!”
A mouth cavity lined by giant teeth resembling rows of millstones suddenly opened wide before their very eyes.
The overpowering violence of the sound and the blast winds of its thunderous roar sent the land dragon reeling. The ground split, tripping up its feet, and the dragon carriage’s wheels lifted as the wagon tilted far to the side. The canopy holding down jugs of oil broke, and the cargo went flying outside; Subaru, holding his cord, was in danger of being thrown out himself.
Subaru desperately clung to the wagon as he saw the enormous mouth lined with filthy teeth in front of them bearing down, seeking to swallow them whole.
It was in that moment that Subaru truly grasped just how little he’d understood.
And now, in that instant, plunged into that encounter with the White Whale within that deep nighttime mist, was the gambling table upon which they would wager their survival.
“—Roaaaaa!”
The instant the maw came to swallow the dragon carriage, there was a great shout as something shot into the air from the wagon’s floor. Rem had leaped, shooting in front like a bullet, shattering the floor in the process. From the hair under her hairpiece, buffeted by the blast winds, a sharp horn protruded as she entered her Oni state. She swung her personal weapon, a spiked ball on a chain.
“—Slip past it on the left!”
“Left, left, left, left, left!”
The iron ball smashed straight down into the White Whale’s upper jaw, sending a pitch-black cloud of blood spurting forth as the enormous, yawning mouth snapped shut. The lower jaw gouged out the earth, but even so, momentum continued to propel the giant head forward. Otto poured his entire being into controlling the land dragon, slipping right past the side of the head. However, the wagon behind the sprinting animal could not completely evade the gargantuan body to its right; the two met, kicking up a sound like that of rubbing against solid rock.
With a heavy creak , the wagon lost a wheel; without that balance, it flipped right over. Naturally, Subaru, who was atop it, was powerless to avoid being tossed toward the ground in the process.
—Am I gonna die?
Just before his inability to respond led to his death, a silver snake wound around Subaru’s chest with a loud roar. Subaru was forcefully dragged up from his steep descent and plopped headfirst onto the driver’s seat.
“Take thiiiis—!”
After dragging Subaru up with the iron ball in her right hand, Rem smashed the joint connecting the luggage compartment to the driver’s seat with her empty left hand, grasping the edge of the separated section. Instantly, the land dragon pulling the dragon carriage let out a painful neigh from the strain as the parts of the large commercial freight vehicle were torn apart.
Even if half of it was gone, it was a supersize bullet made of almost as much wood as a log cabin. It squarely struck the White Whale’s straying belly. The White Whale thrashed, its tail blasting apart the earth and the trees, kicking up clouds of dust.
“D-d-did you get it?!”
Even if Otto didn’t know what had just happened, he’d surely noticed the fact that most of his dragon carriage was missing. His voice was tinged with bitterness as he sought hope that would warrant the sacrifice.
A roar made the air tremble as an even worse mist blotted out the light. From the pressure bearing down on them from behind, one known as absolute despair, he knew that hope had been shattered.
“Wh-why is it only after us…? Aren’t there other carriages?!”
Otto let out a lament as he cursed the misfortune that had befallen him. He blamed the sheer irrationality of the other eight carriages being ignored while his was attacked. Subaru felt the same way, but he swallowed his complaints when Otto launched a string of curses. He felt like he was getting a good, hard look at an ugly truth—against the Witch Cult, he and the others Subaru brought along would have served only as sacrificial pawns, or perhaps meat shields.
“Besides, cursing my fate won’t change a thing…”
The menace of the White Whale continued to press upon them from behind, swimming through the sky faster than the land dragon. Even though the land dragon was running with a lightened load now that they had abandoned the freight, it was only a matter of time before the whale caught up.
“Think, think, think. There has to be a way, something, somethin g…!”
Subaru desperately put his head to work, but no plan for a counterattack came to mind. With a sense of urgency weighing on him and the night mist so thick that he couldn’t see his own feet, Subaru couldn’t find even a single hint.
And as time idly wasted away, fate forced yet another difficult choice upon Subaru.
The carriage was heavily rocked. As Subaru clung to the floor, Rem approached. She should have been shaken, too, but she didn’t seem bothered by it as she nestled close.
“Subaru. Please take this.”
“What?! Did you think of something?! Now we can do something ab—”
Believing that Rem might have come up with an off-the-wall plan to escape the crisis, Subaru lifted his head as she pushed a small sack onto him. From the heavy weight, he immediately realized it was the traveling money.
What use would money have at a time like this…?
Feeling a deep chill at Rem’s offer, Subaru’s cheeks stretched into a stiff smile.
“R-Rem…? I know there’s a coin-toss skill to at least knock someone off balance, but that’s just in games…”
“I will get off the dragon carriage and counterattack. During that time, please cut through the mist, Subaru.”
Though Subaru tried to deny reality with a joke, the firmness of Rem’s voice shattered the effort.
Rem turned, facing Otto instead of Subaru.
“Master Otto. Please take care of Subaru. He is able to pay the promised reward— Cut through the mist and report the appearance of the White Whale to the Mathers domain.”
Otto, not having heard the previous exchange, replied, “R- reward…? There’s no time for that! Right now, our v-very lives hang in the balance!”
Despite his protest, Rem was relieved to see that he was earnestly making his land dragon run so that he might live. Her lips softened as she looked back at Subaru.
“Subaru, please forgive me. I am not very bright, so this is the only plan I can think of…”
“W-wait, Rem! You said to report about the White Whale showing up, didn’t you? Don’t tell me…you don’t plan on coming back alive?”
Subaru desperately tried to make Rem reconsider the tragic decision she had made.
Even though the darkness that had befallen them continued to blot out the rest of the world, for some reason, the only thing he could see clearly was Rem’s face before his eyes.
“I won’t let you go! I won’t let you! If you… If you die, too, I’ll…!”
As Rem stood before him, Subaru dropped the money sack to his feet, putting his hands on Rem’s hips and pulling her to him. He wrapped his arms around her petite figure so that she could not withdraw. If he loosened his arms, he would be releasing Rem’s life to fly away, too.
He had to at least stop that. At least that—
“Ahh…”
With emotions raging within her, nearly enough to bring her to tears, Rem let out a heated breath as she accepted his embrace. As she looked up at Subaru, holding her in his arms, she lowered her gaze with a charming smile on her lips, seemingly enthralled by the sound of his voice.
“I was surely born for this very moment…”
“What are you sa…?”
Saying , but his mouth wouldn’t form the word.
Something hit the back of Subaru’s neck, and it seemed like the whole world had turned upside down. Rem had stretched out an arm, as if to hug him back, and delivered a chop to the back of his head. Strength drained from Subaru’s body, and he crumpled against Rem.
“Re…m… What did you…?”
Not only was the swaying of the dragon carriage affecting his vision, but it was swallowing his fading consciousness as well. Subaru desperately clung to Rem as it became difficult to even hold his head aloft.
Rem gazed affectionately at Subaru as he struggled. Then, she gently brought her lips to Subaru’s ear, whispering as if to reach the last remaining shred of his consciousness.
“It’s all right, Subaru. I will always be watching you from behind.”
You don’t need to do anything. Just always be right there behind me.
Those had been Subaru’s words to Rem on the morning of their departure.
Hence, just as he had said, she now stood behind him—as his rear guard.
“No…I never intended…”
“Subaru. I—”
His mind fell away.
It grew distant and went white.
For a moment, he felt like someone was embracing him strongly.
He felt something soft touch his forehead and then immediately depart.
And that was the last thing he knew.
7
—.
.
Ah.
He could feel the repeated rocking and jolting of the carriage, as well as something bumping into his head over and over. Gradually, it called to Subaru’s blanked-out mind, bringing him back to reality.
He tried to lift his head and sit up, but the rocking was fighting him. His hand was slippery, and he was about to fall onto the floor headfirst once more, but this was averted because something heavy was pressing down on his belly.
The pressure on his gut came from something hard. When his hand touched it, he knew from the texture that it was money of some sort, and the memories from just before his consciousness faded rushed from back of his mind.
“—Rem?!”
“Mr. Natsuki?! You’re awake?!”
Subaru cast aside the bag of traveling money on his stomach, remaining seated and leaning back on his hands as he looked around. The world was still mired in darkness, but the sound of violent shaking told him that he was still on the dragon carriage.
And noticing that Subaru was up, Otto turned his head to check on him. Subaru was trying to get up when Otto raised his voice, still looking back from the driver’s seat.
“Please do not move! You hit your head and the carriage’s blessing has been gone for some time. Even now, the land dragon is running with all its strength; I have no time to be concerned about you, Mr. Natsuki!”
“Never mind any of that! Rem, what happened to Rem?!”
Shouting back, Subaru searched every corner of the driver’s seat for the girl. Without the wagon, the dragon carriage was very cramped. Anyone would understand in an instant that there was no need to search.
Yet even so, until he checked for himself, he just couldn’t accept that she wasn’t there.
“Answer me, Otto. What happened to Rem…?!”
“That young lady…”
Realizing that Subaru’s voice was rough, agitated enough that he might pounce at any moment, Otto no doubt hesitated to reply because he knew how dangerous things were.
“…disembarked from our dragon carriage to engage the White Whale…so that we could have a chance to escape.”
This told Subaru that the exchange just before he’d lost consciousness was no dream or illusion but fact.
“—”
Having dragged the answer out of the man, Subaru sucked in his breath but once. Then, he said, “Turn back.”
“…Huh?”
“I said, turn back. Rem—we have to save her! Turn back right now!”
Subaru leaped into the narrow driver’s seat and grabbed Otto by his collar. Confused and still occupied with controlling the land dragon, Otto was unable to respond to Subaru’s act of violence. His face went pale as his collar was grabbed.
“A-are you serious?! Turn back… Turn back and do what?! Did you not see how terrifying that monster is?! It’s suicide!”
“I’m telling you to go back to where we saw the monster so we can save Rem, damn it!!”
When Otto refused his command, a vein bulged on Subaru’s forehead as he shouted in anger.
The menace of the White Whale had been burned into Subaru’s very eyes. The giant creature swam through the air faster than a land dragon could run; a single, casual slap of its tail could rend a carriage asunder. Even within the blinding mist, it unerringly located its prey; even Rem’s magic hadn’t inflicted any damage.
Without doubt, it was the largest and mightiest of all the foes he had seen since arriving in this other world. Compared to the menace it posed, dealing with Elsa, classified as a human being, and the pack of countless Urugarum was far easier to plan for.
But he couldn’t even dream of a way to defeat a monster on that scale.
“And Rem couldn’t, either… We can’t just leave her. If we do that…!”
Subaru was well aware of how strong Rem was in her Oni state. But his familiarity with her abilities meant he could plainly state that it meant nothing before the might of the White Whale.
If he left Rem behind, he would lose her for certain. Then everything would be pointless. Then there would be no meaning in Subaru surviving. Rem was an irreplaceable part of the future Subaru desired.
If she wasn’t there, Subaru would lose sight of even his own self. He would have no one to accept him. Subaru needed her to give him affirmation.
“I won’t let her sacrifice herself to buy time! Turn back right now, Otto! If you don’t…”
“Have you lost your mind?!”
However, Otto’s angry shout interrupted Subaru’s plea. Still grasping Otto’s collar, he felt a squeeze on the back of his wrist; in the next moment, he was slammed against the driver’s seat back first.
“Agah!”
“You think you can force a traveling merchant tearing down a highway without a blessing? You underestimate me!”
With Subaru facedown, Otto twisted the wrist in his hand, straining Subaru’s shoulder to its limit—still grasping the reins with his other hand all the while.
“At any rate, calm down! Look at yourself. What can you do in a state like this? Do you plan to put to waste the feelings that girl left behind?”
“Don’t you talk about Rem! You left her… You left Rem to die! You have no right to talk about her! Turn back! Save Rem right now…!”
“Ahh, goodness! You’re not listening! Please regain your composure!”
Subaru chewed Otto out as he writhed, struggling to get his pinned arm loose. Meanwhile, Otto gazed at the road ahead as the land dragon ran down the center.
“You still don’t understand how terrifying the White Whale is?! There are many tales of those who tried to kill it, ever since it descended upon the world centuries ago! Don’t you get it?!”
Misery clouded Otto’s face as he ranted at the obstinate Subaru.
“They couldn’t kill it, even with hundreds challenging it all at once! We don’t even have weapons or power to fight with, so what can we do?! Stand before it and rescue the girl?! We can’t do that! There’s no way!”
“Shut up already! I’ve heard all that bef—”
“Then it should be obvious! Even when the Kingdom of Lugunica assembled a great expeditionary force to quell it, the monster killed the last Sword Saint! We can’t beat it!”
Otto’s face trembled with bitter regret as he unwillingly confessed the truth. Otto, too, held great rage toward the White Whale that would never fade. But even so, the menace of the White Whale that stirred his anger was untouchable for man.
To teach the ignorant Subaru the error of his ways, Otto had to force himself to acknowledge the enormity of the White Whale, experiencing heartbreaking pain in the process.
“It killed…a Sword Saint…?”
As Otto bared his soul, a part of the story Subaru had never heard before took the wind from his sails. Sword Saint —that was the title granted to the most powerful human being Subaru had laid eyes upon since being summoned to that world. To Subaru, it was the very symbol of strength without equal.
It was not for certain that the previous Sword Saint could not boast the same strength as Reinhard, the epitome of “The Mightiest of All.” But if the person bearing a title equal to Reinhard was someone with comparable power, and the White Whale killed that person…
“It’s stronger than Reinhard…?”
A monster surpassing the mightiest of all beings could only be called the worst of all calamities.
In short order, Subaru lost the baseless feeling of urgency pressing against his spine. Without the thing pushing him forward, Subaru realized that he lacked the strength to even sit up.
“What am I doing…? This ain’t the time to be lying down on the j…”
He wanted to save Rem. He wanted to rescue her. If he didn’t turn back now, that wish could not be granted. Yet, even though his heart understood, none of the will to fight reached to his limbs. His soul was too weak.
Otto released Subaru from the hold, and with pity in his voice, he said, “I am weak, and so are you. That is why we cannot save her—we cannot hold a candle to her strength.”
—But deep down, Rem wasn’t strong, either.
Even though Subaru knew that, surely had always known that, he could say nothing.
He hung his head as the shaking dragon carriage jostled his body. The land dragon continued forging ahead straight through the night mist.
Rem remained behind them, abandoned as the dragon carriage grew distant, pulling Subaru farther and farther from her.
“—”
He stayed bent over like that as time passed—maybe five minutes, maybe ten.
“Mr. Natsuki, that’s…”
Otto, having made the land dragon run in silence until then, seemed to doubt his own eyes as he called out to Subaru. Subaru lifted his head and clawed his way to sit beside Otto on the driver’s seat, looking in the same direction—and found a light flickering amid the darkness.
“There is mist in the way, but…that is the light of a crystal lamp!”
“We made it…out of the mist…?”
“Even if we have, we are still on the highway at night, so any light is unnatural. It’s probably someone who was caught in the mist, just like we were…!”
As if to support Otto’s deduction, the other party seemed to have noticed them, too. About half a minute later, a dragon carriage, and the man driving it, emerged from the mist.
“F-finally someone…! Hey, this is just mist, right?! Don’t tell me this is the White Whale?!”
The man in his prime was frothing at the corners of his lips as he desperately shouted, falling into a state of terror. When he saw Subaru and Otto in the night mist, he must have clung to the hope that they were saviors of some sort. Tensely, he tried to deny the obvious, but Otto shook his head.
“I’m afraid that it is. We have already encountered the whale ourselves. Fortunately, we should have shaken it off by now, but until one leaves the mist, you never know where it will appear.”
“F-for real…?! Ahh, this is terrible. Why, why did this happen to me…?”
After a sidelong glance at the man clutching his head, lost in his personal lament, Subaru glared at Otto, seated beside him—his use of the word fortunately sounded like Otto had already shed his guilt at leaving Rem behind.
“Otto, watch what you say.”
“What is it, Mr. Natsuki?”
“I’m telling you not to make light of things. ‘Fortunately’…? That ain’t funny. What do you think Rem went through when she…?”
As far as leaving Rem was concerned, Subaru and Otto stood in the exact same place. Despite that, Subaru was angry when he thought about Rem—an effort to assuage his own feelings of guilt.
Subaru understood. He’d understood all along. The idea that Rem, left behind, would stand before the White Whale, exercising her wits, and survive—it was nothing but a fantasy, not even wishful thinking.
There, inside that mist on the third time around, Rem had died—again—to save him…
“Rem? Who is that?”
His thoughts of Rem’s tragic resolve were undermined with shocking ease.
“—Huh?”
“Er, I mean, who is this Rem? There was no one by that name among the traveling merchants who scattered… Of whom are you speaking?”
Otto tilted his head, not understanding what Subaru had meant.
To Subaru, that casual treatment toward her existence was like trampling mud all over her noble spirit.
—He swung his fist into the side of Otto’s face at full force.
Instantly, the reins communicated the chaos atop the vehicle to the land dragon, resulting in the dragon carriage swerving violently to the right. Having lost his footing, Subaru crashed backward onto the driver’s seat as the man he’d just struck hit the seat on his side.
“Wh-what was that for?!”
“Don’t mess with me!”
Unbelievable , said Otto’s wide-open eyes in response to Subaru’s act of violence, but Otto’s words and actions were just as unbelievable to Subaru.
“What the hell are you saying…?! Asking who Rem is? She’s the girl who stayed behind so we could get away! Don’t mess with me! Do you have a death wish…?!”
“I’m telling you, I don’t understand what you’re saying!! You’re just spouting strange things all of a sudden… Did seeing the White Whale drive you mad?!”
Even in the face of Subaru’s accusation, Otto proclaimed his own innocence.
Subaru’s field of vision was dyed crimson by fierce, irrepressible emotions. The passage of every second felt agonizingly slow as the bloodlust seething through him commanded him to snap the slender neck of the man before him. And just as his hands stretched out to wring the life out of the ingrate—
The man in the dragon carriage alongside them, in shock as he saw the angry quarrel on the verge of escalating to murder, shouted to try and stop them.
“What are you two doing?! This isn’t the time to argue! We have to get out of the m—”
But his voice did not reach the two and was lost in the heat of the moment.
It was man’s next action after he spoke that broke up the ugly dispute.
“Getting out of the mist and running from the White Whale comes first, doesn’t—?”
The man was continuing his realistic, heartfelt logic. Behind him, the dragon carriage was sucked into the giant mouth of the White Whale, vanishing from Subaru’s and Otto’s field of vision in the span of a single second.
The head of the White Whale turned upward, swallowing the dragon carriage and land dragon whole in a single, enormously weighty bite.
As wood and steel were crunched together, the land dragon let out a death cry as its flesh was ground between the millstone-like teeth. The great scream and the sound of its annihilation drowned out the voice of the man, no doubt similarly turned to mincemeat.
“Wh…y—?”
The silent approach of the enormous creature shocked both Subaru and Otto beyond words. Otto’s knees trembled as he beheld the awesome spectacle of the White Whale once more; Subaru’s eyes were wide, unblinking.
“Why are…you here…?”
The White Whale, still alive and well, did not pay the slightest attention to the two little people right beside it as it licked its lips, savoring the dinner spreading through its mouth.
“Your being here…means…”
What happened to the girl who had stayed behind to draw away the monster? With the overwhelming creature before him, he couldn’t help but demand an answer.
Naturally, the White Whale offered none. Having finished its chewing, it moved its giant eye down to look at the dragon carriage beside it—and Subaru—as it assessed its next prey.
“Uaaaaaahhhhh—!!”
Otto shouted, cracking under the pressure before the creature even moved.
The land dragon, also panicking due to the White Whale’s presence, increased its pace to a gallop without a command from its master. The distance between them and the monster widened in the span of an instant, but then the White Whale swam faster.
“Why, why, why, why…? We should have shaken it off; why is it…?!”
On the driver’s seat of the accelerating dragon carriage, Subaru remained sunk in despondency. Otto, driven to the edge of his wits, wailed as they cut from the right of the head to the left.
“Why is it after only us this stubbornly…?! In all this darkness… Why…?! Do I have s-some sort of target painted on my back…?!”
Otto wailed as he took the crystal lamp attached to the dragon carriage and threw it away. Even if it was futile, he wanted to hide from the White Whale’s eye even if only for a tiny moment longer. But Otto’s shout suddenly called an image to the back of Subaru’s mind.
During his lament, Otto had wondered aloud if there was a bull’s-eye on the two of them that the White Whale was doggedly following. If there was any reason why it was so focused on them, then—
“It couldn’t be…”
Subaru pulled himself up to the driver’s seat, doubting his own eyes as he stared toward the White Whale swimming behind them. Within the night mists, the darkness all around obscured the creature’s giant frame. However, when Subaru strained his eyes, he could just make out something on the head of the White Whale facing them.
He saw a twisted, spiraling horn protruding from its head.
—With his own eyes, he’d also seen horns on the Urugarum, the wild demon beasts living in the forest around the mansion that resembled oversize dogs. And he’d learned from experience that those demon beasts, said to be born from the power of the Witch, were attracted to her scent, given off by Subaru. In other words…
“…That monster…the White Whale is a demon beast, too…?”
When he voiced the hard-to-believe possibility, he shook his head at the unpalatable reality. But when he thought about it, everything fit.
It explained why the White Whale had found their dragon carriage first out of all the ones that had scattered. It explained why it had obstinately pursued Otto from the moment Subaru had come aboard.
It explained why the creature had pursued that dragon carriage after Rem had resigned herself to death to buy them time.
He recalled how Rem had hesitated to tell him something about the White Whale as it pursued them through the darkness. That was when Rem had realized it.
“The White Whale…is drawn to my body…?”
The White Whale had assaulted them in pursuit of Subaru—in pursuit of the scent of the Witch. Rem had realized that fact before anyone else; to protect Subaru, she’d disembarked from the dragon carriage in a bid for more time.
To protect Subaru. For Subaru’s sake alone.
“No, Rem… Because of me… Because of me…!”
Subaru lowered his head and sank down, fighting back the overflowing sorrow within him. The knowledge that Rem was gone, and that he bore all the responsibility for losing her, weighed heavily on both Subaru’s mind and body.
“Mr. Natsuki…”
Stricken by despair, Subaru felt Otto pat his shoulder from behind. His fingers were shaking, his voice dry. He trembled as he looked in Otto’s direction.
“Otto, I…”
“Please die.”
The next moment, the shove to Subaru’s shoulder easily sent him tumbling from the dragon carriage.
“—Huh?”
His field of vision inverted as he violently tumbled down, losing track of which way was up. Amid the chaos of his vision, he saw Otto loudly laughing. His mouth was open so wide that Subaru could see his white molars, spit dribbling from the corners of his mouth as he spoke.
“I-it’s your fault! I-if you’re why it’s after us, then take responsibility! Ah-ha-ha! Die! Die and save meee!”
Hearing Otto’s maniacal laughter, Subaru realized that his mind had completely snapped. Otto had been driven to the edge. Overhearing Subaru’s frail murmur, he clung to the tiniest of hopes, not bothering to ask for confirmation before shoving him to his doom.
Right around the time Subaru realized this, his body reached the ground.
His back slammed mercilessly against the earth. Without hyperbole, the pain was like he had broken every bone in his body. Crying painfully as his internal organs were crushed, he spat out blood and kept rolling.
The impact was hard enough to dull even his ability to register pain.
Subaru vomited bile and blood over and over, raising his wobbly head. He could hear the far-off, fleeing dragon carriage from which he had been shoved.
Oddly, no words of reproach came to mind.
Granted, he was in far too much pain and suffering to voice any complaint, but even ignoring that, he just didn’t have the heart to fault Otto. The merchant had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time and shoved off Subaru in a desperate struggle to survive. Maybe Subaru forgave him because he could hardly have been expected to do otherwise.
“Ehuh! Guheh!”
Such sentiments, the taste of blood filling the inside of his mouth, the ferocious pain his body was trying to remember…
“—”
…all these things were forgotten when the overwhelmingly huge creature showed itself before him.
—With a single glance, Subaru came to understand just how foolish it was to defy this awesome and terrible menace.
As Subaru lay prone, the White Whale was close enough to touch, expelling putrid breath out of its incomprehensibly huge mouth as it examined the tiny being before it. To the body of a diminutive man, a mere exhalation from the White Whale was a ferocious gale. Subaru, unable to support his own body, was sent rolling across the ground with that single burst of air.
“—”
Then, while Subaru writhed with agony, the White Whale remained silent as it looked down at him, almost as if toying with him.
A word like careless did not apply to the creature as it casually loitered in place. The difference between them was simply that great. It would have been like an ant challenging an elephant or a man challenging a whale under the ocean’s waves.
Inside Subaru’s head, overwhelmed by pain and nausea, he knew he was feeling death drawing near. It was a feeling of despair that he had felt several times over.
Slowly but surely, he was keenly aware of the despondency from what he had lost and his helplessness, that once more he had left the things he had to do unfinished. The emotions came to him like old friends, wrapping their arms around his shoulders like best buds as they laughed at his embarrassing troubles and his laughable struggles.
He no longer had any idea what had gone wrong. But now that Rem was lost to him, Subaru had nothing left.
He chuckled at himself for his ridiculous attempts at resistance and survival, even in his pathetic state.
Stupid. Worthless. The lowliest of all lives, with nothing left to do whatsoever.
He felt the White Whale, right before him, drawing its nose close.
Its open mouth was lined with the unyielding teeth that had chewed up even hard-scaled land dragons with ease.
These teeth would bite down on him, chewing and grinding his flesh, bones, and very soul.
His lips quivered, trying to say something defiant, like, “Kill me already,” or, “Hurry up and do it.”
“I don’t…wanna die…”
This time, Subaru truly despaired at how he was too weak to manage even that.
Inside his chest, a sense of powerlessness like none he’d ever had before impaled him like a cold blade. His blood froze throughout his body. He despaired as everything in front of him turned black.
“N-no…I don’t wanna die! Save— I don’t wanna die… I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die… No, no, no… Save me, Rem, save me…!”
Tearful words and whimpers poured out of his mouth as the inevitable end to his miserable life drew near.
It was pathetic. Repulsive. It could be called only a truly shameful sight. Anyone would avert their eyes at the spectacle and scoff at him. No doubt it would have hurt to even watch. He could not cling to life like this and hold on to his dignity as a human, too.
It was wretched. Even bugs were more adorable and lived with more pride. This self-pitying boy, too filthy to count as a higher life-form worthy of respect, was truly “the greed of a pig.”
“N-no…I don’t wanna die… Save me…”
Even so, he crawled in an effort to escape, grasping for whatever possibility might let him keep his life.
His body, its strength exhausted, would go no farther. His fingertips merely pawed at the grass, lacking the power to claw the soil. Even the will to cry was now lost to him. Rolling onto his side was his final act of physical resistance.
“I don’t wanna die…!”
Then he rolled onto his back, a plea for his life trickling out of his mouth.
That was his final struggle to live.
He could do nothing more. He could think no more. He could only await the inevitable.
Yet even so, no matter how long Subaru waited, the blow that would end him never arrived.
Though his old friend, the aura of death, preceded the bite that would be his violent end…it never came.
The terror of knowing the end was near, but not when, was something that easily wrecked the human heart. As unendurable terror gripped him, Subaru forced his trembling body to comply. His gaze shifted around, and he sought an end to his despair, when…
“…Eh?”
…he realized that the White Whale, supposedly drawing nearer with every moment, was nowhere to be found.
8
From there on, desperately clinging to life was the only thing that kept Subaru going.
“I don’t wanna die… I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die…”
He was out of breath, tottering on his feet, with droplets of blood in his eyes clouding his vision. But Subaru took no heed as he ran. It changed nothing; he’d been lost in darkness and mist to start with.
Within the embrace of the moonless, starless night, Subaru couldn’t even see his own feet. Or perhaps the White Whale had swallowed him long ago and he simply hadn’t realized it. Perhaps, even in that very moment, he was in the belly of the demon beast, running only toward his own doom…
“Hic.”
Amid the darkness, Subaru kept running and running, all alone.
He had lost Rem, Otto had abandoned him, even the White Whale had left him behind.
He didn’t know why I don’t wanna die was the only thought he had.
What meaning was there in living? What meaning was there in not dying?
Perhaps the incoherent thought rose to the fore as a simple, instinctive means of protecting himself from fear and pain. It was disgusting how, even at that juncture, his self-pity was at work.
“—Ah?”
As he berated himself to no end, the mist suddenly, and without the slightest fanfare, fell away.
Subaru crumpled to the ground with an expression of disbelief at the abrupt end to the darkness that he thought would continue forever. Soft moonlight poured down on him as it sunk in that he had survived.
Subaru, feeling blood flowing through his limbs once more, stretched both hands toward the night sky. What made him do so was not unbridled joy at grabbing hold of life.
“I did it again…”
He despaired at himself, having once more cheated death after another wretched struggle.
Having obtained the life he had so craved, Subaru could take little joy in it. An unquenchable sense of guilt burned in his chest, and his shame at forgetting about her almost made him crave death again.
“Rem… Rem…!”
Covering his face, he called her name as irrepressible hot tears continued pouring out from him. In so doing, Subaru sought her forgiveness so that his own soul might find comfort.
He rubbed his head against the soil as he wept. He didn’t know how much time passed like that until he heard a slow creaking sound drawing closer to the hunched-over boy.
“Y-you’re…”
It was a land dragon, pulling the bloodstained remnants of what had once been its carriage.
He remembered it. There was no mistake—it was Otto’s land dragon. But there was no sign of the young man who had shoved Subaru off.
“Why are you…? Where is he? Where’s Otto?”
Though he voiced the question, he of course received no reply. The land dragon tottered closer; Subaru, in turn, rose and walked toward it. As Subaru looked up at the cruelly damaged animal, he realized it.
—The driver’s seat was stained with blood, impaled with crucifix-like daggers.
Someone had attacked when they’d left the mist.
Subaru couldn’t even imagine what despair Otto must have felt, having gone mad and even leaving Subaru to die in his efforts to escape with his life, only to be ambushed afterward. But the fact that his land dragon was alone made it all too clear what had resulted.
“…Let’s go.”
With a muted murmur, Subaru dragged his pain-racked body up onto the driver’s seat. Grasping the reins with his right hand, which was somehow still functional, he did as he’d seen others do and ordered the land dragon to move out with a flick.
Sensing someone not his master through the reins, the beast looked up at Subaru with its round eyes, seemingly at a loss. But when Subaru flicked the reins once more, it gently began moving down the highway.
—Under the gleam of the silvery moon, the land dragon smoothly ran along.
The man and land dragon, having both lost someone precious, were licking each other’s wounds in a sense as they bathed in the soft, soft laughter of the moon and the stars.
Gently, gently, the land dragon continued to run.
And kept running.
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