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Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (LN) - Volume EX5 - Chapter 2.21




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21

The island of Ginonhive offered a variety of entertainments featuring its sword slaves. The simplest was a straightforward one-on-one death match. Sometimes, there might be team battles, three-on-three or five-on-five. Sometimes, a massive demon beast might be brought in, and the sword slaves would be forced to fight it in a “raid”-style battle. Anything to sate the spectators’ lust for blood and gore.

On the sword-slave island, any battle could be permitted if it would slake the audience’s thirst for violence. But even in that context, it was hard to call what was happening now a battle. After all…

“Don’t die too easily.”

…Al could only withstand the tempest that came after those words for so long. He could never hope to overcome it. The storm of blows rained at him from above, below, left, right—the manifestation of a relentless force that could destroy the world. It didn’t matter if he jumped back, parried with his dagger. It didn’t matter if he moved to the side, forward, or diagonally. Wherever he went, he died.

His head was crushed, his torso split open, his legs cut off, his arms broken, his innards spilled all over the ground—no matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t evade some such future.

It was a slaughter. Just a tragic slaughter. Of course, there were some in the island audience who would have been pleased even to see a fly being swatted, but most of the spectators would have been disappointed with this outcome. If the only thing they wanted was to see someone dying, most of those with the clout to come here on leisure could have just stayed home and ginned up a bit of bloodshed in their own lands. No, what they wanted to see was a contest of survival, people fighting for their very lives.

From that perspective, this spectacle would have been an utter disappointment.

But Al didn’t care what anyone might have thought of him after he’d been split open.

“Dooonaaa!”

Around scenario twenty by his count, he tried a desperate burst of magic. No aim, just an incantation, the spell sending the flagstones atop the bridge flying. Specifically, flying toward the Hornet, giving her something to swing her swords at other than Al.

Al seized the instantaneous opening, taking his life in his hands as he rushed in, just barely dodging the first riposte. Then he had some distance, and knowing he had cleared the first deadly hurdle, he—


“Hrgh!”

—was about to let out a sigh of relief when a blow from above crushed his head.

“Don’t die too easily.”

“Dooonaaa!”

Starting from the moment he’d intoned his magic, he jumped backward, coordinating his movements with those of the stone debris. Then without so much as taking a breath, he leaped to the side.

A howling blow slammed into the floor, making it seem as if the whole bridge was shaking violently. The Hornet, with one great blade lodged in the ground, twisted, closing in on Al with a strike that smashed through the hallway. Al jumped over the crushing blow, and then his thrust reached the Hornet. Unfortunately, she batted away his most powerful attack like he were a biting insect.

“That’s what I wanted! Oh, my sweet Al, I knew you could do it!”

“You think? I’ve been fightin’ this whole time with my life flashing before my eyes. I think I’m out of my league!”

With apologies to the suitably pleased Hornet, she and Al were all but living in different worlds. She might see him as someone who dug deep and found the ability to rise to an occasion when there was a real crisis—but in Al’s opinion, the longer the fight went on, the more worn down he got; that was how it always went.

Whenever he found himself confronted with the truly strong like this, he had the same thought: I could never be like them.

It wasn’t because of his one arm, and it wasn’t because of his age. It was more fundamental, something to do with his basic makeup as a living being.

There was a famous proverb that went Why is the tiger strong? Because she’s a tiger. It was just like that. The strong were strong because they were born strong. The weak were weak because they were born weak. Nothing more, nothing less.

And so…

“I’m not done yet! Let’s have a little more fun!” said the strong one, the Hornet, gleefully bringing her blades to bear. And Al, the weakling, would most likely be crushed, trampled underfoot many more times—tens, hundreds, thousands.



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