CHAPTER 56: THE REASON FOR SANCTUARY'S EXISTENCE
Lewes leads Subaru back to the isolated house where they had chatted over tea before. Lewes: “Just seat yerself on the bed there. I'll make drinks fer us.” Subaru: “If it's just tea how about I do it? Ram's trained it into me so I should be a little better.” Lewes: “I'd be more'en happy if yer could, but doesn't lerk like yer able at the moment.” Says Lewes mirthfully as she points out the Lewes lookalike girl—who is holding on tight to
Subaru's sleeve as he sits on the bed, showing no signs of letting go. Still lost on how to refer to this Lewes copy(?), Subaru winds up with,
Subaru: “No matter how much time passes, Pico's kind of not letting me go.” Lewes: “I'm dubious abert that name Pico yer have going there, but being how things are, I'll resign ter accept it. This'll be what happens when yer brashly touch strange, unfermilier things.”
Subaru: “Well, you could say that, I suppose...” Lewes gives her frank opinion, but scolding a groping-for-leads Subaru as brash was being way too unreasonable. Subaru indicates his disapproval with a dejected expression. Lewes boils up some tea and returns to Subaru, tray in hand. Lewes: “Here now, it's hot so let it cool befer drinking.” Subaru: “I'm not a kid, I'm not gonna drink it in a rush and burn myself.” Lewes: “I gotter someone 'round me who can never settle down and steruggles with hot food.
Giving these warnings's gotten ter be a habit.” The most likely contender as to who Lewes means is Garfiel. There's a joke here about how 'struggles with hot food' is expressed as having 'cat tongue' in Japanese and Garfiel transforms into a tiger with an actual cat tongue. That he's also poor at learning by observation goes along with Subaru's preconceptions about him too. Subaru puts the indeed rather hot tea to his mouth, wets his parched tongue, and takes a breath.
Thinking back on it, this is the first time he's drank anything since RETURNING BY DEATH, otherwise said since waking up in the tomb. Subaru: “I can really taste the attempt to draw out the leaf flavour in this.” Lewes: “I gotter feeling I been passed with a judgement that's sure nothing fair.” Subaru: “Just your feeling, just your feeling.” Subaru drinks down the tea and returns his cup to the tray with a clink. He fixes his posture to face
Lewes, who has dragged a chair over to the bed and sits comfortably as she watches Subaru. Subaru: “Now that we're calmed down, can we be alright to start the talk?” Lewes: “Mm. I've got loster things I needer talk about from my side, too.” Subaru feels keenly his relief at Lewes' upfront responding to have this chat.
He's had multiple opportunities to speak face-to-face with the big players like this before. That Subaru has nevertheless failed to ascertain the truth of matters is partly because they're intentionally hiding information, but there's also a preliminary problem. That being—
Subaru: “I still haven't figured out the true issue that I need to ask about.” —Subaru hadn't figured out the question that would bind all the answers into one thread. And so he couldn't notice that he was being dodged, and that his questions were misdirected.
Asking the thing he needs to know of someone who knows them. Even that was considerably distant from Subaru. Subaru: “That building... that facility from before. Just what on earth is it?” Lewes: “Hrm. ...That's the question yer starting with.” The inquiry which pops into Subaru's mind is an inoffensive one, made for the purpose of determining how upfront Lewes will be in this conversation. Lewes traces her fingers over her chin in a very geriatric non-loli gesture. Lewes: “If yer were to ask what that facility is, then I'd answer that in a sense, it's SANCTUARY's nexus. If I were ter speak further, it's one of the reasons SANCTUARY exists.”
Subaru: “The reason SANCTUARY exists!?”
Lewes: “Originally speaking, Lil' Su. Lil' Su, just who do yer think had necessity ter create SANCTUARY?” Subaru: “Roswaal is...” Starting to speak off a conditioned kind of reflex, Subaru understands what he's saying is incorrect.
While indeed the Roswaals have owned and managed SANCTUARY to the present day, the question of who created the place presents a different story.
Subaru: “Who made this place is the Witch of GREED... it'd be Echidna.” Lewes: “Cerrect. It was Echidna, the witch, who made this place. SANCTUARY wers made because it was a necessary thing for the witch. If I were ter speak in extremes, that's all there's ter the place.”
Subaru: “That's surely going too extreme. And skimping way too much on the inbetween. ...At least, if you could give a little more detail...”
Lewes: “Lil' Su, don't yer already have a success of the experiment right in fronter yer?”
Lewes smiles. Subaru's breathing freezes for an instant.
He understands what Lewes means, and what she's trying to say.
Subaru: “The outcome of this place is... you, Lewes-san, and this girl.”
Lewes: “Yer really a kind boy, Lil' Su. Ertherwise soft. —Yer can just say experimental results.”
Of course Subaru hesitates to say that term in front of Lewes.
Lewes: “There wers a girl who lerks exactly like me, sealed inside the crystal, yes?”
Subaru: “...Yeah. A lookalike. And then's you, and this girl. Is it safe for me to consider you as triplets, or something?”
Lewes: “If yer gonner treat beings with highly similar appearances ers a family, then calling ers triplets might be jerst a smidgen too few in number.” Subaru: “Just a smidgen.” Lewes: “Jerst a smidgen.” Lewes' 'smidgen' probably means there's a tens column.
Being that Subaru's already seen 21 Lewes copies, he inevitably thinks so. He sighs, erasing his idle thoughts.
Lewes hasn't been attempting to dodge Subaru's questions so far. Now's probably about time to cool down on feeling her out, and get into it. Subaru: “—What relation do you have to the girl in the crystal?” Lewes' expression remains calm. She fiddles with the ends of her pink hair, aiming a meaningful gaze at Subaru—no, at the silent girl beside him. Lewes: “It ersn't jerst about me. This girl here's in my persition too.” Subaru: “And the girl in the crystal, too.” Lewes: “No, just her is different. Becerrs the girl in the crystal is legitimate.” Unable for an instant to comprehend what Lewes is saying, Subaru furrows his brows. But, putting it together, the stands up from the bed. Subaru: “Legitimate, would mean what...” Lewes: “Dern't get hurried now. Trawling through memories ers necessary werk fer yer elders when talking. Yer gotter wait there calm n' ready fer it.”
Subaru: “Don't start playing on the non-speech elderly appeal now. I can at least tell from how bland and flavourless this girl here is that that's nothing but seasoning.”
Lewes: “Hrm, that ers a saddening misernderstanding. By my perspective, everything that constertutes who I am now, ers important, in what yer'd call acquired individuality.”
Subaru: “Acquired, individuality?”
Lewes nods.
Lewes: “Yes.”
Lewes: “Just as yer serspect, Lil' Su, I wers originally identical ter this girl, bern as an unfilled vessel. The years passed, and so I've been living ter this day while filling up my empty insides.”
Subaru: “Wait, waitwaitwait, the story's moving a bit too fast. Born? Empty? What exactly is this? This's kinda obvious, but it's related to the crystal's insides being LEGITIMATE, right?”
Lewes: “The inside erv that crystal is the legitimate, first Lewes Meyer. All other Leweses, including me, er then replicas of Lewes Meyer.”
Lewes easily reveals her own origins. Or no, should he even be calling her Lewes? Subaru is lost. What Lewes has just said is exactly the vague hypothesis Subaru has had ever since sighting the multiple Lewes doubles. Although half-suspecting as much, what prevented him from reaching confidence about it was entirely THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF THERE BEING CLONES OF MY ACQUAINTANCE. Even that was a narrow view resulting from his hardened perspectives of normalcy.
Lewes: “Does hearing the word replica change how yer see me?”
Subaru: “...I don't know. It doesn't, is what I want to assert. I want to, I do, but... If you asked whether I could say so while in front of you yourself...”
—He couldn't. Being that this is a parallel world, Subaru can't strictly call the Lewes a clone. Her method of being born likely differs from the vague image in Subaru's head. Doubtlessly, she is a life born from magical rather than scientific means.
Subaru: “I lack confidence I could say it cooly, without change to my expression. So I won't say it hasn't changed.”
Lewes: “I'll revise what I said. Lil' Su, yer got kind and soft ter yer, but... more'en that, looks like yer roots're far too completely honest.”
They're definitely not joyous words, but Lewes responds to Subaru's reply with a satisfied nod. Biting down on his feelings, Subaru looks at the girl sitting beside him—at Pico, who is in the same position as Lewes.
—Pico wordlessly keeps her grasp on Subaru's sleeve, staring blankly across the room. Her eyes surely witness the same scene as Subaru, but since her irises lack any visible emotion, they're conceivable as glass balls simply reflecting the scenery. Her expression remains unchanged, and she hasn't said a single word. But,
Subaru: “She's empty, is what...”
Lewes: “She wers born very recently, a double only jerst given her role. She knows enough ter follow simple instructions, but ertherwise she's the same ers a baby. That she dersn't cry and dersn't need food means she's less of a handful, I serppose.”
Subaru: “She doesn't need food?”
Lewes: “Replicating a body ersn't anything achieved so simply. Can yer think of on what principle me and her are here?”
Subaru, desiring an immediate answer, holds himself back. He can't be a child, entirely making desires, only ever receiving. That's not what Lewes wants from Subaru. Pressured by the seriousness in Lewes' gaze, he scrutinizes her words, and what he hits on is,
Subaru: “Is it mana... maybe?”
What comes to his mind is the impetus for Puck's existence. Puck's body is constructed using mana as an intermediary when he materializes. By applying that, you could probably also create human-shaped bodies. Lewes' brows raise and she gives a little clap.
Lewes: “Beautiful. That yer reached that answer is truly impressive. And it ersn't as though anyone told yer, either.”
Subaru: “But you guided me along to properly reach the answer. It's just because I happen to know a nearby spirit that I thought of it. ...So, was it correct?”
Lewes: “Almost cerrect. Making a body solely with mana as an intermediary inevitably means a poor consumption rate. The Witch of GREED forcibly cercumvented that problem with a specialized algorithm arrangement.”
Subaru: “Forcible algorithms, means?”
Lewes: “The algorithm constructs an organ to produce mock-od, and so lerng as a set quantity of mana is stored, yer can materialise a body. Meaning that while the body is made erv mana, yer can create lifeforms resembling NORMAL, od-existant creatures.”
Od—unlike the mana in the atmosphere, od comes inset in every living creature from the outset, an energy which preforms the same operations as mana. However, od cannot be harvested from the outside as mana can, and the complete amount a creature possesses is decided at birth. Using od meant shortening one's life span, and exhaustion of od = death. Consider it as casting magic with HP when lacking the required MP. Although that said the HP is unrecoverable.
Subaru: “You said it so easily, but... isn't that something amazing? Even if it's 'mock', replicating od basically means creating life.”
Lewes: “Naturally, yer have ter follow some pretty particular conditions befer the phenomenon's posserble. My noggin ersn't clever enough ter understand the details. —But yer can safely think it truth that the witch succeeded in creating life.”
Subaru: “Incredible... man, she was actually amazing.”
The image of the white-haired witch smugly looking down at Subaru flashes through his mind. But then he immediately thinks,
Subaru: “No but, Daphne also said she created witchbeasts, so is the difficulty level for creating life just surprisingly low for witches? Lower rarity than I thought.”
The image of the white-haired witch saying “W-well but it wasn't as if I did it wanting any praise” flashes through his mind.
Lewes: “Yer expression's saying yer imagining something very heartwarming.”
Subaru: “Mysteriously, it feels like our exchanges've completely melted my sense of caution toward her. Anyway, I understand your origins, Lewes-san. Echidna created duplicates here of this girl Lewes Meyer. I got that.”
Subaru successfully comprehends the principle behind the Lewes' doubles' existence, and that Lewes herself has accepted this truth.
Subaru: “The next problem is, why was Echidna doing that?”
Lewes: “Hrm...”
Subaru: “For me, a layman in magic and the related algorithms, I only understand from the appearances just how amazing the thing Echidna did was. But even at that appearances level, I understand it was something gargantuan.”
Says Subaru to Lewes, who has her arms crossed in listening posture.
Subaru: “Where'd the motivation come from to do something that huge? What's her incentive? Why was it necessary for Echidna to create doubles of Lewes Meyer?”
The position of this girl Lewes Meyer in SANCTUARY is unclear. The Lewes Subaru is chatting with right now serves as a representative-slash-body double in present-day SANCTUARY. So, what standing did the original Lewes Meyer have in the structure of
SANCTUARY? Or otherwise, if she herself was the impetus for creating SANCTUARY,
Subaru: “I've hit on a thought for a possibility.”
Lewes: “Oh?”
Subaru: “This kinda story's a guaranteed winner. It's the possibility of her intentionally creating substitutes for Lewes Meyer, who for some reason lost her life.”
In media such as manga and novels, it's common to have characters searching for means to bring back a lost life. Creating clones of the deceased, crafting beings of the same DNA to substitute them, was a popular theme. Although those often end as failures due to THEIR BODIES ARE THE SAME, BUT THEIR SOULS WERE DIFFERENT.
Subaru: “Going by what you've said, Lewes-san, and seeing Pico, it looks likely the experiment in SANCTUARY got set back for the same reason. Even if you can make the appearance identical, you can't copy the essence, is the feeling.”
If they were regardless continuing to create doubles, not giving up, you could probably call that insanity. If they persisted, still seeking the possibility that the soul would lodge in the body even after over twenty failures, that was—
Subaru: “Delusion, isn't how I wanna dismiss it, but...”
You couldn't call it wrong to want to bring back someone's life to that extent. Subaru, at least, was absolutely incapable of lambasting it. Subaru right now in the present-perfect-continuous was working for the sake of seeing a future with everything saved. Using only different methods and process, just how dissimilar was that from the witch's experiment?
The question of what the resulting Leweses thought of it could only be answered by asking them directly. His theory now concluded, Subaru falters on what to say. Lewes sighs.
Lewes: “Lil' Su, yer a quicker thinker than I figured.”
Subaru: something something with the arrangements I've been given it's excessively slow. It's a result of you being made to say things you didn't want to say, too.
Subaru's thinking is so slow it makes him want to click his tongue. He feels keenly his regret. But Lewes gives Subaru a slow shake of the head. However, it's not a gesture to comfort him. A light smile arises on her face, hosting a sense of melancholy,
Lewes: “But, it seems yer overthink. Could also call yer a dreamer.”
Subaru: “A dreamer... I don't think that opinion's too off-base, but...”
Lewes: “Yer a dreamer. This's what yer thinking, isn't it, Lil' Su? —She went through these strenuous efforts attempting to restart that life. The girl Lewes Meyer was someone the Witch of GREED cherished, and for her possessed such a merit. Cerrect?”
Hit with a bullseye, Subaru goes silent. That was exactly what he had been thinking. Inventing new algorithms and going through tiresome processes to continue someone's existence—if Echidna was going so far to do this, then you would likely reason that the witch considered this person someone special. Lewes smiles as she rejects Subaru's reasoning. A dry, pained smile.
Lewes: “Lewes Meyer wers just a village girl. She weresn't anyone especially close ter the Witch of GREED. They naturally had no blood, er matrimonially resultant ties. The witch and Lewes Meyer were most entirely strangers, having exchanged only the abserlute scantest of words.”
Subaru: “That's... no, hold on.”
Says Lewes as if she's seen this, Subaru interrupting her talk by holding out his palm. He puts his free hand to his forehead.
Subaru: “Isn't this weird? Lewes-san, you said this before. That you're like Pico, born with your insides empty. Why do you know about the Lewes Meyer in the crystal? It doesn't make sense.”
Lewes: “That's the result erv another test undergone in this SANCTUARY.”
Lewes softly receives Subaru's objection, putting her hand to her chest. If what she's said is true, she most likely feels no heartbeart in doing so. But then where does the warmth he touched come from, wonders Subaru needlessly. Lewes closes her eyes.
Lewes: “Lewes Meyer and the witch were not close. But, she sacrificed herself ter the test. The witch utilised Lewes Meyer's body, sealed her in the crystal, and granted her time eternal. From there she formulated the algorithm, leaving behind a mechanism which generates mock-od every time a certain quantity erv mana is amassed, creating Lewes Meyer doubles.”
Subaru: “...For what purpose?”
Lewes: “If yer discount knowledge such as language and a bare minimum sense erv common mores, Lewes Meyer doubles err born in a state identical ter a baby. But that itself is already perculier. If it's identical ter a baby, it's cerrect fer it to just cry, ignorant and pure. So then why der they have knowledge allowing them ter follow the most basic instructions?”
Subaru: “That's... no way.”
Hitting on the worst of possibilities, Subaru loses his words. Lewes seems to understand it simply by seeing his expression. She nods.
Lewes: “Picking and choosing on knowledge, the witch formulated means ter confer that ter the doubles. From there she granted only the minimum in knowledge, birthing them empty of anything else.”
Subaru: “Then, them being born knowing nothing is exactly as she anticipated? But, then exactly there is where the purpose doesn't...”
It's turned into a ritual of creating order-following dolls. That said, it's not unthinkable for that to have been an intentional aspect of it. Isn't, but it's also very diverged from the disposition of Witch of GREED Echidna. It's unthinkable that white-haired girl would pull something so roundabout just to create beings she could operate like her very own limbs.
Subaru: “Dunno if she could do this, but it'd save heaps of time and effort to brainwash or something people kidnapped from wherever. That's not it, there's some reason that's...”
Empty, new existences, something from nothing, creation—
Subaru: “—ah,”
A possibility flicks through his mind. But it's preposterous, and Subaru immediately shakes his head to forget about it. However, in thinking it once, the thought won't let Subaru go. If for assumption that this idea were true—
Echidna: <I wouldn't want you to scorn me.>
—Then it cohered with her concealing the truth of her deeds from Subaru. And also cohered with the Lewes before him inheriting considerable memories from Lewes Meyer.
Subaru: “When you can pick and choose knowledge, why would you nonetheless create empty doubles?”
Lewes says nothing.
Subaru: “You prepare an empty vessel, and then what? Why do you put a vessel empty of content on the table?”
Lewes says nothing.
Subaru: “—To fill it, of course.”
Assuming that knowledge and memories could be poured into these doubles, with the empty vessels prepared. Inside the crystal was the original, never to be lost. Assuming that it could create countless doubles, and you could append countless memories and knowledge into them. That was—
Subaru: “You repeatedly burn your own memories and knowledge into the body of Lewes Meyer. If that is just maybe possible, then it's...”
Lewes: “—A kind of immortality.” —That was the true nature of the experiment preformed in SANCTUARY.
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