Chapter 151: Instead of an apology, I'd rather hear Subaru's thanks?

["Because Subaru is still so clumsy at handling Mana, and the sheer amount of it is far too much, it all came surging out at once, completely beyond his control."

Puck explained.

"Don't tell me this Mana stuff is some kind of life energy? My whole body's dead weight now-"

Sprawled on the bench in the gazebo, Natsuki Subaru gritted his teeth and tried to move, only to find that even sitting up was a strain.

"You still can't move, Subaru. The Mana inside you is completely spent."

Leaning against the edge of the bench, Emilia gave a small shake of her head, then thought it over and added, "You probably won't be able to work today, either."

"That's a disaster!"

Natsuki Subaru's voice shot up into a shout, startling both Puck and Emilia beside him.

"Subaru, don't push yourself!"

Emilia hurried around to the front of the gazebo bench and reached out anxiously to steady him as he struggled to rise.

"Now is exactly when I have to push myself!"

His face was grim, his jaw clenched, urgency written all over him.

"I can't afford to waste a single day…"

Regret gnawed at him then. If he'd known, he never would have tried something like this.

If work fell behind, not only would he fail to earn Ram and Rem's trust the way he'd planned, he wouldn't be able to find the Curse Caster hiding somewhere in the manor either!

Damn it. Damn it! He'd let his guard down.

Natsuki Subaru bit down on his lip hard enough to draw thin threads of blood.]

"Too tightly wound! My late husband used to say that whether it is a matter of state or anything else, haste makes the goal harder to reach. That is precisely what they mean by 'the faster you rush, the later you arrive.'"

Outside the screen, Priscilla's brows were drawn together just as tightly, a trace of memory in her eyes as she spoke.

"Subaru is being pushed to his limit. Either of those two things would be nearly impossible to pull off under normal circumstances, I suppose."

Betty's gaze had dimmed. She sounded deflated, aching for the Natsuki Subaru of that moment.

"I think… most of the pressure Mr. Natsuki is under right now actually comes from Return by Death."

Otto put forward a new idea.

"Because Mr. Natsuki really did start over after willingly embracing death last time, it's easy for us to overlook the corner he's backed into — he doesn't understand this power at all. He doesn't know if there's a limit to how many times he can use it. He doesn't know if there are conditions attached. Which means every single step he takes right now is a walk across a tightrope," Otto said, his voice heavy.

"From where we sit, of course we know Mr. Natsuki succeeded. But what about him, back then? One wrong step and it all ends in ruin…"

At that, every gaze went back to the anxious face on the screen, and something new stirred in each of them.

He really is something else — Natsuki Subaru.

Every one of them thought it.

["Eat this. It's a fruit called Bocco Fruit. Eating it triggers Mana Activation inside your body and restores some strength to your Gate."

Emilia fed Natsuki Subaru a walnut-sized brown fruit directly, then explained with a smile.

"Sorry… looks like I've caused you a lot of trouble."

Natsuki Subaru turned his head aside, embarrassed.

"Subaru, you really don't understand people at all," Emilia said, puffing out her cheeks.

The sulk in her voice caught his attention, and he turned back to look into her eyes as she spoke, one word at a time.

"No matter how many times you apologize, a single thank you is worth more," she said gently. "I'm not doing this because I want an apology. I'm doing it because it's something I wanted to do for you. Understand?"

And she finished it off with a sweet smile.

"Ah…"

Natsuki Subaru went blank for a moment. A breeze swept through the gazebo just then, lifting Emilia's long silver hair and painting the whole scene in a dreamlike wash of color.

An angel. An actual angel has come down beside me.

Natsuki Subaru marveled at it, counting himself the luckiest man alive.]

So there was a scene like this too?

Outside the screen, Emilia stared at it, dazed.

Right — that had happened.

In the memories she carried from the Greed-if line, a conversation exactly like that had taken place.

Yet for some reason, back then it had left nowhere near so deep an impression on her.

She thought back over everything since her rebirth — from that alley all the way to the manor. She had made so much effort, saying again and again how much she cared for Subaru, how much she liked him. She had even shared a bed with him.

And still nothing between them had moved forward in any satisfying way.

Meanwhile the version of herself on the screen had stirred Natsuki Subaru's heart with a single sentence.

Had she been going about it wrong the whole time?

Emilia pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her heartbeat, asking herself the question — and remembered the words Natsuki Subaru had said to her at the dinner table on her first day back at the manor.

"Well done, Emilia. That's what I wanted to tell you."

Subaru had looked straight at her then, utterly serious.

"If you're bad at brewing tea, don't force yourself. Everyone has things they're bad at."

"Learn to say no. Don't just go along with everything I say. Take your own feelings seriously!"

Emilia fell silent, thinking.

["You want to know about Curse Casters?"

That night, in the Forbidden Archive, Betty answered the question Natsuki Subaru had put to her.

"How do you resist a curse once it's been released?" he pressed. Betty spent every single day reading in the Forbidden Archive — she had to know the answer.

"You can't resist it. A curse that has already activated cannot be undone, I suppose. Once it takes hold, it will absolutely take the life of the cursed. That is what curse magic is."

Betty kept her eyes on the open book in front of her, answering as though it barely concerned her.

A long moment passed with no reply. Only then did she shift her gaze slightly, glancing at Natsuki Subaru standing there frozen and white as a sheet. She sighed, then said, with pointed emphasis:

"However — before it activates, a curse is nothing more than a simple spell formula. Betty can dispel that easily enough."

"Oh! Beako, I love you!"

His eyes blazed. Whatever had been sinking in him lifted away, and he was full of drive again.

"Hmph."

A smile tugged at the corner of Betty's mouth, so faint it was almost impossible to catch, and she let out a proud little snort at the sight of Natsuki Subaru hovering in front of her, desperate to hug her and not quite daring.

Then she sniffed at the air between them and murmured, "The lingering scent of the Witch…"

"Huh? Now that you mention it, Rem said something like that too. What exactly is this Witch?"

Natsuki Subaru lifted his arm and sniffed at himself, finding no so-called scent anywhere.

"In this world, when someone says 'the Witch,' they generally mean only one person."

"The… Witch of Envy?"

The words called up the storybooks Ram had brought him, the ones that recorded the legend of the Witch of Envy.

"Her, yes. The Witch of Envy, Satella."

Betty's brows drew together slightly, her face grave.

"The one who long ago devoured the other six Witches of Sin, who swallowed half the world. Mistress of the Castle of Shadows. The calamity that drank the world dry."

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