While gazing at her, Subaru abruptly realized that she was always sitting on that stool. The Archive had proper desks and tables. And yet, she was always there, ready to receive guests.
That was how she was when Subaru first met her, and the numerous, many times Subaru had visited since—
“…Could you cease and desist with that unpleasant gaze, I wonder? There is no reason for you to look at Betty with such eyes.”
“If you’re talking about my mean mug, then unfortunately the same one I was born with. I hate to admit that, but I’ve got no intention of getting a replacement now. Putting that aside… I came here today with a different reason in mind than all the other times before.”
Subaru’s words heavily implied the reams of information he’d gained about Beatrice during that loop. And it was she herself who had told Subaru that if he wanted to understand, he ought to change places and obtain that knowledge in the Sanctuary.
In fact, Subaru had learned why Beatrice continued to obsess over the archive of forbidden books and about the magical tome she possessed. He would not claim that he had discovered everything there was to know about her. But it was still enough to be a thread he could follow.
Subaru’s gaze, imbued with determination, made Beatrice’s cheeks stiffen slightly.
“…In the Sanctuary, did you find out, I wonder?”
“If you’re asking just how much I know, that’s hard to say. I learned a bit, but definitely not everything. I’m using the power of guesswork to fill in the parts I don’t have.”
“Then do as you please… It is an ironic idea either way, I suppose.”
She let out a sigh, and right after, Beatrice’s expression abruptly relaxed.
When she took off her mask of obstinacy, what rested beneath was the gentle, charming smile she was born with and a forlorn blue glimmer in her eyes—the sight unwittingly left Subaru at a loss for words.
Her fleeting, fragile beauty left him unable to draw in his breath. That charming smile was just too lonely—
“The long, long pact is coming to an end. —This time, the end of the end shall come to an end, and Betty can finally be freed from stagnation. Though I must say—”
Cutting off her words there, Beatrice’s eyes narrowed teasingly as she continued, “…For Betty, having you be the one to do it is an exceptionally ironic conclusion, I suppose?”
4
Mesmerized by her words and her charming smile, Subaru blinked hard for a moment to regain his bearings.
“Ironic…ironic, huh? I guess being able to talk like you know it all is another benefit of your precious book?”
Beatrice’s charming smile and the annoyance he felt made Subaru a tiny bit aggressive.
When he sent a glance her way, Beatrice sighed deeply and sent a hand behind her stool, and from there, pulled out a single tome—a black-bound book of knowledge—and held it against her chest.
Such a book of prophecies recorded the possessor’s future and guided that possessor to a better path—Beatrice’s fingers grasped this book, what Roswaal had described as falling somewhere short of a truly complete product.
Indeed, the girl had said to him that her actions to date had been in accordance to what was written in that book.
Having saved Subaru, smiling with him in the mansion, stubbornly continuing to say this was her own place—everything was as recorded in the book. However—
“If everything was according to the book, your own will had nothing to do with it. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
“…So many questions. If you know about this book, no explanation should be necessary.”
“I told you, I’m filling in the gaps with guesswork. You and Roswaal hide way too much stuff. That’s why it’s been such a pain in the rear to bring you out of here.”
“Bring me out…?”
Beatrice’s murmur bore the echo of her having heard an unexpected phrase. Receiving this, Subaru said, “That’s right, I’ve come to bring you out of this archive of forbidden books. We can call it a temporary evacuation but…if I’m being honest, I don’t wanna bring you back here. This place, it’s unhealthy.”
“Wh…what do you think you are saying, I wonder? Bring me out of here? What self-serving…!”
“Your face says this wasn’t what you had in mind. Isn’t everything I do written in that book of yours?”
Pointing at the book, Subaru posed the question to the unnerved Beatrice. His assertion sent the girl’s face flying into shock, her fingers trembling as she opened the book and flipped through its pages.
As if clinging to the book, as if trying to reel the future in, her big eyes were filled with gloom as she flipped the pages.
“Why…?”
The girl’s attitude toward the conduct Subaru himself had pointed out rubbed him in a very bad way. Perhaps it was irrational of him. And yet, a smudge of anger welled up within his chest.
In the blink of an eye, the instantaneous relief he felt when he got his wish for a reunion with Beatrice was blotted out.
“Why are you clinging to that book? That’s not something you need to do.”
“”
Subaru suppressed his anger at the feeble gesture and murmured. During that time, Beatrice was desperately flipping the pages, her eyes running through the book in search of salvation.
She looked so very frail. She was always full of confidence, sitting haughtily upon her stool, greeting Subaru as if he was nothing but trouble, grudgingly lending him her aid—
Was that not the librarian of the archive of forbidden books, Beatrice, who Subaru Natsuki believed in?
“You’re right here in front of my eyes. —When I’m talking to you, look at my eyes, not the book, damn it!”
“—Ah.”
Stomping his feet, Subaru stood in front of Beatrice. When his shadow was cast over the open book, Beatrice looked up, realizing for the first time that Subaru was standing right next to her.
Subaru felt anger at the sight of himself reflected in her pupils. He had the face of a child abandoned by his parents. It was both Subaru and the actions of the girl bound by the book that had left him with that expression.
If that pensive face, that sullen face, that frail, fleeting face, if any and all of those things had been recorded in the book, then where was the girl Subaru had been meeting until now?
—What face did the girl named Beatrice truly make?
“Gimme that—!”
“Ah…!”
Extending his arm, he seized the magic tome Beatrice was clutching by force. Instantly, she attempted to resist, but her trembling fingers had no strength in them, and Subaru easily tore the book away from her.
It was lighter than he had expected. That fact, too, irritated him. A single tome this light had cast such a dark shadow over Beatrice’s entire way of life? Just how much power did the notations within possess?
And how much of Beatrice’s actions, words, emotions, were all done according to the book—
“—Eh?”
Grasping the book he had torn away, he violently flipped the pages with his fingers. His eyes ran across the contents to read what was written therein. In so doing, he meant to discover Beatrice’s true thoughts.
And yet, Subaru gazed in blank astonishment as his eyes leaped across the book’s interior.
There was nothing written on the page he had opened. He flipped the page. There was nothing on the back side, either. He flipped the page. Flip. Flip. Flip, flip, flip as he might…
There was not a single sentence or even a single character on so much as a single page. It was blank pages with nothing written on them over and over—
“—It has been like that for a long time now.”
Addressing the bewildered Subaru, whose eyes were bulging in surprise, Beatrice murmured almost as if uttering a soliloquy. With the book stolen from her two hands, the girl used them to cover her face instead, so that Subaru would not see the expression now resting upon it.
Wit
h nothing more than a broken voice, she put her withered emotions to her tongue and continued.
“It has been many years since that book has shown Betty’s future…”
Pulling her knees close, Beatrice curled up and shrank atop of the stool. Realizing that was a posture that would not yield to interference, Subaru endured his impatience and waited for her next words.
From this halting silence, Beatrice began her confession with a lecture on her duties as a librarian.
It was a lecture about the true nature of the archive of forbidden books and unraveled the history behind it.
“The role granted to Betty is to maintain and preserve this archive of knowledge, to continue and protect this place until the time we shall someday be reunited… I suppose?”
“Archive of knowledge…”
Standing up, Subaru surveyed the array of bookshelves that entombed the room. His legs had brought him to this place many times over, and a great many times his eyes had perused a number of the books found within. It was from this that Subaru knew that the archive contained a huge variety of books, including texts that even he could understand and most likely various types containing forbidden knowledge as well.
This collection was impossibly vast, lacking rhyme or reason, almost as if books of any and every type had been stuffed into the place.
“It was established by someone who loved storing knowledge above all else.”
The murmur was full of fondness, of cherishing, of yearning.
It was those words trickling out of Beatrice that made the image of someone Subaru knew float up into his mind.
“…I had a vague suspicion…ever since I found out that Roswaal was connected to that Witch.”
The first clue was the administration of the Sanctuary, passed down through the Roswaal family generation after generation. Roswaal had said this was a role entrusted to them by the Witch. Based on his extraordinary obsession with the Witch and his behavior to date, Subaru had somehow managed to guess.
There was a spirit in that very Roswaal’s mansion, one who had come to dwell there long ago. There was no pact between Roswaal and this spirit. This, too, was something Roswaal had openly declared.
Who, then, had been at that mansion and made a contract with the spirit to protect the archive of forbidden books?
“Beatrice. You’re—Echidna’s contracted spirit.”
“”
The breath that trickled out of her was reply enough. That small thing was sufficient to know what rested within her heart.
Beatrice was a spirit contracted to Echidna the Witch. It was Beatrice’s duty to serve as guardian of the essence of knowledge of the Witch who styled herself as greed for knowledge incarnate, craving to know all there was to know in the world.
Perhaps she had granted the girl her book of knowledge as a reward or as a tool necessary for her duties. Even if that was so, it had already ceased to function—
“…You said earlier that the book’s been blank for years now?”
“It is the truth.”
“It’s not like I’m doubting you. Actually, I really am doubting you. I mean, come on. If not, you… Without anything being even written in that book…”
—For that meant she had granted Subaru her aid several times over…of her own free will.
“”
The confirmation that he could not put into words was the greatest hope Subaru had discovered in that entire loop.
Previously, he had begun that loop with the knowledge that Beatrice possessed that magic tome. When she told Subaru that all her actions to date were simply what was recorded in that book, it had been a heavy blow to him.
He had known Beatrice for scarcely two months—but during those two months, Subaru had talked with her many times, they had been involved in many events, and sometimes they had laughed together.
When he was told that had all been a sham, it had been a time of agony and disbelief—but he had checked the magic tome of blank pages because he’d suspected it would confirm his suspicions.
By healing the gut wound he had received in the royal capital, by letting Subaru be close to her when the tragedy at the mansion drove nails into his heart, by cooperating with the investigation into the cause of his curse—Beatrice had saved Subaru many times over.
He believed that all that was unrelated to what was written in the book, and so, too, the days of fun they had spent thereafter—
“Without any relation to the book, you…”
“—Did I not tell you last time, I wonder?”
As Subaru’s voice broached the subject of gentler things, seemingly clinging to hope, Beatrice interrupted.
Her voice did not tremble. In front of Subaru, his breath catching as she interrupted him, Beatrice slowly lowered the hands covering her face—and what emerged was emotionless, like a Noh mask.
Her face, unfeeling like something completely artificial, made Subaru shudder, gripped by a strange sensation. For some reason, the impression she gave off at that moment was like the Ryuzu replicas—the same as that of a copy.
As Subaru’s lips twisted in horror, Beatrice remained expressionless as she continued.
“Someday, That Person will come to the archive. Betty was told her duty is to wait until then.”
“…!! For That Person you said?”
The term that suddenly leaped into his eardrums made Subaru open his eyes wide in astonishment. That Person, the words Subaru had heard several times over during that loop—Roswaal had told him to say those words to Beatrice, as if it was a deeply suggestive term.
Having missed his opportunities to say it himself to Beatrice, some twist of fate had made him hear those words from Beatrice herself, leaving Subaru bewildered.
Beatrice, interpreting his confusion as a sign that he simply didn’t know what she meant, explained further.
“It is as I said. Betty is to continue to protect the archive of forbidden books until That Person appears. It is Betty’s duty to protect the stored knowledge so it may be handed to That Person, I suppose.”
The complicated emotions with which Betty spoke of That Person stabbed him in the chest. The tone of her voice was complex, at once full of loveliness, hatred, impatience, resentment, and exhaustion.
Those reverberations made Subaru stuff his heart full of hateful words toward Roswaal, who had so lightly told Subaru to bring up That Person to her.
And more than that, he could not fail to sense an ominous disquiet in Beatrice’s demeanor.
“Someday, someone will fulfill the promise of the archive of forbidden books. Betty has always awaited the day That Person would arrive as written in the book.”
“Wait, Beatrice. Calm down a little. You and I are both too worked up. Let’s calm down a bit, and—”
“But That Person never came. Nor will the book say who That Person is. And so time has passed, and so too much time has passed, and that is why…”
He couldn’t let her say any more. Even though he was certain of this, the words refused to come out.
What should he say that she might not speak the words? If he said the wrong thing, there would be no stopping her. He didn’t know what the correct answer was. Hence, all that trickled out was a broken breath.
“I do not care if you are not That Person. I shall bear it if it must be you. —Are you the one who shall end Betty, who shall bring an end to the pact, who shall take this life, I wonder?”
This was Beatrice’s desire. Her earnest wish was for a way to end the end of the end.
“”
Subaru could not pull his look away from those eyes brimming with sorrow.
Beatrice’s greatest wish slid into his eardrums, but its contents would not sink into his head. —No, it was not that they couldn’t enter. His brain was merely rejecting them, doing everything it could to prevent him from understanding.
But even so, he did comprehend. It was conveyed to him. The eyes, the voice, the thoughts of the girl before him were scr
eaming it at him.
—Her desire to end the end of the end at the far side of a very long pact.
“You’re saying…because of that you…want to die?…”
“Strictly speaking, it is different from ‘wanting to die.’ Betty desires the end of the pact. Perhaps desires freedom from the pact to which she has been eternally bound.”
“If the only way to do that is taking your life, how is that different from wanting to die?!!”
Subaru wrung his voice out at the girl who refused to understand. He was shouting in anger. He slammed the magic tome in his grasp onto the floor. Just like that, the blow unraveled the old tome. Its blank pages fluttered and danced within the archive.
Blank pages scattered, flitting back and forth in the space between Subaru and Beatrice. Sweeping them away with an arm, he howled.
“You wanna die? Cut the crap! Saying you wanna die… Even if others would let you say it, I… That’s the one thing I won’t let anyone say in front of me!”
If you died, your life could not be brought back. That was an iron rule. That alone was absolutely inviolable.
Only Subaru Natsuki was different. That was why there was value in him and him alone casting away his life. Even if he died, it had meaning, something he had been able to demonstrate with tangible proof.
Beatrice was different. Everyone else was different. This was something he absolutely could not allow.
“That is a very self-serving thing of you to say. —What do you understand about Betty, I wonder?”
However, her reply to his irritation was so very cold, as sharp as any blade.
Spreading her skirt, Beatrice set her feet onto the stool and hopped onto the floor. Then she gestured toward the archive with a hand.
“Betty has spent many years here, obeying the pact…four hundred years.”
“Four hundred years…”
That phrase again, thought Subaru, grimacing. He felt tempted to click his tongue.
Many of that world’s important historical events were clumped up together four hundred years prior. That had been the era of the Witch, the end of destruction and the beginning of prosperity, the patronage of the kingdom, the contempt for half-demons—it was an abominable era that was responsible for the fates of so many.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 12 Page 12