Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

Volume 4, Chapter 124: LISTEN UP, STUPID

—Howmany times has he come to this room to see her?

The first time they met, Subaru easily foiled the girl's illusory looping hallway and entered the Forbidden Archive.

Their first impressions of each other were mutually horrid.

Beatrice preformed a mana drain one someone still midway through convalescence, and promptly downed Subaru. Afterwards she had to put up with his endless revenge-inspired meddling.

They would insult each other every time they met, but despite that got along ridiculously well, and Subaru found himself stopping by the supposedly-veiled Forbidden Archive.

Subaru and Beatrice had had many yelling matches, spit flying everywhere, over these almost-two- months that Subaru has been in the mansion, just one immature exchange after another.

Those exchanges changed after the Royal Selection properly began and Subaru returned from the Capital.

Beatrice was rejecting him. With knowledge gained in SANCTUARY, where she was absent, Subaru learned her history and fate, and accordingly understood some reasons for her stubbornness.

Then he prattled as if he knew anything, trying to understand her solitude—and Beatrice, long bereft of tears after these four hundred years, wailed her laments.

There was nothing he could've said to the exhausted girl after that. Immediate circumstances led Beatrice to lose her life, and Subaru saw that final expression on her face as she protected him.

That expression seared itself into his memory. Running off his emotions, Subaru returned here. —So that this time, no matter what it took, he'd get her out of this place.

Beatrice: “Taking me out of here...?”

Is Beatrice's bewildered response to Subaru's grand opening statement. She hugs the gospel tighter, drawing her knees to her chest as she sits atop the stepladder.

Beatrice: “Unwanted meddling, I suppose. Nobody asked for you to do that, in fact.”

Subaru: “This isn't about anyone asking or not asking me. I'm taking you out of here. Decisively.”

Beatrice: “Just scram and have that foolish girl comfort you on her lap, I suppose.”

Subaru: “You little... this's war! You say something like that and it's war!”

Beatrice brings up a topic back from when Subaru was overloaded in this mansion, and he strains his voice to distract from his internal shame.

Beatrice snorts at him and glances away.

Subaru: “Anyway, this isn't the time to be mucking around like this. We have basically no room to postpone anything. Have you grasped what's going on outside?”

Beatrice: “...I do know that some uninvited guests have come to the mansion, in fact. After the big and little maid did something or other, two preposterous people started going on a rampage, I suppose.”

Subaru: “Though, one of those preposterous people's a helper who I brought along. I don't think he'll lose, martially speaking, but unfortunately I get this feeling the difference in their resolve'll determine the win. And so I can't accommodate too much of your solemnity here.”

Beatrice: “Then you're evacuating the mansion's residents while your assistant buys time ...is your scheme, in fact. Are you trusting in your ally or aren't you with this sloppy strategy, I suppose?”

Subaru: “The strategy's like this 'cause I know he's way too kind.”

The restorative effects of Garfiel's EARTHSOUL BLESSING mean that his current condition is 80~90% of his maximum. When adding on his lack of hesitation for battle, he's quite a considerable fighting force. But Subaru doubts that he has sufficient resolve to kill his opponent, which will keep him from putting in his all, which is a bit of a minus.

Meanwhile Elsa is in perfect condition. Subaru judges her strange, unexplainable combat strength as a good match for Garfiel at his best. Her tendency to enjoy herself during her battles is something of a minus for her combat-wise, but she has that inexplicable immorality. Elsa's statements give no suggestion that killing her indefinite times will make her stay dead either. Subaru's tentative estimations dictate that Elsa has the slight advantage.

Subaru: “But if the strategy's working, Frederica should collect Rem while Garfiel's suppressing Elsa. Petra met up with Otto, so now there's only one essential evacuee left before we can save everybody.”

Beatrice: “Essential evacuees... you mean to say that Betty is the last, in fact.”

Subaru: “Yeah, I do.”

Subaru had instructed Petra go meet up with Otto, who has guided the villagers in Arlam to safety, and retreat after helping with a few gambits in the mansion.

Subaru has spent time reaching the Archive, and she should have finished her departure by now.

Subaru: “And so I'm getting you out of here. If you don't wanna run while holding my hand, then I'll piggyback you or cradle you or do whatever to you, so just behave and come over here and...”

Beatrice: “Don't make me repeat myself, I suppose. I don't need your help, in fact.”

Subaru steps closer and offers Beatrice his hand, but she speaks low to reject him. He comes to a stop in front of her as she turns her head in indication of the room.

Beatrice: “Hear me, I suppose? An isolated space, of power worthy of Betty, separated from the cloisters of time. This is Beatrice's Forbidden Archive, in fact. Regardless of whatever threatens the outside, that threat will never reach Betty's Archive. Your fears are needless, in fact.”

Subaru: “Nope, they're needed. Your Archive's randomness does mean it's strongly advantageous when it comes to fleeing, true... but, it has a fatal flaw. And the enemy knows what it is.”

Beatrice: “A fatal, flaw?”

Beatrice furrows her brows, indeed unable to let the comment pass. But Subaru just responds to her harsh gaze with a nod, and gestures to the door behind him.

Subaru: “Your power which randomly connects to some door in the mansion is strong. But... it only works on the mansion's CLOSED DOORS. So if you leave the mansion's doors open, you're certain to reach the Archive eventually, since you'll be losing doors until only the Archive's is left.”

Beatrice: “—hk”

Subaru: “It's such a stupid thing. I bet you didn't notice it either. I was wondering why I hadn't realised it until practically I witnessed it myself.”

Subaru remembers when Elsa, having noticed the loophole in GATE CROSSING, found the Archive. If Garfiel wasn't around to impede her, Elsa would unmistakably come here while using that exact same method. And likely take Beatrice's life.

Subaru: “Though of course, it's not like I'm underestimating you, or saying that her showing up here means you're going down easy. It's just that her strangeness is some of the extremest I've ever experienced. If we can do this without facing her, there's nothing better.”

If they can defeat Elsa then he would like to do that, but it's not an essential requirement for clearing this loop series. If Roswaal is the one hiring her, then so long as Subaru crosses the time limit for the issues in SANCTUARY, Roswaal should stop having any reason to keep hiring Elsa. The whole insignia affair in the Capital proves that this would make Elsa withdraw.

Either way, right now they need to survive through the attack on the mansion and—

Subaru: “Beatrice. This place isn't safe. If you're not here, she won't disturb the library. So just for now...”

Beatrice: “Why does that woman know how to break Betty's GATE CROSSING, I suppose?”

Subaru: “—”

Subaru spits out the suitable bargaining chips to convince Beatrice to leave.

But Beatrice, perhaps listening to Subaru's statements or perhaps not, whispers a whisper differing from what Subaru's looking for.

Subaru shuts his mouth. Beatrice remains upon the stepladder.

Beatrice: “It's inconceivable that she would abruptly conceive of how to break Betty's GATE

CROSSING on her first encounter with it, in fact. Whoever taught her those methods knows me, I suppose.”

Subaru: “Beatrice. This isn't the time for that conversa—”

Beatrice: “—It's Roswaal, in fact.”

Subaru can't divert her.

Her swift thinking makes Subaru swallow his breath.

Seeing his reaction, Beatrice understands everything. Roswaal hired Elsa, and his goal is to kill Beatrice. Which means—

Beatrice: “It is written in Roswaal's gospel that I be killed, I suppose.”

Giving no heed to either Subaru's affirmations or denials, Beatrice sighs.

It's unlikely that the relief Subaru perceives in that sigh is just his imagination. Unable to overlook the comment, Subaru puts pressure on Beatrice.

Subaru: “Want to tell me what that sigh was? And why the hell you look like you're agreeing!?”

Beatrice: “It's what it looks like, I'm agreeing, in fact. If Roswaal's gospel has ordered him to do this, then that means my fate is decided, I suppose.”

Subaru: “Fuck is that... Roswaal's book is Roswaal's book, and your book is your book! Your book really says to go get killed by Roswaal, does it!?”

Jabbing out his finger, Subaru glares at the gospel in Beatrice's arms.

If nothing has changed from the previous loops, then for four hundred years, that book has written just blank white paper.

Beatrice's expression turns gloomy and she opens to a page of the gospel. She spreads the book open and presents it so that Subaru can see it—showing a book of only empty pages.

Beatrice: “Nothing is written, in fact. Identical as ever, only blank pages, I suppose.”

Subaru: “Then there's no reason for you to get killed like Roswaal's book says! It's same as ever, you're who decides what you do!”

Beatrice: “...The same as ever, I'm the one deciding?”

Subaru: “Yes! Nothing being written means you must've faced choices during all this time. Small things to big things, you're the one who decided every path you took! So there's no reason for you to dance along to someone else's choices this time, eith—”

Beatrice: “What in my life have I ever decided?”

The doleful question crushes Subaru's momentum.

Beatrice tilts her head as she gazes at Subaru, her eyes melancholy. She flips through the blank pages

Beatrice: “All the time Betty spent in Roswaal's mansion, protecting the Archive that Mother entrusted to her, endlessly, endlessly... when during that did I ever have time belonging to myself? When did Betty, having lived empty centuries without writ, ever leave her footsteps anywhere in the world? What did Beatrice ever do, and who is she?”

Subaru: “Bea, trice...”

Beatrice: “Betty's life, Betty's four hundred years, are as blank as this gospel, in fact. A void, in fact. What I chose by myself, what I gained by myself, what can attest of myself... all non-existent.”

Beatrice claps the gospel shut and sets it on her lap. She strokes its nameless cover as she quietly speaks,

Beatrice: “I'm identical to an empty book. Losing me here simply means losing a blank, letterless text. Never anything to anybody, merely a book shoved in a bookcase—it'd be laudable for it to be gone, in fact.”

Subaru: “What if there's people who don't want that blank book gone?”

Beatrice feels to be verging on abandoning her four centuries and her future. Subaru manages to get words out in an attempt to connect to her heart.

Subaru has not yet found his reply to Beatrice's tearful scream from back then.

But even so, should he fail to speak here, she will give up on herself.

Subaru: “You called it nothing, a void. But there assuredly is a book wedged inside that bookcase. There are people who know that book exists. And maybe there's people who'll want to pick up that book someday, you think they'd stand the thing going off and destroying itself?”

Beatrice: “The book has neither name nor author, I suppose. Supposing for argument that this benevolent someone exists, opening that book and seeing the inside would only disappoint them, in fact. The blank book doesn't want to watch the disappointment unfurl across that person's face either, I suppose.”

Subaru: “Then! Then what is that book doing in that place!”

Beatrice: “—”

Beatrice gazes emotionlessly at Subaru.

It feels like a retort, saying this whole dialogue lacks any apparent meaning. Subaru raises his head regardless, continuously reaching out to Beatrice's distant heart.

Subaru: “If someone who picks it up's just going to be disappointed... then for what sake is that book there? Wasn't the book made because it had meaning?”

Beatrice: “...The book's author crafted that book for the sake of a person, in fact. The book is made to appear empty to everyone except for that SOMEONE, I suppose. If we assume there's to be meaning, then the very instant the book reaches the SOMEONE comprises the meaning of that book's creation.”

Subaru: “And so then—”

Beatrice: “The book mustn't be disposed of until it reaches the SOMEONE, you're saying, I suppose.”

Subaru swallows his breath.

He notices an instant before can voice it what a cruel breed of hope he is arguing for. Beatrice sees Subaru's expression, and a horribly pained smile arises on her face.

Beatrice: “Exactly. If Betty truly were just a book... then she'd be happy to wait for that day, in fact.”

Beatrice would have waited there for that day when the SOMEONE's fingers flipped through her pages.

If she were a book.

—But Beatrice isn't a book. She's a little girl, shivering from prolonged isolation.

Beatrice: “If I were a soulless, mindless book... then I could have faultlessly believed in Mother's instructions forever. I could have been Mother's lovely Beatrice forever, I suppose.”

If she were an entity like a doll, lacking a heart and comprised only of ornamentation, she would have never deliberated.

If she were an entity like a book, unshaken by the constant passing of time, she would have never lamented.

Beatrice was not that thing.

Beatrice: “But I have a heart. Should time pass I do think about things, at least enough to lose faith in what I believed in, in fact. I agonize and deliberate, I suppose. There were countless nights where I scrambled to salvage my memories, because I'd forgotten what Mother's face, what her smile looked like!”

Subaru: “—”

Beatrice: “There were times I couldn't bear being alone, and I yearned to touch someone! But everyone leaves me behind! They'll say whatever they'll say, state it's for the sake of something more important than me, assert their rationale, and desert me! Mother did! Roswaal did! —Even Lewes did!!”

Beatrice shouts, her face scrunched up and near to tears.

Hearing the name Lewes makes Subaru remember what he heard in SANCTUARY about Beatrice's past. And the root of all the present Leweses, Lewes Meyer.

She and Beatrice had only known each other for a fleeting instant, but their story still told of a definite bond. —Still left a persistent scar on Beatrice's heart.

Beatrice: “—Just, enough, in fact.”

Beatrice loses her momentum. The tone of her voice plummets.

Her expression, twisted with emotion, returns to its usual apathy as she hugs the book on her lap close.

Beatrice: “Betty's gospel will not outline Betty's future. ...I've known it for a very long time, in fact. Even Mother forsook Betty's fate far and long ago.”

The lack of writ about the future means that the gospel's owner has fallen into a dead end. While judging off Subaru's possession of Betelgeux's gospel, that was how Beatrice appraised books with frozen writ. Appraised that the same thing was happening to herself.

Beatrice: “If Betty's fate has been outlined in Roswaal's gospel... how sardonic, I suppose. But that does ease me, in fact. It's inconceivable that Roswaal would take half-measures, I suppose.”

Subaru: “An old friend of yours might kill you... how is that relaxing?”

Beatrice: “It's obvious, in fact.”

Beatrice nods.

A fleeting, affectionate smile arises on her face.

Beatrice: “If Roswaal's gospel has written about me... then it means that Mother has certainly not forgotten about me, I suppose.”

—Warped.

Beatrice's smiling visage makes Subaru notice that he is seconds from drowning beneath an emotional torrent.

It's warped. Beatrice's visage as she rejoices in her contact with her mother's love is so warped it's unbearable. Subaru could stand that this thing, that this happening, was a mother's love—as fucking if.

Beatrice: “...What are you thinking to do, in fact?”

Subaru bites his lip and endures the sensations welling up in him as he steps forward.

Caution cloaks Beatrice's expression as she perceives the alarming vibe emanating from Subaru.

Subaru: “—”

Beatrice: “I asked you a question, I suppose. What are you thinking to do, in fact? If you try anything, I'll show no mercy, I suppose. I've already accepted my fate, in fact.”

Subaru: “Accepted goddamn what. So you're no different from Roswaal. No, he's at least self aware, you're multitudes more awful. Utterly hopeless, let it get fucking worse.”

Anger surges from inside him.

It's an emotion that Subaru has constantly combated since all these events in SANCTUARY.

Anger at himself while challenging the TRIAL, anger at the witches for toying with him, anger at Garfiel for underestimating himself out of childish stubbornness, anger at Roswaal for obeying the writ to try and affirm the fragility of feelings, anger at Emilia for not believing in herself or Subaru's love—

—and now anger at Beatrice, and everyone who cornered her into this.

Subaru: “You're stupid. Say whatever about your fate, say whatever about your Mother's orders, anyone looking from aside's gonna think it's sad. You have a heart? You can't be a book? Of course you goddamn can't, stupid. Did staying holed in this moldy room make you incapable of recognizing that?”

Beatrice: “Stu...!”

Beatrice's eyes shoot open, and after a look of surprise—indignation.

She gets to her feet on the stepladder, her skirt swaying as she points at Subaru.

Beatrice: “You! Who do you think you are referring to with that comment, I suppose! I'm stupid, I'm stupid? How do you dare say this, in fact... and especially by you! What do you think you could possibly know about Betty, I suppose!”

Subaru: “I know you're stupid, and you don't realise you're stupid, so I'd say I know you better than you do! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stuuuupid!!”

Beatrice: “Y-y-you...!!'

Subaru flips the bird as he curses, turning Beatrice's face crimson and blocking off her words. Her rage is too incredible for her to come up with any retort.

Barging into openings like that happens to be Subaru's forte.

Subaru: “A four-hundred year void? Drop the affectations! You hugged your knees crying for four hundred years is what you did! You had all that time to think, why the hell are you clinging to this single answer forever! The book's not telling you anything so you think that means I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING? Are you stupid!?”

Beatrice: “O-of course I thought about things, in fact! As I plainly would, I suppose! Can you conceive how many things I tested to see if the gospel's writ would change! But no matter what I did, no matter how I waited, it didn't! So!”

Subaru: “That's what I'm saying is stupid! The book's got nothing in it so you work to try and make letters appear, the hell is this, invisible ink on a New Year's card? No one does that any more! If none of that was working, start thinking of other possibilities!”

Beatrice: “O-other, possibilities...”

Subaru: “Straight-out. The possibility your mom's book was wrong.”

Beatrice falls utterly speechless.

But she immediately snaps at him, determining his reply as moronic.

Beatrice: “You hold your tongue, in fact! Mother would never pull such an idiotic stunt, I suppose! You... you could not possibly comprehend Mother's vast thoughts, in fact!”

Subaru: “Nope, don't know'em at all, stupid. Like I care anything about what your mom thinks. What we're talking about is you. And you said it, didn't you. You said that she'd never pull something that idiotic. Really? Can you assert it? You've never doubted your mother even once?”

Beatrice: “What, are...”

Subaru: “Four hundred years! Gone with a self-writing book sitting absolutely blank! The person you're waiting for never came either! You spent all of that time alone, had so much room to think it's ridiculous, and you never thought of it even once? You seriously never thought that this was strange!?”

Four centuries spent believing in someone.

Perhaps it sounds like a sterling way of being. But in truth it is crooked. Especially when spent only ever thinking about the person, and only ever about their words.

Especially when you're Beatrice, who does not think her wish will come true, and has nigh given up.

Beatrice: “I-it is inconceivable that Mother would bring about anything incorrect, I suppose! O-of course she wouldn't, in fact. She is Mother, I suppose! Do you think it possible to doubt the words of your own mother!?”

Subaru: “Of course I do! I think the stuff my mom says is overwhelmingly lacking in credibility! That time when she misheard news that 'a satellite fell into the atmosphere' as 'a satellite fell into Aichi prefecture' and I went zooming out with the big scoop without verifying it is when I stopped trusting her! That was in third year primary!”

He would never forget the day that he sincerely accepted that, spread the rumour, and turned into a schoolyard laughingstock.

Subaru never trusted anything his parents said ever again. And he had already deemed his father's statements as unreliable prior to that.

Subaru: “Four hundred years, and you never doubted her for even a second!? I'm not even twenty years old, and I'd run out of fingers before I could count the number of fistfights I've had with my dad. And that's with twenty years. You had twenty times that, and you never felt that way even once, huh?”

Beatrice: “You... what are you wishing to make me say, I suppose!? I utterly cannot discern it, in fact! Your aims, the point of your remarks, are utterly arcane to Betty! Arcane!”

Subaru: “Then I'll say it loud and clear! So that your stupid self and your stupid mother can hear it!”

Beatrice is about ready to clutch her head in frustration when Subaru approaches, and takes her hands.

Beatrice looks up. Subaru draws his face close, into breathing range, and asserts to the teary girl:

Subaru: “Stop getting thrown around by a blank book and a four-hundred-year-old promise. —Be the one who chooses what you want to do, Beatrice.”

Beatrice: “—”

Subaru: “It's four hundred years. Plenty long enough for at least one rebellious phase to hit.”

Beatrice has admirably been trying to obey her parent's instructions.

Her stubborn volition to keep that promise has spawned her solitude and a timespan of emptiness.

Her mother, Echidna, seems to find even that time spent in agony as something sweet, but from Subaru's perspective it's profane immorality.

She's forgotten how to cry and the feeling of wanting to cry, the fuck about this is 'sterling way of being'. Don't make him puke.

With her hands still in Subaru's grip and atop the stepladder, Beatrice looks away from Subaru.

Her height as she sits on the top step is practically equal with Subaru's eye level. She eventually tilts her head down, lets her lips move,

Beatrice: “Th, en... this is, what you're attempting to say, I suppose. Betty, disobey Mother's orders.”

Subaru says nothing.

Beatrice: “Abandon everything you believed in over these centuries and be free... that is what you are so easily saying to me, I suppose.”

Her shaking voice gradually regains its composure.

It begins to fill with something that is not shock, and Subaru feels his hair standing on end. Ever since coming to this world, this sensation alone is one he has undeniably honed.

That being, the sensation of a direly hazardous entity.

Beatrice: “—Demanding that I, Beatrice! Violate a contract! Speaking as if you know anything!”

Subaru: “—Aguh!?”

As if stricken by a galeforce, Subaru goes flying backwards.

His back strikes the archive floor, still encircled by a wind which slams him into the wall. His breathing stalls. His bones creak all across his body and his vision strobes as he raises his head.

Beatrice remains atop the stepladder, but her expression is one of fury as she looks down at Subaru.

Beatrice: “Contracts are absolute! Absolute, in fact! And especially so for contracts made between a spirit and a witch. You demand that it be annulled unilaterally, and by the spirit? You understand nothing, I suppose! Such a thing would never be forgiven! Not anyone! Not anything! And not even I myself would permit it, in fact!”

Subaru: “—From someone searching for backdoors in that contract and thinking if they can't violate it better try and get killed, that's rich.”

Beatrice: “—!”

Subaru sighs to force the pain out of him as he sluggishly uprights himself.

Beatrice's rage is not faltering, and her adorable expression remains thick with malice. Subaru raises his head and laughs venomously.

Subaru: “You're an incoherent mess, Beatrice. You haven't realised how inconsistent you're being? Of course you've realised it, haven't you. You're a smart person.”

Beatrice: “Be silent, I suppose.”

Subaru: “No, I won't. Annul the contract? Sounds perfect. When you hate keeping the promise so much that you literally want to die, just stop. No one'll fault you.”

Beatrice: “I will fault me! Why is it you don't understand that, in fact!? Contracts are absolute, and keeping them is...”

Subaru: “Why don't you understand it? If keeping the contract kills you, you need to violate the contract and live. Is it really so strange that I'm opting for this?”

Subaru easily discards these contracts Beatrice is so fixated on. Beatrice has no words. Subaru might presently look like an incomprehensible, monstrous creature to her.

Subaru finds it far more mystifying that he's being recipient to that opinion.

Keeping promises is important, of course.

Emilia has criticized him multiple times for breaking promises, and he has gone through multiple painful experience because he broke them. And so even Subaru knows that keeping promises is very important.

Even so, he feels no hesitation about making Beatrice violate her contract.

And his reasoning for it is exactly what he just told her.

If anyone demands that Beatrice keep the promise and die, Subaru's flipping the guy the bird and telling him this: He will make her violate the contract, and make sure Beatrice lives.

It's not even something to think twice about.

Beatrice: “Th-that is unrelenting, incorrigibly insidious of you, in fact...”

Subaru: “I know it's unrelenting, and I am sorry for saying it. But it's important so I'm not surrendering this.”

Subaru's stance was decided from the very beginning. From the very beginning, the whole issue depended on Beatrice's feelings.

Beatrice cannot hide her panic and confusion at Subaru's disparagement of contracts. And of course she can't. Contracts are that important a thing for spirits.

Having witnessed the relationship between a spirit and a spiritualist, Subaru knows they are firm, weighty, utterly unshakable things.

He knows, and he's saying it:

You are more important than it.

Beatrice: “I-if, you... were THEY...”

Subaru's response to contracts is overwhelmingly overwhelming. Frailty creeps onto Beatrice's expression, which borders on breakdown.

Her lips speak of the insubstantial someone that Beatrice has waited for over these four centuries.

The fictional entity that Echidna cruelly invented so that she could know WHO BEATRICE WOULD

CHOOSE.

Beatrice wants to be saved.

The way that Subaru's words shake her heart and bring her to tears proves it better than anything.

Beatrice: “Will...”

Beatrice's teary eyes focus on Subaru.

Her lips tremble, and, practically clinging,

Beatrice: “...you be Betty's THEY?”

This question could be the full stop on what has gone on for four centuries.

And might be exactly what Echidna ordered her, making it what the witch wants to hear.

Who would Beatrice determine as being this insubstantial THEY?

The witch used her daughter to satisfy her own curiosity, letting her spend four hundred years in solitude.

The payoff for all that time rested in that question.

Beatrice swallows her breath. Subaru looks her in the eye, and declares:

Subaru: “Are you stupid? —Of course I wouldn't be this weird mysterious THEY of yours.”

※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※

After the ferocious shockwave gusts through the Archive, Beatrice takes the books thrown about by the wind and returns them to their bookcases.

While they did fall to the floor, none of the books look to have separated from their bindings, fortunately.

Beatrice reflects remorsefully on her use of force while inside the Archive, relieved that only very minor damages occurred.

They are her comrades, who passed four hundred years of solitude alongside her.

Beatrice had not been lying about her wish to be a book. She had fantasized many times about being like these texts, something which could wait for such a long time without it rocking her heart at all. She now thought it hope born from a stupid idea.

Beatrice: “Conceivably, it is laughable, I suppose.”

This is the wretchedness into which she has been cornered.

She mocks herself for it. But inside her small chest, self-deprication falls subordinate to wrath.

Beatrice: “That guy... that guy... truly, what is wrong with him, I suppose!”

Just thinking about him aggravates her, brings her close to stomping the ground.

She'd like to vent these pent-up emotions on something, but everything in this place which her Mother instructed her to protect is precious.

Unable to find anything to take her tantrum out on, all Beatrice can do is wait for her bloated emotions to wither.

She returns the final book to its shelf and sighs as she smooths out her appearance. Then she seats herself back on the stepladder, reaches to cradle the black tome—and stops.

A blank book. Just throw the thing away! He had said so easily, so many times.

Then at the vital moment, he rejected the option which would have allowed Beatrice to discard the thing. Absolutely, entirely, so incomprehensible it infuriates her.

Beatrice: “I'm exhausted, in fact...”

But her fury will not last forever.

Beatrice stops puffing out her cheeks, takes that book she had hesitated to hold, and puts it to her heart.

Ultimately, to the end of the end, leaning on this thing is the only way to protect her mind.

Just as Roswaal's gospel has writ, Beatrice's end will arrive soon.

What emotion should she feel as she waits for it to come?

It's finally ending. Wouldn't that be a good enough sentiment?

It's the one she's supposed to be feeling, but now that it's actually happening, she's lost.

—You are stupid. For some reason those words remain, sitting heavily in her heart.

※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※

Blown away by the shockwave, Subaru tumbles down the corridor until he slams back-first into a wall. His side strikes directly against a column, leading him to shriek and writhe.

Subaru: “Ghhah! Hhgahghh... I-impossible! Halfway through the conversation, and that idiot just...!”

The door in front of him slams shut. Subaru reaches out for the door, his expression hateful, but naturally the sight he sees after cracking the thing open is not the Forbidden Archive—merely a guest room.

GATE CROSSING has activated, and Subaru has been expelled from the Archive.

Subaru: “I pissed her off so much she threw me out... fuck, messed up with my word choice!”

What he was trying to say wasn't incorrect, but there was contradiction between how he was telling it and showing it.

Resulting in Subaru being thrown out of the Archive, and distanced from success.

Subaru: “Anyway, can't stay here. Have to find Beako through another door and...!”

???: “N-Natsuki-san?”

Subaru turns around, thinking to conquer the doors via utterly random selection, when a voice addresses him. The familiarity of it, and the fact it's calling him lead him Subaru to stumble and for his eyes to shoot open.

His gaze lands on Otto, peeking out from a neighbouring room, when he's supposed to be somewhere else. And peeking out from under Otto is Petra, also peering at Subaru.

Subaru: “Y-you guys? Why're you still in the mansion? I thought I told you that just one wing's fine and to run away after opening the doors?”

Otto: “Unfortunately, the situation outside has changed rather dramatically...”

Otto shakes his head, his face pale as Subaru approaches

It's inconceivable that Otto would be joking in this situation. Otto has aborted his escape, and there must be something happening which warrants that.

Subaru: “What happened? Short version please.”

Otto: “Witchbeasts did. Hordes of witchbeasts are encircling the mansion, and we cannot move.”

Subaru: “Witchbeasts!?”

Subaru's eyes shoot open wide at the unexpected word and he looks to Petra for confirmation. She nods several times in response.

Petra: “Erm, there's lots of witchbeasts which aren't the dogs... like snakes with two heads, or like possums, lots of them.”

Subaru: “Do these guys live in the nearby forest?”

Petra: “They do, but.... the barrier should be keeping them out.”

Subaru: “This barrier again...”

During the previous witchbeast debacle, they confirmed that the barrier between Arlam Village and the woods surrounding the mansion had been repaired. Afterwards they put top priority on looking out for weaknesses in the barrier, so it's inconceivable that a mistake could've happened after such a short timeframe.

And most importantly, the beasts are surrounding the mansion for some reason.

Subaru: “It's like with those mutts, some weird volition is operating on them...? What about Arlam's people? Are they okay?”

Otto: “I couldn't locate any witchbeasts when I instructed them to evacuate, and since they've used the carriages from the Duchess to flee, they should be safe. Patrasche-chan is guiding them too.”

Subaru: “Okay. That's a relief.”

It's more trustworthy that the clever dragon be tasked with escorting them than some random guy. While praying for Patrasche to pull it off, Subaru grits his teeth. The situation is unfolding down a track unknown to him yet again.

This witchbeast attack has never happened before.

Naturally, considering the timing, it has to be related to Elsa's attack.

Subaru: “What about Frederica and Rem?”

Petra: “We haven't run into Big Sis Frederica or Rem-san... Erm, I-I don't really think they can break through them and get away.”

Subaru: “Which means they're also still in the mansion. We'll be thankful the beasts're still staying outside, but how much can Garfiel do?”

Subaru strokes Petra's head, praising her strong heart for remaining composed during this extreme situation. If it were Subaru when he was her age, it wouldn't be weird for him to piss himself crying. But circumstances prohibit them from staying here.

Subaru: “Where are we right now? Which wing of the mansion?”

Otto: “The eastern. Garfiel should still be battling in the western wing, so I'd suggest avoiding that area to circumvent damages...”

Subaru: “And so the possible escape routes are...”

Of course Subaru needs to collect Beatrice, but it's also indispensable that Otto and Petra escape. Subaru descends into thought, thinking to scrutinize his mental map of the mansion for any possible escape routes. However, a voice drowns out Subaru's contemplations:

???: “—Oh my? You were all gathered here, waiting for me?”

A petrifying feeling, like a blade stroked against the back of their necks, leads all of them to freeze rigid.

Subaru promptly pulls Petra's arm and hugs her close as he timidly glances behind him.

Further down the hallway, lit with bars of moonlight, out peal someone's approaching footsteps. Their shape soon enters recognizably into the light,

Subaru: “What the hell is Garfiel doing!?”

???: “I'll unveil pretty guts from all three of you—”

Kicking off the floor before the shrieking Subaru, the Guthunter's black shadow darts as she bounds near.