Chapter 81: Second Wave of Spectators Enters, Priscilla Aggressively Declares War!

[Just before he made it back to his own bedroom, Natsuki Subaru used the Door of Passage to call out a greeting to Betty.

The result was that, for reasons he couldn't fathom, Betty blasted him out the other side. From her attitude, it really did look as though she didn't particularly want to see him.

Whatever. He was in a good mood today; he wasn't going to stoop to the level of this drill-curl loli.

Humming a tune, Natsuki Subaru meandered all the way back to his own room.

But even after he had stripped off his clothes and lain down on the bed, he was still too excited to sleep, all because Emilia-tan had agreed to go on a date with him.

"I'd better plan tomorrow's date in the village properly."

"Need to come up with a reason to send those little kids off and away too."

"Mm — when the time comes, I'll head out together with Emilia to somewhere with a really good view. Just the two of us, alone."

Natsuki Subaru daydreamed about the heart-fluttering moments with Emilia that might unfold the next day.

He couldn't keep himself from letting out a few snickering little laughs.

As he kept on thinking, he yawned, and slipped wearily into a doze.

Bit by bit, he sank into a sweet, sound sleep.]

Outside the screen, the whole audience was thrown into an uproar.

What was going on? Was the day really just going to end like that?

"If there's nothing after this — then Subaru… I'm afraid he's about to die in his sleep."

Puck hovered in the air, arms folded across his chest, his expression solemn as he spoke.

"There's no way Boss is gonna die here…"

Garfiel's face was full of disbelief.

Even he had picked up on it, though.

From the moment Boss had extended that invitation for a date to Lady Emilia under the moonlight, the atmosphere of the scene up on the screen had already taken a wrong turn.

Whether it was the line that the Great Spirit Betty had been muttering to herself when she'd blasted Boss back out the door — "It has nothing to do with Betty, I suppose" —

Or the strange, abnormally elated state of Boss's mental condition afterward—

Every single one of those scenes seemed, faintly, to be hinting at something.

Combine that with the words spoken earlier by the two Great Spirits, Puck and Betty—

It practically amounted to a direct death sentence handed down on Natsuki Subaru!

"No — no way. The footage hasn't ended, has it? There's bound to be a scene next where Boss whales on that Curse Caster, or whatever the hell, and grinds him into the dirt!"

Garfiel bared his teeth furiously. When it came to confidence in Boss, nobody could match him!

And yet, as if to mock him—

The very next instant after Garfiel finished saying those words, the screen plunged into darkness.

The frame of the screen had been locked onto Natsuki Subaru the whole time, so the picture wouldn't go dark just because he'd fallen asleep — this much, everyone had already established over the past two days, on the nights after Natsuki Subaru had drifted off.

Which meant — without the slightest room for doubt, right now, Natsuki Subaru — was already dead!

"Subaru—!"

Rem jerked her head down and clamped her hands over her cheeks. The whimpering, half-stifled sobs in her throat erupted into broken, breaking-down wails.

She cried out Natsuki Subaru's name with all her might, hoping that the screen might yet show some miracle of life.

She was willing to grow old together with Natsuki Subaru, the two of them holding each other's hands as they left this world.

But the soundless death the screen had just shown — it left her feeling that the whole thing was simply absurd, beyond anything she could accept.

It was the same for another.

Accompanied by a dull thud, Ram — who had only just stood up out of nervousness, intent on watching what came next on the screen — now collapsed to her knees on the floor.

Her face was already covered in tears, and yet, unlike Rem, she did not break out into loud weeping.

This was hardly the first time, after all, that she had lost the most important person in her life.

But why, Ram thought, why did her heart still hurt like this?

Ram clenched her teeth, her eyes staring wide — looking at the now-pitch-black screen before her with an expression that was neither weeping nor laughing — her heart a tangled knot of fury and despair.

Granted, Barusu's behavior and experiences on the screen had differed somewhat from those in her own memory.

But she had a feeling — these things… maybe they really were all things Barusu had actually been through!

When she'd truly seen Barusu die from the curse, she had nearly been suffocated by the wave of despair pressing down on her.

Because the images and the sounds on the screen had been just too real.

As if, right at this very moment, Natsuki Subaru had truly died there in front of her!

She couldn't tell — she genuinely couldn't tell which was which anymore!

"This contract is itself the proof that Subaru is alive! What's on the screen — it's all fake!"

Betty, at that moment, was like a startled little hamster. She clenched her small hands together in front of her chest, eyes squeezed shut as she curled up into a ball on her seat.

With all her strength, she tried to feel the bond of the contract between herself and Natsuki Subaru.

Only the warmth coming through from the other end of that contract could help her dull, even a little, the shock of having just seen Natsuki Subaru's death scene.

Reinhard, likewise, had closed his eyes, silently lamenting in his heart for the ill-fated Natsuki Subaru.

Every single person present, every last one, had been swept up in the grief of Natsuki Subaru's death.

This group — which until then had managed to maintain some sort of harmony — now seemed, in a single instant, to have had its central pillar yanked out from under it, and looked about ready to come apart at the seams.

But it was right at that moment — as the screen went black, the lamps mounted along the walls all around the theater abruptly dimmed.

A pitch-black darkness — the kind in which you couldn't see your own hand in front of your face — instantly enveloped the entire audience area.

"How could it be? That the benefactor would fall here, of all places?"

A weathered old man's voice rang out in the audience area, throwing Emilia and the others into alarm.

"Who's speaking?! There isn't any old man among us!"

The entire group was thrown into a wave of confusion and panic.

But it was right then that Reinhard's voice rose up — puzzled, and laced with a hint of tentative probing.

"...Grandfather? Is that you?"

Silence, no reply at all.

But at that very moment, another unfamiliar voice — somewhat feminine in tone — rose up again inside the audience area.

"Lord Subaru… for that arrogant man to die so easily — no, I refuse to believe it!"

The owner of this voice seemed to speak in unbearable anguish.

"Subaru… my friend, why would you let your steps stop here, of all places?"

Another voice — gentle and noble, like that of a knight — sounded in turn.

"These voices are right next to us! Don't tell me — has someone snuck in among us under cover of the dark?!"

Garfiel called out a sharp warning, instinctively trying to release his power and shift into his bestial form — only to find himself pinned in place, unable to move, by some unknown, terrifying force.

On hearing his words, the audience erupted into another wave of panic.

But thankfully, the lights weren't out for too long — only an instant later, they came back on again.

Everyone raised their hands to shield their eyes from the dazzling light, squinting as they swiftly scanned their surroundings.

And then they discovered that in the rows of seats — in those empty spaces between Garfiel and Otto — a great many figures had appeared at some point without anyone noticing.

An old man with a head of white hair, an aged face that nonetheless carried an inherent, awe-inspiring dignity without him needing to lift a finger — the man known as the [Sword Devil], Wilhelm van Astrea.

A woman with fluffy cat ears, blue ribbons tied on either side of her short hair, dressed in a shoulder-baring blue dress — Ferris.

An elven knight in the uniform of the Knight Order, with short purple hair, elegant and upright in bearing — Julius Juukulius.

Apart from these three, who had spoken up in the darkness just now, there were others as well—

"Snap!"

Accompanied by the crisp opening and closing of a fan.

A woman in a magnificent crimson dress — elegant and arrogant as a passionate flame — drew every gaze in the room.

"What a damnable lot of people — to let this consort's beloved suffer such an ordeal! Every last one of them ought to be put to death!"

Priscilla swayed a vivid-flame-colored noblewoman's fan in her hand, fluttering it gently before her ample chest.

Her face was written all over with impatience, and at the same time she swept her gaze contemptuously around at Emilia and the rest — her meaning could not have been clearer.

One of the five Royal Selection candidates — Priscilla — had made her entrance.

And now, she was declaring war on them all!

____

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