Chapter 72 72: Lord God, Lord Odo Lagunar, I swear...

BOOM!

Before the eyes of all present, Zarestia — pinned beneath the black tide of magical beasts — erupted.

Perhaps everyone had simply forgotten. Forgotten the scene that had heralded her arrival at the very beginning — a scene indistinguishable from a natural catastrophe.

And now, as the tornado slowly took shape once more, it laid bare before Natsuki Subaru and the others the sheer, legendary might of one of the Four Great Spirits — the awesome force of a truly mythic existence!

The sky darkened by the moment. Clouds were shredded apart. The very heavens and earth seemed to tremble in sympathy with the rising vortex.

The remaining magical beasts in the forest were still being drawn in one after another, hurling themselves suicidally into the tornado.

And yet it did nothing — they were nothing more than a heap of expendable fodder.

At this point, Natsuki Subaru was utterly at a loss.

Despair and incomprehension bled through his eyes.

Death itself wasn't the worst of it — what gnawed at him was that even now, on the very threshold of death, he still hadn't managed to extract any intelligence about his enemy.

When he thought about it, the whole thing was simply too strange.

A legendary spirit with absolutely no connection to him — appearing out of nowhere in Count Mathers' domain, finding him with uncanny precision, and coming to take his life?

He was well and truly out of options.

Sensing that this was most likely the final time remaining in this loop, Natsuki Subaru lifted his gaze toward the figure standing in front of him.

Her expression was placid, unchanged — Petra, standing there without a flicker of emotion — and he felt a swell of bewilderment.

Petra… just which possible world-line had she been reborn from?

To think she had become the Witch of Melancholy in that world.

He didn't know the details, but no existence with ties to a witch was ever weak — that much was certain.

What weighed on Natsuki Subaru, though, were the words he had heard Petra speak.

Did this world have a Buddha too? And who on earth was Od Lagna?

The vows Petra had been making — never to drink again, never to write letters again, never to sleep hugging a stuffed animal again.

It was exactly like selling one's soul to a devil — selling away all the possibilities of her own future.

It sounded as though the price Petra was paying was deepening, little by little.

Was this what she had to give up — simply because she was an ordinary person reaching for power?

Natsuki Subaru's expression darkened. He thought of how he had drilled himself in swordsmanship back in the Royal Capital, no matter how hard he tried, and made almost no progress.

Magic was even more out of the question — in one crisis he'd even damaged the very gate within him through which mana flowed.

Of course, unlike him, Petra was still young. Under normal circumstances, it would be unthinkable for her to have any real hunger or ambition for power.

The moment that thought struck him, Natsuki Subaru clenched his fist hard.

So the conclusion was plain to see —

The reason Petra was doing this, the reason she was spending her future to wield this power called melancholy — was for him. For Natsuki Subaru.

And in the midst of that desperate, critical moment, Natsuki Subaru heard Petra — who had not moved from her spot the entire time — suddenly speak again.

"O Lord Above, O Buddha, O Od Lagna. I swear — I will never sing again for as long as I live."

"O Lord Above, O Buddha, O Od Lagna. I swear — I will never pick up a needle and thread again for as long as I live."

At those words, Natsuki Subaru's eyes went wide. He raised his hand and was about to cry out, to stop Petra from paying any more of that price.

He couldn't begin to imagine what kind of resolve it had taken for her to relinquish a future of singing — of sewing.

Because becoming a skilled seamstress had been Petra's dream, ever since she was a little girl.

"Stop, Petra — there has to be… another way!"

But Petra paid no attention to the words coming from behind her.

The truth was that this pure, sweet girl hadn't even fully grasped what was happening around her.

Her memories still ended at the moment she and the others had been fighting Gluttony together.

As for this place — was it an illusion? Some kind of trial?

Petra couldn't make sense of it, and that was hardly her fault.

After all, anyone who saw Elsa the Bowel Hunter — who should have been an enemy — standing alongside Natsuki Subaru, and then witnessed one of the Four Great Spirits attacking the village for no apparent reason, would probably conclude that this world was a fake. Nothing more than an illusion.

Even so — even if this world were nothing but an illusion — Petra's resolve did not waver for an instant.

She would not let anyone hurt Subaru. Not here.

What if the Subaru in the illusion was hurt, and the real Subaru died alongside him?

Petra refused to gamble on whether the enemy did or didn't have some bizarre ability like that.

And perhaps the meaning of her appearing here, in this very moment, was precisely this — to protect Natsuki Subaru.

For that, she would pay whatever price was asked.

RUMBLRUMBLRUMBLE!

Simultaneously, the tornado not far from them had fully taken form, and fed by the sacrificed lives of those magical beasts, its ferocity seemed to swell into something even more terrifying.

In moments, the monstrous catastrophe began to move.

No particular target — it simply drifted in the direction of Natsuki Subaru and the others, and then — began to bear straight down, ready to grind every last ant in its path to nothing.

As everyone stood helpless, with nothing to do but watch the tornado bear down on them —

A small figure rose slowly into the sky.

Petra drew on the melancholy authority within her, and on the power that melancholy authority borrowed from all its past holders!

Her own ability to divide the battlefield, the gravity manipulation inherited from the Witch of Melancholy's demon — and, belonging to Clind —

The long-range repulsion applied to enemies… or perhaps teleportation was the better word for it.

"O Lord Above… O Od Lagna. I swear — I will never invite anyone to my home for as long as I live."

"I… will see no one through to their end."

"I will never take anyone's hand."

"I will never be allowed to play with children."

"I will never wipe anyone's tears."

"I will not go to the places I remember."

"I will never be able to return home…"

"O Lord Above… O Od Lagna. I swear — I will never again eat the things I love for as long as I live!"

As that string of vows left her lips, the future of the person called Petra had already been shattered beyond recognition — and beyond any hope of mending.

But Petra did not care. She only stared, with fierce, unwavering eyes, at the [Wayfarer] across from her.

"Stay… away from Subaru!"

Carrying that single, purest of wishes, Petra poured every last ounce of herself into the melancholy factor's authority of [Compression], directing it squarely at her enemy.

And then — with a thunderous boom that shook the air —

Natsuki Subaru watched as the tornado before him — that force of nature, that thing born of catastrophe — simply ceased to exist in an instant.

"Petra?"

The wind gradually died away.

Natsuki Subaru looked around, and found the silence uncanny.

The Great Spirit Zarestia had vanished — and every last magical beast from the surrounding forest had been swept away along with her.

"That human girl… no, the Witch of Melancholy — she's transported Zarestia somewhere impossibly far away. We're safe for the moment."

Betty, who had been standing at Natsuki Subaru's side all this while, let out a long breath. She gazed at the spot where Petra had disappeared, and there was something like reverence in her eyes.

"And it seems she transported every remaining magical beast in the forest as well. Oh — and Elsa and her sister over there, too."

Natsuki Subaru's first reaction to that was not relief. His legs simply gave out beneath him, and he sank helplessly to the ground.

"Petra… why?"

He repeated the words in a daze, not daring to picture the fury of that Great Spirit when she realised she'd been transported away — and Petra herself had no direct means of attack.

THUD!

As Natsuki Subaru was turning the problem over in his mind in frantic urgency, he noticed Betty beside him suddenly lose consciousness and pitch forward onto the ground.

"Betty! What's—"

The words hadn't even left his mouth before Natsuki Subaru himself lost consciousness in the same instant, and crumpled to the earth.

If one could have pulled the vantage point back to view it from high above, one would have seen the village — and the forest around it — fallen into near-total silence.

Not far from Natsuki Subaru lay Ram, who had evacuated the villagers and then turned back — and she too was lying on the ground, her eyes closed.

Emilia and Rem, at the manor. Zarestia, Elsa, Meili, and Petra herself, who had been transported away by Petra's power — all of them had likewise fallen unconscious.

And far away, in the Royal Capital, at that very same moment —

Memories from certain possible world-lines surfaced in the minds of the four royal candidates: Crusch, Priscilla, Anastasia, Felt.

And many, many others besides, all fell unconscious in that same instant.

Across the world, in every corner, it caused a sudden wave of confusion.

____

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