“The credit doesn’t go to just me. It’s thanks to the memories that brought me here.”
“Memories, a strange answer indeed. Just whose memories were they?”
“I wonder. —I think they’re probably from someone who knows about this place.”
Ryuzu skeptically furrowed her brows, but Subaru did not disclose the secret of the memories. This was not maliciousness on his part but because he had judged that revealing any more would be dangerous.
This information had been gleaned from falling deep into the Witch of Jealousy’s shadow. If he explained where he’d gotten them from, the odds of breaking the Witch’s taboo were rather high. Accordingly, he chose to not tell Ryuzu anything else.
But what had developed from that, namely Subaru acting based on his belief in those memories, was another matter.
He believed that by going there and asserting these memories, he would draw closer to Ryuzu’s secret.
“And in point of fact, I turned out to be the bait drawing Ryuzu out. Wasn’t far-fetched or reckless at all, was it?”
“It was certainly a gamble for you. Did you think about what Young Gar might do if he spotted you?”
“I did think about it, so I asked Ram to keep him occupied. In the meantime, it’s a date between you and me, Ryuzu.”
“I am unsure what it is you mean by dayte…but I cannot defy you at this point, Young Su. You may do with me and the girl here as you wish.”
“That’s giving in a little too much! In the first place, I just want to ask you some things. If possible, I’d like to ask you for your cooperation afterward, but…”
This was hardly his first choice but if push came to shove, it was entirely possible that he would have to confront Garfiel.
As a matter of fact, he didn’t know for sure that Ryuzu agreed with all of Garfiel’s positions. Subaru needed to think of inflated hopes or easy trust as dangerous things.
“—There is no need for concern. It is as I said. I cannot defy your words, Young Su.”
However, in the face of Subaru’s concerns, Ryuzu repeated herself as if trying to remind him of something.
The weight of those words left Subaru downright perplexed. Ryuzu wore a thin, pleasant smile that confused Subaru as she glanced at the girl standing right beside her who bore the same face as she did. Then she picked up from where she had left off.
“We cannot defy the Apostles of Greed. —This is the pact that has been imposed upon us, the replicas of Ryuzu Meyer.”
Somehow, resignation seemed to cross her powerless smile as she spoke.
4
They exited the facility and led Subaru to a single house in a place that was isolated even by Sanctuary standards.
They could not simply return to the settlement, and Subaru was reluctant to hold a conversation in a place with such a caustic odor, so this suited him just fine. It seemed a little too good to be true, but—
“Such a deeply suspicious child. With that personality, you will die of mental fatigue at a young age.”
“That’s unexpectedly unfunny, and sometimes things get to you whether your suspicions are deep or shallow.”
When Subaru was looking around the room in dead seriousness, Ryuzu gave off a sigh with the air of a strained smile. Then she set her cane aside, picking up a pot for pouring tea in its place.
“Sit somewhere suitable. I will pour the tea.”
“I know how to pour tea at least. Ram taught me so I’m a bit confident in my skill.”
“A great part of me would be grateful for that, but now is simply not the time, is it?”
With the smiling, eyes-narrowed Ryuzu watching him, Subaru sat down on a bed, and the Ryuzu look-alike girl grasped Subaru’s tracksuit, as if trying not to let him escape.
Subaru was at a loss as to what to call the girl who Ryuzu herself had called a replica, until finally—
“She’s really clingy… Er, no, that can’t be it. Piko doesn’t plan on letting me escape, I take it?”
“Nicknames aside, she bears no ill will. Apostles must be welcomed with special favor. I assure you, she will not mind if you give her a little slap for being naughty.”
“Calling it naughty makes it sound a lot less like a bold confrontation, you know…”
Ryuzu’s elderly advice brought a look of dissatisfaction from Subaru. With Subaru like that, Ryuzu handed him a steaming cup, then proceeded to sit in a chair and turn to face him.
“It is hot tea. ’Tis it not best to blow on it first?”
“I’m not a little kid, so I’m not gonna bring it to my mouth all nervous and give myself a big burn, okay?”
“There is a restless one close to me with a cat’s tongue, so I am in the habit of giving warnings.”
From the teasing way she said it, the one with the cattiest tongue, least able to take the heat, had to be Garfiel.
Bringing the poured tea to his lips and finding it fairly hot, just as Ryuzu had said, he wet his dry lips and took a breath. When he thought about it, this was the first moisture he had received since his Return from Death—in other words, since awakening in the tomb. His throat was craving that moisture beyond what he’d expected.
And so Subaru promptly drank the cup dry, audibly placing the cup on the table as he spoke.
“There we go. I know this is right after an unsettling conversation, but can we get to the point?”
“How impatient of you. But I have no reason to refuse or the personality to do so. Do as you please.”
“You being cooperative is a big help… And I take it that this Apostle of Greed is kind of the reason you’re so cooperative?”
As they began the Q&A session, Subaru efficiently cut straight to the most recent question on his mind.
It was the first time he was hearing the term, but it was the sort of thing that required little in the way of imagination after hearing it. After all, there was just too strong a whiff of a connection to the Witch of Greed.
The question made Ryuzu close her eyes and sink into thought. By no means was she rejecting his first request of the conversation. It was just that the silent girl was displaying a quite gloomy expression.
Finally, Ryuzu let out a sigh that sounded far older than suited her appearance as she said, “…Young Su, surely you know whose hands first established this land?”
“Whose hands? That’d be Roswaal’s fami— No, it wouldn’t.”
Answering reflexively, Subaru shook his head midway, realizing his answer was wrong.
The Sanctuary had purportedly been administered to by the Roswaal family for generation after generation, and the current Roswaal had inherited that role. However, it sounded like the administrator and the creator were two separate parties.
“Meaning the one who built this place was the Witch of Greed… Echidna.”
“Yes. A certain Witch built upon this soil a place to accomplish a certain Witch’s purpose. It is a testing ground to fulfill a dream traced by that certain Witch.”
“Testing ground… Garfiel said something pretty close to that.”
Garfiel had made the statement when Subaru and the others arrived at the settlement in the Sanctuary.
He had called this deadlocked testing ground the tomb of the Witch of Greed. At the time, the word Witch had seemed most important, so he’d let the testing ground part slide, but now that he had seen the girl in the crystal, the impression given by that facility made him unable to forget those words any longer.
“If this is the Witch of…Echidna’s testing ground, what kind of test is she running?”
“The details of the test, you ask? Where that is concerned, the examples of success are right before you, Young Su.”
The corners of Ryuzu’s lips twisted as she spread both arms out in a theatrical gesture. Her behavior made Subaru’s breath catch. —When he guessed the true meaning of her words, he sent his gaze toward Ryuzu and Piko.
“So Ryuzu and this girl are the results of the experiment being conducted
here.”
“—There was a girl who looked exactly like me shut inside the crystal, yes?”
“…Yeah, your spitting image. Ryuzu, are you, Piko, and her triplets of some kind?”
“If you wish to treat those with the same faces as sisters, three is a number that is just a little insufficient.”
“Just a little, huh?”
“Just a little, yes.”
By joking around “just a little,” Ryuzu delicately evaded the truth. But Subaru already knew what Ryuzu was trying to gloss over—that there were over twenty replicas.
That said, there was nothing to be gained from pointing that out. The important things were the fine details about the relationship between that facility and the replicas and the experiment being conducted in the Sanctuary.
“That crystal…or a magic crystal rather? That girl inside of it, what’s her relationship to you, Ryuzu?”
Switching his wording from crystal to magic crystal, Subaru unhesitatingly cut to the heart of the matter. Receiving his question, Ryuzu shifted her gaze toward the wordless girl.
“The answer to that question is not an issue for me alone. This girl and I stand in identical positions.”
“The girl in the magic crystal included, right?”
“No, that girl alone is different. That girl alone is the exception, for that girl alone is the real one.”
Having been told this yet being unable to digest the contents, Subaru skeptically knit his brows.
“Real one? What do you mean by ‘real one’…?”
“Now, now, do not be hasty. An elder’s tale is constructed by sifting through old memories. One must be prepared to come along for the ride.”
“I’ve come this far, so can you stop appealing to your age, which aside from tone of voice doesn’t show at all? I’ve got tasteless, odorless Pico right beside me already, so if there’s nothing but that old granny scent for seasoning, I’m gonna split in two right here.”
“Hmm…this has given rise to a rather unfortunate misunderstanding. To me, everything I have constructed about myself is precious, for that is how I gained my individuality.”
“Gained your individuality?”
Having heard the turn of phrase, he repeated it, unable to simply let it go. Subaru desperately tried to make his brain digest it, but Ryuzu, paying no heed to his mental anguish, added, “That’s right,” before continuing her tale.
“Tasteless and odorless… It is as you say, Young Su. That girl is empty on the inside. And I began the same. The ‘me’ that you see today is no more than the contents poured into an empty vessel over the course of long months and years.”
“Wait, wait, wait! This conversation’s developing really fast! Created? Still empty? We skipped over somethin’ really important there. Saying the girl in the magic crystal is the real one isn’t enough of an explanation!”
“The girl within the magic crystal is the original, the first Ryuzu. —Ryuzu Meyer.”
Subaru drew in his breath when that name was stated. Ryuzu greeted his hesitation with a single nod and said, “That is the real Ryuzu. All other Ryuzus, me included, are replicas of Ryuzu Meyer…which would make us imitations.”
Thus did Ryuzu declare that she—like the others—was a duplicate.
Subaru had no immediate follow-up to that explanation. Her explanation just then matched up with the vague theory Subaru had inside of him from having seen many Ryuzus for himself. The reason he’d averted his eyes from that theory was none other than Subaru not wanting to believe it.
The prejudice in his mind came from physiological disgust toward the fact that an “acquaintance” of his was a clone.
“Does knowing I am an imitation change how you see me?”
“…Dunno. I want to say it doesn’t. I want to, I really do…especially when the person concerned asks that right in front of me.”
Since he was in a different world than his own, it was not appropriate for him to call Ryuzu a clone. The way she had been born was probably fundamentally different from Subaru’s imagination. Besides, even if it was a fact she was a replica, all life was equal. It had to be equal. —Yes, even though he understood it in his head…
“I don’t have any confidence I could nod and say that with a chill look on my face. So I’m not gonna say those words lightly.”
“You are kind, Young Su. That is also being soft, naive…excessively honest to the core.”
He’d been absolutely certain it was not an answer that would leave her pleased. But Ryuzu nodded, apparently satisfied with Subaru’s reply. The gesture tugged at Subaru’s thoughts, and he came to stare at the girl sitting right beside him.
The girl he’d dubbed Piko as a matter of convenience gazed at the room with emotionless eyes. She continued to keep hold of Subaru’s sleeve, almost looking like a doll. —Even though it was impossible for a doll to have her physical warmth.
“That you feel something like physical warmth is no more than a function of a false body.”
“A false body… Whaddaya mean, false? I can touch it and everything.”
“Producing a vessel of flesh from nothing is no easy thing. Can you even imagine the principles by which the girl and I are able to exist like this, Young Su?”
She said it like she was testing him. Subaru restrained his mind’s craving for an immediate answer and sank into thought. With Ryuzu taking such an earnest posture, he wanted his own demeanor to be in kind. For that sake, he brought all mental hands on deck.
“Could it be mana…? So making a body like that of a spirit?”
Abruptly, the existence of a little kitty Great Spirit quite familiar to him broached that possibility in his mind.
Normally, Puck was inside a crystal; when he materialized, he formed a physical body out of mana. Was it not possible that a physical body, a false body that held warmth, might follow along the same lines?
Ryuzu responded to Subaru’s idea by clapping her hands, acting quite impressed.
“Well done. You did well to think of that, even though no one told you the answer.”
“That’s because you gave me a hint that led me to the answer. All I did after that was realize from a spirit that’s close from time to time… So should I take that as meaning I’m right?”
“It is very close to the mark. Our physical replica bodies are created by a ritual, using artificial odo at its core. Enshrouding mana around this core materializes these bodies into being.”
“Odo, that was the power in the body, as distinct from the mana that floats in the atmosphere, wasn’t it?”
“Odo rests within all that lives. Accordingly, it is even said that odo is proof of the soul.”
The mismatched gravity with which the young voice spoke the words made Subaru unwittingly draw in his breath.
If odo was proof of the soul, then using a ritual to create it was surely—
“This is kind of putting it lightly, but ain’t that…creating life?”
“Of course, rather special conditions must be in order to make such a phenomenon possible. Unfortunately, I was unable to comprehend the details. —You may simply think of the formula’s creation as the result of a Witch’s quest and the result obtained via experimentation.”
“This is pretty far-out stuff… She was really something, huh?”
Becoming the creator of life was a feat that rivaled God himself. Setting aside the pros and cons of accomplishing the feat, it was surely worth praising the talent behind bringing it into fruition. —Yes, the talent itself was praiseworthy.
However, the impression that the feat of creating life was violating a sacred taboo was another matter entirely.
“I wonder what she did an experiment like that for? I suppose that’s the next topic for discussion.”
“Mmm.”
“Put bluntly, magic’s totally out of my expertise. I can’t even begin to understand how incredible what Echidna did is. Even so, I can tell it’s really something else.”
As R
yuzu folded her arms, adopting the posture of the listener, Subaru continued his words.
“Where’d the motivation come from to do something that incredible? What brought it on? Why did Echidna make the replicas of Ryuzu…of Ryuzu Meyer?”
As mysteries of the Sanctuary went, the girl named Ryuzu Meyer stood in the number one spot.
The Ryuzu Bilma before his eyes called herself the Sanctuary’s current representative. Her family name differed from that of the original. From the conversation to date, he could tell that she had arrived at that position over the course of a prolonged period of time. In that case, where Ryuzu Meyer’s relationship to the Witch was concerned—
“…I thought I’d float a possibility that came to mind.”
“Oh-ho. Do tell?”
“This is the time-honored way these stories tend to go—my theory is, for some reason, the girl named Ryuzu Meyer lost her life, and she tried to resurrect the girl in the form of replicas.”
The eternal search for how to bring back a life that had been lost, realistic or not, was a difficult issue.
There were all kinds of ideas proposed to deal with that difficult issue, including reproducing the dead via clone technology, which led to constructing substitutes in their place. And in the vast majority of these fictional circumstances, this was greeted by numerous failures along the lines of Even if you bring the physical body back, you cannot bring back the soul.
“Given what you said, Ryuzu, and the state of Piko here, the possibility this experiment ended in the same kind of failure seems pretty high. It feels like, even if the appearance is completely the same, you can’t reproduce what’s on the inside.”
If Echidna stubbornly kept creating more replicas without giving up, that was truly an act of madness. Even after over twenty failures, had she continued hoping for the possibility the soul might be resurrected?
But the one thing Subaru couldn’t do was dismiss that as mere obsession. He absolutely could not think of wanting for, struggling for someone to be brought back to life as wrong. Not Subaru, racing in search of an optimal future that very moment—
“Although I think you and the others are probably qualified to blame her, Ryuzu.”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 12 Page 6