Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 

THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE WHALE 

1 

With Duchess Crusch Karsten at the head, the latest expedition to defeat the White Whale set forth. 

It was the first operation of its kind since the Great Expedition of fourteen years prior, undertaken with the expectation of fierce combat few would ever see. 

The expeditionary force assembled for the campaign was under Crusch’s command—with Wilhelm van Astrea, member of the family of Sword Saints, appointed as captain. 

The troops serving under Wilhelm were divided into fifteen platoons, with each headed by one of the old veterans who had attended Crusch’s address in the great hall. Each platoon was composed of fifteen men, so the combined force under Crusch’s command numbered roughly 220. 

However, the total combat strength was not limited to that. A wagon train under Russel’s command was apparently running ahead of them to the site of the decisive battle, the Great Flugel Tree, so they could begin transporting the supplies necessary for deployment. 

On top of that, thirteen members of the beast-man mercenary group Iron Fangs, on loan from Anastasia, had joined under Ricardo’s command. Ricardo was in overall command with two lieutenants reporting to him. 

And the “lieutenants” of the Iron Fangs were… 

“I’m Mimi!” 

“I’m Hetaro!” 

With great energy, the two kitten-like beast people waved, then politely bowed. 

They had orange fur, and their heads didn’t even reach up to Subaru’s hips. They had adorable faces, and really, the snow-white robes covering them up to their necks suited them very well, so if Subaru was to put his thoughts bluntly— 

“They’re so cute I wanna steal them for myself!” 

“The miss says that a lot, too!” 

“Th-there you go saying that again, Big Sis…” 

The girl calling herself Mimi laughed vibrantly at Subaru’s thought, with the young boy calling himself Hetaro appearing oddly ruffled as he rebuked her. Based on how he addressed her, they were siblings—probably twins. They looked like a tomboyish older sister with a straitlaced, docile younger brother following in her wake. 

Subaru had no objection to the charm, but what mattered here wasn’t appearance but ability. They weren’t heading off to a picnic. 

“So it’s not that I’m doubting you, but…you’re really lieutenants?” 

“Mm? Mister, have you met Mimi somewhere before? Mmmm, I can’t remember, but it really feels like it…!” 

Mimi crossed her arms and cocked her head, but Subaru glossed it over with a strained smile. 

It couldn’t be helped that she didn’t remember him. To Subaru, the first time he met Mimi was during the events of the last go-around. Furthermore, it wasn’t an occasion he wanted to remember. 

However, then and now, Mimi’s bottomless cheer was completely unchanged… 

“Don’t worry about it. My name’s Subaru Natsuki. So are you two good?” 

“Okay, won’t worry! And Mimi and Hetaro are the best! If TB’s with us, we’re even stronger! Super bestest! Ka-ching!” 

“Errr, yes, that’s right. Big Sis and I will both work hard.” 

The younger brother took the reins of his boastful older sister and somehow brought her under control. Watching the two, Subaru had to wonder if that world had any older sisters besides ones making the younger sibling follow in their footsteps. 

“—? What is the matter, Subaru?” 

When Subaru, harboring that question, looked at Rem, she tilted her head with a questioning expression and an adorable smile. At that point, Subaru cleared his throat, turning back to face Mimi as he said, “Well that is an awful lot of confidence. Lieutenant’s not something you can be unless you’re hot stuff.” 

“In place of the captain and Big Sis, I give orders out to everyone else.” 

“Ahh, I see… Tough job, huh.” 

Subaru imagined the older sister running alongside the belligerent giant, dashing across the battlefield with a hearty laugh. That would mean, lieutenant or not, Hetaro was the only one actually performing the appropriate duties. The cute older sister was like an image of naive recklessness drawn by a child. 

“We will follow Lady Crusch’s commands to the extent possible, but we have our own ways of fighting. I thought it was best to inform you of this to minimize chaos, Mr. Natsuki… Er, Mr. Natsuki?” 

“No, I’m just impressed you’re so sharp and serious. That attention to detail is comparable to Rem.” 

“Mm-hmm, he’s just amazing!” 

“Now you’ll make Big Sis get carried away again… So cute.” 

For some reason, Mimi was the one to puff her chest out in pride when she saw Subaru’s frank assessment of Hetaro. Hetaro had a constrained look on his face from Mimi’s reaction, only to slip in what he really thought at the very end. 

Subaru added the drawback of overly spoiled big sisters to the list of high-spec misgivings he had about twins of that world. Hetaro was in Rem’s league on that point, too. Growing up with Mimi surely had no small amount of influence on Hetaro. 

Having finished meeting the siblings, Subaru glanced at his cell phone to check the time. 

—Twelve hours remained until the White Whale was scheduled to appear. 

They had about half the distance left to their destination, likely giving them about five hours after arrival until the decisive battle. 

“Once we get to the Great Tree, we’ll have to go over the operation one last time… It seems like having me running around is gonna create a fair bit of chaos.” 

“This time, you will have me by your side, Subaru—I won’t allow a repeat of what happened when we fought the Urugarum.” 

Rem replied to Subaru’s comment with quiet resolve burning in her eyes. 

“I really am opposed to this. I believe using the scent of the Witch to lure the White Whale is too dangerous…and in the first place, the fact that the scent comes from you is…” 

“I’ll use anything I can. If it adds a tenth of a percent to the win rate, that’s a bet I’ll take. I come up short on so many levels, if I don’t do even this, I’ll never make up for it.” 

“You are amazing, Subaru.” 

Even faced with Subaru’s determination, this was one thing Rem stubbornly refused to let go of. The way she seemed to pout as she turned her face away was a rare display of a flood of emotions, making Subaru’s smile not so much strained as very, very soft. 

Subaru felt all too keenly the obvious change in Rem’s demeanor in the last half day. Ever since the demon beast incident, he’d been convinced Rem had opened her heart to him, but it was only the previous day that their hearts had connected in a true sense. 

Perhaps Rem had sensed that where time had stopped, it had begun to move once more. Truly, it was so. 

That was why— 

“I wanna win this.” 

Quietly, Subaru voiced that hope. 

At present, things had proceeded apace to a degree he couldn’t even have imagined during prior go-arounds. Where no one would listen to him no matter how much he pleaded, this time, they accepted his request. Relations with the Crusch camp, destined for rupture, were good. Setting aside the exposure of all the embarrassing things inside him, it was no boast to say his relationship with Rem was now a far stronger bond. 

But on the other hand, it was a fact that things had developed in a way more perilous than ever before. 

Even in that moment, the menace of the White Whale was seared into Subaru’s mind, clear as day. Even Rem’s might had proved completely unequal to the task against its huge, flying frame, able to send a dragon carriage flying in pieces with not even an attack but a flick of its tail. Its open maw swallowed a land dragon and the ground under it whole; its death cries, when those vile, millstone-like teeth ground its flesh, would never leave his ears. 

Just the thought that he was heading to face that thing made his limbs tremble, but he couldn’t stop running forward. 

Yet, even as Subaru’s mind backslid toward weakness… 

“ ? ” 

Rem, sitting beside him, peered at Subaru as if she could see straight into his mind. 

A weak, helpless Subaru Natsuki could not be permitted before Rem’s eyes. 

“Even I know that resolve doesn’t make everything okay, but…” 

Even if he’d stopped being a pessimist, that didn’t mean his fortunes had improved dramatically. The route he was on held even greater danger ahead, yet he absolutely couldn’t say preparations were ideal. 

All Subaru could do was what he thought best in the limited time available to him, calling on the girls and their allies for aid and leaving all the rest that lay ahead to the power of others. That said, Crusch and the others sought nothing further from Subaru, which was absolutely not because they were maltreating Subaru as a useless troublemaker. 

But when the time came, he’d do whatever he could with everything he had. 

Because the things Subaru could do occupied such a narrow range, he had to at least firmly grasp the range’s breadth, thinking of what he could do within those limits. 

“In other words, it’s the same as usual. Guess that goes without saying, though.” 

“What’s up, bro—? That’s a determined-lookin’ face you got there.” 

Abruptly, Ricardo, riding alongside the line of dragon carriages, observed Subaru, laughing as he spoke. 

Glaring back at the dog-headed beast man, Subaru firmly twisted the corners of his lips. 

“That’s right. Took long enough, but it’s rock solid. I’m really something when I’ve set my mind, okay? Whatever happens, I’m not givin’ up on the future, even if it kills me.” 

“That’s a man’s words there! The lady’s gonna be real happy to hear that! Like I figured, you’re just the friend the lady needs!” 

“I don’t think shaking her hand away from the big stage is a bad thing, either… Ah, but if I get along nicely with Anastasia, there’s a troublesome guy there, too…” 

Remembering Anastasia made him remember the sight of a handsome man beside her as a package deal. 

Even his beating at the parade grounds at Julius’s hand seemed like a long time ago. He’d experienced time on the level of weeks, even though it had been only five days or so in actual time lapsed. 

Then, Subaru’s words brought a huge, irrepressible smile over Ricardo’s big mouth. 

From the reaction and the teasing look in his eyes, it seemed he’d heard all about Subaru’s humiliation. Naturally, Subaru turned his face away in a visible sulk. 

“If you’re gonna laugh, laugh nice and hard. Even I can now appreciate just how little I read the mood back then.” 

“Hey, wait up! It’s not that I’m findin’ funny, it’s somethin’ else. Well, you’ll figure it out on your own, so dumpin’ it all out here would be just rude!” 

Thus self-convinced, Ricardo stroked his own mane as he cut the topic off. The suggestive behavior tugged at Subaru, but even if he pressed the point, odds of a reply were slim. 

“Incidentally, I’ve been meaning to ask you something since we set out…” 

“What? Ask me anythin’. We’re buds, bro! If it’s not crazy stuff, I’ll talk about whatever! And if it is, it depends on what nails I’m steppin’ on!” 

“That part sounds like the Kararagi in you talking… I was just thinking, those huge dogish creatures you guys are riding, they’re really something else.” 

Subaru pointed below the enthused Ricardo’s rump to the creature he was riding, unsure how best to broach the subject. 

The beast mounts that Ricardo’s Iron Fangs were riding were completely different creatures from land dragons. The closest comparison was to a huge dog, but the huge frames of the carnivores rivaled that of lions and tigers from his original world, and their speed and endurance were in no way inferior to that of land dragons. 

Subaru’s comment brought an understanding expression from Ricardo as he patted the beast mount on the back. 

“You don’t see ’em much in these parts. These critters are called ligers. They’re as precious in Kararagi as land dragons are over here. They’re real territorial, so it’s tough to raise ’em, which is why there ain’t many in Lugunica or other countries.” 

“Ligers…” 

When he blinked and looked, Subaru thought he was seeing some kind of offshoot of the Urugarums he had a history with. Fortunately, there were no signs of horns on their heads, and compared with those demon beasts, their faces were clearly more adorable. If the demon beasts seemed more like wolves, he could say that the ligers definitely looked more like dogs. 

But having Ricardo, a dog-type beast man, riding on top of that super-huge dog was a little— 

“Somehow, it’s a really weird feeling, like someone should paint this…but don’t you feel awkward?” 

“Sometimes people mention that, but not really. I mean, I’m a beast man, this is an animal, big difference between us… Ah, now that you mention it, some guys might get ticked off if you say that. I don’t mind, though.” 

“Nah, I was wondering if I should say anything or not. Sorry, my bad.” 

“Gah-ha-ha, well ain’t that honest of ya!” 

Baring his teeth as he laughed, Ricardo gave the back of the liger’s neck a good rub. The liger made no reaction to its master’s action, but the way it silently indulged its owner certainly make it look like a good, loyal dog. Even with the size difference, it apparently hadn’t lost any of its canine virtues. 

“Ligers don’t have the horsepower that land dragons do, but their agility’s way up there. Just watch, a wild battle to send the whale packin’ is right up our alley!” 

“Horsepower, huh. Guess you still measure animal power like that, even with dragons and dogs all over the place… Not that I’ve actually seen a horse.” 

He’d heard straight from Emilia’s mouth that they existed, but he hadn’t actually seen one in that world yet. Apparently, their rate of use was fairly low. 

After that, Subaru pointed to the expeditionary force on the march behind them. 

“So less horsepower is why you have teams of dogs for pulling each carriage? Why not just have land dragons haul the freight? Don’t want the dogs to get tired before the main event.” 

“Hey, we’ve gotta move our own stuff ourselves. Besides, don’t worry, any liger haulin’ freight is a liger properly trained for it. We don’t spoil ’em, and no enemy’s swinging ’em off their feet, White Whale or not.” 

With a gulp, Subaru somehow stopped his internal mental turmoil from coming out onto his face. On the other hand, Ricardo failed to notice Subaru’s surprise as he spoke. 

“You never know what you’ll come across on the road, like bandits or whatever. If you take too much time, you’ll be late, and that’s the worst outcome of all. So we’ve gotta at least be able to carry stuff by ourselves.” 

“…No way there are any bandits who have the guts to attack a completely armed group like you guys. If they did, it wouldn’t be brave—it’d be a death wish.” 

“Got a point there!” 

Ricardo burst into laughter and, waving to Subaru, shifted away from the dragon carriage. He took up his post at the head of the beast mounts as other people around them looked over at the loud conversation. 

“It would seem that Master Ricardo is going around speaking like that to alleviate everyone’s tension before the battle.” 

“ ? ” 

Watching Ricardo go off into the distance, Subaru heard Rem’s soft whisper into his ear. A bitter smile crossed Subaru’s face as he realized, suddenly, that the big beast man was looking out for him. 

“And here I was thinking I’d hardened my resolve…” 

Meaning, he still seemed awful green from his senior’s perspective —even though the impending battle with the White Whale was but the first hurdle, with others waiting ahead. 

“Geez, you can say, ‘Set forth, hero,’ but it sure is easier said than done.” 

Subaru murmured very quietly so that Rem might not hear, but his cheeks formed a smile. 

The things he had to do and the things he wanted to do were one and the same, and he had someone at his back to urge him to do them—he supposed that made it all worth it. 

Their morale was at its peak on the eve of the approaching battle. 

“—Now, let’s do this, Mr. Fate.” 

2 

Fortunately, the expeditionary force safely arrived at its destination without any undue trouble. 

As scheduled, they arrived five hours early—the gleaming moon had just begun to rise on the night of the decisive battle. 

The expeditionary force deployed, linked up with the vanguard, and proceeded to inspect arms and go over the operation one last time. Naturally, Subaru participated in the discussion, and when details of the operation were hammered out, how everyone would maneuver included, any time remaining before the fight was for free action. 

And as he spent his time until the operation with various thoughts running through his head, Subaru— 

“It…sure is huuuge.” 

“You seem very happy, Subaru.” 

Looking up to the point that his neck hurt, Subaru almost couldn’t see the top of the tree because the trunk was so tall. With how it jutted up from the earth, its great roots spreading all around its base, Subaru couldn’t keep his honest feelings of excitement off his lips. 

“Men are creatures impressed by big, strong stuff by nature. I was pretty impressed the first time I saw a land dragon, but Mother Nature ain’t half-bad! That Flugel guy did good work.” 

As he touched the tree trunk, Subaru praised the work of the sage said to have planted the tree. Apparently, he was hot stuff, but no one knew what he’d done besides planting the tree; but even if that was his one great feat recorded in history, that wasn’t a problem. The name Flugel was cool, too. 

“Ah, gotta carve someone’s name into the trunk, though. We’re not students on a field trip, so it’s just, well, proper manners. Rem, lend me a carving knife.” 

“Even for you, Subaru, I will be upset if you do that, as shall others.” 

Rem gently and properly chided Subaru for his burning, rebellious desire to have his name carved. Then, as Subaru pouted, she gave him a little smile and looked up at the Great Tree. 

“This is where the White Whale shall come?” 

“Yeah, it’ll come. When it’s time, this cell pho…this metia will ring.” 

Subaru took the cell phone out of his pocket, fingering the strap to sway it left and right. The alarm had already been set to ring when the White Whale was due to emerge. 

They were the same words he’d shared during the final meeting, and the explanation for Crusch he’d racked his brains to come up with. He felt guilty at not divulging the truth, feeling like he had to make up for it by getting results. 

Of course, not exposing the truth to even Rem tugged at his heartstrings, but— 

“So this metia will alert us to the presence of a demon beast…” 

“Mm, that’s right. Put bluntly, if it wasn’t for this, my worth this time around would be right about…” 

“—That is a lie, is it not?” 

When Rem said that with narrowed eyes, Subaru was sure his heart had stopped. Letting out a voice that did not even amount to a gasp, his heartbeats belatedly restarted. 

“ ? ” 

What had Rem said to him just then? 

I must have heard her wrong , Subaru vainly hoped, but the eyes with which Rem stared at him smashed that hope to pieces. 

She had said it, and with conviction. 

“Wh-what are you talkin’ about? Ya know what they’d do to me if I was lyin’ about somethin’ like…” 

“Resorting to Kararagi dialect does not suit you, Subaru.” 

“Er, fact is, even Crusch and the others accepted it, so it can’t be a lie.” 

Glossing things over wasn’t working on Rem. Even so, Subaru tried to see the lie through, for if the truth was revealed, there was no mistaking that it would herald a worsening of the situation. If the lie was exposed, Subaru would no longer be consistent with the circumstances known to Crusch and the others, for the only way to square those inconsistencies would be to explain Return by Death. 

Of course, so long as he obeyed the taboo set in place by the Witch, he could not reveal Return by Death to anyone, all the more so because the pranks played by the Witch’s hands had finally progressed to crushing Emilia’s heart. If he had to guess who the next casualty would be, it was clear that it might very well be Rem. 

—He absolutely couldn’t let Rem know the truth. 

And yet, Rem slowly shook her head at Subaru’s excuses. 

“Crusch and the others merely decided that it was not necessary for you to lie. If you risked that, you would make an enemy of not only Lady Crusch but Lady Anastasia and all the merchants in the guild, Master Russel included. That would be meaningless.” 

“That’s…” 

It was an undeniable truth. 

Back at the negotiating table, Crusch surely could have offered any number of rebuttals to Subaru. Russel and Anastasia, seasoned negotiators both, could have done likewise. He could only conclude that the fact that they had closed their eyes to the inconsistencies and accepted negotiations regardless was not due to trust in Subaru but a judgment based on the circumstances. 

Subaru had arranged the place and the people for negotiations. There was no necessity to Subaru deceiving them. Of course, the calculation that they would think that way was one of the pieces of insurance Subaru had employed. 

But that was based on nothing more than the pros and cons of success aligning atop the thinnest of ice. 

The type of “lie” Subaru was seeing through was based on a false initial impression. And it was the kind of lie that need never be exposed if it brought results…ever. 

But it was different as far as Rem was concerned. 

Then, as ever, Rem stood as Subaru’s ally. Subaru was deeply aware that Rem was now the closest person to him in the other world. 

To continue lying to Rem held a completely different meaning than maintaining the deception with Crusch and the others. Making her accept it after she had realized it was false left an entirely different impression: namely, that he didn’t reveal the lie to Crusch and the others because the pros and cons aligned that way, but he didn’t reveal it to Rem because he didn’t trust her. 

He couldn’t help if it made her think that way, for whether she did or not, he absolutely could not reveal the truth to her… 

“Rem, I…” 

“It’s fine, Subaru.” 

“Huh?” 

Subaru planned to use words to somehow smooth things over and protect Rem. But Rem rejected that with a shake of the head, a thin smile coming over her lips. 

With Subaru too surprised to close his mouth, Rem turned a sincere look toward him and spoke. 

“I understand you enough to know when you are lying, Subaru. I have been watching you a great, great deal, after all.” 

With a bashful, blushing smile, Rem teasingly touched a finger to her lips. Then, she moved the finger in Subaru’s direction and continued. 

“I also know you won’t tell me the reason for the lie. But the fact that you won’t speak to me about it does not bother me that much, you know?” 

“ ? ” 

“After all, I believe in you, Subaru.” 

At the base of the Great Flugel Tree, a breeze passed between the two as they faced each other. 

With Subaru stunned into silence, Rem gently put a hand to her breast and stated before him, “Subaru, if you say that you know where the White Whale shall appear, I believe you. If you say the Witch Cult is after Lady Emilia and the others, I believe you. Even should you say the moon shall fall and destroy this nation, I shall believe you, Subaru.” 

“…Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far.” 

“Yes, I suppose not. But that is how serious I am.” 

The smile vanished, and Rem stared at Subaru with very serious eyes. Then, she silently lowered her hips, grasping the hem of her skirt with both hands as she curtsied. 

“I adore you with all this body and all this heart, Subaru—furthermore, now and in the future, I shall never, ever doubt you, Subaru.” 

“ ? ” 

“Therefore, it’s not necessary whatsoever to push yourself into a corner to make me believe your lie.” 

Subaru barely managed to choke back the heat welling up from his throat. 

He pressed down on the inner corners of his eyes, turned his face up, and opened his trembling mouth wide and exclaimed, “Ahh! Man, staring at this huge tree really raises the tension!” 

“Yes, I suppose so.” 

“I won’t be able to calm down unless I’m looking up at this tree! There’s no other reason at all, but I won’t be able to look down for a little while!” 

“Yes, I suppose not.” 

Subaru put on a show to keep his face turned up so that tears might not fall. It was a frail bluff on his part, but Rem, enveloped by gentle benevolence, did not call him on it. 

That moment, Subaru understood the true extent of his own idiocy all over again. 

If only he could have divulged everything to Rem from the very beginning. He couldn’t have just told her everything, but if he could have at least conveyed to her the tragedy yet to come, Subaru would no doubt have been spared having the tragedy repeated a second and a third time. 

Subaru couldn’t explain the reasons why, so he thought no one would believe him if he said anything. Thus, he decided he had to go it alone, leading to various failures over and over. 

But Rem was different. 

She wasn’t asking for a reason. She’d believe Subaru, even if he didn’t explain. Just like that moment, she forgave Subaru, in her gentle, affectionate way, for not speaking the truth. 

“This is when, instead of sorry, you say thank you, huh?” 

Having desperately held back the tears, Subaru somehow managed to face Rem once more. Rem made a beaming smile and nodded at his reply. 

“To be honest, I feel like I’ll only be able to return super-tiny little pieces of everything you’ve given me, Rem…” 

“That is not so.” 

Rem lowered her head slightly as she denied Subaru’s words. 

“I really do understand that speaking like this will only bring you suffering, Subaru. That I have spoken regardless is my own selfishness.” 

“I don’t think of it like that at all. I’m the bad one for hiding stuff.” 

“But it really is selfish of me even so. I am sorry.” 

The words were self-effacing, but when Rem lifted her face, her expression was sunny. Seeing Subaru happily falter from the inconsistent sight, Rem tilted her head. 

“I thought…it would be nice if you passed on to others a tiny bit of the load you carry. As I am now, that you had no one to do so makes me…unbearably sad.” 

“I…” 

In that moment, Rem conveyed her resolve, the firmness of her feelings. 

Subaru leaned against the trunk of the Great Tree and took a deep breath. 

“I…love Emilia.” 

“Yes.” 

He revisited the words he had once exchanged with Rem. 

He knew that the words wounded her deeply, that they were words that made her suffer, yet Subaru spoke them once more. 

However— 

“But…” 

“ ? ” 

“But when you’re with me, my heart trembles… Go ahead. You probably think I’m a terrible guy now.” 

He wondered if the word terrible even cut it. 

But they were Subaru’s honest feelings. 

For even though he knew he could not answer Rem’s hopes, only her words had warmed his heart so. 

Somehow, the breath Rem let out seemed hot as she said: 

“Truly, you are a terrible person, Subaru.” 

“…I know.” 

“That is a lie. I love you.” 

“I…I know that, geez.” 

Subaru’s face turned beet red as she stated plainly how she felt all over again. 

If it were not night, that redness would have surely stood out. Subaru turned his back, as if trying to conceal the red surface of his face, and began to walk away from the tree. 

“Time to head back,” he said. “We need to get mind and body ready right up to when the White Whale appears.” 

Before he passed in front of Rem, he grasped her dangling right hand. 

When her hand was grasped, Rem raised her voice in a little ah , but immediately hurried to match Subaru’s walking pace, staring at the side of the young man’s face, one he did not wish her to see, with teasing eyes as she said: 

“Subaru.” 

“…What?” 

“I am fine with being your second wife.” 

They were words to make a man unwittingly halt in his tracks. 

When Subaru, unable to resist, looked toward her, Rem made a face like that of an adorable puppy, seemingly wagging her tail as she awaited Subaru’s reply. 

Oh, good grief, just how far is this girl gonna—? 

“If Emilia-tan’s a very generous first wife…” 

“Well then, when we get back you must convince Lady Emilia. I shall try hard as well.” 

Rem clenched the hand not grasped into a fist, very animated as she spoke with a smile. 

Speaking jokingly like that broke all the tension, driving home to Subaru how weak he was. He truly couldn’t hold a candle to the girl. 

No man could hold a candle to a woman, be it Emilia or Rem, in that kind of situation. 

Not that he really minded accepting that particular weakness, compared with the other ones he had known to date… 

3 

With the approaching hour growing nigh, the area around the Great Tree grew taut with the tension particular to the field of battle. 

Having taken meals and sleep in shifts, the condition of the expeditionary force gathered in the battle zone was tip-top. The land dragons and ligers for the cavalry were breathing roughly through their noses, eagerly awaiting the signal. 

Everyone lowered their breaths and calmed their hearts, continuing to wait for the time to come. 

In the night sky of the Liphas Highway, the strong wind made the clouds flow quickly. 

As the clouds obstructed the moonlight, not a moment passed without gazes raised, checking to see that it was not the White Whale’s giant body swimming in the sky above. That was how much vigilance ruled the hearts of all present. 

“It is a short time until the appointed hour.” 

When Crusch made that small murmur, Ferris, standing beside her, nodded briefly, glancing from the corner of his eye. In that moment, not even Ferris, having served Crusch for so many years without ever losing that witty nuance, could voice a single jest. 

It was not that he’d been swallowed up by the strained tension. It was because Ferris knew his role—that of one of the expeditionary force’s lifelines—and had wholly set his heart upon fulfilling that duty. 

It was more than likely true that Ferris’s actions would alter the final number of victors surviving the battle. 

Crusch believed that her force would emerge victorious. But she was not so conceited as to think they could slay the White Whale without sacrifices. Nonetheless, she held self-confidence that she could mitigate the number of casualties required. 

That self-confidence came from the trust she held in Ferris, her knight, so perhaps one could question if it ought to be called self-confidence. 

“ ? ” 

The sword-armed Wilhelm stood in front of her, on the very front line of the expeditionary force. 

Of the six swords on the aged swordsman’s belt, he wielded one in each hand, poised to rush out in an instant. The quiet antagonism wafting around the Sword Devil was in a polished realm, honed to a fine point as he faced the moment for which he had so yearned. 

Crusch could not fail to be enveloped by an out-of-place sense of admiration at the Sword Devil’s sheer purity—that a person could maintain a soul so pure, so unswerving. 

Crusch thought from her heart that one day she, too, would arrive at the same realm. 

“ ? ” 

The faces of each brave warrior of the expeditionary force alongside Wilhelm had an expression of hardened resolve, their morale high. 

They obeyed Crusch’s command, but as they awaited the White Whale, surely their hearts harbored doubts of their own—both about Subaru, the primary source of information for the White Whale’s emergence, and the fact that they had far too little time to develop bonds of trust between them. 

And yet, they obeyed without a single contrary utterance, for they deeply valued Crusch’s judgment. Crusch was strongly aware of her own duty to respond to the trust they placed in her. 

“ ? ” 

As the time limit approached, the brimming will to fight was reassuring, but inside, Crusch was nervous. 

Crusch touched the hilt of her treasured sword, ensuring by feel that the engraved crest of the lion was truly there. It was a habit from her youth, a little spell by which she poured resolve into herself. 

They had to win. 

She felt the presence of Ferris at her side and the legacy of the Lion King on her fingertips. However mighty the foe, it was all Crusch needed to fight. 

And then— 

“—!” 

Abruptly, it rang across the Liphas Highway, subsumed by the darkness of night. 

She was slow to realize that the series of light sounds making her eardrums tremble resembled music of some sort. 

When she turned her eyes toward the source of the sound, she saw Subaru putting his hand on the shining metia. It was from the metia in his hand that the music was noisily flowing. 

It was the signal Subaru had said would announce that the time had come. 

“All hands, on alert—!” 

At Crusch’s shout, the expeditionary force poised as one. 

According to Subaru, the White Whale would appear within tens of seconds after the metia alerted him. If he was to be believed, it would not be strange for the White Whale’s giant body to be swimming in the sky that very moment. With the metia having alerted him, the place had to be correct as well. 

She had plenty of room for doubts, but Subaru had given her no reason to doubt him. Crusch set her misgivings and apprehensions aside, honing her nerves as she awaited the demon beast. 

“ ? ” 

Amid the silence, she felt no sign of the enormous demon beast appearing. 

The expression on her face was not disappointment, properly speaking, but after a minute had passed with no change on the field of battle, Crusch could not help herself from being, for one, unnerved. 

Discrepancies in the information. Mistaken assumptions. Some kind of random accident. 

There was no change in the silence that had descended over the Liphas Highway; there was no sight of the enemy in the landscape around her. 

As before, the moonlight was obstructed by clouds, causing a large, dark shadow to fall over the plains, but— 

“—!” 

Looking up, Crusch instantly cursed her own shallowness. 

The moonlight vanished as a shadow fell over the plains. 

The altitude of the cloud intercepting the moonlight was gently descending, coming before their eyes. 

—But a cloud, it was not. 

’Twas a demon beast, floating in the sky in the form of a gargantuan fish. 

As Crusch sucked in her breath, virtually everyone in the expeditionary force came to the same understanding. Then, as if their minds were one, they tossed their gazes toward Crusch. 

—They were waiting for the command for a preemptive strike. 

They had succeeded in taking the initiative, catching the White Whale at the moment of its appearance. All that remained was to launch a surprise attack as planned, seizing control of the front. 

“ ? ” 

Crusch breathed in, as if to settle her heart upon the first command to unleash. 

The White Whale had yet to notice the puny beings arrayed against it. The way the White Whale was moving its enormous head was as if to check where it was. And as it acted thus, its guard was down, full of openings— 

That settled it for Crusch. 

“—All hands…” 

Full-scale attack , she went to command when— 

“—Nail it!!” 

“—Al Hyuma!!” 

As signal leaped ahead of Crusch, mana was simultaneously deployed via magical incantation. 

The world made a sound as if it had frozen over, bringing forth enormous and incredibly dense pillars of ice. Each and every one of the icy pillars rivaled the central pillar of a mansion, with there being four in total. Launched at super-high speed, the pillars raced through the sky and scored a direct hit on the White Whale’s torso; with a slight delay, the demon beast’s scream and spurting blood poured down to earth. 

When Crusch hurriedly looked, the land dragon Subaru and Rem were both riding was galloping, cutting across the vanguard. As Subaru clung to Rem’s hips, he raised a fist, and Rem, having succeeded in her own duty by launching the preemptive magical attack, wore a very satisfied expression. 

How the two of them jumped the gun—rather, got the jump on the rest—rocked the expeditionary force. 

At the sight of them galloping forth, Crusch could not keep her own mouth from twisting greatly. 

Not in anger but in mirth. 

“All hands, follow that pair of fools!!” 

Crusch’s order erased the unrest as the various members of the expeditionary force began the offensive. Dust kicked up in the process, and on the other side, the White Whale’s cries grew loud once more, echoing across the night sky of the Liphas Highway. 

After much waiting, the Battle of the White Whale had begun. 

4 

No matter how many times Subaru experienced the wind repel blessing, he could not help thinking of it as unnatural. Vibration, wind, posture—the impossible phenomenon blocked all those things from affecting them. 

While Rem sat squarely on the land dragon as it ran, Subaru put a hand around her hip as he strained his eyes. He licked his lips, which had begun to dry, moistening them a bit as he sucked in his breath. 

The cell phone alarm had rung as it was set to, and the White Whale had appeared in the twilight above the plains. 

He could only describe the emergence of the giant body as splitting the sky and crawling out of the resulting shadow. Its massive body instilled primordial fear in Subaru, with all the memories of it having menaced his life surging back into his heart. 

When he looked around, tension was running through the expeditionary force, noticing it just as Subaru had. As prearranged, they ought to be launching an all-out attack at Crusch’s order. 

But for a brief moment, the feeling of oppression had left even Crusch drawing a blank, her breath caught. 

It could only be called a critical error, but such was the terror of combat the extreme situation had wrought. 

Accordingly, Subaru patted Rem’s shoulder. 

“—Nail it!!” 

“—Al Hyuma!!” 

A half second before Crusch breathed out, that shout cut the covers of the gun barrels on the front. 

Responding to Subaru’s voice, Rem gave direction to the vast amount of mana she had woven together. This gave rise to four of those vile pillars of ice, with their sharply tapered tips mercilessly gouging holes in the White Whale’s underbelly as it floated in the sky. 

The ice collided with its stone skin, audibly shattering. However, just before the shattered pillars completely spread apart, the force of their stabs broke through the defense of the White Whale’s thick hide—scattering its blood all over the plains. 

The scream of the White Whale resounded across the plains. Even as the air shuddered enough to make one’s eardrums go numb, the pitch-black land dragon Subaru and Rem rode advanced without fear. 

—Subaru and Rem had not acted rashly. 

The instant the White Whale emerged, a momentary lull occurred within the expeditionary force. Had they not acted during that time, the preemptive attack would have probably failed. 

That pause was a watershed moment. And knowing that such momentary hesitation was a matter of life-and-death, even someone of such remarkable character as Crusch had her breath caught before the menace of the White Whale. 

Even if she had been halfway confident the White Whale would appear, seeing the real thing created a ripple in the human heart. That ripple could create even tiny distortions in one’s thought process, and distortion led to stagnation, and stagnation invited defeat. 

If it had been so, the battle might have begun with their side at a disadvantage. 

—If there was a difference between Subaru and Crusch that moment, he had to call it…love. 

Crusch’s split-second delay had been born from her inability to have absolute trust in Subaru and his metia. Even if her mind believed him, it could not force a statesman of her caliber to forget her misgivings. 

But Rem had not even the tiniest smidgeon of doubt that the White Whale would appear the very instant Subaru said it would. Accordingly, Rem had prepared magic with the greatest firepower that she could muster, waiting for the moment Subaru had indicated, and slammed an attack into the White Whale the very moment it appeared. 

If he could not call that Rem’s love winning out, what could he call it? 

“But that analysis is super-embarrassing—!!” 

“Subaru, please hold on to me more diligently. You’ll be thrown off!” 

In contrast to Subaru, assessing his own starting of hostilities, Rem shouted as she gripped the land dragon’s reins. She announced that they were shifting from phase one of the operation—the preemptive strike—to phase two. 

“Everyone—follow that pair of fools!!” 

A half second later, as Subaru and Rem galloped like the wind, the expeditionary force behind them obeyed Crusch’s order, loading one cannon after another—or rather, stuffing things like cannons with magic crystals, with the magic crystal cannons firing them like cannonballs. 

With a roar, that fusillade landed, its destructive power violating the White Whale’s flesh. 

The instant they hit squarely, the magic crystals embedding into it transformed into the magical power of their corresponding mana, be it fire, ice, or light, widening the wound Rem had created, causing soot-black blood to pour down onto the highway. 

Amid the drizzle of blood, Subaru and Rem’s land dragon employed agile movements to circle around to the White Whale’s rear. The movement was just as arranged. 

“I’ll get the White Whale’s attention, making it turn so that its back is to the expeditionary force…!” 

“The sky! They are using Night Repel! Please close your eyes!” 

Rem took in the state of the battle, looking up and gazing at the horn on the White Whale’s brow as she shouted. Subaru hurried to follow her instructions, lowering his face and closing his eyes—and the next moment, the world became bright. 

A white light exploded in the sky above, and that white glow instantly burned the night away. The light was so powerful that it permeated Subaru’s optic nerves through his closed eyes, making his throat catch in surprise. 

“Whoaaa! It’s just as incredible as you said!” 

All trace of night had completely vanished from the Liphas Highway. Whatever had happened during those several seconds, the worlds of night and day had swapped places, and a light as bright as midday shone onto the plains. 

Above their heads, separate from the attacks on the White Whale, a special magical stone with an effect called Night Repel had been launched to shine in place of the purportedly sunken sun. Normally, it was simply a collection of light proportional to the mana infused into it, unable to shine with much more than a dull light, but… 

“So when you abuse assets to put a mountain of ’em together, you’ve got a mini-sun on your hands?” 

“It is difficult to track the White Whale in a dark sky, after all— Now, it has only just begun!” 

Putting together two of the top merchants, even by the royal capital’s standards, and having them run around gathering magic stones was playing to their strengths. 

The effective range was the area around the Great Tree, and the time limit was a bit under an hour—more than enough time to end the decisive battle. 

Having lost the twilight over the plains, the huge body was distinct as it floated overhead. That was— 

“That’s…!” 

To that point, he had not been able to clearly make out the White Whale even once, but now, it was exposed under the light of day. 

“ ? !!” 

The White Whale’s enormous frame shuddered as it bellowed, seemingly enraged at having been dragged out of the night sky. 

The roar it unleashed surpassed the level of noise, closer to an act of raw destruction. The atmosphere rumbled, frightening even the trained land dragons, causing them to roar violently. 

Though it appeared to be bleeding from its entire body, its swimming showed no effects from the wounds. The White Whale’s head traversed the sky over the plains, calmly gazing down at the puny humans daring to challenge it. 

“What…size…?” 

Subaru’s voice shook as it trickled out, unable to stop the feeling that his limbs were going numb, unable to move. 

To that point, Subaru had seen, brushed against, and come to hate the menace of the White Whale, but faced with the full sight of it, he understood for the first time that he had seen only a fraction of the being. 

The White Whale: Just as its name suggested, the demon beast’s figure was covered all in white. Countless body hairs sprouted from hide that resembled finely chiseled bedrock. The pectoral fins extended from the underbelly like grim reapers’ scythes, with the smaller dorsal and caudal fins shaped similarly. 

Setting aside the disparity in savagery, the shape of the White Whale very much resembled that of the whales Subaru knew—but its size betrayed his expectations twice over. 

As far as Subaru knew, the blue whale, the world’s largest whale, was almost one hundred feet long, give or take, making it literally the largest mammal on Earth. However, the enormous body of the whale he saw in the distance easily surpassed one hundred feet, probably large enough to be close to one hundred sixty-five. Its giant frame was closer to a mountain than a living creature. 

By some cosmic joke, a white mountain was leisurely swimming in the sky above. 

“Subaru.” 

With Subaru trembling even then, unable to align his teeth as he bit down, a voice called out to him. It was the voice of Rem, her back facing him as Subaru clung to the hips of her small figure. She was already right in front of him, close enough for him to hear her breathe, so she didn’t look back at Subaru when she asked the question. 

“Are you scared?” 

It was not a taunt but a call for trust. 

Firmly, Subaru clenched his teeth and twisted his mouth as he answered. 

“Yeah, I’m scared—of my shining future, and the praise I’ll get for bringing that thing down!” 

Subaru met Rem’s expectations by cracking a joke, patting her shoulder from behind. 

“I’m putting my whole life in your hands! Now, let’s make a run for it!” 

“My life is yours as well, Subaru—now then, let’s go.” 

When Subaru, his resolve hardened, declared they would run away in manly fashion, Rem softly made a little smile as she sternly cracked the reins. The pitch-black land dragon neighed, running across the ground, undaunted by even the fantastical White Whale. 

The White Whale turned toward them as they galloped low and to the right of it, aiming to circle around to its tail. They dashed away from the expeditionary force, and the White Whale’s giant eyes turned toward Subaru and Rem as they approached. The maw that could swallow a large dragon carriage whole opened wide, poising its mouth, lined with millstone-like teeth, for a roar. 

Subaru, sensing baptism by destructive sound, braced himself against the land dragon he was riding. 

And above their heads— 

“To turn away, you must have greatly underestimated me—!!” 

A moment after the valiant heroine’s voice, the White Whale’s head was shallowly cut by a single, horizontal slice. The invisible slash, grazing the solid, stone-like hide, drew blood from the White Whale’s enormous frame once more. 

When Subaru looked back toward the source of the attack, he saw a white land dragon running after him at the front of the vanguard—and Crusch, standing tall, with her arm out after following through the swing. But in her hand… 

“She’s not holding anything…?!” 

“A formless sword that ignores range—Lady Crusch’s famous swordsmanship is able to fell a hundred men in a single blow.” 

Rem replied in a low voice as Subaru gawked. 

The anecdote Rem spoke concerning Crusch was news to Subaru, but the display was equal to the words. Though she appeared unarmed, such a statement was fitting for Crusch’s skill and combat strength. 

The invisible slash stopped the White Whale’s initial response; with its movement halted, more attacks followed. The magic crystal cannons went to work once more, concentrating firepower on the White Whale and landing hit after hit, causing its altitude in the sky to drop as the damage and agony to the demon beast piled up. 

The White Whale was at the same height as a cloud, but so long as its head was not pointed straight up, it was— 

“Within…blade distance.” 

A single land dragon ran across the ground and leaped, displaying agility that clashed with its large frame as it launched into the air. 

Even so, compared with the White Whale, it had little size to boast. The land dragon soaring before its nose must have seemed little more than a fly to the White Whale. 

—The vertical sword flash running straight ahead cut deeply up the White Whale’s nose. 

The sight of the flash of metal rending the white, stony hide with such ease made the sound of cannons, echoing across the battlefield, vanish. 

This was no spell, no magic crystal cannon, nor even the slash of an invisible blade, but human training, proof that steel swung by man could reach even the demon beast. 

Proof that human willpower, expended over the course of many years, had indeed reached the Demon Beast of Mist. 

“—Fourteen years.” 

The figure crouched as he thrust a sword into the split tip of its nose. 

He maintained his posture, poising the cutting blade as the other sword thrust deep, and he waved off the demon beast’s blood from his blade. Behind him, the hostility he gave off was enough to warp the very air. 

“For all that time, I dreamed only of this day.” 

As the figure straightened his back, the White Whale twisted its body, trying to fling off the figure that had embarked upon the tip of its head. The White Whale let out a groan as it barrel-rolled in midair. 

But… 

“—!!” 

The White Whale arched as it screamed in pain, its tail dancing wildly in the sky. 

A single, horizontal cut was added to the vertical one from before, carving a cross-shaped wound into the White Whale’s brow; the figure stomped on the White Whale’s back with a light sound of his foot. 

Malevolent laughter came over the Sword Devil as bloodlust glimmered in his blue eyes. 

“Here you shall fall, and your corpse shall rot—filthy monster!” 

Spitting those words out, Wilhelm poised his swords in both hands as his body became the wind. 

He ran across the back of the White Whale from its head to its tail, slashing the demon beast’s stone hide left and right with the blades in both hands. As he rent the purportedly hard, resistant hide with ease, sprinting as soot-black blood smeared the sky, he truly looked like a Sword Devil. 

With Wilhelm clinging to the White Whale’s body, it had no good method of shaking him off. Unable to dislodge the aged swordsman, even as it moved to somersault in midair with the force of a whirlwind, he proclaimed: 

“Good of you to help me slice you more!” 

A moment before the White Whale turned its body, Wilhelm made a short leap and stabbed his sword right under him. When the White Whale whirled its body, the thrust blade created a vivid slash down it, using the White Whale’s own body in service of the blade. 

Amid a scream and a mist of blood that mottled his own torso, the Sword Devil laughed. Laughing, his old bones continued swinging both swords as he headed for the giant frame’s flank. With a swing, his blades carved a V shape into the flesh, leaving a reddish-black laceration behind. 

A bellow tore through the sky as the White Whale aimed to slap the falling Sword Devil with its tail. But a moment before the tail was to strike him, a leaping land dragon snatched Wilhelm’s body away. He had slipped away from the menace of certain death. 

Upon landing, the land dragon instantly broke into a run. The White Whale gave into anger and chased after the elusive Sword Devil. 

“Hey, don’t look away, moron! Yer facin’ the lot of us, too!!” 

The single swing of the huge cleaver struck the White Whale squarely on the jaw with enough force to knock out several of the White Whale’s enormous teeth, making a dull sound as yellow molars were sent flying. 

It was Ricardo, riding a liger, who bellowed as they galloped onto the White Whale’s face at an angle. Just as he’d said, the ferocious dog had greater agility than a land dragon, and it was using that nimbleness to the fullest extent, master in tow, traversing the White Whale as its body rose into the sky. 

“Hey now, we ain’t done with you yet!!” 

Atop the sprinting liger, Ricardo gave a cry more bestial than a beast’s as he swung the massive cleaver. The outer hide shattered and flesh was gouged, all in a single charge. And following after Ricardo… 

“All riiiight, let’s goooo!” 

“Big Sis, you are too far out in front! Everyone, now!” 

The lieutenant twins, both on the backs of small ligers, split apart, issuing commands to the mercenary band behind them. With ferocious leaps, a pack of ligers grappled onto the White Whale and began to run rampant with its giant body as their foothold. They swung sword and spear, inflicting damage to the White Whale like a swarm of wasps. 

Save for making its enormous frame dance, the White Whale had no countermeasure for shaking off the interlopers clinging to it. Its very size made small movements difficult, a weakness that was being exposed. Furthermore, at that point— 

“All hands, move away!!” 

When Crusch’s order cracked across the field of battle, the Iron Fangs clinging to the White Whale leaped off its body as one. All the ligers landed agilely, and the White Whale, now freed of them, made a large turn, believing it was finally time to counterattack—but it was mistaken in that judgment. 

“So you’ve exposed your flank—!” 

Crusch’s second attack struck far overhead, her diagonal slash running along the White Whale’s side at an angle, and that stroke of her sword was the prelude to yet a third attack—this time, from the magic squad, which had not attacked until that moment, devoting themselves solely to concentrating on chanting. 

“—Al Goa!!” 

From the compounded chants from multiple squad members came a red-hot aurora. In that world, with both a sun and a moon floating in the sky, a new, second sun was born, low in the sky and clad in incandescent flames. 

Even knowing that it was the power of fire magic bundled together, Subaru could not turn his eyes away, gawking at the conflagration scorching the world before him. The waves of heat given off by the huge fireball, over thirty feet in diameter, could burn the skin even at a distance well removed, burning with enough heat to rob the moisture of his eyes, even with his eyelids protecting them. 

That great fireball wavered, then it gained velocity. 

“Uoooo!” 

Velocity gave way to acceleration, and acceleration, to high speed. The fireball headed for the White Whale’s side, then slammed it right in the belly. Through its accumulated wounds, the fire burned inside its body, and the White Whale screamed while its internal organs boiled. 

Mercenaries hurriedly evacuated so as not to be caught up in the fragments of flame scattering over the plains. Subaru and Rem took part in that evacuation, even as their eyes continued to track the burning White Whale. 

That overwhelming, even one-sided, circumstance meant nothing less than that the surprise attack had borne fruit. At that rate, might not the demon beast be subjugated without it being able to do a thing? 

“Feels like that hit it pretty hard! Maybe it’ll all go like this?!” 

At a distance beyond the flames’ reach, Subaru watched the White Whale from the back of the land dragon, shaking a closed fist. 

Until that point, they’d completely overwhelmed the White Whale, surely inflicting no small amount of damage. With the failure of the Great Expedition fourteen years prior as precedent, he’d been on his guard, but this put him into an easy-win mood. It had bitten on the prearranged plan hook, line, and sinker, making him feel exhilarated that a quick victory was just before his eyes. 

However, with regret, Rem shook her head at Subaru’s optimistic viewpoint, glaring up at the flame-engulfed demon beast. 

“No—were that the case, the surprise attack would have caused it to crash to the ground.” 

Her words made Subaru’s eyes go wide. He turned his eyes to the White Whale, wondering what she meant. 

Even then, half of the demon beast’s body was being burned by the great magic, with no sense that the flames, spreading over its body hair, were dying out. The magic crystal cannons’ direct attacks had inflicted many wounds, and the sight of blood trickling from them was downright painful. 

But— 

“The altitude…ain’t dropping.” 

Looking up, he saw the White Whale calmly remaining in the sky. 

It was not up so high that the cavalry could not leap up to it, but it would be very difficult for men to challenge it on foot. More importantly, without the demon beast falling to the ground, they could not shift to the next phase of the operation. 

Ricardo pulled alongside, carrying his huge cleaver as blood spatter drenched the fur on his face. 

“We played all our good cards right at the start. That it didn’t go down means that thing was just tougher, huh.” He snorted out of his canine snout, his pointy ears twitching as he said, “Feels like we scored a point, but it ain’t easy breakin’ through that thick hide underneath. ’Cept for a weapon like mine with brute force, or Mr. Wil’s skills, it’s a drop in the ol’ bucket.” 

“Maybe that goes for physical attacks, but it looked like magic attacks worked, yeah?” 

“I am quite doubtful that is the case. At first glance, they appeared to be spectacular strikes, but that white hair scatters the mana, dulling the force. My magic did not do as much damage as it appeared, either.” 

Rem voiced with regret that the magic representing her own greatest firepower had been ineffective. 

When her words drew Subaru’s attention, he saw that there certainly were numerous shallow wounds in the White Whale’s flesh, but none amounted to deep wounds that diminished its fighting ability. But at the very least… 

“Looks like the fire spells from earlier are burning its hair off pretty well, though.” 

“It’s simple—burn the magic-scatterin’ hair off and we can have that fried whale flesh under it for dinner.” 

Ricardo ferociously bared his fangs as he concurred with Subaru’s guess. With the massive cleaver in hand, he gave the liger’s back a pat, hurtling toward the front line once more. 

“All riiight, let’s bring what we’ve got left in the sack just like earlier! Crusch, give the big guy one more slug in the gut, will ya?” 

Drawing up his own laundry list, he slipped under the White Whale and leaped onto its body once more. 

When Subaru looked, Wilhelm, who he was sure had moved some distance off, was also aiming to get back on the White Whale, this time from the tail end. The expeditionary force had apparently come to the same conclusion as Subaru and Ricardo and was shifting to its next move—in other words, a second all-out attack. 

“In this case, they’ll be pouring firepower on the White Whale, so we’d just be in the way if we got close. Rem, can you slam magic into it like you did earlier?” 

“It would take time for an incantation of identical strength, and water element mana cannot do damage when it is scattered. Anything of lesser might would have insufficient firepower to begin with, so…” 

If he went by Ricardo’s earlier conclusion, the right thing to do was to have Rem join the front line, morning star in one hand, and add to the blunt-force attacks against the White Whale. However, if Subaru made her do that, he’d turn into her ball and chain. It was pathetic, but using his physical condition to implement a decoy operation meant Subaru couldn’t send Rem off alone. 

“It sucks, but I’ve gotta watch until there’s a move I can make…” 

As Subaru spoke, their land dragon eased away from the battlefield at a slow pace, and a different land dragon pulled alongside. 

“That annoying feeling’s the same for me as it is for you, meow .” 

It was Ferris, riding a land dragon clad in heavily armored plates. 

“Ferri doesn’t have any ways to attack, so watching is pretty much all I can do. I’m kinda, sorta used to it, but it always bums me out, meow .” 

“Maybe so, but your healing is the expeditionary force’s lifeline. Can’t be havin’ you go out in front. I’m begging you, focus on that job, okay?” 

Subaru bluntly emphasized that to Ferris, taking that moment to approach in his normal demeanor. The reply made Ferris close one eye with a hmm . 

“You really have changed in one day, meow . What happened to you?” 

“If I’ve gotta put it in words, I became a bit more of a man.” 

As his eyes ran across the shifting battlefield, Subaru replied with a reflective expression, biting on bitter thoughts. 

Subaru’s behavior sent Ferris suggestively poking a finger into a cheek as he said, “Subawu, don’t tell me Rem made a man out of you, meow ?” 

The answer was both yes and a definite no. 

Subaru was about to level an angry shout to shut Ferris up for the out-of-place vulgarity. 

“Master Wilhelm is—!” 

But he was interrupted by Rem’s urgent shout. 

When he hurriedly sent his gaze in the direction Rem was looking, he saw the aged swordsman running on the White Whale’s back. 

With a sword, he stabbed the White Whale’s backside, ripping the White Whale’s body lengthwise as he ran. As Wilhelm ran from tail to back, the delayed spurting of whale blood made it look like he was being chased by geysers. 

That moment, Wilhelm’s works were truly those of an angry god. 

The expeditionary force lifted their faces, with morale exploding higher at the Sword Devil’s abnormal skill with the blade. The firing pace of the magic crystal cannons and the vigor of the mercenaries and cavalry unit’s organized attacks grew greater still. 

Unable to withstand the agony, the White Whale writhed in midair, completely unable to respond to the expeditionary force’s attack. 

Seeing the Demon Beast of Mist, the calamity that had caused continued suffering across four centuries, in such a pathetic state, Subaru firmly believed the tide was completely going their way. 

“Cheeeeeiiiiii!” 

With an energetic outburst, Wilhelm drew his sword in a line all the way to the White Whale’s head, maintaining his momentum as his old bones leaped off from the tip of the enormous body. As the old man twisted and inverted in midair— 

“There ya go!” 

Ricardo’s cleaver matched Wilhelm’s timing, rising up to greet him from below. Wilhelm descended, aiming for the cleaver as it rose toward its zenith, the soles of the Sword Devil’s feet meeting the cleaver’s blunt, impending blow. 

“Shii—!!” 

Ricardo’s brawn added to Wilhelm’s leaping ability, sending the Sword Devil flying like a bullet. 

Shot out, Wilhelm’s dual blades whirled around, savagely slicing the White Whale’s face. It was cruelly shredded from the tip of its nose up its cheek, with Wilhelm unleashing a stab toward its gigantic eye. 

“ ? !!” 

The twin swords sank their hilts into the White Whale’s left eye, and clear fluid flowed out of the ravaged eyeball. 

Wilhelm instantly abandoned the two sunken swords, drawing two new swords in a flash—from right and left, his slashes cut above and below the eye; flipping the blades, he added vertical cuts to its left and right. 

As a result, the White Whale’s left eyeball was cut from four directions when— 

“The eye’s falling!” 

Gouged out by four slices, the White Whale’s left eye fell freely, and Wilhelm along with it— 

The shout, from whatever source, became truth, and the eyeball, spewing blood and fluid, collided with the ground, squishing and splattering. 

Wilhelm landed right beside it, the Sword Devil driving a sword into the eyeball, threatening to lose all coherence, and raised it high so that the White Whale’s right eye could see it. 

“—Pathetic.” 

Then, the corners of his lips turned up in a ghastly, triumphant smile. 

The White Whale had been rendered helpless as the Sword Devil’s sublime combat techniques made sport of it. 

It was clear to all that their fighting strength was not determined by the overwhelming difference in the sizes of their bodies. 

Perhaps it took the loss of its left eye for the White Whale to finally accept that fact… 

“The color of the White Whale’s eye is…!” 

“It’s coming!!” 

“Subaru, please keep your head down—!!” 

The instant Subaru noticed the change, Ferris shouted, and Rem accelerated the land dragon. 

Because they had stopped, the wind repel blessing was not in effect. Subaru, clinging to Rem as he endured the ferocious wind and shaking, somehow managed to turn his eyes to the White Whale overhead. 

Within Subaru’s field of vision, the White Whale’s state changed at once. 

“ ? !!” 

The White Whale, angry at having an eye gouged out, let up a roar as its one intact eye was dyed deep red. 

The eyeball, now the color of blood, shot like a dagger through the expeditionary force, pulling back to put distance between it and the beast. Immediately after, the White Whale’s body quaked in hatred and rage as a change came over its flesh. 

…the instant that change began, Subaru was unable to repress a sense of disgust that defied words. 

The White Whale opened its mouth. 

No, those words were both correct and incorrect. To more accurately express the truth… 

—The mouths of countless cavities over the White Whale’s entire body opened and began to raise their voices. 

“ ? !!” 

Reverberations like shrieking voices poured out of the countless mouths created all over the demon beast’s flesh. 

The discordant sound one would not think existed in that world seemed to claw away directly at the listeners’ spirits, coursing from their hearing to violate their cranial nerves. 

The damage did not stop at human beings alone. The land dragons and ligers employed as mounts stopped in their tracks, seized by instinctive, primordial fear. 

The expeditionary force was overcome by its worst instance of defenselessness since the start of the battle to bring down the White Whale. 

And then… 

“…Ah…” 

Raising a chorus, the countless mouths spewed an immense amount of mist. 

In the blink of an eye, the mist poured onto the plains, and the world illuminated by the effect of Night Repel was blotted out in white. 

His vision obstructed, his entire body cowering, Subaru understood that the White Whale had acknowledged them as its enemies. 

It was the Demon Beast of Mist raising its war cry that announced the true commencement of hostilities. 

5 

Loud laughter echoed across the Liphas Highway. 

Discordant sounds trickled from the small mouths open across the giant body of the White Whale as it swam leisurely in the sky. 

When it roared from its proper mouth, it came with such destruction that it made the earth shudder. But the sound given off by many mouths out of sync was twisted and repulsive, like being clawed by the very wind. 

The unpleasant feeling was not a blow to the eardrums but rather, like having one’s brain poked at by slender needles. 

With that ghoulish change in the White Whale, Subaru sensed that the tide had turned. 

They’d pounded that immense preemptive strike into it with the expeditionary force, from Wilhelm on down, adding their own concentrated attacks. The damage inflicted on the White Whale was by no means minimal. After all, the combined firepower was enough to kill Subaru a hundred times over; if comparing with other demon beasts, it was attack power sufficient to wipe out an entire Urugarum pack ten times over. 

The beast, bathed in all that, had taken enough damage to lose one eye. If it was not enough to settle the battle, Subaru had hoped it would at least result in bringing the beast down to earth, but— 

“Crap, the mist…!” 

Continuing to raise a shrill cry, the White Whale spread mist from its countless mouths. 

The mist spread in a wide range across the highway, its encroachment progressing as it fell thickly from the sky. Subaru’s field of vision became progressively whiter, and the effect of the Night Repel magic crystal waned. 

—The Demon Beast of Mist had come into its own. 

With visibility worsening, the expeditionary force was unable to maintain tight cohesion over the mist-shrouded plains. Moreover, didn’t it look like even the White Whale was melting into the mist, vanishing from sight…? 

“You’re kidding me…?!” 

“—Subaru, please entrust me with your life!!” 

Rem leaned forward and shouted to Subaru, shaken by the vanishing of the White Whale. Subaru responded to her shout by deepening his arms’ embrace of Rem’s body. 

Obeying Rem’s snap of the reins, the land dragon whirled around, splitting the ground as it began to sprint. 

Ferris, beside them until just earlier, similarly turned the head of his land dragon toward the interior of the mist. With the White Whale entering a state of combat, the counterattack would grow desperate. Naturally, casualties could not be avoided. That being the case, this was where his duty lay as he was called The Blue Knight, the greatest of healers. 

Yet, in spite of that… 

“All hands, retreat—!!” 

…a bellow from inside the mist resounded, halting them before they leaped into the sea of white. 

It was Crusch’s voice they heard. 

What is she doing? was the look on the face Subaru lifted up, but the next moment— 

“Whoa?!” 

Subaru’s body was shaken by centrifugal force as the land dragon veered left in a spur-of-the-moment decision. In front, Ferris’s land dragon was making its own emergency right turn, resulting in them going separate ways. 

And white came violently surging into the corners of Subaru’s tilted vision. 

“—Hey now, hold on?!” 

The middle of the path that had opened up by their splitting apart was blown away in a single gust of very dense mist. 

The force of the tall wave of mist shooting through would have surely swallowed up the land dragons had they evaded even a second slower. 

Without having seen the real thing in action, one might laugh it off as making a big deal about mere mist. But no one seeing the nature of that mist up close with their own eyes would ever dismiss it so lightly. 

The surface of the plains grazed by the mist was gouged out as if melted away, with the highway surface vanishing all the way down to the foundation. 

A human body fully bathed in that mist would invariably share the same fate. 

“If we got hit by that…!” 

Subaru thought he’d fully taken to heart the briefing beforehand concerning the threat of the White Whale’s mist. But the real thing was beyond even his expectations. 

“So this is the serious mist…!” 

The White Whale, called the Demon Beast of Mist, had mist that broadly fell into two varieties. 

The first was the wide-area mist it scattered to expand its own swimming area, such as what it had used to cover the highway. And the second was the annihilating mist, which had erased a good chunk of the ground before his eyes just then. 

He hadn’t seen the means of attack until then, but it was the latter, the annihilating mist, that wrought destruction. And though a single glance was sufficient to understand its destructive power, there was even more to it than that. 

Namely— 

“Yaaa!!” 

In a vigorous flash, a gallant voice cut through the mist as something suddenly sliced open the white scene before Subaru’s eyes. 

It was a white land dragon with Crusch on its back that leaped out of the mist. She’d probably used the super-long-range invisible slicing attack to disperse the mist and secure her vision. 

Crusch brusquely wiped off the sweat on her brow, panting atop the land dragon. Using her as a marker at the center of the cleared mist, the scattered elements of the expeditionary force began to hastily regroup. 

Crusch looked across her subordinates from each of the assembled squads and asked, “—How many people were hit?” 

“Our squad has twelve people—we’re three short.” 

“…Who are you missing?” 

“We don’t know…!” 

Faced with Crusch’s impatience, a man in his prime seemed to wring out his reply as he shook his head. 

Under normal circumstances, such an exchange would be incomprehensible. The squad leader, cognizant of the number of people in his squad, was reporting that he could not remember the names of the lost members. Surely such a crazy thing was not possible, yet… 

“We have fourteen and have lost one.” 

“Two men in my squad. Similarly unclear.” 

“Six men… I am very sorry! Our position was deep, and we were unable to avoid the mist…!” 

Similar reports came in one after another, with none able to remember the names of their vanished comrades. 

It was that bizarre circumstance that was the true menace of the White Whale’s mist. 

“The annihilating…mist…!!” 

In shock, Subaru’s molars clattered as the murmur came running up his throat. 

Those literally annihilated by the mist had even the memories of their existence erased from the world. Even if proof remained of those erased, no memories of their existence remained. 

That was the true meaning behind Crusch organizing the expeditionary force in squads of fifteen men each. If the squads were to lose men due to the mist, they would be unable to even discern who had been hit. Even so, by having a set number in each squad, they could at least grasp the fact that they had lost people. 

—Subaru knew that eerie fear for himself, for he had tasted it the previous go-around. 

For Otto, the traveling merchant accompanying him on the highway, the existence of a fellow merchant fallen prey to the White Whale, and the existence of Rem, who’d stayed behind to slow the White Whale down, had been completely consigned to oblivion. 

At the time, Subaru was of the thought that Otto had forgotten those inconvenient memories out of fear, but it made more sense that he was under the effect of the White Whale’s mist. All memory of his fellow merchant, and Rem, was erased from that world—just like when, back at the mansion, even Rem’s older twin sister, Ram, had forgotten her. 

Now, the same thing had happened again. Yet, even in spite of that— 

“I’m the only one…who remembers…” 

In a daze, Subaru voiced the undeniable fact. 

Just like in the last go-around, when Subaru never forgot the erased merchant or Rem, sacrificing herself so that Subaru could escape, he alone remembered. 

Two of the squad leaders gathered under Crusch…had become different people. 

Bathed by the annihilating mist, the original squad leaders had been erased. Everyone accepted the next in line as the squad leaders in their place, with no one noticing the sudden change in rank. 

Faced with that abnormality, Subaru knew that the Witch and the White Whale really were cut from the same cloth. 

Subaru Natsuki continuing to remember the things everyone else had forgotten—surely this was not unrelated to Return by Death, a trait possessed by Subaru alone. 

Crusch looked over the faces of the expeditionary force and cut the conversation short. 

“Now that it has submerged into the mist, we cannot know from whence it attacks. Crowding together is a poor plan—we shall disperse, and employ mana repulsion crystals.” 

Seeing everyone nod at the order in his peripheral vision, Subaru’s eyes widened when he realized he didn’t see Wilhelm or Ricardo among them. Surely even those two were not erased by the mist…? 

“So you have returned, Wilhelm.” 

But Subaru’s nervousness was belied by a figure’s timely return from the mist. 

Having sliced through the dense fog, the Sword Devil seemed ghastly, his entire body bathed in blood. Wilhelm wiped off his blood-sullied swords, tersely smearing the blood from his cheeks as an afterthought. 

“I ran too far ahead—our losses?” Wilhelm asked. 

“A total of twenty-one… Essentially one squad was annihilated. We can no longer hope even to properly honor the memory of the fallen.” 

Being erased by the mist literally meant one’s existence was wiped clean. With no traces left of them, even in people’s memories, there was a complete blank where they had once existed in the world. 

Subaru wondered if the bonds and feelings, even love, that had been so certain until then, vanished someplace. 

When he looked closer, Subaru saw a pack of ligers behind Wilhelm, and among them were Ricardo, straddling his extra-large liger, and the two lieutenants. Apparently, just like Wilhelm, those fighting right up against the White Whale had endured minimal damage. 

“The mist comin’ out makes this rough. Mana repulsion crystals are scarce, and we’ve less than I’d like… If we use ’em in the wrong place, we’re done.” 

“If we strike it with one more concentrated attack, it shall surely fall to the ground. Having lost sight of it, this is the right time to employ them, averting a surprise attack among other things. Objections?” 

When everyone endorsed Crusch’s judgment, her gaze turned to the support unit under Ferris’s command. 

“Ferris, launch anti-magic crystals from the magic crystal cannons. Twice only. We must employ them with care.” 

“Preparations are already complete~. Anytime, at your command.” 

When Ferris tapped his chest, Crusch drew in her chin, looking over everyone before the battle recommenced. 

“From here on is the real battle! The response remaining in your own hands shall prove that our attacks are effective upon the White Whale! Certainly, our opponent is mighty and unfathomable. Worst case, there may be none who shall remember our deaths. However!” 

Crusch, able to launch cutting blows with her bare hand, drew from her hip the treasured sword of the House of Karsten—a sword no doubt long bereft of use—and raised it to the sky, declaring in a loud voice: 

“For the sake of the dead with no name left on their tombstones, for the sake of the weak who would be menaced by the mist in the world ahead, we shall slay it, whatever it takes! —Come with me!!” 

Every manner of weapon was raised to the sky, everyone shouting in exultation as one. 

The mist shuddered from the incredible surge of morale, ferociously setting their dampened fighting spirit alight. 

“Launch the anti-magic crystal!!” 

At Crusch’s order, the individuals under Ferris’s command fired magic crystal cannons in a salvo—the next moment, with a great roar, the magic crystals soared high into the misty sky when… 

“The mist…is clearing—!” 

…the glow of the magic crystals shattering in the heavens erased the white mist obstructing their sight all at once. 

Properly speaking, all the mist covering the four corners of the plains had not been swept away. In the end, all that had changed was the density of the mist, which had thinned so that it was no longer difficult to maintain a clear view. 

But one could call even that result sufficient. 

—The White Whale’s mist was apparently a calamity wrought from the vast mana it possessed. In other words, the White Whale scattered its mana in the direction of its choosing, and this became the mist visible to others. 

The anti-magic crystals—by rights, crystals with the effect of forcing the mana in an area back into a colorless state, thus neutralizing it—had used their power to nullify the mana of the mist, blowing it away. 

It was a dangerous gamble, for if the anti-magic crystals worked too well, it would also diminish the strength of their own magic attacks, but it seemed there was no need for concern so long as they could see remnants of the mist. 

“Not enough to clear away all the mist, huh?” 

“In turn, there is no effect on our own magic. I, too, am in peak condition.” 

Rem gave a little nod, but it was the glow of the horn on her forehead that offered the real answer. The fact that it sensed mana swirling around the area and had begun building Rem’s magical energy once more was the proof. 

“—All right! I can’t get cold feet now. I’ve come too far to be useless now. It’s time for us to take the stage!” 

“Yes! Let us go!” 

Rem handled the land dragon’s reins, and its neigh matched the bounce of Subaru’s rump. He grabbed hold of Rem’s hips atop the dashing land dragon, searching for sight of the White Whale in the thin mist above their heads. 

With Crusch at the head, the expeditionary force set out as well, dispersing as its various parts searched for the White Whale. With the battle resuming at possibly any moment, Subaru felt the tension drying his throat out in a hurry. 

No one saw the White Whale come out yet. It felt like before the start of the battle, when they waited for the White Whale to appear in the night sky, when… 

“—Mist.” 

Suddenly, a bad premonition popped up in the back of Subaru’s mind. 

He had no special kind of proof of it. 

They were still able to use magic within the effect of the anti-magic crystals. When he remembered the various things spoken before the operation, and his experience meeting the White Whale on the previous go-around, that anxiety suddenly bubbled to the surface. 

There were remnants of widely scattered mist in the atmosphere. 

The White Whale had expanded its own turf and obstructed their fields of vision, the oldest trick in the Demon Beast of Mist’s book. That was all the prior information he had, but could he really say that it was the only reason he was afraid? 

But before the doubt in his head could take form… 

“ ? !!” 

…the squeaking chorus that echoed across the slightly misty Liphas Highway came quicker. 

“What the hell was that?!” 

The high-pitched echo was like a woman’s shriek, instilling a sense of disgust that made Subaru want to cover his ears. It was both roar and laughter, yet repulsive on a whole other level, traversing the mist to mock them across the plains. 

“Just now…!” 

Subaru tried to put the question into words when he noticed it —that the mist coiled around his entire body seemed to melt into him, as if trying to permeate his flesh. 

And then— 

“Aaa, aaa, aaa—?!” 

The first shift came in the mounted dragon unit running alongside. 

Subaru’s shoulders jumped at the strange voices, sounding nothing like ones coming from sane human beings. Guessing that something had changed, he looked over to see cavalrymen racing beside him, tumbling from their land dragons one after another. 

“Hey! What’s wrong?!” 

Following the shouting Subaru’s intentions, his own land dragon did a U-turn and headed toward them. He passed between the land dragons, confused by the loss of their riders, and called out to the tumbled men. 

“You all right?! Falling from a horse can get you hurt pretty b…” 

Subaru, concerned about such injuries, unwittingly let his voice die off midway. Having fallen from their land dragons, the knights were writhing around—but their state was far more precarious than mere physical wounds. 

“Uu, uu, uu, aa—” 

The strange voices they raised were not like those of human beings; they were closer to the noises of beasts. 

One man was frothing at the mouth, convulsing on the ground with his eyes rolled up. Another man let out a moan as he desperately scratched at his own arms. Yet another clenched down on his molars until they broke, pounding his head against the ground. 

There was no single set of symptoms, but even so, he knew : It was madness, using the mist as a medium to spread. 

“This is…” 

“The voice just now directly affected their minds through the mist… It is like mana poisoning, but this is terrible…!” 

With Subaru restraining his voice, Rem put a hand to her forehead, making an anguished face as she replied. 

“Mana poisoning…? So this really isn’t normal mist after all?!” 

Judging from Rem’s state and the feel of the mist coiled around his body, Subaru realized that this was the real function of the mist. 

The wide-area mist was an unavoidable trap inflicting abnor mal status on the beings within its broad reach. The vastness of the effect, and the damage it inflicted, was in plain sight. 

Subaru didn’t think the effects of the mist were limited to the squads around him and Rem, either. In fact, even as far as his eyes could see, he saw multiple squads stopped in their tracks, trying to deal with the abnormal state of their allies. 

“So some people are resistant to the mist, and some aren’t…? I don’t feel a thing…!” 

“I only feel a little from…my head… I am calm…now.” 

Breathing deeply several times, Rem touched the horn on her forehead as she calmed herself. 

In the meantime, Subaru dropped from his land dragon, rushing to stop those attempting to hurt themselves. 

“Hey, cut that out! Your wounds’ll… Whoa!” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Stay baaaaack!” 

One of the confused men slapped his arm aside, scratching his arm without mercy. When the sharp pain sent Subaru into retreat, the man resumed his self-harming behavior, scraping his face enough that it began to bleed. 

“That hurt, but ain’t this pretty bad? They might not stop till they’re dead!” 

“Subaru! You’re hurt?!” 

“It hurts and I feel like cryin’ a little, but it’s nothin’! More importantly, everyone’ll tear themselves apart if we don’t do something! Isn’t there anything we can do?” 

As Rem rushed over, she had a grim look on her face as she shook her head to his reply. 

“Unfortunately, I do not know how much effect my healing magic would have. This is not simply interfering with the body but the Odo directly through their gates. Only Master Ferris can deal with such powerful mana contamination…” 

“In the first place, how long can he hold up against mental contamination? Besides the two of us, we’re pretty much wiped out here!” 

The squad running alongside Subaru and Rem was virtually routed—and the few unharmed souls were trying to stop their comrades from hurting themselves like Subaru had. 

“If Ferris gets contaminated, we’re totally done for. What do we do…?” 

This was only as far as Subaru could see. He could only despair that it was like that everywhere else, too. 

Along with Crusch and Wilhelm, if Ferris, their pillar of support, were to fall, that would be it for them. It would be difficult to even maintain the fight at all. 

“Everyone who can move, get the wounded to the Great Tree! Use whatever force you have to!” 

But he heard Crusch’s voice from the other side of the mist. A series of voices responded, and apparently, Crusch had escaped the effect of the mist. She was conveying how they would deal with that same menace. 

Immediately after ordering the entire force to attack, she was instantly changing policies. Crusch’s voice was chagrined, and Subaru, too, felt anger as he vented abuse at the White Whale. 

“Strength-wise, fighting with people wounded is tougher than fighting with the dead, but do monsters even think to do that…?!” 

“It seems Master Felix is safe. With him going around healing, the effects of the contamination should at least be diminished, but…” 

Rem hesitated, but Subaru knew what she was trying to say. 

With this much damage sustained, Ferris would have his hands completely full. With manpower split to gather the wounded, that made their fighting strength that much less. And more importantly— 

“There’s not enough time. We can’t just be defenseless like this till Ferris heals everyone.” 

“Worst case, with the expeditionary force grouped up together like this, the White Whale’s mist could swallow it whole. I do not wish to think it is that intelligent, but…given it has created this situation, that is optimistic.” 

“It’s possible it’s doing all this out of instinct, but…no, we can’t underestimate it either way.” 

Resigning herself to the danger, Crusch meant to entrust the wounded expeditionary force members to Ferris. Naturally, it was necessary to do something to buy time so that the White Whale did not approach the wounded. 

They needed to tender an attractive piece of bait to distract it from thoroughly pounding its enemy. 

“—Whew.” 

Deeply breathing out, Subaru emptied his lungs. 

Wringing oxygen out of his body to his limit, he naturally felt stifled inside his chest—his heartbeats slowed, and he knew that its rhythm was growing surer. 

Subaru spontaneously made a strained smile at how unexpectedly calm he was. 

He’d always been swept around by circumstances, toyed with by the events before his eyes, and Subaru’s heart had reflected his emotions, running wild over and over. 

So why was it he was so calm, then, on the precipice of his decision? 

“…Borrowed or not, courage is courage, I guess?” 

Subaru thumped his chest and breathed in deeply. He paused once, closed his eyes, and then breathed out and opened his eyes. He turned forward. Before Subaru, Rem, riding the land dragon, was looking down at him. 

What was Subaru going to say? What did he desire? That was what she was waiting to hear. 

“Rem, stick with me through the most dangerous part.” 

“Yes—no matter where it may lead.” 

Without hesitation, Rem accepted Subaru’s request, a smile appearing on her face. 

With that accepted, Subaru ran over to the land dragon. Rem lent her hand, and he virtually flew onto the land dragon’s back, straddling it as he headed toward the knights restraining their comrades struggling on the ground. 

“Rem and I will draw off the White Whale! In the meantime, get them treatment from Ferris. After you hand them to Ferris, anyone who seems all right, hook up with Crusch!” 

“Draw them off?! How in the world will you…?” 

“Like this.” 

Subaru smiled at the aged soldier raising a voice of doubt, drawing his breath and clearing his throat, then announced, “—Everyone who can hear this, cover your ears!! And if you can’t, stay right there!!” 

Subaru’s full-force voice echoed across the misty plain. 

Rem listened comfortably to Subaru’s loud voice, and then touched her hands to her ears. The nearby knights also rushed to cover their ears; other expeditionary force members within earshot had surely done the same—just as Subaru had asked of them at the briefing before the operation. 

And then, Subaru willingly invoked the taboo— 

“I’ve Returned by Death—” 

The instant he spoke it, Subaru’s heart was wrenched by a rising fear—that, in spite of his intentions, those black hands would stretch toward his comrades, toward Rem. 

But he forced that fear down, raising his voice so that the Witch might hear. 

— You can have my heart, so gimme a hand here!! 

Subaru opened his eyes wide, suppressed his weakness, and shouted in his heart—and a moment later, it came to visit. 

“I love you.” 

It was a frail, delicate voice that seemed to whisper into his ears. 

However, what was the ardor infused within that made his breast tremble? 

Unwittingly, tears welled in the corners of his eyes, and Subaru’s breath caught as he was struck by the urge to chase after the receding voice to embrace the speaker that very moment. 

His entire body was governed by the heat of love, burning white-hot in his mind— 

“…I’m back.” 

After a brief sojourn, Subaru’s mind woke to reality. 

The fervor that had ruled Subaru until the moment before grew distant, and he became unable to remember the deep feelings he’d had until then. But he did feel unease at the fierce pain he’d supposedly resigned himself to having miraculously failed to arrive. Yet, even so… 

“Rem, how is it? The Witch’s scent on me…” 

“You stink!” 

“That was the idea, but isn’t that a bit harsh?!” 

Though not thrilled to receive a black mark from Rem, he’d accomplished his objective. 

His body shrouded in the Witch’s miasma, Subaru looked back and raised his voice to the knights all around. 

“Get away from us right now! Get as close to the big tree as you can and link up with Crusch as best as you can manage!” 

“U-understood! Good fighting!” 

“You too!” 

Sending off the knights, Subaru’s pat of Rem’s shoulder was the signal for the land dragon to start running. 

At present, Subaru’s body was giving off the fresh, lingering scent of the Witch—setting aside the contradiction in those words, the scent had to be wafting all around him. The problem was how much effect it would have on the White Whale. 

“With the Urugarums, the effect was enough to cover the entire forest, but how ’bout this time…? To be honest, there’s no way to measure it, but…” 

When he’d encountered the White Whale in the previous world, the White Whale had tenaciously pursued Otto’s dragon carriage after Subaru shifted over to it. At the time, he’d said nothing in relation to the Witch. So if Subaru gave off an even stronger scent than before, he ought to be prime bait for the White Whale— 

Just after he had that thought— 

“—?!” 

The land dragon, charging straight ahead, sensed something and turned abruptly on its own judgment—with centrifugal force drawing an “Ugeh!!” out of Subaru as he hastily hugged Rem, right before his eyes, seemingly clinging for dear life. 

“What’s…?!” 

“The White Whale!!” 

As Rem, pressed against him, shouted, a gargantuan maw suddenly emerged from the side, breaking through the mist. 

By a hair’s breadth, Subaru and Rem diverged from their path and escaped, with the White Whale’s huge mouth seeming to slide past them a little to the left, biting into the ground, swallowing grass and topsoil whole. 

Its stony outer hide seemed to be grazed as the demon beast rushed past, and from nearby, they heard the sound of its maw biting the ground apart. 

Then, with a roar, it chased after the pair. 

“Whoaaaaa—?!” 

There was an overwhelming amount of pressure as it chased them from the rear. 

With the overpowering sense chasing his back that they would be squished, the land dragon that the shouting Subaru rode earnestly kicked the earth. However, the swimming speed of the pursuing White Whale was extraordinary. With an enormous body like a mountain, it swam with such force that it surpassed the wind, closing the distance quickly. 

Steadily, the maw pressed close, drinking up the world around it. 

When the tip of its nose was right at their backs, close enough to bathe them in the raw stench of its breath… 

“Rem!” 

“Ul Hyuma!!” 

…Rem responded with an incantation, sending three pillars of ice thrusting out of the ground as one. 

Her aim was true, punching into the White Whale pursuing the pair from right below it, impaling its belly in an attempt to halt its movements. Yet— 

“It won’t stop—!” 

The icy spears, each as thick as a hundred spears bundled together, were snapped off at the base, giving off a high-pitched sound as the ice shattered. The destroyed spears of ice instantly returned to the mana from whence they came, and though the White Whale, having lost what was sealing its wounds, bled from them, there was no effect on its movement. 

That it had been wounded and bled so much seemed only to bring into sharper relief the extent of its endurance. Subaru was aghast all over again at just how high a hurdle bringing down the White Whale was. 

“This ain’t like with the Urugarum when it was one-on-one!” 

“ ? !!” 

As Subaru moved farther from the White Whale, he raised his middle finger, taunting it. Enraged at the gesture, the White Whale’s roar thundered across the plains. But from the side of its torso… 

“Ryaaaaa—!” 

…Wilhelm intervened, flying in with a vertical slash. 

Driving his blade in, Wilhelm ran up the White Whale’s flank. As Wilhelm cut through the bloody mist, the kitten siblings appeared alongside, straddling their ligers and looking at each other’s faces. 

“Big Sis, join with me!” “Let’s do this, Hetaro!!” 

As the ligers crossed, Mimi and Hetaro leaped off and joined hands. The two stood before the gaping wound Wilhelm had carved as they yelled: 

“Wa—!” “Ha—!” 

The pair’s voices overlapped; the sound waves broadened with incredibly destructive might. 

The shock wave coursed in through the open wound, making every injury on the White Whale’s body bleed once more. The enormous body shuddered, and the White Whale’s altitude dropped precipitously against its will. The White Whale groaned in agony, raising its voice as it endured the pain, and barely managed to avoid crashing as the twins, riding their ligers, leaped off its back. 

“Trump card compleeete!” “Captain, please!” 

“Oh yeah, leave it to me! If the runts are tryin’ hard, then I’ve gotta, too!!” 

In place of the landing twins, a large liger climbed onto the White Whale from the tail end. 

Swinging his cleaver upward, Ricardo went around smacking the countless mouths that spawned mist. Wilhelm did the same, jamming slashes into the annoying mouths, silencing them one by one. 

But the White Whale didn’t let them smash its means of attack without a response. From the mouths, seemingly infinite no matter how many they smashed, a literal barrage of annihilating mist spewed out. 

Ricardo, relying on his liger’s mobility, and Wilhelm, pushing his body past normal human limits, continued to dodge, dodge, and dodge that mist some more. 

The expeditionary force and the Iron Fangs had both reorganized, and they began firing magic crystal cannons once more to assist Wilhelm and Ricardo in their precarious position. With the White Whale’s own attacks unable to hit, and apparently losing patience from the increasing damage from the pesky attackers, it twisted its massive body, opening its mouth fully to spread mist far and wide. 

“Rem—!!” 

Faster than Subaru could shout, Rem had their land dragon leap up onto the White Whale’s nose. The approach of Subaru, with the scent of the Witch wafting around him, made the White Whale reflexively stare at them, throwing off its concentration; it was looking to send them flying when a slash interrupted that plan. 

“ ? !!” 

“That’s very rude of you. Here I am, after nothing but your head for fourteen years, and you look away.” 

With a stab, Wilhelm thrust deep into the White Whale’s brow, his movement halting when his blade sank into the skull. But the aged swordsman instantly abandoned his third sword, leaping in and kicking full force the hilt of the sword he had let go of, and withdrew his fourth and fifth swords, both blades dancing wildly across the White Whale’s back. 

Also atop the White Whale’s back, Ricardo linked up with Wilhelm, opening his large mouth and laughing. 

“This is gettin’ fun! It’s tougher than I thought, but it’s not all that strong, now, is it!” 

“No…the response is a little too weak.” 

While Ricardo exulted, Wilhelm knitted his brows and murmured. Biting his lip, Wilhelm sliced into the White Whale’s tail fin as he said, “I cannot easily believe my wife…the Sword Saint…could be defeated by this level of demon beast. Even considering that it did not take the initiative and split us apart with mist at the beginning…” 

As Wilhelm swung his blades, his thought process was interrupted by the White Whale whirling its body about. 

“Do—? Waaaah?!” 

The demon beast’s action, differing from all those before it, sent the White Whale’s head suddenly rising up, with the force sending Ricardo and his liger flying off. 

Then Wilhelm, still atop the White Whale, said, “I’ll take one more before I take my leave!” 

With the demon beast wriggling its body as it swam in the air, Wilhelm ran down it with nimble movements. The White Whale’s body was climbing, with Wilhelm leaping down in the opposite direction. Finely adjusting his center of gravity and using the stabs of his blades to control his posture by force, the highly experienced old swordsman exercised his body to the fullest, chopping off at the base one of the dorsal fins at the extreme edge of the enormous body. 

“ ? !!” 

Listening to the White Whale’s scream, Wilhelm rode the fin he’d sent flying onto the ground below. Normally, you would think a fall from such a great altitude would result in instant death, but the soles of Wilhelm’s feet kicked off the fin just before impact, and his land dragon caught him, softening the blow. 

“Wilhelm!” 

“ ? ” 

Subaru tried to make sure he was all right, but Wilhelm did not respond, for his eyes were on the White Whale, still rapidly ascending. 

Drawn in, Subaru looked up, and his vision was caught by the White Whale’s tail as it swam in the sky high above. 

Blood dripped from the fin that had been sliced off, pouring downward with violent force. The grassy plain was dyed scarlet, and Wilhelm was bathed in red rain, his will to fight undiminished. 

Subaru didn’t think the White Whale was going to just turn tail and run, either, but the demon beast’s goal in heading up into the sky was unclear. The Iron Fangs and the expeditionary force uneasily looked up at the sky, and Subaru grew concerned for the wounded gathered at the roots of the Great Tree. 

“It’s coming.” 

Wilhelm made a small murmur as he turned his gaze upward. 

Seeing the aged swordsman narrow his eyes and return both hands to his sword hilts put everyone on guard. 

And then, as they held their breaths—they regretted it. Too late, they knew they should have deployed instantly without waiting for the White Whale, floating above their heads, to act. 

“—Mist, incoming!!” 

Subaru shouted as loudly as he could. Rem made the land dragon whirl about and move away from the front. 

The land dragons and ligers all around them started running all at once, but there was no longer any leeway for Subaru to raise his head and see if the others were safe. 

—Billowing, annihilating mist came falling to earth with such force that it seemed to blot out the sky. 

The mist was like the clouds themselves were falling. There was no way to avoid it save escaping the area. Sheltering behind rocks or trees was meaningless resistance before destruction that would swallow all obstacles whole. 

There was nothing they could do but start running and pray that they were in time. 

Too afraid to look up, Subaru merely felt the oppression of the soundless apocalypse hurtling from above. He earnestly squatted against the land dragon’s back, lowering his posture as far as he could as they ran— 

“We got through?!” 

Having apparently slipped out from under the thick mist and entered a clearer area, Subaru turned his head around and looked back. 

There were several figures on the ground behind them that hadn’t made it out in time, swallowed up as the mist pressed down upon them. With expressions of fear and anger chiseled on the human beings’ faces, they earnestly fled, but they were engulfed by the mist from the head down and vanished. 

The land dragons were obliterated with them. With the mist falling and scattering to the ground, no trace of their destruction remained. Not even their names would remain in anyone’s memories. None save Subaru, the only one who would remember their deaths. 

“U…aa…” 

There were little moans in front of Subaru from distant figures scattered about the mists. It was clear that their numbers had greatly diminished since they had regrouped. That of course went for the expeditionary force’s knights, but the Iron Fangs had not escaped unscathed, either. 

If we at least have our big guns , thought Subaru, shifting his gaze. 

“Wil…” 

He spotted Wilhelm, barely keeping one hand on his land dragon’s back as he escaped the mist’s area of effect. It was when Subaru called out to him from behind that he realized. 

—That from the other side of the dense mist, the demon beast was chasing Wilhelm, opening its huge mouth. 

“—Run!” 

“Nn—?!” 

Wilhelm noticed the impending menace at his back at about the same time Subaru shouted. But both came too late for him to react in time. 

Approaching without a sound, the maw of the White Whale swallowed the ground, the land dragon, and Wilhelm whole. 

Scraping the ground, everything on the surface around Wilhelm was gouged out, entering the White Whale’s mouth. 

“Aaah…!” 

Faced with the shock of that spectacle, it was not only Subaru who shouted but Rem as well. 

Knowing the grudge the old man bore, the sense of loss was all that much greater. More importantly, losing their main fighting strength would make their situation most dire, but… 

“Oh no, ya don’t!!” 

This time, someone else raised his voice from right beside them. 

Before they could react, a liger came in from the side, bumping their land dragon and sending Subaru and Rem flying. 

“Whoaa?!” 

Tumbling from the staggered land dragon, Subaru grimaced from the pain of getting smacked all over. From the voice, he knew that it was Ricardo who had committed the sudden act of violence, but before he could ask what the big idea was… 

“—Gaa!” 

…Subaru gasped as he saw crimson flowers bloom before his eyes. 

“Huh?” 

The liger was sliced apart, pieces of its flesh sent flying as its corpse cruelly rolled onto the grassland. The large-statured beast man who should have been straddling it had vanished, with a vast pool of fresh blood left behind in his place. 

The White Whale swam at low altitude, swaying its enormous body and waving the tail that was covered in Ricardo’s blood. 

He…shielded us? 

Then what…happened to Ricardo? 

There were various questions coming to mind, but Subaru set them aside when he realized something he could not ignore. 

Before him was a White Whale, which had mowed down Ricardo with its tail. 

And… 

“No…way…” 

When he looked back, he saw the White Whale that had swallowed Wilhelm and the ground around him beginning to bite down. 

In front, behind and up above, he saw yet another whale-shaped figure high in the sky, scattering mist all around. 

—The infinite mouths of the three White Whales laughed together, drawing out the despair of men. 

Bit by bit, Subaru once again felt hope being blotted out by a nightmare.