But however much he surveyed the area, the girl who ought to have been there was nowhere to be found. Her presence, her lingering scent, and even her footsteps were absent. It was clear as day that he’d lost track of her.
“This is the worst… After I get teleported, I let my only lead get away…!”
Roughly scratching his head, Subaru despaired from the bottom of his heart at his own ineptitude. But he had no time to be down in the dumps. Even if the girl, his one lead, had vanished—
“Maybe I can hope for something from this ruin…? It kinda feels like a temple, so I can’t call it unrelated to someplace called the Sanctuary…”
Wishful thinking though it might be, Subaru cautiously began walking toward the ruin. Even when he saw it up close, his initial impression of the stone structure didn’t change all that much.
There was no sign whatsoever of human presence, of human handiwork, or any sense that a living soul dwelled there.
“Heyyy, is anyone here? If this is the Sanctuary, someone answer, please—!”
Though he called out to the ruin and the surrounding forest in a loud voice, it echoed fruitlessly in the air. Sighing deeply when he did not get the hoped-for response, Subaru grudgingly walked around the ruin—
“—Well, there’s an entrance…”
About halfway around the ruin, Subaru spotted a set of moss-covered stairs. When he climbed the stairs, careful not to slip, he found an opening with a dimly lit passage within—no doubt continuing into the ruin. He’d found his entrance.
Naturally, the interior of the ruin was not lit, and the corridor he saw from the entrance continued into darkness. Even when he timidly called out, he heard nothing but the lonely echo of his own voice.
Put bluntly, he didn’t have a good premonition in the slightest, but it is said that one can only get a tiger cub by going into a tiger’s den.
“Not that I really want a tiger cub…but if it’s the girl who brought me here earlier, turning back now would be giving up the store.”
Having come that far, Subaru did not doubt that the girl and the ruin were related. If the teleportation via the crystal was related to the girl as well, the ruin had to be related to the Sanctuary.
In the first place, it should have been Emilia, the one possessing the crystal, who was teleported.
“Then it being me instead of Emilia wasn’t part of the plan… Whether snake or Oni, only way to know is to see what pops out…”
The very fact that he’d been teleported had already limited their options. With no clear way to rendezvous with Emilia, Subaru decided it was best to accept the invitation and play along for the moment.
“…”
Breathing deep, Subaru clenched his teeth and stepped into the ruin.
He employed the trick of keeping his right hand constantly against a wall to never lose his way in the dark. The sensation against his hand was less of a stone wall than of the slender, delicate vines covering it. The vines had overgrown the passage so thickly that it was hard to tell where the original wall stood, and it felt more like the artery of a living entity—the bizarre atmosphere of the ruin itself made him feel like he was entering the body of some giant creature.
“…”
The only things he could hear in the darkness were his own breathing, his loudly beating heart, and his shoes.
He had lost his sense of sight due to lack of light, and the cold, serene air robbed him of all use of his nose. His sense of hearing loomed large in his mind, but at some point, he’d lost track of the wall that he’d been touching.
The feeling on his tongue was that of air mixed with sand and dust. Tasting nothing despite the sensation, Subaru relied more and more on his sense of hearing. The sounds of his shoes, his heartbeats, and his breathing were the only things he could depend on.
These things proved to him that he was connected to the world, not adrift for all eternity.
His sweating increased, his heart quickened, and his soul raged, pleading for release.
Where he was, what he was doing, whom he sought—these things grew vague.
But he was seized by a powerful drive not to stand still. Someone kept pleading with him not to stop, to grit his teeth and bear the weight he carried on his shoulders. At some point, his mind became churned.
The still-echoing voice, the warmth of a touch, an earnest plea, all mingled together when—
“I see. This is the desire that drives you. How curious, I must say.”
Amid the darkness, Subaru Natsuki heard the amused voice of a Witch.
5
Returning to the moment in the story when Subaru found himself facing the Witch on top of a hill…
“”
A faint wind tickled the back of Subaru’s neck, rekindling the chill that traveled up his spine. His back was moist from a great deal of cold sweat, and the overwhelming pressure he was under had not abated at all.
He stood opposite the girl—Echidna—as she sat in a white chair, doing nothing besides tilting her teacup.
“It hurts to see you so on guard. However I seem to you, am I not but a single, innocent maiden?”
“…Sorry, but lowering my guard for a girl I just met declaring herself the Witch of Greed is seriously not happening.”
“Ah, I see. Certainly, that was another oversight on my part.”
Echidna touched the back of her hand to her lips as she giggled and smiled in an amused fashion. The sight of the nonchalant girl did not drain the tension from Subaru, who remained ready to rush her at any moment. He opened and closed his sweat-drenched hands, as prepared as he could be to instantly overwhelm his opponent.
The problem was that such preparations, full or not, were likely futile before Echidna.
“There are a mountain of things you wish to ask. However, you do not know what may cause me to take offense. Therefore, you watch how your opponent moves in silence… The demeanor of a bird watching its prey, is it not?”
“”
“And you ignore me? Goodness, that wounds me on a fundamental level. As you can see, I am nothing more than an innocent maiden. I cannot help but wonder when a boy gazes at me with such eyes.”
“You being a maiden on the inside is like a piece of paper with death flag written on the backside. Just so you know, my internal danger alarm is ringing like crazy.”
Having experienced death repeatedly since arriving in that world, Subaru had an acute nose for danger. It hadn’t diminished the number of his deaths at all, but it at least allowed his mind to keep functioning.
According to his senses, the danger posed by the girl before him rivaled that of the White Whale and Sloth—no, it exceeded them.
“It is natural for you to be on guard, but a coward like you can do nothing to me, can you? At the very least, I would like you to sit before the tea goes cold.”
Speaking these words, Echidna offered Subaru the empty seat opposite her. On the white table between the two rested a cup of steaming tea, likely poured for Subaru’s benefit.
Sit down, drink her tea, speak with her—that was what Echidna requested.
Nothing would improve even if he refused. Indeed, the odds things would get worse were higher that way. Subaru had virtually no choice but to accept.
“Let me ask you one thing… I was inside a ruin that was completely dark. Where is this, and when did I get teleported here?”
“Teleport… Ah, you mean that Dark spell. Unfortunately, you have misunderstood. What you experienced was not physical movement through space. I simply invited you into my castle for tea.”
“Into your castle…for tea…?”
Subaru knitted his brows at Echidna’s words, turning his eyes to the hill’s surroundings once more.
The hill stood at the center of grassland rustled by the wind that seemed to continue infinitely. In all four directions, the world was completely flat with no obstacles to be seen, full of a sense of liberation. It was downright surreal.
The fact
that this didn’t seem like a real place lent weight to Echidna’s claim that he hadn’t been teleported.
“But there’s no castle here. If this is your territory, did some debt collector walk off with everything except two chairs and a table?”
“Tee-hee-hee. You are amusing. Except for fellow Witches, I cannot even count on my hands the number of those who would speak with such impudence before me. I never thought the number would increase after my own death.”
With a lighthearted laugh, Echidna counted the memories on her fingers, delighted with Subaru’s reply.
Subaru grimaced. He couldn’t simply ignore her demeanor, nor the significance of after my own death.
In the first place, he had to consider her self-declared title. When he combined it with the current supernatural circumstance, he had no reason to doubt Echidna’s identity or her power.
“Aw, shit! All right, all right already! I’ll sit! I’ll drink your tea!”
With no way to advance or retreat, Subaru did the only thing he could out of visible despair, sitting across from Echidna and practically snatching the steaming cup from the table, draining its contents all at once.
It was neither water, nor green tea, nor black. The drink had a mysterious flavor that wasn’t unpleasant.
For the first time, Echidna’s eyes went wide in apparent surprise at Subaru’s disdainful actions.
“To drink something offered by a Witch in one gulp… You are quite a brave soul.”
“Hah?! Like chickening out at this point is gonna do me any good. For starters, if you wanted to kill me, you’ll probably turn me to ash the next instant. No point being on my guard about one cup of tea.”
Subaru waved off the smiling Echidna’s words, saying “Thank you for the drink” as he put the teacup down.
“It wasn’t particularly good- or bad-tasting. What kind of tea is this…?”
“It is generated from my castle. I suppose you could call it my body fluids.”
“Damn it, why’d you make me drink that?!”
Subaru leaped from the chair to his feet, then went down onto his knees in what seemed to be an attempt to vomit what he had just imbibed. Echidna giggled and smiled at Subaru’s exaggerated reaction.
“You wound me. When I examine my appearance, I do not think I seem quite that evil.”
“No matter how beautiful the girl, I don’t wanna drink anyone’s fluids without being ready for it! Wait, I can’t drink anything called body fluids, prepared or not!! I’m not a damn pervert!!”
At the very least Subaru didn’t think he was inclined toward becoming aroused by secret ingredients like saliva and sweat.
“Shit, can’t vomit it out…! Hey, this isn’t gonna make me sick, is it?!”
“You may rest at ease. They are body fluids, after all, and thus readily absorbed by the flesh.”
“That isn’t exactly good news, so quit it with that face!”
Echidna’s demeanor came off as proud for some reason, which made Subaru wince. Echidna carried on.
“Putting that aside, you are indeed a mysterious individual. The fact that you can stand unaffected before me like this is proof enough.”
“What? Are you so beautiful that people normally shut their eyes when they see you? Just to make it clear, my eyes are fed a steady diet of the most beautiful girl around as far as I’m concerned. When I look at you, I can only go ‘Wow, she’s cute’ so many times.”
“No, a normal person in my presence would vomit. Amusing, isn’t it?”
“What’s amusing about that?!”
These exchanges, filled with concerning thoughts since the beginning of their time together, made Subaru feel exhausted in body and spirit as he slumped into his chair. He took another glance at the Witch before his eyes.
She had white, seemingly bleached hair, and a black dress that seemed like something a person would wear at a funeral. Somehow, she seemed at once fickle and baby-faced, yet also mysteriously seductive. She certainly possessed a face that stirred the heart.
But he felt pressure from her that was wholly undiluted, marking her as no normal being.
“Now then, while I am most pleased to have a fresh conversation partner like this, that is not the case for you, is it? You have things you wish to ask me, yes?”
“…That, that’s right! I got swallowed up by the mood, but that’s right. You’re… No, before that, where is this place? I should be in some weird ruin. How’d I end up in your castle?”
After the teleportation, Subaru had entered the ruin in search of clues about the Sanctuary. Somehow, he’d blindly stumbled into Echidna’s castle—the realm of the Witch of Greed.
“In the first place…are you really a Witch? According to what I’d heard, aside from the Witch of Jealousy, every other Witch in the world had been killed…”
“Whatever doubts you might harbor, you are not mistaken in that assessment. Jealousy destroyed the other six Witches, and I am no exception. This is merely my tomb.”
“Tomb… You mean I’m inside your grave?”
Echidna’s collected reply made Subaru recall the sense he’d had before entering the ruin—that the solemn atmosphere was suggestive of a temple, or a tomb.
His gut feeling had been right. The ruin was, properly speaking, a tomb. But it was the tomb of a Witch.
“After my death, my soul became a captive of this place, the Witches’ Tomb. It is not my body but my spirit that has invited you into my castle. Put one way, you are inside my dream.”
“Just the spirit, is that even possible? Meaning my body’s sleeping outside somewhere?”
“Why is it not possible? You know of a space similar to this, do you not?”
“”
Echidna’s probing question caused Subaru’s breath to catch, a reaction even he found suspicious.
Nothing came to mind. Yet, why was there a strange hesitance in his heart?
“…I don’t know what you’re referring to, but what you’re saying isn’t wrong.”
Echidna’s words were not lies. However, nor was Subaru’s answer any kind of deceit.
When told that he was inside a dream, Subaru was both surprised and quick to accept…as if his heart alone instantly understood the impression that world gave off.
As to why he thought so, he could not find the reason anywhere within his memories, but…
“I get that this is inside a dream and inside of your tomb. So how do I get out of here?”
“The method of awakening from a dream is simple. You must either strongly will yourself to awaken, or be awoken from the outside. Though it must be said, mine is a special dream. You might not be able to awaken unless I will it to be so.”
“—! Then don’t tell me you…!”
Subaru’s gaze sharpened as Echidna’s emotionless statement shocked him.
The words inside a dream and Witch’s castle suddenly weighed heavier in his mind. If Subaru’s spirit was a prisoner there, both Subaru’s flesh and his soul were in the palm of her hand.
“You don’t intend to let me escape, then…?”
“Ah, it’s not really like that. If you really want to go back, I’ll send you back. I mean, it’s not that I called you here. You intruded all on your own, you know.”
“Can’t you do something about my sense of tension? Mr. Serious can’t breathe like this, okay?”
“That is because, unlike you, Mr. Serious is not standing before me. Perhaps he is vomiting behind a tree?”
Mentally exhausted from Echidna smoothly spewing poison, Subaru was completely thrown off his stride. In the end, he still wondered just why Echidna had made contact with him.
Or was it really nothing more than the Witch responding to the arrival of a guest—
“You said you didn’t call me. In other words, the elf who was outside isn’t involved in this? Or this crystal?”
Subaru rummaged in his pocket, locating the blue crystal with his hand. Since she’d told him he was invited in spirit o
nly, he was worried about what he was carrying, but Subaru had apparently arrived with everything he’d had on him.
However, when Echidna received Subaru’s question, she put an elbow to the table.
“Unfortunately, though my complexion is in good order, I am quite dead. I know little of the happenings outside of my tomb. Therefore, I am not related either to the elf you speak of or to that blue crystal. Are you satisfied?”
“I’m unsatisfied ’cause it means everything’s still a big mystery. But that’s the stuff I wanted to ask.”
Subaru nodded at Echidna’s reply, returning the crystal to his pocket as he rose to his feet. He was unsure whether the crystal’s teleportation was truly unrelated to the Witch or not, but he had no reason to stay there any longer.
Staying and chatting over tea left his primary objective, rendezvousing with Emilia, unaccomplished.
“At any rate, if you’re gonna send me back, then send me. I’m super-worried about the girl I got split off from on the outside. If I’ve got the time to drink your body fluids, I wanna meet back up with her at the earliest second possible.”
“I do not mind, but are you really fine with that?”
“With what…?”
“Leaving my little tea party—others wishing to speak with the Witch of Greed rarely have the opportunity, even if you do.”
When she said it, Subaru realized it for the first time.
He realized the true nature of the malaise he’d felt from the being called Echidna since arriving in that place—the strange oppressive feeling that continued without any hint of gradually abating.
“”
Echidna’s deep, black, bottomless eyes had a suspicious glint to them, as if they knew everything about Subaru.
The true nature of that ill feeling was Echidna’s inexhaustible curiosity.
It was her deep interest in the existence before her eyes that made her scrutinizing gaze feel so oppressive.
“What are you? …Do you know the things I want to know?”
“And so you ask me the nature of my knowledge— Truly, you are an amusing one.”
Subaru made his rapidly drying mouth move, wringing out his voice for the question he tossed her way. The words made Echidna giggle and smile, and Subaru’s entire body was wrenched by a sense of oppression even greater than before.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 10 Page 9