This entry finishes the tenth volume of the original “Re:Zero” novels.

In the previous entry we learned that Emilia is horny and wants romance with the least appropriate man in the world, that she can’t remember anything about her attempts at passing the trial, that Garfiel loves wasting people’s time, that blackmailers can be reasonable, and that Frederica should eat a dick.

This is one of the shortest entries in a long while, but also one of the thiccest. And we reached part fifty. I’ve done fifty entries of this shit. I must be bored out of my mind.

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Your caravan goes through the gate at Roswaal’s mansion grounds shortly before sunset. The slanting rays of the setting sun are tinting the mansion in bronze, as well as elongating the shadows of the many statues and streetlights that line the path to the front doors. The carriages start parking around fifty meters away from the entrance, because you want to enter the mansion as soon as possible. You had internalized that you were trapped in Sanctuary along with Emilia, but of course you could come and go as you pleased as long as Garfiel wouldn’t grab you and hurl you back into their dingy village.

“Otto, please deal with making sure that every villager gets his belongings, and figure out if they have some urgent need that they would like to fill, so I can ask Frederica. We don’t want for them to return to their homes only to immediately start riling up those who stayed behind.”

“Understood, Mr. Natsuki. It’s good to be back, isn’t it? Too bad we haven’t gotten lady Emilia out of that village yet…”

“Well, we’ll get her out eventually.” You look around the vast yard, but you don’t see any sign of the servants. Although you want to see behind the windows, the rays of the setting sun have turned them all into mirrors. “It’s strange that Frederica hasn’t come out to greet us. She should have noticed a caravan entering the mansion’s grounds.”

Otto grabs one of the travel sacks from the back of his carriage.

“Maybe she’s busy dealing with some problem?”

“I wonder if she’s worried about us… After all, she must know that we will confront her regarding the magic crystal she gave us. I wonder what she will say when she realizes I would have gotten ripped apart at the witches’ tomb if the traps had worked on me.” You frown. “In any case, I’ll return with her in a while.”

You walk towards the front doors. You open them carefully, given they are built for much stronger people to handle. After you enter the large foyer and close the door behind you, you are first surprised by the lack of noise. You would have thought that either of the servants would have been moving around in this floor, but what shocks you the most is that every single door you can see is open. It’s as if someone opened one enough to check whether there was something inside that room, then left that door open and moved to the next one. Your body knows how wrong this is. Someone other than the rightful inhabitants of this mansion has been here, and if any of the servants had seen this unsettling chaos of opened doors, they would have corrected it.

You move further into the foyer.

“Frederica!? Are you there, lioness!? Petra, even! Do any of you hear me!?”

No one answers. The quietness feels creepy. Worse, it brings back memories from back when you didn’t know you would return to the past if you died for any reason. You recall entering this same foyer hoping to find your people, those who had welcomed you into their lives, only to find Ram’s beheaded corpse. You had frozen to death shortly after.

Rem. She’s as defenseless as any living being could be. Any stranger who wandered in here could murder your beloved demon servant just by cupping her nose and mouth with his or her hand. Your chest feels hollow as you run towards the room that Emilia chose for Rem. You no longer shout for the servants, because it’s clear they won’t come, if they remain in the mansion at all.

When you can already see the door to Rem’s room further into your current hallway, you see that there’s a woman standing on the carpet, and looking at you. In less than a second your body registers that she’s one of the sexiest women you have ever seen. She must be in her late twenties or early thirties. She has long, soot-colored hair that frames a mature, gorgeous face. She’s wearing a cape with a feathery hood, although she isn’t covering her head with it, and the cape barely conceals her black dress, which has a cleavage that exhibits her smooth skin down past her navel to slightly above where her pubic hair should be. The outer half of her big, firm breasts somehow remains hidden even though it would take the fabric slipping a few centimeters to reveal her nipples. Under the tail of her dress, her shapely legs are covered in blood-colored tights.

Everything about this woman screams sex and danger. You haven’t managed to move a muscle when she steps forward and wields a smile that while pretty in her face, makes you feel like a rat watching helplessly how a bird of prey descends towards it with the claws drawn.

“Hello, boy. You are lovelier than I had imagined.”

The woman’s voice sounded pleased and relaxed as if she had an orgasm mere minutes ago.

Your throat feels clogged with dryness, and your spine has gone cold.

“Holy shit. Who are you? What are you doing in our mansion?”

She lets out a chuckle that in different circumstances would have seemed seductive.

“Why, I’m not doing anything here, darling, except for my job.”

Her hips sway from left to right and back as she comes a bit closer. Your throat gets tighter.

“What job would that be?”, you ask with a thin voice.

The woman stops and holds her hands in front of her waist. She leans forward a bit, which displays more of her big, impossibly firm breasts that you are trying very hard not to stare at.

“If I tell you how they call me, you will have all you need”, she says with a low, sensual voice. “I’m known as the Bowel Hunter.”

The inside of your mouth has turned to papery mush.

“Never heard of you, and I don’t know who is this ‘they’ you refer to”, you say with a parched voice. “Kind of an unflattering nickname, though. I would have given you one related to those delicious-looking breasts of yours, but to be fair I can hardly think of anything else at the moment.”

She giggles, and you can smell a light scent of flowers coming from her. Her eyes shine playfully with mischief.

“I’m honored you think my twins are delicious, but if that doesn’t convince you who I am, how about I tell you my modus operandi?”

You swallow, then force yourself to look up at her purple eyes.

“Sorry, what did you say? Man, how do you keep those glorious mounds of flesh from popping out of your risky dress? Do you glue them to the fabric with some sort of fantasy world adhesive tape? Still, it must be some industrial grade stuff. And they are so firm, like carved in marble…”

The woman narrows her eyes and widens her smile as if humoring you. Her white teeth are on full display.

“You’ll just have to find out my strengths for yourself. How unfortunate for you, darling.”

She parts her lips, although a thread of saliva keeps them connected, and her eyes glisten as she stares at your clothed abdomen. You can feel the warmth building up in her body and emanating like an aura. She desires something of you, so intensely that it burns.

With a swift movement she crosses and uncrosses her arms in front of her waist, and now she’s holding two exotic looking gutting knives that glint in the setting sun.

You take a couple of steps back.

“Ah… You aren’t a nice one.”

“On the contrary, my lovely boy. Let’s see how beautiful you are.”

She lunges forward while wielding the knives. She moves so fast that you can only sense a blur as you try to jump out of her way, but you feel a burning slash across your abdomen. You stagger for a moment, and when you trembling legs decide to support your weight properly, you realize that the woman is standing calmly a few meters away from you, holding the knives at the sides of her legs. One of the blades is dripping blood.

Although you had intended to press the wound in your abdomen with your hands in order to stem the bleeding, it’s not so much a wound as wide open gash from one side of your torso to the other. The pink-colored, long, sausage-like flesh bulging out the gash are your intestines. More than that, you feel like you are about to evacuate all of your internal organs through that hole.

As if your legs couldn’t handle the shock of you getting disemboweled, they buckle and you fall on your back. The pain shooting through your body is new, and whitens your vision. Beads of sweat are rolling down your face. Your arms have moved instinctively to keep your intestines from spilling out further, but your abdomen is ripped open like a pocket. No way you can survive this. Wilhelm’s wound when Petelgeuse gutted him wasn’t so huge, and that old man is far tougher than you. Ferris isn’t here to save you.

As you lie there, struggling for breath with blood trickling down your mouth and pooling around you, Elsa calmly walks up to your side. Those big, firm mounds of flesh frame her beautiful, flushed face as she smiles down at you. A fire burns in her purple eyes while she licks her lips slowly with her red tongue.

“I knew as soon as I met you that your guts would have a lovely color. My beautiful boy…”

You wheeze and cough up blood, splattering it on your face. She bends over, her long, soot-colored hair falling forward onto your face, and offers you an affectionate smile.

“How does it feel to have your insides leaving your body like that? Tell me in your words, darling”, she says with a low, deeper voice.

You struggle to focus on the question. The initial pain has subsided somewhat, and all there is left is a lingering ache. Even that begins to fade as your life force dwindles away.

“Well… It’s a new type of pain, but it could be much worse. It isn’t mind-shattering, at least.”

The woman’s eyes narrow for a moment, taken aback by your answer, even though it doesn’t alter her smile.

“Is that so?”

She grabs your arms by your wrists and puts them at the side of your body. They are trembling and already weakened. And it’s not like defending yourself at this point would change anything. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything even before this woman gutted you. She clearly knows what she’s doing.

The woman tilts her head and parts her lips as she touches first and then kneads your mass of intestines. Under her loving attention, those nerves in your flesh send you confusing information that registers as noisy pain. You feel the shit the intestines contain getting squeezed through the tract.

The woman then shoves her hands deeper into the gash, widening it, which causes you to groan in pain and tears to jump from your eyes. The woman takes out of your body as much as she can of your intestinal tract, and possibly other nearby organs as well. Despite the blinding pain that trembles through your bones, a weird relief surprises you, as if holding your organs inside had been an effort all along.

Your intestines make soggy sounds while the woman plays gently with them. Her eyes are glossy and her lips wet, as if she will start drooling at any moment. She notices you staring at her, and she holds your gaze with affection.

“I’ll stay with you, boy, as you die. Slowly, slowly, slowly… I will watch the light go out in your eyes.”

Her alluring smell, that warm gaze, the loving smile, the way she’s stroking and kneading your organs, have made you uncomfortably hard. You are getting so weak, your vision is blurrying, you are getting colder. Yeah, there’s no surviving this one. You will pay a visit to that traitorous, looped witch soon.

“Ah… Tell me, so called Bowel Hunter,” you say with a trembling, thin voice, “what is your name?”

The woman is taken aback by your question, but then she smiles. Her saliva drips down onto your innards.

“You want to know… my name?”

“Yeah.”

“For your sake, you may call me whatever you wish.”

“But I want to know how to properly address such a lovely woman. I’m Natsuki Subaru.”

The woman’s smile widens.

“Well then, my lovely Natsuki, I am Elsa Granhiert. I’m very glad to meet you.”

“And I’m glad to meet you, too”, you say, making an effort to keep your voice from shaking. “Nobody had played with my insides like that before. Why are you here, Bowel Hunter? Just in the neighborhood?”

She laughs softly, closing her eyes, and then she rewards you with a glowing smile. Sweat is beading on her flushed face.

“I came for you, Natsuki.”

“You’re here for me?”

The woman touches her lips with her bloodied index finger in a coy gesture, leaving a print.

“Shh… It’s a secret.”

As if she couldn’t keep away from your guts, the hand she had pulled from them goes back to playing with your innards. She licks the blood on her lips in a way that makes your erection pulsate.
You swallow to be able to push your voice out.

“C’mon, Elsa. Surely you can reveal this secret to me, right?”

She chuckles.

“You truly didn’t know me at all. I’m the best contract killer in the kingdom, they say. In the whole world, I’d argue.”

Frederica, Petra, and most importantly Rem are dead. That sudden realization makes your heart, which was already having trouble pumping correctly, stop for a moment. You swallow some of the blood that is reaching your mouth from somewhere else in your body.

“Who hired you then?”

“Nu-huh”, she answers playfully.

“C’mon, Elsa. You know I’m going to die here. No way I could survive the best contract killer in the world, when she’s already playing with my intestines no less. Tell me, who paid so we could have such a lovely encounter?”

“Your insides have such a lovely color, boy, that I want to give you anything you wish for during these last precious moments you will spend with me. But you don’t get to where I am by breaking the rules. I never reveal information about the client, it’s a naughty thing to do. I wouldn’t tell even such a lovely boy.”

You try to reply but only a gargling sound comes out of your throat. Elsa looks at you as if wishing to please you.

“I will share, though, that the targets were a part beast servant, a very young trainee, and a shut-in spirit, as well as yourself, whenever you arrived. However, they did specify to kill everybody at the mansion, so I gutted a pretty, unknown girl as she slept. She never opened her eyes, the poor thing. She must have been seriously ill.”

You cough blood. Your vision already looks as if you are seeing the world through a thin layer of water. The waves of pain prevent you from focusing on facts that otherwise would have you crying. But you are about to die, and none of this matters.

Elsa’s hard nipples are bulging out of her fancy, black dress, as if she had rubbed them with ice cubes. Despite the whole you getting murdered thing, it does make you proud that fondling your intestines is satisfying her freaky fetish. You know just how she must be feeling.

You aren’t sure if you passed out for a brief moment, but you find yourself holding Elsa’s gaze as she looks down at you with some disappointment.

“You are so well behaved that you don’t scream nor plead for your life. Please, show some fear. It feels so much better when they struggle to survive even with their last ounce of strength.”

You spit blood in her face. She wipes it with her forearm and smiles with satisfaction.

“A half-assed attempt, but it feels better. Thank you.”

Your heart is pounding. You’ll end up having an orgasm if this keeps going. You feel the need to vomit, but your body has no such luck.

“Sorry, Elsa. It’s just that death hasn’t frightened me for a long time, and it’s going to go dark for me no doubt. Nobody will heal that mess in my abdomen.”

She stops playing with you for a moment as she observes you with the closest thing you’ve seen to confusion in her beautiful face.

“How did you get so calm with the way I’m enjoying your innards? You are an intriguing boy.”

You can’t help but laugh, but it makes her frown slightly and pout.

“Then I’ll make you feel a fear engraved in the bones of all of you. Please, lose your mind for me and scream.”

She attempts to pulls down your pants and underwear enough, and after she struggles for a bit longer than she had intended, your rock-hard penis pops out. Elsa gives a pleased sigh, as if you had complimented her.

“Ah, you are enjoying my touch so much. What a lovely boy… I will keep you for myself.”

She grabs one of her gutting knives from the ground. Her free hand holds the head of your dick with the index finger and thumb, which makes your back tremble warmly and almost causes you to cum, and it only takes a flick of the wrist of her other hand to reap your penis near the base. She holds it on her hand to show it to you. It begins to shrivel while leaking blood all over her palm, then dripping from her hand in tiny, viscuous courtains.

You would have expected it to not only hurt enormously, but also make your mind shatter, as a primal fear got triggered. Maybe you’ve gone too weak already, or that pain didn’t register in the tide that is already coursing through your body. In comparison with how you felt back when a huge ground dragon turned your genitals into mush, you now don’t have to handle the horror of fighting everyone in your life so you can die and wake up in Satella’s bath of vaginal juices again. It’s a huge whatever.

Elsa smiles briefly before bending down and giving the tip of your cut off dick a kiss. She puts it in some pocket of her cloak, but when the woman turns to focus on your expression, she gets stunned.

“You don’t even care…”

She sounded disappointed and annoyed as if she were about to cum to the best part of a porn video, only for that scene to end before she could stop herself. She continues to look at you with a questionable gaze, waiting for some sort of tears or anger, but she doesn’t get either.

“I can put on a sad face if you want”, you say with a threadbare voice, “Sorry, I lost my dick once before, and in worse circumstances. The shock wears out surprisingly quick.”

“You have lost it before…? You are the oddest boy in the world.”

That annoys you. You want to shout, but you are barely holding onto life.

“I’m odd? Does that fetish of yours run in your family or something? Couldn’t you get off to incest porn like a normal person?”

Elsa is bewildered into silence, with her hands shoved into the mass of your intestines.

You shake your head slightly. Your body doesn’t want to obey you much. The pain rises and falls as your breath shortens.

“I can’t believe you just went straight for my guts. No innuendo, no foreplay… Not even a bit of tongue play.”

Elsa smiles warmly, then nods.

“Ah, you are right. That would be lovely, and you have earned it.”

Elsa pulls out her hands from your guts. She crouches next to your shoulder, cups the back of your head with one hand and lifts it enough so she can cover your open mouth with hers. Her tongue licks yours, and her lips suck on your flesh, possessing you like you would never imagine you could feel. You moan in her mouth, and she chuckles softly. Your blood rushes to your crotch and spurts out of the hole where the rest of your dick ought to be. You will die from blood loss that much quicker.

Even though your consciousness comes and goes, you feel her holding your tongue with her teeth around the middle part. She then bites harder and harder and harder, gnawing at it, and suddenly retracting her head, she rips off the lower half of your tongue.

Elsa straightens her back. She’s shivering in a pleasured daze while blood runs down from her dyed mouth. She chews a bit and swallows.

You want to ask what kind of benefit she got from eating your tongue, but then again you don’t want to retain the memory of how it feels to say something when most of your tongue is gone. You are already choking on the blood pooled in your mouth. Blackness is encroaching your vision.

You concentrate what remains of your strength on lifting your arm closest to Elsa towards her breasts. You slide your trembling hand under the dress and cup that glorious mound of flesh. You feel the hard nipple between your index and middle finger. You rub it with your palm, you squeeze it. Elsa shivers. She caresses your trembling arm with her own hand. Shortly after she lifts her face up and moans as her body convulses.

A breast fit for a god. Priscilla Barielle, you have been outranked.

* * *

As the black bath of vaginal juices seeps into your very soul, the Witch of Envy embraces you with her elongated arms. Her hazy, purple eyes regard you as warmly as an automaton’s.

“I love you I love you I love yo-“

“It’s been a while, Satella. How are things going with you?”

“I love you I love you I love you I lov-“

“Ah, that’s wonderful. Well, let me tell you. I just met a lovely woman, very passionate. Kind of love at first sight.”

“I love you I lov-“

“She was so into me, she even bit off my tongue. But in the end it was worth it, because she got me hot enough that I just creamed all over her tits.”

“I love you I love you I lov-“

“Just kidding. I didn’t even have a dick at that moment.”

“I love you I love you I love you I love y-“

“You know, I gave Emilia shit for being retarded enough to allow that teenage thief to steal her medallion, but I’m one to talk, right? I keep losing my most important body part. How can I look at anyone in the face if I’m not even capable of keeping my dick intact?”

“I love you I love you I love you I love you I lov-“

“Sorry to disappoint you by getting sexually involved, somehow, with virtually every other woman I come across. That’s why I wanted to keep that Petra out of the mansion! Nobody listens to me.”

“I love you I love you I lov-“

“Not to disparage you or anything, Tella. Do you prefer that diminutive? I could also just keep saying your full name like a normal person. I guess it’s the old sloth in me.”

“I love you I lo-“

“It’s a reference to that Petelgeuse, the ancient ghost you swallowed. Remember that whole thing we did…?”

“I love you I love you I lov-“

“Anyway, it was good to talk again, you fucking traitor.”

Note from December of 2020:

Finally I can play with the lovely Elsa Granhiert. Anyone who has read the original novels or watched the anime adaptation knows that she appears as early as the first volume, or the first episode or the second. But I completely botched that arc in this strange, AI-fueled retelling that I’m doing. Whatever. Most people who went through the original story constantly wondered what the fuck happened with Elsa to have disappeared from the narrative. Now she’s back where she belongs.

This entry covers part of the tenth volume of the original “Re:Zero” novels.

In the previous entry, the protagonist made his fake mom cry, and then he told a dead witch that he looked forward to drinking her spit.

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• Next part (49)

After you carried the unconscious Emilia out of the witches’ tomb, everyone who had gathered in the clearing makes sure that she returns safe in Otto’s carriage back to Ryuzu’s home at the center of Sanctuary. You put the half-elf in a guest bed. Although she woke up shortly after, she had a hard time understanding where she was, or that she had failed to succeed at the trials. She looked terrified and was incoherent like during a high fever, even though there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her body. You feared that the trials had genuinely broken her mind, snapped her sanity, but after a while she began to calm down. Both you and Ryuzu carried on a normal conversation with her, explaining how she ended up in one of Ryuzu’s beds. Emilia was beyond exhausted, so you agreed to let her sleep.

Everyone’s mood is down, but the mayor of Sanctuary offers you all some snacks and drinks, even though it’s close to midnight. Shortly after you are all sitting around the table in Ryuzu’s cozy living room, and you in particular are chewing on some cookies.

Otto has convinced the elf grandmother to serve him some alcoholic drinks, and he’s drowning his worry the best way he knows.

“I can’t handle lady Emilia looking so broken, so pained! I wish the trials had a face so I could break it!”

Garfiel is slumped on a chair as he munches on fried potatoes. Ever since he heard Emilia’s screams in the guest room, his gaze has been unfocused, and from time to time he scratches the nasty scar on his forehead.

“As if a lightweight like ya could break any face. Don’t put on airs, ya damn merchant. Ya hit somethin’ and yer arm would shatter.”

“I-It’s the intention that counts!”

You have been observing Garfiel’s expressions. He had attempted the trials, but failed to break the barrier. The punk seems distraught about Emilia’s mental state, at this point possibly only because she’s hot, but he doesn’t seem disappointed.

“You didn’t believe for a second that Emilia would have passed the trials, did you, Garfiel?”

He shoots you a glance as if trying to figure out if you are accusing him of something. His light blonde hairline is glistening with sweat.

“I said so, I reckon. Didn’t I, half-pint? Can’t pass those damn trials. They’re made so everybody will fail. That’s how that old witch wanted it. It hits right were it hurts. Princess’ too shy, no way she’d stand whut them trials want to show her.”

You sigh, and then let out a long yawn. You’re ready to collapse face-first into your bed, but a previous glance to Ram reminded you that you’ll need to deal with Roswaal’s clownish crap in some minutes.

“Now it will depend on what she decides to do when she wakes up. I was with her, I heard what she said to the villagers. She was determined to attempt the trials over and over until she succeeded. She would feel horribly guilty if she just gives up now, despite whatever traumatized her so much.”

Garfiel narrows his eyes and shakes his head.

“Shy princess should give up, I reckon. Would be better for her. People’s minds are like the great bridge of Ehurradan: a tad too much weight and they collapse, sendin’ them carriages to the rocks below. It’s all a big mess.”

“What kind of ruler would she be if she just gave up after one try?”

“She’s damaged, everybody can see that! She needs to give up on this foolishness and move on. She will only get hurt more. Hearin’ a pretty girl screamin’ like that, damn torture.”

“And all we can do is support her from a distance?”, Otto whines, then downs the rest of his drink. “I can’t deal with such impotence!”

“I reckon ya should be used to impotence with how quickly ya empty those bottles, small-timer”, Garfiel says, sounding a bit proud that he could make that point.

“Not that I would ever confirm such a suggestion…”

You feel Ram’s gaze burning the side of your face. She has sat opposite you, and like the spartan, ferocious servant that she is, she hasn’t reached for any of the snacks or drinks. You want to stuff some cookies in her mouth, but she would likely bite your fingers off.

“Barusu, do you intend on addressing it at any point?”

The senior servant is staring at you as if she could read your mind the harder she focused.

“We’ll go see our lord whenever you want”, you say. “I just wanted to figure out everyone’s thoughts about what happened to Emilia.”

Ram sighs.

“I don’t know if you are avoiding the issue or if you are that dense. No, I suppose that I know. The witches’ tomb didn’t kill you, and you entered the chamber of the trials. So you did go through the trial, didn’t you?”

By how Garfiel and Otto look at you, they must have forgotten it, worried as they were with the half-elf. However, Ryuzu, sitting at the head of the table, only narrows her eyes.

“Yes, I did go through the trial”, you admit, and to your surprise you sound guilty.

Garfiel straightens his back and grimaces at you.

“Haah!? It doesn’t show on yer face at all! Crap, ya passed the first trial, didn’t ya?” He looks down at the table for a moment, as if he can’t believe it, but then he glares at you. “First part shows the past! Yer past must’ve been an easy ride then! No worries at all, justa great time! Must’ve been frolickin’ around with them gheltofens, drinkin’ milk straight from their teats. Damn half-pint…”

“Did you actually clear the trial, Barusu?”, Ram asks.

“Yes, I did. I never got any confirmation, but it ended as if I had succeeded, and for some reason I knew clearly that I had passed it, as if I had been told.”

“What did the trial show you?”, Ram asks as if it is any of her business.

Garfiel groans, and quickly intercedes in the conversation.

“Ya go through the trial, ya don’t wanna talk ’bout it! Ya’d know if ya tried it, Ram! It’s like the unwritten code of the Yeguhal assassins!”

“No unwritten code, then”, Ram says. “Barusu, if you can help lady Emilia succeed-“

“It showed my parents”, you say soberly. “They are… gone. I’ll never see them again. I dealt with some unfinished business, I told those visions of them what I hadn’t got the chance to say.”

You notice that the two of them look at each other for a moment, and then at you. Ram’s gaze softens.

“I suppose we can safely assume you have passed.”

Garfiel gives a nasty snort. He seemed about to speak, but he closes his mouth seemingly having given up on sharing whatever thought he had.

“I can guess what was going to come out of your mouth, Garfiel”, you say. “No, my past wasn’t that terrible, not in comparison with all the shit that goes on in this world, and certainly not with the garbage we had to handle to defend ourselves against the cult. Just unfinished business with my family.”

Ryuzu, who after preparing the snacks and drinks had sat down but had contributed very little to the conversation, because she seemed exhausted like an old person, finally speaks up with her incongruously young voice.

“I’m afraid it’s not enough to pass the trials, Young Su, or at least not in the sense that you understand what passing implies.”

“You can just call me Subaru. You aren’t saving any time by addressing me like that.”

“Oh, please allow an old woman’s habits to go unchallenged, dear.”

“An old woman’s, sure, but you don’t look older than twelve!”

“Never mind that. What I meant to say is that the trials are considered fully passed if the spirit of our lady of Sanctuary, that one guesses is witnessing each attempt, considers the contestant interesting enough. And like the gods, I don’t believe she would lift a hundreds of years old barrier just because she watched an untroubled person breeze through different stages of his or her life. For beings that powerful, one guesses there’s nothing worse than boring.”

“That’s disturbing. Well, for the purposes of opening your dreary village, I’m sorry my parents weren’t torn apart by monsters as my baby self watched. But you heard Emilia’s cries. She should be able to entertain that sadistic witch.”

* * *

Shortly after midnight, even though the rest of the group wanted to stay together for a bit longer, Ram orders you to follow her through the dark paths of Sanctuary. The village doesn’t have streetlights, and the sky has gotten too cloudy for the moonlight to illuminate the houses properly, but Ram could probably reach her destination with her eyes closed. It seems that the clown is resting in an isolated, one-story house partially reclaimed by nature. You wouldn’t think of anyone as important as the supposedly most powerful magician of the kingdom to be recovering from his injuries there, and maybe that’s part of the point.

“Wait outside, Barusu. I’ll make sure that the lord is ready.”

She expected you to answer, but from the moment you accepted that you were about to meet with Roswaal, your mood had gone dour. The clown had already proved himself to be unreliable by abandoning his people against the Witch’s Cult, and now he got himself injured to this degree for what seemed like pure theatrics. Constantly making trouble for everybody. In the end, Ram narrows her eyes at you, then pushes the door. You get a glimpse of the foot of a bed bathed in flickering candlelight. The door closes.

A groan escapes your mouth. You don’t want to talk to Roswaal. Not for a second, not in the way that two people have a conversation. You remember clearly the moment many lives ago in which you had travelled to the mansion only to find Ram’s beheaded corpse. You recall looking up at one of the many portraits of Roswaal in a variety of fantasy clown makeups, and feeling a cold disgust lodge itself into your heart. A king who cannot protect his people is no king, but what would you think of a king who sees trouble coming and prances away?

In your mind, Roswaal isn’t even a person anymore. He’s reflection of most of what’s wrong not only with this world but with your previous one. You find yourself shaking your head as a rage burns in your chest. Wait outside, Roswaal’s dog told you. You have waited for far too long for this clown bastard to show his face.

You take a deep breath, clench your teeth, walk up to the door and push it in as hard as you can.

“ROOOOOOSSSSWAAAAAAAL!”

The door slams against the wall with a loud bang, then it creaks as it trembles slowly towards you. Ram is frozen a couple of steps away from you as if she was about to exit the house, and she’s glaring at you in disbelief, her mouth slightly open. Roswaal is resting his back against the headboard of the bed he’s lying on. Your gaze fixes by itself on the bloody bandages that cover Roswaal’s entire torso, and that begin under his chin. Everything below his abdomen remains under the covers, but you guess that the rest of his body is bandaged as well. His shoulder-length, indigo hair glistens in the candlelight. Despite his conspicuous injuries, the clown is wearing his war paint: over the powder white foundation, he has painted purple triangles upwards from his eyes, and his black lipstick extends out of the corners of his mouth and curves in thin lines to connect with the also black eye shadow. He’s smiling at you.

You truly must have been wandering around in a daze when you first started living in his mansion, back when seeing his dick traumatized you, because that smile creeps the fuck out of you now. It looks as if he isn’t sure if he knows you but still he would be able to predict anything you could throw at him, hours before the intention crossed your mind. Damn it, Emilia, why didn’t you join Crusch’s camp instead? You all would be having such great, pseudo-incestual times back at the capital.

“Hello, Subaru. Long time no see”, Roswaal says with his lilting voice.

As the rage that had overwhelmed you subsides, your breath stabilizes, and you no longer feel your heartbeat in your throat, you feel like an idiot. You avoid glancing Ram’s way, you don’t want to know what face she’s making.

“Hi.”

There’s an empty chair facing the side of the bed, intended for guests. You sit down slowly, and you finally lift your gaze to hold Roswaal’s.

“I told you clearly to wait outside, Barusu”, Ram tells you sternly from your left. “You heard me.”

“Uh… I’m sorry I ignored you back there, Ram.”

“Apology not accepted.”

You lower your head because you feel a headache coming, but Roswaal clears his throat theatrically.

“First of all, Subaru, congratulations are in order, are they not? Ram has detailed your heroic actions. Single-handedly, you secured an alliance with two of the other royal candidates so they would lend you their strength, and together you defeated an entire branch of the Witch’s Cult! Unheard of, truly. You defended your lady Emilia saving her life, to the extent that she’s truly grateful to you I’m sure, and prevented the nearby village from getting destroyed. All that from a young man that most of the kingdom would only know before from his juvenile, very public display of defiance at the royal summons!”

He waits with his mouth half-open for you to answer, but you can’t figure out anything decent to say. Everything that comes to your mind regarding your lord isn’t appropriate for the circumstances.

“I did all that, I guess…”

Roswaal closes his eyes, and his smile broadens. Clown makeup doesn’t look better in the candlelight.

“Anyway,” Roswaal continues while raising an eyebrow, “since you have proven yourself worthy, I think we need to come up with a new title for yourself.”

“A title?”

“Yes, a title! In front of everyone who mattered in this kingdom, you claimed to be a knight. You have now proven that you deserve such a title, have you not? It’s the lowest rank of nobility, but I have no doubt that such a promising man like yourself will only ascend. What do you think, Subaru? We will perform the rite of passage when we return home.”

You stare at him with confusion. Although you had planned to be at least angry during this meeting, and possibly even grab your lord and punch him repeatedly, which you are pretty sure you promised to someone, you can’t believe this turn of events. Shitty you, a fucking knight? Not even that Priscilla broad would be able to call you a commoner anymore, or at least you would be able to correct her. In your face, Priscilla. And all over those tits…

“It… would be an honor, lord Roswaal. Being a knight sounds pretty fucking cool.”

“I’m glad you approve of the idea, I was a bit worried that you wouldn’t.”

You narrow one eye, trying to figure out what he means.

“I mean, I am a servant of Emilia, of course I would side with her and support her. If anything, being an official knight makes it easier.”

You continue to stare at him. He sighs, and clasps his hands together.

“Very well, now to the regretful part of our story. Ram has explained to me that Emilia hasn’t managed to pass the trial, has she? And it seems that the experience left her in a troubling state.”

“Troubling is a mild way of putting it, lord. She’s, uh…”

“I see that the both of you are holding back on what you truly want to say. Very well, I shall hear it all. I’m sure it can’t get any worse than my expectations.”

You and Ram hesitantly tell him all the details of what transpired in the tomb. Roswaal clicks his tongue and shakes his head slowly, but he doesn’t seem surprised. You can’t tell very much about his expression under all that makeup, though.

You repeat his words in your head.

“Wait, you didn’t expect her to pass the trial?”

“Should I? I would want nothing more than for our dear half-elf, the future ruler of this kingdom, to march into the tomb and vanquish every obstacle, but is that truly our lady Emilia?”

“No, but…”

“She is a kind being with a loving personality. That is not the personality of a ruler. While she has grown in certain ways ever since I met her in our fateful day, I knew it wouldn’t be enough for this trial. Much tougher people have tried and failed to pass the Witch of Greed’s unsporting trials.”

You feel a dull ache in your chest. You look down for a moment.

“You suggest that Emilia is too weak to succeed at the task she is determined to persevere at?”

Roswaal smiles as if waiting calmly for you to understand what he knows to be true.

“She is too weak to pass the trials, as well as to be the ruler over this land. I’m saying she isn’t fit for the duty that’s been forced on her. And I’m saying those things not to be cruel, but because it is the truth.”

You want to look away from his face. Even though you barely respect anyone, or at least enough that you would force yourself to measure your words, in front of Roswaal you feel like an insect. Had it always been this way? You can’t look to the right, because you are too close to the uneven paint of the wall, and if you looked to your left you would be staring at your sister-in-law’s slender, stockinged legs.

Roswaal briefly closes his eyes and lets out a silent breath.

“Whether she admits it to herself or not, Emilia wants to give up. Not many are meant to go on. So many are doomed to fall. Even the strongest of people, in the end, meet the same fate as their lowest of servants. It is an inescapable decree.” Roswaal’s voice takes on a whimsical sense of fatalism. “Even I am not above this law. Emilia’s failure will be inevitable. Even now, it is so obvious. She wishes to fail. Perhaps… Perhaps even before she took her vows to become a queen.”

You run your fingers through your hair. Your thoughts are spinning. The way the clown speaks makes it difficult to think properly.

“Roswaal… Why did you attempt to pass the trials even though you must have known that the Witch of Greed’s magical traps at the tomb were stronger than what you can handle?”

Roswaal lowers his head and stares at you intently.

“But you know already, Subaru. You are very familiar with it.”

A bead of sweat drips down your face as you feel the clown’s eyes pierce your head. There was something… fishy about that question.

“I don’t know what you mean, Roswaal.”

The clown’s eyes narrow to a squint.

“Sacrifice. It’s sacrifice, of course. Our villagers, as well as anyone who might be watching without us noticing, should know that where lord Roswaal failed, lady Emilia triumphed.”

“Except she didn’t…”

“No. She did not pass the trials. But she tried, did she not? And isn’t merit earned by the attempt rather than the success?”

You frown at the smiling clown.

“Enough playing around”, you say, hardening your voice. “You suggested that Emilia is too weak for her to ever pass the trials. You never expected her to succeed. I disagree, but letting that aside, what’s your plan here?”

“That’s where you come in, Subaru. You passed the first part of the trial, did you not?”

Your breath thickens, and you find yourself having to widen your nostrils.

“Was that part of your plan? You already believed that Emilia would be traumatized by the trials, but that I would run in to help her, triggering my own trial?”

“Would that be a mistake, a miscalculation? Are you agonizing over what the trial forced you to face, the same way Emilia or Garfiel agonized?”

“No. I’m just wondering what your end game is.”

“You pass the trials, Emilia gets the credit. That’s your job as her servant. As her knight, which you will be in a short while. Am I wrong?”

You grit your teeth. It seems to be the only motion you can do right now.

“What’s the problem, Subaru?”, the clown asks. “A true knight serves their master, not themselves. That’s what a knight does.”

“Emilia isn’t helpless, Roswaal. She’s burdened with trauma from her past, that she never spoke to me in depth about, and she isn’t tough enough yet. But she was determined to grow, to face her troubles. Do you intend to keep holding her hand if she ever gets to sit on the throne?”

“Of course not. A ruler must strive to become a better person, and Emilia has the capacity for that.”

“Then doesn’t that mean she also has the capacity to overcome her own trials? It would be very irresponsible of you to just give up on her like this. You must have been guiding her from some time now, and to some extent as a parental role. She needs our support, now more than ever.”

The clown sighs, looking disappointed.

“My, you’re quite the idealist. I suppose that’s why Emilia is so fond of you… Sadly, not everyone is worthy of such ideals.”

You are getting angrier, and you should. Although there are many things you need to say to this man, you feel Ram very close. You always had to be on guard to a certain extent to deflect all the disrespect she threw against you, but now you have no doubt that if the clown orders her to hit you, or to torture you, she would. You aren’t Ram’s friend, and not even her brother-in-law in her eyes. Still, you need to bring up the truth of Roswaal failings both as a lord and as a man.

“Roswaal… I need to speak to you.”

“I was under the impression that we were having a conversation.”

“I mean I need to speak to you, not to the clown.”

The clown’s eyes widen, but then he sighs and turns his head to face forward.

“As you wish.”

He passes his hand in front of his face, and as if his makeup was an illusion, in a moment you find yourself staring at a man’s face. Roswaal’s chiseled features, no doubt built over generations of wealthy people attracting beautiful women, could belong to either a man of thirty or up to fifty, but you wouldn’t be surprised if he did other weird things to his appearance with magic. When he turns to look at you and he smiles softly, he gives the impression of being some aging playboy that keeps wondering why the pussy isn’t coming around as often.

“Do you prefer this form, Subaru?”, he asks with his usual theatric voice.

“It’s far less nightmare-inducing, for sure.”

“I see… Even with my natural looks, I can’t convince you to trust me. You’ve always been a difficult boy.”

You look up at Ram. She is standing around a meter and a half away from you, staring at you intently as if measuring every one of your movements. There’s nothing resembling sympathy in her red eyes.
You face Roswaal again.

“Let me get to the point, lord Roswaal. When you presented Emilia to the world, you knew that the Witch’s Cult would plan an attack, that they would attempt to kidnap Emilia and murder her in their ritual to resurrect their precious witch.”

“Yes, that was expected. I mean, that is what they do, isn’t it?”

“That’s not the point! The point is, you never prepared us for any of it. When did you think they were going to attack? In months, in years?”

“My friend, I could predict the weather for you, and even then it would be wrong nine times out of ten. The weather, and anything else, is always changing.”

You tighten your hand resting on your thigh into a fist. Roswaal lowers his gaze to it for a moment.

“Are you that angry with me, Subaru?”, he asks calmly. “What is it that you really want to tell me?”

“I want you to fix everything. All the deaths, all the damage, just make everything like it was before the attacks. But I know that’s impossible at this point. So I’ll ask you exactly what I need to know: when you left for Sanctuary, did you know the Witch’s Cult would attack us while you were away?”

“Yes, I did.”

The bluntness of his answer surprises you as your eyes widen slightly. You notice that Ram has turned her head towards her lord, and although you only shoot her a glance, you see her trying to contain her shock.

“Roswaal…”, you begin with a thin voice. “Did you deliberately abandon us to die?”

Your lord sustains his smile as if he intends for you to come to your senses and agree with his position, but you keep glaring at him. His eyes narrow slightly.

“When a king lets his army defend his castle, but he isn’t there physically, has he abandoned his people to die?”

Your face twists in a grimace of disbelief. Your guts hurt as well, as if speaking with this guy has ruined your digestion.

“Do you mean our fierce Ram?”, you say as you point to your left with your thumb. “Do you seriously suggest that she would have been able to stem the tide of cultists, as well as defeating that stalkerish ancient ghost, by her damn pink-haired self? Because I know for a fact that’s false.”

Roswaal now looks at you with open affection.

“Subaru… I meant you, of course.”

Out of the corner of your eye you see Ram shifting her weight. You close your mouth, and you end up having to blink a few times because a bead of sweat has rolled into your right eye. You haven’t heard Roswaal right, have you? This must be his version of a joke, appropriately tasteless for such a shady clown.

“Are you seriously saying that you considered that a young man whose body hasn’t yet reached adulthood, and who Emilia brought home mostly out of pity after we retrieved her medallion almost effortlessly, and who made an ass of himself and of your entire camp at the royal summons in front of the current rulers of this kingdom, and who was exiled from your camp by its lady and told to never return, and whom for all you knew you would never see again, was the one who would defend your domain from the onslaught of the worst terrorist group in this world?”

“You think too little of yourself, Subaru”, Roswaal says with an amused tone.

When he smiles again, you feel nauseous. You fear you will throw up at any moment. You didn’t think it was possible to dislike your lord more than you already did, but your whole chest feels sick.

“But yes, I see you want me to be more straightforward”, Roswaal adds with his lilting voice. “I expected you, Natsuki Subaru, to do everything in your power to regain your lady’s favor, fighting everyone who would stand in your way. And you did! If you feel bad because you couldn’t save all the villagers, you don’t have to worry. Nobody expects a war to be won without casualties, that’s wholly unreasonable.”

You have a lump in your throat and you can’t swallow it away, no matter how hard you try. Your eyes are starting to burn and your vision is turning blurry.

“Things had to happen this way”, Roswaal continues. “If you have any complaints, take them up with me, by all means. Your lady was the only person who showed you compassion, and for that, you will worship her. Isn’t that right?”

A flash of rage runs through your body, making you tremble, and before you know it you have stood up and are launching your fist toward your lord’s face. However, something soft, or at least softer than a wall, catches it and holds it in place. The force of the impact still hurts your hand. You find yourself staring at Ram’s impavid expression, at her red eyes, who glare at you as if you are just making her life harder. Your heart is beating hard.

“Let go, Ram”, you say with a raspy voice, while trying to yank your fist back.

“Not until you calm down.”

You feel her strength. You doubt the demon servant would have any trouble picking you up and throwing you out, as if she were a heavyweight bouncer who boxes professionally on the side.

“It’s alright, my dear Ram”, Roswaal says calmly. “We have all been stressed lately, and our Subaru more than anyone else, I’m sure. I don’t blame him for being angry.”

“Shut up!”

You shout this at your lord as you try to pull your fist back with all your strength, but it doesn’t move even an inch.

“I really should thank you, though I know that at this moment it won’t mean much coming from me”, Roswaal says. “If it weren’t for you, Emilia would have never made it this far. You did what was necessary, and without you being there for her, it wouldn’t have been possible.”

Furious, you close your eyes and grit your teeth.

“Let… go…”, you say through them while trying to pull your fist back.

“It’s alright, Ram”, Roswaal says quietly. “He’ll calm down soon.”

The demon servant lets go of your hand, and you almost fall on your ass. However, you end up sitting down slowly on the chair, then you rest your arms on your thighs and focus on regaining your breath.

“Do not attack the lord again”, Ram says sternly.

“I won’t”, you reply softly.

Soon your heart rate is back to normal and your head is clear. You wipe your forehead with a sleeve. Roswaal waits until you lift your gaze towards him again, and he receives it with a warm smile.

You manage to speak, although your voice is thin.

“Roswaal, back when I lived somewhere else, I read some arguments about why life existed at all in our planet. Because life seemed to not exist anywhere else as far as we knew, and because the rest of the solar system seemed so unwelcoming to life, many people believed that life in our planet was created, that we were put there by some deity who made us in his image. Are you with me so far?”

“It is an interesting conversation”, he says while watching you curiously. “Please, do continue.”

You take a deep breath.

“And it looked as if it had some merits. I mean, our planet seemed to have been designed for life. It was orbiting in the Goldilocks zone of our sun, which might not mean anything to you, but it refers to an area of our solar system in which the planets located there would have the proper temperature to contain liquid water on the surface. Therefore it would be far more likely for life to develop. If your species comes to life in a place where it doesn’t get too hot or too cold, at least most of the time, it does seem too much of a coincidence that it would all have occurred casually.”

“You have given this some thought before”, Roswaal says with a nod.

“However, we as intelligent species would have only been able to think through these mysteries because we existed in the first place, and life wouldn’t have had a chance to develop in a planet that wasn’t suitable for life, so by default, any planet in which intelligent life could arise would be one that would seem as if it had been designed for life to appear. You know what I mean?”

“That does make perfect sense to me, yes.”

You take a deep breath, and then glare at the fucker.

“What I mean with all this, Roswaal, is that you are the laziest son of a bitch I have ever met. Suggesting that what came out of your mouth was easy for you to say doesn’t even begin to cover it. You literally wouldn’t have been able to say it in any other timeline. From your perspective it must have been a complete miracle that I came out of nowhere to prevent Emilia from getting horribly murdered by those cultist bastards, and if you believe for a second that what ended up happening was a probable course of events, you are either insane or a bloody liar.”

“Now, now, Subaru”, Roswaal says while closing his eyes and laughing softly, “I am sure even if it wasn’t probable, it was destined to happen. This is a world where anything can happen after all.”

“Fuck your vague answers, asshole! Damn big-dicked clown! Tell me the truth!”

“My, my, someone is on edge today”, he says, still smiling warmly. “In any case, I shall be vague once more and tell you that yes, I had no doubt that you would come through for us, and especially for your beloved Emilia.”

“My beloved, huh? The hell do you know…?” You hide your face in your hands. “I can’t believe any of this.”

“It’s okay, Subaru. I took a gamble on you. It’s just nice to hear that the gamble paid off. I also understand if you are feeling a bit of regret for your actions, but you will eventually be proud of everything you have achieved.”

You swallow. You want to leave this house and be alone for a good while. You feel as if you have been hollowed out, but you find some strength to face your lord again.

“You know, due to your stunt of making me do your job while you fucked around in Hicksville, I had to pull off some crazy shit that will have consequences down the line. You know Wilhelm, from Crusch’s camp, right? Wilhelm van Astrea?”

“Yes, I know him. He’s a very famous hero, and somewhat of an idol to many of the young knights. Why?”

“As I negotiated for them to lend me their strength,” you continue with some regret, “I sort of ended up suggesting that you had figured out a way to know when the White Whale is going to appear next. You know, that horrible monster that has roamed this world for centuries destroying shit and erasing people from existence? None other than the Sword Devil himself is pissed because you didn’t share those predictions with him. So you better make up to him. I doubt you have seen how quickly that old man can detach people’s heads as well as all their limbs.”

Roswaal laughs softly, closing his eyes.

“I guess we will need to figure out how to deal with him, don’t we?”, he says amusedly. “I look forward to it. I will do my best to calm him down, but I can’t promise anything.”

You feel like you are losing your mind. You don’t want to be in the same room as this clown any longer. You stand up and bow towards Roswaal.

“I will support my lady Emilia in her determination to pass the trials, no matter how many tries it takes her. She’s a great gal, her beauty is out of this world, she has a rocking body despite her small tits, and her mouth tastes sweet. I will now take my leave.”

As you turn your back to him, you hear a small chuckle.

“You are quite the dedicated man. Your dedication has not gone unnoticed, I assure you.”

When you have finally exited the house and the door has closed behind you, you feel as if you can finally breathe. You are glad that the cloudy night doesn’t allow you to see much. Ram passes you by, and then turns to look at you.

“You have to stop acting so crazy, Barusu”, she says calmly. “It will only cause trouble for everyone.”

“I’m the one acting crazy, huh…?”

“I can’t call it anything else.”

You both walk in the direction of Ryuzu’s house. You are heading there because you want to check on Emilia, but you don’t know where Ram intends to go.

“Ram… I’m despondent all of a sudden. Let’s find a barn and have sex.”

Ram stiffens, and she looks at you with a mixture of surprise, disgust and anger in her face.

“I don’t have the energy to deal with this right now, Barusu, nor do I want you to involve me in your indecent games.”

She walks away from you while you stand in place. You lower your head for a moment, and then call out to Ram.

“You were also shocked by Roswaal’s actions, I could see it in your face. It must seem to you as insane-“

Ram has turned her head enough to speak over her shoulder.

“No, I won’t have a conversation with you after you made sexual advances towards me, regardless of whether that was your idea of a joke. Go to bed.”

You stand there in the dark as Ram gets smaller and smaller. You rub your eyes and sigh deeply.

This entry covers part of the tenth volume of the original “Re:Zero” novels.

In the previous part, Emilia attempts the trials for the first time, the protagonist riles up Garfiel for no good reason, we learn that the protagonist has parents and that his father in particular doesn’t know what a headbutt is.

• Previous part (46)
• Next part (48)

As you walk your way home, the sights of your hometown you have left behind make your heart ache. It looks subtly different, as if you were travelling as an adult through the neighborhood you lived at as a child, but you know it’s due to how you’ve changed ever since you were kidnapped into a fantasy world. In this fake reality, every person you come across gives you the impression that you have seen them before, as if every single detail is built from your memories. Such power is almost unimaginable, as not even the most powerful supercomputers of your previous world would have been able to reproduce reality to such an extent. This is the ability of one of the witches of old, from before the last Apocalypse. But should you be surprised? You already came across the Witch of Gluttony’s power, able to devour the memories of a person from every other person in the world, as well as rewriting reality to the extent that the actions of the missing person were assigned to someone else.
You finally reach the front gate of your parent’s two-story house. It took your dad so much effort and time in order to procure a nest for his family, but it now feels so small, so squeezed between the adjacent houses. The entire thing wouldn’t make even the fortieth part of Roswaal’s place. And yet, such a house was a pinnacle of middle class success in your country.
You step inside, and mom is where you would expect her. She’s reading a paperback that she holds with her left hand while she stirs a pot absentmindedly with the other. As you look at her, you feel that you hadn’t done so for a long time. She has tied back her long, brown hair in a ponytail, and her eyes are too similar to the ones that stare back when you look in the mirror. You know this isn’t your mother, but a construct made from your memories. Still, you feel for this version the same as you did for the real one.
“Subaru, you came back without your father?”, mom asks.
You realize that you must have stood near the doorway of the kitchen as in a daze, and it takes you a moment to return to this reality.
“Yeah, he’s gone to do some errands. More importantly, mom, I’m getting my backpack and going to school, to catch the remaining classes.”
Mom stands there confused, and contemplates your expression as if she doesn’t know if this is your idea of a prank. You guess she didn’t believe for a second that you would snap out of your state. But then she smiles softly.
“I told you those peas would give you energy.”
You exhale, then shrug.
“I’ll prepare my backpack then. I suppose every book is where I remember having left it.”
When you enter your room and look around at your shelves full of books, manga and music cds, you realize that the only thing you would miss more than your parents is all the stories you came across, that many artists from your previous world shared with others. You would never be able to get into a series that you had been interested in but never checked out, nor finish ongoing ones that hadn’t ended. You promise to yourself that you are going to learn how to read your new language properly, and figure out what interesting stories from your new home world you remain ignorant about.
After you clean your face in the bathroom and it doesn’t look anymore as if you had been crying, you walk down the steps to the front door only to find your mom waiting for you. She has dressed up and is holding her purse.
“I figure that I could accompany you for a bit. I have some shopping to do. It’s not too weird to walk out there with your mother, right?”
“Even if it’s weird, I’m fine with it.”
You walk to school next to mom. For five minutes she hasn’t mentioned you having decided to return to school after a long absence, nor the fact that you could barely leave your room for a long time. She goes on about stuff she saw on television, some bits of local news that you don’t even remember. It all turns into a droning sound in your ears, and you can barely bring yourself up to nod or reply with single words, even though it doesn’t seem to distract her from her thoughts.
“Where were you heading, mom?”, you ask with a thin voice.
“Oh, I need to go the mall to buy some groceries, but also a new dress for your cousin’s wedding. It’s in two weeks, you know”, your mother says with a smile.
Your mouth is dry, and your heartbeat is quickening. You swallow.
“Then we’ll part ways in front of the railway crossing, right?”
After she takes a good look at your face, she frowns slightly.
“Are you sure you are feeling well, Subaru? You seem a bit off. Maybe it’s not a good idea to go out if you’re feeling sick.”
“Never felt better.”
Your mother smiles weakly.
You realize that you’ve slowed your pace the closer you both get to the railway crossing, which you can already see at the end of the street. The barrier is down, and the sound is alerting of an incoming train. You have both reached the point of the street in which you would part ways. She turns towards you and smiles.
“Well then, have fun at school. I’ll prepare you some curry rice for when you come back.”
She had begun to turn, but you speak up. Your voice comes out thin.
“Mom, aren’t you going to say anything else about me returning to school?”
Her eyes widen, and her face shows surprise.
“Do you want me to say something?”
“Yeah, of course I do. Don’t you have plenty you would have liked to tell me during this period of my life? About the fact that I refused to go to school, that I went through such a depression and anxiety attacks that I could barely leave the house? Isn’t the fact that I have found the strength to return something to comment on?”
“… Yes. You’re right. I had not thought about that until now, as I was too occupied with being happy that you were returning to school. But yes, you are correct. You are behind in all subjects, so returning to normal will involve studying extra hard. It might be too difficult for you to do it on your own, but if you find out that’s the case, we can pay for some private classes.”
As she says this, the train rushes past. The sound is shrill and loud. The crossing barrier lifts up.
You swallow the knot in your throat.
“What about my classmates, my teachers…? Everybody there seemed to consider me a freak who made them all uncomfortable. The atmosphere already solidified, so for all those remaining years I would have needed to deal with classmates who considered me an outcast to reject and to mock. What do you think about that?”
The pleasant look on her face hardens as she looks away from you.
“That I always feared would happen.”
She clenches her hands around the fabric of her dress.
“Then what should I do, mom?”, you ask, barely preventing your voice from breaking. “How do I deal with this life, with the future that expects me in this world?”
She looks fragile. It feels as if you haven’t visited her for ages, and despite being in her early forties, she seems like an old lady to you.
“You know it already. Look around you, notice what people expect from you, and act accordingly. If you act normal, it will eventually become second nature.”
You lower your head. You feel hollow, as if something that should have filled you ever since you were born had never been there, and you suddenly noticed it’s absence. Even though you don’t want to, you hold your mother’s gaze.
“Mom, for the longest time, I despised you.”
She flinches as if you slapped her.
“All I remember of you teaching me how to survive in this world involved pushing me to be someone I’m not”, you say with a voice drained of emotion. “Everything that seemed weird or uncomfortable to you, you either didn’t address it, or you wanted for me to drown it deep inside of myself. It just happens that those things you always rejected from me are most of your son. You always made me feel as if I wasn’t worth anything unless I fit the image you were interacting with.”
She speaks with a shuddering breath.
“Your father and I always wanted the best for-“
“You know what your only principle you imbued in me does to a person? For as long as I can remember, most of my life consisted of wondering whether I was making a weird face, whether I was standing incorrectly, whether I was saying something I shouldn’t, or speaking at the right time. Every thought of mine was directed to anticipating what others would want of me, and everything that didn’t match that image was a monster that should be restrained and locked up in a basement. And because I started integrating that when I was a child, a few years later it wasn’t a conscious process any longer. Under the parts of my brain I had access to, other parts were dedicated to suppressing every thought and every feeling that didn’t fit what you would have called ‘normal’. For most of my life I didn’t know who I was, and I had failed to identify with my impulses to such an extent that I didn’t register my own emotions. I didn’t believe I had any. There was the conscious part of me, the one that should maneuver the world, and the despicable beast under it, which should be disciplined into obeying in silence, and otherwise stay out of sight. I only begun to live in middle school because I rejected everything you pressed into me, but by then I already felt so damaged that I don’t believe I can ever be fully fixed.”
Her eyes are watering, and she’s tightening her lips. She can’t hold your gaze. You wouldn’t be surprised if she simply shut off and walked away.
“But I don’t understand, you could become anything”, she says almost breathless. “You have the potential to be anyone.”
“Potential is nothing more than an expectation placed upon you by others. I could have only been one person: myself. And that’s the person you didn’t want me to be.”
She looks back at you, and you try to read her eyes. There’s a part of you that wants to see hate, or disgust. She doesn’t even allow herself to feel her sadness or regret.
“Mom, I don’t know you at all”, you say. “And I don’t think you ever allowed yourself to find out who you are. I don’t know who put in your head such a ridiculous principle, but you wasted your life. You almost wasted mine. The most I can do now is to struggle as well as I can with the pieces that remain.”
She looks away from you, and although she must be trying as hard as she can to prevent it, a tear rolls down her cheek. She wipes it quickly. You can’t imagine her saying anything. In any other circumstance, having to handle far less hurtful comments, she would have tried to excuse herself and walk away.
“I’m an idiot, mom”, you say quietly. “So are you, and so is every other person I have ever come across. We have no clue what we are doing, and we keep hurting others without meaning to.”
Mom has lowered her head, and seems frozen. Having to deal with any of what you are making her feel right now would involve rejecting everything she has built her life on. It’s far too late to turn back.
You dry your eyes and sniffle. You decide the last words you will ever say to this person for the rest of your life.
“That day I disappeared forever, right as I was about to leave our home I saw you sitting in the living room’s sofa as you were reading a book. I didn’t say anything to you, because I didn’t want to handle you looking at me with disappointment, nor have to face my own resentment.”
You walk up to her, hold the back of her head and kiss her on the forehead.
“Goodbye”, you say.
You turn around and walk without looking back. It takes a couple of minutes for your throat to loosen up, for your lungs to hold the air properly, and for the tears to stop dripping from your chin.

The closer you get to your high school, the fewer people you come across. In your real life you never returned to this place, you never faced all those people who turned their backs on you. As you stand in front of the fence that surrounds the school grounds, you don’t spot a single soul moving behind the windows, nor can you hear anything but the wind and the distant traffic. After you enter the high school you walk by the lockers, then your steps echo down the hallway. You walk up the stairs to the second floor and go down the current hallway towards your class, although you need to follow the signboards that show the class numbers.
You stand in front of the door to what used to be your high school classroom. You hold the handle and close your eyes. You can’t hear a thing beyond your breathing. Maybe this witch-created simulation is hiding that whenever you decide to open the door you will face all of the half-remembered classmates that you never got to know properly beyond how they rejected you. You picture them all around you, the same way you did in the previous world whenever you couldn’t force yourself to return to your classes. Those faces and so many others in your life that regarded you the same way. In the theater of your mind you see them glaring at you, laughing at you, criticizing you, questioning your very existence, and everything else that in the past used to make you wish you could run to a dark room, crouch against a corner and see nothing but the enclosed space in front of you. Now you let the tide of foul emotions wash over you as you hold on tight, and when you open your eyes again you find yourself standing on your own two feet.
You open the door. Leaning against one of the tables close to the windows is a girl of around twenty years old. Her skin is strikingly white, close to the color of snow, but her long hair, which comes down to her waist, is even whiter. She’s wearing the female uniform: a short sleeved shirt with a navy blue bowtie, a blue plaid skirt that hugs her slender waist and that exposes half of her white thighs, and knee-high black socks. When you hold her gaze, her eyes smite you: the irises are black, and the pupils are white, vertical slits.
The girl smiles as if she couldn’t wait to welcome you. She speaks with a self-assured, intelligent voice.
“Congratulations, Subaru. You passed the first trial.”
When your bewilderment clears out, you take a step forward.
“Who are–“
The girl narrows her eyes, and as if she had just shot you in the head, you feel something open in it. A flood of moments spreads through the confines of your mind as if demanding you to revisit them. You stood at the base of a hillock as you looked up at this girl. You drank her tea mixed with her saliva. You annoyed the hell out of her until you made her cry. She granted you the qualification to participate in the trials.
“Echidna”, you say.
She smiles.
“Yes, that’s the one. The devious witch who prepared these trials a long, long time ago. What did you think of your experience, Subaru?”
You are trying hard not to look below Echidna’s eyes at the way her clothes complement that beautiful, pale body.
“First, let me tell you that you look fucking amazing in that high school outfit, Echidna. I mean, I don’t think I have retained half of the words you just said to me.”
She wields a charming smile that her intense, black gaze doesn’t blunt. Echidna steps forward and then spins around a couple of times, making her skirt twirl. You feel the tingles, and you swallow to recover yourself.
“Echidna, you old witch… That simulation was something else. I knew you were powerful, but shit, that was some god-level stuff.”
“I’m glad you appreciate it. I will let you in on a secret, Subaru. It just happens that every contestant unknowingly grants me access to all of their memories, from their first recollections as a baby to the moment when they entered the antechamber at our tomb and passed out. So I know plenty of things now. Starting with the fact that you are a very interesting man, Natsuki Subaru. The most fascinating news in hundreds of years, in fact.”
She’s breathing deeply while staring at you as if you are a scientific breakthrough. It makes you shudder, but not entirely uncomfortable. It feels as if she wants you, your entire being, without discarding a single atom.
“I just realized the obvious”, you say, startled. “You have built this very room, and I doubt there’s any school resembling my old one in your fantasy world, so that means…”
“I will correct you, Subaru, on behalf of the people of this world. You keep referring to it as a ‘fantasy’ world, but it only serves to regard its inhabitants as mere characters in a play. I agree that this reality resembles to a significant extent the imaginings of artists from your previous world, but that’s one of the miracles of the multiverse. You need to give us some credit. We have been surviving in this reality of ours, which is now and for the foreseeable future yours as well, for a long time.”
You must have stood there with your mouth hanging open for a while, merely staring into this witch’s black eyes. You have tried for as long as you’ve wandered around in this kingdom to get through people’s heads that you came from a completely different world, and here is a person to whom you don’t have to explain anything. She has seen every memory of yours, she says. You swallow.
“You mean you know that I have died, and that when that happens…”
Echidna tilts her head and slightly raises an eyebrow as if amused because you are using a wildly imprecise euphemism.
“That you have died? How many times did you jump from that roof so that weirdly shaped fence could behead you? Do you want me to tell you the exact number? All because you wanted to repeat those two days again, sometimes just to get drunk with the same wines you had stolen in the previous iteration. Or to have sex again and again with your beloved. You have some wild ways of putting a witch’s blessing to use.”
Echidna has seen every moment of your life like you did through your eyes. She has witnessed all the deranged shit you have done, and she doesn’t just stay there, leaning against that table, she’s staring at you as if she accepts it all. No, as if she wants it all.
Overwhelmed, you rub your eyes for a moment, trying to digest the news at breakneck pace.
“You know, Echidna, other people must freak out when you tell them that you know everything about their lives, far beyond the extent than any other regular being would be able to. But I’m relieved. It’s been so hard to get people to understand. Like that one time I had to argue with what seemed like everybody in my new life because I needed to kill myself, and they wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. But you get it, don’t you?”
“I do. You are a god-like being’s mortal favorite, and you have unlimited lives to spend.”
Your mouth is dry, and it’s getting hard to get a handle on the vortex of thoughts swirling in your mind. You can’t possibly grasp all the consequences of this unimaginably powerful dead witch knowing every single detail of your life. Still, the relief is making you want to choke up.
“You know, if I had imagined this moment, when I would face someone who would properly understand the shit I have gone through, I would have thought it would be more climactic.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. But that’s life, isn’t it? It rarely lives up to our expectations.” She gives you a smile that would make any man shiver. “You hold an unimaginable power that has gone relatively untapped. You can do anything, have everything. You escaped death in so many occasions, you may as well be considered immortal.”
“Well, what do you, a super powerful dead witch from the pre-Apocalyptic world, think about this whole shit? Is it as wild for you as it is for me?”
Echidna looks to the side to think about it. From your previous interaction with this witch you remember her almost putting on airs, or desperately trying to prove herself, as a self-described repository of knowledge of the world, after four hundred years of isolation had stolen her access to pretty much anything else but her dream-like grass world. Now she seems relaxed.
“During our first interaction you were as rude and disrespectful as nobody had been to me in my long existence. Worse yet, you touched me right where it hurts the most. But you were right, I didn’t have a clue. For starters, I now understand that you are as rude and disrespectful to everyone you come across, so I can’t feel special about that.”
“I’m not sure if I can deny that characterization of myself, but I had to figure out if Emilia was fine, and you were trying to delay me by involving me in your fetishes. You know, that whole making a stranger drink your saliva stuff. Which is fine, I mean. It’s just that it felt I was short on time at the moment. I’m okay with you now, you seem pretty cool.”
Echidna puts her hand on her mouth and laughs softly.
“Why, thank you. And now you understand me as well, what I am capable of, so we are even.”
“What’s your deal, Echidna? That Witch of Envy traitor just repeats ‘I love you’ over and over and sends me to the past, but you seem much more put together for a four hundred years old dead lady.”
She holds your gaze intensely, as if pleased that you want to know.
“It’s simple. I’m the Witch of Greed, and I want everything. Predictable, isn’t it?”
“Is it because you have to live up to that moniker?”
Echidna laughs, sounding as if she’s having the time of her life.
“Amusing a dead witch who has been trapped for hundreds of years… You are one peculiar man. Of course, I know that you aren’t aware, but in this world of ours when people are born there is a chance that they will be blessed or cursed, depending on how you see it, with certain incarnations of concepts. It just happened that I was granted the maximum exponent of greed. I don’t have to force myself to live up to anything, the same as Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony, cannot help but feel an all-consuming hunger every moment of her life. Such are the burdens we bear.”
“I see… But you didn’t want the clown’s money when I offered it.”
She dismisses the suggestion by waving a hand.
“There’s nothing more dull and empty than money. No, I want a taste of every fact of this world, or I guess now of every world, as well as of all the experiences and emotions. Every single possible one. I feel a curiosity that cannot be quenched, I cannot help but needing more and more. And I also want all the time in the world to be able to achieve this impossible goal.”
“That’s nuts, but surprisingly reasonable. Someone did mention to me that you were working on becoming immortal.”
Echidna lowers her head and sighs.
“I was researching a way to live forever, but I ended up dying. That’s like the opposite result of what I intended.”
“Because that Satella bitch killed you, didn’t she?”
She looks up at you again. She tightens her lips and nods slowly.
“The Witch of Envy, more appropriately. But yes, she ruined everything. She caused us to be thrown into this prison that we might never be able to escape. Can you imagine how hard it is to remain sane in such circumstances, no matter how powerful we are?”
“You seem… pretty sane, despite the whole drooling into people’s tea thing.”
“I’m really not, but I’ve had a long time to come to terms with my madness. However, I believe we have that in common, don’t we, Subaru?”
“Yeah, I suppose we do.”
You are feeling it bad. You hate that this person who knows everything about you, and whose words you are interested in hearing, has been jailed as a ghost in this ruin for hundreds of years. You want to save her. But she’s a witch of old, considered one of the most dangerous people to ever exist, and she herself said that she wants everything. You have no clue what means she would use to satisfy such a relentless need. Are you now like those stupid women who write to serial killers in prison and then they want to figure out a way to break them out?
“We got so derailed from my original question”, Echidna says. “I want to know how you feel about your experience with the first part of my trials. That’s the whole point of all this.”
“Ah, yes!”
You walk up to Echidna and put your hands on the dead witch’s shoulders. She’s surprised for a brief moment, but then she looks up at you with her black eyes as if this is just the kind of stuff you do.
“You should patent this shit, Echidna, or set up a clinic or something”, you say excitedly. “You must have learned about therapists and psychiatrists from my memories of my previous world, right? You could make a killing. Wait, you aren’t interested in money. But you would be able to get the memories of everyone you helped, and in turn they would make psychological breakthroughs, work through their traumas. It would help a lot of people.”
Echidna’s eyes widen a bit. She looks as if she hasn’t been taken seriously by anyone for quite some time.
“That… does sound nice. But I’m dead, Subaru. My range of operations is seriously constrained.”
“Yeah… I keep forgetting that you are a ghost.”
You feel sad. Then you stop resting your hands on the witch’s shoulders to instead hug her tightly, lifting her off the ground and spinning for a bit. Echidna lets out a few weird noises between incredulity and amusement. The old witch’s smell reminds you of an antique shop, but the slender body pressed against your own feels as young and solid as they come. When you finally lower her to the floor and you pull away from her, she has blushed, and is having trouble holding your gaze. You stare at her intently.
“My lovely yet terrifying Echidna, even though those weren’t my real parents, and that you had ulterior motives for putting me through that simulation, I managed to say to those two past owners of mine everything I would have never been able to otherwise. I got closure. I feel cleansed, a weight lifted off my shoulders and all that. And it’s thanks to you, old broad. I could kiss you.”
“Now now, calm down!”, Echidna shoots back, her cheeks puffed and red. “The trial was supposed to be difficult, it should require a significant change in your perspective, but you cleared it almost immediately. Also, you are still holding my waist. You are being too inconsiderate with a maiden trapped for hundreds of years.”
You stop touching the witch, and step back.
“I would apologize, but not only I don’t feel like doing so, you don’t look as if you disliked it.”
“A maiden’s body is still a maiden’s body, no matter how long it has been trapped. It responds to stimulus. You are a stimulus.”
“Well, I’m glad I got to stimulate that dried up body of yours. Regarding your comment, though, that test came way too late for me. I have already gone through so much shit in this current world that I had to figure those things out on my own to keep pushing forward. So for me it was mostly a nice way to see my parents for the last time.”
Echidna swallows and tidies up her clothes.
“You are right, I vastly underestimated you. It just means I’ll need to make a more interesting maze for the next segment of your trial.”
You smile.
“A maze, huh? And I’m the rat that would run through it? Is that your perspective?”
“That is one way to describe it, yes. Every interaction with the world and its inhabitants is an experiment, and I’m eager to see the results. It just happens that when you push people to the limits, they produce the most interesting results.”
“I’m not sure how to feel about that, but I’m afraid I won’t see your next maze, dear old witch.”
She frowns slightly, and her smile drops.
“Your people are trapped in Sanctuary. You need to break the barrier. I wouldn’t be able to lift it if I wanted to make things that easy, because in my current circumstances I don’t have the means to undo what I set up those hundreds of years ago.”
“Someone needs to break the barrier, for sure. But Emilia should be the one to do it. You saw her in my memories. She needs this for her aspirations, and to feel better about herself. A bit of therapy would help. Don’t worry, I will visit you again for sure, you old bones.”
Echidna seems frustrated.
“You are way too casual about how often you will be able to meet me.”
“What, you don’t want to?”
“The requirements for a living being to access the death-dream get more and more harsher. It might easily come to a point in which you won’t be able to do so again.”
Your mood sours. It seems you really want to keep seeing this black eyed loon, no matter how much she drools in your beverages.
“Your mind could become seriously unstable”, she continues. “As a practical immortal, Subaru, it all goes to waste if your mind breaks. I will do my best to keep you stable, but even I can’t promise anything.”
“Then I’ll look forward to drinking more of your spit.”
Echidna blushes even harder, a huge contrast with her snow white skin, and looks around as if trying to compose herself. She clears her throat.
“You have unsettled this maiden a bit too much for the moment, Subaru. I will bid you farewell until the next time. I hope you decide to attempt the next segment of the trial, though.”
The edges of the classroom are fraying quickly, and the surrounding furniture is vanishing.
“Probably not, Witch of Greed”, you say with a smile. “Emilia needs this, I think. I have always sensed that she has some tough shit to work through regarding whatever happened in her childhood. This might be her only opportunity, and I certainly cannot help her at all. So she’ll be the one to lift the barrier.”
The world has already gone white. You are both floating in nothingness, and even the witch herself begins to fade away. She gives you a look between frustration and apprehension.
“I wouldn’t count on it. Until next time, Natsuki Subaru.”

You are lying on the flat stones of the antechamber, resting on your forearms, and when you try to sit up and breathe, you cough for a while as if you had been breathing dust. Your mouth is dry, and you swallow to produce enough saliva again.
You are dazed as if you just woke up from a nap that ended suddenly. While you rub your eyes, you try to gather your thoughts. You went through the trial, you remember that well. You met a simulation of your parents, and although you get the sense that it should have traumatized you, you feel lighter, calmer. For a nasty trial set up by some witch of old, it was oddly beneficial to your mental health. How did it end, though? You recall standing in front of the door to your old classroom. You grabbed the handle, opened the door, and… nothing, you returned to reality. For some reason you are sure that you have passed the first trial, even though nothing in the simulation confirmed it.
Emilia! You remember that she must be here as well. She’s lying where you last saw her, near the center of the antechamber, lying face down as if she almost avoided faceplanting. You call out her name and run to her side. You hold her in your arms to sit her up. Her face still twitches as if she’s suffering through a nightmare, but that twelve year old elf who is somehow a grandmother had said that Emilia’s trial must have ended. Should your risk waking her up?
You can’t deal with the idea that she’s experiencing a nightmare and yet you will just wait for her to snap out of it. You shake her while repeating her name, and she finally opens her eyes. She stares at you with a blank expression. Midway through saying your name, it’s as if some horrible image flashed in her mind. Emilia grimaces, her cheeks twitch, and she shrieks so loud that it makes you hunch over and clench your teeth.
“Emilia, it’s alright! You are awake now! You don’t–…”
The half-elf holds her head with both hands as if she fears it would burst otherwise. She tries to roll around in your arms, but you hold her tight.
“I-I didn’t want to!”, she says with a panicked voice. “It wasn’t me! P-Please don’t leave me! No! Don’t leave me alone! I didn’t mean it!”
Your heart is pumping hard, and the warmth has escaped your body. Emilia doesn’t seem to understand that you are there, or that she’s awake. You hold her tighter, resting her face on your cheek, and she keeps pleading to some unseen ghost for a minute and a half until she passes out.

Note from December 2020:

Another emotionally taxing scene. Damn you Echidna, who is going through the trials here? Also, I just want to have that old witch around at all times.

This entry covers part of the tenth volume of the original “Re:Zero” novels.

In the previous entry we learned that some blackmailing kidnappers can be quite nice, that the shy princess is the only one who can pass some psychologically scarring trials, and that the protagonist freaks Garfiel up.

• Previous part (44)
• Next part (46)

During the meal, that had already started when you managed to find your pals, Ram told you that Roswaal had congratulated you for your enormous effort in defending the village from the Witch’s Cult, but that he wasn’t ready to meet with you until tonight, around midnight. Ram didn’t seem to know why, but you figure that she’s simply following orders. When you all finish eating and people start getting up, Emilia, concerned, tells you that she’s going to speak with someone by herself. You end up hanging out with Otto and checking out a couple of local taverns, or what passes for them in Sanctuary. Your efforts at regaining some normality by lounging in a tavern turn into a bunch of half-beast people asking you loads of questions about the outside world. Fortunately they seem curious instead of hostile, and word has gotten around that you are here to help, so you didn’t even have to pay for your drinks.

You try to avoid getting drunk, although you are a bit light-headed by the time you exit the last tavern. You both head back to what looks like the center of the village, that church-like building with the big clock which you can see often in the distance, despite the tall trees of the enclosing forest. Once you spot Otto’s carriage as well as both ground dragons, who are curled up and sleeping in a nearby, mostly open barn, you see that Emilia is leaning against the carriage as if waiting. When she sees you she looks relieved, although the underlying worry is obvious. She runs up to you.

“Subaru, can we speak? I’m sorry, Otto, but I mean to speak with him in private.”

Otto’s pleased smile, one that lights up his face whenever the beautiful half-elf is around, fades a bit. You guess the merchant dreams with being in your shoes, but then again he doesn’t actually know what’s like to be in your head. In he did, he likely wouldn’t associate with you.

“That’s alright!”, Otto says. “I hope you are doing well. You have certainly regained the color since the meeting… Anyway, I’ll go check out the church and see how the villagers are holding up!”

Once Otto leaves, Emilia gets closer to you and looks up at your eyes as if she wishes you both were sitting against that rock planter in Roswaal’s yard, when the rest of the world seemed to have disappeared.

“How are you feeling, Emilia?”, you ask softly. “I’ve been wanting to ask you ever since Ram told you about being trapped here.”

She looks towards the forest that starts behind the line of villager houses.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m well at all, but at least I’m moving on to figuring out what to do about this. Please, let’s venture further into the forest for a bit of quiet.”

You both start walking towards the dense treeline.

“Are you sure that it’s fine? Aren’t we going to come across monsters or something?”

“I’ve been walking along the treeline, and nothing’s happened. Besides, we’re in the daylight and I’m with you. I should be fine.”

You are content enough that the half-elf is making a joke. As if you could protect her at all. However, if there were monster nests around, Sanctuary would have probably ceased to exist hundreds of years ago.

“Well, if you say so.”

The two of you walk into the forest for a good five minutes. You find yourselves in a secluded part where the fallen trunks of a few long dead trees make the closest thing to a clearing here. You are surrounded by trees and silence. Not even the birds chirp. It’s like the world forgot about this place.

“This is nice change, I admit”, Emilia says with a tired voice. “As we were travelling here, the forest didn’t suggest it would contain safe, quiet places like this. And all the forests near our home are the homes of monsters and bandits.”

“One would think that Roswaal would do something about that. But then again, I guess I know better.”

You sit down on one of the fallen tree trunks while Emilia leans against it, her eyes closed and taking in the silence.

“Why do you put up with him? He’s using you.” You realize that you have spoken without realizing it. Apparently you have reached that point in your relationship with Emilia in which your brain lets your mouth verbalize some thoughts unimpeded. “Sorry, it just came out. I know that even if you didn’t like him, you need him for the royal candidacy.”

You were a little worried that your verbal jab would bother her, but instead she opens her eyes and sighs.

“Yes, I know he’s using me. And I’m using him. I prefer to interact with people with which I can just be myself, as it is the case with you. But I’d be dead without lord Roswaal’s help. The Witch’s Cult would have gotten me. For that alone I owe him my loyalty, and I guess royalty.”

You chuckle nervously. You can barely believe what you are hearing.

“Emilia, I don’t want to brag or anything, or maybe I do, but Rem and me organized the defense. We were the ones who convinced Crusch’s as well as Hoshin’s armies to rush to Roswaal’s mansion. And even if Roswaal got injured here, it still doesn’t explain why the hell he came to Sanctuary when he knew that the cult would attempt something, after he presented you at the royal summons.”

The half-elf smiles gratefully at you.

“I meant beyond what you have done. Believe me, I have integrated how you defended me. I only meant that I call Roswaal’s mansion my home, and that the other camps wouldn’t have helped you if I were some random half-elf milling about, instead of someone under the care of lord Roswaal.”

You shrug.

“Yeah, you have a point there. Not that I like it.”

Emilia slides her foot back and forth for a while, and you enjoy the silence until she speaks again.

“I met with lord Roswaal a while ago.”

“What? I had asked Ram if I could speak to him, and she told me that he would only see me around midnight.”

“… That would be after I attempt to pass the trials. It seems he wants to speak to you after he learns the result, or maybe so you could tell him.”

You stand up and walk up to her side, so you can stare at Emilia from up close. She smiles, but she lowers her face.

“You will enter the witches’ tomb tonight?”, you ask slowly. “Already?”

“Of course, Subaru. I want to leave this behind as soon as possible. And it’s what Roswaal recommended as well.”

“But you don’t even know if you’re going to pass. And that’s a really dangerous thing, Emilia.”

“Well, you’ll be there, so it should be fine.”

You wince a little as she says this. Emilia means it. Your heart hurts partially because someone you like has managed to care for you this much, but mainly because you know that you can’t help Emilia pass the trials at all. Support won’t be enough.

You put a hand on her bare shoulder.

“Listen, Emilia… If you don’t pass the trials tonight, don’t lose hope, alright? It seems you can try over and over. Even the hardest, most painful thing can be tolerated if you get closer to success each time. And of course I’ll be there for whatever you need.”

She looks up at you with watery eyes and swallows air as if to hold back tears. She sniffles a bit and then smiles as she touches your hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you, Subaru.”

You let her have a moment, but then you ask about what’s been burning on your mind.

“What did Roswaal say, Emilia? How did he justify his actions until this point, or what course of action he suggested for getting out of here in one piece?”

Emilia looks to the side as if putting her thoughts in order.

“First I was shocked by how injured he seemed. I mean, his face didn’t suggest any pain, but I don’t think you could ever tell with our lord. I have never seen him look any other way than like someone who knew what was going to happen, smiling as if could have said for you the sentences that would come out of your mouth.”

“Yeah… That’s terrifying.”

“He was bandaged from the neck down. Most of the bandages were bloody as well, although the blood seemed dry. When I managed to focus on our conversation, Roswaal suggested that my presence in Sanctuary was an opportunity, that by passing the trials not only I would gain the favor of the villagers, and I mean our villagers, but also gain points for my candidacy for the throne.”

You frown and shake your head.

“I’m not surprised that he sees everything from that angle, but still, how is breaking a barrier in a secret village deep into the lord’s territory going to help your candidacy?”

“Apparently Sanctuary is a secret for regular people, and even for some members of the most important households, but not for the higher-ups, and certainly not for the council of elders. Spies everywhere, I guess. So they would know I managed to solve a problem that nobody had for hundreds of years. And they believe me to be related to Satella, so helping a town instead of, I don’t know, drowning it in shadows, might make them lean towards leaving me alone with such accusations.”

“Must be so exhausting constantly having to think in those terms. But then again, I wouldn’t know what to do if I were a royal candidate. What a disaster that would be.”

Emilia nods, then sighs.

“I’m sorry, the meeting ended with Roswaal suggesting that I attempted to pass the trials, or at least the first one, tonight. I was so dazed, as I have been since I woke up from whatever the barrier did to me, that I didn’t think of bringing up anything else, such as the Witch’s Cult assault on the village and my life.”

“It’s alright. I’ll speak with him around midnight, regardless of what happens with your trial. I will force him to explain himself. I haven’t fought so hard to return to your side to let the guy pretend that he didn’t shirk his duties. Roswaal should have been there, fighting alongside us.”

A small tear escapes from her right eye, and she gives a sad smile.

“I’ll try my best, I promise.”

Emilia hugs you tightly. You embrace her as well. A few seconds later, as you feel her heart beating against your chest and her breath warming your neck, she speaks as if she wished she didn’t have to.

“Frederica betrayed us, Subaru.”

You pull away from the hug and look into her eyes, which are now watery.

“… Yeah, what she did was shady as hell. I had been thinking about her words, how she approached you when she gave you that magic crystal. She knew what would happen.”

Emilia closes her eyes tight. It squeezes a tear, which runs down her cheek.

“You grabbed the pendant because you thought it would hurt me, even kill me, and as a result you were sent close enough to the witches’ tomb. I think I would also have wandered in, which would have started the trials, but in your case it should have killed you due to the traps. It’s a complete mystery why it didn’t affect you. Frederica’s negligence almost killed you, Subaru. I don’t think I will be able to forgive her for that.”

“It’s my damn habit of putting myself in danger so others don’t have to suffer. I’m more annoyed because Frederica should have said that if you came you wouldn’t have been able to leave. It means that she intended you to go through the trials, which will fuck with your mind. We are getting used left and right.”

“Mind fuck is an understatement.”

You chuckle softly.

“I hadn’t heard you say that word or a variation in too long.”

“You were the one who taught me it. I was a proper lady when you met me.”

Even though Emilia is joking around, you feel guilty, as if you wiped your ass with a painting.

“… Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine, I’m just messing with you. But Subaru, even though it’s probably not a good idea to bring it up now, you said that you have a habit of putting yourself in danger so others don’t have to suffer. And it’s true, of course. You have done it for me, you intended to do it at the royal summons, and after what you explained of your relationship with Rem, it’s obvious that you want to die for people you care about. You need to value your life more.”

You avoid her gaze. Beyond the fact that you can’t make her understand that you can save people through dying, horribly even, you want to disagree.

“Maybe the value of my life is that I can sacrifice it for the people I love, or even like to a significant extent. Is that a truly a bad thing? I’m okay with it. It’s not like I’m some awesome person that can do great things otherwise, or has some special talents.”

“That’s not true. You have so much potential, Subaru…”

You hold the back of her head to hug her again, and like she was waiting for it, she leans against you and lets out a soft noise of satisfaction, as if she wants nothing else than to stay like this for the rest of the day.

“Love makes people say some wild things”, you reply. “I can do important stuff now, but I remember clearly that for most of my life I couldn’t do shit. I would have lived an unimportant life, probably working at some office or shop, and after I died I would have been forgotten by history. Buried to become one with the dirt. I hold some regrets from who I was before I met all of you, particularly things I never got to say, but right now the fact is that because I sacrificed myself, risked everything, I can hold on to you now, Emilia, and for that I’m as happy as can be.”

Emilia puts her hand on the side of your face and stands on her tiptoes, and before you know it you feel her warm lips on yours. Her wet, hot tongue enters your mouth and licks yours slowly and lovingly, as if you both were lying in bed and holding each other under the covers while draped in darkness. Emilia keeps her eyes open the entire time, staring into your own.

Your mind had gone blank, and when you snap out of it, you feel the blood accumulating in your crotch like a red tinge in your senses, and Emilia’s waist is pressing your hard dick against your abdomen.
You two separate from each other’s lips, and the half-elf exhales a warm sigh. You feel yourself blush profusely, and look away. You would have thought that after the shit you’ve gone through or even done of your own volition, you wouldn’t feel this embarrassment, but you have enough reasons to feel the burn of shame.

With one finger, Emilia moves your head back to look at her. Her face shows a mix of guilt and joy.

“That was on me, Subaru”, she says softly. “My first time, for my knight.”

You swallow, and hope that your dick starts going down soon, even though Emilia keeps leaning her weight against you knowingly. You suppose that in comparison with the prospect of having to pass some trials that nobody has succeeded at for hundreds of years, or else she will get stuck here, Emilia must have been searching for a moment of heaven. But the guilt is already burning in your chest. Emilia’s saliva tastes good, the way a girl you’d take for yourself should, without a hint of snot and blood like back during Emilia’s true first time. You hate yourself for liking it, and you hate that your body reacted without your consent.

The two of you separate, and Emilia turns away from you to hide her burning red face, like the proper lady that she is. You catch a glance at her eyes, which show pools of despair and regret.

Neither of you, or anyone as it seems, really knows what you are doing. Feels right one moment, wrong the next. There are far worse things a person could have done to you than make you feel guilt because your girlfriend is in a coma. You put your hand on Emilia’s upper back, and slide it up until you are touching the warm skin of her nape.

“It’s fine, Emilia. Tell me, what needs to happen now? When are we heading for the trials?”

She looks at you over her shoulder before turning. She seems to understand that you won’t berate her, nor bring up your Rem. She smiles shily, but then her expression darkens and she glances towards the village, even though the dense forest obscures any view of civilization.

“I’m going to do something very uncomfortable and that I’d prefer not to do, but I understand it’s for the best: I’m going to address our villagers. Roswaal suggested it, because they should know and understand the kind of sacrifice I’m making for their sake, as well as for all of us. I will expose myself again to people for whom my very birth was a mistake.”

It only takes recalling the crowd of villagers every time you have faced them for you to get annoyed, but you understand what Emilia won’t bring herself to say.

“If you want to do it as soon as possible, meaning now, let’s go. I’ll stand by your side.”

* * *

You are standing next to Emilia inside the church-like building. It looks older than the surrounding village, yet the masonry is made out of huge stones piled without cement, and cut into complicated shapes without apparent fault. The vaulted ceilings are a thing of beauty, closer to a cathedral’s, and in the large footprint there’s more than enough space to house all of your villagers comfortably. The mayor of Sanctuary, or maybe some of the locals, have prepared makeshift beds as well as some courtains, and a few people of the crowd that has gathered to listen to you are still eating from the bowls they are holding. The children, mothers and the elderly that you had missed when you went down to the village for groceries came here. There are very few able-bodied men, and the most prominent from that group, although he’s not able-minded, is the village chief, who is wearing his wizard costume. No, a different one. Motherfucker must keep a collection of them, and probably no other type of clothing. Why is this man alive?

Emilia and you stand side by side waiting for the people to settle down. You are surprised that the shouts of ‘witch, let’s kill the witch’ haven’t started yet, but you figure that they must feel so out of place and confused by their circumstances that they are taking things as they come. After around half a minute, when there is relative silence, you begin to speak.

“Thank you all for gathering. As you know, we are currently trapped in Sanctuary. We are working on the known solution, which involves passing some witch-created trials, and for that-…”

The village chief puts his hand on his chest, which makes the loose sleeve of his wizardly robe slide down to his elbow.

“I welcome you both to our humble village. I’m the mayor of Sanctuary.”

Your left eye twitches, and you clench your teeth.

“No, you are not! Why are you so resilient!”

The mayor remains surprisingly calm after your outburst.

“If not yet, I will be eventually. We have been stranded in this village for centuries, and nobody tells us when we will be able to leave.”

You take a deep breath, then try to look as professional and reliable as possible. You realize that both you and Emilia have fucked up. You don’t recall any instance in which you haven’t addressed the villagers without Ram being present, so she could threaten to murder whoever got too annoying.

You hold Emilia’s gaze for a moment. She has deflated a bit from her resolve to face the villagers. She must be remembering how terribly they have been treating her all along. Now she must be waiting for you to introduce her properly. You are in no way or form the appropriate person for this task.

You turn to the crowd again and clear your throat.

“Listen, if there’s anything we’ve learned from the cult’s attack on our village back home is that we need to be as clear and truthful as possible, even though it might hurt or cause panic. We are in this predicament together. As it stands, we are trapped in Sanctuary because the locals who hold power want us to break the barrier that has kept them trapped in this isolated forest for hundreds of years. You are all hostages, I’m afraid, although they are going to treat you as kindly as possible otherwise. However, we know the solution to our problem: we need to pass some witch-created trials in a nearby tomb, because that’s what will break the spell holding the barrier.”

The villagers whisper to each other for a while, before a man in his sixties, with a balding head and old-fashioned clothing, steps forward.

“The lord attempted to pass the trials to liberate us, but that damned tomb almost killed him! What would you be able to do when you don’t have remotely as much power as him?”

“I don’t know if you people are aware of this, but the tomb has magical traps set up that trigger if someone who is fully human goes in. Our lord was stupid enough, or possibly brave, to venture into the ruins, because he wanted that hard to free you all. However, our beautiful lady over here,” you extend your arm towards Emilia, who holds her hands in front of her waist and bows slightly, “is half-human as you all are aware. She’s Emilia, our lady and royal candidate for the throne of Lugunica. She will face the trials so all of us can be liberated.”

The old man eyes the half-elf with suspicion and fear, as if at any moment she would decide to transform him into a toad.

“Oh, great! So not only are we trapped here, but also at risk of being subjected to whatever tyranny this young demon-worshipper imposes upon us!”

Your nostrils widen. Here we go. You aren’t sure how to maneuver through these people’s prejudices, and you can’t do what you would want to: walk up to every one of them and clock them as hard as Emilia did to you that one time you lost your legs.

“If you think she’d do something like that, then why the hell are you standing around calmly?”

“We are just scared!”, a woman holding a baby shouts from the back. “I was there, in the village’s plaza, when the witch walked up to that horrible cultist woman and killed her with ice magic. She could kill us all whenever she wanted!”

“And whenever you wanted you could strangle your baby, and that creature couldn’t do anything to defend itself. Isn’t that right? Then why don’t you do it? Same reason that Emilia doesn’t attack any of you.”

The baby’s mother looks down to her child, as it innocently blows a spit bubble. His eyes don’t know enough to be afraid of someone like you.

“Because… because we’re good people!”

“No. You’re not.”

You feel someone touching you in the forearm, and you realize it’s Emilia. She has walked up to you and looks worried, although understanding, as if she knows you are trying to defend her and yet will end up causing more trouble for her. You look at the crowd again.

“Emilia wants me to stop talking, but I can’t. This lady here has done nothing wrong to you all. She was born a silver-haired half-elf, and that’s all any of you seem to need to despise her for stuff Emilia has nothing to do with, and that happened hundreds of years ago. She’s as sweet, and kind, and lovely as they come, and yet she’s afraid of leaving her home because any of you might attack her.”

The village chief points at Emilia with a trembling hand, although his face evidences that at the moment he fears her more than hates her.

“Be.. because she’s a witch!”

Emilia steps towards the crowd, and although she straightens her back, the anxiety glistens in her eyes.

“I can do magic, it’s true. I’m a spirits user. But I would only use it to help all of us”, she says softly.

The village chief barely glances at her, as if holding her gaze would contaminate him.

“Shut it, demon.”

“No, I won’t shut it. Please, just listen to me. I only want to help you-“

“I said shut it!”, the village chief barks loudly.

Emilia’s eyes then widen, and she ever so slightly shakes her head. You know that look.

You lower your head and scowl at the village chief, while you concentrate your anger on your clenched fists. Is there a point in being polite with these people, with most of them anyway? Maybe there are a few decent ones, or maybe even most of them, but they stay quiet. They allow the others to keep spouting garbage, and somehow they keep this lunatic in charge of them. Roswaal should tear their village down and build a new one with entirely different people.

Your voice comes out so angry that it disturbs you.

“You are misunderstanding both your position as well as who you are speaking to that way. Lady Emilia is a candidate for the throne of this kingdom, and you are a worthless lunatic who believes himself to be a wizard because he dresses with a ridiculous costume. You have berated an innocent that in a second could push an ice shard through your rotten brain, but she doesn’t do it because she’s too good-natured for that, and will just take the abuse. Rest assured, if I had her power I would cull your numbers so you understood your place.”

The whole room is silent. Emilia’s eyes widen as she tries not to look at you, while the chief just furrows his brows and stares at you in an attempt to intimidate you. It doesn’t work.

“You dare threaten me with death?”

“I’m not threatening, I’m promising. You will respect lady Emilia, not only because she’s the lady of our house, but because she’s the only one who can move a finger to pass the trials and risk her health, or her sanity, or whatever it implies for her to risk, so you ungrateful scum will be able to return home. Did my words pass through your rotten brain?”

The village chief shakes with anger. The rest of the crowd stands around aghast, not even whispering to whoever is close.

“You fool, I’ve lived long before you were even conceived. I have no doubt in my mind that you are vastly underestimating my capabilities.”

“Then go to the witches’ tomb and try to pass the trials yourself. The local head of security will bother himself picking up your bloody remains to feed the pigs.”

“I’ll do it, and you will do nothing to stop me, because if you try, I will kill you. Do I make myself clear?”

You stare at the chief, your face twisting into a cold malicious grin.

Emilia lets out a noise of surprise and puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Please, Subaru!”, she turns to the crowd. “No, if any of you attempts to pass the trials, you will die! The traps will kill you! I’m the only one who can risk it, and I will! And if I fail, I will try again and again until the barrier is broken. Please, nobody needs to get hurt.”

The crowd stays silent, but the tension can be cut with a knife. Then a woman in her early twenties raises her hand timidly while looking at Emilia with caution.

“Lady witch, why would you want to help us? The people in the village have been terrible to you.”

Emilia lowers her head. Everybody in the crowd must be able to tell how anxious and timid the half-elf is whenever she faces them, and yet they keep harassing her. You are having trouble staying silent as well as controlling your breathing.

“Ever since I remember,” Emilia begins with a quiet voice, “I have only wanted to live in peace. I wanted to get along with everybody, to meet interesting people and have a good time with them. Eventually I wished to get married and have a family of my own. Yet I feared that my children would face what I’ve had to go through. I wouldn’t want that suffering and fear on anybody. I can’t change how you think about me, I’m beginning to understand, so maybe I shouldn’t care, and yet I think that behind the hate and fear of some of you, there are others who don’t understand any of this either, who just want to return home and live in peace as well.”

There’s a silence after her words, followed by some whispers. The young woman who questioned Emilia walks towards her cautiously. She’s short and a bit plump, her blonde hair tied into a pony tail. She looks like the kind of girl you’d see at a market, selling vegetables.

“You’re right about some of us. I’m sorry for ever hating you. We were just confused and angry. We want to return home as well.”

You find yourself smiling at the girl’s words. The atmosphere has improved already, most people seem to be agreeing with her.

Emilia holds her hands in front of her waist again, and bows towards the girl.

“I will face the trials. As soon as I succeed, we can all leave Sanctuary and return to our homes. Please, lend me your support.”

The girl nods, then goes as far as reaching for Emilia’s hands and holding them in hers. Her eyes are watering while she stares pleadingly at the half-elf.

“My brother has stayed behind at the village. I know we can’t do anything to leave if the locals won’t let us. Please fight for us, lady Emilia, even if we don’t deserve it. I will pray for your success.”

Emilia swallows, and blinks to dry her eyes. The girl stops holding the half-elf’s hand, and walks back slowly towards her place in the crowd. Emilia sniffs, then turns to address the rest of the group.

“I will do everything in my power to ensure our safe departure from this place, and back to our homes. I will attempt the trial this very night.”

The mood of the crowd has improved. A few isolated voices thank Emilia, even though they address her as witch.

Emilia has lowered her head, and she looks as if she will tear up the moment she opens her mouth. You step forward, clear you throat and address the crowd while trying to avoid looking at the village chief.

“Any questions before we leave?”

Your statement is met by silence, you don’t know if because nobody has anything to say or because they hate your guts. The villagers slowly begin to melt away. However, after most of them have left, the village chief is still standing there glaring at you as if he would lunge for your neck if he could get away with.

“I am not going to forget your malicious and disrespectful words towards my being”, he says with a raspy voice. “The gods won’t condone such affront.”

You walk up to him to speak in a low voice right to his face. You hope the way you are holding his gaze clarifies how much you wish you’d meet alone in some secluded place, and not precisely for sex.

“You don’t understand, chief. I’m the one who has a grudge on you.”

He seems taken aback by your words, probably expecting you to be cowed by whatever authority he believes he has. You turn your back on him and head towards Emilia. You hear this idiot’s voice behind you.

“Remember what I said! None of you are safe! The gods will protect me from your malice!”

You wave him off without turning around, then put your hand on Emilia’s shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here. A bit of fresh air will do us good.”

You both step out of the village, and after walking aimlessly down the road for a while, you decide to break the silence.

“That could have gone much worse. At least they got the message that you would be the one to free them from this situation.”

She smiles at your remark, but it quickly fades and is replaced by a worried look.

“Subaru, you scared me back there. I don’t think I have ever seen you so angry.”

You don’t like one bit how Emilia is looking at you, as if you have done something wrong and need to be handled with gloves. She’s too good-natured, which is part of the problem for you. Rem would have gotten her flail from her bullshit magical pocket and threatened the bastards in the crowd with more practical ferocity. Your throat closes, and you want to be alone. As you have faced often since your beloved demon servant fell to that curse, you can only keep walking when your brain allows you to forget for a while that you have lost the most important person in your life.

You take a deep breath and smile at Emilia.

“We needed a bit of a good cop, bad cop routine. And it worked, I think. They got the message. Now they’ll know who to thank when you lift the barrier.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word, ‘cop’, but I think I understand. Still, did you mean that about culling their numbers so they would understand their place…?”

You want to ease her concern, suggest that you were only riling them up so they would be mad at you instead of her, that you wouldn’t kill anyone, but you prefer to be honest.

“… I don’t know, Emilia. It just came out. You don’t understand how angry it makes me when they mistreat you like that. I see red. I want to protect you, to make sure you are safe, that you can get to feel happy and free, but those people keep making everything worse. They are like a bunch of wild children.”

“You don’t need to keep protecting me. I want to protect you…!”

“Well, I appreciate that. It’s not as if I wouldn’t need it, and you are far more useful when it comes to protecting people than me. I mostly just have my relentless determination to push myself to the brink for the people I care about.”

She hugs you tightly. You feel her warmth and her breathing.

“You can absolutely trust me on that one, I love you. I really do.”

That makes you blush a bit, and the way she washes over you with her sincerity lessens the remains of the anger that were tingling on your hands.

“Emi, speaking of protecting people as well as of hindrances, where the fuck is Puck? I haven’t seen him ever since we left for Sanctuary.”

Emilia goes silent as if she had been dreading anyone bringing it up.

“I have no idea”, she says with a thin voice. “I have called out to him, and he usually ends up appearing. But he’s gone.”

You put your hands on her shoulders to separate her a bit, because you want to look at her worried face.

“Has this happened before?”

She nods slowly.

“Yes, once. Back when we were traveling through a forest, a few years ago. He disappeared during the night, shortly after he told me we would speak in a while, and didn’t show up for days. It was really scary… I thought something bad had happened to him.”

“Well, what explanation did he give?”

She gives you a timid smile.

“None… Which is why I’m worried about him now. Is he playing a joke on me? Has he gotten himself into trouble?”

You shake your head, and thinking about how much Puck has annoyed you ever since you met him, even involuntarily through the way he can’t care properly for how much human beings hurt, makes you want to insult the cunt out loud.

“Emilia… I don’t want to say this to you, given that you have been close to Puck for many years, ever since you were a child, and that he’s called himself your adoptive father. I don’t want to dredge up whatever horrible stuff happened in your childhood. But the fact is that Puck has the unique talent to not be there to protect you whenever you need it the most, whether or not he has a convenient excuse.”

She looks away from you. It seems she doesn’t want to say anything bad about the little cunt.

“We have a contract. He promised me he would always be there for me.”

You sigh. You pat her head gently.

“Contracts can be broken, and promises can be forgotten. I don’t know what Puck’s deal is this time, but I do know that this world is shit. Every world is shit, as far as I can tell. You need to be strong.”

She nods.

“I will, then.”

You kiss her forehead, then hold her head against your cheek for a moment.

“We better rest a bit, particularly yourself, before we head for the witches’ tomb. I can’t even anticipate what’s going to happen in that bleak ruin.”

Note from December of 2020:

In the original the villagers are far more willing to accept Emilia at this point, because the protagonist had managed to repeat the Witch’s Cult’s assault until nobody died (in his second run, actually). But in this strange, AI-fueled retelling, they have the justification to hold on to a permanent grudge on the sweet gal, because plenty of people did get killed. I went into the scene not having any plan for it, not even if the villagers would end up accepting her as their lady and savior, and the unexpected result is one of the joys of writing this stuff.

Also, I have mentioned before, that idiotic village chief was made up entirely by the AI many, many parts ago. I thought he would be some comic relief, but the hate the protagonist has developed towards the crazy bastard is as real as can be.

This entry covers part of the tenth volume of the original “Re:Zero” novels.

In the previous entry we met tigerman himself, strongest man in the damn world. We also came across Ram, who is as dutiful and competent as she’s a complete bitch. She also mentions that Emilia is trapped in Sanctuary or something.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

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The two-story house that is the closest thing to a normal village abode in Sanctuary, of those you’ve seen so far anyway, belongs to someone named Ryuzu. This Ryuzu person, however, hasn’t made an appearance yet. You all sit around a wooden table in a cozy living room where you can smell the dried meats and hanging vegetables from the kitchen next door. Ram, dutiful servant that she is even away from home, has prepared tea for everybody. Emilia, sitting next to you, looks more worried than anyone, but nobody could blame her when she’s been told that she’s trapped in the village.

Ram finally sits down, takes a sip of her tea and goes straight into the main issue.

“The magical barrier set up hundreds of years ago prevents half-humans from leaving. I suppose that the original intent was to protect people with mixed blood from persecution, particularly during those times in the past when wars were waged between humans and demi-humans. However, the barrier has never been lifted, and as a result generations of half-beasts and half-humans of other types have been born and have died inside Sanctuary without ever seeing the outside world. As things stand now, lady Emilia, you cannot leave either.”

The half-elf stares at Ram in dismay, failing to find any words. You rub your eyes.

“You know, Ram, although I’m about to reprimand you, I understand that this is Roswaal’s doing. However, you are his representative at the moment, so I’ll say it to you: you should have told the other members of the household, particularly Emilia, that if she came to this secret town she wouldn’t be able to leave it.”

Ram glares at you. She doesn’t need to repeat another variety of ‘I’ll do whatever I want whenever I want’ for you to understand her expression. However, you doubt she could deny your point.

“For lady Emilia to leave,” Ram goes on with a steely voice, this time looking at the half-elf, “the barrier will need to be lifted. There seems to be a single way of achieving that: passing the trials set up at the witches’ tomb.”

You turn your head towards Garfiel. The guy is snacking on some homemade cookies, and he either doesn’t seem to notice the amount of crumbs that have fallen on his lap, or he doesn’t care. The punk seems completely unconcerned about this barrier business, but you figure that he doesn’t know anything else than Sanctuary. The outside world might as well be a myth for him.

“Garfiel, you mentioning this witches’ tomb was one of the first things you said to me, right before you hurled me through the air proficiently enough to break world records. How does that tomb relate to witches exactly, and what witches are we talking about?”

“Them witches, everybody knows those! Witches of old, most powerful people before that Witch of Envy swallowed half of the world! It’s a tomb because people were buried there, it’s the witches’ tomb because them witches were buried there.”

“Are you telling me that Satella herself is buried in Sanctuary, in that very same tomb I entered?”, you ask with a thin voice.

Garfiel shoots you a look as if he wants to say something to you but he can’t, maybe because of your company.

“What are you talking about, Barusu?”, Ram says irritated, as if you are spouting nonsense again. “You cannot have entered the witches’ tomb, because otherwise you wouldn’t have survived the magical traps.”

Before you can answer, Garfiel clicks his tongue.

“Don’t want to correct ya of all people, Ram. Hurts my heart. But it just happens that this bastard entered that damn tomb. I saw him leavin’ it in one piece, before I grabbed him and tossed him.”

You aren’t used to that look of uncertainty in Ram’s face, nor do you like it. Your current circumstances seem more grim if Ram wavers. Both Ram and Garfiel are staring at you as if you should explain yourself.

“I don’t know what you expect me to tell you”, you say, and shrug. “I saw some ruins, I ventured into them, I fell unconscious in some chamber inside, and then I came back out.”

Ram frowns as she considers your words seriously for once.

“Why did you faint?”

“Dunno. I just suddenly felt like I was going to pass out, and I barely avoided hitting my head.”

Garfiel is shaking his head while snarling.

“Lyin’ bastard. I already told, all ya noble-born are a bunch of liars. Ya ain’t tellin’ about what ya saw between goin’ to sleep an’ wakin’ up.”

“Subaru isn’t noble-born, I assure you”, Ram says.

“Haah?”, Garfiel answers, taken aback.

“Regardless of my condition of birth,” you say, “please let’s go back to the suggestion that I’m withholding some information. I passed out and I don’t remember a single thing. It wasn’t like dreaming, that when you wake up and you get the sense that you’ve spent hours imagining some crazy shit. There was no sense that any time had passed. It was like waking up from an operation. I truly don’t remember shit, if anything happened at all.”

You would have expected Garfiel to accuse you again, but he holds your gaze almost with sympathy.

“Yer sure? I mean, it’s possible yer blockin’ it out or somethin’.”

“What would I be blocking? Some nightmare?”

“That chamber inside, the one with the pillars of light, that fancy floor an’ all, is where the trials take place. You were there, you fell asleep, and then the trial must have happened. But I can see in yer eyes you ain’t lyin’. If you went through the trial, it would show on yer face. I don’t think ya half-pint would keep that all inside.”

“It really doesn’t seem like Subaru, you know?”, Otto says. He sounds shy about contributing to the conversation. “I can’t see him keeping quiet about something like this, if it happened.”

“Shut it, ya peddler”, Garfiel says casually, then looks at you again. “Ya didn’t go through the trial, so somethin’ else must have happened. Somethin’ new. No clue what. And them traps were set up by number one witch herself, lady of Sanctuary. Dunno how you avoided gettin’ torn to pieces. Don’t like it one bit.”

You drink some more of your tea if only because it will give you a few seconds to think. Your head is already spinning, even though your group has barely begun to unravel this situation.

“Can any of you clarify for me, please, if the witches’ tomb truly holds the remains of the witches associated with the Apocalypse that everyone keeps referring to? And if so, how many of those witches?”

Garfiel shrugs dismissively.

“Them great witches were mentioned a lot in those fairy tales, and people here believe that all of them are buried in that tomb, but who knows? The trials are real though, and they were setup by the Witch of Greed, so Echidna is for sure restin’ there, if she’s even restin’ at all. Wouldn’t think so for what I’ve heard of the lady. About them other Witches of Sin, who knows, who cares.”

“And what do you know about the Witch of Envy, Garfiel? You reckon she might be actually rotting in that tomb?”

He frowns at you, but he chews and swallows part of a cookie before answering.

“Didn’t I say that I don’t care? It’s folk tales, lotsa stupid bedtime stories that mostly gran told us to scare us children into bein’ good. Truth is almost never as scary as people think, an’ those stories are ridiculous.”

Ram sighs deeply and speaks with a tone that suggests she doesn’t want to bother uttering the words.

“The Mathers family has been tending to Sanctuary for many generations, as you all should be well aware of. The witches’ tomb does indeed hold the remains of all the Witches of Sin. So Greed, Pride, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust and, yes, even Envy herself, who drowned all the others.”

Even though you try to contain a shiver, you still tremble. For some reason, although facing Satella in the black space between your lives doesn’t bother you any longer, knowing that the remains of her body, and maybe even her restless spirit itself, are hanging out so close to your current location makes you want to jump on Patrasche’s back and ride away from here as fast as possible.

“Beatrice told me that those witches were too powerful even for death, and now they are all trapped in the same place, with the one who murdered the others no less. I don’t think I would wish such a fate on anybody.”

“Are you a fan of the witches of old, Barusu?”, Ram asks with a hint of disdain.

As you hold her red-eyed gaze, you want to make some joke to alleviate the mood, but you remember that being a fan of witches has caused terrible troubles in this world, and is usually incarnated in the Witch’s Cult’s attempts to return Satella to life. You clear your throat.

“I know that the Witch of Envy is as troublesome as they come, with the whole dissolving half of the world inside of her and all. I can’t say anything about the others. Satella killed them, so maybe they don’t like the looped witch any more than we do.”

Ram arches her eyebrows and looks away.

“I don’t think it matters whether they like her or not. They’re all stuck in her company, forever.”

You place a hand on your chin and sigh before speaking again.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Even if the Witch of Envy managed to drown the rest of the other witches, how did she drown herself as well?”

Garfiel laughs, then slaps the table next to his plate of cookies.

“Damn half-pint, didn’t ya even pay attention to the fairy tales? That old Satella got sealed by some group of heroes or another. The Five Corcomisants of Tullidor joined forces to vanquish evil and all. Damn old bitch didn’t drown herself! Foolish thing to say.”

“Can’t say I’ve paid much attention to fairy tales, nor to this group of Five Corcomisants of Tullidor or whatever you just said.”

“Nobody has heard of such a group, Barusu”, Ram says, then sighs. “I suggest you don’t listen closely to Garfiel’s words.”

“Hey now!”, Garfiel complains with some embarrassment, particularly you guess because it came from Ram. “Ya gotta listen if ya wanna learn somethin’! Wouldn’t spout stuff for no reason. We are all tryna figure things out here.”

“I’m sure. But we’re also wasting our energies discussing the background of the tomb, so can we please stop this topic?”

You nod silently. You don’t like that the three of you are monopolizing the conversation. When you look around, your gaze first falls on Otto, who looks back concerned. Even though Emilia healed his facial bruises, as well as the pain in your ribcage for that matter, his posture suggests he wants to be as small as possible so people, particularly one violent hick, won’t notice he’s there. When you look at Emilia, your blood goes cold. The half-elf is hunched over with her gaze fixed on the table. No, way beyond, because she isn’t focusing her eyes. She has paled, and her mouth has frozen depicting her desolation. The newly learned fact that she won’t be able to leave this secret town until these trials have passed must have sunk in, and you can’t even pretend that you understand how she’s feeling, because you aren’t half-human. Nothing would stop you, you guess, from leaving Sanctuary and returning to the mansion. But the half-elf needs a hundreds of years old barrier to be lifted.

“H-Hey,” you begin, and although you had been staring at Emilia without her noticing, you turn towards Garfiel. “Has anyone lifted the barrier in these last four hundred years or so?”

“Haah!? Didn’t ya see yer princess friend fall asleep for a while because she passed through the barrier? It’s there for sure! It was already protectin’ Sanctuary as far back as I can remember.”

Ram closes her eyes for a moment, then she addresses you with a voice drained of emotion.

“It’s not a physical barrier, Barusu. It cannot be forced open, nor literally grabbed and lifted so someone can pass under it. Lifting the barrier that prevents half-humans from leaving Sanctuary means breaking the spell, so making the barrier disappear. It has never been achieved.”

“One of the toughest jobs there must be, I reckon”, Garfiel adds solemnly. “Barrier was made by the lady herself, who knew everythin’. Every damn fact of the world, Echidna knew. Could tell you where to find some vossalios’ nest and what color were the eggs safe to eat. She told damn kings and queens whether they were actin’ like fools an’ all, even though Echidna wasn’t noble-born herself. Musta been some strikin’ lady.”

Ram sighs, then lowers her head.

“It seems she spent her last years researching how to live forever. In a way, she succeeded.”

“Haah!? Didn’t live forever at all, our lady!”, Garfiel says, both confused and amused. “She must be a skeleton now. Not a lotta life in some buried bones.”

Ram closes her eyes, holds her breath and clenches her teeth behind her tightened lips.

You had intended to rely on the past experiences of people who had dealt with lifting the barrier before, which must have happened quite a few times in four hundred years. However, the situation feels more grim now. Emilia has barely moved, and it seems that she hasn’t looked up once. It reminds you of yourself, but from when? You breath thickens as you realize it. You must have looked like that many lifetimes ago, back in your old world, when you were expected to return to your regular life, attending your high school classes, even though you couldn’t find the strength to even leave your bedroom most of the days. It’s the impossible weight of having to succeed at a task for which you were born to fail.

You hear a door closing somewhere else in the house, and you realize that someone must have entered through a back door. Ram stands up calmly and passes you by to stand in front of the teapot, which is still steaming on the other, smaller table where she had left it.

“Must be gran”, Garfiel says, and turns his head towards the kitchen.

The supposed grandmother appears in the doorway. It’s a girl of around Petra’s size, and she doesn’t look older than twelve as well. She’s holding a cane-looking staff almost as tall as herself. She has long, straight, pale red hair that curves upwards at its tips. She’s wearing a ship grey, worn coat that covers most of her mouth. Her long, pointy ears are striking, much more pronounced than Emilia’s, but most importantly, this is the girl who had stared at you back at the clearing, when something, maybe Frederica’s magic crystal, teletransported you there.

Is this elf person truly the same girl you saw back then? The eyes of this elf seem intelligent, wise even, while those of the elf you chased had looked as if she hosted the soul of a deer. And also, she’s way too young to be anybody’s grandmother.

“Good day to you all”, she says.

Her voice had sounded kind and welcoming but somewhat tired, like an old person who has been taking care of her grandchildren even though she should have gone to take a nap by now.

Garfiel finishes swallowing the rest of another cookie. He lifts the plate towards the elf.

“Ya outdid yerself with these ones, gran! Love the new recipe.”

The corners of the elf’s smile peek out from under the neck of her coat. She sits carefully on the empty chair at the head of the table.

“I am glad. I will make lots of them. But you didn’t offer any to our guests, did you, Young Garf? They must have been hungry after their trip.”

Garfiel puts the plate down, then shifts his own weight on his chair. He looks apologetic.

“Yeah, forgot about that… But they ain’t guests, because they weren’t invited! Buncha weirdoes! Don’t have any problem with the shy princess and all, but that one with the evil eyes gives me the creeps.”

“Oh dear, you’re being rude again.”

Now both of the elf’s cheeks are smiling as she turns to face her guests. Before she speaks, though, you lean towards the plate of cookies and grab one. Garfiel is startled for a moment because your hand appeared in front of him.

“I guess I’ll take a couple of them”, you say. “And me being so evil and all, I don’t even have to ask.”

The elf places her hands over the top of her cane and smiles as she looks at the three new people.

“I assure you, you are more than welcome in Sanctuary. You have come to help.”

You sink your teeth into the cookie and chew slowly, then swallow. After all the bullshit you’ve gone through, this cinnamon flavored, homemade cookie tastes like heaven.

“I don’t know you at all, Garfiel’s grandmother, but you must have truly outdone yourself with these cookies. They taste amazing.”

“They’re nothing special, I’m afraid.” She says. “You must have special taste, dear.”

You point at her with the hand that holds what’s left of your cookie.

“More importantly, though, haven’t we seen each other bef-…?”

Something burns your cheek. It almost makes you jump from your seat. You lean away from whatever burned you, and you find yourself staring at Ram’s unconcerned eyes looking down at you. She’s holding a steaming teacup as if offering it to you, even though you have an empty one on the table.

“Ram, what the hell!?”

She leaves the teacup next to the empty one, and pushes the previous one a bit.

“Some more tea will go well with the cookie you stole.” She leans into your ear, and her whisper alone makes you shiver before you understand her words. “Refrain from making unnecessary comments.”

Ram then leaves the teapot back on the other table, and sits gracefully at her chair while folding the skirt of her servant outfit.

You want to stare at the senior servant, but you realize she’s not going to clarify her words. Why did she suddenly give you an impossible task?

This young grandma looks at both of you, but seems to decide that she shouldn’t comment on what just happened.

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Ryuzu Bilma, something like the mayor of our little community. Will you tell me your names?”

Otto clears his throat and speaks way too loudly.

“W-Well, I’m someone unimportant, and who has nothing to do with the comings and goings of this place, but my name is Otto Suwen! I’m a completely harmless merchant, I assure you.”

“Good to know, Young Otto. We are always in need of goods. And you over there?”

“I’m Natsuki Subaru, I can… Uh, I’m not really good with social situations, nor do I have any particular skills, but I can travel through dimensions, save people with some heroics, and stuff like that.” This Ryuzu elf seems amused. For some reason, you continue. “I’m an honorary knight, a wanderer without a purpose, a flirter without much success and…” You look at Ram, who is trying to murder you with her gaze. “…and nothing more.”

Ryuzu Bilma nods agreeably.

“Huh! That’s a rare ability you have there, Young Su. Most humans can’t just u-turn like that without preparation.”

You shrug, trying not to look as uncomfortable as you feel.

“It’s nothing really.”

Ryuzu turns her head to address Emilia, but the full elf ends up arching her brows.

“Are you okay, my dear? You look pale as a ghost. Are you troubled because of the barrier?”

Emilia tries to correct her posture, although everybody must realize how uncomfortable she feels. The half-elf combs her long, silver hair with her hand and forces herself to smile at the elf mayor.

“Ah… Well, to be honest, I’m a little afraid of the barrier. I’m trying to process the news that it has trapped me in your village.”

“I understand. We have brought it up with Young Ros over the years, that it was time for the barrier to be lifted, but the world always produces troubles more pressing than solving a situation that has remained frozen for hundreds of years. It’s understandable. However, now that Young Ros visited us again, and that miss Ram brought over plenty of villagers who would want to return to their homes, we finally had an opportunity to apply some pressure. Suddenly all you three have joined us as well, and lady Emilia is qualified to pass the trials herself. The stars are finally smiling at us.”

Emilia’s expression darkens at that idea.

“But… what if I fail your trials? What then?”

“Well, you wouldn’t be the first. But that means you would remain trapped here for the rest of your life.”

A silence falls over the room as all eyes turn to regard the mayor of Sanctuary.

“Isn’t there any other way?”, Emilia asks with a thin voice.

“Not that I’m aware of. But don’t worry! We’re all behind you, and we’ll be supporting you through this ordeal. You’ll have all the resources of Sanctuary at your disposal.”

Although Emilia’s distress is making it hard for you to think of anything else, this situation doesn’t sit well with you.

“You said apply some pressure. What do you mean? What do the villagers that Ram brought over have to do with anything? They aren’t half-beasts, or half-human, or whatever. They should be able to pass through the barrier and return to their lives. Roswaal as well. Being such a powerful wizard as he’s supposed to be, he probably could just have flown out of here before Ram even came to his rescue, or we did for that matter.”

“That clown bastard came in alone first”, Garfiel says with a voice that suggests that thinking about the lord annoys him. “We asked him again, that people wanted to leave, that it wasn’t fair. Same old shit. Young people ’round here want to see the wide world, don’t know what to tell ya. Ain’t fair and all. This time the clown decided to stick around, even though it didn’t seem to me he was doin’ anything. Other than schemin’, I reckon. That’s all that damn clown does. Then his hot as hell senior servant came in to rescue the clown, and she had brought over a good bunch of small fries, lightweight full humans, because they were afraid of some cult outside or some shit. Guess there are the tides of fumanbos to account for, roamin’ the wastes and all. Makin’ a mess of the place, shittin’ every damn where. Anyways, so them villagers, the fully human I mean, were here, and we could tell the clown, we figured, or gran did mostly, hey, ya damn clown, how ’bout ye finally do somethin’ to lift this barrier of ours. Ya know, that damn thing the bastard and his clown ancestors had heard over an’ over. Then the schemin’ bastard said, ‘well, sure’. Figure he had somethin’ to prove to those small-timer subjects of his. Lord has responsibilities or somethin’, he said. I don’t listen to that clown’s words too much, makes my head hurt an’ all. So we gathered there at night in front of the witches’ tomb, all ceremonial like, and bastard goes in and we heard the noises of them traps triggerin’. I had heard them before when some fools wanted to loot the dirt inside that tomb, but this time I had thought that the damn clown, being so powerful an’ all, well, he would have been able to stop them from firin’ or somethin’. But he didn’t, couldn’t or whatever. To the clown’s credit, he did drag himself out, even though he looked slashed all over as if he had kicked a bambolabe while it was hibernatin’. Damn fool!” He laughs heartily, but a mere look at Ram’s cold scorn makes him stop himself so quickly that he almost coughs. He clears his throat. “Anyway, he’s been restin’ at one of gran’s places ever since, and we thought, damn, it’s all meat for the rodamunos now! But then ya bunch of half-pints, and the hot princess, who is royalty an’ all, came in, so we can do somethin’ more about this barrier business, can’t we? I reckon that’s the case.”

“Yes, indeed”, Ryuzu says.

You rest your elbows on the table and hide your face with your hands. When you have managed to coalesce this punk’s words into something resembling information, you take a deep breath and look at Ryuzu.

“What would happen if we gathered the villagers and walked them out of your Sanctuary?”

Ryuzu, whose face hasn’t shown anything else than calmness, seemed about to answer when Garfiel raises his hand to stop her.

“Let me, gran. What would happen, half-pint, is that I would stand there in front of the barrier and I would grab all of ya and push ya back, or maybe even grab ya and toss ya so ya land on some pigsty. Know what I mean? Ya want yer people to leave now? Then either ya lift the barrier or ya kill me. And if yer thinkin’ of killin’ the beast, I’ll tell ya that nobody has managed to do that, not once.”

That sentence would have held some weight if you had said it. Although you frown in disbelief at the punk, he must be seriously strong, maybe the strongest in the world as he said, if Roswaal, supposedly the most powerful magician in the kingdom, can’t force Garfiel to stand aside as every outsider leaves. You have to admit, you are a little afraid of him.

“You put so much faith in your abilities, yet you’re stuck here in Sanctuary acting as security? Can’t you pass the trials yourself?”

Garfiel’s mood sours, and he glares at you as if you are picking on a wound of his.

“I ain’t stuck here, half-pint. I do this because I wanted to. My reasons are maybe not the cleverest ones, but it’s what’s right.”

This fucking hick is responsible for your current troubles, or at least partially so. And Emilia’s distress has made you despise this village already.

“Right? All I hear from you is a bunch of mindless babble about strength and being the best.”

“It’s maybe all I have, half-pint. If I’m strong, it means I’m good at somethin’. It’s who I am.”

“But are you content with being stuck guarding the prettiest invisible door in the world with no chance to go out there and prove yourself?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I want to guard the beauty of ma’ybara? If she sets me apart from others, then it’s a great honor.”

You shake your head. After you take a deep breath, you look at Ram, who now glares at you as if to remind you that you are making plenty of unnecessary comments.

“Ram, have we seriously met with the very people who are blackmailing us into remaining in Sanctuary? Could you, I don’t know, have given me a heads-up or something?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary, I thought you had figured it out for yourself. However, I keep making the mistake of believing you hold some intellectual capabilities.”

“Please, Young Su, if you will allow me”, Ryuzu says with a conciliatory tone. “You are in trouble, and so are we. You can help. We are desperate to solve this quandary, we have been for a long time. We are well aware that if you all left back to your lives, Sanctuary would remain as it always has, maybe for another four hundred years. We have a good chance of breaking the barrier once and for all.”

Otto raises his index finger, and clears his throat.

“Wait a second. I don’t want to draw the ire of such a strong man by making a bold suggestion, but the idea that came into my mind doesn’t sound half bad. If only half-humans are forbidden from passing through the barrier, and they can physically pass, because lady Emilia did, why not use our full human bodies to carry you out of Sanctuary?”

“I… I actually think that might work”, Emilia says, perking up a little. “We would have no issues carrying any of you out.”

Garfiel shakes his head and sucks air through his predatory teeth.

“‘Fraid not. Good idea though, particularly for a follower, but the old witch already thought of it. I told ya she knows everythin’ in the world. Even what buttons to push for the puzzle at the palace of Gromblelidan. The barrier repeals half-human souls. If ya carried us out, our souls would get sucked out and maybe keep flyin’ or somethin’, and you’d be carryin’ empty shells. They would keep breathin’, but ya can’t go through life when yer just a husk. Ain’t no fun in it.” Garfiel crosses his arms, and lowers his head. “This damn barrier business… I wish it was a huge wall, stone-like, that went up straight into the heavens. Them villagers wouldn’t see a path going out, so they wouldn’t dream of leavin’. But there’s lots of noble-born and wombalimbos to gape at out here I guess.”

Emilia rubs her eyes slowly while a silence falls over the room. She then opens her tired eyes to stare at Ryuzu.

“What do the trials consist of?”

“Our lady of Sanctuary wishes to peer into the contestant’s past, present and future”, she says with a weighty tone. “Her woven dreams force you to face them.”

“That’s… vague,” you say.

Emilia has shrunk as if she had gone to the hospital for a headache only to discover she has a brain tumor. Garfiel has hunched over, and is scratching absent-mindedly the leathery skin of the horrible scar between his eyebrows. He genuinely seems to pity the half-elf.

“Wouldn’t wanna be in yer shoes, princess, let me tell ya…”, he says quietly. “The trials are impossible to pass. Echidna was one devious bitch. Her dream forces ya to face the past, an’ against the past ya cannot win. Nobody can. Ya better get comfortable in our little town, ’cause ya ain’t gettin’ out any time soon.”

The meeting ends shortly after, and Ryuzu announces that she will gather a few local cooks to prepare a meal for you that will, you guess, offset being blackmailed into staying in Hick Town. Ram is about to accompany Ryuzu and help, maybe because the senior servant just can’t break character, but after you get out of the two-story house and everybody is scattering, you manage to pull Ram her aside and use the cover of a big tree to talk in a semblance of privacy.

“Ram, is our lord unconscious?”

“I thought you would have wanted to brag about your deeds, as well as explain how you managed to score points for two opposite camps through your operation. Roswaal is awake. I will ask him if he wants to see you, and I will inform you of his response.”

With that, Ram turns on her heel and follows the small, elf leader of Sanctuary. You are left alone with your thoughts under the big tree. After a few seconds you resolve to approach Garfiel like you had intended. Frederica’s blood runs through his veins, so he can’t be entirely worthless. You end up having to run around for a bit, because the guy has diverged from everybody else in the meeting to head towards some area of the village where the ancient buildings become sparse. When Garfiel realizes you are walking behind him, he gets first startled and then annoyed. He eyes you suspiciously.

“Ya followin’ me now?”

“I figured we could talk for a bit without everybody else in the way. I’ve grown fond of your Frederica. You haven’t seen her for a long time, right? She told me that she had left Sanctuary behind, but you have stayed here.”

Garfiel puts his hands on his waist and grimaces at you.

“Yeah, I’ve stayed. What’s it ta ya? And did I look like I wanted to talk about damn ‘Rica? Called ya a buncha fools for ‘ssociatin’ with her and everythin’.”

“I just thought it was odd that you would have separated. She said that her mother came to Sanctuary for shelter, right? You must have grown up here, then Frederica left for the big world outside. It’s odd that you didn’t follow her. With the lioness being so easy-going, she would likely keep going on about you, how proud she is of your strength or some shit like that.”

Garfiel’s nostrils widen, and his grimace opens a side of his mouth, displaying his menacing teeth. Any sane person would have stayed away from this punk, but then again you only learn things by prodding people.

“Well if ya know so damn much, then why’d ya ask?”

“I don’t know, I just wanted to hear it from you.”

Garfiel steps towards you to glare from up close.

“I had enough of ol’ freakin’ furryburglar when she turned her back on us, ya hear!? She’s a damn traitor, that’s what she is. Some sister… Never came back. Never cared about us.”

“That’s not the Frederica I met. She takes good care of Roswaal’s place, she’s very kind to the useless trainee who shouldn’t be there in the first place, and is always sure to make us feel welcome and lighten the mood. She’s a great gal as far as I can tell. And she revealed to us Sanctuary’s secrets, at least regarding how to reach it from the mansion, so we could help you all. I wish she would have mentioned the stuff about the barrier and half-beasts, though…”

Garfiel looks away and narrows his eyes. You look down towards some movement, and realize that his fists are trembling.

“Listen here, small-timer. Yer friends with a traitor, but ya don’t know nothin’. Yer a damn fool. Damn Frederica is only concerned with herself. Always has been.”

“Well, I don’t know about all that, but whatever happened between you both clearly hurts still.”

Garfiel growls, and he narrows one eye further while staring at you. He must not be used to people either asking or caring about a personal relationship of his like this.

“The hell ya think ya are, evil eyes? First noble-born, then not noble-born. We pals now? Whaddya want? It’s not like ya can do a damn thing.”

“It’s just that after meeting Frederica and her being so different from what you are telling me, I want to correct you. It must annoy the hell out of you, holding on to the twisted image of someone you cared about so much. I don’t know why Frederica hasn’t returned, but she certainly cared, and does still.”

Garfiel growls like a wild animal, then steps forward, grabs you by the shirt and raises that fist until you stand on your tiptoes. You are surprised by how little you care, even though you feel Garfiel trembling through his fist.

“Ya know, yer pretty damn brave sayin’ all that to my face. Don’t know what ta make of ya, and it makes my skin crawl. But whatever went on between me and that bitch ain’t any of your business. Besides…”

“You know,” you begin to say calmly, “one of the first moments with your sister in which I thought that she was a real good gal happened when we were speaking about some other horrible troubles, unrelated to you of whom I didn’t know anything at the time, and Frederica started crying. She tolds us something to the effect that the bonds of family anchor us to the world, that we only got one, and that the fact that the memories and feelings associated with a sibling could be taken away was unimaginably awful. Didn’t mean anything in particular to me at the time, but it sure does now.”

Garfiel lowers his head and closes his eyes tight.

“Ya really are a fuckin’ asshole…”

With those words, Garfiel releases you, and you have to take a few steps back to regain your balance.

“We will help you lift the barrier, or break the barrier, or whatever”, you say. “Even though nobody in four hundred years has managed to achieve it. I tend to hold on to delusional hopes.”

The guy is breathing faster, and when he manages to hold your gaze, he’s gone wide-eyed.

“Ya went inta them witches’ tomb although yer just a full human. I should have bothered meself pickin’ up yer bloody remains to feed the pigs. There’s somethin’ wrong wit’cha.” He begins to walk away, even though he refuses to turn entirely in the direction he’s heading. “I’ll be keepin’ an eye on ya, small-timer. I don’t like weird people hangin’ around, messin’ my place. Makes me all nervous.”