In that instant with Subaru’s eyes opened wide, the girl’s head went flying—at least it would have.
There was a loud clash, not the sound of steel cutting through bone but of steel shattering glass. As Not-Satella was thrown slightly forward there was a bluish white magic circle activated behind her head.
The light of the magic circle took the tip of the blade and had just barely kept the silver-haired girl alive.
Not-Satella then leapt forward and turned around, her silver hair waving, and behind that curtain of hair Subaru could see a gray-colored furry animal standing. Puck lifted up its nose, proud of its save before looking toward Subaru.
“That was just in the nick of time there. You saved us.”
“Nice going there, Puck. Really, I’m the one who’s saved. Thanks,” said Subaru, giving the cat a thumbs-up, even as he was still shaken.
It was still before the sun had set—in other words, Not-Satella’s very reliable backup partner was still on its working hours.
Subaru’s quick response was important, but it was due to Puck’s amazing performance that Not-Satella was still safe.
As for the aggressor, her surprise attack blocked…
“A spirit, a spirit, huh? Ah…ha-ha… That’s wonderful. I haven’t ever opened the stomach of a spirit before.”
Lifting her dangerous weapon in front of her face, the woman’s expression was one of ecstasy. It was the murderer Subaru had seen so many times before: Elsa.
Both Subaru and Not-Satella were immediately on guard in response to the sudden new arrival, but the first one to react was neither of them.
“Hey! What’s the meaning of this?!” Felt yelled, stepping forward with her voice raised in anger.
Felt pointed a finger at Elsa and then took the badge out of her pocket with her other hand.
“All you’re supposed to do is buy this badge from me. Turning this place into a bloodbath was not part of our agreement!”
“Buying the stolen badge from you is certainly what I came here to do, but it’s hard to hold any negotiations if its owner had already come and taken it away. So, I decided on a change of plans.”
Felt’s face was red with anger, but upon seeing Elsa’s eyes fixed on her, wet with murderous intent, she gulped. Elsa looked on, with an almost loving gaze, at Felt’s fear.
“I’ll just kill everyone here, and then I’ll pick that badge up from the sea of blood afterward,” said Elsa, all while holding the expression of an affectionate mother on her face. She then tilted her head and continued on cruelly, “You weren’t able to do your job. Do you really expect me not to throw away something that’s useless to me?”
“…”
Felt’s face twisted as if in pain, but the emotion behind it was not of fear, but something else. Elsa’s words must have touched upon something sensitive, deep inside her. Subaru didn’t know what that was, but…
“Don’t give me that, you bitch!!”
…it was enough for Subaru to shout out in anger at Elsa, and forget about how weak he was compared to her.
Elsa turned and looked at Subaru, surprised, and she wasn’t the only one. Felt and Rom turned to Subaru and even Not-Satella was no exception. However, the one most surprised was none of them, it was Subaru.
He couldn’t understand himself, just why he was so angry. In part because he could not understand it as this emotion rose up inside him, he spit all of it out.
“Is it really that fun for you to pick on such a little kid, you intestine-obsessed sadist?! Just because things aren’t going exactly the way you planned, you’re going to wreck everything and throw a tantrum?! What are you, five?! How about you treasure life for once?! Do you know how much it hurts to have your stomach ripped open?! I know!!”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“I’m just taking this moment to let the unforeseen sense of justice inside me rant about the injustice of this damn world, and right now, to me, the injustice of this world is you, and this situation, so right now I’m channeling all of my anger about everything on to you!”
As Subaru’s shouting continued to make no sense to her, Elsa let out a rare exasperated sigh. But while Subaru was kind of hurt by her nonserious reaction, with spit flying, he shouted one more time.
“All right! That’s enough buying for time. Get her, Puck!!”
“That was such an amazingly lame tirade there, I want to write it down and leave it for future generations. …Guess I’ll have to respond to your expectations, huh?”
Compared with Subaru’s shouting and stomping, Puck’s voice was aloof and detached. Elsa immediately looked up, but all around her, from all sides, were sharpened icicles, more than twenty in all.
“It seems I haven’t introduced myself, little lady. My name is Puck. I’d like it if you at least remembered my name, as you say farewell to this world.”
Immediately afterward, the icicles flew at Elsa.
2
“…!”
The crisscrossing icicles whipped up a white mist and Elsa’s black coat was lost in the low-temperature storm. The speed of the icicles was far greater than what Subaru had seen in the alley, and he could just barely follow them with his eyes. Subaru thought the sharp-tipped icicles would easily cut through Elsa’s body, the tips of the clear bullets stained red with blood. There were twenty of them. If any of them hit their mark it should be a lethal. However…
“Did we get her?!” said Rom.
“Now why did you have go and to say that?!” Subaru yelled back.
Even though Rom had been quiet all this time, he had said the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment.
“It pays to be prepared… I don’t like wearing it because it is heavy, but it looks like I was right to wear it this time.”
Cutting through the white smoke, Elsa leapt out, with her black hair dancing behind her.
She had her kukri held high in her hand, and in her light steps it appeared she had no injuries. Other than the fact that she had thrown off her black coat and was now only wearing her black skintight outfit, she looked no different from before.
“You’re not going to tell me that because that coat is so heavy that just by shedding it you’re suddenly a lot faster, are you?!”
“That would be interesting, but the truth is simple. That coat has a formula woven into it that can ward off magic a single time. It looks like it saved my life.” Elsa politely answered Subaru’s question before kneeling down and striking upward with the tip of her knife. The target was Not-Satella, and the strike was aimed to drive the knife into her chest.
Subaru instinctively started to cry out, but…
“I’d like it if you didn’t underestimate spirit mages. We’re pretty frightening if you make enemies of us.”
Not-Satella clapped her hands together in front of her chest, forming a multilayered ice shield that was easily pierced by Elsa’s blade, but it took the knife and stopped her attack. Elsa immediately leapt back to retreat as a few smaller icicles were hurtled her way.
The counterattack was due to Puck, who was standing on Not-Satella’s shoulder by her silver hair, sweeping his arms this way and that like a battle commander.
“One manages defense and the other attack… In reality, it’s two against one,” said Subaru, impressed.
“That’s the tricky thing about spirit mages. One’ll attack, and the other defends. Depending on the situation, one might use simple magic, buying for time, as the other prepares a special attack… That’s why we on the battlefield say, ‘When you meet a spirit mage, lay down your weapons and wallet and run,’” muttered Rom, still gripping his club.
Subaru nodded. It didn’t look as though the pairing between a spirit mage and their spirit could be easily beat.
“By the way, old man, what is it you’re planning on doing?”
“I’m looking for an opening so I can help out that elf girl. Of the two, she seems the one more willing to listen to us.”
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! No! You’ll only get in their way! If you go out there the only thing that’s going to happen is you’re going to lose your right arm and have your throat slit. Stay right where you are!”
“Don’t say that! The way you put it makes it sound like I’ve already been cut down!”
As Subaru had seen Rom get cut down twice already, his words had a sense of truth in their tone. As if Rom was feeling what had happened to him in those different dimensions, he put his hands on his arm and neck.
While Subaru was able to talk Rom out of it, the truth was that the fight between Elsa and Not-Satella was so intense, it didn’t look like there was anywhere anyone could cut in.
Countless ice shards had been created and were flying all over the room. However, in the midst of all of that, the way Elsa was handling it could only be described as superhuman.
She would spin around, duck down so low it looked as though she were crawling on the ground, and at times she would step on the walls to evade attacks as though she were completely ignoring gravity. If even with all of that she didn’t seem able to dodge an attack, she would use her blade to cut through the ice crystals and shatter them. She had paired with what her opponent could do in number with an overwhelming degree of skill.
“She really looks used to fighting, despite her being a woman,” muttered Puck, impressed with Elsa’s godlike skills and fighting sense.
“Well, it’s been a very long time since someone called me a girl.”
“From my perspective, most people I deal with are like babies to me. But even so, you’re so strong I almost feel like I should pity you.”
“To be complimented by a spirit such as yourself, I must say I’m honored.”
As Elsa gladly took Puck’s praise, she fended off another shard of ice with her knife.
Almost a hundred pieces of ice must have been thrown at her, but other than that very first attack, it didn’t seem as though a single one of them had made their mark.
“I think if they keep this up, Elsa will tire out before they do…but I’m still anxious,” said Subaru.
“That woman in black’s movements really are incredible, but I don’t think they can lose if they continue to hold the advantage in numbers…but it’s not like that spirit will be able to keep itself here forever. As soon as that spirit’s out, the balance of power will shift,” replied Rom.
“Damn, you’re right. How soon is it to five o’clock?!”
The first time around, Puck went to sleep just a little after sunset. It wasn’t as though much time had passed since the start of the battle, but with this much magic use, wouldn’t he be using up all of his stored mana or whatever?
“Just when things were starting to get fun… It pains me to see that something else is distracting you from paying attention to me,” muttered Elsa as she twisted her body to dodge an icicle attack, confirming Subaru’s fears.
“As a popular male, it really is tough on me. I can never put the girls to sleep. However, you know if you stay up too late it’s bad for your skin,” replied Puck in a light tone, but he didn’t deny what she was saying.
Just as Subaru was beginning to worry that Puck had reached his limit, Elsa’s movements suddenly stopped. In response, Puck winked his black eyes at her.
“Don’t you think it’s about time we draw the curtain on this performance? When we keep repeating the same act it begins to get boring.”
“My foot…”
As soon as Elsa tried to take a step, she fell forward, catching herself with her hands on the ground. Elsa’s right foot had been frozen to the floor.
The fragments of the ice shards Elsa had broken had piled up on the ground, and some had served as a way to bind Elsa’s feet.
“You didn’t really think I was scattering all of these things around for no reason, did you?”
“…I guess this means you’ve got me.”
“Just blame it on the gap in our ages. You have plenty of reason to congratulate yourself for getting this far. Now, good night.”
Throwing its chest out, Puck’s body, still standing on Not-Satella’s shoulder, started to oscillate at a high frequency. Puck was posed as if he was about to release his ultimate move, with both paws out in front, focusing more magic than ever before, and Subaru watched as that magic was shot off like an arrow. The magic did not take the shape of ice, but was simply a load of destructive energy.
Along the path of the bluish white light everything froze, and in one fell swoop the loot cellar was filled with white. The energy passed through Elsa and broke into the door that formed the entrance to the cellar, blowing it off its hinges, and residual freezing energy from the attack even reached outside.
As the brilliant light from the attack passed, everything was frozen, from the counter to the stolen items, to even the ground they lay on.
Of course, if directly hit, even a human being would quickly turn into an ice statue, but…
“It can’t be…” said Puck.
“Of course it can. Ah, that was wonderful. I really thought I was going to die there.”
…this was all assuming the attack would hit.
“…With you being a girl, I can’t say I approve.”
While Puck’s attack was dodged, Puck didn’t seem any angrier than what his words conveyed. He simply wasn’t happy with what Elsa had done.
Subaru saw blood dripping, and a bit of steam was rising from the frozen ground.
The blood was coming from Elsa’s right foot. She was standing barefoot just out of the line of fire from Puck’s attack, and bleeding profusely from her right foot, and it wasn’t hard to see why. After all, she had sliced off the sole of her foot.
“I was afraid I might lop the whole foot off, seeing as how I hurried. That was a close one.”
“Even if you only cut that much, it must hurt a lot,” said Puck.
“Well yes, you’re right. But it’s wonderful. It makes me feel alive, and in addition to that…”
In response to Puck’s worried sounding words, Elsa nodded with a look of ecstasy in her eyes, and without hesitation pushed her bleeding foot against a piece of ice. A sound that sounded like air shattering came erotically from Elsa’s throat, and then immediately afterward she took her knife to the ice around her foot. With that, she had managed to stop the bleeding with the ice.
“It’s a little hard to move, but this should be enough,” said Elsa with a laugh, clicking her ice shoe against the ground, looking as though she was having fun.
Subaru had no words to say in response to how Elsa’s addiction to fighting left her without any hesitation when it came to maiming herself, but right now it was her opponent, Not-Satella, who was in trouble.
“Puck, do you think you can keep going?” whispered Not-Satella.
“I’m sorry, but I’m really tired. I think I really underestimated her. At this rate I’m going to disappear from having run out of mana,” Puck replied, for the first time without the confidence that had filled his voice before.
As the cat stood on Not-Satella’s shoulder, its figure began to shine, and looked as though it would fade at any moment. They were out of time.
“I’ll find a way to handle the rest on my own, so go ahead and rest. Thank you.”
“If something happens, I’ll obey my contract. If need be, call me out, even if you have to use your od,” said Puck with a warning, as his body disappeared in a wisp of mist.
Subaru bit his lip, but he wasn’t the one most disappointed by Puck’s departure.
“Aw… You’re going away? That’s terribly unfortunate,” said Elsa, the one who had been fighting with Puck with her life on the line. She sounded truly disappointed.
She readied her kukri again and with the high-pitched click of her icy shoe, began to head toward Satella.
A number of icicles materialized around Not-Satella in response, but there were far fewer than when Puck was with her.
Even though Elsa had her movement l
imited now, the match appeared even.
“It looks like we can’t just sit around and watch this anymore, can we?” said Rom, gripping his club and getting ready to move.
“I don’t know who’s going to win this anymore, so if we just wait around we’re going to miss our chance. You understand, right, Felt?” continued Rom.
“I know, I know. Whether we help or run, we’re going to have to make a move soon,” said Felt, talking for the first time since Elsa threatened her.
Felt moved beside Rom and then turned to Subaru.
“About what you said before… Thanks. It made me feel better.”
“Huh?”
“Only a little bit! Plus, don’t call me a little kid. I’m fifteen years old. You’re not much older than me, right?”
“…Actually, I’ll be eighteen this year. I’ll be able to get a license to drive a car, and I can get married, too.”
“You can’t be that old! Your face looks younger than mine! Age a little, why don’t you? At least on your face!”
Well, Subaru had lived his years lazily in the peaceful country of Japan, aiming to live every day as ordinarily as possible, so it couldn’t be helped.
Subaru felt as though his lack of determination was being mocked, and so he looked down at the ground, feeling useless.
The weakest one here was Subaru, and it was enough that he was completely lacking in the ability to fight, but also…
“My legs just can’t stop shaking… I guess this is what happens when you lack resolve.”
Forget about being qualified to fight, Subaru was physically unable to. Rom had strength in his arms and Felt strength in her legs and Not-Satella had strength in her magic, and so all of them could manage to fight. However, Elsa’s abnormality trumped all of those abilities.
“It looks like she’s starting to get pushed back,” said Rom, and that was enough to completely describe what was happening.
Not-Satella hadn’t stopped shooting projectiles at Elsa, but Elsa just slapped them away with her blade, rendering them useless. In response to Elsa’s dance of slicing attacks, Not-Satella would block the attacks with her ice shield, and freeze the ground in front of her feet to slide away, barely dodging Elsa’s continuing attacks. After Not-Satella gained some distance, she would continue her barrage, but you could not deny that her position was inferior to Elsa’s.
Re: Zero -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 1 Page 19