INTERLUDE
LET US FEAST
1
As they traveled along the highway, Rem let the dragon carriage rock her as she thought of him alone.
Rem was lying down, eyes narrowed from the dazzling morning sun and the moist breeze, when she gently lifted her head.
Straight ahead of her was the convoy of dragon carriages in military formation as they headed back to the royal capital. The carriages were carrying the wounded from the battle to defeat the White Whale; many of them were gravely wounded and had received only the bare minimum of treatment.
But the atmosphere of the unit was far from somber; it was that of an overflowing sense that their earnest desire had been achieved.
To them, the current trek to the royal capital was a triumphant return. The pain of their wounds did not hold a candle to their sense of fulfillment from achieving the wish they had waited years for. Indeed, their hauling the severed head of the White Whale to the royal capital would surely be greeted by praise from the masses for their valiant efforts.
In contrast to their deeply held sentiments, Rem was concerned with a young man not present.
“Your face is downcast, Rem. It seems your worries indeed know no bounds.”
“…Lady Crusch.”
When Rem looked toward the voice, she saw Crusch Karsten sitting right beside her.
Though she was bandaged under her light armor, Rem did not sense that her demeanor was affected by her wounds in the slightest. But there were traces of fatigue upon even her gallant face. She was in precarious enough territory that she was riding a dragon carriage, not on her favorite land dragon.
However, as Rem nodded toward her, Crusch cast her fatigue aside in the blink of an eye.
“Ferris, Wilhelm, and the expeditionary force accompanying them are brave, highly trained warriors. He shall surely have Ricardo and the Iron Fangs aiding him… Besides, it is difficult to believe that Anastasia Hoshin does not have other measures prepared. The Witch Cult’s numbers are unknown, but it is not a losing battle.”
“I wonder if it is selfish of me to worry, even so?”
“Once the seed of worry has taken root, stepping on it is not helpful. If you are the cause, you must overcome yourself with devotion and resolve. But one finds the self to be a difficult opponent— Forgive me, helping others find peace of mind is not my specialty.”
Seeing the gloom on Rem’s face deepen, Crusch lowered her eyes, realizing that she had misspoken. That instant, Rem broke into a small, spontaneous smile at how the woman who had felt so detached to date suddenly felt very close to her. “Very good,” said Crusch, drawing her chin in upon seeing that smile. “Subaru Natsuki said it well. That a smiling face suits you better, Rem. Hearing it from the side, I thought it mere flattery, but it is less idiotic than I expected.”
“If you were to smile, Lady Crusch, the air you give off would surely change as well. You are always so imposing… I believe you would display a wonderful smile.”
“…I wonder. I am a woman poor at smiling. I have always regretted it, and do so even now.”
Rem’s suggestion caused Crusch to avert her gaze and murmur thusly. There was a smile carved upon her lips, but this was a slight smile, one plainly at her own expense.
Rem was surprised to see Crusch display such disgust with herself. To Rem, lacking in confidence, Crusch, always valiant and composed, was one of the ideal images of womanhood. Though as far as Rem was concerned, Ram, her elder sister, was the most ideal of all…
But before she could press the issue, Crusch hid her smile and changed the topic.
“Concerning Subaru Natsuki and the others… This revolves around Emilia’s lineage. I anticipated the threat of the Witch Cult from the beginning. Surely Marquis Mathers has prepared measures of his own?”
“I do not understand Master Roswaal’s thinking. For that reason, it shall do you no good to pry.”
“How strict. Now that we are allies, he surely would not mind your letting a few words slip.”
Likely, her jesting manner of speaking was her being considerate toward Rem. As a matter of fact, Rem had managed not to sink into a swamp of worry thanks to Crusch’s speaking to her like that.
Besides, Crusch’s hypothesis made perfect sense. It was a certainty that Roswaal, of all people, would have some kind of countermeasure for the current incident. After Subaru’s having fallen into misfortune, his actions to assist Roswaal would surely restore his good name.
No, his cooperation in the battle against the White Whale had already made his name echo far more than that.
The hero, Subaru Natsuki.
To Rem, it was natural to assess the man who had saved her heart and her future thus; there was no other appraisal fitting Subaru, who would surely perform other shining exploits thereafter. And if Rem could exist beside that shining light, have it turn toward her from time to time, Rem sought nothing more. Rem would be fulfilled by that alone.
When Rem thought about Subaru, her heart was always filled with complex emotions. It always made her feel warm and at ease. And yet at some point anxiety crept in, bringing anguish; she felt like worry was tearing her apart.
It was Subaru, and Subaru alone, who gave her heart such joy and distress, ceaselessly alternating between one and the other…
“Subaru…truly is a very vexing person.”
With a small, wry smile, Rem whispered loving words toward the image of the man rising in the back of her mind.
Crusch watched the side of her face in visible relief. She let her long hair flow down her back as she silently shifted her eyes toward the dragon carriage on the road ahead—but her amber eyes abruptly narrowed.
“—Mm?”
Crusch let out a tiny murmur. Rem lifted up her face, for she had detected a jarring sound at nearly the same instant.
The dragon carriage in front caught by the amber eyes was in the same direction as the discordant sound Rem had noticed. The two discrepancies were linked to the same event, which occurred a moment later.
Namely, the sudden destruction of the dragon carriage directly in front of Crusch.
It was destruction in its purest form. Out of the blue, the dragon carriage’s entire frame was swallowed up by an overpowering shock wave, which blasted it away in pieces. To Rem, the sound of the devastating blow was like that of rainfall.
Red mist spewed out as the dragon carriage was instantly transformed into a bloody spectacle. The land dragon, the carriage, and surely the wounded inside the carriage as well, had been pulverized by wholly merciless destruction.
“—! We’re under attack!!”
Instantly, Crusch shoved all distress from the blow aside and called the formation to arms. The expeditionary force’s warriors, immediately sensing something was very wrong, raised their weapons, girding against enemy attack. Rem, too, ignored her physical fatigue, rising up with an iron ball in her hand… Then she saw a figure on the other side of the bloody mist.
Unarmed. Unguarded. Unconcerned. Unmoved, unmerciful, unreserved malice—
“—Trample them!!”
Crusch shouted toward the driver’s seat. Hearing this, the knight loudly snapped the reins in lieu of a nod. The neighing land dragon accelerated, and the dragon carriage became a weapon, charging to run over its foe. And so they would score a direct hit on their target, the figure standing rooted to the spot, making no move to avoid it, sending him flying—
“Lady Crusch—!”
Rem shouted as she grabbed Crusch by her slender hips and leaped, escaping to the dragon carriage’s side. The knight on the driver’s seat was beyond her reach. Rem clenched her teeth in regret, and just after, she heard a voice.
“Goodness, could you not? I think running over someone who’s done nothing is slightly beyond what decent people would do.”
It was a gentle voice speaking with all the urgency of someone taking an early-afternoon stroll in a public park. In fact, if she’d heard such words in a public park, Rem would have been far less shocked. Yet that voice had unleashed the destruction that had shattered a dragon carriage in a tragic spectacle of blood spatter.
At a glance, he was an utterly unremarkable individual.
He was of medium height, with a medium build, and he had naturally white hair that was neither short nor long. The white suit that he wore to match the hair on his head was neither extravagant nor shabby, nor did his face have any defining characteristics; he looked like a completely average man.
Yet as a matter of fact, the land dragon coming into contact with him forcefully cried out as half of it was torn asunder; the knight on the driver’s seat and the smashed dragon carriage were destroyed together to the point that it was impossible to tell them apart.
And what shocked Rem the most was not the man’s demeanor as he treated the awful spectacle like it was nothing, but the fact that the man who had assuredly destroyed the dragon carriage had simply stood there. The man had done nothing. Merely by standing, he had taken a head-on collision from a dragon carriage, and won.
“I thank you, Rem. You saved me…but it seems the situation has improved little.”
As Rem stood frozen, Crusch, embraced in her arms, rose to her own feet. She remained wary of the still-unarmed man as she turned a painful eye toward the bloody remnants of the dragon carriage.
“How dare you inflict such cruelty on my retainers…? Who are you?”
Razor-sharp will to fight rested in Crusch’s eyes as she posed the question to the man in a hard voice. Upon receiving Crusch’s question, the man touched his own chin, nodding multiple times as he spoke.
“I see, I see. That means you do know nothing about me. But I know all about you. Right now, the royal capital…no, the entire nation is astir where you are all concerned, candidates to become the next ruler. Even if I have little interest in titles and the affairs of the world, I can imagine it takes a great deal of resolve to bear such burdens. It must be so hard for you.”
“Enough idle chitchat— Answer my question or I shall strike you down.”
“What a terrible thing to say…but perhaps arrogance of this level is mandatory if one is to support a nation on her shoulders…not that I can understand even a smidgen of that emotion, mind you. Well, I suppose I could never understand the thoughts of someone who actually wants the throne and having that responsibility piled upon her. Ah, not understanding does not mean I am putting them down. You see, unlike you, I simply lack such arrogance…”
The man continued to ignore Crusch’s demand as he spoke glibly at length. But—
“—I told you there would not be a third chance.”
Crusch made that calm statement at the same time that she waved her arm, unleashing a blade of wind. This was Crusch’s technique, One Blow, One Hundred Felled—the product of wind magic and her blessing of wind reading.
The man was slashed by the invisible cutting attack, able to slay a person, before he even realized he had been sliced. It was this might with the sword by which Crusch had protected the Duchy of Karsten in her first sortie, preventing damage when the demon beast known as the Great Hare appeared, causing rumors of the Valkyrie to quickly spread.
It was a hearty sword blow that could even rend the thick hide of the White Whale, sending a beast of that size crashing to the ground—a man’s flesh, with a mass greatly inferior to that of the demon beast’s, could not possibly withstand such a blow.
And yet—
“…Who raised you to cut a man down in the middle of a pleasant conversation?”
Tilting his head, the man stood there, his body showered with the slicing blow, only to easily shrug it off.
The cutting attack that had rent even the White Whale hadn’t even made him twitch. There was no sign of the man’s flesh—no, not even of the man’s clothes having been cut.
It was thanks to an unknown phenomenon that did far more than merely defend against Crusch’s invisible blade.
Crusch gasped; Rem’s body froze up from the work of a different abnormal phenomenon. Looking at the two in front of him, the man sighed and pushed up his forelocks in annoyance.
“Now hold on, I’m speaking. I’m speaking, okay? Isn’t it strange to interrupt a man when he’s speaking? Not that I feel like asserting the right to speak, but it’s common sense not to bother a man when he’s trying to say something. Now, you’re free to listen or not, so I won’t complain about that part, but you deciding not to let me speak, that’s just…I mean, how self-centered is that?”
The man spoke rapidly as he began to scuff the ground with the tip of his shoe. The pair maintained an awkward silence as the man pointed at them, clicking his tongue in further annoyance.
“And now silence. What’s up with you people? You heard me. I know you heard me. I asked questions, didn’t I? Then answer me. That’s how it works. And you won’t even do that. You don’t want to. Ahhh, liberty. This is your liberty at work. This is how you employ your own liberty. That’s fine, do as you please. But you know what that means, don’t you?”
The man leaned forward as the mad glint in his eyes grew stronger. Then—
“It means that you’re belittling my rights…the very few things I personally own, yes?”
A chill raced up Rem’s spine. The next moment the man moved. Without warning, he listlessly raised his dangling arms, and a faint vortex of wind erupted.
Right after, in a line directly above the man’s arms—the ground, the air, the world, broke.
“—”
Around and around, around and around, Crusch’s left arm, severed at the shoulder, danced in the air.
The arm, still posed as if it were holding the invisible blade, flew, scattering blood droplets all around as it fell to the earth. The blow sent Crusch’s body crumpling down; she began to convulse from the bleeding and intense pain.
“Lady…Crusch—”
After spending several seconds dumbfounded, Rem snapped back and leaped toward Crusch. Putting her hand against Crusch’s bleeding wound, Rem wrung out the scant mana she had to stop the bleeding and treat it with all her strength.
Crusch’s arm had been cleanly severed—flesh, bone, and nerves sliced through. No matter how out of place, Rem couldn’t help but admire the terrifyingly perfect cut.
“Ferr…is… Uaa…u?”
In Rem’s arms, Crusch’s vision wandered as she spoke those words. Her right hand gripped Rem’s foot hard enough to make her bones creak.
Rem bit down, enduring Crusch’s struggle to live. She glowered at the wicked deed of the man before her.
Rem had absolutely no understanding of the indecipherable man’s means of attack and defense. As she pondered how to shield the wounded Crusch and get her away from the man, Rem suddenly realized that something else felt off.
During all of this, the other knights had strangely not joined the battle.
“Aaah… No matter how much I eat, it’s still not enough! This is why we can’t stop livin’. Eat, eat, bite, chew, swallow, swallow more, tear, crush, drink! Gorge! Aaah, that was a feast!”
The same time the insight hit her, the high-pitched voice of a youth reached her from behind.
A chill equal to that caused by the man before her caused Rem to look back in fright. And behind her, at the center of the stopped convoy of dragon carriages, she saw a blood-smeared youth kicking the knights who had fallen before him.
He was a short youth with light-brown hair that went down to the knees. His height was equal to Rem’s or even lower; he was probably twelve or thirteen years of age. Under his unkempt hair, he wore tattered clothes over his diminutive frame. His bare limbs were covered in dirt and grime, and stained from large amounts of blood spatter.
Not one of the knights tumbled at his feet was moving. The youth had wiped out the surrounding knights while Crusch was battered in the white-haired man’s attack.
“You…are…?”
Rem’s lips quivered, for she was dumbfounded that she had not even sensed the combat taking place.
Hemmed in by bizarre opponents to the front and the back, Rem picked Crusch up and slowly backed away. Blood flowing from Crusch’s wound was staining the grassland red; the air felt chill, as if to mock Rem’s fearful heart.
Rem’s trembling question prompted man and boy to glance at each other’s faces. Then the pair nodded, as if giving each other a signal, whereupon devilish smiles came over both, as if such violent acts were deeply familiar to them; then they introduced themselves.
“Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins of the Witch Cult, Regulus Corneas, charged with Greed.”
“Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins of the Witch Cult, Lye Batenkaitos, charged with Gluttony.”
2
They were members of the Witch Cult—and archbishops at that.
Ignoring Rem, who froze when their titles reached her ears, the excitable-looking youth—Lye Batenkaitos—looked around at the fallen knights, fondly licking his lips.
“Oh yeah, coming here for a bite like this was a great idea. Considering that they took out our pet, this is…a rich harvest. It’s nice, it’s great, it’s neat, it’s all right, it’s good, it’s good, it’s great, isn’t it, of course it’s great! It’s been a while since we’ve been able to eat our fill!”
“To be honest, I just can’t understand that part about you. Why can you not be satisfied with what you have right now? You know, people can only carry what will fit in the two hands they are born with. Why can’t you understand that and hold your own cravings in check?”
“We hate lectures, and we don’t need any. We don’t care if what you say is right or wrong, either. To us, nothing matters besides the feeling of an empty stomach.”
Batenkaitos of Gluttony slurped his saliva as Regulus of Greed let his shoulders sink.
With two Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins having appeared simultaneously, Rem desperately searched her nearly stalled head, earnestly hammering out a plan to break out of the situation.
With the combat ability present, it was impossible to crush the two men who had appeared before them.
Crusch’s bleeding had stopped, but she was in nearly as precarious a condition as before. As it was unclear if the knights were dead or alive, Rem could not count on them to bolster her fighting strength. Rem herself had depleted her tiny reserve of mana by treating Crusch; even if she went into demon mode, she could not picture an outcome where she was triumphant.
“—”
When she glanced around the area, she could not see any sign of the Iron Fangs. One of their units was transporting the wounded beast men and hauling the recovered head of the White Whale. Likely their commander, Hetaro, had seen an opportunity and beat a hasty retreat. Perhaps, if she bought some time, they might return with reinforcements.
Even if that was true, she doubted they would arrive in time.
“Are you here because…we defeated the White Whale? To avenge the demon beast…?”
“Ahh, don’t misunderstand. We’re not interested in the dead White Whale. We’re interested in the people who killed the White Whale. Somehow it did whatever it liked for four hundred years, but you managed to kill it. I hoped you all would be ripe for the slaughter…but it turned out even better than I expected!”
Batenkaitos bared his very sharp teeth as he wildly shook his head in vigorous excitement.
“Love! Chivalrous spirit! Hatred! Tenacity! Triumph! All bottled up and simmering for such a long, long time! Just having them passing down my throat makes me feel full! Is there a more beautiful food in the entire world?! No, no, nay, nothing, surely nothing, certainly nothing, absolutely nothing!! Drink! Gorge! That is what brings joy to our hearts, and our stomachs!!”
Rem couldn’t understand anything he said.
Batenkaitos continued to writhe as if he’d dined to excess. As his laughs reverberated for a time, Rem silently shifted her gaze; that gaze caused Regulus to wave a hand with an exasperated look.
“Relax. I’m not anything like him. I’m just here by pure coincidence. You think I hunger and thirst like that? I have nothing to do with such vulgar behavior. Unlike him, always pathetically unfulfilled, I would be satisfied with, well, you, even as you currently are.”
Regulus motioned to Crusch’s lopped-off arm, wearing a sunny expression as he stood before Rem.
“I dislike…conflict and the like. If times remain ordinary, peaceful and gentle, that is enough for me. That is best. I have no ambitions greater than what I can reach with my meager hands. As an individual, my hands are full simply protecting what little I call my own.”
Regulus closed his fist, drunk on his own performance. Rem wondered how someone who could take the lives of a land dragon and several humans, or inflict a grievous wound on a single woman, could speak like that.
On the one hand was Batenkaitos, who writhed from incomprehensible hunger, immersed in self-satisfaction while waving around his pet self-serving theories; on the other was Regulus, a strange man through and through. They truly had to be Witch Cultists.
Simmering anger welled up within Rem as she rose to her feet.
Rem laid Crusch, sleeping like the dead, down on the ground; she lifted up her own weapon in Crusch’s place. Rem’s little remaining mana swirled around, and a number of icicles rose in the air around her.
Seeing this, the expressions on Batenkaitos and Regulus changed.
“Have you listened to a single word I said? I told you, I don’t want to fight. After hearing that, if you’re going to act like this, that would be…ignoring my opinion. That would be infringing upon my rights. That is something even my unselfish heart cannot forgive.”
“Is that all you have to say, Witch Cultist?”
As Regulus inclined his head, Rem spoke thus, her demeanor resolute. In contrast to Regulus, taken aback by the sight, a strong glint rested in Rem’s eyes as the chain of her iron ball rang out.
“Someday a hero shall appear—a hero to destroy you all. However self-serving you are, however much misfortune your self-satisfaction creates, that man, the only hero Rem loves, shall surely bring you what you deserve.”
“Heh, a hero? Well, that’s more fun. If you trust him that much, that’ll make him all the tastier for us!!”
Batenkaitos clapped his hands in delight as he stared at Rem, seeming to assess her. He was looking at her neither as an enemy nor as a woman. There was but a single, undiluted sentiment resting in that gaze: that of a hungry beast licking its chops in front of its food.
They were an ego run amok and a violent hunger demon. Rem boldly faced them both with pride.
“I am a senior servant of Marquis Roswaal L. Mathers…”
As Rem made her introduction, she stopped halfway after speaking her title, shaking her head.
At that moment, for that instant only, Rem introduced herself the way she truly wished her name to be known:
“Now I am but a woman in love—I am Rem, the woman assisting Subaru Natsuki, the man I love most, the man who will become a hero.”
A beautiful white horn jutted out of Rem’s forehead, granting Rem vigor as it collected the mana stored in the air around her. Power filled her entire body as she moved the hand gripping the iron ball’s handle in a rhythmic motion and called forth more and more icicles.
Her eyes were wide open. She was aware of the whole world around her. She felt the air around her. But the only thing traced by the back of her mind was an image of him.
“Prepare yourselves, Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins—Rem’s hero shall surely come to strike you down!!”
Raising her iron ball high, Rem leaped, her body shooting out, pounding the icicles home the same instant. Batenkaitos seemed set to strike them down as he opened his fang-filled mouth wide and spoke.
“Ahh, that’s the spirit… Then, without holding back, let us feast!!”
Something struck her. Something struck her. And in that instant, she thought…
I hope that when he learns that I am gone, it sends a ripple through his heart.
In her final moment, that was Rem’s only wish.
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