CHAPTER 5

—A TALE ABOUT THAT, AND NOTHING MORE

1

Having tossed his final words toward the tombstone, Subaru turned his back upon the madman.

When he turned around, he saw Julius, one eye closed, and Patlash, standing beside him with a composed expression. Both were wounded all over, but their considerable mental strength meant they didn’t let it show.

That said, their mental and physical depletion was severe, and that sense of fatigue was beyond their capacity to conceal.

“Well, not like I’m one to talk. Even if it was for just a second, I let him get in my body and all.”

The side effects of Possession by Petelgeuse the evil spirit were utterly unclear. He dearly hoped he wouldn’t suddenly wake up covered in blood from subconsciously self-inflicted wounds.

In contrast to such absurd thoughts, Subaru was surprised at the oddly despondent feeling within himself. This was Petelgeuse, the most fearsome foe he’d faced since being summoned to another world. Even with him defeated, the sense of loss inside Subaru’s chest outweighed any sense of accomplishment.

“This has to be just burnout. I don’t feel sad for him biting the dust one little bit… Stupid, stupid.”

After those words to himself, he slapped his own cheek, using the pain to switch gears away from such soft thoughts.

They had defeated Petelgeuse. However, Subaru’s goals did not end there. The largest task remained: patching up his relationship with Emilia.

Starting with the breakup in the royal capital, he’d allied them with the Crusch camp, defeated the White Whale, battled the Witch Cult, and used a white lie to get Emilia and the others to evacuate—once he finished all the follow-up, including explaining after the fact, only then would this string of affairs be concluded.

Beyond his overusing his body, the various events had left him mentally depleted.

“But no one’s been maimed, no one’s been killed. This is way better. You realize for the first time how precious peaceful days are when you lose… Nah, I thought that from the start, actually.”

Even Subaru, who thought peace and security came first, could not escape irrationality’s ire.

That said, the turbulent times had largely calmed. When Subaru turned his head, he shifted it from Julius and Patlash toward Petelgeuse—and then his feet stopped in midstride.

The reason: a single book resting atop the blood trail Petelgeuse had left while crawling.

“—His Gospel, huh?”

He must have dropped it in his dying moments, for the pages of the Gospel were sullied by blood and grime.

Subaru picked it up and flipped through the pages to be sure. Just like before, the contents looked like a bunch of hieroglyphics to Subaru’s eyes. The latter half was filled with blank pages, and at any rate, there was no way to ask Petelgeuse about the contents now that he was dead.

“Best to just grab it and talk to Crusch and Roswaal about it later, huh?”

Furthermore, his goodwill toward Roswaal was insufficient to give him the first crack at it. His current absence spoke volumes, so in spite of Roswaal’s being an ally, Subaru’s trust in him was at its nadir. He wanted to hope Roswaal would make up for it later.

“—Subaru.”

As the boy contemplated how to deal with the Gospel, Julius approached him. When Subaru lifted his face at the voice, Julius’s brows were knotted with a grave expression.

It was an ill omen. And, as if to bolster Subaru’s premonition, Julius straightened up and spoke.

“I know we just settled things here, but let us return to the village immediately. A problem has arisen.”

“…I’ve got one hell of a bad feeling about this. What happened?”

“I have received word from Ferris.”

As he spoke, he lifted up the glowing conversation mirror. The mirror’s surface was connected to Ferris on the other end. Julius glanced at it, wariness evident in his handsome yellow eyes as he spoke.

“There is apparently something disturbing about cargo aboard the dragon carriages used to evacuate—Lady Emilia is in danger.”

And thus, he spoke the explosive words that turned every presumption on its head.

2

When Subaru and Julius arrived back at Earlham Village, the returning expeditionary force had already assembled inside the village.

They noticed the approaching pair, thanking them for the feat of striking down the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins. However, even as they grandly lifted their fists in celebration, thick tension remained in the air around them.

“Not exactly the mood for a victory party to celebrate the mission’s success. If something happened, tell us already!”

“Yes, yes, of course. But first, I need to check both of your wounds.”

Responding to Subaru’s search for an explanation, Ferris slipped past the ring of gathered men. Ferris was smiling, but there was sweat on his forehead, and his Royal Guardsman uniform was terribly stained with blood.

When his attire took Subaru by surprise, Ferris said, “Ahh…” and nodded as he explained, “It’s all right, it’s not Ferri’s blood. It just got messy during healing. Besides, no one here’s as badly wounded as he looks. We had wounded, but no fatalities.”

“That’s good news… Anyway, leave me for later! Do Julius first.”

“I can handle your wounds with one hand, meow. Looks like I need to take Julius’s seriously, though.”

Asserting that Subaru’s wounds were light, Ferris waved a hand over them and activated his healing magic. With a ticklish feeling, the wounds were healed, and even the pain taken away, in the span of a mere ten seconds, the sort of feat expected of him.

“Okay, we’re done, Subawu. As for Julius… Oh my, that looks painful. Come on, strip off your coat.”

“Please be gentle.”

Julius’s reply was crisp, but his wounds appeared deep. It was clear from the grimace on Ferris’s face as he examined the wounds that convalescence would take a fair bit of time.

“Your job’s finished. Be a good boy and rest… Anyway, Ferris, the other thing. What happened with that cargo…?”

Subaru glanced at the start of Julius’s treatment, his feelings distant as he changed the subject. Ferris, receiving the question as he employed his healing magic, straightened up.

“Mm, I know. But I think it’s best you speak to the one who noticed first… Oh, Otto!”

Subaru’s eyes went wide at Ferris’s mention of the unexpected name as the crowd parted in front of him. A young, ashen-haired man practically fell forward as he leaped, slipping through the gap between the knights…

“Otto?”

“Mr. Natsuki! I have been awaiting your return!”

Otto rushed over, his breath labored. He seemed rather agitated as he looked between Subaru and Julius, patting his chest in relief that both were safe.

“First, it is good that you are safe. To be frank, I believed fighting a Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins to be nothing short of suicide, but… Ah! More importantly, there is something I must speak with you about!”

“Calm down! Take your time and explain. But keep it to a brief summary of the main points.”

“Such difficult conditions…! Anyway, this is about the cargo. Actually, I found something odd when checking the list.”

“List, you mean of the traveling merchant freight that was left in the village? What was odd about it?”

Otto lowered his voice as he hastily unfolded the list of trade goods he was holding against his chest. Then he flipped to a certain page and spoke.

“Sir Kety…I do not know if that is his real name, but the traveling merchant, Kety Muttat. It would appear he was captured as a spy for the Witch Cult, but…”

“Yeah, I know about him— I see, you knew him personally, didn’t you?”

Subaru knew from previous go-arounds that Kety and Otto had come into contact with each other any number of times. Otto had to be in shock that someone he knew had been in the Witch Cult.

But Otto did not linger on that part; rather, he moved forward, drawing even closer to Subaru.

“Sir Kety being a Witch Cultist surprised me, and it is most unfortunate. But that is not the issue— You used his dragon carriage to evacuate the villagers, yes?”

“—? Yeah, I used it. Owner aside, the dragon carriage did no wrong. I didn’t have the luxury of leaving a usable dragon carriage behind, so I had to use it to get everyone out.”

“And the cargo unloaded from the dragon carriage is as I see recorded on this list, yes?”

“It should be…”

Subaru nodded as misgivings crept in about why Otto was so focused on the minutiae. “I thought so,” said Otto, certainty on his face as he continued to speak to the nervous Subaru, his voice hardening. “When I compared the list to the freight, there is something missing that ought to be in the village.”

“Missing?”

“A large quantity of fire magic crystals Sir Kety’s dragon carriage was hauling is missing—a quantity sufficient to blow seven or eight dragon carriages apart cannot simply vanish into thin air.”

3

Kety’s dragon carriage was headed to the Sanctuary. Rather, it was being used by the evacuation group taking Emilia and others to the royal capital.

When Subaru confirmed the distribution of dragon carriages after his talk with Otto, he came to a conclusion.

There had been three Witch Cultists hidden among the traveling merchants. Once they’d lost their owners, expeditionary force members had taken their carriages; Subaru distinctly remembered that the carriage Emilia had boarded was one of those three.

“Those magic crystals on the list…they were really loaded aboard? I just have to say, relying on a list from a Witch Cultist is a little…”

“The frightening thing about Witch Cultists is that they melt into everyday life only to become poison when you least expect it. They act as is appropriate for their false identities… You are merely closing your eyes because you do not wish to see, Subaru.”

“Even here you whip out the logical…… I know. I’m in the wrong.”

Julius sternly thrust reality into the nervous Subaru’s face. Ferris glanced at Subaru as he prudently abandoned a reflexive retort, turning his eyes toward Otto as he spoke.

“It was Otto who noticed the discrepancy between the list and the freight…but he had another reason, too.”

“Yes. All the other freight matches except for the magic crystals, after all…and actually, I have seen the crystals myself.”

“You saw that there were magic crystals loaded aboard?! When?!”

When Otto named himself as a witness, Subaru pointed a finger at him in disbelief.

“It was…back when dragon carriages were being recruited for the evacuation. I was with Sir Kety when I heard the offer. Then everyone was in a great hurry to be the first out of the gate, and as they made predeparture plans for the journey……I sneaked a peek at what he was carrying.”

“Man, can’t take my eyes off you for a second… You really had it coming, didn’t you?”

“Isn’t that a little too mean?! Anyway, I saw them with my very own eyes. As for the quality…because they are absent, I am the only one who can attest to the menace they pose, but…”

As the explanation came to a conclusion, Subaru grimaced as he looked at Julius and Ferris. However, even their expressions were grave; in particular, Julius’s anger toward himself was evident.

Subaru, too, understood well the anger he bore.

“Shit, I missed it! This is what I get for being a cheapskate and using whatever I can lay my hands on!”

“I checked to make sure they had no trigger via enchantment…but I overlooked that a physical trigger might have been left in the dragon carriage itself. I am sorry, this is my mistake.”

“It’s not your fault…it’s mine for not realizing.”

Julius’s caution regarding magical traps was no doubt impeccable. If he was taking care of that end, Subaru had to be the one to realize there was a physical trigger.

But what hurt more than anything was that Subaru had personally experienced that dragon carriage’s explosion the last time around. Back then, Kety’s true identity came out when Petelgeuse used Possession on him, and Subaru and Ferris were caught in the explosion. After, when he learned that the fingers had an explosion enchantment embedded in them for killing themselves, he’d assumed that the explosion had been that enchantment at work—

“That explosion wasn’t an enchantment, it was the dragon carriage’s trigger…and this time, it’s a dragon carriage used in the evacuation.”

Rigging his dragon carriage with magic crystals was a highly effective emergency measure in case Kety was exposed as a Witch Cultist. He’d be able to inflict great damage on the expeditionary force, turning the tide of battle in his allies’ favor.

Considering the monomaniacal malice of the Witch Cult, it was a scenario that was easy to accept.

“Ferris! If we rush over by land dragon, can we catch up to the evacuation group heading for the capital?!”

“That might be difficult. It’s been an hour and a half since Lady Emilia and the others left… To ensure the Witch Cult wouldn’t spot them, they didn’t kick up a storm, but they’re not moving at a leisurely pace, either.”

Of the two evacuation groups, the one making a run for the Liphas Highway was relying on speed. Once that group left the Mathers domain and reached the highway, it would be even harder to catch up to it.

But if they didn’t do anything about the booby trap, Emilia and the children would pay the price—

“It’s still not enough? After all this, and I still can’t…”

Would the fates of people precious to him be decided in a place beyond his reach?

No matter how much effort Subaru exhausted against Fate, snares were laid by this hand or that hand. It was as if all the paths for Subaru to walk had been meticulously paved with thorns.

But just as Subaru felt himself entwined by the irrationalities of Fate—

“May I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Natsuki?”

With a serious look on his face, Otto raised a hand and interrupted Subaru’s unease.

Determination rested in his eyes; the frail words of before seemed to have come from a completely different person. But Subaru remembered that look on his face. On a previous go-around, when in a true sense he had met Otto for the first time, and Subaru had brought the thoroughly plastered Otto a business offer, he’d put on his merchant face just as he was doing now. In other words—

“This means you want to make some kind of deal with me, Otto?”

“What a perceptive man, something I do not mind at all. Mr. Natsuki, right now I am on the edge of a considerable precipice. The cargo on my dragon carriage is now worth less than dirt! And tragically, the opportunity to turn it all around has slipped through my fingers! To be blunt, I cannot laugh off a deal upon which I wager my life.”

From what Subaru had heard, the disastrous circumstances afflicting Otto were more comedy than tragedy, but he had no time to poke fun at them. Subaru nodded, prodding Otto to continue.

Subaru’s demeanor made Otto close his eyes for a single moment; then he made his proposal.

“Let us make a deal. If you accede to my conditions, I promise to exhaust all my spirit to get you to your destination—and catch up to the dragon carriage at issue.”

“You can catch up to them if we leave right now?! How?!”

“Before we speak of that, I want your firm pledge that you will accept my conditions. What I am offering is my trump card, so I cannot easily speak of it…even under duress.”

“Just say what your conditions are! If they’re in my power I’ll do whatever you want!”

After Otto carefully selected his words, Subaru grasped his shoulders, demanding to hear further.

He’d already repeated that world four times over. He’d struck down the White Whale, dispatched the Witch Cult, cleared most of the conditions for getting what he was after; having come this far, he refused to let it all go to waste.

If it was only one more step, he’d overcome it with a pinch of guts and grit.

“You decide quickly. I do not mind this, either.”

Cold sweat broke out on Otto’s brow as he formed a smile at Subaru’s immediate decision. The negotiations taking place that instant were a seminal event that would determine the course of his life. Subaru’s snap decision after the briefest of pauses surprised Otto, but he immediately tossed his conflicted feelings aside. And then—

“As my reward, I want you to arrange an audience between me and Marquis Mathers. Also, you will purchase all the oil I am carrying…and I shall name my price. How about it?”

Narrowing his eyes, Otto put on his merchant’s face as he spoke, seemingly testing Subaru.

Coming out with your maximum demand at the outset and haggling down from there was Negotiation 101. Taking advantage of exigent circumstances was playing the merchant by the book.

From there, Subaru and Otto began their fierce battle of negotiation—

“You’re still hung up on that?! All right, I’ll buy all your oil or whatever, and if you wanna meet that perverted clown, I’ll do whatever it takes! It’s a deal!”

“Eh?! What the—? You’re scaring me!”

The negotiations began on the same note as the previous time around, and ended the same way as well—once more, Subaru fully accepted the terms of the deal upon which Otto had wagered their fates.

Whether he would think of an unearned win through the opponent’s resignation as something to be proud of was another matter entirely.

4

“I shall have Ia accompany you. She should be able to locate the magic crystals the dragon carriage is rigged with.”

With those words, Julius once again handed his red quasi-spirit companion to Subaru.

Just like before, the faintly glowing quasi-spirit synchronized with Subaru’s Gate and vanished from sight.

“That’s a big help, but won’t she get angry at your lending her out that easily?”

“It appears that Ia is quite fond of you. Besides, I wish to avoid any regrets from sending only one as ill-versed as you. I really would like to go myself, but…”

There, Julius’s words cut off as his refined face bore an air of regret. But Ferris, right beside him, puffed up his cheeks in exasperation as he continued casting healing magic.

“Sit tight and stop saying stupid things. You’re completely out of mana, so you’re useless anyway!”

“This is what I get for borrowing the buds’ power. I can only rue the limits of my abilities.”

“Coming from you, that’s just sarcasm. Anyway, I’m grateful you lent me the spirit. Beyond that…”

Having accepted the spirit on loan, Subaru thrust a finger at Julius, fully immersed in the last of his treatment.

“After all this is done, we’re having a banquet to celebrate busting the White Whale and the Witch Cult. You’re invited, so don’t go dying on me.”

“So if I am murdered here, you and Ferris are the culprits. It is an easy-to-understand situation, then.”

“Well aren’t you two getting along, meow. Hey, get going and catch up to Lady Emilia already!”

Glaring at the lighthearted exchange, Ferris pointed toward the entrance to the village. Taking the hint from the pair, Subaru gave a thumbs-up and set off running.

“I expect your utmost efforts.”

“Just watch out, okay? I can heal you if you don’t die, but if you bite the dust there’s nothing I can do.”

Subaru waved a hand toward the voices of support and met up with Otto at the village entrance.

Otto was preparing for the pursuit by hitching Patlash and his favorite dragon to his own dragon carriage. It’d be a midsize dragon carriage with a canopied wagon with two heads drawing it—that was how they’d catch up to Emilia and the others who’d left first.

“You have not forgotten anything? Time is precious, so let us set off.”

“Yeah. I’m counting on you for route navigation and all the other little stuff, Otto!”

The two nodded to each other and climbed into the driver’s seat together. In front, there was a fair bit of a size difference between the two land dragons drawing the carriage. Subaru was concerned about the slender Patlash’s inferior size, but…

“Land dragons have the wind repel blessing, so a certain difference in size is not a hindrance. They are also both females, and I have not heard any particular friction between them.”

Seeing the doubts on the side of Subaru’s face, Otto explained thus as he took the reins. The way he used the word heard made Subaru let out a little “Hmmm.”

“What is it?”

“Ah, nothing, I just thought that blessings are amazing things. I was thinking of them kinda like talents, but I was surprised there was a Dr. Doolittle one, too.”

“A veterinarian? I see what you are saying, but blessing bearers go through considerable difficulties of their own. In particular, I could not control my language blessing very well when I was at a young age.”

When Subaru voiced his admiration, Otto made something of a pained smile as he spoke of his own blessing.

The language blessing essentially allowed a person capable of conversing with any living thing. He would employ the power of his blessing to catch up with Emilia and the others—that was his end of the deal.

“At first, I was wondering how the heck you’d use this blessing to catch up with them, but…”

“I will speak to the birds and insects along the way to determine the shortest route. It will be hard on Fulfew, my land dragon, but we will charge through, be it game trails, poor roads, cliffs, or swamps.”

Otto had reached the Mathers domain ahead of other merchants by plowing through paths that were not paths. As he was extremely short on luck, this had resulted in his becoming a prisoner of the Witch Cult.

Regardless, borrowing the power of his blessing—

“We’ll catch up to Emilia and the rest up on ahead. Easy win.”

“No, I would not deem it an easy victory…… It is quite possible we will catch up. In the first place, there is actually nothing in the terms agreed to earlier that guarantees we will catch up to…”

“We’ll catch up to Emilia and the rest up on ahead. Easy win—!”

“It really puts me a bind if you say it with a smiling face like that, you know?!”

Though Otto shouted under the weight of that trust, nothing was served by weak musings at that point.

Subaru’s smile vanished as he bowed his head to Otto with a serious expression.

“I’m counting on you, Otto. You’re the only one I can rely on.”

“…Those truly sound like last words, damn it.”

Faced with Subaru’s meek demeanor, Otto spoke with chagrin and sighed with an air of resignation. Then he gripped the reins and strongly issued a command toward the two land dragons. They picked up speed.

“Oh, fine, I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I’m making money from this, so if I work myself to the bone, I owe you that much—!”

In accordance with the desperate Otto, the dragon carriage ran at extraordinary speed, onward and onward.

Subaru, strongly sensing that speed, began to hallucinate, seeing Emilia and the others on the road ahead. It was their backs he was racing to catch up to.

But then—

“Er—?!”

With a sudden start, the dragon carriage left the road, plunging into the forest down a game trail.

The ride was so bumpy that even the wind repel blessing could not wholly protect him. Subaru stared at the trail as the dragon carriage barreled down it, beginning to take a series of literal shortcuts.

Afterward, Subaru resigned himself to death numerous times as they ran along bad road after bad road.

Having already died ten-odd times since being summoned to another world, Subaru knew, without a single speck of exaggeration, his rocky ride with Otto was reckless, grazing past death at every turn.

They engaged in the thoroughly suicidal behavior of running down a nearly vertical cliff, charged across an old rope bridge that seemed on the verge of falling at any moment (which, in fact, fell just after they had crossed), and when barreling through a demon beast habitat zone were pursued by a particularly fierce pack of ferocious beasts; Subaru had no time to count the number of times they’d wagered their lives.

“I’m a goner… This is finally gonna kill me for sure… End of the road…!”

“What is it? We are moving at an incredible pace. To be honest, even I did not think I could come this far… So this is the latent power of a human being with no tomorrow…!”

Beside Subaru, who was clinging to the driver’s seat with a blue face, Otto was completely in a trance. His statement sounded rather precarious, but Subaru said nothing, fearful of an unnecessary question breaking his concentration.

“Besides, setting the process aside, we’re making awesome time.”

Punching out of the forest, they at long last leaped back onto something that resembled an actual road. There was a sign right at the edge of Subaru’s vision marking the border between the Mathers domain and the highway. It had taken them half the normal time to arrive—their repeated travails had brought tangible results. Not that he ever wanted to do it again…

“The highway… Rather, cutting through the grove to the left is faster, isn’t it?! That is the shortest route!”

“By grove, don’t you mean forest?! Is that way really all right?! It doesn’t look like there’s even a game trail…!”

“—”

“Hey, answer me!!”

Otto did not respond to Subaru’s shout as he sent the dragon carriage charging headfirst through the entrance to the forest.

With the die cast, all Subaru could do was hold on with both hands and pray no accident would befall them as they headed into the forest. The dragon carriage leaped as it rolled over tree roots; Subaru clenched his molars as they headed down an atrocious path once more.

The whole of his vision was buried in thick trees; one false move and they would be crashing headfirst. But the way Otto was delighted in contrast to the pallid Subaru made the latter reassess his view of peddlers.

“Is being a traveling merchant this dangerous?! Making a name for yourself in the capital’s market is a lot saf—”

“Mr. Natsuki!”

Subaru was trying to distract himself with small talk when Otto suddenly interjected with a shout. The voice, infused with a sense of urgency, made Subaru look over, wondering what was up. As he did so, Otto put a hand to his ear, surveying the area around them as his cheeks stiffened.

“The forest is astir… No. The birds and insects have left in a great panic! Even Fulfew is tense… Something…something is coming!”

Otto’s wary voice made Subaru gasp and look around the area. But atop a rocking dragon carriage traveling through the forest at such speed, he’d never make out anything even halfway bizarre.

Yes, if it had been halfway bizarre—

“Ugh, time is precious, but we should take measures for safety. Mr. Natsuki, please watch over the rea—”

“Nah, ain’t no need for that.”

As Otto tried to switch policies, Subaru spoke in a ridiculously calm voice.

Subaru’s gaze was trained behind the dragon carriage, glaring at the forest scene they were leaving behind. As it grew more distant, the forest seemed to vanish from his vision, as if “it” was swallowing the forest whole.

“—”

Trees were snapped and sent dancing in the sky, brutally devastating the forest’s foliage.

Just after the destruction arose, the dragon carriage raced up an incline, but it was ferociously heading straight toward them, heedless of the damage to the surrounding area.

“Let her fly, Otto—do not let him catch us!!”

“Mr. Natsuki?!”

When Otto started to look over, Subaru checked him with a hand as he transferred from the driver’s seat to the wagon. Then he stood as the guardian of the wagon, baring his teeth as it pursued, right behind them.

“Why you— Just how stubborn are ya gonna be, you shitty bastard!!”

Subaru let out an angry shout as pitch-black shadows swelled and wriggled before his eyes.

The evil black hands stretched and erupted from a corpse, no longer a person, but a collection of delusions.

The remains of Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti consumed the forest as it pursued the carriage from behind.

5

It was repulsive. It was hair-raising. It was sinister beyond measure.

The body had been crushed under a rock slide; its right arm and the right side of its torso were both gone. Hair and scalp had been torn from its skull, leaving it dyed red, and the lower body being dragged along had nothing under both shins. Its limbs drooped, their vitality meager; this was already a mere corpse.

But the corpse had not ceased its morbid defiance, drowning in delusion as it continued its pursuit of Subaru.

“Giiiiive…thaaaat…boooody…baaaaack!”

“Man, you’re stubborn. Don’t you remember the rough time you had inside me…?!”

Petelgeuse’s shout was like a voice from the grave, chilling Subaru to the bottom of his heart.

With the body he had possessed already dead, Petelgeuse’s own “death” lay right before his eyes. However, appearances aside, the use of Unseen Hands imbued the madman’s movements with explosiveness. If he was left to his own devices, they’d probably collapse on their own, dissipating far away, but—

“Not easy to just wait for time to run out, huh…? Damn it all!”

Subaru gritted his teeth and glared as the madman pressed closer to the rocking wagon.

The dragon carriage was already hurtling at nonsensical speed, but Petelgeuse moved even faster. Like a lit candle on the verge of burning out, he was radiating his final, wicked delusions.

“This is a spirit? How? Aren’t spirits supposed to look more—holy or something?”

“Mr. Natsuki! What is going on back there?!”

Subaru’s lament was overshadowed by Otto’s shout. He could not see the nightmare behind them, for it was located directly behind the carriage—leaving Otto the better for it.

“We’re just being chased by a slightly huge dark monster. I think we probably ran over its tail halfway through the forest. It makes a lot of noise and its face is scary, so I recommend you don’t look.”

“That makes not seeing it really trouble me?! And that description was full of troubling details!!”

“Just let ’er rip! Next time you snap at me I’m taking a bite outta you!”

“Whaaa—?! How terrifying!”

Otto handled the reins as Subaru intimidated him and made him focus on the horrid path. But the speed of a land dragon had limits. They were done for if, God forbid, they smashed into even a single tree; consequently, the land dragons could not be hastened any farther inside the forest. In other words—

“The job of slowing you down falls to me. It’s time to put on a grand finale… How many grand finales are you gonna have, anyway?! What about you makes you Sloth? You’re a freaking workaholic!!”

“Wiiitch SATELLA! Give me—me—her love, love, loooooooove!!”

“She doesn’t love either one of us!! There’s no romantic comedy where you crush the heart of the person you like! With a heroine like that, no thank you!”

Petelgeuse lifted up his head and screamed, looking like his eyeballs were about to fall out of his skull. He had been betrayed, turned into a dead body, yet even so, Petelgeuse continued to shout his “love” toward the Witch. For the first time, Subaru genuinely saw him as pitiful.