Chapter 139: Big Brother, remember, you owe Meili this...

"Mm, from what I can tell, the me on the screen means no good to Mr. Natsuki—no, I should call him the Purge King."

Otto stroked his chin as he spoke, then returned his gaze to the screen and kept watching.

["The colors of these mana crystal must be quite lovely. Which hue do they give off in greater abundance?"

The Purge King sat high upon his throne, propping up one cheek, asking with idle curiosity.

This was no aimless question.

Ever since the Purge King Natsuki Subaru had been tortured at Rem's hands and hunted by Ram, the world in his eyes had drained away into black and white. In all this world, only three people remained special to him, still holding color.

Those were Betty, whom he had slain with his own hands, and Emilia and Ram, whom he had locked away.

So he was genuinely curious—these mana crystal he had been gathering all this time to bring Ram back to life, what color were they, really?

"On the whole… not much difference between them."

The gray-haired youth gave his answer at once.

"Heh, how sharp of you, you—"

But this answer was not what Natsuki Subaru wanted, and his face soured as he moved to say something, only for the gray-haired youth to cut him off with a raised hand.

In an instant, a tense atmosphere spread through the great hall of Pandaemonium, and the mercenaries and warriors standing in attendance all swallowed hard.

The last person to interrupt their sovereign mid-sentence had been the old man Sigrum—and by now the grass on his grave stood a meter tall.

What—you say it wasn't his bad luck, that he simply happened to catch the king when the coin came up tails?

Just what sort of figure was their sovereign?

Intellect beyond compare, hands that reached to the heavens—would controlling which face of a coin turned up really be so hard for him?

Even taking ten thousand steps back: a man of such dazzling brilliance had guided the Pleiades society's development down the correct path at every single step.

It was hard not to suspect that their sovereign carried some mandate of heaven upon him—perhaps he even possessed some kind of blessing that made every wish come true?

"In truth, our gift comes to more than just this."

The gray-haired youth closed one eye, fixing the king with the other, meeting his gaze with a strange smile and stranger look as he said this.

"Oh? How interesting~"

At those words Natsuki Subaru broke into a candid smile too, his tone light, as though wholly untroubled by the youth's affront before him.

The two of them seemed each to harbor their own schemes, yet by unspoken accord they smiled warmly at one another.

But it was the gray-haired youth who spoke first and seized the initiative.

"The Dragon-allied Kingdom of Lugnica offers the Purge King the following reply to his tyranny and savagery—"

The next second, a roaring white noise rushed into every ear present.

A single slash streaked across the horizon, breaking the sound barrier, its terrifying magic and momentum splitting even the earth along its path.

In a flash, the whole of Pandaemonium was cleaved in two by the white slash, and an endless tide of mana drowned the hall.

Beneath this dreadful stroke—with just this one blow—more than a dozen world-renowned champions and warriors under the Purge King's command were utterly erased from existence, vanishing into thin air.

Pandaemonium collapsed; its mighty warriors were annihilated in an instant.

And yet this was no world-ending forbidden magic that had been unleashed—it was merely a casual swing from a single red-haired man.

Flame-red hair that seemed to burn, sharp and commanding eyes no one dared meet head-on.

As that slash of divine judgment came down, the red-haired man appeared before all the survivors at once.

"Of the 'Sword Saint' house—Reinhard van Astrea!"

Reinhard swept his gaze once around the surroundings now reduced to ruins, and thus announced his arrival.]

"…"

Outside the screen, the people in the viewing seats were all swept up in surging emotion, each lost in their own thoughts—but on one point they were united.

That was, all as one, they whipped their heads to look at the man seated among them, plain and unremarkable as any ordinary person, an innocent look on his face—Reinhard.

"L-Lord!"

Meili trembled all over; she had a touch of PTSD now.

In her memory, when her big brother had set the whole Royal Capital ablaze, she had taken a slash from Reinhard in his place and died on the spot.

She may have died quickly, but before death she had felt that terrifying momentum in the flesh, her whole body in agony as though sliced ten thousand times over by keen sword-qi.

Big brother, this is what you owe Meili… One day, Meili will collect the interest from you.

Meili pressed her lips together, her eyes dim and unreadable.

After partnering with Elsa for so many years, she was hardly the sort of child who understood nothing.

In fact, from spending so long with Elsa, even her little habits—her way of dressing, her tone of voice—had grown much like Elsa's, to say nothing of the fact that she carried the memories of the Arrogance line.

The reason she played the part of a naive child before others was nothing more than a killer's habit, a way to lower an enemy's guard.

Of course, part of it was genuinely her inner child's nature wanting to be let loose.

But the maturity within her was in no way inferior to Elsa's!

And so she quietly filed away this debt—the slash her big brother owed her—deep in her heart.

"Pervert!"

This was shouted by Betty, arms folded, watching the home base of her beloved contractor, 486, be destroyed in a single blow.

Somehow a swell of resentment toward Reinhard rose up inside her.

She knew it was misplaced anger, yet she couldn't rein in the feeling, and so she cursed him, flat and lukewarm.

"To be a knight all the same, and yet such power truly puts me to shame."

The purple-haired knight Julius shook his head with a sigh, and then his face darkened.

By comparison, after his name had been devoured by Gluttony in the Water Gate City, he had lost every spirit bound to him by contract.

This once-celebrated Spirit Knight had, in the blink of an eye, been rendered useless, no longer of concern to anyone.

Had Subaru not still remembered him, he truly had no idea what kind of fate would have awaited him… Likely he could not even have remained at the side of his liege, Anastasia?

And just like that, he would have lost his place to belong.

Thinking of this, Julius lifted his head toward the screen, a flicker of complicated feeling passing through his eyes.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this experience that, in some strange way, he found himself understanding the Subaru on the screen a little.

Having lost every conviction to keep living, the despair it stirred had given birth to this world of possibility.

[The gunpowder smoke drifting about soon cleared, and Reinhard's gaze locked onto the sovereign's throne directly ahead.

There seemed to be some powerful protective force present there, such that the Purge King within it stood unharmed, not a hair out of place.

"The Sword Saint Reinhard's slash seems to have veered off the mark, hasn't it?"

Hiding behind Halibel, Natsuki Subaru pulled down an eyelid and stuck out his tongue in mockery.

"Subaru…"

Seeing the friend of former days now looking like a wholly different person, Reinhard could not help feeling somewhat dazed.

And beyond that, what welled up within him was grief and self-reproach.

"It's all my fault—that I let you walk this path to where you are today."

"Then let me… in this very moment… atone for that mistake…"

At those words Natsuki Subaru looked Reinhard over carefully, then shook his head, and spoke with a sigh.

"You too are black and white—so that makes you a liar as well! I can't be killed by someone with no color on them!"

As he said it, the expression on his face turned savage in an instant, and he shouted aloud.

"Cecilus Segmunt, the moment I promised you has come—do it!"

…

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