Chapter 26 26: “Life in Another World Starting from Arrogance (1)”

[Now, look closely at those 'present moments' that never existed——]

[Lacking the power to protect her — that flawless, perfect her.]

[And so the path to becoming a hero was abandoned. What remained in its place was nothing but arrogance.]

Then, those lines of text slowly faded and vanished.

"A 'present that never existed'? What does that——"

Emilia was deeply unsettled.

Her first thought went to the memories that had suddenly surfaced in her mind — the memories of Subaru's four loops through life and death.

Weren't those exactly what could be called 'present moments that never existed'?

"But hasn't the grey screen already shown us all of those?"

"Hmm~ That concept — Subaru mentioned something like it to me once, what was it again——"

Elsa blinked, tapping a finger against her red lips, and then her eyes suddenly brightened.

"Ah, right! Something about — parallel worlds, wasn't it?"

Reinhard quietly withdrew his gaze from the other two women, his eyes darkening.

He didn't know what this so-called cinema intended by bringing them here to watch Subaru's experiences.

But whether by instinct or rational consideration, he felt certain that whatever appeared on the grey screen would not be unrelated to him.

What the grey screen had shown before — it was a different possibility, a path Natsuki Subaru had walked that diverged from the story Reinhard knew.

Which meant what came next would very likely be the story from the version he remembered — the story unfolding through Subaru's own eyes.

Well then. Let this serve as a measure of the arrogant archbishop Natsuki Subaru's true capacity.

As the grey screen gradually brightened, a new scene appeared before the three of them.

["I will definitely… save you!"

Before the image even formed, Natsuki Subaru's voice arrived first — weak, yet utterly resolute.

Like the swearing of some sacred vow. Or perhaps simply the desperate, unwilling cry of a boy who still clung to the fantasy of being a hero.]

All three people present instinctively recognized the moment in time the scene depicted——

It was the end of Natsuki Subaru's first life, the promise he had made to the girl named "Satella."

Then, the second loop began...

All three of them — Reinhard included — watched Natsuki Subaru's journey through this loop with full attention.

Yet what struck them as strange was this:

It seemed no different from before.

["Surprised? As you were passing me, I slit your belly open."

"That's right, just like that — your body slowly losing its warmth."

"Slowly, slowly going cold."

"Wonderful!"

...The third loop began.

"Why... why does it always end like this!"

Thud!

...The fourth loop — Subaru's wounds were too severe. Death.

Then came the fifth loop, the sixth, the seventh, all the way until...

"The eighty-seventh death. The eighty-eighth loop!"]

Outside the screen, Emilia pressed a hand gently over her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Why... why didn't Subaru succeed in the fourth loop? Why did he just keep failing and dying?!

"This is — this is too cruel to him!"

Reinhard saw her state and was about to say something to comfort Emilia — but at that moment, the corner of his eye caught the image on the grey screen, and his whole body went rigid.

"This is already the eighty-eighth time..."

Emilia heard Natsuki Subaru's voice drifting out from inside the screen, murmuring to himself.

The tone was so flat it carried almost no emotion at all — as though he had gone completely numb to death.

"Is this… Subaru?!"

The image on the grey screen brightened to life.

[A dark-haired boy strolled into the alley, a branch resting lazily across his shoulders, humming some tuneless little song.

That boy was Natsuki Subaru — and his eyes were sunken and ringed with dark circles, carrying the unmistakable exhaustion of someone who had not truly rested in a very long time.

"Oh, it's you lot again."

Three familiar thugs closed in around him — the same ones he knew far too well by now. The short one, the skinny one, and the big one.

Those were the nicknames Natsuki Subaru had casually given them.

Natsuki Subaru kept walking forward with an utterly blank expression, offering them a bored, offhand greeting.

"Hey, what are you on about, you little——"

Spsh!

In response to one of the thugs' bewildered question, Natsuki Subaru's answer was to drive the branch forward in a sudden, sharp thrust — straight through the throat of the big one at the front, who hadn't seen it coming.

With a dull, wet thud, the big man toppled straight forward. The momentum drove the branch even deeper, and blood came spraying from his neck in a dark torrent.

"Just a branch I picked up off the ground — but for the purpose of driving it through someone's throat, it turns out that's more than enough."

He had just casually snuffed out a living person's life, and Natsuki Subaru's expression didn't flicker for even an instant.

His eyes regarded everything with cold indifference, as though he had done nothing more than swat an annoying fly.]

"There's no mistaking it — that look in his eyes... it's him! The Arrogant Archbishop!"

Outside the screen, Reinhard lurched forward in his seat, his face going dark.

A tangle of complex emotions twisted through him.

"Heh~ So it's finally that man's story, is it~"

Elsa covered her mouth with a light laugh, while her bewitching gaze slid sideways toward Emilia beside her.

The corner of her lips curled into a thin, mocking smile.

"My, how interesting — this little half-elf must have been quite pleased watching the earlier story, no?"

"I do wonder what she'll be feeling inside once she's seen this part through."

[Natsuki Subaru beat the skinny thug to death. Strangled the short one with his bare hands.

And when it was done, he went down the line and crushed each of the three fallen men's heads underfoot — just to make sure none of them could survive.

With that finished, the blank-faced Natsuki Subaru suddenly caught a glimpse of a silver-haired figure flashing past the mouth of the alley.

"...Satella?"

He called out without thinking — the only girl's name that still meant anything to him.

Yes. Even after eighty-eight loops.

At this point in time, Natsuki Subaru still did not know Emilia's real name.

Loop after loop — dismembered by the Bowel Hunter, disemboweled, slaughtered in every way imaginable.

Failure after failure had filled his heart to the brim with loathing — loathing for his own powerlessness.

And... hatred for the world itself.

Yet Satella — the girl who had stood at the mouth of that alley and saved him in the very first loop — she remained the only light in this darkness he had been cast into.

Every time he died, the last image burned into his eyes was Satella's body crumpled in a pool of blood.

Death had not made him flinch back in fear.

On the contrary — the obsession to save Satella had only burrowed deeper and deeper into him, taking root he could no longer pull free.

Watching Satella's retreating figure as she chased after Felt and disappeared, Natsuki Subaru made his vow for the eighty-eighth time.

"I am the only one in this world who knows the misfortune that is coming for Satella — and so——"

"No matter what it costs me, I will drag you free from that wretched fate!"

"Wait for me!"]

"Subaru... please, you have to stop. Your mind is already — already on the verge of breaking!"

Emilia was crying now, her voice breaking apart.

The Subaru before her — the one who had gone completely numb to killing — stood in stark, devastating contrast to the Subaru who had saved her and become her hero.

From where she sat, this Subaru seemed to be walking, step by step, down the very same road as the Purge King.

Exhausted. Hollow. The weight bearing down on this boy's spirit was close to crushing him entirely.

"The only one who can save her — how very 'arrogant' of him~"

Elsa's smile never wavered, but the coldness buried deep in her eyes only grew sharper.

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