The moment they parted ways with that bold declaration, Subaru's bravado peeled right off.
He didn't understand himself anymore.
The countless hours he'd spent on idle self-analysis—the accumulated weight of all those diagnoses. If he'd reflected on the results even a little, he'd have known what kind of pathetic choice he'd make in a situation like this.
And yet here he was, running. He couldn't wrap his head around it.
When had he become this much of an idiot? This stubborn?
Enduring pain that brought tears to his eyes, keeping his face raised so as not to make those sisters feel guilty—that was completely, utterly, entirely unlike him.
He heard the footsteps behind him, the distance widening between their backs— and in that instant, Subaru's expression crumbled.
Sharp pain, dull pain, the two extremes striking without cease. He scrunched up his face, bared his teeth, and stuck out his tongue.
"It huuurts, it hurts! Mom! Dad!
He called out the names of his three greatest dependencies in life and glanced sideways at his dangling right arm.
The pain had been coming in waves since a while ago. Despite barely any strength in it, every swing sent a shock like an electrode stabbed into his brain. He wanted to believe it was just dislocated.
The blow he'd landed on
One wrong move and he could have cracked his head open like a melon.
Even though he was spinning vertically, he always seemed to land head-first when he fell—he was morbidly curious what kind of description his stat sheet must have for luck.
"This phenomenon where you always fall headfirst from high places. In honor of Murphy's Law, I hereby dub it 'True Murphy's Law.'"
So in other words, the reason Subaru always fell on his head was some unseen Murphy's doing.
Curse you, Murphy—thinking this idiotic thing actually seemed to take his mind off the pain. If only the fear of the obstacle ahead would vanish too, that'd be truly wonderful.
Standing in his path was the puppy mabeast—how many times was this encounter now? Too many to count.
Past the point of tenacity and straight into what felt like personal vendetta, its obsession was unreal.
"About time we finished this for good, huh..."
While running, Subaru braced himself for the earthen torrent the mabeast would unleash.
If he took that thing unprotected for real this time, dislocating his right shoulder would be the least of his problems. Knockout followed by devoured—that was the least painful route. He didn't want to imagine anything else.
Shaking the bad thoughts from his head, he simulated his footing on the beast trail and the sidestep he'd need. The instant the torrent launched, he'd dodge sideways with no regard for form or dignity.
Bring it on, he thought half-resignedly, squaring up against the Urgarm again.
"Huh?"
An involuntary, air-leaking, idiotic sound escaped his lips.
For good reason—what spread before his eyes was a sight that made him doubt them.
The puppy mabeast let out a low growl, its small body compressing even further inward. A gesture like wringing every drop of strength from its muscles. Subaru narrowed his eyes, wondering what it would do next, when— "—!"
The fur ball exploded in size.
An indoor dog that could fit in his hands had, in the blink of an eye, mutated into something larger than a big dog's head—an upgrade to mega-class by any measure—its mouth gaping open.
"This is like one of those manga patterns, but where the hell is all that extra mass coming from?"
The answer to his question was a roar that shook the forest.
It bounced off the ground with force, rising onto its hind legs. The Urgarm then clacked the claws of its freed forepaws together, displaying talons that could shave bone in a single swipe.
Perhaps frustrated that every fatal blow it'd launched had been dodged through magic, its final choice of confrontation with Subaru was to simply go for the jugular.
But— "There's no reason for me to play along with that!"
If his memory served, those fangs had never actually touched Subaru's body—the original puppy's, anyway. So the beast had no reason to risk anything to try and undo the curse.
In that case, immediate course change—veer away and avoid contact. But— "Ugh..."
As Subaru tried to break from the line and disengage, the shadow of the fang-baring mabeast drew alongside, matching his pace and cutting off his escape.
He glanced the other way instinctively—more shadows there too. And from behind came the unending sound of countless paws treading through grass— "Oh come on, are you all lovesick over my pheromones or something—damn it!"
His role as bait was flawless. For the first time since being summoned to another world, Subaru had found a calling only he could fill. A vocation he wanted to spit on and resign from immediately.
Now that he'd noticed, the sheer density of presence surrounding him was enough to make his legs falter. Every Urgarm in this forest had likely gathered here at once.
And every last one of them wanted to crush Subaru's throat.
God, seriously, truly.
"Going after me instead of the gorgeous sisters—you guys have the worst taste, I swear to hell."
No time to tremble, no time to wet himself.
With every escape route sealed, the swarm of mabeasts silently forced Subaru into running straight ahead. Which meant a one-on-one with that colossal beast.
Head-on, the Urgarm's ferocious face was twisted into something resembling a sinister grin.
A one-on-one built on the premise of a gang beating—unavoidable. Subaru accepted this with grim resignation.
—The moment he reached that conclusion, Subaru made the decision to play his trump card.
He plunged his hand into his pocket, rummaging around. The feel of a stone. The texture of crushed candy. The unpleasant sensation of some sticky cloth. And then— "All that's left is to trust
He stuffed what he'd pulled out into his mouth, offering a wholehearted prayer to the grey kitten.
Holding the round object in place with his back teeth, he threw his eyes wide open and looked ahead.
The distance between Subaru and the mabeast was virtually gone.
In less than ten seconds, they'd be within reach of each other.
That was when it happened.
"—Subaru-kun!!"
He heard it.
He heard his name, called just now.
The voice was agonized and desperate, filled with an inescapable despair—frail as though witnessing the end of the world, and he could tell it was breaking apart with worry over whether he lived or died—and, embarrassingly, Subaru felt glad.
He thought to himself: that's terrible. What a creep. What a fickle bastard.
He wasn't incapable of imagining the emotions of the girl who'd screamed his name, and yet he could still smile. He was completely out of his mind.
Aware of that abnormal thought, he laughed—and with that final laugh, the smile vanished.
With his still-working left hand, he drew the sword at his hip—the broken short sword, braced at his waist.
The mabeast's roar came head-on.
Matching it with everything he had, Subaru unleashed his own roar in return.
His voice cracked, an ugly scream rising. But the spirit behind it was fierce. The two stared each other down, soul crashing against soul.
Barely a moment before contact, Subaru drew a deep breath.
He pictured the very center of his body.
Between his chest and his hips—the dantian region—focusing on the gate that connected inner and outer, and screamed: "—SHAMAK!!"
In the next instant, a black cloud erupted outward as though exploding from Subaru's very center.
It swallowed every mabeast in his vicinity, with him at the epicenter, sealing the forest's decisive battle inside darkness.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ —Inside the black mist, a world of incomprehension spread.
The shape, the color, the smell of the world—all of it, contained within that void, was impossible to grasp.
The only thing that transmitted a firm, certain sensation was the sole of his foot—where it met the ground. Without that, he'd surely have lost all sense of up and down in this darkness.
Seeing nothing. Hearing nothing. Understanding nothing.
That meant the world had ended.
Understanding that the only certainty he had came through the soles of his shoes, Subaru's brain labored furiously on a single task.
That task was to remember.
The contents of his head had been scooped away by the black mist—he needed to retrieve them somehow and put into action the thing he had to do.
His foot lifted from the ground, and in that instant everything was lost.
But when the opposite foot struck down, understanding returned. Truth existed only in the soles of his shoes. Whether he was actually moving forward, he could no longer tell.
In this incomprehension, nearly clinging to the only sensation that felt real, Subaru's mind fought against the consciousness that sought comfort.
He had to recover what was lost. If he didn't, something irreversible would surely follow.
Again his foot left the ground and incomprehension returned; again the opposite foot bit into the earth and understanding came back. But this time it felt somehow flimsy, loosening.
What was it? What was it? What was it? Something was missing.
Remember. Before this world of incomprehension, there had been a world of understanding.
How had things come to be like this? Who had done it, and how?
For what purpose, for whose sake, and what must be done to break through? Hadn't he prepared those conditions?
Remember, remember, remember— As ordered by his brain, sparks began to fly in his thoughts.
But he couldn't reach it. He just couldn't grasp it. One more step—something was missing.
The foot he'd stepped forward with wouldn't follow. His legs had stopped. He could feel that the reason was a terrible, feeble force was all that remained in his limbs.
Why? How? Had he not predicted this?
If so, the means should have been prepared. Remember. Execute.
If the outside of his body was no good, then ask within. Even if the outside was shrouded in incomprehension, call out to every organ that operated on instinct.
Fulfill your role—move, you parts that can move—and then, finally— "——!!"
Suddenly, a burning sensation welled up inside his body.
An unbearable passion raged through his insides, and Subaru's throat let out an inarticulate, animal-like war cry. Or he thought he did. He couldn't even tell.
He didn't know. He didn't know—but his feet had started moving.
They'd found the strength to move again. Forward. Putting his foot toward what he believed was forward.
Comprehension, incomprehension, comprehension, incomprehension—over and over they came, vanishing and returning, vanishing and returning—until at last— ※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ The moment he burst through the black mist and flew outward, Subaru felt an impact like nothing before.
The sword he'd been gripping in one hand was torn from his grasp by the sheer force.
He whipped his vision around to see the result, and bit back his shock.
The massive mabeast—its body still half-buried in the black cloud—had Subaru's short sword buried deep in its torso.
The accidental blow had delivered a sensation Subaru had never felt in his hands.
The feeling of driving a dull blade into the flesh of a living creature. It brought a mental impact beyond anything he'd imagined.
Until now, Subaru had faced mabeasts and taken lives twice. Once by accident, once by intent. But never before had he used a method that left such a clear sensation in his hands.
And it gave him a degree of discomfort entirely out of place for the moment.
The sensation of killing something warm, right now.
The mabeasts still lost in the world of incomprehension couldn't even perceive the death approaching them.
Looking around, the black cloud Subaru had dashed through covered an enormous area—and not a single mabeast was emerging from it.
Unlike Subaru, they'd had no mental preparation whatsoever.
Once sunk into the world of incomprehension, how could anyone mock the frailty that made them freeze in place?
Stumbling, Subaru forced himself into a loping run, trying to put distance between them while he still could.
His head felt heavy, his whole body sluggish. This was the debt of excess mana expenditure—his incomplete gate, as Puck had pointed out, unable to handle a full release.
The spell was meant to drain every last drop of mana from his body and leave him collapsed, unable to stand. But Subaru had broken through that with his trump card.
"...I'll thank you for this, you little brats."
He spat out the thin remnant of fruit peel still in his mouth and muttered softly.
The fruit he'd spat out—it was the third time he'd tasted that particular produce.
The Bocco fruit. A doping item that activated the mana in one's body, giving a depleted frame a small measure of strength back.
Among the useless trinkets the children had pressed on Subaru as he went to rescue Rem, that fruit had been among them.
The moment he'd confirmed its existence, this plan had existed vaguely in his mind.
Bite into the fruit the instant he cast the spell, and he might be able to move.
A gamble with his life as the stakes, and which way the scale had tipped—was proven by the fact that Subaru was still alive in this situation.
He headed in the direction
He didn't know how long his immature, mana-starved Shamak could hold.
No more stalling for time. He just needed to reach the barrier, even a little closer— "—Huh?"
But Subaru's scheme was— "You... bastard..."
—immediately shattered by a claw that grazed his right side.
Sharp pain heralded bleeding, and Subaru dropped to one knee with a groan. But the enemy wouldn't allow him even that much.
Extending a thick arm, deftly maneuvering the limb bristling with blade-like claws, it casually lifted Subaru's body off the ground.
"Damn it."
A gaping maw spread open before his eyes, blood-soaked fangs and rank breath rushing at his face.
Facing the colossal mabeast's obsession head-on, Subaru let out a laugh—thoroughly fed up.
"You drop dead—!"
He wrenched the sword lodged in its torso with brute force and slammed it into that open mouth.
"——!!"
The lethal blow dealt inside its mouth made the mabeast hurl Subaru away.
But Subaru didn't release the sword. Instead, he raked the blade through the inside of the beast's mouth as he was thrown. Shredding it to ribbons, he was spat out onto the ground and rolled, immediately assuming a forward stance.
"Come on! Come at me, you piece of shit!!"
"—!! —!!"
The mabeast thrashed its head, twisting its maddened face toward him.
Facing each other, Subaru too shook his blood-soaked body, raising his chipped sword and hurling vulgar provocations.
Blood rushed to his head. Each could see nothing but the other.
His plans had been smashed time and again, and Subaru's composure had long since evaporated. At this point, he couldn't move forward without finishing off the beast before him.
And the same was true for the other side. It, too, couldn't contain the ugly emotions churning inside without killing Subaru.
Both had entered a combat-ready stance, and a single spark would set off the explosion.
That standoff between one man and one beast—no, two beasts— "—Ulgóa."
—was interrupted for eternity by a fireball plummeting from the sky.
"Uwaaah!?"
Clutching his face, swallowed by the impact, Subaru's body was blown backward.
The ground in front of him had suddenly erupted. The impact carried searing heat, adding burns on top of the cuts, bites, scrapes, bruises, and emotional wounds that already had him in shreds.
"What in the world..."
Rolling on the ground, he shook his head and, groaning through the pain, lifted his face.
And the sight before him prompted yet another shock—he'd lost count of how many today.
Before Subaru's eyes, the massive body of the mabeast was engulfed in flames.
Its black fur entirely wrapped in fire, the Urgarm writhed and thrashed in agony. But the more it struggled, the more it screamed, the fiercer the flames grew—until the巨体 finally crashed heavily to the earth with a dull thud.
Even then it writhed for a while, crying out in pain, but gradually that too subsided, until at last nothing remained but a charred lump of meat rolling on the ground.
The mabeast's unexpected end wasn't the only thing that surprised Subaru.
The fireball that had burned the Urgarm alive—rain of fire from above didn't end with just one. Volley after volley came screaming down, slamming into the black mist.
He couldn't see from outside what devastation the flames wrought upon the spreading darkness.
But he could imagine the result.
Inside that impenetrable dark, the swarm of mabeasts still lost in incomprehension remained trapped.
They couldn't even perceive the raining fire. They couldn't even register their own bodies being incinerated. They would die without ever knowing that their lives had been taken.
Was this mercy? Cruelty? Subaru couldn't tell anymore.
He couldn't tell—but— "My, my, you really did think this through. Using Shamak—meant as a smokescreen—as a deliberate marker instead. How bold."
The person responsible for this outcome that was either comedy or tragedy appeared with a goofy grin, that much was certain.
Long indigo hair streaming in the wind, mismatched eyes of blue and yellow, a gaunt tall frame bundled in the outlandish clothes Subaru had grown accustomed to—Roswaal descended leisurely into the mabeast forest.
The mansion's master. The court magician. The useless presence who was never there when it mattered—Roswaal had arrived.
He flicked the hem of his coat where he'd landed, swept his long hair back over his shoulder, and looked down at Subaru.
"Ara my. You're in a rather wretched state, aren't you?"
"You're late as hell, Roswaa. You have any idea how many times I braced myself to die?"
Probably more than he could count on one hand.
Reflecting on it, he noticed his mood sinking—but relief flooded in and he found himself sitting down right there.
"Still, how'd you figure out that was me?"
"I had quite the talk with Emilia-sama in the village, y'know. 'No matter how reckless or foolish, if he's cornered he'll definitely use magic—so if you see anything flying through the sky, don't overlook it.' Something along those lines."
"Beako... so she saw right through me, huh."
She apparently wasn't up to the job of keeping secrets from Emilia.
Though looking at it now—with Roswaal's miraculous intervention—maybe it all worked out for the best.
As Subaru reflected on the situation— "Roswaal-sama—!"
Ram emerged, weaving around the black cloud and pushing through the undergrowth. With Rem's arm slung over her shoulder, she caught sight of Roswaal and the composure she'd maintained until then shattered in an instant.
"I'm terribly sorry to have troubled you."
"Oh no, not at all. This incident occurred on my territory, after all. The responsibility to deal with it is mine. If anything, you handled things admirably."
Ram's cheeks flushed at his words of praise, and she pressed a hand to her chest and bowed formally.
Watching the exchange from the side, Subaru heaved a deep sigh.
"—Subaru-kun!"
Abruptly, Rem threw herself at him in a hug, eliciting a pained "Gwah!" from Subaru.
Right before his eyes, blue hair swayed inches from his face. Under normal circumstances, a full-contact embrace from this range would be cause for celebration—but— "Rem, right now, my body, everywhere is... ah, consciousness..."
Whether she couldn't rein in her emotions or not, the embrace was given with everything she had.
Every injury on his battered body cried out in unison, and Subaru desperately slapped Rem's back with his free hand, pleading in agony.
But— "You're alive. You're alive. Subaru-kun, Subaru-kun."
The overwhelmed Rem didn't register his response.
Her face pressed against his chest, and he could feel warm drops gradually seeping through. A cascade of ticklishness and a jumble of emotions hit him all at once, exceeding his brain's capacity to process.
In short— "Not this... pattern again..."
He said it, but couldn't even support his own head—his chin dropped with a dull nod.
His consciousness fading. Voices growing distant. And last of all— "Rest now. When you wake, I shall repay you properly for what you've done. —At the very least, I promise to eliminate whatever threatens you."
A voice, stripped of its usual clownish affect, solemn and sincere, vibrated his eardrums.
Feeling genuine reassurance from it, Subaru slowly let go of consciousness.
Until the very edge of sleep, he felt the warm embrace still holding his body, savoring what he'd barely managed to gather— Subaru's awareness sank into the fountain of the unconscious.