Subaru replied, “Kill me.”
Surely even the expression on that madman’s face would register shock from the sudden request—
“Are you sure about that?”
—but it did not. Without a moment’s hesitation, he kicked Subaru away.
The wind kicked out of him, Subaru sailed back as Petelgeuse watched him with an expression of ecstasy.
“Ahh, splendid, splendid indeed…! With the trial fulfilled in search of salvation, my actions, and those of my believers seeking salvation, may have thus become diligent…! Ahh, we are spared from being slothful! Both you and I! You have my thanks! And my diligence has earned Her love!”
Petelgeuse harbored no misgivings about the brooding Subaru’s reply, nor felt a single pang of conscience over his own actions, seeing neither as contrary to the laws of the world in any way. Under the guise of diligence, his bloodlust had been unleashed.
Subaru, seeing this in the madman, closed his eyes, his heart hardly stirred.
At the very least, it was what Subaru wanted to see just then.
“Though I must say…”
When he heard Petelgeuse mutter something, Subaru felt hostility press upon his skin.
“Unable to even pass a single trial, not even facing a single Deadly Sin, bearing great expectations only to stumble over the first stone in her path…”
The madman looked down at the sleeping Emilia, sighing.
“—Ahh, you were lazy!”
He had no greater words to demean Emilia’s death.
Subaru knew this, because he recalled how the madman had disgraced the life of a girl precious to him in a world long past.
“—”
Subaru opened his eyes. That instant, he saw a dark cloud approaching, taking the form of a hand. For a single moment, he recoiled from the painful memories rushing into the back of his mind.
But this evil hand was different. His body could move. His feet could move. His arms could move. Hence, his body evaded it.
As the black hand gently slid toward him, Subaru leaped to the side, holding Emilia in his arms. The hand slipped past, seeming perplexed as it vanished. Subaru’s breath was ragged as he watched it disappear.
Petelgeuse stared at him, eyes wide with a fire raging in them, asking in a shaking voice, “…You. Just now, you saw my Unseen Hands, did you not?”
The madman inserted his twig-like fingers into his mouth, crushing his fingertips with his teeth one by one. As each part of his flesh burst with the horrible sound of bones snapping and fresh blood seeping out, he continued, “That will not do, that will not do at all. It is strange, it is wrong. There is some error, some mistake. My power, the power of Sloth, the Unseen Hands, Her favor bestowed unto me…! That another has set eyes upon them is unforgivable!!”
Spitting blood, Petelgeuse chewed on fragments of bone and nail as he glared at Subaru with bloodshot eyes.
In the next instant, black arms rose out from Petelgeuse’s back.
Petelgeuse’s shadow exploded into seven black limbs that madly danced about. A chill ran up Subaru’s spine at the resemblance to the two evil hands that punished Subaru when he touched upon the taboo.
“But if I can see them, and my body can move…”
He could dodge them.
The speed of the black hands was not all that fast. Though they boasted the power to rip a human limb from limb at a distance, their greatest menace was their power of Invisibility. Their greatest advantage no longer worked on Subaru. And with the last wisps of his life burning down, Subaru exhibited physical abilities beyond his limitations.
“Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhyyyyyyyyyy…? Why can you avoid them?! Do you see them?! This love belongs to me! To me alone!!”
“Deep down, there’s only one guy I don’t wanna be killed by, and that’s you.”
Subaru twisted to evade one hand and leaped forward to dodge a different set of fingertips stretching up toward him. He crouched instantly to avoid the two coming at him from the left and right, practically falling forward and closing the distance with Petelgeuse.
Seeing the insanity on Petelgeuse’s face twist into shock, a dark pleasure filled Subaru’s belly.
He’d just remembered the fact that he had wanted to kill that madman.
“—Bgah!”
Taking the shortest possible route, Subaru slammed his head into the bridge of the madman’s nose, violently kicking his body as he rocked backward. The black hands flailed about, unable to strike precisely. Now blood was pouring from Subaru’s forehead, too, cut by Petelgeuse’s front teeth. The heavy bleeding got into his eyes, blotting out his vision on the right side.
—A moment after he noticed something sliding under his feet, it grabbed Subaru’s legs and sent him flying.
The instant before he slammed against a large tree, Subaru abandoned all thoughts of cushioning the blow, clutching Emilia’s remains even more strongly. Not to cling to her but to protect her.
“—Gweh!”
And so his back collided against the tree, making him feel a seemingly lethal crack in his spine. Several vertebrae broke, and his recently closed wounds opened all at once. Each one cried out in a chorus of ferocious pain as Subaru fell onto the ground, writhing, and bubbles appeared around his mouth.
“Disgraceful! Disgraceful, is it not?! Ahh, I am so relieved. Truly relieved! At that rate, I would have wallowed in idleness, all my actions rendered meaningless! But I am indeed diligent, exhausting my efforts for love…”
“Shut up, dim…wit…!”
His breathing sounded strange. He felt like he’d taken heavy damage to his lungs. Even so, he laughed and mocked Petelgeuse, bubbles of blood dripping from his lips all the while.
“What love, you moron? That so-called love you say you got… I can see it, too, can’t I…? She’s been cheatin’ on you, sucker.”
“What…are you saying…?! Saying, saying, sa-sa-sa-sa-sayiiiing… My brain, my brain treeeeeembles!”
Petelgeuse tore hair from his head as he raged, eyes wide open. He walked toward the fallen Subaru, violently kicking Emilia from his arms as if to deliberately distance her from Subaru.
Emilia’s body rolled, slamming into the roots of various trees. Petelgeuse glanced sideways at it and laughed.
“Denigrating my love is impermissible! Ahh, I have decided. It is decided! Though the half-demon who should have undergone the trial perished beforehand, those sheltering her yet remain!”
Petelgeuse ranted and raved as one of his black hands lifted Subaru by his neck. Subaru’s eyes snapped wide as the force threatened to rip his head off his shoulders; the brutal pain left him unable to speak.
“First, I shall eradicate those associated with the mansion; next, I shall sacrifice the residents of the village nearby for Her affection. Nothing shall remain, for any survivors would be proof of Sloth. I, the pinnacle of diligence, and my fingers shall render judgment upon all—the highway is sealed by the mist, so there is no one to interfere with my love!”
Shouting and spitting in his agitated state, Petelgeuse laid out his diabolical scheme.
“Before that, you seemed to clutch that half-demon’s flesh as if it was quite precious to you… If I destroy it, I wonder what wonderful sounds I will hear you make?”
Petelgeuse’s head tilted, his lips twisted, and his eyes filled with inhuman curiosity.
Five arms other than the one holding Subaru up crawled out from the madman’s back, each moving independently as they wriggled their way toward Emilia’s remains. One grasped each of her limbs, with the last hand wrapping around her slender neck.
“Do you see them? Do you understand what is about to happen?”
“…S…top!”
At that moment, Subaru was racked with fear precisely because he could see it. It made him remember every detail of what this man’s black hands did to Rem’s body when he couldn’t see them. And now, those same destructive impulses were directed toward Emilia’s flesh.
He had no power to
prevent the vile act. Subaru’s grief only deepened Petelgeuse’s crazed, amused smile. All that remained was for him to cruelly rip Emilia’s flesh asunder—
“—What are you doing?”
Without warning, the voice poured down from the heavens, coldly thrumming in the ears of all present.
“—!”
Petelgeuse’s expression shifted, his gaze drifting around in search of the speaker. The voice had enough power in it—and well-honed anger—to make even his expression change.
Finally, Petelgeuse’s gaze turned toward a single point in the sky and stopped. A second after, Subaru, still held aloft by his neck, looked at the same point in the sky, too.
“I repeat…”
An incredible number of icicles poured down, filling their vision, seemingly blotting out the nighttime sky. A breath surged, dyed white; in the blink of an eye, a cold that threatened to chill the whole world spread throughout the forest.
The black-robed figures still on their knees and Petelgeuse, with a crazed smile, over him, were at a loss for words.
“What are you lowlifes doing to my daughter…?”
—The Apocalypse Beast of Eternal Frost dyed the world white.
To Subaru, it was the being who would bring him death at the end of his tenth time—the tenth world.
7
Since being invited to this world, Subaru had experienced death time and again.
Under normal circumstances, it was an ordeal no one faced more than once a lifetime. That common-sense rule had been violated, and Subaru, who had already been granted ten opportunities to grapple with death, knew as much about it as anyone. And having come to know it so well, Subaru had become able to sense its approach.
His refined senses told him loud and clear that death was on its way.
“You lot sure like to do whatever you please.”
The voice, bearing penetrating cold and oppressive might, had come from the icy veil in the sky above. The voice hailed from a small, mouse-colored cat, its emotions as frigid as the horde of sharp-tipped icicles accompanying it on its way to the ground. It was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, with a tail about as long as it was tall. It had a pink nose and round eyes. Its short arms were folded, almost humanlike, as its expression was fraught with deep hatred.
Petelgeuse and the other members of the Witch Cult were silent before the supernatural being that spoke the language of men. And Subaru, who was with them, felt his throat closing up in shock for a different reason. He had never before seen that being, that spirit, shaking in anger like that.
As one present in that place, feeling the overflow of his anger, he knew that death had come to the world.
“…Puck.”
Under the white mist surrounding the floating spirit—Puck—the forest in their vicinity let out a crack-like sound as it was transformed. The trees turned white, as if the green had been sucked out of them; their mana absorbed, leaves, branches, and trunks froze over, dead as they fell.
The ground itself displayed identical effects. First, the flowers died, then the cold crept over the soil, and finally, it reached Subaru, also on the earth, stabbing him all over with burning pain. He felt lethargy gradually rising from the depths of his body, causing his breathing to falter as his mind began to fade.
Long before, Subaru had experienced being forcibly robbed of his mana at Beatrice’s hands. The angered Puck was employing that power on a global scale, turning the world’s power into his own.
Beside Subaru, holding back a whimper, Petelgeuse backed up a step with heavy sweat on his brow, and the kneeling Witch Cult was gasping for oxygen through their open mouths, almost like fish.
“The Witch Cult—no matter how much time passes, you never change, do you? In every age, it is you who bring me the saddest things of all.”
Puck spoke as if dealing with noxious insects as he trained his eyes on a single point in the forest. Subaru, following his gaze, saw that there was a single space left that Puck’s power was not affecting. Only the prone girl’s corpse was protected from the end of the world.
“Ahh, my poor Lia… You died without understanding anything.”
After gazing longingly at Emilia, Puck turned his eyes toward those who still lived.
“Depriving my daughter of her life is a grave crime. Do not think any of you will escape alive.”
“How dare a mere spirit…! How, how, how, how, howww dare you speak?! A half-demon failing an ordeal is nothing but a filthy pretender! The blame is yours for your Sloth and inability to protect this fool! Ahh! Ahh! Ahhhhh! My brain is trembling!!”
Petelgeuse responded to Puck’s threats by raising both hands to the sky, flying into a rage. The madman’s bloodshot eyeballs were unfocused as Petelgeuse’s welling bloodlust erupted in a geyser of froth.
“All that shall transpire, all that must transpire, the proper course of history is recorded in my Gospel! The Witch loves me, and I must repay Her with diligence! Whereas you, lowly spirit, wallow in idleness!”
Love, was it? To Petelgeuse, acts of worship toward the Witch were nothing but repaying her for her love. For the madman, actions that displayed his adoration for the Witch had absolute priority over everything else. The Witch was supreme and the Witch was the greatest. Furthermore, nothing and no one was permitted to defy his love for the Witch.
“Death to half-demons! And you, too, must pay for your idleness! The Witch’s favor is the truth that lets my heart beat! All must be sacrificed for it!”
Petelgeuse waved his arms, ranting, raving, and loudly stamping his foot.
Puck looked down upon Petelgeuse’s madness with eyes that were cold to their very core. They contained neither pity nor anger, only a lucid view of the low worth of the object before them.
Puck’s and Petelgeuse’s absolutely incompatible wills clashed, fueling each other’s bloodlust.
“My fingers! This fool must pay for his—”
“Die.”
The descending icicles poured down on the Witch Cult adherents, skewering them and pinning them in place. The cultists’ bodies and limbs were impaled against the ground, pierced like bugs for study.
The air creaked, and the flesh of the dead Witch Cult worshippers froze over, turning the rocky area into an ice sculpture exhibit.
“—”
Instantly, without warning, Puck had taken nearly twenty lives. During that time, his gaze did not waver in any way; neither did Petelgeuse’s. Unmoved by the loss of the followers who obeyed his commands, who were now literal sacrificial pawns, he exploited Puck’s temporary shift of attention away from him.
“—My brain…is…trembling.”
His lips twisted darkly, and a moment later, Petelgeuse’s shadow exploded. Simultaneously, Subaru’s body was cast aside as a total of seven arms bore upon Puck, floating in the sky.
With Puck’s power, dealing with the gently advancing evil hands was child’s play. But Puck made no reaction to the advance of the hands—because he didn’t see them.
“Puck—!”
When Subaru tried to raise his voice to warn of the danger, the voice and eyes Puck turned toward him made his blood run cold.
“Be quiet, Subaru. I will deal with you la… Ngh?”
But before the spirit finished speaking, the black hands trapped his tiny body, which vanished from Subaru’s view.
“Ahh…”
Puck’s body was so small that a normal adult’s hand was more than large enough to conceal it from view. There was no way anyone could have seen it through seven hands. And each of those black hands were so overwhelmingly powerful that they could rip a human body apart with ease.
“Carelessness! Negligence! In other words, Sloth! You should have eliminated me immediately! You possessed such power, yet you neglected its proper use! And this is the result! This! Thisss! Thisthisthisthiiiisssss!!”
The Unseen Hands that only Subaru could detect enveloped Puck’s body and crushed it. Before Petelgeuse, who danced wi
th mad delight, the Great Spirit was cruelly erased—
“Don’t make me laugh.”
In the next moment, Subaru saw the converging black limbs being blown apart.
“That’s all? You’re four hundred years too young to be invoking the Witch. If you really want to kill me—”
The frozen trees, unable to bear their own weight, shattered into shards of ice with one flick of his tail.
The corpses of the Witch Cult followers who had become ice sculptures were smashed to smithereens. The front paws responsible for this made the ground under them into an absolute-zero zone of death. Its softest breath rivaled a raging blizzard, and within that white mist, its eyes were like dazzling, glittering gold—eyes that mercilessly towered over a world of death.
“Then stretch half of Satella’s Thousand Shadows, toward me.”
It was a four-legged, feline beast with gray fur, boasting such size that it stood above the forest.
It was the Beast of the End that had destroyed the mansion and brought death to Subaru in a prior world.
—It was indeed a grand manifestation of the End.
“—”
The intensity of the cold went up another level, and it hurt to even keep his eyes open to watch the world go white. Subaru endured the pain as he looked up at the beast, agape.
“What…?”
A shaking voice echoed from a tiny corner of that world of ultimate cold.
“What is it you are telling me to bring?!”
This time, Petelgeuse’s scream brought a vertical cut to his parched lips, from which a trace of blood trickled—but in the blink of an eye, this, too, froze over, bringing an end to the bleeding and pain.
Subaru feared that closing his eyes amid the blowing cold meant he would never open them again. He took in Petelgeuse’s final cry and looked up at the beast once more.
“Puck, is that you…?”
“I suppose it would be a little mean to say, ‘Isn’t it obvious?’”
The gray-colored beast’s titanic mouth moved in reply to Subaru’s broken question. Each word came with a gale, but it was the enormous beast’s sarcasm that confirmed Subaru’s suspicions.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 6 Page 16