This part, like the previous one, covers a small portion of the sixth volume of the original Re:Zero series, although virtually everything in it is new material, given that the actions so far in this weird roleplaying/retelling thing have changed certain significant events of the original.

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

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Otto must have noticed that you were rendered useless, because he asks and follows the directions given to him by people in a couple of towns your carriage passes by. Although the young merchant attempted some small talk a few minutes after leaving the mist, at the beginning you could barely force yourself to say yes or no, and after a while your mouth went so dry, and your mind so numb, that you couldn’t muster to even acknowledge the merchant’s existence.
It is over, isn’t it? How could you continue when Rem is gone? Weren’t you struggling to save everyone? If Rem has left this world, then your efforts have failed, and you remain in a world you need to abandon. As the certainty locks in your brain, you look around at the sights, the countryside and the towns with its busy inhabitants, as if they belonged to a faded movie. Is this how terminally ill people resting in their hospital beds feel about their surroundings? You now exist in a reality, a life, that will end for you, and will have to end soon. You think that even if Satella herself reappeared and swallowed half of the world again, you wouldn’t care.
A small sound, just a little too childish for the setting, tears you from your thoughts. It comes again, and you find it to be rather familiar. Looking around, your eyes scan the carriage and land on the merchant’s bag, which has a weird bulge in it. The sound comes once more, and you recognize it to be coming from a meow.
“Hey…” Otto mutters, touching the bag, “What is inside it?”
Otto pries the bag open and looks inside, to find a cat. It stares at you and mews again.
“Why is there a cat in my bag?”
The bag seems rather cramped for the feline, who is squished by the various bottles and jars inside.
“What’s this? A stowaway?”, Otto asks to nobody in particular.
“Ah…”, you begin to say with a broken voice. “I guess it was time for you to do something, huh? Even if it just involves appearing in weird places when you aren’t needed.”
Otto, first surprised that you even talked, raises his face towards you while maybe thinking that you have finally lost it, because you were addressing the feline.
“I’m not crazy, I’m just talking to a cat”, you say.
Otto then raises an eyebrow and smirks, relieved, as if you have said something funny.
In any case, the cat seems to have heard you and opens its mouth.
“Guess you intend to pay us a visit”, Puck says as he flies out of the bag and floats near your face.
Otto is so surprised that he makes the carriage swerve, and it takes you mumbling that it is okay for the merchant to compose himself.
“Lord Roswaal is an eccentric man,” you say, “as you knew. This is one of his eccentricities: allowing a talking, lowlife cat to live in his mansion.”
“Someone is jealous”, Puck says, bitter. “Because I’m a cat, I don’t have to do anything boring, like politics.”
“Nor the most boring part: protecting the only person on Earth who depends on you.”
“Hey, we can joke around and all that…”
“No, we can’t.”
“… But don’t you diss my service to Emilia. You know that anybody who threatens her will need to deal with me.”
“I know that’s the worst lie I’ve heard in my life.”
Puck crosses his arms and flies in a couple of circles around you as if he intended to find something wrong, and then comes back to his original place. He frowns, half confused.
“What’s the deal? I supposed you were going to act apologetic to have the most minimal chance to rejoin us. Threaten lives, insult Emilia, all that is fine,” Puck says, “but question my dedication to her? No.”
You shake your head and breathe deeply. You want to die.
“I know it’s no use talking to you about anything. You people don’t understand a thing. No amount of contradicting what I know to be true is going to change the future. I guess I know how that Cassandra felt.”
“Don’t know no Cassandra”, Puck says.
“I know, you don’t know shit.”
“I know shit!”
You groan. You even attempt to slap Puck away, but he avoids your hand and it only seems to amuse him.
It takes some seconds for your throat to loosen up.
“I can’t believe I’m just sitting here, talking to a magical flying cat, when Rem just died.”
“It seems that a lot of things have happened in the capital since Emilia exiled you from paradise. Was that Rem part of Crusch’s camp?”
You want to yell. The White Whale’s magic, or whatever it is, also works on a spirit that refers to himself as ‘of the Apocalypse’, someone who according to Beatrice was genuinely able to entomb the world in frost if Emilia died?
“I’m just tired of all this. It’s been hell since the day I got this stupid power. It was hell even before that, actually…”
“Oh? If you believe you have it rough, perhaps you should tell that to someone who cares.”
You groan.
“Puck, do you ever scout Emilia’s surroundings for threats? You know, to actually figure out if someone or many people are rushing to murder her?”
“I do, yes, although I can only jump to the location of people that I’ve met before.”
“That does make sense…”
“What about you?” Puck says, flying onto the floor. “You have become entangled in two camps belonging to royal candidates. What have you learned?”
“I wasn’t involved with any of them, not really. But are you actually scouting for information right now?”
“Why not? You decided to come back although you were told to never show your dumb face again, didn’t you?”
Otto keeps glancing at you while arching his eyebrows. He’s getting the picture.
“Puck, are you genuinely invested in saving Emilia’s life?”, you ask seriously.
“Don’t I keep repeating that? Like I said, our contract states that if she dies, I die.”
“So you have no reason to protect her just because you like her?”
Puck shakes a finger, as if denying you a ‘gotcha’.
“Emilia is a sweet kid. She’s had it rough, she’ll always have trouble handling or connecting with her emotions.”
Otto is captivated by your conversation with Puck.
You close your eyes and lower your head. You want to just let it all out, just start crying and mumbling Rem’s name and later just plunge a knife into your own throat, but what would Rem think if she understood what you were going through, and you just left this world without learning anything new that could save all of your lives in your next one?
“Puck… I must inform you that I consider you the second biggest cunt I’ve ever met.”
“What?”, Puck says, elongating the a. “Someone has taken my place?”
“Yeah. Someone else went from cunt to super-cunt.”
“Although I am intrigued, I’m not sure I like your tone. I’m a powerful spirit, you know.”
“Do you even know what a cunt is? Is that a word that someone invented in this fantasy world?”
“Of course. It’s a female dog, a foolish or despicable person, or a hindrance.”
“The last one is correct. Cunts are hindrances.”
You continue to glare at Puck, who stares back with equal intensity. Puck breaks first, looking away and letting out a little chuckle.
“I haven’t intervened in your crush for our princess. No need. She’s way above your station. Even if she were a regular half-elf, she would be leagues above you. You understand that much, right? Besides, I didn’t have to do shit. You stepped into the line of royal candidates and fucked everything up for yourself.”
“Glad I could entertain you.”
“You could still entertain me. Tell me about this cunt that went from being a regular one to a super-cunt.”
“… Maybe later. Puck, where on Earth is that clown bastard?”
Puck lets out a sigh, turning his head in the general direction of Roswaal’s domains.
“He’s messing around in Sanctuary. Weren’t you informed about that?”
“And what about the Witch’s Cult?”, you demand to know as your voice grows more and more annoyed, if possible.
Puck leaps back into the air and furrows his brow.
“What’s with these jumping topics? What about the Witch’s Cult? You are worried because Emilia attended the royal summons and that paints a target on her?”
“That is exactly the case!”
“Well, they haven’t been doing anything out of the ordinary for decades. The cult is either dead or dying out. I’d bet on the latter. I’ve seen them in action for a long time. They used to be big shits, but these days most of the cultists are stoned on sleep potions and only awake when a caravan comes by with tribute or something. If it comes to their ears that Emilia is the famous Witch of Frost, the silver-haired half-elf that matches their idol, it’ll take quite a bit of time for them to organize an offensive. And even if they do, you don’t have to worry!” Puck strikes a pose and points to himself with one of his cat paws. “Emilia has me as her protector. I see that you are concerned, and that’s good… You do care for Emi, even though you are stupid and can’t do anything right. No worries! The Witch’s Cult attacks but I go pow, pow, pow! Ice shards! They get icy and then I explode them into bits. It’s quite the spectacle.”
You stare in silence at the little cunt for so long that Puck deflates and gets uncomfortable.
“I guess we are both completely useless”, you say drily.
“Hey, kid, bow your head or something, really. Aren’t you coming back because you want to be let in again? I might start taking offence.”
“I’m not bowing. And don’t call me kid.”
“What should I call you? Mr. Knight?”
This cat is so damn smug, and it smells like rotten eggs…
“How about you address me as lord and savior?”
“Heard you taught the children at the village that… Kind of explains your actions.”
“Because that’s why I’m coming back. To save Emilia, and everybody else.”
Puck scoffs and rolls his eyes as he starts jumping around.
“That’s what you think. You’re coming back because you’re a damn fool who wants to save his great love!”
You clench your fists and roar.
“I come back, you useless cunt, because tomorrow Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti of the Witch’s Cult is going to murder Emilia in that clown bastard’s inner sanctum!”
Puck narrows his cat eyes and puts on a serious tone you’ve never heard.
“Is this something you’ve learned at the capital? Is this a new development?”
“Let’s say I have, yeah. I’m telling you with a hundred percent certainty. Listen, Puck, stop wasting your time with me and protect Emilia right this second. I think Roswaal has ordered her to go into the inner sanctum to hide in case the Witch’s Cult comes, but somehow they know how to get in. I think I’m going to reach the mansion around sunrise and the attack won’t have started by then, but in any case… Protect Emilia at all costs having in mind that if we don’t prevent it, she will die tomorrow.”
Puck crouches, lowers his head and shuts his eyes. After a brief moment, he opens his eyes again and stands up.
“It feels like you’ve gone through shit since we left Lugunica, even though very little time has passed… I’ll trust your information for now. We’ll kill every invader we find.”
With this, Puck leaps away into the night and vanishes.
You find yourself clenching your fist over your thigh, and your heartbeat accelerates. This is progress, you think. But then you remember that it doesn’t truly matter that you warned Puck of an attack: you aren’t going to remain in a world that no longer contains Rem. This power that, if what Petelgeuse suggested is true, was given to you by Satella herself, allows you to overcome your powerlessness and uselessness as a human being in a single way: that of collecting as much information about the future as possible so next time you can act accordingly. Now you know that Puck isn’t as idiotic as his face and entire demeanour suggest; he simply was predisposed not to know how soon and hard the Witch’s Cult was going to hit.
When you return to reality from your thoughts, Otto looks as if he had been waiting for you to come to your senses.
“So… Your lord is not actually a betting man, I gather?”, Otto says. “Nor is he your lord any longer?”
You stare at him blankly, your face having lost most of its colour after your encounter with Puck.
“Wait, who was the one to tell you about the Glorious Races thing…?”
Otto gives you a sympathetic smile.
“You did. Don’t worry, though. I’m surprised I haven’t forgotten my own name after running into the whale. Roswaal’s people must lead interesting lives if they are used to magical, flying cats.”
“It’s alright, I suppose. Sorry about lying, man.”
“If we had died I would have been mad and I would have beat you up in the afterlife, but all’s well that ends well. The other merchants are going to flip when I tell them we outran the White Whale. That said,” he clears his throat, “I am a merchant through and through, and there’s the matter of payment…”
“Ah… You’ll get paid, of course.”
You remember then that Rem was the one handling her lord’s money. When you look over the wooden separation to the half destroyed back of the carriage, you only see your luggage. Any trace of Rem’s stuff has disappeared. A pang of pain almost makes you double over. When you recover, you realize that your luggage looks bigger than it used to. You jump over the separation and pry loose your bags, and you find travelling material that you know it wasn’t in your luggage before, but in Rem’s, and stuffed along with some clothes of yours you find Rem’s pouch full of money. Rem had disappeared not only from the world, not only from everyone else’s memories, but reality had also been rewritten so everything she possessed and she had affected had been assigned to someone else. This was the power of those ancient witches. And if that Witch of Gluttony’s enchantment, or whatever, had worked on you, you wouldn’t have a clue, and you would have pushed forward condemning Rem to oblivion forever.
You vault over the separation onto the driver’s seat while holding the pouch. Otto eyes it curiously, and after considering it for a moment, you hand the entire pouch to the man.
“Ah!?”
Otto orders the ground dragons to stop, and as he rests the pouch on his lap, he opens it and inspects its contents. His eyes glisten.
“M-Mr. Subaru, this is a small fortune. You are not seriously suggesting that I should keep all of it, right?”
“I’m going to my former lord’s mansion to repent to my princess. That’s the end of the road for me. I lied to you, convinced you to go through hell. Keep the damn thing.”
While he orders the ground dragons to move again, he nods a few times as he tries to prevent himself from tearing up.

Close to sunrise, your carriage ventures through the road surrounded by forest that leads to the village closest to Roswaal’s place. A few villagers are already moving around, hauling material or merely speaking with each other.
“You can leave me here if you want. I’ll walk my way up”, you say.
“No way! I’ll drive you to Roswaal’s gate. I won’t waste this opportunity to glance at the famous lord’s mansion from up close.”
As the half-destroyed dragon carriage follows the ascending road, you keep reminding yourself that you aren’t dreaming or hallucinating. You feel the pull of your mind towards going over the edge. This life will likely also end in extreme pain, but that is your lot in life now. You have to soldier through.
Parked in front of the mansion’s gate, with Roswaal’s expensive palace in the background, Otto praises the view while you grab your luggage and disembark. You sigh and offer your hand to the guy who had helped you twice.
“Hope your people take you in again, Mr. Subaru. And thank you again for changing my fortune.”
“See you in another life, buddy.”
You walk the long path lined with statues, hedges and magical streetlights towards the mansion’s entrance. There’s no hint of movement, but you are pretty sure the Witch’s Cult is not going to hit for a few hours. You feel your heartbeat on your neck, and you fight to clear your mind of the invading images from the trip you just survived. When you reach the tall main doors, you take a deep breath and ring the bell. It barely takes twenty seconds for someone to come.
“An unwelcome guest arrives”, Ram says with a deadpan expression.
“So nice to see you well, Ram.”
“Always nice to see me. I heard from the lady of the house that you weren’t to return due to your outrageous, shameful actions. Did I hear that incorrectly?”
“No, they were as outrageous and shameful as they can be. Still, could you let me in?”
She sighs and moves aside. When you enter, you feel a warmth filling you up. You look around at the familiar sights you had missed.
“Did Puck inform you that I was on the way?”, you ask.
“That he did. He also seemed to trust in your information regarding an impending attack, even though we’ve only known you to be unreliable and useless.”
“Has Emilia found out…?”
“That’s your bridge to cross. Until she humiliates you and exiles you again, I’ll treat you as our guest. Do you want me to serve you breakfast, Mr. Natsuki?”
“What would I do without you, Ram?”
“Starve and die, Mr. Natsuki.”
As you were following her confident steps, you stop and call out to her. She stops and looks over her shoulder.
“Ram… Didn’t you expect me to come accompanied?”
“Who would have wanted to accompany you?”
You swallow.
“Your little sister.”
She turns and stares at you as if you are playing a bad joke on her, or you’ve lost your mind. A few seconds after, she speaks.
“Why are you…? Dry those tears, Mr. Natsuki. It’s unsightly.”

After the somewhat uncomfortable breakfast with a side of Ram’s disrespect, you head to locate Beatrice’s magical library. You keep sneaking around, because you aren’t prepared to run into Emilia yet. This time it takes you opening five doors until your intuition kicks in and you locate the one in which Beatrice has set her Passage spell. The familiar musty aroma of all books, as well of the sight of the various filled bookshelves, make you want to pass the time in peace. No chance, though. Beatrice is sitting in her usual chair, and when she realizes it’s you, the faint ghost of a surprise flashes on her face before she offers you her usual mask of indifference.
“You’ve come to interrupt me again, I wonder…?”
A smile comes to your lips.
“Yeah. Couldn’t stay in the capital and leave you alone.”
“I heard you made the silly girl mad.”
“I’ve made plenty of people mad, other people have made me mad… It’s a carousel of annoyance. But yes, I’ve returned! I’m the human equivalent of herpes.”
“I am not acquainted with that reference, I suppose.”
“It’s an ancient curse where I come from.”
Beatrice makes an expression that you can’t quite identify, but it catches you a little off guard.
“Well, I suppose it can’t be helped”, she says.
You walk over to her, go down on one knee and grab her small hand. She gets surprised, but she doesn’t retract her hand.
“Beatrice, I’d love to stick around and just shoot the shit with you, but I require your knowledge on various matters. Why… Why are you wrinkling your nose?”
“You smell like her”, she says, somewhat perplexed.
“Like Rem…?”
“Ram, I suppose…? No, I meant like the witch.”
So even a hundreds of years old spirit isn’t immune to the Witch of Gluttony’s dark arts. You shake your head.
“You mean Satella?”
Beatrice nods slowly, but then she looks back up at you. She’s still confused about something.
“When anyone these days mentions a witch, unless they are using it incorrectly or despectively to refer to a magician, they always mean Satella, the Witch of Envy, I suppose. It didn’t use to be that way… Back before the good world ended.”
Beatrice looks back up at the vaulted ceiling, her mind drifting far away.
“There was a time when I did not have to worry about the Earth being engulfed by shadows, I suppose. The past and present blend together at times… But the future is an inevitability no matter what.”
“How old are you exactly, Beatrice?”
“Is it proper to question a female about her age, I wonder…?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trample over your extremely old values and customs.”
Beatrice almost pouts.
“Why did you want that information, I wonder…?”
“I’m not sure. Beatrice, what does it mean? I’ve been told before that I smell like Satella. What’s the deal with that?”
Beatrice’s eyes narrow.
“It means Satella has affected you. She has left a part of her essence inside of you, touched you with her power, I suppose.”
“Isn’t she, like, super dead?”
“To put it simply for you, I suppose, they were too powerful to die entirely. Their restless spirits remain at Mother’s…”
“Huh?”
She seems annoyed.
“Even Satella’s spirit is very powerful is what I meant to say, I suppose!”
“Why would she want anything to do with me?”
“Why would anyone want anything to do with you, I wonder…?” Beatrice turns to you with a cutesy frown. “You’re too insecure, I suppose.”
“If she’s so powerful, then why doesn’t she just destroy this world again?”
“Is this really a conversation that needs to be had, I wonder…? Satella does what she does. Not even the other witches could understand her, and were afraid of her when she became the Witch of Envy. But never mind that, I suppose.”
“Beatrice, does Satella have the power to return back in time?”
Beatrice’s eyes narrow.
“No, I don’t believe she does, I suppose.”
“Why not?”
“Because she doesn’t want to, I suppose. It would be too… inconvenient for her.”
You frown. You don’t know what to think about that.
“There’s no easy way of putting this out there… I can return back in time, Beatrice. I’ve done so twice. In fact, you were the one who led me to my death that very first time. Not that I’m mad about that.”
Beatrice arches her eyebrows.
“What kind of nonsense is coming out of your mouth, I wonder…?”
“I’ve gotten some of that as well. I’ve died, and then when I return to the past, I get glimpses of a darkness, of the thick black between life and coming back to life again, and there’s someone there.”
“This person, do they have a name?”
“Unless their name is ‘I love you’, I wouldn’t be sure.”
Beatrice opens her eyes wide and separates her lips. When she recovers, she nods slightly.
“You said you only remember about that darkness in between when you come back?”
“That’s right.”
“You weren’t present, lucid, at the moment of meeting her, I wonder…?”
“Thankfully I wasn’t. I think I might have shat myself if that were the case.”
Beatrice gets down from her chair and turns towards the depths of the library.
“Follow me, I suppose.”
You stand surprised for a few seconds, and then you catch up to her. You both head out of the main room, then walk up a set of stairs to the second floor. Before you enter the room you know you are going to see a series of corpses, mostly of what you would generally describe as half-beast villagers, lying on tables. They are preserved as if they died a day before, but they might as well have gathered dust there for a thousand years.
“You aren’t planning to kill me, right…?”, you ask nervously. “This smelling like Satella isn’t like a death sentence or something.”
“Don’t be silly, I suppose. Now push off one of the corpses, whichever you prefer.”
“Huh!?”
“Are you going to make me repeat myself, I wonder…?”
There’s no arguing with the librarian, so you shrug and choose the smallish corpse of a half-koala. It thuds as it hits the ground.
“I hope this isn’t a sacrilege.”
“Shut up, I suppose. Now lie in his place.”
“What for?”
“Are you really asking me that?”
“Ah… You want to show off your magic tricks, don’t you?”
Beatrice sighs.
“Is there a more irritating man in this world, I wonder…? Do as I said or don’t bother me, I suppose!”
You stare at the girl with a deadpan expression. Finally, you start to undress, but Beatrice lets out a noise of surprise.
“You misheard me, I suppose!”
“Oh.”
When you lie fully dressed on the table, she approaches the side of your torso. She closes her eyes and extends one palm over your heart. A dark, purplish light emerges from the tips of her fingers and converge in a churning ball a few centimeters under her palm.
You grow nervous, but after a few seconds you don’t feel anything in particular. Although you believe that she’s preparing something, suddenly the purplish light goes out, and Beatrice turns away from the table.
“That’s all, I suppose.”
You sit up.
“Are you sure that did anything?”
“Do I need to suffer you questioning my methods, I wonder…? There’s indeed a witch’s scent embedded in you. My magic served to… How to put it into terms you would understand, I wonder? It calibrated the essence, so you are attuned to it.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Beatrice frowns.
“How disrespectful, I suppose.”
“Is it like a bad thing to have a witch’s essence inside?”
“How would having Satella’s essence inside be a good thing, I wonder…? The witch’s essence is usually associated with the Witch’s Cult. Their higher-ups call it a Witch Factor. They are blessings, I suppose, that grant them power.”
“So I was given the blessing to go back in time whenever I die?”
“That’s what you said, I suppose.”
You massage your chin for a moment.
“Well, I don’t know why.”
“Should I know, I wonder…? If what you are saying is true, then the next time you die you will face the presence while fully lucid. Will you avoid soiling yourself, I wonder?”
“That’s a nasty expression, Beatrice. You shouldn’t repeat it.”
“I’m much older than you, I suppose!”
You follow her back down to the library, and after she seats in her chair and grabs her antique book, she seems to expect you to have left already.
“Beatrice… If anyone attacked this mansion, would you help?”, you ask cautiously.
“If I deemed it necessary, I suppose.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means if your actions are rash or unwise, then I won’t help, I suppose. But if it seems like you’re doing something right and proper, then I will help.”
Beatrice gives you a creepy smile as she says this. You have a feeling she was trying to say something else though. You need to be more careful with your words… And more patient.
“Well I’ll be off now, then. I’ve put off my main goal here too long. It was nice seeing you again, Beatrice.”
Beatrice says nothing more as you leave the library. You take one last lingering look back at the bookshelves and at the small figure sitting on the chair, knowing that it’s the last time you are going to see them in this life.

This part, like the previous one, covers a small portion of the sixth volume of the original Re:Zero series. The part deals, of course, with a couple of our dear protagonists meeting White “White Whale” Whaleson in the mist.

From the perspective of this weird AI-fueled roleplaying/retelling I’m doing, this scene, which I love in general, is just one that for the most part I had to “get through”. It plays out so perfectly in the original novel that I couldn’t think of doing anything differently. However, I already know the following parts are going to deviate from the original. For starters, I didn’t think that the version of the protagonist in this retelling wouldn’t have catched up to the fact that people disappearing from memories is the White Whale’s fault. So there’s no fighting Otto, getting pushed off the carriage to die, etc., like in the original.

The artificial intelligence didn’t do that much. It kept trying to produce assaults from fantasy creatures on the caravan, or otherwise have the main characters jump out of the carriage to look around in the mist. Didn’t fit.

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 group of carriages approaches the cloudy wall of mist, the approximate center of which covered the path off ahead as far as you could see. It took one of the carriage drivers that had agreed to help just a minute for him to announce that this was a terrible mistake, and to turn back to safety. Your hands are trembling, and you must admit that your underwear is probably stained with the piss drips you can’t contain. The brave carriage drivers are advancing through the all-encompassing mist at a relatively low speed. You feel your face get moist from the condensation.
Around five minutes later you get the idea that you are afraid of a meteorological phenomenon. Hell, maybe the whole White Whale thing was a hallucination of the bunch of lunatics that chose to follow you.
You lean towards your carriage driver, who happens to be a cute demon servant called Rem.
“No, but really. Why would a whale fly? Did nature break along the way in your fantasy world?”
“It is our world, not just mine. Don’t know why you keep adding fantasy in front of it… But the infamous White Whale is not a product of nature.”
“It ain’t?”
Rem shakes her head as she scans the misty surroundings.
“Beatrice told me some time ago that it’s the product of a very powerful and nasty witch of old, from before the last Apocalypse.”
“Beatrice being…?”
Rem shoots you a confused look.
“Our child-like librarian…?”
You chuckle nervously.
“Sorry, I guess that when I’m terrified for my life, I forget people I shouldn’t be able to forget.”
“She might not be too fond of you anyway. You’re the guy who keeps bursting into her library.”
“But why would Satella create a flying whale? Was she sympathetic with the whales’ envy of birds?”
Rem shrinks her shoulders for a moment when she hears the Witch of Envy’s name.
“It wasn’t Satella. Beatrice mentioned that the Witch of Gluttony, one of the various very powerful witches that lived back then, was responsible.”
“That makes even less sense, and should open a whole new line of questioning, but… Man, this fantasy world used to be even more terrifying before the last reset.”
“There you go again with the fantasy stuff.”
Your group of carriages continues, and you focus on listening to the ground dragons breathing and the carriages’ wheels creaking. You turn to the back of the carriage to see if Otto hasn’t had a heart attack. Rem is driving the carriage that Anastasia procured for you both, but you had figured that you could use a backup driver in case Rem needed to flail someone, and the young merchant Otto, despite his perennial drunkness, was the only one you trusted out of this group of lunatics.
“… Are we there yet?”, he asks sheepishly.
“No, we’ve still got a while.”
You cross your arms in silence. The touch of the mist on your face is refreshing and comfortable, even with the threat that some gigantic, mythical whale might decide to swallow you at any moment.
At some point, Rem starts moving around on her seat. You follow her gaze. The two ground dragons of your carriage are shaking their heads and looking around warily.
“Rem, what’s wrong?”, you ask.
“They are scared”, Rem says, lowering her voice.
You lean towards your side of the carriage to see if you can spot any of the carriages following you. You see the faint glow of the magical crystals from the carriage that follows from that side, and the hint of the bestial creatures that pull it.
“Nothing out of the ordinary so far”, you say.
“I can’t hear the ground dragon’s noisy breathing anymore…”, Rem says.
“Help!”, you hear as faint cry from one of the carriages behind you. It’s immediately followed by a more serious cry for help from another carriage. Soon, the sounds of struggling and people yelling for help are joined by crunching and horrible shrieks of pain.
Rem perks up and orders the ground dragons to run faster. You hear the sound of fabric rustling, as Rem prepares to launch herself out of the carriage.
“Rem, wait!”, you say, grabbing her arm.
Rem calls out to Otto.
“You, merchant, grab the reins. I’m needed back.”
Otto, terrified by the shouting that escapes from the wall of mist you are leaving behind, climbs over the separation to the driver’s seat and grabs on to the reins. That seems to give him confidence. Rem stands on the back of the carriage, with her own back to you both.
You glimpse movement coming up from your right, but you realize it’s another carriage catching up. Its driver’s seat appears. You recognize the blonde caravan guard that had believed that the White Whale might have been a human for some reason.
“You guys alright?”, the caravan guard asks. “We heard a terrible commotion a moment ago.”
“We’re fine and dandy, but some people aren’t”, you reply.
You hear horrible whimpers, and then a loud thump as something or someone hits the ground with a heavy thud. The caravan guard shoots a look over his shoulder, scared, but in a couple of seconds he recomposes himself and looks forward as if he hadn’t heard anything.
You spend around a minute feeling your heartbeats on your neck, and when Rem puts a hand on your shoulder, you almost shriek.
“I apologize, Rem. I should just be overjoyed that you decide to touch me.”
“I was a worry-wart. It seems that this mist is just that, not a cover for something terrible.”
You look over your shoulder at Rem, who smiles at you calmly.
“What about that crunching and shrieking from before, Rem?”, you ask dumbfounded. “Or did I just made it up in my mind?”
Rem looks confused.
“I didn’t hear anything. Did you, Otto?”
The young merchant shakes his head.
“It was probably just an animal”, Rem says.
“It was people, and more concisely the other merchants and travellers who chose to follow us through the mist. It sounded like a few carriages were involved”, you say nervously.
“What are you on about, bodyguard?”, Otto says, alternating between glancing at the ground dragons and at you. “There’s no one out here in this mist aside from us. Nobody else would be so crazy as to agree to follow you like I did.”
You shake your head, confused and scared.
“Rem, I… I think we should turn back”, you say.
“We can’t turn back, friend!”, Otto says incredulously. “You should follow only your initial direction once you venture into the mist.”
You look back at Rem to find some support.
“Rem, do you seriously didn’t hear anything? Can you figure out if you see the hint of any carriage from the end of your own?”
Rem shakes her head slightly, and narrows her brow.
“What other carriages? Did you see anybody else travelling through the mist as we were passing by?”
You stare at her with your mouth open.
“What about that old man with the purple eye, and Liliana, and the others for whom we didn’t even get a name?”
You wait for an answer as you feel the cold shoulder of your coat touching against your neck, which contributes to your shivers. Rem first rubs your shoulders for a moment, and then gives you a quick hug pressing her cheek against yours, maybe to calm you. You are glad to feel her contact, except that you shouldn’t feel glad about anything right now.
“This is, like, really bad”, you mutter.
“Don’t worry, mister bodyguard”, Otto says, offering you a smile. “We’ll get out of the mist in no time. We’ll get through another night!”
“Otto, how did you get your bruises? That black eye, and your swollen lip?”
“Oh, that?”
Otto touches his eye, and smiles even wider.
“It’s not a big deal. This big guy hit me.”
“Who did?”
“Some black-hooded man. I was on my way to go to the restroom, like, you know, pee, but I had had a bit too much to drink…”
You remember the carriage that had catched up to yours on your right. You turn to look across that side of your carriage, but you only see a dense wall of mist in the dark.
“Rem…”, you say with a thin voice, “the only reasonable explanation is that every other carriage and their occupants have been erased, right?”
She holds your hand with her left one, and strokes your hair with her right.
“If we had travelled with other people and they had been erased, you wouldn’t remember either. We need to keep it together for just a while longer, Subaru.” Rem lets go of your hand, and looks straight at you. “We’re going to be fine. We just have to ride it out.”
You turn to look out of your side of the carriage, and you face an opaque white wall instead of the shreds of mist that had been floating before. Before you can think about what you are seeing, a lid larger than your ground dragons opens up, revealing a gigantic red iris, which immediately focuses on you and narrows.
“Wh…”, you murmur as you feel a force slamming the shell of your carriage, sending it off course. Otto somehow manages to order the ground dragons to return to the road, as the young merchant shrieks in terror.
“That can’t be natural!”, you cry.
Although don’t want to see it again, you look to your right to figure out if the eye is still there, but it has disappeared. However, you feel the weight of something immense shifting the mist, and even dragging all of you towards it.
“We’re not going to make it, are we, Subaru…?”, you hear Rem say as your carriage trembles and some part of the shell is torn apart.
You attempt to grasp at Rem, but she’s moved back. You maneuver to jump over the separation, if only because being close to her would make you feel safer.
“That’s… That’s the White Whale, I’m guessing.”
Rem is staring at the darkened mist beyond the back of the carriage.
“I can’t imagine it being anything else. Subaru, you need to be ready.”
The mist is churning and shifting.
“What in the world could I possibly do?”, you say with a shaky voice.
“Whatever you need to do to stay alive, yourself alone”, Rem says, with fear in her eyes.
You grasp at her arm.
“Don’t tell me you are thinking something crazy, Rem!”
“No, I’m-“
Something like a serrated wall of flesh emerges from the mist at the back of the carriage, and in a sudden movement, half of the back of the carriage’s roof is gone as if something had taken a chunk out of it. You grab the wooden separation to avoid falling. Rem does fall to her knees, but she stands up almost immediately.
“This is the end!”, Otto cries.
As you were blinking away the tears and trying to prevent your teeth from clacking together, Rem grabs onto your shoulders and forces you to look her in the eye from up close.
“Rem, what…?”
“Subaru, listen to me for a moment.”
Rem’s face is so close to yours that you can feel her breath on your face as she speaks.
“It’s just you and me here now. There’s no other person in the entire world. You will survive, do you hear me?”
“I can’t…”
“I had only kept living to repent for what I had thought that one time, my sister… This was my punishment. I was never needed nor wanted, and I only occupied space that should have been given to others. It would have been better if I had never existed. But, you… When I’m with you, I’m home.”
A warmth rushes to your eyes, and you swallow to clear your throat.
“Rem…!”
“Live on.”
Rem embraces you and kisses you in the mouth. It’s so sudden and forward, it takes you a moment to realize that you’re being kissed. Rem’s tongue separates from yours.
“I’m sorry… I can’t spend years and years with you, but… At least I can do this much.”
Rem jumps towards the back of the carriage. You hear a clink of chains, and before you know it, Rem’s holding to her flail’s handle with one hand, and to the enormous spiked ball with the other. Beyond her, the serrated wall of teeth and white flesh disturbs the shreds of mist, which disappear into the black of its gargantuan mouth.
As you were lunging towards Rem, she springs several meters in the air while launching the spiked ball towards the white flesh. Taken aback, the gigantic mass of the White Whale slows down, and the mist surrounds you again as if you had never seen either of them.
You don’t know how many seconds you’ve stood there with your mouth open and tears jumping from your eyes. When you recover, you turn to Otto, who is working the reins to demand the ground dragons to go faster.
“Otto! Rem has jumped off the carriage!”
Otto doesn’t answer. He only shakes his head.
You jump over the separation and onto the free side of the driver’s seat.
“Turn back immediately!”, you order him angrily.
“I will do no such thing! I heard her loud and clear. That wonderful lady who loves you is saving both our lives. Don’t waste it!”
Otto spurs the ground dragons to go faster. You realize what he’s saying is right, and you frown from the pain.
“I can’t just…”
Otto’s intense expression goes blurry. Your chest has filled with something dense that makes it harder for you to breathe.
You can only hear the ground dragons as the carriage races away. Some time after, Otto points to the mist ahead of you both.
“It’s clearing up! We made it!”, he says with a triumphant voice.
When you look again, you see the opening of the mist. Beyond, the moonlight falls on the vast fields.
“I can’t believe it! We came across the White Whale and survived!”, Otto yells and cheers. “I thought I was the unluckiest man in the world, but not only I survived a legendary monster, I’m also going to get paid three times all my oil’s market value!”
You snap at him with a teary voice.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, dickhead?”
Otto looks at you with a frown.
“What?”
“You’re cheering your lucky stars when we just left her to die!”
Otto stares at you dumbfounded.
“What are you talking about? It’s just us both. Did we actually pass someone in the mist?”
You look at him with a mixture of horror and disgust. The numbness turns to anger as you realize what had happened, and your hand clenches into a fist. However, your anger slowly melts into pain. You sink in your seat. You can’t look up, but you feel Otto glancing at you.
“You are right”, Otto says with an understanding tone. “How could I cheer when that monster has taken the lives of so many over hundreds of years? It’s so disrespectful. I apologize, and I will do so over and over. I’m ashamed.”
Some minutes later, as you leave behind the dangerous fields for some more populated areas, Otto insists on asking you for the directions to Roswaal’s village. You tear from yourself the words that he should just head in the general direction of the lord’s domain.

---

Some observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior for this one.
-It was GPT-3’s decision again to forget who Beatrice was. I think it’s become sort of a running joke thing.
-Rem’s ominious phrase ‘”I can’t hear the ground dragon’s noisy breathing anymore…”‘ is verbatim from GPT-3.
-With some minor editing, the following came from GPT-3: ‘”Help!”, you hear as faint cry from one of the carriages behind you. It’s immediately followed by a more serious cry for help from another carriage. Soon, the sounds of struggling and people yelling for help are joined by crunching and horrible shrieks of pain.'”
-The sentences ‘You hear horrible whimpers, and then a loud thump as something or someone hits the ground with a heavy thud.’ came verbatim from the AI.
-Otto’s alternate origin story for his bruises, ‘”Some black-hooded man. I was on my way to go to the restroom, like, you know, pee, but I had had a bit too much to drink…”‘, mostly came from GPT-3.
-Otto’s reaction, ‘Otto doesn’t answer. He only shakes his head.’, at the protagonist’s insistence is verbatim from GPT-3.
-The sentences ‘Otto spurs the ground dragons to go faster. You realize what he’s saying is right, and you frown from the pain.’ came verbatim from GPT-3.
-The protagonist’s precise reproach, ‘”You’re cheering your lucky stars when we just left her to die!”‘, was verbatim from GPT-3.

Incidentally, this link is a short YouTube video of the moment in the anime adaptation of the novel series when Rem decides how to handle the whale.

This part, like the previous one, covers a small portion of the sixth volume of the original Re:Zero series. I ended up preferring the short format to post these up. I want to keep pumping out scenes and letting them hang clean so as I push forward I can reread some parts and feel that I don’t have that much to touch when I finally get to HTML the latest raw. Not much of anything happens in this one, but I kept giggling through it even when rereading it, which is good enough for me.

GPT-3 worked its magic. I had to prompt them travellers being gathered around the campfire, and I knew that Otto would pop up, but the remaining characters are all due to GPT-3’s magic. Plenty of great dialogue came verbatim from good ol’ AI too.

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 suspiciously aerodynamic ground dragons that came with Anastasia’s chosen carriage are making you fly through the open countryside in the dark, which is only breached in isles by the glowing, magical crystals that this fantasy world uses as nighttime illumination. You guess that these crystals that apparently are gathered from mines in some areas are the convenient substitutes for electricity in most concerns that would otherwise require the lightning stuff. Funny how the universe balances its dimensions. In any case, ground dragons also have a blessing or some shit that creates a bubble of spacetime that makes it so the extreme air that going so far produces doesn’t blow the drivers out of the driver’s seat, which would have made these noble creatures obsolete. This fantasy world’s Darwinism had made it so ground dragons were better at everything than dumb horses, except at crushing unsuspecting children’s skulls with a back kick just because the damn child wanted to pet a horsey. Good riddance as far as you are concerned.

Screaming the whole ride, you try to forget the pain in your ass by focusing on a certain aching part of your brain, but it’s not helping. You barely give a shit what’s happening anymore; you just want to get off this fucking thing.

“Rem, I can’t tell much about anything, but this isn’t the same route we followed last time, I don’t think!

“It isn’t! This is a dangerous route that you don’t want to be caught in if you are riding a slower carriage, because many monsters can run about that fast!”

“Are there any other dangers to worry about along this route, apart from being torn apart by monsters if you stop!?”

“None! People call it Flugel Road, because of a large tree that this Flugel sage planted some hundreds of years in the past and it grew so big!”

“A dumb name!”

At one point, Rem decides to slow down the ground dragons. It seems that she has noticed in the distance a couple of figures standing near the path, and that are signaling for the carriage. Rem lets go of the reins with one hand to slide it into whatever part of her maid costume could possible hide her enormous flail, as she eyes suspiciously those approaching figures. You sit straighter, although you could hardly do more.

It’s two men wearing outfits that would generally belong to travelling merchants. They don’t behave threateningly.

“Good night! We are flagging down passing carriages in order to share information with each other. The road is a bit more perilous than usual tonight, I’m afraid.”

“Just our fucking luck”, you say.

“If you both will come, you can park your carriage a bit further down this open field and join us.”

You are surprised that Rem agrees so readily. She maneuvers the carriage so it approaches a large group of carriages gathered as in a camp. Numerous figures are mostly sitting around a campfire, and some of their ground dragons are curled up and sleeping. You both disembark and walk towards the gathering.

You whisper in Rem’s likely delicious ear.

“Are you sure we can waste our time?”

“We need to know if there are dangers ahead that could cost us more than the minutes we’ll waste here.”

That sounds reasonable, you think. That’s why Rem is in charge, as well as for most other reasons.

After a quick look at the area, you realize a lot of carriages belong to merchants, although there are some travellers. There’s also a family obviously of travellers, with the mother and two young children huddled on one side while the father speaks to a merchant.

You approach the campfire, but you don’t get too close. Some of these people must be desperate if this area is as bad as it sounds, particularly at night. Apart from a couple of caravan guards who look like discount soldiers, most of the people at this camp do not wear any armors, just traveling clothes.

Rem speaks to the camp at large.

“We’re coming from Lugunica, straight to lord Roswaal’s domain. We heard there were problems on the road. What exactly happened?”

“Who are you?” a woman asks.

“My name is Rem, and this is my bodyguard, Natsuki Subaru. We both serve lord Roswaal.”

You nod nervously. Don’t test my supposed profession, you ask in your mind.

“I’m Liliana”, the woman who spoke first says. “We’re travelling to the Alania territory. We have important documents to deliver. I wanted to use a knight or a royal courier, but they wouldn’t take this road.”

Nobody asked you, lady, you think.

“You people mentioned the road being more perilous than usual tonight. What’s going on?”, Rem asks.

Some of the people gathered look at each other, seemingly unwilling to speak up. A young man who is taking a swig at a bottle does.

“There’s mist up ahead, that’s the problem. There goes another chance to get rid of this damn oil.”

You perk up, and point at the probably drunk young man.

“Holy shit, it’s you! This is a small fantasy world.”

“Huh!?”, Otto says, spilling some alcohol.

Otto looks you over, but he doesn’t recognize you.

“No, you are not as drunk as you think you are, probably. You don’t know me directly, but I’ve met you before in two previous lives.”

“Huh… the third time’s the charm, then”, he says with a frown, slumping back.

“But in any case, what’s the issue with the mist exactly?”

Most of the people present frown, and some chuckle as if they are being polite after hearing a terrible joke. Even Rem is looking at you confused.

“Hey, don’t give me that ‘you don’t know that?’ look, Rem”, you complain. “If anybody would, you should know that I don’t know anything.”

Rem’s face goes all serious, and she speaks in a thin voice.

“Most of the time the mist is just mist. But the problem is that some of the times the mist isn’t just mist.”

“It’s a figure of speech, it isn’t…”, you say, but then you stop short.

The people gathered look at you expectantly.

“What do you mean exactly?”, you ask.

An old man wearing a robe marked with a purple eye speaks up.

“The White Whale, what else!? Are you retarded!?”

You tilt your head.

“The White Whale… is that like a whale in some ocean?”

“Terrific monster, actually”, says a caravan guard in his twenties. “It’s not evil, it’s just a force of nature.”

“A force of nature with a taste for human flesh and human souls”, the purple-eyed old man says.

“Shut up, old man!”

“Make me shut up, Tholter! I’m not afraid of you!”

Another caravan guard with blonde hair and wearing plate mail armor slaps his pal, Tholter, in the back of the head.

“Stop fighting, both of you! We don’t have time for this.”

The blonde man turns to you.

“Sorry about this… this is just a stressful thing for all of us, especially since there’s a chance we might not make it through.”

“Why would a whale be a problem for ground carriages, no matter how capitalized its name is?”, you ask.

The caravan guard laughs.

“Oh, you are not joking! Where are you from? You must have been born yesterday!”

“Pretty much!”

“The White Whale flies. It’s a whale that flies and appears out of nowhere in the mist and then people go missing. Go missing in a special way.”

You gulp.

“Like how?”

“They disappear from the world without a trace. Even from people’s memories! You only know they are gone because, for example, units of soldiers suddenly return with fewer numbers, but you don’t know who is missing!” The blonde caravan guard crosses his arms and smiles smugly at you. “And that’s not even the worst thing about the mist or the White Whale.”

You shudder at the thought that such a creature could ever exist.

“What is then?”

“It’s not human. Well, not entirely human. It’s like an animal, with no soul or emotions. Nothing can stop it or reason with it.”

“Well, I don’t know why you expected it to be human. It clearly says in its name that it is a whale, whether flying or not. But it sounds absolutely horrifying. Are you sure you didn’t dream this up in one of your drunken revelries?”

“I did not!”

You sigh.

“Sorry, I don’t really know you that well and you don’t know me either. But if what you’re saying is true, then this danger is very real and we’re in a lot of trouble.”

“We are well aware that the danger is real, you are the one who doesn’t have a clue”, the purple-eyed old man says angrily.

“I guess you’ll have to sleep here until the mist dissipates”, Otto says. “No matter, lord Roswaal’s domains will be there when you reach them.”

“But people that the domain contains won’t, which is the problem”, you say with a nervous voice. “This is bad, isn’t it? I don’t know how it wouldn’t be. So if there’s mist, there’s a flying whale that erases people?”

“Didn’t that blue-haired maid you protect say that most of the time the mist is just mist?”, the old man says. “You need to clean your ears! It might be just mist, or it might hide the White Whale. Why risk it?”

“I need to know when there’s a flying whale!”, you complain.

“Then walk into the mist, idiot, and find out for yourself.”

“No! I’m not going to do that!”

“He’s got a point”, some other man further away from the campfire says. “If I was a flying whale that erased people, I’d probably stay away from the place where I revealed my secret identity.”

“We already established that the monster is not human”, the blonde caravan guard says.

The woman, Liliana, intervenes.

“Okay, so we were wrong. There is no flying whale. That doesn’t change the fact that there is still some sort of mist that turns everything into ice and it comes from the mountains.”

“Nobody cares about some other mist!”, you say. “The flying whale is much more interesting.”

“Maybe. But if this mist absorbs heat and causes frost, who knows what that White Whale is capable of?”

“It erases people”, the blonde caravan guard says. “I can tell you that much.”

Gears are turning in your head, but they are just grinding any coherent thought.

“The thing is”, Rem says calmly. “We need help.”

Everyone’s gaze turns to the beautiful blue-haired maid, who is really cute, and she’s holding a pouch that bulges as if it contains plenty of coins.

“Lord Roswaal is a rich and powerful man, and he gave me a significant amount of money to accomplish the tasks he ordered me to fulfill. Returning to his mansion as soon as possible is one of the most important of those tasks.”

“So what!? Are you showing off!?”, the purple-eyed old man says.

“Idiot! She’s making a point!”, someone else answers.

“Indeed I am. Look, we knew that if we ran into trouble on our way back, with the money Lord Roswaal gave me, we can easily solve it.”

“That’s true”, Liliana says. “You can throw the coins at the White Whale to distract it.”

“So you’re saying…”, Otto says, “that you want to give us money to guide you through the mist?”

“It’s more than guiding through the mist. We need to move people”, Rem says.

You stare at Rem confused. Do we need to move people?

“No, thank you”, Otto says, and burps. “I don’t want to be erased. I have oil to complain about.”

“I see. Then, allow me to make the proposal another way. I will pay you… let’s say, triple the amount the market pays for that oil, all of it, if you bring us to his mansion. We’d also need to use your carriage, and those of whoever else comes with us, for transporting humans.”

The purple-eyed old man laughs, and he looks around as if he had never heard a funnier joke in his life.

“I’m serious”, Rem says, and moves forward the bag of coins. It chinks as she gently shakes it. “We have no need for this money, and lord Roswaal is rich. I want to give it to you for the help.”

“Why would a whale fly, though?”, you wonder out loud after some thought. “What kind of incoherent fantasy world is this?”

Rem shoots you a look that is at the same time reproachful and understanding.

“Let’s move past questioning facts of reality, for now at least.”

“I… I’m sorry, Rem”, you whisper.

Rem nods and moves her gaze back to the group.

“You said you need to transport humans, right?”, Otto asks dubitatively. “I think that’s what I heard? Why would you need to transport humans urgently?”

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but my lord Roswaal is fond of hosting these celebrations known as the Glorious Races. It’s common knowledge I assume. Anyway, he’s got this… this thing he’s trying to court a lady with, and it involves these races.”

“Aha! Now I get it! He’s betting on the races!”

Rem nods.

“Thing is, it involves having to transport out of their village all the villagers at the foot of the hill that leads to the lord’s mansion. And it needs to be done as soon as possible, literally, because otherwise the villagers won’t get to see the lord win his bets.”

“Lord Roswaal is even more eccentric than I thought…”, Otto says.

“So we need humans, people like you”, Rem concludes. “I know it’s terrible to do this to you, in a night like this, but we need to pick the people most useful for our purposes.”

After a bit of silence, the purple-eyed old man speaks.

“I’m in.”

The declaration makes you jump a bit, as you hadn’t expected or even thought that anyone would actually agree.

“Hm? You disagree with my carriage accompanying you fancy lord pawns to the manor?”

“No, I’m fine with it”, you say after taking a deep breath.

“Then it’s settled. You, young man, come with us.”

Otto turns towards the old man, and lets out a weird noise.

“Me!?”

“I thought you agreed to come with us? I don’t like to force people, but-“

Otto accidentally swings his alcohol, which splashes all over Liliana.

“I never agreed to anything!”

“You… You bastard!”

The old man leaps onto Otto, and starts punching him in the face. The young, drunk Otto tries to defend himself, but the purpled-eyed old man seems to have a lot of energy to fight back. All you do is stand back and watch the scene unfold. Even Rem is watching the pair brawl.

“Well…”, you say. “Is there anyone else willing to join? It’s like, the whole pouch thing for the lot of ya.”

---

Some observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior here.

-The sentences ‘Screaming the whole ride, you try to forget the pain in your ass by focusing on a certain aching part of your brain, but it’s not helping. You barely give a shit what’s happening anymore; you just want to get off this fucking thing.’ came verbatim from GTP-3. Thank you AI for imitating my narrative style.
-Most of the description of the camp, ‘After a quick look at the area, you realize a lot of carriages belong to merchants, although there are some travellers. There’s also a family obviously of travellers, with the mother and two young children huddled on one side while the father speaks to a merchant. You approach the campfire, but you don’t get too close. Some of these people must be desperate if this area is as bad as it sounds, particularly at night. Apart from a couple of caravan guards who look like discount soldiers, most of the people at this camp do not wear any armors, just traveling clothes’, came from GPT-3, although not verbatim. GPT-3 insisted on having professional soldiers in the camp, which in such a dangerous area would have made sense.
-Otto’s dumbfounded, but generally uncaring response, ‘”Huh… the third time’s the charm, then”, he says with a frown, slumping back.’ is verbatim from GPT-3.
-Except for Otto, all other characters (the caravan guards, Liliana and the purpled-eyed old man) are characters that GPT-3 came up with. I just retouched a bit their general descriptions, and mentioned them properly where necessary. GPT-3 also provided the general ‘feel’ of that nasty old man, which I used to my advantage.
-The following exchange, ‘”Terrific monster, actually”, says a caravan guard in his twenties. “It’s not evil, it’s just a force of nature.” “A force of nature with a taste for human flesh and human souls”, the purple-eyed old man says. “Shut up, old man!” “Make me shut up, Tholter! I’m not afraid of you!”‘ came verbatim from GPT-3 except for the character descriptions. The whole thing about it being a force of nature must have come from an introduction I wrote in the hidden backstory about the whale being so impossible to kill that every kingdom considered it a natural disaster. Somehow the AI put two and two together.
-Maybe my favorite exchange is that of the blonde caravan guard for whom I did have to prompt that whole deal about the mist erasing people, but then GPT-3 came up with ‘ The blonde caravan guard crosses his arms and smiles smugly at you. “And that’s not even the worst thing about the mist or the White Whale. It’s not human. Well, not entirely human. It’s like an animal, with no soul or emotions. Nothing can stop it or reason with it.”‘ After saying the memories erasing mist thing, he adds that the worst part is that a whale is not a human? What an idiot! Such an absurd moment set up plenty of the tone for the rest of the scene, as far as me writing the rest is concerned.
-The phrase ‘”Then walk into the mist, idiot, and find out for yourself.”‘ came verbatim from GPT-3.
-GPT-3 also came up entirely with ‘”If I was a flying whale that erased people, I’d probably stay away from the place where I revealed my secret identity.”‘ Think about that, an AI saying ‘If I was a flying whale that erased people’, after having integrated the words of the backstory and this scene in its neural network.
-Liliana’s idiotic attempt at changing the conversation, ‘”Okay, so we were wrong. There is no flying whale. That doesn’t change the fact that there is still some sort of mist that turns everything into ice and it comes from the mountains.”‘, was verbatim GPT-3, as well as her follow up.
-The following lie coming from Rem, ‘”I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but my lord Roswaal is fond of hosting these celebrations known as the Glorious Races. It’s common knowledge I assume. Anyway, he’s got this… this thing he’s trying to court a lady with, and it involves these races.”‘, is verbatim from GPT-3. What I was most impressed about it is not only that it decided for me whether or not the characters were going to say the truth regarding the Witch’s Cult attack to these people, but that GPT-3 made Rem sound as if she was making it up!
-Rem calling the group in front of her ‘humans’ nonchalantly is great, and it came from GPT-3. Obviously, Rem is not a human, although she mostly looks like one.
-GPT-3 was the one who made the old man join Rem’s plan first. It worked perfectly as far as I’m concerned.
-The whole leaping on Otto for a bit of punching was made by GPT-3, but the AI had decided that Liliana was the one doing it, likely because of Otto splashed her with his alcohol. I think the absurdity of the old man’s action works better.
-Pretty sure that GPT-3 not having produced virtually anything of value in the previous part was simply a bug in the website that works as an intermediary to communicate with GPT-3’s cloud servers. I’m guessing that session wasn’t working with the neural network that has handled all other parts.

This part, like the previous one, covers a small portion of the sixth volume of the original Re:Zero series. My real problem writing this part was that, for some reason, GPT-3 produced very little of value; the first time in ten sessions I’ve gone through that GPT-3 vastly underperforms. I don’t know why, but I think I’ll insist the AI to produce more during the next portion to cover. What comes next is hard from the perspective of doing something new for this strange AI-fueled roleplaying/fanfiction I decided to use my free time on: logistically, until the characters reach Roswaal’s mansion again, most of the stuff needs to happen like in the original. But we’ll see when we get there.

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

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As you push yourself to keep walking through the streets, you feel a hand on your shoulder. It’s Rem. She pulls you close and holds you tightly.
“What… what was that all about?” she asks.
You only sigh.
The girl keeps looking at you with concern in her face. Then, she hugs you again.
“It’s just bad, Rem”, you say. “Normally I think something dumb would have come rushing out of my mouth, which I’d end up regretting some day along with the growing mountain of shame. The fact is that we didn’t get Crusch, and we better forget there’s such a thing as a Priscilla Barielle in this world or mine.”
Rem nods silently at your words, then squeezes your hand.
“Well then,” she says, “let’s take a little walk to clear our heads, okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
You let Rem guide you through streets that she knows to at least a bigger extent than you do. Even though there’s plenty to see and listen, you can’t concentrate on anything. There’s a coldness stuck in your body that threatens to make your spine tremble every few seconds, and your back hurts where you took the fall against the carpeted floor. Where was Rem going? Did she have a plan in mind? You see that she’s leading you, half-dragging you, through some market-like area full of colourful stands and noisy vendors.
“You are a fan of ice cream, right? I think there was a stand around here…”, Rem says with a smile.
Your stop for a second, and Rem’s hand slips off your arm. Before you know it, you’ve wandered away in a daze. Ice cream? Nothing good has happened recently when ice cream is involved. But more importantly, why would Rem think about procuring you ice cream when there’s a massacre to prevent? Ah, she doesn’t believe you, you had forgotten. She had humored you because she likes you, and now that you’ve had your fun, and maybe even realized the foolishness of pursuing that fun, you’ll comply sheepishly with what Rem wants, which is merely to be with you. Yet, it is too late, is it not? This night won’t take that long to fall, and you can’t go out at night with the carriage. That means that you have failed, again.
Your sixth sense informs you that someone is staring at you with purpose. You’ve already raised your head and looked around before you thought about doing so. Regular citizens, human and demi-human alike, are just browsing wares or arguing with vendors. You notice, however, a tiny figure wearing a white robe lined with orange, and who is holding a staff taller than the figure. It’s a half-beast, maybe half-cat, half-person, as tall as a child and with the appropriately adorable face. She’s standing near a candy stand, eyeing the children whose parents buy them sweets, and she, because it’s clearly a girl, keeps looking towards the candy apples on display. No parents around.
Some desires used to be so easy to satisfy, weren’t they? No massacres to prevent, no politicians to negotiate with… Merely stuffing your damn mouth with sugar that would rot your teeth.
You sigh and dig in your trousers for the spare change that Rem had given you. When you ask the vendor for a candy apple and you give him the coin, he looks taken aback.
“I’ll have to give you too much in change! Are you nuts?”
“Sorry, I can’t read the price.”
The vendor’s expression doubts between sympathy and annoyance.
“Whatever”, you say. “Keep the change.”
You turn to the little half-beast, who was eyeing you now with her huge eyes, and hand her the candy apple. She smiles widely.
“Ah, you are a good guy! Thank yee!”
“Sure.”
As you were walking away, you see Rem approaching you quickly with a concerned look. She glances at the little half-beast and then at you again.
“Subaru, what’s going on?”
You realize that you just gave candy to a child you have no relation with. You get nervous and raise your hands in apology.
“It’s not what it looks like!”
“That insignia on her robe… She’s from the Iron Fang! And according to the rank, a lieutenant.”
“Huh!?”
The tiny beast-child keeps munching on her candy apple happily as if you were never there.
“These people are from Kararagi”, Rem says. “A mercenary band usually contracted by very powerful people.”
“One very powerful person, usually”, says a pleasant female voice near you.
You turn to see a woman maybe in her mid twenties, who wears a fur coat and a fur hat, both white and fluffy. Somehow she has the looks of the woman you would have expected to see behind the counter at a family business that had already been passed down through generations. She’s no Priscilla, is what you mean. You recognize her, and point at her.
“You are Anastasia something, from that royal summons thing.”
“Well, that’s more or less correct. And you appeared at the summons as well. A surprise appearance! You had many interesting things to say, that’s for sure.”
She raises her palm to her mouth and snickers, which doesn’t make you feel good.
“It’s a parade of royal candidates these days”, you say painfully.
“Yes, it is an important time for this kingdom, and for Kararagi as well. We need stability for both.”
“Can’t say I care about this Kararagi place…”
Anastasia glances at Rem as if she was calculating something, and then turns to you again.
“Natsuki Subaru, isn’t that right?”
“As far as I remember. What is it to you?”
“My, are we in a mood? You both came out of that woman Priscilla’s den not too long ago, didn’t ya?”
“So?”
“I’ve heard rumors about what goes on there. Horrible things, unspeakable things. Is it true a girl was made to eat her own feet by the royal candidate herself?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised that she forced others to do pretty much anything involving feet.”
“And it seems she has left a mark on you. What a plan! You belong to Emilia’s camp, right? Were you expecting to get a deal from Priscilla on something?”
“No. We just went there for some information.”
“Ah, information gathering. How like a spy you are!”
Rem takes a step forward. She’s put her serious, ‘don’t fuck with us’ face.
“Miss Hoshin, what is this about? Clearly meeting us hasn’t been a coincidence.”
She giggles.
“Oh, I do apologize. I’m just having a bit of fun, you know. I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet you both in person, particularly sir Natsuki. Such a colourful man!”
You glance at the half-beast lieutenant, who has approached the woman that this tiny girl was clearly contracted to protect.
“Is it a custom in whatever country you come from to use children as bodyguards?”
“My, Kararagi doesn’t have much of a nobility system. As for children, you should know that not all of us are born with the luxury of not being adults the moment we’re out of our mothers! But that’s irrelevant in the case of our tiny Mimi. She’s a young adult for her species, and a tough one to boot!”
You feel the heat escape your face, and you take a step back. As your heartbeat pulses on your neck, you end up crouching and pushing your face against your palms.
“Another Mimi!? What are the odds…!? It’s too soon!”
“Miss Rem, is your friend okay?”, Anastasia says with concern.
Rem seems to have realized that she better do something, because she crouches by your side, she rubs your back and then helps you back on your feet.
“Don’t like my name?”, says the half-beast lieutenant in a cheerful, carefree voice. “Was another Mimi mean to you?”
You swallow.
“She gave me the best time of my life during the worst time of my life.”
This Mimi who isn’t that other Mimi tilts her head, and then keeps munching on her apple.
You shake your head. Why are we bothering with this garbage?
“Well, Anastasia Hoshin, I guess it was something meeting you. I’m either team Emilia or team Crusch anyway. Good luck.”
“Mr. Natsuki, it wasn’t a coincidence for us to meet. I was meaning to steal a bit of your time for a chat. An informal one of course.”
“What could you possibly have to speak with me?”, you say, tired.
“My, you had delved into the viper’s hole around an hour ago, but you seem wary of chatting with silly old me?”
“I guess I must prefer Priscilla’s horrifying, naked honesty.”
“Ah, the baroness can be very scary at times. But to answer your question, I wanted to chat for a bit and see if anything interesting comes up.”
You grit your teeth and don’t particularly care if it shows. What a waste.
“We don’t have fuck around time, Anastasia. We have urgent matters to deal with.”
“I know, I know. Bothersome royal candidates and their advisors, either getting or holding on to their power.”
“Far more important than that.”
“… You look down, mouth drawn into a frown. I don’t know who you are or what you’ve been through. But I can see it. Behind the quiet frown and slow movements, you’re in pain.”
You openly glare at this Hoshin broad. You grab Rem’s hand and attempt to walk past Anastasia, but this Mimi mercenary steps towards blocking your path as if playing around.
“You are in need of resources”, Anastasia says with a firmer tone. “And I am, as I said, a very powerful person, and a royal candidate to boot. Am I not? Why don’t you try me?”
That wakes you up. Your voice turns cold as you hiss your next sentence.
“That’s the problem with you lot. You’re so eager to get power that you offer deals without considering if they’re not worth the maggots it’d take to swallow.”
Anastasia chuckles slightly.
“Let’s talk, just for a bit. There’s a good, quiet restaurant nearby. Just the two of us. Very calm, yes?”
Rem holds on to your arm and scoots closer.
“You won’t meet with Mr. Natsuki alone. I’m his bodyguard, after all. Same as Mimi for you.”
Anastasia seems like she hadn’t expected Rem to interrupt you or even be present, but she redraws her smile soon enough.
“Of course. The more, the merrier.”
You raise an eyebrow.
“…Fine. You two come too.”
The four of you head down the road, into a modest restaurant the size of a somewhat larger than normal bar. Anastasia was guiding you to an empty table in the middle when Rem tugs on your arm and whispers to your ear.
“Everyone else here belongs to the Iron Fang.”
As you look around, you realize the obvious. The other seats occupied have people wearing white robes that are lined with orange. Most of those people belong to different species of half-beast as well. The bartender looks at you seemingly confused, or troubled.
You take a seat and put your hands on the table. The bartender comes immediately, and shortly after he’s brought a few drinks. Mimi, however, excused herself, climbed to a stool in front of the bar counter and ordered a hamburger.
“Well, Mr. Natsuki. I’m sure you’ve become a bit versed in negotiations, given that you reside with the duchess, and that you’ve approached miss Barielle.”
“I’ve learned that you can’t ask for things without offering anything in return.”
Anastasia chuckles against her hand.
“First lesson, sure! Why don’t we state what we want, and then we see if we can work with each other?”
You open your mouth to speak, but you feel that the effort isn’t worth it. It’s too late, isn’t it? You keep repeating it in your head. This is a bad dream. Maybe you should just throw yourself in front of a dragon carriage. Will you wake up in that bed at Crusch’s place if you off yourself?
“Mr. Natsuki.”
You turn your head and see Anastasia staring at you, eyebrow raised.
“Yes?”
“What is it that the duchess is seeking?”
“Huh?”
“What is it that she wants? That’s what I want. That’s my request. You are her guest, and you don’t belong to her camp. Now, what do you want?”
“Probably an entire army, and a way to get somewhere really fucking fast.”
You sigh and put your hand on your forehead. The reality of the situation hits you, and it’s not a comfortable feeling. You’re not in a happy place right now.
Anastasia’s face suggests she hadn’t expected an answer of that kind.
“Don’t tell me it’s starting.”
It’s getting harder to breath. Your back hurts.
“I guess you are used to speaking like you do, the same way I’m used to mine. But people like you, who seem demand a trade for every word you intend to utter… You make me sick.”
“Subaru…”, Rem says with a soft voice.
“Starting what, god damn it? Will you be clear?”
Mimi comes back while munching on a hamburger. She hasn’t bothered to ask for a plate, nor to wait until she reached the table. She glances at you with bright eyes as she stuffs her mouth.
“The best hamburgers are the cheap ones with lots of onions!”
“You are talking with your mouth full, Mimi. They don’t like it here”, Anastasia says.
“Hoshin, for the love of God…”, you groan.
“The Witch’s Cult. What is starting is the Witch’s Cult being on the move. It was clear, wasn’t it? After lord Roswaal presented a silver-haired half-elf. And you belonging to that camp, your words suggest that them being on the move has crossed over to them rushing to their target. Is that right?”
You nod slowly, unwilling to speak.
“I’m sensing you know more than that”, Anastasia adds.
You shake your head. Your hand trembles as you put it back on your forehead. What is happening to you? You feel as if you need to hide in some dark corner.
Anastasia takes something out of her purse. It looks like an official document of some kind.
“I could give you the fastest carriage that can be rented at this moment in the capital. The market is still recovering from the royal summons. Does that sound good?”
You blink, but can’t avoid a bead of sweat from irritating one of your eyes.
“In exchange of information about what Crusch wants, you offer me a fast dragon carriage?”
“A super fast one. Straight to Roswaal’s domain, right? Probably could get there by tomorrow morning, if you rush through the night.”
“It’s clear you understand that the cult is rushing to attack. You knew something like this was going to happen. And yet you want to trade for our chance to get there in time and save lives?”
“… Mr. Natsuki, I am, above everything else you could say about me, a businesswoman. My company has expanded more than any other in this generation, as I’m sure you know…”
“I don’t know shit.”
“… And now we are moving into this kingdom. Kararagi got a bit small, you could say. It’s a fact of all life that if you want something, you need to give something in return. Animals know this as well. And even parents who provide for their children have their own selfish reasons, don’t they?”
“Spare me your philosophies. You damned schemers… I feel sick. I could vomit for real. I need a bucket.”
“You just came from Priscilla’s. Can’t say I’m surprised! Didn’t lady Emilia alert you about her, or lord Roswaal for that matter?”
You hide half of your face on your palm, resting on that elbow. You are sweating profusely.
Anastasia looks you over for a bit.
“However, I was expecting someone different. You hardly seem like the boy who stepped in between the royal candidates at the palace and boasted about impossible feats. Did I chase your twin by mistake?”
Anastasia’s last words were filled with sarcasm. You slowly turn your head to look at her, as she gives you a goofy smile.
“I could just reach over and snatch your permit from under your hand”, you say gravely.
“Subaru, calm down”, Rem says.
You realize you had stopped in the middle of raising from your seat. Mimi had crossed her staff over the table towards your face, while with her free hand she munched on the remains of her hamburger.
“I could explode you, you know”, she says like a child playing. The skin around her lips is stained with some ketchup, and a couple of bread crumbs are stuck. “Your bits would get all over the walls and make everybody all dirty.”
You sit down slowly while staring at the half-beast girl.
“After I bought you a candy apple?”
Mimi retracts her staff, and for a moment she looks apologetic.
“Sorree! Lady comes first!”
Anastasia opens her mouth, but closes it immediately. She sighs deeply and turns her attention to the menu instead, as if to clear her head.
“One either gives now or gives later, Mr. Natsuki. You know why some can give later even though they receive plenty now?”
“Not really, but I’m sure you’ll tell me in your own words as usual.”
“It’s those that are given to, that are indebted. One should never be in an overly-indebted state, but most are anyway. All stuck in endless cycles. Yet the person who gives expects being able to receive in turn some day, right? That’s the whole trade part. There’s a good reason I wouldn’t give you anything in advance.”
“Get to the fucking point.”
“With your display at the royal palace you showed everyone that matters in this kingdom that you are a jester, and nothing more. You happen to be in a position, due to your temporary relationship with a royal candidate, in which you can be of use to someone. At least you have eyes, you have ears. You’ve seen the movement at Crusch’s camp. The stuff they load, where they go, the kinds of people involved.”
You want to reply, but your throat is closed.
“Emilia, she’s not long for this world if things continue as they are”, Anastasia continues. “But even before that, she already booted you from her side. She did, right? And why wouldn’t she? How you choose to act reflects on those who choose to support you. Supporting a fool makes you a fool. At least you can be a useful fool.”
“Miss Hoshin…”, Rem says coldly, “You think you know him, but you don’t. And you don’t understand what you saw either.”
“Oh, but I do. What I saw, Mr. Natsuki, was a man who needs to be set free. You were never meant to be a soldier or servant. You’ve tasted freedom before, you know it is vastly superior over anything else.”
“You have all the damn time in the world, huh?”, you say with a raspy voice.
“Regardless, you don’t. So what are you going to choose? It comes back to one’s choices always. I built my empire through small choices. You seem used to choosing poorly from what I know of you.”
If you owe to someone, it’s to those who had taken you in initially, for sure. Those you might be able to come back to if you repent. Doesn’t matter whether you like others. At the end of the day, someone procures your food and your shelter, whether or not you need to work for it, and Crusch is Emilia’s opponent.
“Crusch has an army ready. Don’t know if it’s hers personally, as a duchess. The traffic brings metals to blacksmiths, often returns weapons and armor. They are mobilizing for something, maybe to fight the Witch’s Cult, or maybe for some other display that will help her candidacy. Do you figure that these eyes and ears would have noticed anything else?”
Anastasia smiles, and after a few seconds she nods. She slides the permit over the table to you.
“That’s really it?”, you say, exhausted.
You look the permit over, but then you realize, as you’ve had to do over and over, that you can’t read. Nobody had bothered to teach you. You pass the permit to Rem, who seems content with it.
“And for the Iron Fang?”, you ask.
“Oh, they’re already mobilized.”
“I mean lending the band to me. What would you want?”
Anastasia narrows her eyes, and bends a side of her mouth upwards.
“Far more than what you can offer me now, for sure. Maybe some other time.”
It makes you want to lash out, beg, plead, and do anything for what you need. You take a deep breath, close your eyes, and exhale slowly.
“Well, thank you for this carriage anyway.”
Anastasia closes her eyes and smiles. After she grabs her purse, both she and her half-beast mercenary stand up. Mimi turns towards the back of the restaurant and raises her staff.
“Let’s go!”, she announces with a short jump.
Every other client, all of them wearing the mercenary band’s insignia, stands up, turns and leaves the restaurant without looking at you. Anastasia and her bodyguard follow them after minor pleasantries towards you both.
With the mercenaries gone, the bartender sits down and sighs.
Rem puts a hand on your shoulder as she gets to her feet.
“We should be leaving.”
“Are you okay with this, Rem, riding through the night?”
She nods.
“If that’s what you want, or needs to be done.”

This part covers a terrifyingly small part of the sixth volume of the original Re:Zero series, merely a paragraph in a summary. In the original the meeting was relatively straightforward, but I always felt that there was much more to squeeze of the depths of Priscilla Barielle, and this is the result. In the original, after this scene Priscilla disappears from the narrative, and as of volume fourteen (the latest one translated), she hasn’t appeared again.

I cannot overstate how revolutionary the cutting-edge artificial intelligence called GPT-3 is for fiction writing, as far as I’m concerned. One of the things I always hated the most about writing fiction is having to switch voices between characters, being in the zone for one only to break it to do the other, and it doesn’t work well if you attempt to change it during rewrites, because the dialogue should flow depending almost entirely on the verbal punches that the characters throw at each other. For that, GPT-3, which is able to produce from zero completely readable and logical sentences like a person would write them (and often, much better than most people would), is like playing tennis with a partner instead of against a wall. In addition, one of my joys with fiction is just going wild. I hate clichés, I hate conversations or scenes just going the predictable way, but it’s very hard when you are writing just by yourself having a character say or do something either outrageous or just unexpected in general, because you have to figure out how another character could react to that interestingly without them going “wow”, or “huh?”, or not knowing at all how to reply, or walking away and leaving, which would likely happen in real life, and is a significant part of why people don’t say interesting things.

I took a walk this afternoon and I realized that one of the things that excite me the most about this strange AI-fueled roleplaying/fanfiction of one of my favorite fictional series (which ticks most of my boxes: time travel, a protagonist who hates himself and is generally useless, navigating through a new world, getting tangled with different, opposing factions of colorful characters, psychological depth, despair, pain, doom, etc.) is that over the many parts (nine already), GPT-3 has introduced such changes that many of the things that happened in the original series cannot happen now, or will have to be finessed into its original thread. The biggest example I can think now is that the White Whale cannot be killed: it required the protagonist having a cellphone, but it got stolen in the first part. There are many other possible references to stuff that GPT-3 made up by itself in previous parts.

I must say, this confrontation below is likely my favorite dialogue in these nine parts so far.

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

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Rem and you walk briskly away from the restaurant, and when it disappeared out of sight, you let go of the breath you had held.
“Well, that was a fucking waste of time, wasn’t it.”
“No! I think they might just come around! Maybe it’s just a lot to take in, or maybe they’ve got other groups to help as well, or something…”
“Or maybe I’m a fucking liar and just wanted a free lunch. That seemed to work, at least.”
The two of you laugh awkwardly, but you close your mouth quickly, as you feel pain surging through your throat.
“If Crusch comes around, it will be too late. We are working on a tight schedule. Good food, though.”
You two walk aimlessly for a while, listening to the racket of downtown Lugunica at this hour. Your guilt repeats to you that you don’t have any second to spare, and yet you feel as if you are slowly sinking into mud that will soon cover your head.
“Uh… Do you have any ideas regarding who could help us against the cult?”
You take a deep breath. Looking around, you realize that the two of you are standing by a park. You look to Rem pleadingly, who gives a quick nod in response.
“Let’s sit over there.”
As soon as you sit you realize that you survive because you keep burning. If you let yourself rest, the stuff you’ve seen and felt is going to rip your skin open.
“What can we do, Rem?”
“We could ask for soldiers. I don’t think we’d need many. I could turn them into an army that could wipe out the cult in a few days.”
“Again, we don’t have that time.”
Rem nods, not looking at you. After a bit of silence, she sighs softly, before smiling at you. It’s a small, fragile thing, but it’s enough to coax another smile out of you.
Rem leans slowly against your shoulder until she rests on it, and her light blue hair caresses your cheek.
“To be honest, I’m just happy we can be like this, just the two of us.”
You nod silently, entwining your fingers with hers, and you swallow your saliva to widen your throat.
“Ah… I’ve never been so happy being disappointed.”
She grins, her teeth whiter than fallen snow.
“I know what you mean.”
You shrug, taking a deep breath. You try to laugh, but your throat is too tight for any sound to escape.
You know that Rem doesn’t believe you, not in the way one believes someone else’s reasons. She seems to have deluded herself into believing that she might be in love with you, which means that she’ll readily go along with whatever nonsense comes out of your mouth. And you are so lucky for it that it would take a lifetime to let it sink in. Doesn’t matter what Rem believes, though, as she would know the moment you two approached the village. But by this time we should have already been on the road.
You need a strong person. A superpowered person. You can’t put together an army for this, you don’t think. Not on this timetable. You browse through your memory, the people you’ve met, the details they gave up about this fantasy world you don’t belong in.
When that woman pops into your mind, you go cold.
For a moment, Rem tries to prevent you from standing up. You offer her your hand for her to follow.
“Rem, oh God… I’m going to meet with the biggest cunt I’ve ever known besides Puck.”

Priscilla Barielle’s mansion’s grounds looked as if king Midas had visited a museum, turned a good bunch of works of art into gold, and then had placed them without any sense for composition all over her yard. Even the front of the enormous mansion displayed unnecesary frescoes that didn’t quite match with each other. Everything gave the sense of tasteless excess, and yet it did fit a woman who seemed to believe she was untouchable and she was entitled to whatever she wanted. Priscilla’s apparent right hand, who had a single hand himself, this Aldebaran guy, had been alerted to your and Rem’s presence right out of the mansion’s gate. Past Aldebaran, working in the yard and moving behind the mansion’s windows you get glimpses of the staff, who wear very revealing clothes, and most of whom seem to be attractive young women.
When Aldebaran looked at you, somehow his helmeted face displayed concern towards your idea of meeting with his master.
“She’s currently in a good mood… But that doesn’t predict the future regarding our lady.”
“Well, I don’t want to predict the future. I know what’s going to happen.”
Aldebaran shrugs, but lets you inside regardless. The gate closes behind you as you enter the mansion’s courtyard, and both you and Rem follow the guy through the path lined with statues towards the entrance.
“I might have spoken too rashly”, you say dubitatively, “I do know plenty of stuff about the immediate future, but this Priscilla lady of yours is like a black hole of a blank in regards to how she will react. Do you think she might be open to listening to someone’s petition?”
“I do not know what exactly her plans are for the immediate future, but I do know she’s currently in the best state of mind. It would be best for you to come with me so I can present you. If her mood has already gone sour, though, she might order me to kill you.”
“I see”, you answer with some level of seriousness. “And is this sort of thing regular?”
You notice that there are several guards watching your conversation. As your gaze slips from the armed guards, you see that Rem, silent, is looking at you with doubt and concern. Meeting Priscilla isn’t the brightest idea you’ve ever had.
“If you’re smart, things will turn out for the best”, Aldebaran says.
“I might be fucked then”, you mutter.
Aldebaran and his armed buddies wave you inside the building. The foyer of the mansion is as large as your entire house. You see a grand staircase and many paintings hanging from the walls. Some of them are beautiful landscape paintings, but others depict gruesome scenes of war, with men impaled on spikes and painted in gory detail.
“Please wait here”.
Aldebaran heads towards whatever room Priscilla is currently in. As he turns a corner and disappears, you imagine the guy notifying Priscilla, whose voluptuous body in your imagination is naked for some reason, and when she remembers you, she uses the words ‘lowly scum’.
Rem touches your arm.
“This Priscilla doesn’t sound too good. I heard lady Emilia mention her a few times before, and even the Witch of Frost herself wanted nothing to do with her.”
When you dare look up again, Aldebaran is back, and he gestures with his helmeted head for you to follow. He notices that Rem is doing so as well, and the guy turns.
“Sorry, miss Rem. My lady requested for the boy to be brought over to her alone.”
Rem gasps, and looks at you with concern.
“I’ll probably survive, Rem”, you say with a nervous smile.
With a last nod, Rem watches you turn the corner.
You follow that large man in silence. The atmosphere is so tense you’re almost expecting him to attack you out of nowhere. At the end of a hallway he stops in front of a large oak door, almost resembling that of a bank’s vault door.
“This is it”, he says.
With those words, he pushes the door open and gestures for you to enter. You do so, and find yourself in a vast room with every inch of the walls covered in frescoes, and all over are mismatching, yet very expensive looking, statues and antiques that you imagine Priscilla saw casually at different moments and she pretty much pointed to them and say to someone, ‘I want that’.
The lady herself is relaxing in something like a recliner chair near the middle of the room. She’s wearing a revealing dress with her tanned skin exposed up to slightly above her nipples, and her long orange hair falls over her shoulders while glistening under the chandeliers’ lights. It’s no exageration that she’s by far the hottest woman you’ve ever seen, and you need to contain your crotch from twitching. Priscilla is reading a book she holds with one hand, while a mostly naked, very attractive herself servant is massaging some oils on Priscilla’s neck and shoulders.
You approach Priscilla as carefully as you can, while standing straight so it projects confidence.
Priscilla barely looks over the pages of her book.
“My dog told me that you wanted something of me”, Priscilla said in a slightly amused tone. “Did he hear you right?”
“Your dog seems to keep his ears clean. I do need help from you, lady Priscilla.”
Priscilla puts the book on her lap, and looks directly at you.
“Well then, I’ll listen”, she says, with a mocking tone.
You expected far more resistence, if not straight rejection. You clear your throat to prepare your self-confidence for such a powerful woman’s attention, and you say:
“I have… Well, we have gathered that the Witch’s Cult, that group of madmen that have caused such destruction for a very long time in this fantasy world, is going to attack a target with a certainty of a hundred percent. However, we are pressed for time, and we can’t form an army, or train one, or whatever. We need the help of someone superpowered who can go one on one with the cultists and hopefully save people and stuff.”
“Is that all?” Priscilla says with a smile.
“Yes, I mean no! We can pay you very well for your service, probably.”
“I have everything I want”, Priscilla says, and the servant girl continues massaging her shoulders. “Except maybe a new dress. This one is a bit shabby, don’t you agree?” she says looking at the servant.
The servant nods. Her eyes are glazed.
“Now, I don’t believe that for a second”, you say. “I doubt you would be content even if you owned the entire world.”
“You there”, she says, pointing at you with her book. “What’s your name?”
Don’t look at her tits, you repeat to yourself.
“My name is N-Natsuki Subaru”, you stutter.
“Natsuki Subaru, I have everything I want”, she says. “I can say that with a hundred percent certainty. Right now I have all I want: a decent book to read, one of my girls driving her fingers into my flesh, and a little man that amuses me. Now, in five minutes I might lack something I want. Maybe you want to stay around until then?”
“God, you are so hot. But I did see you fight those thugs in the alleyway, and how you dispatched them without any trouble. I think I heard someone or even you yourself suggest that you have like superpowers or something. I thought of you against these rotten cultists and I thought, hell, this lady could crush their bones under her heel. That’s a phrase that I liked.”
You are quiet for a few seconds and then she says,
“Do you want to touch?”
“Well, yes… But that is not my original plan for this meeting.”
“Alright,” she says and then turns to her servant girl. “Mimi, get him hard.”
The girl, who has olive skin and you imagine might have come, or have been dragged from, a neighboring kingdom, moves as in a dreamlike state from her lady’s chair to your side, and before you know it she has crouched slightly and is sliding her soft hand into your underwear. As soon as you feel the contact, you grab her wrist without much force.
“That’s hardly necessary, although I do appreciate it”, you say nervously.
You feel your face turn red as the smaller woman starts to pull at your dick. The royal candidate sits there and watches you with a small smile. She looks quite amused.
“Alright, that should do. Now, one hand on her head.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
Confused, you place your right hand on the servant’s, or slave’s, soft black hair. As your heart beats loudly in your chest, you try to remember your initial purpose.
“Lady Priscilla, while I’m grateful already, there are more pressing concerns regarding this Witch’s Cult thing. They are truly going to attack, and we either need to procure your generous services, or just go somewhere else and try whoever else.”
You say to her, as the servant girl continues to do her work. A bead of sweat rolls down your temple as your legs weaken.
“I did make clear that I would need some alluring reward. A good reason, if you will. Truly you didn’t come to ask for help without offering anything valuable in exchange, right? Even a cockroach would understand that.”
“I’m not a cockroach, my lady. I am a human being.”
“Indeed you are. However, I am not convinced that you are a man.”
You stand there speechless as the noblewoman hums in thought. Her servant lowers your pants and your underwear, and her warm mouth takes you in. Her head begins to bob up and down. You look down in time to see her nape of her neck before looking back up to the noblewoman who smiles with satisfaction.
“This one is good, correct?”
You want to stop this, but not really. Somehow you would have thought that getting blown by a slave wouldn’t have been your first time. Fantasy world things, you guess. You swallow and try to bring saliva back to your mouth.
“Ah… This sweet girl isn’t, like… Well, I’m not sure what I meant to say. Listen, the target that the cultists are about to attack is Roswaal’s mansion. You know, that clown guy who is famous around here.”
“Hmm, I see. Movement by the Witch’s Cult. So that’s why they were recruiting so many people with minor magic abilities. Indeed, if they cause havoc, it will be a great loss. But, in any case, the decrepit old fools at the council will send in their military to stop the cultists.”
“As far as I’ve been told, uh… by the time the council gets its shit together and mobilizes the army, the cult has already scattered. And I know for a fact that nobody else is going to prevent Roswaal’s mansion from being hit, and everybody in it killed, if we don’t do anything that doesn’t rely on those mummies.”
“I saw you talk back to those ugly old men, back at the royal summons, didn’t I?”
“My mind is going blank at the moment and I’m not sure of much, but I guess I did.”
“It was you, yes”, she paints a rapacious smile on her perfect face. “Now, they did deserve getting insulted, didn’t they, those ugly weasels.”
“Well, I wasn’t polite, but I guess you’re right.”
“They are all fools, aren’t they? The whole council is nothing but a bunch of fools. Oh yes, I know about your little conversation, it’s not like I can forget about something like that. They will get their due retribution one day, and so will the rest of this miserable kingdom.”
You aren’t sure of what’s coming out of your mouth and you don’t particularly care.
“Uh… Is that why you are going for the throne, retribution or something.”
“Revenge? Oh no, revenge is far too common for the highborn. No, I am doing this out of boredom and because it’s necessary to secure my own future.”
“Um…”
You’re not sure how to react to all of this. Last time you heard a royal say something like that to you was… well, never. At least not to your face. And here she is, saying such things with a completely serious expression. Did you interact with royals back on Earth? You can’t remember. It’s warm.
Priscilla is resting her cheek on her fist, and stares at her servant’s bobbing head while she herself moves her pretty bare foot around as if following a melody.
There was something you intended to do regarding the Witch’s Cult, you think. Something bad was going on. Everything is going white.
“I’m sure you’ve killed many people, lady Priscilla”, you say with a dry voice. “Just continue doing what you’ve been doing, but directed at people who truly deserve it.”
You hear her chuckle. Now that the white haze has cleared up a bit, you see her shaking her head at you.
“How amusing. It’s certainly uncommon to see a lowly commoner saying such things.”
“I don’t… I’m not…”
“Why are you even bothering with that cult? You should just be grateful to have what you are having right now.”
“Your girl is good, but… That clown and his porn, and the cultists who are going to kill people at that mansion, all that.”
“Why would I care one bit about those things, Natsuki Subaru?”
The white haze covering everything has dissipated. You realize you have fallen forwards. As you attempt for your shaky arms to bring you back to your feet, the blurry figure of the servant flows back to her lady, and begins to massage Priscilla’s neck. You manage to pull your underwear and pants up.
“A bit lower this time, Mimi”, she says with an amused voice.
You are kneeling some meters in front of the lady of the mansion, who glances at you questioningly.
“I want my questions to receive their answers, boy. The caring part, and the why of it, is what I don’t get.”
“You mean, ah… That you don’t care if Roswaal’s mansion gets attacked, and if his people die.”
“That’s one way of putting it. I doubt anything will happen to me, if it really is a cultist attack.”
“But doesn’t concern for life bother you?”
You feel as dumb as any common rock, and yet the words have escaped your mouth.
“…Should it?”
Priscilla shrugs at you, as you realize this isn’t getting you anywhere. Still, you have to try.
“Yes. If… If someone did that to you or your servants or your loyal dog Aldewhatever, and nobody cared, you wouldn’t like it.”
Priscilla smiles at your remark.
“What would you know about what I like or don’t like, Natsuki Subaru? What makes you believe you have that window into my mind?”
“Uh… no, I just-“
“You are an interesting one. You know what you just said? It was wrong. Again.”
“What?”
“I don’t need to care for others, because I am not defined by others. If they die, then I’ll just get new ones.”
You are a little bit horrified by how pragmatic she is about her servants’ lives. You would have to be an idiot to be surprised by it, but if recent events have shown anything is that you are mostly retarded.
“That’s harsh on Mimi and her warm mouth.”
“Hahaa, she won’t be getting any favors when she’s older.”
You shake your head a bit to clear your thoughts.
“So you don’t care about Roswaal’s people dying, alright, we’ve established that…”
“But I’m not defined by my employees. I am defined by myself. I am Priscilla, the strongest and most beautiful girl in the world.”
“Yeah, right…”
“… And you, Natsuki Subaru? Who are you? What defines you?”
What indeed?
“That I struggle against all odds to succeed. And if I don’t succeed, I fail.”
“I guess your commoner brain doesn’t allow you to know that applies to virtually every living creature?”
“You are superpowered, Priscilla. Starting with being super hot, which is maybe the most powerful superpower in any dimension, and I know about other dimensions, as I keep saying. But I have a superpower of my own, as that Petelgeuse shit said before I died.”
Priscilla closes her eyes and her shoulders tremble as she chuckles against her palm. You don’t like that it makes you happier.
“I revive. I revive from death. So I fail, I try again, and again, and again, until I succeed”, you say.
“So persistant… You are a riot.”
You could swear you’re having a heart attack after hearing those words. Priscilla just gave you a compliment!
Priscilla leans back, which allows her servant to work deeper into the lady’s flesh.
“I do have to think about strategy from time to time, Natsuki Subaru. The words ‘Roswaal’s mansion is going to get attacked by the Witch’s Cult’ flow into my ears, and I think, well, if everybody there dies, that includes the imbecile, right?”
“Who’s the imbecile in this setting?”
“Why, the half-demon that Roswaal presented. Surely the word imbecile comes to mind when you look at that silver-haired witch?”
“Ah… The words balls and tear are the ones that come first these days.”
“Curse your foul mouth.”
You lean forward, licking your lips as you take in all the information.
“Okay, so you don’t like Emilia. That makes sense, Emilia being another royal candidate and all that…”
A small laugh escapes her lips as she stares at your face with an intent gaze as if studying every line and wrinkle.
“First of all, I don’t care about Emilia, except her magic talent. Which is average. If I wanted to kill her, she’d already be dead by now. She’s a hindrance, not a target. Killing her would be an unnecessary act of violence.”
“Then what is your gripe with Emilia?”
“I have several. But let’s start with the most important one. She’s a wannabe hero, isn’t she?”
“I mostly remember her hiding when danger comes, so I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Then you’re saying she’s a coward, correct?”
You feel anger swelling inside of you as you think of several retorts, but stop yourself. Then you unstop yourself.
“Listen, we are all many things. You are like super attractive, and stuck up, and possibly evil. I am dumb and useless and a time traveller. Emilia is kind, and hopeful, and believes in promises, and many other things that don’t have to do with hiding whenever people threaten those she should care about.”
“So you are denying that she is a coward that runs away?”
You grit your teeth. The room lapses into silence as the two of you stare each other down.
“I just realized that I might be the one running away. I am here, after all, instead of at the mansion.”
Priscilla looks at you. She doesn’t make any more hasty quips or ask any more questions. Instead, she sits there, waiting. She wants you to talk. You remain quiet and unmoving.
“Lady Priscilla, there are people out there in this fantasy world that I care about. I have a sweet demon servant waiting for me somewhere in your mansion. Her sister, who remains at Roswaal’s, will face the storm head on when the cultists attack. There’s a little girl who is actually like hundreds of years old and who once sucked my hand. There’s Emilia, whom I care about very much and want to see happy although she threatened me with castration. Roswaal is somewhere as well, but I don’t fancy clowns that much. My point is that I do care about other people, lady Priscilla. You might have a superpower, and you might possess the best tits I have ever seen, and a wonderful servant, but you are even less of a human being than I am.”
“Does that make you feel better? Seeing me as some soulless demonic succubus who is out to devour everyone?”
“Yes.”
Priscilla smiles.
“Now that’s honesty.”
She stands up from her chair resolutely and she approaches your kneeling self. She bends over to touch your chest, ruffling your shirt slightly.
“Wow, you are skinny. Look at these ribs. It’s like having a horse chest-up. You should eat more, or at least take more care of yourself.”
“I do appreciate your terrifying concern.”
Priscilla smiles, then a glint like that of a predator flashes in her eyes.
“You know I don’t care, not about anybody else but me in this entire world. So what can you offer me that would remotely convince me to lend your pathetic self my immensely valuable support?”
“Nothing.”
Your reply baffled her, causing her to stare at you.
“What do you mean? Aren’t you supposed to try to convince me or something?”
“No, because I don’t have anything to offer you, which is why I said ‘nothing’, meaning that there is nothing I can say or do to convince you to help me that would be of value to you.”
Priscilla chuckles. She crosses her arms.
“And yet this very fine day the thought popped in your mind, ‘I know this gorgeous and powerful noble who is for sure going to provide me with as much attention as I need’.”
“That did enter my mind.”
Priscilla strokes your face. The thought that you might currently be one of the luckiest men alive crosses your mind.
“There are people like me, and then there are people like you. You are born with nothing, and you run like a chicken through this wretched life without accomplishing anything, and you will never be able to accomplish a thing, because that’s reserved to people like me. Do you understand that?”
You understand that she has a point, and you intend on changing that.
“Yes, I understand that.”
Priscilla smiles. “Good. Yet you do have something you keep, maybe without knowing, very dear and close to your heart, a little treasure chest that you guard with your life. You don’t think about it, most of the time at least, and yet if the chest were to be opened by others for them to peer inside, your meaningless life would no longer be worth the sustained effort of your body to keep your heart beating. Do you understand that as well?”
“Yes,” you lie.
Priscilla smiles. “I thought you might.”
Then, with her free hand, she slaps you hard across the face.
You look up towards her with your mouth open, hanging your hand midway from your knee to your pained cheek. Priscilla keeps smiling, and her eyes are warm.
“Natsuki Subaru, how do you feel about sucking?”
“How do I feel about sucking?” you ask, bewildered.
“Correct. Natsuki Subaru, how do you feel about sucking?”
You bite your lower lip, as you try to grasp the question within the context of its proposal.
“I… I suppose it’s alright, I suppose.”
“That’s all that matters,” Priscilla says, narrowing her eyes. “Now, answer me this: how do you feel about me?”
You fear connecting the dots, but mainly being wrong about the answers you would prefer.
“If someone like me, one of a kind in this entire world, now or ever, were to offer you her flesh to suckle on, what would your lowly scum self feel about that?”
You blush.
“Well, uh… I suppose it would depend on the person.”
“Oh?” Priscilla tilts her head. “And what if that person was me?”
She gestures to herself as if to prove a point. You hope your eyes don’t show the strange mixture of fear and confusion that’s overtaken you for a while.
“Then in that case, if that’s the condition for you to lend your power to us, I’ll gladly suck pretty much every centimeter of your tanned skin. Hell, if you had a dick I’d probably suck it at this point, might as well.”
Priscilla simply smiles.
“I suppose we’ve come to an agreement, then,” she says.
“What?”
She takes two steps back, and then she raises her right foot to hang it in the air relatively close to your face. Her dress slides inwards, revealing the length of her delicious-looking thigh.
“Suck on it. Suckle on my toes as if you were a babe desperately milking the sustenance out of the only person in this lonely world that wants to keep you alive.”
You stare at her foot, and you slowly lean in to kiss the top of her foot. The smell of her skin is all consuming as your lips press against it. You want to cry, but you know you have goals to achieve first.
“Good,” she says. “Now suck, or something worse will happen than just you dying.”
You open your mouth and stick your tongue out, licking the top of her foot. She smiles as you begin to suck on her big toe. You look up at her as you do this, and she stares back with a blank look on her face. Something about that look scares you more than it turning sadistic. Her face looks bored and dead, as if she were staring at a pebble rather than a young man sucking on her foot.
A cold sensation runs through your spine. You feel as if something has failed. You have failed.
She retracts her foot and lowers it to the ground. As you were about to stand up by yourself, Priscilla closes one hand around your neck and raises you as far as her arm length goes. Warmth concentrates on your face, and your throat muscles fail to resist the grip. Priscilla glares at you with eyes as dead as a mannequin’s. Then she speaks to you in a monotone voice.
“Your chest is open.”
Priscilla flings you effortlessly across the room in the direction of the large oak door. Hitting the carpet steals the air from your lungs, and you roll until you hit wood. As you cough, you quickly attempt to raise yourself to your feet, feeling that Priscilla must be rushing to close the distance and impale you with her claws. However, she’s standing where she was a moment ago, barely bothering to glance at you.
The oak door opens, and Aldebaran lowers his gaze at you.
“I was thinking, this bro has spent too much time inside. Caught you in one of her moods, I’m afraid.”
You cough as you attempt to breathe.
“Aldebaran, shoo the rats from my house”, Priscilla says with a sharp voice.
“Sure thing, miss. C’mon, bro.”
You stand up and quickly limp outside the room as Aldebaran closes the door behind you. You walk away and lean against the wall, breathing heavily and coughing, but Aldebaran shakes his head and gestures for you to keep walking.
“You better leave her place quick before she gets angry. I don’t want to kill you, and neither me nor the guards want to waste our afternoon digging in some empty corner.”
The corridors pass in a blur. You feel as cold as if you had just been rescued from icy waters. When Rem sees you, she runs towards you and places a hand on your chest, but Aldebaran urges you both again to leave the mansion. When you breathe the fresh air of Lugunica, Priscilla’s dog still accompanies you both to the gates, and once he’s closed it, he speaks through the bars.
“Don’t know what your purpose was, but… Our lady is very peculiar. And there’s the whole thing of competition between royal candidates to account for. Hope it wasn’t a complete waste, though.”
You can barely look at Aldebaran’s helmeted face. You talk with a dry voice.
“Al, can I ask you something somewhat personal?”
“Sure thing. I will still be your bro.”
“Why… Why serve Priscilla?”
“She saved my life. I was on a battlefield, and… You know.”
You look up at the early afternoon sun.
“Well, that’s nice of her. That means you’re under her debt, right?”
“Hmm… Yeah.”
“Yet you do realize she is a monster, right?”
“Oh, that.”
You face your palm.
“Yes, that.”
Aldebaran shrugs.
“Bro, Priscilla gets all she wants, like in the whole wide world. And she wants the throne. What does that tell you?”
“Well…”
You feel a rush of warmth pooling behind your eyes. You turn away from the gate.
“Time to us to fuck off.”

---

Some observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior:

-Rem’s first words in this, ‘No! I think they might just come around! Maybe it’s just a lot to take in, or maybe they’ve got other groups to help as well, or something…’, are verbatim from GPT-3. I love that the artificial intelligence understood the frustration, and that the possible future success might rely on either Crusch sleeping on it, or them being too busy with other concerns. How does an AI know that?
-The idea for both of them to sit at a park was GPT-3’s idea, and it ended up being a sweet moment.
-Rem’s line ‘We could ask for soldiers. I don’t think we’d need many. I could turn them into an army that could wipe out the cult in a few days.’ is verbatim from GPT-3. I like the characterization of sweet Rem being so hardcore to believe she can train an army to take out the cult in days.
-Most of Rem’s small actions of support, such as this, ‘Rem nods, not looking at you. After a bit of silence, she sighs softly, before smiling at you. It’s a small, fragile thing, but it’s enough to coax another smile out of you’, were GPT-3’s thing.
-The sentences ‘Aldebaran and his armed buddies wave you inside the building. The foyer of the mansion is as large as your entire house. You see a grand staircase and many paintings hanging from the walls. Some of them are beautiful landscape paintings, but others depict gruesome scenes of war, with men impaled on spikes and painted in gory detail’ are verbatim from GPT-3. It relies a bit on the hidden worldbuilding I wrote for it.
-A tremendous amount of Priscilla’s best lines are verbatim from GPT-3. Here are the most prominent ones:

• “I have everything I want”, Priscilla says, and the servant girl continues massaging her shoulders. “Except maybe a new dress. This one is a bit shabby, don’t you agree?” she says looking at the servant.
• “Alright,” she says and then turns to her servant girl. “Mimi, get him hard.”
• “They are all fools, aren’t they? The whole council is nothing but a bunch of fools. Oh yes, I know about your little conversation, it’s not like I can forget about something like that. They will get their due retribution one day, and so will the rest of this miserable kingdom.”
• “Revenge? Oh no, revenge is far too common for the highborn. No, I am doing this out of boredom and because it’s necessary to secure my own future.”
• “How amusing. It’s certainly uncommon to see a lowly commoner saying such things.”
• “I don’t need to care for others, because I am not defined by others. If they die, then I’ll just get new ones.”
• “Hahaa, she won’t be getting any favors when she’s older.”
• “But I’m not defined by my employees. I am defined by myself. I am Priscilla, the strongest and most beautiful girl in the world.”
• “First of all, I don’t care about Emilia, except her magic talent. Which is average. If I wanted to kill her, she’d already be dead by now. She’s a hindrance, not a target. Killing her would be an unnecessary act of violence.”
• “Does that make you feel better? Seeing me as some soulless demonic succubus who is out to devour everyone?”
• “Wow, you are skinny. Look at these ribs. It’s like having a horse chest-up. You should eat more, or at least take more care of yourself.”
• “Good,” she says. “Now suck, or something worse will happen than just you dying.”

-Obviously, with such tremendous improv from the artificial intelligence, it was very easy to follow Priscilla’s voice for the rest of the scene. Such contribution is invaluable (and uncanny).
-I only prompted the line ‘God, you are so hot.’, and GPT-3 had the brilliant idea of making Priscilla order her servant to jerk off the protagonist, and later on to blow him. Such a subthread running through the scene during a negotiation elevated for me this scene into brilliance. It’s like that scene in “On the Waterfront” when Marlon Brandon plays around with his love interest’s glove, but instead with a blowjob. In the original scene from the Re:Zero novel series, there was no servant present during Subaru and Priscilla’s meeting, but I felt it added an interesting angle to it. GPT-3 took it and ran with it. So thank you, artificial intelligence, for contributing to this scene by lending me your naked desires.
-The protagonist’s following admission of his failings, including all the lines I’m quoting, are verbatim from GPT: ‘”Nothing.” Your reply baffled her, causing her to stare at you. “What do you mean? Aren’t you supposed to try to convince me or something?” “No, because I don’t have anything to offer you, which is why I said ‘nothing’, meaning that there is nothing I can say or do to convince you to help me that would be of value to you.”‘
-The protagonist’s dumbfounded reply to Priscilla’s question about sucking, ‘”I… I suppose it’s alright, I suppose.”‘, is verbatim GPT-3.
-Every single line of the following description of the protagonist’s humiliation (and I mean every single one), is verbatim GPT-3: ‘You stare at her foot, and you slowly lean in to kiss the top of her foot. The smell of her skin is all consuming as your lips press against it. You want to cry, but you know you have goals to achieve first. “Good,” she says. “Now suck, or something worse will happen than just you dying.” You open your mouth and stick your tongue out, licking the top of her foot. She smiles as you begin to suck on her big toe. You look up at her as you do this, and she stares back with a blank look on her face. Something about that look scares you more than it turning sadistic. Her face looks bored and dead, as if she were staring at a pebble rather than a young man sucking on her foot.’ How did the artificial intelligence know that Priscilla was supposed to get irate and lose all possible respect for the protagonist at that point, which happens in the original? No idea.
-I prompted the protagonist to ask Aldebaran why would someone like him serve Priscilla. His reasons were entirely made up by GPT-3, I merely had to edit it minimally.

This part barely advanced the story, but I had so much fun, which is what counts as far as I’m concerned. Given that the mess with the time travel mechanic had exploded all over the narrative, I was worrying about having to keep track of stuff, but I reminded myself that I’m on this shit for the joy of it.

I’m getting a good feel of the cutting-edge AI that does this cutting-edge language stuff. Sometimes it comes up with such non-sequitors or out of place suggestions (although, curiously, I can’t think of any big example now), but others times, GPT-3 is so spot on that I don’t think I would have gotten better flow if I had rewritten it a hundred times.

I no longer know whether the characters should address the protagonist as Natsuki or as Subaru. And I don’t care. I want a body pillow of this version of Rem.

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

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You return to your senses as if you fell from a distance only to stop suddenly, but when your hands grasp the first thing they can, you recognize the texture of sheets. Familiar sheets, those belonging to the bed that Crusch had let you sleep in. You open your eyes, and in the moonlight that comes through the window you certify that you are back at Crusch’s mansion. You wait until your heartbeats return to normal as you control your breathing. You are back. It wasn’t a fluke, it wasn’t Beatrice’s doing. Maybe Petelgeuse was right, and this is a blessing. The power you thought you were owed when you were transported to this fantasy world. When you die, you return in time.
But something is different. Something changed in this death. When you fell through the darkness and saw those smoky arms grasping at you, you could concentrate on the feeling: it was a form of love you never truly experienced before. Towards Emilia, Rem, even Beatrice… and even Crusch. That love poured from the presence in that darkness as if water from a spring. When the being responsible for those arms grabbed you, it did not hurt. It felt warm. That’s when you knew she loved you. You still love her as well. In that moment, knowing that love, you could barely hear the words of displeasure from that presence, and your life was spared. That is why you are here, back at the mansion, alive and well in a bed where you lay your head. And now, after having experienced what was probably a miracle, you will do everything in your power to make it happen again.
Emilia and Rem will both die unless you do something. Your remaining alive was no miracle. It was the work of another, and that means it can be stopped and you can be killed. But you know what has to be done: if you want to stay alive, then the people you care about need to as well.
You wanted some taste of reality freed from the pain that had burst through your body during what seemed like a few minutes ago. You get out of your bedroom in the dark, and in the luxurious bathroom you splash my face. You don’t want to bother Crusch this time, nor confuse her with what she believes to be delusions.

The morning comes quickly enough. Contrary to previous times, you dress yourself up quick and find the shaded patio where you spoke with Crusch, to take a deep breath of Lugunica’s morning air. Turns out that Ferris and Crusch are enjoying their breakfast. Ferris sees you first, and you notice that she doesn’t seem too eager to see you. You can’t be surprised; she was very clear during the meeting at the war room that pretty much considers you a silly lunatic. Can’t blame her.
“Subaru,” she says, surprised to see you up so early.
Crusch looks up from her tea, her long green hair tied up to keep it out of her face, and smiles.
“Good morning.”
You smile widely. Even a little thing like being able to greet people you like seems to you like a treasure right now.
Crusch tilts her head slightly.
“Don’t you look animated today. Any interesting plans?”
“Well… no.”
“Then why the smile?”
You took a deep breath, trying to find the words to express yourself.
“I guess it’s because I’m happy to see you both.”
Ferris speaks in a teasing tone.
“Well, don’t get very used to it. This hour of the morning is us girls’ moment away from the pressures of governing and healing respectively. I don’t want a third wheel.”
You laugh at her antics, even if they are at your expense.
“Okay… I will leave you to it then.” You say, shuffling away.
“Don’t be mean, Ferris,” Crusch says, shifting her eyes towards Ferris. “He’s our guest.”

You had noticed that Wilhelm, dressed even from that early in the morning in his military uniform, was swinging his sword for practice near the pond that Crusch had made you walk to that one time. As you go through the yard, realizing that you are going to approach of your own volition someone as terrifying as that old man, your good mood erodes away. However, you do owe the man. You can tell that Wilhelm senses you approaching him, although he doesn’t turn.
“I don’t wish to interrupt your training, sir Wilhelm”, you say cautiously, “and yet there won’t be many chances in this span of days to say what I want to say to you.”
Wilhelm stops his training for a second and a half, something noticeable in someone so precise as Old Man Wilhelm.
“I’m listening”, he says, turning to look at you but not approaching.
You take a deep breath.
“Thank you.”
Old Man Wilhelm squints his eyes, realizing that you aren’t finished with what you have to say.
“… For what?”
“For rescuing me and giving me a chance.”
Wilhelm tightens his lips a little.
“I didn’t rescue you. You are still a puppy drowning in a puddle.”
“It’s a very big puddle. Yes, I haven’t turned into a legendary warrior, or even a competent fighter, or anyone who would be able to threaten most children, probably, but I realized that I have the strength to face a dagger flying towards me and still react in a different way than peeing my pants. I know now that either I win or I am going to lose.”
You would have liked to see the ghost of a smirk in Wilhelm’s face, but it seems as if not even a harem full of cat girls would raise this guy’s mood.
“You finally have learned to stop pissing your pants. That’s progress.”
“I know that if I’m weak, if I stall to savor my pain, people I care about are going to suffer for it. And those’s lives are worth more than mine.”
“What about your own life, then?
You are a bit taken back by the question.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you just said your life is not as important as others’. Do you really believe that?”
You reflexively want to say yes, but the words don’t come out.
“I… I suppose it isn’t.”
Old Man Wilhelm stares at you gravely, although he doesn’t stop swinging his sword for practice.
“So are you ready to be a warrior?”
You swallow. He is not asking about your physical preparation, but rather your mental one.
“I… I think so.”
“Mr. Natsuki, I see you believe you have glanced a vital truth of this world, and you feel it filling one of the irregularly shaped holes in your heart. Is that right?”
You reflexively touch your chest when you remember Rem’s gentle hands.
“I… I guess.”
The ghost of a smile touches Old Man Wilhem’s lips.
“Let us begin, Natsuki Subaru.”
You take a step backwards as Wilhelm somehow produces two wooden swords.
“Well, to be honest I had plenty of other stuff to do this morning.”
He rushes at you, and deflects his sword to the side. He brings his knee up to your stomach and you fall to the ground.
“Shit!”
He drops his wooden sword, and holds his hand out for you. He pulls you up to your feet.
“If you wish to live, Natsuki Subaru, you must forget about pointless things like half-assing everything in your life.”
You nod, and grab your practice sword.
“Alright, but I’m not going to go easy on you.”
He nods, and the two of you begin.

Rem finds you as Ferris is healing your bruises and some open wounds. You are curious about what kinds of plans keep Rem coming and going from Crusch’s mansion, but you don’t really want to pry into her affairs. You are just happy that you can see that warm smile again, a smile directed as you, as if you deserved it. Suddenly you want to get rid of the otherwise sexy cat girl who is healing you, although she hasn’t finished.
Ferris doesn’t take well your glance over to her, and she shuts the healing magic that was coming from her palms. She stands up from the sofa.
“I see that Subaru would rather suffer some bruises than keep you waiting, miss Rem. Take that as you will.”
Rem closes her eyes cheerfully towards Ferris.
“Oh, I am not worried. I trust Subaru knows how I feel.”
After Ferris prances to another room, you stand up from the sofa and think about the conversation you’re going to have with Rem. You feel your face warming, and it’s hard for you to separate what you lived with her in the last two days of your previous life from the girl who is standing in front of you.
“Rem, we need to have a strategy meeting of sorts, just the two of us. Okay? Shall we take a walk?”
She stares at you blankly for a moment. Then, she smiles, nods, and the pair of you head outside the mansion. You begin walking around the block, strolling slowly as the two of you converse.
“I have so much to say, Rem, and frankly, it’s already hard for me to remember what I’ve said, when, or when I have to say again, and track what everybody knows right now. I don’t have the brain to handle all that.”
You catch Rem for a moment frowning her nose as her gaze slips from you. You stop in your tracks.
“Ah, well, I must smell a bit bad after training, huh? I spent most of that time on the dirt.”
You stare at her for a moment, as she stares back.
“No? Aw.”
A sigh escapes your lips, and you continue speaking.
“But yeah, the thing is, I’m gonna have to repeat myself. A lot. Well, not really, but if I plan on doing this right then I need to know if I’ve explained things before at all or plan on explaining them in the future, so I don’t contradict myself.”
“I don’t think I understand anything you are saying, Subaru…”
You wave your hands frantically as you reply quickly.
“Oh no, don’t worry about it, I’m not saying any of this for you. It’s just I have to keep track of it all in my head so I can avoid contradictions and timeline errors and what have you, so I’m just trying to jot down notes to remind myself for future references.”
Rem tilts her head, giving a confused look as she stares at you.
You sigh. You stop some distance away from a line of fruit stands, you turn to Rem and place your hands on her shoulders. She opens her mouth slightly.
“Listen, Rem. This is going to be a mess. I’m going to fuck up. A lot. But we’re in this together, because I need your help… And you need mine.”
“Yes…”
“We’re going to break the cycle, together.”
Rem arches an eyebrow as she speaks gently, but with doubt.
“The cycle of what?”
“The cycle of me having to repeat everything.”
Rem puts a hand on her hip, snarling as she does so.
“I don’t understand what you mean by that.”
You shake your head, and take a deep breath before speaking again.
“My dearest Rem, my very appreciated demon servant with such a cute face I could just begin making weird noises and rolling around on the ground, I must tell you a truth of this fantasy world of yours: I can travel back in time whenever I die.”
You take a deep breath, and continue.
“That’s why you’ll keep meeting me again and again, even if we just met yesterday. It will be today, yesterday, tomorrow and the day after that. Over and over until I get this right.”
Rem looks at you with her head tilted and frowns. She seems confused. You are too, to be honest. But as the saying goes, if you don’t solve the problem, it’ll never be solved.
“The point is that I know certain facts: in around two days, the Witch’s Cult is going to assault lord Roswaal’s mansion, and everybody in it is going to die. Because that everybody includes Emilia, who is those damn cultists’ main target, that lowlife Puck is going to trigger the Apocalypse. You get where I’m coming from?”
Rem puts a hand on her chin and nods, agreeing with you.
“… So we have to save Emilia. Then, we need to make sure the rest of the people at the mansion are fine as well.”
“That’s right!”
“We could start with Ram, though.”
“We could also do that.”
“She is the head maid, after all. The one who would know if the other servants are slacking off in their work.”
“You’re absolutely right, Rem.”
“Do you want to go immediately?”
You wish to grab Rem’s hand and just jump through the flowered fields towards that clown bastard’s mansion, probably as you and Rem chant some song, but you know how that story ends.
“I’m afraid we need support. As in people with guns… I mean, swords, magic and shit like that. A big ton of those kinds of people who can do murder for us.”
She grabs her chin and looks to the side to think.
“Well, maybe Crusch is up for it.”
“Who’s that?”
“Subaru…”
You shake your head.
“Sorry. Listen, Crusch Karsten is a fantastic lady, but in reality she’s a temporary ally until we get Emilia to safety. They are opponents in the race for the throne. Also, I can’t see her being willing to sacrifice her own people for what she will consider a delusional kid telling wild lies to her militarily raised, firm ass.”
“Let me think about it… You said that you can travel back in time.”
“I might have actually said that, yes.”
“So you know that asking Crusch for support won’t help because it didn’t. Is that the gist of it?”
“Yes, I suppose that… Wait. What are you thinking?”
She points to her own eyes, then points to yours.
“We re-enact what happened!”
You can only admire her enthusiasm and unconditional support. In truth, though, you could also grab her, carry her to an inn, get together under the sheets and not see the light of the sun for a few months. Can’t do that, though.
“Rem, Remi, Rem. I told you it won’t work! It’s like a Sisyphean thing.”
“Don’t know what that means…”
“You figure that I should just word my proposal differently?”
“No, dummy. Haven’t you learned anything new from your last life, something that could possibly convince Crusch to help?”
“Dummy… That word sounds so precious coming from your lips.”
Rem blushes, and pokes your chest.
“Behave!”
You smile, and start thinking.
“Oh shit, I did meet that crazy fucker. I know his name. Maybe that rings a bell for the duchess?”

To avoid getting Crusch all military-like, you asked her staff for her whereabouts. Turns out that Crusch was having a meeting with some guy from the merchant guild or some shit like that. They told us the location, and after we informed her guards, Crusch agreed to meet us for a while in a downtown restaurant. I doubt Crusch considered the size of our wallets when she chose the place, though.
Crusch came with Wilhelm, and she seemed in a reasonably good mood, although by her admission tired from dealing with merchants.
“Crusch, I’m glad to see you’re well”, you say.
“Yes, I’m fine. Didn’t change much from a few hours ago.”
You and Rem eat from a meal that shouldn’t be served to bums like you, but Crusch seems willing to pay. A fancily dressed waitress talks to Wilhelm casually.
“Hey Wilhelm, what do you think of the flavor?”
“…It’s great.”
“Tell me, does it remind you of the flavor of the food you ate when you were still in the knight order? I’m asking since I tried to make it taste like what was served in the old days.”
“Well then, perhaps it’s just as good as what we had.”
The main course arrives. The food must have influenced Crusch’s mood enough to consider your wild words.
“Duchess Crusch, does the name Petelgeuse, associated with a certain Witch’s Cult, ring any bell in that pretty head of yours?”
Crusch stops her loaded fork midway through, and narrows her eyes at you.
“I’m not sure”, she answers. “Why don’t we talk about your hobbies rather than the Witch’s Cult?”
“I do not have any hobbies.”
“Everyone has a hobby.”
“My hobby is to ask about this Petelgeuse guy. C’mon, Crusch. Anything.”
“If you want to tell me your hobby, then just tell me. If not, then don’t.”
You stare into her eyes for a while, before sighing. You don’t want a playful Crusch right at this moment. It does make her hotter, though.
“…My hobby is trying to make the impossible possible”, you say.
“The impossible?”
“Yeah. Something that shouldn’t happen, but turns out to be true despite all odds. For example, making you talk about this Petelgeuse prick.”
“Ah… I thought you were going to tell me about your hobby.”
“Well, you didn’t answer. Do you know him or not?”
“I wasn’t aware that I was under investigation”, she says with a smirk, as she continues eating.
You furrow your brows at her, before shoving another spoonful of beans into your face.
You notice Wilhelm’s piercing stare on your sensitive skin.
“Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti.”
“Yes, Wilhelm?”
“The madman’s name is Petelgeuse. You have such a fetish for him.”
You rest your forearms on the table for a moment, and then you lift your face again.
“So you actually had heard about Petelgeuse, Wilhelm?”
“I have. I was assigned to assassinate him about a decade ago. There was a peasant uprising, and the king sent several of us to take care of it. We were successful, but not before he had destroyed half of the rebel’s camp with some hellish magic.”
“You must work under a very generous definition of the world ‘successful’.”
Wilhelm widens his nostrils.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that Petelgeuse is one of the big guys leading the Witch’s Cult. Maybe the man at the top. Did you know that?”
“The Witch’s Cult is a bunch of heretics that shouldn’t exist, let alone have any influence.”
You chuckle nervously, and contain a sigh.
“I don’t want more information about the Witch’s Cult, though, or at least just the information that pertains to you people finding the connection between this Petelgeuse fuck and the Witch’s Cult interesting.”
“What happened to you?”
After a brief silence, you clear your throat. When you look over to Crusch, who had asked the question, you see that her expression has soured, and she seems about to reproach you something.
“To me…?”
“I consider a major faux pas addressing the existence of the cult in any setting that doesn’t provide barf bags at hand.”
“I didn’t mean to ruin your meal, Crusch. Maybe I should have gone for a formal meeting again… In any case, I want to ask you this formally. If you had the chance to kill Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti, would you?”
“That’s a silly question.”
“Why?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods? Of course I would kill that cultist fuck. He and his kind caused… They did major damage to me.”
“Well, I know that the Witch’s Cult is going to attack a certain place, and during a relatively flexible span of time.”
“A place? What place?”
You clear your throat.
“Roswaal’s mansion.”
Crusch furrows her brow.
“That doesn’t sound good. You sure about that?”
You nod.
“Pretty sure, yeah.”
“How sure?”
“About a hundred percent, more or less.”
Crusch sighs.
“I don’t even want to say this, truly, but is this one of those things you saw or did in another dimension?”
You stutter for a moment, and look over to Rem for support. She smiles at you sweetly, but doesn’t seem too eager to do anything else.
“Miss Rem, can you attest that the information that Natsuki Subaru has regarding an attack on Roswaal’s mansion by the Witch’s Cult is accurate?”, Crusch asks.
“Honestly, no”, she says with an understanding tone.
You close your eyes tight for a moment.
“I trust that what Subaru says will happen will happen”, Rem adds.
“Because he says so”, says Crusch.
“… Yes.”
Crusch takes a deep breath, rubbing her forehead with her hand.
“Mr. Natsuki, with all due respect…”
“Aw, shit”, you say.
“We need some degree of certainty of where they are going to hit and when…”
“And I’m me. I know.”
You quickly wolf down the rest of the food, and begin to stand up. Crusch and Wilhelm are a bit surprised by your haste. Crusch’s face suggests she worries about whether she’s hurt you in any way.
As Rem stands next to you, her hand’s warm skin touching yours, you address the duchess.
“Miss Karsten, I think the man who will eventually marry you, who will for sure be a noble of some kind, is going to be so lucky, but he will have no clue. And yet I feel that I cannot ever make you understand that when I say that something is going to happen because I have already lived it in the future, it’s because that’s exactly the case.”
You pat her on the shoulder, which seems to surprise her, and it mixes with the confusion on her face.
You make your way to the door, and you look over your shoulder.
“We’ll never be back in this place. I can’t afford it.”
Rem tugs at your sleeve and suggests you should go.

---

Some observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior on this part.

-Most of this paragraph, ‘But something is different. Something changed in this death. When you fell through the darkness and saw those smoky arms grasping at you, you could concentrate on the feeling: it was a form of love you never truly experienced before. Towards Emilia, Rem, even Beatrice… and even Crusch. That love poured from the presence in that darkness as if water from a spring. When the being responsible for those arms grabbed you, it did not hurt. It felt warm. That’s when you knew she loved you. You still love her as well. In that moment, knowing that love, you could barely hear the words of displeasure from that presence, and your life was spared. That is why you are here, back at the mansion, alive and well in a bed where you lay your head. And now, after having experienced what was probably a miracle, you will do everything in your power to make it happen again’, came almost verbatim from GPT-3. I was mesmerized watching it unfold.
-Regarding the main scene with Wilhelm, GPT-3 was making him be far nicer than he turned out to be in this version. Wilhelm suggesting that the protagonist maybe should care as well for his own life was GPT-3’s idea, and took me as well as the protagonist by surprise. GPT-3 also had the bright idea of forcing the start of a training session on the protagonist. I was going to close the scene right before that.
-I love the zany conversation between the protagonist and Rem. I prompted the protagonist’s initial confusing attempt to explain his time travel abilities, but every one of his confusing, yet completely reasonable, following utterances on that topic were almost verbatim from GPT-3, even including the manic tone.
-Rem’s line ‘She is the head maid, after all. The one who would know if the other servants are slacking off in their work’, was verbatim from GPT-3. I like how charmingly superfluous it is. It seems that me referring to Ram as senior servant paid off as well as GPT-3’s understanding is concerned.
-Natsuki forgetting who Crusch is was GPT-3’s suggestion. To be fair, GPT-3 does confuse names relatively often. One would think that it would be the easiest thing for an AI to associate.
-I prompted a few times for GPT-3 to create some fancy description and/or flow for the restaurant scene’s setting, but the AI refused.
-That random conversation regarding the food, with Wilhelm as the hardly willing participant, was almost verbatim from GPT-3, although the AI didn’t say who was talking to him.
-The whole deal about Crusch demanding to know about hobbies was GPT-3’s thing. To be honest, I had no clue whether Crusch knew about Petelgeuse or not. Just went with the flow.
-Although I did prompt Wilhelm to suggest he does know Petelgeuse, in order for that scene not to be a complete waste, that war story was GPT-3’s thing. It does fit, though; Wilhelm is the person that the kingdom would have sent to a war zone in an assassination mission.
-I prompted Crusch to be sour regarding the protagonist bringing up bad memories. Her brother had been killed by cultists, as GPT-3 came up with in some previous part. If she just kept being silly, it would have fucked with her characterization.

Things got quite hardcore in this one, as the protagonist had to deal with the infamous madman Petelgeuse. However, I was pleased that one of the best sequences in the original (that in which the protagonist has fallen into a catatonic state, Petelgeuse captures him and then he tortures Rem to death), couldn’t happen in this strange AI-fueled version I’m doing, because the protagonist’s mental state is doing quite fine in general. So I roleplayed through a fresh approach at preventing the cultists from bringing forth Puck’s Apocalypse. The events of this new part still fall in the fifth volume of Re:Zero, but this part completes that volume.

As I mentioned in the previous part, I decided that Satella’s choice to forbid the protagonist from speaking about his curse wasn’t my cupe of (Echidna’s) tea, so he can freely blabber about it to whoever he damn pleases. However, that of course means that the way to push “Petelgeuse’s spirit” from the protagonist’s mind won’t work in this version. Maybe Beatrice could put up some magical barriers in his mind or something?

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

• Previous part (6)
• Next part (8)

---

Shortly after sunset, as you were yawning, you reach the same village you stopped at in your previous life. When you step out of the carriage near some others, your brain can barely handle the strangeness of it all. Rem announces that she’s going to rent a room for the night. You nod and wander a bit. You end up recognizing a carriage as belonging to Otto, and you see the guy handling his inventory on the back of it. You find yourself smiling. You truly did travel back in time. Was it a one time thing? Did Beatrice cause it, wanting to save your life? If so, you should bow to the ground the next time you see her.
You’re broken out of your thoughts by a man in very fancy clothing. You can’t even see his face behind the giant gem on his crown. He glares at you with disgust, and you don’t understand why. You try to smile at him, but he only clutches his staff of ornately carved wood with multiple jewels embedded in it tighter.
“You… Your clothes, they’re so… Common.”
Common? Was he insulting your fashion sense?
“Who did you steal that crown from? No member of the nobility would find himself caught in such a midway village like this. Who are you?” You ask, a little irritated. He didn’t answer your question. The man looked down his nose at you, and, once again, you almost swooned from such a pose. “I am Count Grey. Who are you?”
“I’m Natsuki Subaru. I’m new to the area.”
“Hmm… You don’t look like a bad lot… What brings you here?”
You were caught off guard by the friendly nature of the man.
“What, are you the count of this actual region?”
“Count? No, I’m the count of nothing. I’m a simple merchant. Buying and selling all over the place. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
You narrow your eyes at him, and look to the side to see if Rem is done.
“Is getting drunk in this midway village a merchant tradition?” You say, as the man looks over at the tavern.
“Not really? The owner is just an old friend of mine, we served in the army together. He likes to see me whenever I come here.”
You step away from the guy.
“I’m sorry. You thought I wanted to talk to you, but I don’t.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with me?!” He says getting upset.
“I don’t know you, and I’m already not liking your attitude. Fuck off.” You say, as the man becomes visibly upset at you.
“Well excuse me for trying to be friendly! I only wanted to ask if you wanted to join my company. It’s not like I’m stealing from you!”
You pause as he says this, so he continues.
“I’m a business man! I’m offering you a job! You think you could make it as a merchant? Then you should join me, and we’ll both make lots of money!”
You know you’re being manipulated by him, but it’s not like you’re doing much now. He seems to want you to come with him, so maybe he’ll lead you to another city, or a more populated area at least. You’d have a chance to start over.
“Listen, buddy, if I had just happened to end up here shortly after coming over from my previous dimension, maybe this offer of yours could become the start of a profitable relationship, as well as maybe a friendship, and plenty of other adventures that could have held some interest. But the truth is that I have a cute little demon servant waiting for me to get into a bedroom with her, so kindly fuck off back to your alcohol.”
Yeah, I would’ve said something like that.
Just fucking with you. I would’ve said yes. If I joined his company he probably would have just hired me as a guard or something mundane like that, so I would have made sure to find out what the company was dealing in first. If it was anything to do with spice, slave-girls, or other drugs, then I would have turned him down immediately.
…Although it would have made a better story if I had said something similar to my response above.
“Quit messing with me, Puck.”
“Fine, fine, you’re too boring anyway. I was just having fun.”
Puck disappears in a small puff of smoke, and you swear you hear the little cunt laughing somewhere far away.
You are shocked that not only Puck’s name came to your mind subconsciously as you were dismissing someone irritating, but that it was actually Puck fucking with you. That Apocalypse-triggering fuckhead has too much free time.
Rem approaches you maneuvering through the citizens and the merchants.
“I got our room. What’s wrong? You are making a strange face.”
“Nothing, let’s go.”
You and Rem enter the tavern. It’s filled with the sounds of people talking over each other and the clanging of mugs on tables. Smoke from pipes and cigarettes fill the room, and alcohol flows freely. Loud laughing comes from a group of dwarves in one corner. A beautiful elf notices you and smiles, making a gesture to ask if you want to sit with her.
“Sorry, elf lady, I already have another one partly belonging to your kind that I’m thinking about. Rem, do you want to waste our time here in the tavern for a bit, or do you want to just go to the room you rented?”
“I don’t mind. What do you want to do, Party Leader?”
“I’d say that getting to a bedroom with your cute demon self sounds like a better idea.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Lead the way.”
You take Rem’s hand and head to the room she rented for you. The two of you ascend a large flight of stairs, then down a hallway until you find the room you’re looking for. A quick twist of the door’s handle and you’re in, with the door closed behind you.
“So….” Rem says, leaning against the door as if to make sure nobody else enters. “…What did you want to do?”
As you look back towards her from the center of the bedroom, you notice her bashfulness and her reddening cheeks, and you feel a tightness in your throat. Although you do like Rem very much, it was your instinct to throw jokes around that had landed you in this compromising situation. At the sudden realization that you had Rem in front of you not entirely unwilling to engage in a more personal contact with you, you feel fear. Fear of being rejected, maybe, of not being enough, of disappointing her. Or maybe of getting attached to her too much.
“Anything you want…”
Rem’s voice breaks you out of your chain of thoughts, and those words resonate within your head. Anything you want…
You could approach this in a safe way. You could settle for being friends with benefits. You could also just be satisfied with the fact that Rem trusted you enough to come back here with you, and didn’t find any reason to fear you. Or…
“I want to be yours.”
Rem holds her hands against her chest and her eyes sparkle as she looks up at you. She approaches you softly, step by step. You are caught in the middle of taking a step back.
“I want to be yours…”
I…
“You may do so. I am yours, and you are my master.”
I…!
“If you want…”
You close the gap between you and Rem as you softly hold her cheeks, leaning your face against hers in a slow yet eager manner. Her lips part slightly as she closes her eyes in expectation of the kiss. You rub your nose against hers, breathing in the scent of her body’s warmth and closeness.
“Rem, when did you start liking me this way?”
“When we first met. You were so kind to me, even if you had a rather scary face, the type that I’ve never seen before.”
“But why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you wouldn’t like me back. I was also scared that the first time we met, with you being so scary and all…”
You chuckle nervously.
“One would think that you being an Oni at all, used to an extent to burying your fangs on people, and belonging to a long line of demons, wouldn’t have any reason to be scared of a guy as pitiful as me.”
“I’m not. You’re human, but you’re also so much more than that, Natsuki-san.”
You place your hand over Rem’s heart. Something stirs inside of you as you feel the warmth of her body heat.
“It feels disrespectful, somehow. No, not somehow. I wasn’t kidding, nor crazy, when I told you all that the Witch’s Cult is going to assault Roswaal’s mansion. I don’t know if we should be doing something like this now.”
“I agree, Natsuki-san. I respect your wishes.”
The rest of the night until you both get to bed passes in a blur, and you can barely remember anything beyond Rem directing sweet smiles at you and wishing you a good night’s sleep as she shuts the light. Your erection must have been overtly noticeable despite your silly attempts at turning away.

The next day, you and Rem wake up well before the sun. You feel a rush of panic as you realize the task ahead of you, as well as the dangers along the way. You know that the cultists could ambush your carriage on the road leading to the village, and you might find them massacring the innocent villagers as soon as you get there. Will Rem’s demonic strength and her strange flail be enough? Certainly you can’t contribute anything to this victory beyond your foreknowledge.
“You feeling alright?”, Rem asks, dressed already and looking up at you while holding her hands behind her back. “Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
“I slept fine, thank you. What about you?”
“I slept like a baby, sir.”
Once you haul your luggage to your carriage and leave the village towards the still somewhat distant mansion, you look to your left at Rem, who is holding the reins of the ground dragon.
“Please, be on guard at all times. Wilhelm was mostly right in that regard, but during this trip to the mansion, you should be on guard to a hundred percent. You understand, Rem? We might get ambushed by cultists at any point along the way.”
“I share your hatred of cultists, but Subaru, we’ve done this route plenty of times without any issue.”
You shake your head, mostly thinking out loud to yourself.
“They’re probably acting on their own, or maybe one person is leading them, I don’t know. All I know is they’ll be trying to kill us, and we need to be ready to kill them first.”
You stare out into the quiet forest as the individual trees pass in a blur. Some time later, Rem suddenly lets out a small cry and she bends forward while pushing her hand against her chest. The sudden pull on the reins makes the ground dragon veer towards the forest and it nearly crashes into a tree, but it stopped to prevent it. The ground dragon looks back as if demanding an explanation. Rem is breathing fast, her pupils have shrunk, and sweat is beading on her forehead.
“My sister, Ram… She just called me, telepathically. She’s in danger.”
“Fuck! We’re too far from the village, and it has already started!”
Rem thinks deeply for a moment while you try to calm yourself. You don’t know what Ram’s situation is, but you do know that getting angry won’t help anything. Even if you go all out, it’ll still take a few hours before you reach the village again.
“I have so many questions,” says Rem with fear in her voice, “but it doesn’t matter now. We need to be quick.”
She readies the carriage again and you resume your trip, but going faster.
“Subaru, is it really the Witch’s Cult? How could you possibly know?”, Rem asks you, and the suspicion on her voice pricks your skin.
“I kept telling you. I truly lived through this already, and ended up dying at the mansion. I don’t know how, Rem, but I managed to go back in time to Crusch’s place. It was the Witch’s Cult, black-robed, wielding cross-shaped daggers and all!”
Rem says nothing, but you can feel her surprise.
“Yeah… I somehow turned to ice, I think. Beatrice was there.”
Rem continues driving as fast as she can, and you spend the rest of the trip in silence.
At some point, the forest gives way to the familiar sight of the village. On top of the roofs of several houses, you can see people waving weapons around. They must be preparing for the attack.
There’s a group of villagers gathered at the central plaza, and you get glimpses of the children as they look worried through some house’s windows.
You approach the village chief, who despite wearing his usual wizardy robes, this time he’s holding on to a decent-looking sword.
“Hey, chief. If you are gathered to prepare for an attack, someone must have informed you of an incoming threat, right? Please inform me of the situation.”
“Ah, the Hero of Time. Come to grace us with your presence once again?”
“You didn’t answer my question, chief.”
The chief stares at you in the same way a parent would look at their child.
“You really think I would bother informing you of such things? I am no longer in need of a puppet.”
You look around irritated at the other armed villagers, men and women, who look concerned.
“Does any of you have a modicum of sense in your damned villager brains to inform me whether anyone from Roswaal’s mansion has alerted you of an incoming attack?”
“Well, uh, we just found out from a villager that there are suspicious people wandering nearby.”
“How many?”
“Two, possibly three.”
“Damn it!” you mutter under your breath.
Rem approaches you from the side. She’s putting on a tough, warrior face, and seems ready to grasp at her hidden flail at any second.
“Ram must be scouting, or maybe the cultists intended to hit the mansion first.”
“Then we need to move now!”
“We don’t even know how many they are, or where they exactly are!” the chief replies.
You’re put in a stalemate with the villager. You have to figure out what to do next.
“Rem, can we really leave these people to their fates…?”, you say, unwilling to look at the villagers in the eye.
“Either we stay here and the cultists hit the village first, in which case we’ll have serious trouble stemming the tide without Ram and Emilia, or the Witch’s Cult is already hitting the mansion, so we would just be failing them if we were to stay here. I suggest we hurry uphill and make sure that my sister and everybody else is okay.”
Your heart beats quick and you can hardly contain your hands from trembling. These people do not wish to be involved with the Witch’s Cult, they’re just doing their job to defend this area. It’d be downright cowardly to leave them behind. And yet…
At this point, the chief raises his voice and begins to yell.
“People! We’re being attacked by the Witch’s Cult! Gather your weapons and prepare to fight! If they breach the village, fall back to the manor! Don’t die out here!”
The gathered villagers look at each other, given that they are already holding their weapons.
You shake your head.
“Seems like you villagers have this under control. Rem, let’s run to the mansion.”
Rem nods.
Although a couple of minutes of running are burning your lungs, Rem looks as if she moonlights as a marathon runner. She keeps glancing at hidding spots and the nearby woods. Suddenly, she stops on her tracks and slightly crouches down. You hear it then, something zipping through the air and lodging itself into a tree trunk. It’s a cross-shaped dagger.
You half run, half crawl closer to Rem, but she shoots you a look with fiery eyes.
“No, find somewhere to hide!”
Three black-robed cultists slide from behind some trees and face Rem in the open. She breathes deeply, suddenly holding her flail. The enormous spiked ball rests on the ground.
“Witch cultists!”, Rem roars. “Come at me, so I can crush your bones under my heel!”
The three cultists seem hesitant to approach, instead throwing their daggers at Rem. She bats them away with her flail and charges the closest one. One of them readies another dagger, but otherwise he makes no effort to move away. A flick of Rem’s flail tears his torso from his legs. The other two cultists slide to her sides and ready their secondary daggers. Silently, from different angles, both cultists thrust forward towards Rem with their daggers.
“Rem!”, you yell in a broken voice.
Rem pivots on herself and smacks the daggers out of their hands with her flail. They’re now helplessly unarmed, but Rem doesn’t even look at them as a threat anymore. Instead, she walks up to one, grabs him by the collar and lifts him into the air.
“Witch cultist!” She growls. “Where is your master?! Tell me!” She squeezes him, causing his eyes to bug out.
As you were stepping forward towards the enraged servant demon, you notice that two cultists have materialized in the path, and are staring at you from the darkness inside their hoods. They are holding their cross-shaped daggers, but if they had intended to kill you they had plenty of opportunity to do so before you noticed their presence.
For a while, they simply stare at you. Then, they both pull their daggers and begin to walk towards you.
Rem, shooting a look back, drops the cultist she was holding to the ground, she steps on his hooded face savagely, and then jumps back towards you as she swings the flail to intercept the two cultists that approach you.
The spiked ball rips through both cultists at once, exploding their upper torsos in a bloody mess that splashes your face. You cough as you stagger to the side. Rem notices that the remaining unarmed witch cultist was sliding towards the forest, and she flicks the stained spiked ball of her flail towards the black-robed figure. The spiked ball flies through the air with a whistling sound, and it hits the cultist in the back of his or her knee. As the person falls forward, they raise their arms to break their fall, but the flail wraps around their arms and pulls them face first into the ground. Their face is embedded into the earth as their arms are pulled backwards at an unnatural angle.
Rem, barely breathing harder, flips the spiked ball towards herself and grabs it with her spare hand. She looks around while frowning.
“That seems to be all for now.”
In a daze, you had bent over and taken one of the cross-shaped daggers, feeling that it would be better for you to be armed.
“Let’s finish this one off”, Rem says.
You both walk over to the one that’s face down in the dirt. Rem pulls his head up by the hair, and after the demon servant looks at you giving you a silent order, you plunge your dagger into the back of the guy’s neck. Afterwards you wipe your dagger off on the person’s robe.
“They must have reached the mansion’s grounds already”, Rem says with a tense voice. “We need to hurry”.
While you run behind the demon servant who you are quickly beginning to look up to as if to a god, you realize that you just murdered someone. If you had thought about it in the past, in your previous world perhaps, you would have thought that it would have tormented your mind, made you drop to your knees in a panic for the entire future of a person that you had stolen. But you feel nothing except the relief that someone who intended to kill the people you cared about is gone. You tighten your grip on the stolen dagger.
“I must say, though, Rem, that you are super hardcore.”
“This is no time for jokes, Natsuki Subaru”, Rem says.
“I’m serious! That… that was beautiful! How did you learn to fight like that?! I don’t even know what half the things you did were!”
“It’s training, instinct, and talent.”
“Even so, you didn’t even think about the moves! It was all muscle memory and instinct! You’re amazing!”
“You already said that.”
“I thought it was true twice!”
You arrive to the bend of the path from which you can see the mansion ground’s gate, as well as the vast yards, with the large building of the mansion itself in the background. You see black-robed figures lying around bloodied near the gate, but more importantly, past the open gate, the familiar figure of the senior servant is jumping around and shooting wind spells out of her hands towards the black-robed figures that are maneuvering around her. You faintly hear some yelling coming from there.
Rem shouts her sister’s name and sprints towards the fight, leaving behind in mere seconds. You pant towards them, although you have no clue how you could help them.
You stop by the side of the gate and watch as the senior servant girl fights the black-robed assailants. She’s extremely skilled with her wind magic. You didn’t even know she could use it in such a way, but then again, she’s not one to open up. Rem launches the spiked ball of her flail towards the cultists that Ram can’t handle. With both sisters combining their forces, the cultists end up being surrounded and annihilated. You trot to reach them. You feel yourself covered in warm sweat, and you need to breathe through your mouth. Ram greets you with a cold gaze.
“Bless your luck that my sister accompanied you back to Roswaal’s domain.”
“Glad to see you too, Ram. Things seem to be going well so far.”
Ram snorts.
“Not thanks to you, for sure.”
“Ram…”, Rem says.
Ram steps forward, while the latent magic of her wind spells blurs her right hand.
“Is this really the moment for you to act bitchy towards me?”
“Fuck you, I’m not done talking! You were ordered to stay away from this mansion, and now the Witch’s Cult assaults us.”
You briefly step back as you raise your palms towards the angry senior servant.
“Hey, Ram, don’t go suggesting wild connections.”
Rem puts a hand on her sister’s shoulder.
“Subaru is right, sister”, she says with a calming voice.
Ram seems surprised at her sister defending you.
“Ah?”
“As far as I know, Subaru didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not his fault the Witch’s Cult is acting out of line. After all, we know that they pursue lady Emilia, and she just showed herself to the wide world.”
Ram keeps her gaze down towards the ground and sighs briefly.
“Ram, is everybody at the mansion alright? Have the cultists breached in?”
“No, they haven’t breached inside. We can’t relax, though, the first line of defense is strong, but I’m not sure how long it will hold.”
Rem nods as well.
“We might have to use the escape tunnels, if…”
You shake your head.
“Where the hell is Roswaal? That bastard knew that the Witch’s Cult was going to make a move towards using Emilia for their resurrection thing, and yet he just pranced away!”
Ram stiffens and casts you a murderous glance.
“That tongue of yours calls for a pair of scalding pliers. Lord Roswaal had business to deal with in Sanctuary. It seems that Garfiel is acting up again.”
You are hesitant to open your mouth, as it sets in that Ram has every right to be angry at you.
“I don’t know what Sanctuary is, nor why would this Garfiel person be so important to distract your precious lord from his duties. Listen, I want to make sure that Emilia and Beatrice are okay. Can I go into the mansion?”
“…Yes. Go make sure they are safe.”
Rem, while frowning, stares at her sister, and then glances at the road that descends towards the village.
“Ram, can you handle defending the gates by yourself, for a while at least?”
Ram briefly opens her mouth only to close it again. Her brow trembles.
“Yes…”
“Good. I’ll go with Subaru to make sure everyone in the mansion is safe.”
Rem turns to you, and gives a small bow of her head.
“If you would accompany me, Natsuki-san.”
You nod to her, and begin jogging up the path that leads towards the mansion. After about a minute of running, Rem quickly opens the door, and you find yourselves in the silent, gloomy inside. You lean over to whisper in the nervous Rem’s ear.
“Where would Emilia be? I suppose there must be some protocol if the Witch’s Cult of all people attack the mansion.”
Rem shakes her head as if ashamed.
“I wouldn’t know myself. Emilia receives her orders directly from Roswaal in regards such as those. I suppose she’s ordered to hide somewhere, but I wouldn’t know every secret place in this mansion, which is part of the point.”
“That’s troubling. We have no clue if she’s alive or not”, you stop to think. “Well, we do know. The world hasn’t ended.”
Rem glances at you with a confused look, and tries a smile.
“You must really care for her.”
“Eh? I mean that the world literally ends, or at least starts to end, if Emilia dies. That’s part of the point. You can blame your shitty pal Puck for that.”
Rem looks away in a huff.
“I won’t allow anyone to defame him, even you.”
“He’s a pet cat for you, I guess. He’s the troublesome sort for me, as far as I’m concerned, although other more potent words come to mind. In any case, we must keep moving. We aren’t making sure of anything if we just stay in place.”
After a couple of steps towards the stairs, you stop and feel a chill running through you.
“Oh shit, that corridor. That rocky corridor in Roswaal’s office!”
“Huh?”

You run towards Roswaal’s office while Rem follows you, in order to figure out if the rocky passage in which you died the last time is open, but Rem ends up guiding you, given that you only have blurry images of those final moments of your previous life. As soon as you both enter, you see that the passage to the rocky corridor is open, although it doesn’t seem to breathe an icy coldness this time. Rem’s mouth is hanging open, and she shakes her head.
“That must be a secret passage. I had no idea it existed. Why is it still open? How come you even knew it was there?”
“Rem, I keep telling you as well as other people. I literally came here before in this day, the first time I lived this day I mean, and Beatrice guided me to this passage. It was freezing inside though, back then. I died, and then somehow was transported back to the past. But I come from another dimension, so I can’t say that many things can surprise me at this point.”
“Another… dimension? That sounds absolutely crazy. No one can just travel between dimensions.”
“Apparently that’s a vicious lie.”
“So this is the passage that leads to… Where?”, Rem asks with a dubitative tone.
“I don’t know. I entered it, it got too cold, I fell to the ground and died. But it should be fine now, or we would have noticed the cold already.”
“So, what’s in there?”
You gently put your hand on Rem’s shoulder. Rem is looking fearful, which suggests to you that you should be completely terrified.
“I have no idea. If I had to guess… Roswaal’s inner sanctum. The place where he hides his clown porn. Let’s quit stalling, Rem. I want to see how clown porn looks like.”
“Um… Okay.”
Rem goes through the passage, ready to take whatever is beyond it. You follow her, although you’re not quite as ready as she is.
You both walk through a cold dark corridor for quite awhile. You start to wonder if you’re even going in the right direction when you see light at the end of the corridor.
“It’s about time something went right”, you mutter.
You walk out the corridor, and into a room filled with bookshelves, a table stacked with books, and two chests. There’s also a single door which is locked tight. The books seem to be organized in a system that you don’t quite understand.
“Seems like that Roswaal bastard didn’t actually need his librarian Beatrice after all.”
“Those are his writings?”, Rem says in amazement, “I didn’t think he was such a scholar.”
“He’s not. The person who wrote these is most definitely not him. If you look at the books, you can tell that they’re not written by the same person.”
“Oh… Then who wrote them?”
“No idea. I barely cared about books before. I was a manga kind of person. Clearly Emilia isn’t here, but maybe we should try that locked door.”
“Yes.”
You walk over to the door and try it, but it’s locked. You sigh.
“As expected, locked is locked. Rem, can you try bursting it open with your flail, or something?”
“I can try, but it’s a wooden door, if I do that then there goes our cover.”
“True, but we still haven’t found Emilia, and it’s getting late.”
Rem begins thinking deeply, as you observe the door. It’s not even that strong of a door really. Certainly not for a secret room like this.
“Let’s just break it down!”, you say frustrated.
“Alright”, she replies.
You step aside as she charges in and smashes the door open with her flail. As soon as the dust settles and your ears recover from the burst, you realize that quickened footsteps of several people are rushing towards the small library you are in. You jump away from the doorway, tense, and Rem adopts a fighting stance.
A mass of black-robed cultists push themselves through the doorway into the reduced space of the room. Rem yells and launches her spiked ball against them, while you hit your back against a bookshelf, which slowly falls backwards.
As the books fall all over, you feel yourself getting pushed to the side by some cultist. You can’t tell how Rem is doing, but you take the opportunity to plunge your dagger into a random black-robed back. One of the cultists slides next to you and stabs you in the side.
You yell out in pain, which alerts Rem to the fact you’re in trouble. She turns around, but a few other cultists jump on top of her and start plunging their daggers in her over and over. Rem lets out gasping cries which freeze your blood. As you repeat Rem’s name, you feel yourself lifted by your limbs, and carried through the doorway deeper into the dark corridor Rem had opened. You can barely tell anything except that the cultists are hauling you down a winding, downwards ramp. You hear a distant voice with a crazed tone, like the yells you would hear in a mental institution.
“Welcome, m’boy! I’m sure yer wonderin’ where you are. Ahahahaha! Well, this is tha’ labyrinth of madness I was talkin’ about!”
The cultists drop you in the ground and stop. You are in a room with rough rock walls, and it is lit with a couple of torches. In its center there is a strange, human-sized crystal in which something liquid glows and churns. The crazed voice that had welcomed you belongs to a cultist wearing a black robe like the others, but in his case he has his hood down. He has a bowl cut of dark green hair, and his face is that of a man in his early thirties but emaciated as if he had been kept alive unnaturally for a hundred years. In horror, you realize that somehow the limp body of Emilia is hanging in the air near the big crystal, and Emilia’s arms are bent in strange ways if they belonged to a puppet.
You still hear the faint, painful cries of Rem in the distance, or maybe they just echo through your brain. Hot tears are running through your cheeks, and you want to vomit. You feel dizzy. The world seems to be going dark for you.
“Now, now, there’s no need for anguish,” the man says.
The madman walks over to you and lifts your face by your chin. His eyes are dead, without a hint of sanity in them, and he brandishes a smile that has nothing to do with happiness.
“If my cultists didn’t kill you, then you must be really important. Indeed, I feel it, I see it there. It exudes out of you. You are blessed, aren’t you, kid. What is your name?”
“Fuck off, you crazed cunt. Your shitstains already murdered Rem twice. Who might you be to begin with?” you snarl.
“You may call me Petelgeuse. Tell me, do you know what this place is? This little chamber with the beautiful magic crystal in the middle?”
“As far as it contains any of you, a fucking insane asylum that needs to be shut down by the authorities.”
Petelgeuse laughs. As he does, crinkles form at the corners of his eyes. He was a handsome man at one point, but now you’d have to ignore the whole being pasty and corpse-like thing.
“We’re all a bit mad here. But in here, I’m not only sane, but also omniscient. When you came in here and we made eye contact, didn’t you feel that I saw straight through your very soul? That’s why my cultists and I are so powerful. We share a bond, you could say. They worship me as their god.”
“So they’re crazy too?”
“They have their moments.” He grins.
“Well, I know some things. I know you deranged fucks want to bring back your witch Satella into the world, and that you want to murder an innocent for it.”
“Yes… I can see that you know. Sensational, isn’t it? There are so many things you could tell me. So many secrets you must have kept hidden from others. Why not share them with me? We’re friends now, are we not? I will release you from this prison cell.”
“I don’t think so. You’ve already murdered two people I care about. I’m not eager to get all friendly with you.”
Petelgeuse laughs harder than ever before.
You glare at the madman and speak to him with a hard voice, although you haven’t stopped crying.
“What is it about this Satella witch that is so important for you?”
“Why, she’s my wife!”
“W-what?”
“Yes, that’s right. She’s my wife. When we first came up with this plan of bringing her back, it was just going to be me and her. But then I realized that I needed help. So I looked among people who were in love, and who revered love. People who would want to be brought back together forever. And look! I found so many!”
“Satella died four hundred years ago. Unless you are more than four hundred years old, this must be one of those figures of speech, I’m guessing.”
“My, my. You are more clever than the rest. So sharp… I like that. This is not a literal return, of course. But we need her to be in this world, if only to be at peace. Do you have any idea how it feels to be unable to experience peace even in death? The loss of Satella brought a great pain upon me, but I use that pain… Look at me, still talking and talking! More questions?
“I have an important one. How can I kill you and all of your rotten cultists so I can rid this fantasy world of the vomit stain that you represent?”
“Hah! Good question! A very important one! Well, I’d suggest killing me first. Then, kill everyone else. Or perhaps you could find a way to send all of us somewhere else. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Petelgeuse begins to laugh. He stares straight into your eyes so close that at any point he might do something crazy like biting your nose off. His breath stinks as if he’s truly failed to brush his teeth for four hundred years.
“Why has Satella blessed you, a nobody, a lowly man-boy, you who haven’t received the summons to respond to Her love?”
“Maybe my princess fell in love with me.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It is so.”
The man furrows his brows at your remark. He slowly shakes his head as if you said something completely preposterous and unbelievable. Then he jerks his back straight, grabs one of his men’s daggers, and stabs you in the face with it. When you recover from the shock, you feel it having pierced the side of your face and having lodged into your mandible. You groan in pain.
“You don’t deserve Her love. How would you? You couldn’t protect the people you cared about. You can do nothing. You kneel on the ground and witness the people you love being murdered, because you can’t, nor will, do anything to prevent it. And yet you smell like Her. The witch’s scent is in you. You possess one of her blessings.”
As the pain reddens your vision, you glance towards Emilia, who keeps hanging like a puppet. You can’t see her expression, but you suppose she’s already dead. No, she can’t be still, because the world hasn’t ended. You should do something to stop this, you should kill all of these madmen and save her. You owe them. It’s time to give them death in return. You roar and jump towards the nearest cultist. You tear the dagger from his hands and slash at his neck, which splashes you with blood, but then you are lifted in the air as if by a giant and thrown to the rock wall. When you hit it, the air escapes your lungs, and you fall to the ground. You roll around over your pierced side, gasping for air.
“A pointless display!”, Petelgeuse cries. “What could you do? The ritual is in process. With the crystal feeding its magic, it’s a matter of time until the vessel of the half-demon gets filled by Her, and then she will spread Her love to us, to all of us, even you undeserving unbelievers.”
The pain is like a fire in your chest. Butcher your way through them. Make their blood spray from the knife holes. Either you win or you lose. You plant your feet on the rough ground and lunge at Petelgeuse with your bare hands, but something grips your arms and pulls you into the air. You look at your stretched arms. They are getting deformed as if a big fist was grabbing them, but you can’t see anything doing it.
“I received a blessing from Her as well”, Petelgeuse says. “I call it Unseen Hands. I chose that name. Dozens of hands that serve me and help me spread Her love. Aren’t they wonderful? This is how much our witch cares.”
Something invisible smashes into your stomach and tosses you to the ground. Then, a heavy stinky foot crushes you into the stone.
You can’t… You can’t even breathe… You cough out blood and groan.
Two strong hands grab you under your armpits and lift you up from the ground.
“Want to see? Want to see the half-demon wake up again and Satella look from your princess’ unworthy eyes?”
You punch the… whatever this thing is, but it doesn’t even seem to feel it. No reaction at all. You feel the grip around your arm getting tighter and tighter, and then something snaps in your arm. You scream in agony.
“Don’t you want to see how beautiful Satella is?”
“Fuck you.”
“Then die.”
The hands close around your neck and squeeze tightly.
“In my next life, or the next… I will tear your heart from your chest.”
Petelgeuse tilts his head, closes his eyes and grins.
“Okay.”
An enormous hand you can’t see closes itself around your head and crushes your brains in.

---

Some observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior in this one.

-Right at the beginning, that weird guy in a noble’s clothes that approaches the protagonist as he’s waiting for Rem was entirely made up by GPT-3. I just wanted Rem to come back. It seemed interesting, so I let it in. Then it was Puck playing another one of his practical jokes. The idea of the protagonist finding out that the stranger was Puck, merely because the protagonist associates every annoying person with the magical cat, is hilarious as far as I’m concerned.
-I don’t think there are dwarves in Re:Zero’s universe, but GPT-3 insists on putting them in. Might as well.
-I merely prompted ‘I’d say that getting to a bedroom with your cute demon self sounds like a better idea.’ to the AI, and GPT-3 came up with Rem’s bashfully alluring seduction, including the ‘you are my master’ line. God, it was so hot. I prompted the protagonist’s words to stop the sex scene from going forward for the same reasons he mentions, but I have no issues with GPT-3 producing them in the future if the mood is right.
-When they reached the village, it was GPT-3 that wanted the villagers to be armed and prepared for an assault. In the original Re:Zero, the cultists always massacre the villagers first (which doesn’t make any particular sense). I saw the opportunity to prompt the protagonist to interact with the village chief, a character which was entirely made up by GPT-3 a few of these parts ago, and that seemed so randomly funny that I just wanted more of him. And GPT-3 acted him perfectly; I didn’t touch any of his lines.
-I prompted the Witch’s Cult’s goons attacking along the way to the mansion. Rem’s line ‘Come at me, so I can crush your bones under my heel!’ was verbatim from GPT-3. This whole scene was fascinating for me, because although I had to prompt the protagonist to do most of his actions (he kept getting murdered), the moves Rem does, including stuff like pivoting to sling her flail to kill two cultists coming from opposite sides, are 100% GPT-3. I have no clue how it does it. You might as well just describe a few characters to GPT-3 and prompt them to fight, and it comes up with shit like that.
-I wasn’t sure what to do with Ram. In the original we never see Ram defending the mansion’s grounds; she’s always just dead. And the mansion is truly such a vulnerable location that she might as well just defend any other corner. I had to stretch the logic of narrative there.
-First mention of Sanctuary and Garfiel, which are mejor players of arc four of the original Re:Zero. Curiously, though, that was the sole mention anywhere in this of Garfiel, and then when the protagonist and Rem entered the mansion, GPT-3 produced a moment in which Garfiel was there and speaking like an utter punk, which he does in the original series. No idea.
-Regarding scene where the protagonist and Rem go through the rocky passage, this is entirely new, because I don’t think we ever see anything of it in the original series. I liked GPT-3 creating a little library there, even though Beatrice guards the best library of magical books somewhere else in the mansion. Also, that moment when the mass of cultists bursts through the doorway and gang up on poor Rem is mostly GPT-3.
-GPT-3’s Petelgeuse was a worry of mine. I described him a bit in the hidden backstory that the AI uses to figure out plot points and dialogues, and I made a point of mentioning him as deranged and as believing he was doing things for love and all that. Also that he speaks somewhat incoherently. Most of Petelgeuse’s most convoluted dialogue lines are GPT-3’s doing, usually verbatim; I cannot even begin to approach that. I’m usually the one prompting insults into the protagonist’s mouth.
-The following exchange, ‘Why, she’s my wife!” “W-what?” “Yes, that’s right. She’s my wife. When we first came up with this plan of bringing her back, it was just going to be me and her. But then I realized that I needed help. So I looked among people who were in love, and who revered love. People who would want to be brought back together forever. And look! I found so many!’ is entirely verbatim by GPT-3, and it is so brilliant in regards to the original that I could cry.
-Petelgeuse’s major parting words, ‘Don’t you want to see how beautiful Satella is?’, were GPT-3’s idea.

Note from May of 2021:

A special guest reference to Count Grey, sort of an inside joke in a previous version of the now somewhat infamous AI Dungeon. However they contributed to training the AI from their side, a certain Count Grey character was part of it, and he kept showing up randomly in other people’s stories. It’s since been gone, as it seems they have focused more on GPT-3’s raw model.

Even in the original light novel/anime, this part of the series begins to get seriously dark, without much room for levity. I tend to prefer, at least when I write for fun, when there are opportunities for silly humor, even completely ridiculous. At the end of the previous part of this strange thing I’m doing the protagonist almost killed himself, only for Puck to announce telepathically, in a rather roundabout way, that the protagonist better haul his ass to Roswaal’s mansion. The events of this new part still fall in the fifth volume of Re:Zero (and there’s actually plenty left to cover from that one).

I’m somewhat deep into roleplaying through this series, and the twists and turns that the GPT-3 algorithm has produced has caused plenty of stuff not to happen, or to happen differently. If for some reason someone other than me is reading this (which I doubt; somewhat straight fanfiction, a narrow market), you might have realized that we never met the current Sword Saint Reinhardt, who in turn never found out that Felt was a royal candidate, so Felt never got into the royal palace (or at least didn’t participate in the summons). Given that in the first part, the protagonists managed to annoy Felt to an extent that she just gave up what she stole, the superpowered serial killer Elsa Granhiert also never appeared. That’ll be a wake up call when she eventually does. There are plenty of other examples, but I can’t think of other major ones at the moment. I look forward to the fresh scenes I’ll roleplay through, as completely new scenes push their way into the narrative.

Regarding future events, I dread the whole thing with the White Whale, as I don’t know what I could roleplay regarding such a tight succession of events, but curiously Subaru’s phone is fundamental to track the whale, and he got his phone stolen by GPT-3 thugs in the first part of this series!

I made a critical decision regarding Subaru’s supernatural powers. In the original, Subaru can’t speak to anybody about his ability. That doesn’t make much sense; why would Satella care? It causes tremendous problems, but I don’t think that conflict that could be solved by just having a conversation is a good thing, so in this strange AI-fueled roleplaying thing I’m doing, Subaru will be able to speak to others about his power. Whether they believe him is another matter.

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

• Previous part (5)
• Next part (7)

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Your world gets filled with a white light, and then the pain comes to your body. Pain, pain, pain. It feels as if your lungs are bursting. You kick your legs in the water until you feel air in your face, and when you reach the riverbank, you keep vomiting water. When it seems that you don’t have anything else to vomit, you notice a commotion around you: a group of people, mostly merchants, some of them drunk, are curious about you for almost having drowned to death, but they don’t seem eager to help you in any way.
Suddenly, someone grabs you by the arm and helps you stand straight. You keep wheezing while your lungs burn. The guy who’s holding you is maybe twenty years old, and his breath stinks of alcohol.
“Seems that you are okay there, buddy”, the guy says. “You had a bit too much to drink as well?”
You try to speak, but only a raspy croak comes out of your throat.
The guy looks at you with concern.
“Shit, that’s not normal. Do you have something caught in your throat? Let me help you.”
The guy wedges his fingers in your mouth and pokes your tongue. You push him away and find your voice again.
“I’m fine, I just swallowed water when I was drowning. In addition, you shouldn’t go around pushing your fingers inside people’s mouths, particularly when you are so drunk.”
“But you were dying…”
“I know what I saw, but I’m not dead yet.”
You take a deep breath and focus on getting your heartbeat to slow down. The burning sensation in your lungs has subsided, but you’re still very dizzy. You attempt to wander off from the crowd of onlookers. The drunken man seems to have sobered up enough to give you a hand. He’s giving you a friendly smile, although you want to pinch your nose.
“What’s your name, buddy?”, says the guy.
“I’m Subaru. Not that it has anything to do with anything”, you say, annoyed.
“I’m Otto. Aren’t you by chance interested in looking at my wares?”
Otto takes something out of his inventory. He shows you a blue, shining item.
“This is a crystal stone. You bite it, and it creates light so that you can see in the dark.”
“I have sensitive teeth.”
Otto looks disappointed as he puts the crystal stone back into his inventory. He sighs.
“This day really can’t get any worse.”
You walk towards where you expected to find your luggage, but it’s gone. Panicked, you look around in circles, but any of the many people walking through the area and carrying bags could have taken it.
“I can’t fucking believe it! Who took my luggage!?”
Your voice startles a nearby guard, who approaches you with his hand on the sword handle.
“You need to lower your voice. This isn’t a place for mischief.”, he says, scowling a bit.
“But my luggage has been stolen!”
“Well, if you have something valuable in it, it’s gone now.”
The guard turns around and starts to leave. You open your mouth to argue, but then decide against it.
Otto leans on you as he attempts to contain his hiccups.
“This is a harsh world, Mr. Subaru. You believe yourself in the top of the world for a day, only to spend the rest of your life eating dirt.”
“If I wanted to hear a drunkard’s philosophy, I’d go back to drinking myself like back at the mansion. And speaking of mansions, I need to reach the mansion as soon as possible!”
You try to take a step forward, but your leg collapses under you as you fall flat on the ground.
“Stupid body… Why is it betraying me like this?”
You try to get up, but you fail as your strength has abandoned you. A group of children run past you and run you over some more as they laugh. Their mother approaches you and helps you up.
“You seem to be a bit drunk, sir. Do you have somewhere to go?”
“For fuck’s sake! I just nearly died! I need to get to lord Roswaal’s mansion! Will anybody teleport me there? Are there not magic users outside of their shitty magical libraries?”
The mother takes a step back as you yell at her. She scolds her children for running into you, and then leaves.
You attempt to stand up once again, but fail as your strength is still not there yet.
Otto helps you up.
“I’m Otto Suwen.”
“Yeah, you told me, Otto.”
“Are you interested in buying oil? I have plenty of pots of it back in my carriage. Can’t get rid of them.”
“No thanks, I don’t really have any use for it.”
“Hm. Would you like to buy a beverage? I have some with me, though I’d prefer to keep them. They’re very expensive.”
“No thank you, not right now.”
Otto stares at the ground and sighs.
“Well then, is there anything I could help you with?”
“Yeah actually. I need you to drive me somewhere with your carriage.”
“Oh?”
Otto’s face gleams with interest as you explain your situation to him. He informs you that he actually has two carriages, and that you can take your pick. You enter his very luxurious-looking carriage, and notice that it’s filled with alcohol. He tells you that he’d prefer if you take the second carriage, as his favorite ground dragon is in the first. You do exactly that, and the carriage that carries you both rides off fast towards Roswaal’s mansion. You realize that you are as broke as any human person can be, but you wait until the merchant seems invested in the ride to bring it up.
“Look, Otto, turns out I don’t have any money. Can’t pay for this ride.”
Otto stares at you blankly, then nods.
“Hm. I see. Well then, I’ll just have to make you work it off, won’t I?”
“I don’t have time nor the wish to work anything off. Listen, I’m employed by lord Roswaal Mathers. Is Roswaal respected in these parts?”
“Y-yes, he is. He’s a great man.”
“Tell you what then, if you take me to his mansion now, I’ll mention to him that you helped me and how loyal you are to his cause, and I’m sure he’ll give you a handsome reward.”
Otto’s eyes widen more and more with each word you speak. Eventually they’re as wide as dinner plates.
“Y-you w-would do that for m-me?”
“I would do even more. I’d introduce you to Ram. It’s this cute demon girl with pink hair who works as a servant for the lord. I’m sure that she’ll be just your type.”
You smile and wink at him.
“O-oh really?”
You nod.
“Yep. Just help me out here, will ya?”

As the road was approaching the village at the base of the hill that leads to the mansion, you see a plume of black smoke rising from the half hidden roofs of the houses. Otto notices that something is wrong, and slows the carriage down.
You hop off the carriage and jog up to the village, noticing that the gates are broken. You don’t see any guards around.
“Get back, Otto! Ride out of here!”
However, as you shout back to the figure in the carriage’s driver’s seat, you see that he’s slumped forward. The handle of a dagger protrudes from his forehead, and blood drips on his lap.
Your blood runs cold, and your arm hair stands up. A silence has fallen over the area, and you find yourself surrounded by figures in black robes as if they came from a Holy Week procession. They are all wielding cross-shaped daggers.
When you were sure they were going to lunge at you and slash at your throat, they bow towards you in unison, like respecting an authority figure. They do not show any signs of humanity or emotion, as if they were merely tools of whoever robed them.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
The question escapes your lips almost involuntarily.
Their faces are hidden behind their hoods, and they keep their arms by their side.
Your voice trembles.
“One of you fuckers killed that merchant, Otto. He was a good kid, you know, despite driving under the influence and all that.”
You seem to be trying to buy time… Or rather, trying to stall for time.
“I’m not sure what you want from me.”
They don’t answer. In a blur, as if your eyes had failed you, you notice that they aren’t there anymore. You catch glimpses of them having run away into the surrounding forest. You couldn’t even react to any of their movements. Your legs tremble, as you are utterly terrified out of your wits. You stagger as quick as you can towards the village, which smells like a barbecue. Some houses are on fire, and the corpses of the villagers are strewn over the main plaza, except for a mound of corpses. You realize some of the charred corpses belong to children. Nobody seems to have been spared.
You run as fast as you can uphill towards the mansion. You keep repeating your friends’ names. Rem, Emilia, Beatrice, Ram. Even Roswaal. You would pay all the money you ever had to see one of their faces staring back at you. You need to save them. There’s nothing out there in this world that matters to you. The only people you have are in that mansion.
You arrive at the mansion’s entrance, breathing heavily and with your legs quivering like you’ve never experienced before. You turn your head back and forth, then enter the dimly lit hallway. Your eyes slowly get used to the darkness. Anxiously, you start calling out their names once again.
“Rem! Emilia! Beatrice! Ram! Roswaal!”
You rush forward towards the great hall. You start calling out their names at the top of your lungs, hoping you’d get a response.
“Rem? Emilia? Beatrice? Ram? Roswaal?”
But nobody answers. The paintings on the wall startle you as they give off an impression that they’re staring at you. You don’t know if it’s just your paranoia or if those paintings really are staring at you. You ignore them and continue on.
You enter the great hall. There you find Ram’s decapitated body lying on the floor near some dead cultists. Ram’s torso has been stabbed a few times as well. You don’t see her head around.
“No… NO! RAM!”
You begin crying over her, while clenching on to her corpse.
“Why?! Why did this happen?! Who would do something like this?! RAM!”
Soon, you hear the sound of delicate footsteps approaching through the hallway. You quickly wipe your tears and stand up.
“Who’s there?!”
A small, frail looking figure enters. It’s a girl of around ten years of age, with long blond hair collected in two hair tails, and who wears a festive, red outfit. She looks at you with an unreadable expression on her face.
“Beatrice! You are okay, that’s good… What’s going on? Where are the others?”
“The others…?”
Beatrice pauses as if trying to find the right words. Confused, nervous even. Something’s obviously wrong.
“Rem is dead. I’ve seen her as I was coming here. She fell in one of the corridors, while she was trying to prevent the Witch’s Cult’s footmen from invading the deepest parts of the mansion. She got a warrior’s death, I suppose.”
As your legs fail you and you drop to the ground, you try to support yourself on your arms, but they tremble too much.
Beatrice looks down to the ground with a pained expression. She sighs deeply.
“I’m sorry, I suppose… But there are some situations where I feel sorrow, even if only a little…”
You dread asking the following question. You don’t want to hear most of its possible answers.
“Did you find Emilia?”
Beatrice clenches her fists, and her already pale face turns into a ghostly white. She breathes heavily with a start, like she’s having trouble catching her breath. And then, after a few seconds of silence…
“Yes. She’s dead. She ran away when the Witch’s Cult came to invade the mansion. I don’t know what happened to her after that…”
Beatrice approaches you and touches your arm gently while speaking, trying to help you stand up.
“R-ran away? Emilia ran away, while Rem and Ram were fighting? That can’t be, right? And what about Puck? What has Puck done to prevent this?”
You stand up by yourself and you wipe the saliva from your lips. You feel as if you are about to vomit any second. Rem is truly dead. You feel that if you let that fact sink in, you’ll run to the nearest dagger and you’ll plunge it into your own heart.
“Emilia could still be alive. Where did she run off to?”
Beatrice shakes her head slowly as if disappointed. She lowers her gaze.
“You don’t understand, I suppose… It has been triggered.”
“What has been triggered?”
Beatrice closes her eyes for a brief moment and opens them slowly. She turns to you and looks at your eyes. You look back at her.
“The ice will consume this world, and it will end. Just like four hundred years ago.”
“Four… Hund…”
You do not let yourself believe what you just heard. It can’t be true.
Beatrice wanders off with a purpose, and you follow her as in a trance. You pass in front of rooms that you can’t focus on. You reach some sort of office, and given the portraits of people who look like Roswaal, they must belong to the absent lord.
“Roswaal”, you mutter, as if a curse. “You bastard. The best magician in the Kingdom of Lugunica, huh? I’d tear the smile from your face.”
You glare at the portrait of the man you now loathe.
Beatrice stands next to an entrance to a rocky corridor from which escapes an icy breath. She clearly waits for you to walk through it.
You make a run for it, heading into the corridor. After about a minute of walking, you start to feel the cold. Then it becomes unbearable. You start feeling pain all over your body. It is as if your limbs are being torn apart and then put back together again. You let out a scream of anguish.
Then, you fall.
As you feel every cell of your body turning to ice, you hear a muttered voice.
“This is kindness, I suppose. Go to sleep.”
Beatrice’s eyes looked upon you as your vision fades.

As you come back to your senses, you hear yourself screaming. You feel something soft covering your body. You thrash around, and you fall to the ground. As you recover your breath you realize that you feel all your limbs. You just fell from a bed, and you recognize this room. It’s the bedroom that Crusch had let you rest at in her mansion.
You are wearing the clothes that Crusch’s staff had given you. Slowly, you climb back to the bed and sit on it, feeling your heartbeat against your eardrums.
“What the fuck is going on?”
You catch a glance at your reflection on the dresser opposite of your bed. You look horrible, as if you haven’t slept in days, with bags under your eyes and your hair messy. You think you smell heavily of sweat and blood, but maybe you are imagining it. As you breathe heavily, you realize that someone is looking at you from the doorway. It’s Crusch, who stares at you with a concerned look on her face. She’s wearing a nightgown that seems to be made of very fine silk.
“So you’re awake.” She says as she comes into the room.
“I am.”
“Quite the sleep you had. I’d like to hope you rested well.”
Crusch takes a seat on the bed, facing you.
“However,” she continues, “that scream that I heard even from my room suggests otherwise.”
“Yeah…sorry about that. I was…”
You don’t really know how to respond.
“Bad dream?”
You contain a groan, and wipe cold sweat from your forehead.
“I wish. I’m not sure how to explain what just happened.”
You glance at Crusch’s firm gaze. She exudes an understanding calmness, like some sort of god-tier mother. You get an image of Crusch cuddling you to sleep, but when you close your eyes partly out of shame, you see something else in the darkness. Two smoky hands that had reached out to you in the depths of your death. Someone who had spoken to you. A voice that had told you that she loved you, before that presence somehow thrust you back to this night in Crusch’s mansion.
You stand up quickly, as if to steel your nerves.
“Ah… Could we speak for a bit, somewhere that isn’t here?” you say.
“Of course.”
You wipe the sweat from your forehead. You realize that you aren’t even wearing shoes, which you quickly rectify. You and her move through the halls of the mansion, to a shaded patio at the edge of the manor.
Hundreds of magical streetlights glow in the capital. A single rose sits on a table at the center of four chairs.
“I’ll get some wine”, Crusch says softly.
You sit down at the table, and you only raise your head again when Crusch comes back with two glasses and a bottle of wine. She pours wine on both your glasses. As soon as Crusch sits down, she drinks a quarter of it.
“Do you live here?”, you ask.
“I own this place. It’s a… place I retreat to sometimes.”
You’ve never been rich, but you know the value of money. This mansion must have cost an outrageous sum.
You start, before stopping yourself. Crusch takes another drink, and doesn’t seem to care if you’re planning on asking her something or not. You decide to plow ahead anyway.
“Duchess, what can you tell me about the Witch’s Cult?”, you ask with a dry voice.
The duchess’s eyes darken. Her lips wrinkle into a frown, forming dozens of lines across her face.
“They’re a bunch of zealots who want to bring back the worshipping of the old gods. I supposed you would have ended up asking about them sooner or later.”
“Are they numerous?”
“Not in numbers, but their relatively low numbers don’t matter when they can cause such destruction”, Crusch says with a voice that could cut. “They are a damnable pest that has been plaguing not only the Kingdom of Lugunica but also surrounding ones, for as long as I can remember, or anyone remembers for that matter.”
Crusch’s hand clenches for a brief moment, before she takes another drink of her wine. This time, she drains the glass. You quickly refill it. She looks at you for a moment, as if deciding whether or not you’re worth trusting, before speaking again.
“I had an older brother.”
“I’m sorry”, you reply. “I didn’t know.”
“He died when the cult rebelled three years ago. He was a soldier, like my father and his father before him, but they slaughtered him like a animal. They dismembered him… burnt him…”
Tears well up in her eyes, but she brushes them away and takes another drink.
“I’m genuinely sorry to hear that, miss Karsten. I can’t imagine how much that must hurt even for someone as strong as yourself.”
“Thank you. I’d rather feel nothing at all.”
“That’s… a little dark.”
“Perhaps.”
You look at Crusch’s profile illuminated by candlelight as she glances over the sleeping capital. You feel something burning inside of her, but she speaks with a thin voice.
“If I managed to rid this world of the cult, I’d die in peace. I wouldn’t care if I died right after I slaughtered the last one of those cowards.”
You don’t know how to respond, so you don’t. You let her speak.
“We’ve tried everything. Three times we attempted to destroy the strongholds we identified, and three times they used the cover of the trees to pick us off with their magic before we got close. They might not have any modern technology, but there are powerful magic users in their ranks, and some must delve in fouler magic that I don’t want to comprehend. And those rats keep moving from place to place, so by the time we can pin them down, they scatter. They don’t care about borders, they don’t care… I don’t know what they do care about, beyond destroying everything that matters.”
Crusch Karsten, one of the most powerful women in the kingdom, if not the most, is sitting next to you and crying her eyes out. You don’t know how to respond to this: you want to comfort her, but at the same time you’re afraid that any gesture of kindness will be thrown back in your face. So, you say the only thing you can think of.
“I wish I could help. I want to help, and in a way I truly need to. But as you know, I’m entirely useless.”
She stops crying immediately, and looks at you. She studies your face for a few moments, before shaking her head slowly.
“You’re not useless, Subaru. You just need the right tools for the job.”
You stand there silently, wondering what she means.
“I don’t know about that, but, Crusch, you said that you supposed that I would have ended up asking about the Witch’s Cult sooner or later. Why would you think that?”
Crusch looks at you sideways, and she narrows one eye.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not to me. Please, tell me.”
Crusch smiles, and looks around.
“Come on. We’re going for a walk.”
She gets up and walks off. You follow her out of the mansion and through her vast yard. Soon you two find yourself in a moonlit glade with crystal clear water flowing out of rocks and into a pond. The moon reflects on the pond, showing your faces to each other clearly.
“It seems that the answer to that question requires a certain mood to your environment”, you say.
“Mmh. It does. Ready yourself.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean, close your eyes and listen to the nature around you; the water flowing, the wind blowing, the owls hooting, the grass rustling… just listen. This is a very beautiful place. The trees around you are old and wise, and they have a story to tell…”
“I don’t understand, I can’t just close my eyes and listen to the owls hoot and the grass rustle. What’s the point of this?”
Crusch sighs.
“The point of this is to relax, you silly boy.”
“I think I appreciate the intent, but I feel time running out, as if it was the tip of a blade approaching my neck. Why were you expecting me to ask about the Witch’s Cult? Tell me, Crusch.”
Crusch arches an eyebrow, and shakes her head slightly.
“Because of Emilia, of course.”
“What does she have to do with the Witch’s Cult?”
Crusch turns to you.
“Are you aware of the Witch’s Cult purpose?”
“I’ve heard it involves worshipping witches.”
“It’s much more than that. The Witch’s Cult is the only organized group that worships witches, but that doesn’t make it only a religious group. It also has political power in several places in Lugunica.”
“Okay, what are they planning?”
“They wish to resurrect Satella.”
“What?”
Crusch nods, her eyes narrowing.
“Yes. They wish to resurrect Satella, possibly to destroy the world again. Maybe for different reasons, but the result would be the same. And the resurrection of the restless spirit of a witch needs a vessel.”
“A vessel?”
“Yes. A body that the spirit can inhabit to be brought back into the realm of the living.”
“And…?”
“Emilia is a prime candidate for this. They need a silver-haired half-elf. The closer the vessel’s physical form to the deceased, the higher the chances of success. And the vessel also needs to possess significant magical powers to withstand the process. I’m afraid that merely for this reason, Emilia’s existence is a threat to everyone.”
You feel annoyed at her last comment.
“But why now?”. You think for a second. “Wait, because she showed herself as a royal candidate?”
“Yes. Because she showed herself as a royal candidate.”
You stutter as you try to put your words together.
“But Roswaal… How come he didn’t predict this?”
“Roswaal knew.”
“Then why would he…?”
“You’d have an easier time attempting to understand the movements of the heavens than that clown’s mind”, she seems to regret her words, and raises a hand. “I apologize. Some call him an eccentric, but the proper words are dangerous and unpredictable. You never know what he’s up to.”
You stare at the pond as you try to think through this information.
“How come he didn’t defend the mansion from the attack?”
Crusch turns to you.
“Attack? Has his mansion been assaulted by the cult?”
“Ah… Not exactly. Listen, Crusch, is anybody in this world of yours able to travel back in time? Is that a thing that happens?”
“I fail to see how this…”
“Just answer the question. It’s important.”
Crusch goes quiet for a few seconds, before shaking her head.
“No. No one can travel through time. Why do you ask?”
You stare at the beautiful duchess for a few seconds, and then you force a smile.
“Maybe we can get some more sleep out of this night.”

The next morning you wait for Rem in the mansion’s entrance, and when you see her approaching, smiling at you and waving her hand, you contain yourself from dropping to your knees. You blink away the tears surging in your eyes. As Rem gets close, she can tell that something is wrong, and she tightens her brow.
“What is it, Subaru? Has something happened?”
“Something will. I informed Crusch’s staff that we need to meet officially with the duchess as well as the most trusted of her crew.”
“Okay…?”
You can’t take it anymore, and you hug Rem tightly. You take her smell in, and feel her surprisingly small body against yours. Rem hugs back as she caresses your head.
“Tell me, Subaru”, she asks with a kind, soft voice.
“Tell you what, Rem?”
“Tell me what’s wrong, Subaru. It’s obvious something is.”
You slowly let go of her, and smile at her as you wipe your eyes.
“I know I’m not employed by your lord anymore, but during the official meeting, you will stand by my side, right?”
Rem nods at this, still confused about your behavior.
“Okay. I’m sorry for worrying you, Rem.”

You wait around until the time to meet comes. Rem is sitting next to you, attempting to make small talk while disguising her worry. You’re then approached by a few guards, as well as Crusch, who is dressed up in her military uniform.
“Ah, there you are. Everyone’s gathering in the war room.”
“Right, let’s go then.”
The guards stand outside of the room, which seems more secure than others in the mansion. Wilhelm is standing near the empty armchair where his lady will sit. Wilhelm looks as stern and generally menacing as always, and he doesn’t keep his hand far from his sheathed sword. Ferris is leaning against a table. She seems bored. You take your own seat, and Rem reaches over to hold your hand. You give hers a light squeeze as you wait for everyone to be seated. After Crusch, looking imposing with her military demeanour, gets comfortable, she turns a palm to the ceiling.
“I’m a bit surprised about this request, Mr. Natsuki. It seemed as if we had no trouble speaking to each other informally.”
“Well, apologies about that, but I thought being formal would be the best way to go about this.”
“And the subject is?”
You breathe deeply.
“In around two days, the Witch’s Cult is going to attack lord Roswaal Mathers’ mansion. His two servants are going to get murdered, as well as the royal candidate Emilia.”
This gets the attention of everyone in the room.
“Please, ensure their safety. You know what the Witch’s Cult is after, but you don’t know the extent of the damage they are going to cause. Please. Ensure their safety.”
From the corner of your eye you notice that Rem stares at you with a mix of surprise and confusion. The room is silent for a moment as Crusch thinks about what you said. She opens her mouth to speak.
“Mr. Natsuki, it seems that last night I scared you out of your wits.”
“Huh?”
“The Royal Army has been trained to fight wars and combat factions that threaten the kingdom… and even then we only do so when absolutely necessary.”
“You mean that fighting the cult isn’t necessary…?”
Crusch takes air through her teeth for a moment, and briefly looks to the side.
“Mr. Natsuki, last night you barely knew anything about the Witch’s Cult. Today you tell me that you know for sure they are going to attack a certain place in two days.”
“Yes, but what does th-“
Crusch interrupts you by raising her hand, and you stop.
“Let me finish. In light of recent events it is wise to prepare for an attack, and you can be sure that we are. However, it seems you are trying to get us to mobilize forces into Roswaal’s domain”, Crusch says.
“Of course, to stop the attack!”
“Mr. Natsuki, with all due respect, the Witch’s Cult attacks, they cause terror, then they run away and hide again. Chasing them would be most unwise. We need some degree of certainty of where they are going to hit and when, and it requires far more solid information than what you are offering, which, I’m afraid, is nothing.”
You are silent for a moment, not knowing how to respond. Then, you think of something to say.
“What if I tell you that I know with a hundred percent certainty that the attack is going to happen, and when?”
“…I’d say you have some very solid information that I would like to know how you got. So please, tell me.”
The atmosphere becomes tense as you realize the importance of what you’re about to say next.
You press your hands against your lap to stop them from shaking.
“This won’t be easy. Miss Karsten, I’ve already died before.”
Crusch frowns and slightly opens her mouth. Ferris breaks the silence by laughing.
“And you are serious, aren’t you!”
“Yes… I think you know I’ve come from a different place than this one. Somehow, I don’t know why, well, I’ve gained the ability to live through events to come.”
Crusch nods slowly without loosening her brow.
“You have some knowledge of the future then.”
“I know that we face not only the death of people at Roswaal’s domain, but the end. As in an Apocalypse.”
Ferris steps forward, and somehow manages to sound both teasing and offended.
“What did you say at the royal summons, back at the palace? I heard you say it loudly. I liked it so much that I memorized it. You said, ‘I’ve journeys through dimensions beyond comprehension, fought monsters with powers that could destroy entire worlds, unleashed the power of the gods themselves’.”
“Oh, shit…”, you mutter.
“You see? You even say such things! Why would you lie about something so stupid?”
“Ferris, please”, Crusch says, raising her palm towards her healer. Ferris bows and steps back.
“I know how it sounds”, you say with a wavering voice.
“I don’t think you do, Subaru”, Crusch says. “I admit I am fond of you. I’m sorry I put these fears in your mind last night. You do need to fear the Witch’s Cult, but, rest assured, they aren’t going to hit your lord’s, or former lord’s, domain. We’d be able to tell through certain activity.”
You look at Rem’s face as a reflex. She keeps holding your hand, but she looks at you with overt concern. Dismayed, you sit back in your armchair and close your eyes.
“I should have known this wasn’t going to work.”
“I think you need another type of healer, Subaru. One for your brain”, Ferris says in a sharp tone you hadn’t heard before.
“I’m fine”, you say, and stand up. “You’re absolutely right, though. I need to be back home. I’m sorry to have worried you.”
You walk towards the door, but then you feel a hand on your shoulder. You turn around to see it’s Rem touching you. Her eyes show nothing but kindness, but her fingers squeeze your shoulder a bit harder than usual. It isn’t a threatening gesture, just one that shows she really wants you to stay.
You look back at the rest of them. They all return your gaze with various expressions. Ferris looks angry, sure, but also a bit sad. Crusch seems carefully neutral. Rem continues to stare at you with pleading eyes and a gentle grip on your shoulder.
You turn to Crusch. You smile and bow towards her.
“You are great, Crusch Karsten. I truly mean it. You would make a tremendous king, or queen, or whatever you call it. That much is obvious.”
Crusch nods at you.
“Go on ahead, then. No need to waste your time here.”
“Do you want us to accompany you home?” Ferris asks in a cold tone.
“No, I’ll be fine.” You say waving your hand as you leave the mansion with Rem by your side.
The moment you step outside, the quietness of the city hits you like a brick. After you are far enough from the mansion, you force a smile towards Rem.
“I’m sorry about back there. Maybe I truly am much stupider than I think, or possibly insane.”
“Oh, nah. You’re just tired”, she smiles and shrugs while closing her eyes. You want to squeeze her tight. “How about we search for an inn to stay at?”
“I’d love to say ‘yeah, let’s do that’, but we can’t, Rem. In two days, the Witch’s Cult is truly going to kill everybody at Roswaal’s mansion.”
“Subaru…”, she begins to say softly.
“Where is your dragon carriage, Rem?”
“We parked it not too far from here.”
“Let’s go then.”
Rem nods and takes your hand. The walk is silent other than the sound of your footstep and the occasional cricket chirps. Your heart is beating faster than it ever has before, and you’re having trouble breathing normally. You concentrate on the warm feeling of Rem’s hand on yours.
“Let’s put it this way, Rem”, you say as you steel your voice. “We’ll just go back to the mansion. Maybe they’ll all be fine and no attack will happen. Better safe than sorry, right?”
Rem thinks for a second.
“Roswaal ordered me to fulfill certain tasks in the capital, but I can tell you are serious. If you truly want to go back to the lord’s mansion, whether because you truly believe that they are in danger or not, let’s go.”
“Exactly. And when we get there, we’ll see that everything is peaceful and quiet. Then I’ll apologize for making you come all this way for nothing.”
“Yes, of course. What are you going to say to Emilia, though? I had never seen her that mad. I’m sure what you did wasn’t so bad, but…”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
Rem sighs and stops. She cups your cheek with her hand. Her blue eyes pierce into yours.
“Whatever happens, I’m behind you. A true man does not run away from his responsibilities.”
You smile and kiss her on the forehead. She turns red.
“W-Well, we better get to the carriage soon if haste is necessary.”
“You are way softer than what I would expect from a demon, Rem.”
“Hah…”
You straighten your back and hold Rem’s hand closer to your chest as you walk, trying to mimic the posture of a proud warrior. You have some trouble with the steps, but you don’t stumble. You know you both are needed at the mansion, even if you have no clue how you could stop the attack. But you know that not long ago you would have fled, even from those you cared about. That’s all you had ever done, flee from everything that truly mattered to you.

---

Some observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior.

-I wanted to introduce the protagonist’s future friend Otto Suwen, the merchant, as soon as possible in that scene, but him believing that Subaru had something on his throat, and therefore Otto should put his fingers in his mouth, is 100% GPT-3.
-The crystal stone that Otto shows to Subaru was made up by GPT-3.
-GPT-3 also produced the guard that approaches the protagonist when his luggage gets stolen. Funny that instead of intending to pursue a theft, this guard wanted to arrest the protagonist for complaining about it.
-The protagonist’s body’s failing only to fall to the ground and then have some children and their mother bothering him is also almost verbatim produced by GPT-3’s sense of irony.
-Otto’s line ‘Would you like to buy a beverage? I have some with me, though I’d prefer to keep them. They’re very expensive.’ is verbatim from GPT-3.
-Otto having two carriages is 100% GPT-3. In the original light novel/anime Otto is so down on his luck that he can barely keep one, but the thought of having a single carriage full of alcohol that he doesn’t seem to use is too funny.
-The line ‘Tell you what then, if you take me to his mansion now, I’ll mention to him that you helped me and how loyal you are to his cause, and I’m sure he’ll give you a handsome reward.’ regarding Subaru presenting Otto to the lord Roswaal is verbatim from GPT-3, which is strange. In the original Subaru offers something virtually identical, and GPT-3 somehow has figured out the same solution by itself. Black magic.
-I wanted to explore a bit regarding what GPT-3 could come up with when the cultists surround the protagonist. In the original they end up doing almost exactly what you can read up there, but GPT-3 consistently made the cultists gang up on the protagonist and stab him to death. Fair enough, I guess.
-When the protagonist reaches the burning village, GPT-3 tried twice to have guards and villagers still fighting with the cultists. I think the cultists are a bit too powerful for that, although it would have been an interesting route to follow.
-GPT-3 also made Ram to be the first corpse the protagonist found. I wonder if it’s related to Puck having mentioned before that Ram was dead. She wasn’t decapitated, though; I had to alter that in.
-GPT-3 made someone approach the protagonist at that moment, but it was Emilia, not Beatrice. Emilia would have been an interesting alternative for a scene (in the original the protagonist and Emilia don’t meet again for a good while), but Emilia needs to be dead to present the icy Apocalypse, so that couldn’t do.
-Beatrice’s lines about feeling some sorrow are 100% GPT-3. The AI seems to have gotten right Beatrice’s reluctance to connect with anybody, as well as her surprise when she does end up caring against her will.
-In the original, the protagonist finds Rem dead in the grounds of the mansion, but GPT-3 made Beatrice say that she had seen the demon servant dead. I ran with it.
-The following sentences, ‘Beatrice closes her eyes for a brief moment and opens them slowly. She turns to you and looks at your eyes. You look back at her. “The ice will consume this world, and it will end. Just like four hundred years ago.” “Four… Hund…”‘, are one of the biggest surprises I’ve gotten with GPT-3’s understanding. How do you go from Beatrice referring to something having been triggered, to an AI understanding the correlation of Emilia dying to Puck triggering the end of the world? It truly seems like magic. Beatrice reference to the world having ended in an icy death four hundred years ago is incorrect; Satella had spread her “shadow”, consuming half of the world. But I am too impressed with not only GPT-3 figuring out the trigger, but that something so big had happened before four hundred years ago, which I believe was only mentioned in dialogue by other characters before.
-In the original, the protagonist goes down a corridor that gets progressively colder, and then he gets transformed into ice. In this version I just prompted that the corridor breathed an icy coldness, and GPT-3 made up that the cold was so terrible as to make the protagonist fall incapacitated for it! It’s uncanny.
-This is the first time in this strange AI-fueled fanfiction thing I’m doing that Subaru dies. Obviously Subaru is cursed to go back in time whenever he dies. But in this version, Subaru was too busy getting injured by Wilhelm’s deranged training to go out and shop with Rem, so he returns to the mansion instead.
-I’ve always thought that Crusch was an underused character in the original. This version of Crusch feels more mature, and she’s so clear-headed and pragmatic, yet subtly containing pain, that I want to have her around much more often. Best girl so far for me. Plenty of it was made up by GPT-3 as well, which has a good handle on how Crusch would speak, and the stuff she would want to speak about.
-I did prompt for Crusch to suggest wine for the occasion, but the dynamic way they drink wine throughout the scene is GPT-3’s doing.
-Crusch having an older brother and the guy dying at the hands of the Witch’s Cult is made up by GPT-3. It felt like a perfect motivation for someone like Crusch, which adds that subtle fire burning inside of her at all times.
-Crusch going on about how they failed previously to defeat some strongholds is made up by GPT-3. I had to alter some details, though.
-The sentences ‘Crusch Karsten, one of the most powerful women in the kingdom, if not the most, is sitting next to you and crying her eyes out. You don’t know how to respond to this: you want to comfort her, but at the same time you’re afraid that any gesture of kindness will be thrown back in your face.’ are verbatim from GPT-3.
-That whole thing about Crusch interrupting the talk to go for a walk, and the place they get to, and the way she describes the surroundings in order to relax, up to when I prompted for the protagonist to interrupt, is almost verbatim from GPT-3.
-Crusch getting suspicious of how the protagonist claims to have 100% certainty of where the Witch’s Cult is going to hit is something that happens in the original, and GPT-3 made it up here.
-Ferris getting annoyed at the protagonist seemingly going chuunibyou on them and then bringing up the wild lies he told in the royal palace is a nice moment of narrative weaving, I think, even though I prompted it myself. Those lies were made up verbatim by GPT-3 back then, but it makes sense that in the present they would prevent others from believing him.
-Ferris’ words ‘You see? You even say such things! Why would you lie about something so stupid?’ are verbatim from GPT-3.
-Crusch’s curiously bitter parting words, ‘Go on ahead, then. No need to waste your time here’, are verbatim from GPT-3.
-The protagonist’s words regarding getting to the mansion, ‘Exactly. And when we get there, we’ll see that everything is peaceful and quiet. Then I’ll apologize for making you come all this way for nothing’, are verbatim from GPT-3.
-A big surprise regarding GPT-3’s brain: during the meeting with Crusch’s at the war room, GPT-3 twice made a certain Reinhardt to be there. Reinhardt is a major player in the original Re:Zero, but there’s no mention of him in this thing I’m doing. None whatsoever. So I figured that it’s not that rare of a name in a fantasy setting, so it must have been a coincidence. Then GPT-3 made Crusch mention Kararagi, and there’s no ambiguity there: in the original, Kararagi is a neighboring country to Lugunica. I wasn’t sure, so I had to look it up, and I never mentioned it in this version I’m doing. So the only explanation is that GPT-3’s training model back at Microsoft or whatever cloud they keep it uses data from the original Re:Zero series for its training model.

The narrative got past that whole deal at the royal palace, and now I move on to roleplaying the events in the fifth volume of Re:Zero. This turned out much better than I would have ever expected, I think. GPT-3 had a couple of big contributions that completely changed those scenes for the better, and the dialogue between the characters felt very interesting and in character. I’m way too obsessed with this AI at the moment.

After the original narrative leaves the bustle of the capital to the side, we first meet the people in Crusch Karsten’s camp, and then we dive into the horrible mess with the Witch’s Cult. Right now I have no idea how GPT-3 is going to help handling that, given that this version of the protagonist hasn’t died once. He has no clue that he possesses a superpower; he’s entirely useless.

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

• Previous part (4)
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---

After Puck left you behind, your mind went all fuzzy and you might have passed out a couple of times. When you come back to your senses, the capital is dark except for the isles of light that the magical streetlights illuminate. Your swollen eye hurts, your arms hurt when you swing them slightly to walk, you feel that your right knee is about to pop out, and some of your teeth are missing. Humans and demi-humans of the night pass you by, and only a few give you a passing glance. What the hell are you going to do? As some form of grief bubbles in you, you tell to yourself that this is fine. You’ve gone back to being alone, as you were before you came into this world. Being alone is your destiny. You certified that when your classmates stopped hanging out with you in middle school, and later when in high school people were avoiding you as if you were diseased. Do you truly deserve to be spat out by any world you happen to end up in?
As you rest against a wall to prevent yourself from keeling over, you realize that the hazy image you see is the front of the mansion where you woke up after you got beaten to a pulp by that dickhead knight. Did Roswaal rent this mansion?
You blink to focus on the approaching figure. It’s a woman with her green hair collected in a ponytail. She wears a stiff blouse and some slacks. You now see her clear enough to face her concerned, although sober, face. This is that Crusch chick that you saw during the royal summons.
“Hey. You’re the girl that owns this mansion, right?”
“Yes. And you are the one that was lying as if in a coma in that room.” She says with a friendly voice. You reply by groaning as you hold onto your face.
Crusch frowns with worry as she crouches down to ask,
“What’s wrong?”
You open your eyes and say,
“My face hurts like hell.”
“I’m surprised that you can even walk, or speak for that matter. Why did you leave the mansion?”
“Why does it fucking rain in this shitty world?”
“Rain?”
“Yeah, it’s raining right now.”
It is raining. Heavy too. And you didn’t even notice. You just thought the sky was clouding over. The sound must’ve drowned out by your groans.
“I hate the rain.” You whine, to which you receive a chuckle from Crusch.
“You are a strange person, Natsuki Subaru”, Crusch says with a kind tone. “Come inside and rest. I’ll bring Ferris over so she can help you.”
“But my face hurts like shit.”
“Your wound is not going to heal just by staying in the rain, now come on. Up you get.”
You groan as you try to push yourself up. But with no luck, Crusch helps you up by gripping under your armpit. As soon as you feel that, you realize she’s strong as hell.
She has the tight, lean muscles of a soldier, maybe from swinging her sword over and over. You realize that you want to trust her goodwill implicitly.
So you follow her to the mansion. When you enter, you see a large fancy room which is decorated lavishly with many different flowers in beautiful vases. The room smells very fragrant and you take a deep breath through your nostrils. You admire the craftsmanship of the sculptures and paintings that cover the walls. You never knew that you were a fan of art, but then again, you can appreciate it regardless of its quality.
She guides you into the bedroom where you had woken up after that shitty knight Lucius knocked you out. Next to the bed there’s a half-cat, half-human person with flax colored fur, who looks at you with a playful expression. She’s wearing a blue dress and and black tights that seem too revealing for this situation.
“Where did you run off to?”, the half-cat person says.
“I was helping this poor boy from getting killed by the rain”, says Crusch.
You cough.
“I think your cat girl was speaking to me, Crusch”.
“You know what would help him even more?”, says Crusch. “If you take off his clothes and get him into bed. Lend me a hand, Ferris.”
“Please, don’t take off my underwear. I couldn’t deal with that”, you whine.
“I won’t”, says Ferris.
When you finally lie on the bed as naked as these two females would want to see you, Ferris leans over and carefully hangs from her palm a magical light over your body that seems to have healing properties. You feel a pleasurable warmth coming from it. After a while, Crusch, who had been standing nearby with her arms crossed, makes a wet sound by separating her lips.
“I can’t understand where you come from, Natsuki Subaru, nor why you did what you did at the royal summons.”
“I’m just a lowly human from another dimension. Not worth you pondering about my actions”, you say.
“… Don’t give up. We need people like you, even if they’re foolish and don’t seem to understand their place.”
“Um… thanks I think.”
Ferris seems done with her treatment for the day. Crusch calls Ferris over and they speak right outside of the room, but you can’t hear anything. As you try to focus on feeling better, your eyes burn, and tears grow in their corners. You blink until they seem to have gone away. Images of Roswaal’s people are flooding your mind. Emilia, Ram, Rem. Sweet Rem; you wish you could see her again, feel her strong arms giving you a big hug, and even her Oni fangs burying themselves into your neck for a bit of sucking. But you feel as if you’ll never see them again.
You clear your throat and call out to Crusch.
“Hey, duchess. How come I’m resting from my wounds in your mansion?”
As Crusch approaches your bed, a thought pops up in your head.
“Wait a second, it was Emilia’s idea, right? She asked you, made a deal with you for your healer to cure my wounds? I knew she cared deep down.”
“… I picked your unconscious self of my own volition”, Crusch answers.
Your heart sinks.
“Oh.”
“After Julius beat you up, he was given a leave without pay for an entire week. You truly pushed his buttons; he should have known better than to beat like that a guy like you, who is completely unable to defend himself.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t suffer that much.”
Crusch raises her eyebrows at your response, but she continues.
“Still, I’m not so heartless as to abandon to die a person who stood for himself and for the girl he loves, in front of the council of elders no less.”
Crusch pauses once again, and sits on the edge of the bed. You can’t face that earnest gaze, and you avert your eyes.
“You are a cool chick, Crusch. I guess I know now why you are the favorite for the royal throne.” You pause, and clear your throat. “Um… Thanks for looking after me.”
With this, you feel a lot better.
“Don’t mention it”, Crusch says.
Your mouth curls into a smile.
Crusch stands up, and makes her way to the door. Just as she’s about to open it, she turns around.
“Do you want to go back home?”
You consider it for a second. Do you want to go back home? Well, when she puts it like that… You realize that you aren’t thinking of your parents’ house back on Earth, but of Roswaal’s mansion. You wish you hadn’t spoken up, you wish you had stayed away from the royal palace. You want to wander through Roswaal’s mansion again.
“Yeah.”
“Then you have your work cut out for you, don’t you? Become a man that deserves respect. Enjoy a good night’s sleep, Natsuki Subaru.”
With that, she leaves, and the door shuts.
As you roll over in bed while containing a grimace of pain, you think to yourself that this Crusch person is like so fucking great.

When you wake up the next morning, you stagger over to the balcony and look to the mansion’s yard. A bunch of people are loading and unloading carriages. They seem to be in a hurry. You watch as a few soldiers march over to one of the carriages and speak with the driver. You can’t hear what they’re saying, but you imagine that they’re asking where he’s going in such a hurry.
After you take a shower, you dress up with the clothes that Crusch’s people left you, and you descend to the first floor. You see Crusch meeting with someone, and you are stunned to see that the girl that Crusch is talking with is none other than Rem. When she sees you, she gives you a look between pity and sympathy.
You can hardly look her in the eyes.
“Why are you here, Rem? Haven’t the others gone back to Roswaal’s mansion?”
“I was sent here, on an urgent matter of secrecy. I can’t say more than that, even to you.”
“Got it. Well, I’ll leave you too it. Best of luck with your task.”
You promptly turn away and head to the dining area where you enjoy a late breakfast. As you were finishing, though, Rem comes over and sits next to you. She seems to struggle with something to say, but eventually speaks.
“Subaru… I won’t be allowed to stay in the capital for much longer, but Crusch intends to host me until then. I wanted to be with you. I can’t believe Emilia forbid you from returning to the mansion.”
“I’m sure Emilia had her reasons”, you say sheepishly.
“Even so… You had become a part of us. I’ve already had to see Frederica leave, and now that I got to care for you…”
Tears start falling down her cheeks, onto the table. You quickly wipe away her tears with your index finger.
“It’s going to be alright, I promise. We’ll find a way. Maybe we’ll see each other soon.”
Rem nods at your words, as she sniffles and wipes her nose with a sleeve.
“You are so sweet, Rem. If I ate you up I’d give me instant diabetes. And I say that in the nicest way possible.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I’ll have to leave Crusch’s place for some of the stuff I’m supposed to do in the capital. Are you sure you’ll be alright?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine.”
Rem smiles, stands up and leaves. You finish off your breakfast. Afterwards you wander through the vast yard, avoiding the looks of the merchants and the mansion’s staff. As you are standing in the open, a man approaches you. You recognize him as Wilhelm, the old man who had visited Roswaal’s mansion to announce the royal summons. He wears a traditional blue royal guard uniform, with matching armor. He has short white hair and a moustache. He also carries a sword sheathed by his side.
“You’re the one who came with that pink-haired maid?”
“Yep, that’d be me.”
“Hmm… I’ve heard about you from Ram, and Emilia as well. I came here to speak with you.”
“Speak away, then. I’m all ears.”
“I live my life with a certain set of beliefs that not many men share, but after your display at the royal palace, I believe they might serve you well, Mr. Natsuki”, Wilhelm says solemnly.
You arch an eyebrow, as he sits down on one of the benches lining the walkway.
“So…what are these beliefs?”
Wilhelm’s gaze turns to the open sky…
“I believe that there are only two types of people in this world, winners and losers. If you’re not the winner, then you’re the loser. Dead or alive, a winner is a winner and a loser is a loser.”
Wilhelm turns to you.
“I also believe that winners are only winners because they’ve beaten all the losers. So in a way, winners owe their success to the losers. Don’t you agree?”
“…Not really, no.”
“Hm. However, I also believe that the victor and the victim are often one in the same. What they gain, someone else loses. As such, only fools seek to gain without consequence. Only idiots wish for more than they need. Is that not true?”
“I suppose it’s… a bit of a contradiction, sure.”
“Ah, but I believe these three conflicting ideas can be reconciled. And I think you just might have the answer, Mr. Natsuki.”
“Go on…”
Wilhelm stares at you straight, and you can barely hold his hard gaze.
“I believe you need some swordmanship lessons. You need to become stronger. You need to learn your limits, and when you would be wise not to push them.”
This is a surprise to you. It’s been a long time since somebody wanted to teach you something. Most of the time they just want to borrow some money, or ask you for help with a chore. You’re not quite sure about this, but…
“Alright then, I’ll try to learn what I can.”
He nods.
“Come closer, and I shall give you the first lesson.”
You step forward, interested in what he has to say. He waits until you’re right in front of him before he speaks again.
“Never lower your guard.”
He makes a powerful swing, and he hits your shoulder with a wooden sword that you could have sworn he wasn’t holding before. You fall to the ground in pain.
“Hey! Don’t add to my numerous injuries!”
He continues to whack you with the sword, saying that each hit is adding to your lesson.
“Don’t get into a fight you can’t win. If it’s unwinnable, run. Running is always an option.”
Your right arm turns purple, then black. You try to get up, but when you put weight on it, it collapses beneath you and you try not to scream as every one of your muscles is in pain.
He swings again, and hits right into your thighs. You hear a sound, not dissimilar to a watermelon being smashed open with a sledgehammer. You look down, trying to keep steady as tears well up in your eyes. Your legs, previously covered by trousers, are now red and cut up. Blood trickles down your leg, adding to the puddle of blood which is coming from other wounds on your body.
You close your eyes tight, waiting for Wilhelm to hit you again, but he doesn’t. When you open your eyes again, he’s staring at you from above, but his expression is calm.
“You’ve learned what you need to learn. Stand up… no, just roll over. I won’t assist you.”
You try to roll over, but your body is weak and in shock from the beating he has given you. You don’t quite make it, and you just collapse back into the pool of blood you’ve created. He sighs, grabbing your hand to drag you over on your back.
“… That wasn’t a question.”
You look at him, before looking at your crushed legs. He raises an eyebrow, before looking at it himself.
“No, no, no. Don’t you dare close your eyes! Look at what you did! Hate yourself for being so weak! If you want to be a warrior, you can’t be so weak willed that something like this breaks you!”
He grabs your broken arm, almost making you scream.
“I’m going to set this. Try to scream.”
He pulls your arm back into place, setting it. It felt like your arm was being torn off. You let out a pained scream, before crying again.
“… I guess you won’t be able to have children. Well, I’ll make you stronger. So strong that no man will be able to break you again.”
You manage to form words.
“Will you please call your healer Ferris over?”
Wilhelm looks at you, before shrugging.
“Sure. Ferris! Come here!”
“I’m busy!”, the half-cat girl yells from somewhere in the yard.
“I need you to look at this girl’s legs.”
“I’m quite sure I still have a penis”, you groan.

For the next few days, Wilhelm called you over to train you in the arts of swordfighting, which at times involved you limping around before Wilhelm could hit you again. You never landed a hit on him with your wooden sword. You got better at evading his attacks, though. At some point, the constant pain didn’t bother you that much, and you got friendlier with the cute half-cat Ferris from having to require her services so often.
By the end of the week, you could at least limp-run away from his attacks.
“What’s this?! My training isn’t working? I must have overestimated you!”
You didn’t respond to him, instead panting from exhaustion. Wilhelm sighs, shaking his head.
“You’re hopeless.”
He grabs your hand, twisting your wrist. You let out a yell, collapsing to your knees as he twisted it further.
You must have passed out for a bit, because you wake up in the bed that Crusch assigned you. Ferris is curing your wounds as if she were brushing her teeth. You look at her gratefully, and she narrows her cat eyes as a sympathetic gesture.
“It’ll take a few days for you to heal up.”
You nod, before sitting up.
“By the way, Ferris, there’s something I’ve been dying to know since I came to your lady Crusch’s mansion.”
“Yes?”
“Are you actually… You know, do you have male parts down there? I want to know if I should add further shame to mountain of it I’ve accumulated.”
At this, Ferris gets offended, puffing her cheeks.
“I’ll have you know I am a proper lady! I’ve never been penetrated by anything, man or woman.”
You nod, sighing in relief.
“Thank the gods.”
Ferris raises a finger to her lips and seems to think about what she just said.
“Well, that was a bit of a lie.”
You panic and stand straight in the bed.
“What!?”
Ferris giggles. As she exits the room, she tilts her head and winks at you.
“Don’t worry, Subaru. Neither of us has a dick.”
The door closes, and you let out a sigh of relief. God, I want to a piece of that so bad, you think.
You get off the bed, and find a spare robe next to it. You put it on, and find out that it’s way too big for you. There’s a knock on the door and you open it. It’s a butler, who hands you a note and leaves. You read the note:
“Meet me in the courtyard.”
You see Rem in the courtyard a few seconds before you reach her. She looks panicked, and keeps wringing her hands. There’s a glint of fear in her eyes.
“Rem, calm down. It’ll be alright.”
“No! Wi… With all due respect, Natsuki Subaru, it won’t!”
You grab her shoulders and look deep into her eyes.
“Rem, has something happened? It’s unbecoming of a fierce demon such of yourself to show this fear”, you say with a sympathetic tone.
“I received a telepathic communication from my sister earlier. She’s in pain. She would never contact me this way unless something terrible is happening at the mansion!”
“What!? Is she alright?”
Rem shakes her head.
“No! She needs us to help her! We need to save her, now!”
“Emilia must be in danger as well.”
“We were talking about Ram, though.”
“I know, but now that you mention it… We need to save her too.”
Rem nods and walks quickly towards Crusch’s mansion, but you grab her by the arm to stop her. You lower your voice for some reason.
“Rem, I think you are expecting me to follow you, but… I can’t return to Roswaal’s mansion.”
“Because Emilia told you not to come back ever again?”, Rem said with disbelief.
“Because Emilia told me something about tearing my balls off if she ever saw me again.”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it!”
“I’ve been emasculated enough recently.”
Rem frowns, which looks adorable on her cute face.
“Subaru, do you wan’t to save Emilia or not?”
“Of course I do! I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But, let’s be honest here, even if I go with you I would just drag you down. What can I do against any threat, serve as a decoy?”
Rem puts her hands on my shoulders and she states earnestly that even if I’m not worth anything more than a decoy, I’m still valuable.
“Nah, I’d just hold you up. You’re stronger and much more skilled than me. I’m not that much of a fighter anyway.”
“It’s not about being a fighter! Its about doing the right thing!”
“Yeah, well it’s still not my specialty either.”
Rem frowns once again, but this time in frustration.
“Do you even have a dragon carriage that’ll drive you back to Roswaal’s mansion, Rem?”
“Yes, I do.”
You take a deep breath and change your weight from foot to foot. You feel like utter shit, but the thought of losing everyone at the mansion due to whatever threat they are facing still seems worse.
“Well, fuck it, I guess. Let’s go back to Roswaal’s mansion.”

Before you know it, you have left the capital behind as Rem drives her dragon carriage through the countryside. It’ll soon get dark, and you’d rather not face the night outside of a village or a city. Suddenly you realize that you never said goodbye to Crusch’s people, but when you think about what Wilhelm’s reaction might have been, you are relieved.
Your dragon carriage reaches a village in which there is a booming market for inns that tend to merchants. There’s a bustle of merchants either peddling their wares or getting drunk. Rem gets you both a room for the night. It’s pretty run down, but Rem is so tired that she immediately lays down on the bed without even taking her shoes off. She’s out cold in an instant.
As you brush your teeth, you look at Rem’s gentle, sleeping shape as she inhales and exhales. You want to caress her pretty blue hair, but you figure that making unasked advances on a demon isn’t a good way to keep your parts attached.
When you’re done with your hygiene, you try to sleep. You feel the hardness of the bed underneath you. You just can’t get comfortable. You miss the feather bed that you took for granted at the mansion. Hell, you’d even settle for a mattress made of air at this point. You must have wasted around two hours rolling around in bed without falling asleep.
“Rem, are you awake by any chance?”
“Yes, I can’t get to sleep.”
You turn to see that Rem is awake too. You sit on the edge of the bed and talk to her.
“What are we doing in this life, Rem. I mean, really”, you say in a sour voice.
“What a silly question, we’re saving the world of course.”
“Our world at least, yeah. Shit, I don’t know. My body hurts all over, my pride is like a torn apart banner flapping in the wind…”
“Your pride is hurt?”
“Yeah, I mean, look at us. We’ve become like prostitutes. I’m not even allowed to make sex jokes anymore.”
“You make any more of those jokes, old man, and I’ll carve my name into that wooden stick you call a dick.”
You pretend to look hurt.
“Oh no, not my dick!”
Rem smirks as she turns away from you to go to sleep.
You sigh and get back in your bed, although you wish you would have slipped into Rem’s bed to cuddle with her cute demon self. You curl up into a ball and as your final thought you remind yourself that at least you still have your dick.

When you wake up the next morning, Rem is gone, and so is her stuff. You panic, not contemplating the possibility that she had abandoned you, until you find her goodbye note. The note says that she had to face the fact that you would just drag her down in a fight, because you are useless. She wishes you will forgive her.
She’s right, you think. You were useless in a fight. You wonder if you should follow her and help her anyway. You sit on the bed and you feel your chest tightening.
“Fuck it, she can go die.”
As soon as you have uttered those words, you feel your back tremble, and you bury your face on your palms.
“You have got to be kidding me, why the hell would you think that?”
You frown and grab all of your shit, preparing to follow Rem anyway. As you run out of the inn while holding your luggage, you realize that you can’t get to Roswaal’s mansion. Rem has taken her dragon carriage, whether it was rented or whatever, and now you are stranded in this nowhere town with no means to leave it. Hell, you don’t even know where the hell this town is.
You put your luggage down and decide to just find a place to sit down and think for a bit. After walking around for a bit, you find an empty alleyway to hide away in. You lean your back against the brick wall of the alley and sigh heavily.
“What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
You search for an answer in your mind, but you come up with nothing. All you can think about is your failed relationship with Rem. It was all good just a few hours ago, and now that she has abandoned you, you really don’t have anything left. You’re broke, you’re homeless, you don’t have a job or even any skills, and the only thing you do have are shameful memories and regrets.
“Do I even have a reason to live?”
On one hand, life is filled with suffering. It’s full of hardship and it’s basically just a never-ending stream of pain. On the other hand, death is eternal sleep. Peace at last. You wonder if you were to die right now, would your spirit be cursed to wander this world forever? Would you be doomed to a fate worse than death?
Maybe you should think about this some other time. Maybe you should try to survive in this world.
Yeah, right. Like your life was ever worth a damn…
You close your eyes and take a deep breath. In this introspective moment, you realize that you have absolutely nothing left to live for. You feel as if the ground wouldn’t keep you in place if you were to stand up.
You stand up and walk out of the alleyway. You walk towards a nearby river. The setting sun’s rays hit your body as you step into the water. As your head hits the water, you think one last random thought, which is about your parents and how disappointed they are about to be with your life.
You close your eyes as the water fills your lungs and all goes black…
“Are you quite finished?”
You open your eyes and see a white, cat-like creature with a blue bow on its head.
“What…?”
“Imagine my surprise when I sense not one, but two souls depart from this world in the same location I’m currently inhabiting.”
“I’m dead?”
“Quite the contrary, kid. You are very much alive. If you were dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“What happened? Is this some sort of dream?”
“It isn’t a dream, but rather a pseudo-existence. You’re hovering right on the brink of life and death.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, kid, when you jumped into that river, your brain was deprived of oxygen for quite some time. That’s why you’re not breathing nor have a heartbeat. However, you’re also not dead yet. Your body is providing just enough oxygen for your brain to function. That’s why you’re having a conversation with me right now.”
“I see… So, am I dead?”
“Well, according to most people, if you’re having a conversation with the personification of Death, then yes, you’re dead. However, since you’re having this conversation with me, that implies that there’s some sort of reason for me to save your life.”
You take your time to think about it.
“What’s your name then?”
“My name is Puck.”
You let out a groan of despair.
“Oh, fuck off, you humongous thundercunt!”
The blurry image of the magical cat you despise glares at you.
“Ram has been killed fighting to protect the mansion from an assault. Rem is giving her all. We are trying to survive over here, and yet you choose to go out like a pussy.”
“Fuck you, Puck! What do you mean that Ram has been killed? Killed as in she is dead?”
“Yeah. The gloomy bitch got beheaded by a witch cultist.”
“Shit…”
“Indeed. However, there is still a chance of winning. With the princess under our command, we can turn the tide until Roswaal gets here.”
You take a while to process that information, and try to blink the tears out of your eyes so you can see Puck clearly.
Puck looks at you with disdain.
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
You take a deep breath and nod.
“Sorry, Puck.”
“I’m not your fucking dad, I don’t care that you’re sorry. Your duty is to the Princess. Perhaps you should start following orders more closely if you don’t want to end up like our senior servant.”
You feel a twinge of guilt, but you push it away as you stand up.
“I’m ready to serve.”

---

A few observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior.

-That whole thing with the protagonist getting sidetracked from entering the mansion because it’s raining was produced by GPT-3 almost in its entirety. And what a great character moment it was.
-I added some necessary hidden backstory for GPT-3 to understand who Crusch Karsten is, but I’m mesmerized by how well it works. Her firm kindness, her honor, and even little details like the protagonist noticing how tough she is from the contact with her body as she’s holding him. I didn’t have to steer her behavior that much.
-Crusch’s line ‘… Don’t give up. We need people like you, even if they’re foolish and don’t seem to understand their place’ was verbatim from GPT-3. How can a neural network summarize so well the details of an event that the characters involved aren’t even willing to explicitly address? It’s like black magic.
-Plenty of Rem’s sweet concern when she shows up at Crusch’s is also GPT-3.
-I was mesmerized by GPT-3’s version of the protagonist’s first major introduction to Wilhelm, the Sword Devil. I just prompted the protagonist to wander through the yard, for Wilhelm to approach him, and that he had a certain sets of beliefs. GPT-3 went on with everything else almost verbatim, except from a few comments from the protagonist. When I prompted that the solution was teaching him swordfighting, GPT-3 made the protagonist approach Wilhelm, only for Wilhelm to cut his throat open with his actual sword! I had to alter that to him using a training sword, but except for two of the protagonist’s lines (him complaining about his injuries and then wanting for Ferris to be called over), everything else in that moment is straight up GPT-3. Everything Wilhelm said fits perfectly to what the protagonist went through at the royal summons, and his current lack of pride! I have no clue whatsoever how this is possible.
-Later on, Wilhelm being overly cruel with the rest of the protagonist’s training is also GPT-3’s stance. I kind of prefer this version of Wilhelm to the light novel/anime series, to be honest.
-Rem going to bed immediately after they rent a room at the inn is GPT-3. I prompted for the protagonist to have a little chat in the middle of the night, but the part about the sexual jokes was 100% GPT-3.
-Subaru’s outburst of, ‘fuck it, she can go die’ was GPT-3.
-As Subaru wandered out of the inn, I didn’t have much of an idea of how the rest of this was going to play out. Is he really going to reach the mansion like in the original? So I had GPT-3 outputting stuff for a while. I saw that it was going towards the protagonist becoming entirely hopeless, so I prompted a bit more of that. Then GPT-3 produced the glorious scene with the talking cat in the hallucination. Everything until Puck reveals it’s name (including that) is 100% GPT-3. One of my favorite things it has made in this Re:Zero thing I’m doing. I was overjoyed that I could have some more of that Subaru and Puck banter. There was a bit of editing after that, but not much.

This is the second part of the recent session with GPT-3 to roleplay the segment of Re:Zero that deals with Emilia being summoned as a royal candidate, only for the protagonist to fuck most of it up. I wanted the protagonist to go particularly wild, as this meeting is one of the most boring parts of the original series as far as I’m concerned.

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

• Previous part (3)
• Next part (5)

---

Upon entering the palace, you see many things around you. Under the very high ceiling of the vast throne room there’s a large multitude gathered. Several lines of people stand some distance away from the seats of the council; you recognize them immediately due to how they are positioned, and their old, decrepit, but generally distinguished look. The royal throne is empty. To the side of the throne room there’s a formation of white-robed swordsmen, who look proud and disciplined. They might be knights. You follow Aldebaran towards the people who await for the royal summons to start.
As Aldebaran approaches an empty space in the multitude, you see that he’s beelining towards a luxuriously clothed orange-haired woman whose almost supernatural beauty strikes you until you realize that you have met her before back in an alleyway. It’s the cuntish woman who had beaten up those nasty thugs without any effort.
“Silent, isn’t it?”, she asks you. Indeed, people are not as loud as you would expect them to be. There are a few children running around, but compared to a school classroom they are like statues. You look above and see that there are guards on the upper floors ready to fire their bows should the need arise.
“Yeah, they’ll start calling us in soon”, adds Aldebaran.
“I’m sorry, lady, but I never got your name back at that alleyway”, you say.
“That’s alright, I suppose.”, the woman says. “I am Priscilla Barielle. The Priscilla Barielle, as you might imagine. I’d like to say I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, but that’s not something I have been able to say honestly for a long while.”
“I guess you don’t care about my name then, lady Priscilla. So you are a royal candidate, huh?”
“Indeed, I am.”
“You gave quite the beating to those thugs back at the alleyway. Do you have some martial arts training or something like that?”
“Hah, something like that. The truth is that nobody could defeat me, in a physical bout or otherwise. It’s just a fact of this world.”
“Interesting.”
The conversation halts when a guard comes down and calls for Priscilla. Priscilla and Aldebaran follow the guard up to the line of people standing in front of the council of elders.
“These are the royal candidates.”, the guard says. “This is…”
“I’m sorry, but could you announce us in order of when you called us?”, interrupts Priscilla.
“Uh… okay. This is lady Emilia, supported by lord Roswaal Mathers. Emilia is known as the Witch of Frost.”
You had been too anxious in the presence of Priscilla, like a mouse near a cat, to realize that Emilia had stepped forward from the crowd. You remember Emilia’s face when you asked her whether you could come with her, and how she had made you promise that you wouldn’t follow her to the royal summons. You suddenly feel very, very stupid.
The guard also introduces a woman with green hair who wears a military outfit and whose name seems to be Crusch Karsten. Afterwards he introduces a smaller woman who wears white furs and who has an easygoing look to her, and her name is Anastasia Hoshin.
“And lastly, this is lady Priscilla Barielle, supported by Sir Aldebaran. Her lineage dates back to the days of the Arter Kingdom, and she wished to introduce herself as the one who will save us from evil.”
You watch as Priscilla smiles and waves at the crowd.
When your gaze moves back to Emilia you realize that she’s staring at you with a shocked expression on her face despite her presence in front of the council. Next to Emilia, Roswaal holds your gaze with a fixed smile, his expression harder to read under all that clown makeup.
The leading elder orders silence in the room. With a decrepit voice, the old man addresses the royal candidates and asks them to salute the vacant throne.
Under the high vaulted ceiling, covered with a large amount of paintings and frescoes, and the extravagant chandelier that lights up the room, Emilia recovers from her shock, turns to the vacant throne and curtsies, followed by Priscilla and Anastasia. Only Crusch remains standing in silence.
The leading elder continues his speech, explaining how the throne of the Kingdom of Lugunica has been without an owner since the king died four years ago, and that the kingdom is in dire need of new leadership.
“And now it is time to proclaim the next ruler of this wonderful nation!”
The crowd bursts into another thunderous applause, the council applauds as well. Afterwards, the leading elder orders the royal candidates to present the medallions that certify them as such. One after another, Emilia, Crusch, Anastasia and Priscilla hold their glowing medallions. The leading elder seems pleased.
“We finally have a reasonable selection of candidates for this transition. Thank you to their backers for the work you did in finding them. Let’s begin then with your personal reasons for why each of you believes that you should be chosen to rule the Kingdom of Lugunica. First of all, lady Priscilla Barielle.”
Priscilla steps forward proudly and addresses the council.
“Greetings, esteemed members of the council, I am Priscilla Barielle, number one candidate to rule this glorious kingdom. I was born to lead this nation to its glory once again, and you should trust that this world will bless me with success after success. Present your allegiance to me, and I shall treat you fairly.”
The council applauds lightly. Priscilla winks at the leading elder, and steps back into line.
“Lady Anastasia Hoshin.”
Anastasia moves forward with a regal air, and speaks with a clear voice that carries itself throughout the assembly hall.
“I humbly request your support to become your next ruler. I promise to lead the Kingdom of Lugunica into a prosperous future, and make every effort to ensure that your voices are heard at all times, and that your needs are met.”
The council applauds again, clearly impressed with her speech. The leading elder motions for her to step back into line.
“Lady Crusch Karsten.”
Crusch steps forward, moving slowly and heavily.
“Greetings. I am sure you are all aware that the House of Karsten has ruled in this kingdom for centuries, and that I have been governing my duchy since I was a young girl. I would be honoured to fill the shoes of our beloved late king, and continue the legacy of the Royal House of Lugunica. I offer certainty, order and the rule of law.”
The council applauds her, clearly moved by her speech. They seem to have already made up their minds. The leading elder motions for her to step back into line.
Then the leading elder, as if dreading it, sighs and turns to Roswaal, without ever glancing at Emilia.
“Lord Roswaal, you are well known as an eccentric, and we value you highly as the most competent magic user in this kingdom, but yet I can hardly understand what you are playing at by presenting before the council a silver-haired half-elf as the candidate for the throne.”
“My apologies. It is but a jape!”
The leading elder looks slightly relieved, as the rest of the council seems to calm down.
“Of course, of course. But may I ask why you did this?”
“Oh, it is simple. By putting a candidate that has no chance of winning, it will highlight how much better my other candidate is in comparison!”
The leading elder seems unhappy with this answer, and the rest of the council is hardly pleased either.
“My apologies. I was trying to play a joke on you all. Please forget I said anything”, Roswaal says with an unwavering smile.
Next to Roswaal, Emilia is staring at the lord, pale and flabbergasted.
As the leading elder, slightly shaking his head, was preparing to speak again, Roswaal steps forward and interrupts the elder.
“But let me be serious for a moment regarding my dear Emilia’s candidacy. The truth is that amongst these candidates, there’s nobody better suited for the throne than her.”
Everyone turns towards Emilia, who flinches and looks down.
“The magical enchantment in the medallions certifies Emilia as a candidate”, continues Roswaal. “She’s a extremely powerful magic user who has access to the spirit realm, and even the ability to establish contracts with them.”
The elder looks at Roswaal gravely.
“Spirit users aren’t that rare. Our very own Julius, esteemed captain of the Knights of Lugunica, is suited for that role. But besides her abilities, the question you should answer is why should a silver-haired half-demon like her be allowed to rule our people?”.
“Half-elf”, Emilia corrects him in a low voice.
“My apologies, half-elf”, the elder says, and he straightens his back. “But the question remains. Roswaal, for the royal line’s sake, there’s nobody who looks at your candidate and doesn’t see the Witch of Envy.”
Everyone’s eyes are on Emilia. She looks down again, and Puck rubs himself against her to comfort her.
“My apologies on behalf of our dear guest. It’s just that ever since the catastrophe four hundred years ago, the elves have been an eyesore to us humans. We all, who live outside the forest, know her as the harbinger of death and destruction. You know you are hated, lady Emilia, and you will forever be. How do you expect to rule over citizens who despise you? Why would you do so?”
You watch as the girl opens her mouth to answer…
“Because I have no choice.”
The whole room falls silent in response to her answer.
She clenches her fists, and takes a deep breath.
“I’m not an idiot. I know I’ll never be accepted by humans. But not all of you are human. There are dwarf miners in the Karsten Confederacy, there are elves in the forests. There are other races out there. If I’m going to be hated by some idiotic mistake of birth, then I might as well rule them.”
The elder frowns at her answer, and turns to face his peer for a second opinion. The peer, a balding and wrinkled old man with a thick but well-kept beard, shrugs.
Emilia sttuters for a second, but then she clears her voice to speak again.
“I am the Witch of Frost who hails from the Frozen Forest. I am a silver-haired half-elf from birth, and yet I have nothing to do with the monstrous Witch of Envy who destroyed half of the world. If the citizens don’t understand that we are not the same person, then I’ll make them understand through my fair rule.”
The leading elder frowns.
“Lady Emilia, you might be confused about this royal summons. You are a certified candidate as per the enchanted medallion, and yet you will only be amongst the final candidates if we allow you to be. A silver-haired half-elf won’t ever rule anywhere in the world. Why risk someone related to the Witch of Envy achieving power again?”
“The fates have already decided my future. But I can still decide what the future will be. Whether it’s a future of despair or hope, that’s up to me and me alone.”
The leading elder strokes his beard, and thinks carefully about Emilia’s response. Finally, he lets out a dry cough, and speaks up in a gravely voice.
“The way you speak is interesting to us. You claim that your actions can change the future. Is that so?”
“That’s right.”
“We are all products of our pasts. We can’t deny nature, for that’s what it is. Nature is something that we have no control over, not even the Gods do when they created us.”
“I don’t believe that’s true.”
The leading elder was pondering her answer when she tilts her head to speak to the semi transparent figure perched on her shoulder.
“Puck, please present yourself properly to the esteemed council of elders.”
The figure pokes his head out from behind her shoulder, and for the first time, the council of elders can see him clearly. They all gasp in shock as they see that Emilia is not only conversing with a fairy, but one with a rather hostile demeanour.
“What…”
Puck looks at each of the council members with contempt before speaking up.
“Allow me then to introduce myself. I am the great spirit Puck, one of the spirits of the Apocalypse. I have formed a lifelong contract with lady Emilia to grant her my power as well as my support in every endeavour, and I’ll readily serve the kingdom if it were under lady Emilia’s command.”
One of the council members, a particularly fat one, looks at Emilia and Puck in disgust.
“Disgusting. Not only are you mixed blooded, but you have a demon as your familiar.”
You have been hearing a droning sound in your ears for a while now, and you can barely breathe. You are tightening your fists as if to tear into your palms with your nails.
“You decrepit old turds!”, you explode from the crowd.
The rest of the council looks at you with confusion.
You were about to regret your outburst and excuse yourself, but you decide to step forward close to the line of candidates, and you turn back and face the stunned crowd.
“What in the royal fuck is your problem, you fucking idiots? Can you not understand that Emilia here has nothing to do with a witch who died four hundred years ago? Are the people in this kingdom truly that retarded?”
Your outburst shocks everyone into silence. No one had ever spoken out against the council. Not even the late king had dared to defy them.
“In fact, I doubt if these people have ever dared to disagree with the bullshit you spew! You’re all a bunch of fucking cowards! If you were real men, you’d be out there protecting this land and not sitting on your ass all day judging people based on bullshit superstitions!”
You turn your attention back to Emilia.
“And you, stand straighter. The only reason why they’re attacking you is because you’re a fucking elf. You have nothing to apologize for.”
In the middle of a commotion from the crowd, the leading elder glares at you.
“What is your name, young man?”
“My name is Natsuki Subaru, who hails from another fucking dimension. You have a problem with that?”
The council members all begin to complain and argue among themselves.
“Quiet! Quiet! All of you! Young Natsuki Subaru, what is your position in relation to lady Emilia?”
“I’m her esteemed bodyguard!”
“Bodyguard, huh?”
“More than that, in fact. I’m Emilia’s knight.”
“Her knight?”
“Yes. Someone who will defend her even if it costs him his life. If she dies, I’ll take my own life. That sort of thing.”
You speak it with utter certainty. Without hesitation. Your willingness to sacrifice yourself for Emilia earns you surprised looks from everyone else in the room, but you resist looking towards Emilia herself, fearing her expression.
“She has a good one here, councilmen and ladies. I suggest you pay attention. Do you understand, Natsuki Subaru, the trouble you are in?”
“What possible trouble am I in from you old fucks? You could barely stand from your chairs without your mummified asses ripping apart. I bet your mother had a shady past involving more men than she would ever admit.”
“Good. You stand up for yourself, boy… However, I’m curious as to how you plan to defend your charge, when you have so little to work with.”
The old man turns to his side and pulls out a wooden sword. He throws it in front of you, and you bend over to pick it up. The crowd becomes noisy again, but the elder silences them by raising his hands.
“You intend to swordfight with me, old man?”, you mock him. “Should we take out our dicks as well?”
“If you wish. We’ll use those instead of our wooden swords. It’ll be more fun.”
You laugh at his offer, before looking down at the sword in your hands.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to swordfight.”
The old man laughs.
“Too bad. I’m not the one tasked with defending the honor of these proceedings.”
You notice someone’s gaze burning your temple. When you turn to that side you see a white-robed man maybe in his early twenties. He has light purple hair down to his shoulders, and is standing straight glaring at you, with one of his hands resting on his sheathed sword.
“Who might you be?”, you ask warily.
“I’m Julius Euclius, captain of the Knights of Lugunica”, he says with a firm tone and an icy glare in his eyes. “Will you please speak to me about your background?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m asking you politely.”
You consider his offer for a moment.
“I’m just a promising young guy moving up in this fantasy world. I’m not from these parts. In fact I come from so far away that I might have as well come from a different dimension.” You take a deep breath. “I’m more technologically advanced than this place. Hell, I’ve journeys through dimensions beyond comprehension, fought monsters with powers that could destroy entire worlds, unleashed the power of the gods themselves.”
You get closer to Julius.
“And your long hair makes you look girly”, you say, pushing Julius’ buttons.
However, Julius’ expression barely breaks to show his disdain.
“I see that you are young and a fantasist. You declare yourself to be a knight, which on this kingdom should put you side by side with the Knights of Lugunica. What is the training you have followed that allows you to make such a claim?”
“I believe in myself, and in Emilia, and in defending Emilia. And once I found out that a puppy was actually a demon, and stood up in front of that monster for a while.”
“A demon?”
“Yes, a powerful creature from another dimension. I was greatly wounded in the battle, but in the end the demon fell.”
Julius looks behind you towards Emilia, and his expression turns stern.
“Why would someone who proclaims to defend a lady cause such a pain in her?”
Fearing what you are about to see, you look over your shoulder. Emilia is crying profusely in silence, while she clenches her fists at her side. You feel your blood turn cold.
“You… You’re just a fucking asshole.”
Before you can turn around, Julius has pulled his sword from its sheath and pushed it against your throat. The tip pierces your skin as a trickle of blood leaks out, staining the tip of the blade red.
“Defend yourself”, Julius hisses.
“Are you going to attack me with your real sword even though I was just given this silly wooden training sword?”
Before you can react, Julius drops his blade and begins to laugh. Even the captain seems to be smiling at you.
“A wise choice of words from such a young boy. Natsuki Subaru, was it?”
“That’s right?”
“You are hardly worth anybody’s time, but the game is on, boy.”
He orders for one of his knights, who remain in formation and who glare at you with murderous intent, to produce a wooden sword. When Julius gets it, he wields it and he stands a few meters from you. He flicks his hair from his face and narrows his eyes towards you.
“I wonder if you’re ready to play now?”
You nod, and the beatings begin.

A few hours later, the sun has set and your body hurts all over. At some point after you lost consciousness, someone dragged you to a fancy bed. One of your eyes is severely swollen and you can hardly see with the other one, but you gather that you aren’t at the royal palace anymore, but at some mansion. You look around you, and you realize that Emilia is sitting in a chair, slightly bent over, with her palms on her knees. Her long silver hair hides her expression.
You feel your lips tremble.
“Ah… Emilia, how did things go with the remainder of the royal summons? I can’t remember much after I passed out.”, you say with a thin voice.
When she raises her head towards you, her eyes are wet with tears. She loosens her tight lips and answers you with an icy tone.
“Went well. Roswaal explained to the council that I have the power, partly thanks to Puck, to take over the kingdom if I want to, but that I just want to be judged fairly, given a fair opportunity along with the other royal candidates.”
“Hmmm… It seems like you fooled them all. Everyone was completely taken in by your cute looks.”
Your joke breaks the ice, and she lets out a faint smile. She then stands up, steps forward and slaps you hard across the face.
“I suppose I deserve it.”
“You are the lowliest piece of shit I have ever met, Natsuki Subaru. I can’t believe you broke your promise and then embarrassed me like that”, Emilia says with a teary voice.
“Obviously I would never do that on purpose. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t know! You’re too stupid to realize what you did!”
“That’s… kinda harsh, but given what happened…” You touch the side of your swollen eye and wince from the pain. “I suppose it was pretty damn funny.”
“Are you seriously that retarded? Did your parents not teach you manners, or respect, or basic human decency?”
“They’re dead.”
Emilia’s angry expression changes to one of sadness and she steps towards you. She lifts up your chin with her finger, making you look into her eyes.
“I… I’m sorry to hear that. When did they pass?”
“Well, they aren’t actually dead, but it seemed like the right thing to say.”
Emilia stands back, and her expression twists in a grimace.
“Is there no bottom to your shame?”
“Don’t say that. At least now my parents are safe.”
“If they’re safe then why don’t you just say they’re alive?”
“Well, I was trying to make a point that…”
“Go fuck yourself, you’re a horrible person.”
She turns her head away from you and begins to exit the room. Quickly, you extend your hand and grab her wrist. She stops walking, but doesn’t turn to look at you.
“Emilia, please. I shouted at those dickheads from the council because I wanted to stop them from harassing you for being a cute little half-elf. Don’t you understand that? That must have earned me some points at least!”
Emilia turns and gives you a withering stare.
“You almost ruined both my and lord Roswaal’s opportunity to reach the throne of the kingdom. You with your bottomless idiocy, lack of respect and shameful demeanour. Right now I would esteem a dog shit on the sidewalk higher than you.”
As Emilia was getting angrier, Puck moved into her shadow and became invisible. He’s watching very closely to see if you’ll flip shit or not.
You stay quiet and just look at her. She’s quite mad, and she has a point. Because of your actions, she’ll have to deal with the council for much longer than she had to. Then again, if she wasn’t so cute, you probably wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”, Emilia asks in an accusatory tone. “Nothing in any way that could possibly lessen the damage you have caused me?”
“Emilia, if I were you and was walking around in this world and everybody hated me because I was born this or that, I would burn everything to the ground and then piss all over the remains. I was just giving them a taste of what they should fear.”
“I don’t wish to be feared. I just want to be accepted…”
“Then why don’t you accept yourself? You are who you are. You can’t change your height, your hair colour, the size of your nose or the size of your tits. So why bother worrying about it? Besides, it’s not like you have a choice in any of that anyway.”
“Please stop looking at my tits.”
You stare at her face.
“What tits? I don’t see any tits. I just see a skinny girl with hardly any resemblance of tits at all.”
Emilia’s face drops and she looks away.
“You are an asshole. A complete asshole.”
“I’m serious. I don’t care about any of that stuff. To me, you’re just a fun girl that I get to have silly conversations with. All I want is to see you happy.”
“You are the most vexing, infuriating person that I have ever met.”
“Good. Glad you finally noticed.”
Emilia sighs and grabs your hand. As tears begin to form in her eyes, she holds your gaze.
“Natsuki Subaru, I want you to listen to me attentively.”
“I’m listening.”
“I don’t want to ever see your dumb face again. And I mean never. You won’t return to the mansion, you won’t look for me, and if we ever cross paths again, I’ll nail you to a wall and tear your fucking balls off.”
“Wow, that sounds really painful, you sure you don’t want to try something else?”
“Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.”
Emilia begins to cry as she leaves the room. You hear her quick steps until they fade away. You remain in silence in the darkening room, sitting straight in the bed.
“Her tits aren’t that bad”, you mutter to yourself.
You leave the mansion and wander the streets of the city. After about an hour of aimless walking, you find yourself at a park. You take a seat on a swing as you watch the sun fall from the sky.
“Is this my punishment?”
Puck appears next to you, glaring at you.
“Yes, this is your punishment. For all eternity, you are to remain here, in this park, watching this stupid fucking swing set. You really screwed up, mate.”
“Hey, don’t go Australian on me.”
“Fuck you.”
Puck disappears, and you go back to watching the sunset.

---

Some observations regarding GPT-3’s behavior on this one. Plenty of interesting examples.

-I’m mystified by Priscilla’s way of speaking. It is somehow produced by the hidden background I wrote, but her just commenting on the silence when the protagonist meets her again feels really good. GPT-3 didn’t produce anything similar, however, to how in the original Priscilla believes that the world moves for her. I altered that in.
-This was a very formal scene in the original, and there was a concept of the royal candidates standing in a line in front of the crowd, and also in front of the council members on the other side. Somehow, GPT-3 figured that out by itself. The guard calling Priscilla over was made up by the AI, as well as Priscilla curiously asking to be announced last.
-The leading elder announcing that the royal family had died and that whole thing about them needing new leadership, as well as the general reactions of the crowd, are made up by GPT-3.
-Regarding the first three candidate’s speeches, the only one I had to edit significantly was Crusch Karsten’s, as it didn’t emphasize her experience as a duchess, nor anything about her wish for order and the rule of law. But GPT-3 understood that Anastasia came after Priscilla, and that Crusch came after Anastasia, and GPT-3 presented them entirely by itself. I wouldn’t have believed this was possible just a week ago.
-I let GPT-3 produce for a bit after that, but it wasn’t bringing up that Emilia was a half-elf, so I prompted that in. Then GPT-3 came with Roswaal pretending he presented Emilia as a joke! Following that, GPT-3 was serious about it being a joke, so I had to turn Roswaal serious.
-I couldn’t come up with why Emilia would want to be the ruler (and in the original, her explanation is childish), but GPT-3 came up with the fact that there are other non-human races in the kingdom and that they should be represented. GPT-3 also made up that reference to a Confederacy of Karsten, understanding that Karsten is a ruling line!
-Most of the curious philosophical argument between Emilia and the leading elder is GPT-3 flexing. I had little to do with it.
-Presenting Puck is the FIRST time I had to prompt Puck into any of these scenes in this part or in the previous. GPT-3, having understood that Puck is a spirit that flies around, makes him appear in strange places and unlikely situations, often doing bizarre stuff or coming up with weird responses.
-The line ‘Disgusting. Not only are you mixed blooded, but you have a demon as your familiar.’ is verbatim from what GPT-3 produced.
-GPT-3 wasn’t making the protagonist intervene, and in the original he does. I wanted to go over the top, partly to trip GPT-3 and see how it adapted. I was impressed with how it made the leading elder seem half menacing, half teasing.
-GPT-3 somehow decided for the elder to produce a wooden sword unprompted. In the original version, the protagonist fights Julius with a wooden sword, but in a later scene. How did that happen?
-The line ‘In fact, I doubt if these people have ever dared to disagree with the bullshit you spew! You’re all a bunch of fucking cowards! If you were real men, you’d be out there protecting this land and not sitting on your ass all day judging people based on bullshit superstitions!’ is verbatim from GPT-3.
-Julius being menacingly polite fits his character, and GPT-3 ran with that from the beginning.
-The protagonist’s wild lies regarding his exploits are a 100% GPT-3. It was so funny that I had to run with it.
-Emilia calling the protagonist a fucking asshole while crying was GPT-3’s idea, as well as Julius jumping forward to press his sword against the protagonist’s neck. I had to prompt in for the protagonist to suggest a wooden sword fight.
-The lines ‘”I wonder if you’re ready to play now?” You nod, and the beatings begin. A few hours later, the sun has set and your body hurts all over.’ are verbatim from GPT-3. It came up with the likelier outcome of that confrontation, as well as segued to the following scene.
-The conversation with Emilia afterwards was hilarious, and GPT-3 came up with plenty of the crazyness: Subaru saying that the council was fooled because Emilia was cute. Every comment about her tits. Emilia repeating ‘fuck you’ as she left in tears. Glorious.
-It was also GPT-3’s idea for the protagonist to say that his parents were dead (I also let GPT-3 produce a lot of Subaru’s material, if the AI does it right). Clearly the artificial intelligence was going for a serious, heartfelt moment of true backstory (which wouldn’t fit at all for reasons related to the fourth arc of the original Re:Zero), but I made it into a further absurd example of how much of a scumbag this version of Subaru is.
-I was going to end this session there, but I left GPT-3 producing twice, and it made the protagonist go to a park, made Puck appear, made puck harass the protagonist, and after I prompted the protagonist’s comment about Australia, GPT-3 had Puck disappear with a ‘fuck you’. Out of this world.