The garden, where I had witnessed the same morning so many times, had been transformed into a hellish place I had never seen before.
The small but colorful flowers in the flower beds were blown away and burned to pieces, and the rows of trees surrounding the mansion were snapped in half and fallen.
Here and there, the ground was gouged out, the result of an enormous mass exploding, and the ferocious force didn't just destroy the soil; it also scattered many pieces of flesh.
The green grass was stained with dark blood, and the corpses of the black-clad dead lay prostrate in the eternal darkness. Most of the bodies scattered about were unrecognizable, with some having their heads blown off, halves of their bodies crushed, and bodies torn apart - the gruesomeness of these bodies was even greater than that of the victims at the village.
It was probably a testament to the rage of the executor who had turned those poor victims into corpses.
The bloodstained iron ball that had brought about this terrible tragedy was the one who had been responsible. Attached to a handle by a chain, it had crushed and destroyed many opponents - but it had been abandoned by its owner halfway through, and now it was lying abandoned in a corner of the garden.
And the "demon" who seemed to be fighting with it in one hand,
"--Rem."
Subaru was greeted by the corpse of Rem, her body pierced by countless blades and her left arm severed.
You can tell by looking at the number of other corpses in this garden.
She had fought. The malice that had slaughtered the villagers and was about to turn its fangs towards the mansion. She fought bravely, defeated many, was covered in wounds, was hit by many blades, lost her weapon and the arm that wielded it, but still she resisted - and died.
The black apron dress was ripped and ripped in many places, and had turned dark red from blood spurting out everywhere.
Even counting the weapons that were thrust into her body made her want to look away. They were shaped like a cross, with blades at the tips, and there were so many of them driven into her petite frame that it was impossible to fit the fingers on both hands on them.
What's even more disgusting is the fact that, despite the murder weapon having pierced her body, the scars left on Rem's body as she collapsed were far more numerous.
Over and over and over again.
He stabbed the blade into her fallen body and pulled it out, tormenting her while she was still breathing, toying with her life, violating her dignity, insulting her way of life, and then stabbing her, leaving an indelible scar.
What sin had she committed that warranted this?
What were her killers thinking when they killed her?
What do they know about Rem? She works hard, she's a hard worker, she's caring, she jumps to conclusions, she dotes on Subaru kindly, but she can also be harsh at times, she's on his side when he's in trouble, but she also leaves him behind, she cares for her sister, she hates herself, but she's only just started to like herself a little.
I had only just begun to live the life I had always told myself I was a replacement for someone else, but now it was my own.
Rem didn't move. No matter how hard he shook her, her cold body had already gone stiff, and her soft blue hair, which he had stroked countless times, was now sticky with blood. She had collapsed face down, face to the ground, and Subaru didn't have the courage to look at her.
Even if they had a painful expression on their face, even if they looked determined to fight to the end, or even if they had died peacefully, I didn't have the courage to accept it.
After all, Rem died because of Subaru.
Subaru, who was rocking the now motionless Rem on his knees, suddenly looked up and noticed something unnatural about the place where Rem had collapsed.
Her body, having resisted despair with the garden as a battlefield, had been abandoned at the edge of the garden, away from the mansion - far away from the flowerbeds, in a space not often frequented by people.
I don't think it's particularly strange. It seems as if he was outflanked by the enemy while fighting, or perhaps cornered while dodging them, and that's how he met his end here.
However, Subaru found the situation strange.
Then, as I rack my brains with my non-functioning brain, I realize the true nature of that strange phenomenon.
The sight of Rem falling forward, with her arms spread out - her left arm was missing from the shoulder, so her right arm was stretched out as she collapsed - made it look as if she had been fighting with her back to something, and had died in the middle of the fight.
Looking up, he saw that behind the fallen Rem was a wooden storehouse where gardening scissors, flower seeds, and other items were stored.
The place, which also serves as a temporary storage space for unused furniture and other items, is the size of a small shed and is only called a warehouse in name.
Standing up, Subaru crawled towards the entrance of the warehouse, and as he got closer he noticed something.
It was a sensation he'd experienced many times before. A sticky sensation caressing his skin, drying up his mouth to the point of thirst, and dulling his thoughts, a dense and gloomy presence of death.
As he approached the entrance, Subaru dropped his gaze, keen to smell the stench of death. At his feet, under the closed door of the warehouse, a large amount of blood was spilling out, staining the young grass.
I take a breath, swallow my saliva, and swallow the rising urge to vomit, and try to put my hand on the door. The reason my hand is shaking is not because of caution. It's because of fear.
There was no sign of anyone inside. There was no need to worry about such things, and Subaru didn't have the mental capacity to waste his time thinking about such things in the first place.
My fingertips graze the door handle, refusing to grip it as I shake it off again and again. Irritated, I feel sorry for my body that won't listen to me, and tears well up in my eyes. But after trying again and again, my little finger finally catches the handle, and the door creaks open.
In an instant, the smell of blood filled the warehouse so overwhelmingly that it filled every nostril and still left them wanting more.
Subaru instinctively covered his nose and mouth with his hands, trying to hold back the rising emotion as he peered inside. He gave up even trying to imagine what sort of scene he might see there, simply wanting to burn the bare reality into his eyes.
--The people inside the warehouse were the village children.
The moment he realised this, Subaru suppressed the rising stomach acid in his mouth and stomped out of the warehouse.
He collapsed forward onto the grass, spat out the hot vomit as he pleased. Vomited. His stomach was empty, and all that came out was yellowish gastric juice. But he continued to vomit. Even though his internal organs were screaming in pain, his throat was burning with stomach acid, and the sour taste was ravaging his mouth, Subaru continued to vomit.
You're not allowed to vomit inside, inside that warehouse.
Now no one, no one, has the right to defile those children any more than they have.
"Rem, huh..."
He fought and died protecting his children.
The only child corpse Subaru found in the village was that of a girl named Petra. He hadn't gone around looking for the bodies of all the villagers, so he had completely ruled out the possibility that there might have been survivors.
The adults fought in the village, and the children fled to the lord's mansion. However, despair descended on them even in their new home, and the outcome remained the same.
Lives were taken mercilessly, mercilessly, and cruelly.
"fire"
Suddenly, a hoarse voice escaped from Subaru's throat.
It's not that something had happened, I just suddenly felt scared.
Subaru returns to his village, to his mansion, searching for someone who knows him. But there is not a single living person left, and only the silent dead blame him for returning.
I felt like that was what he was saying. Those blank, empty eyes that reflected nothing.
I felt accused. Those gaping lips, dripping with blood.
I felt like I was hated. I remembered the days when I interacted with them and laughed with them.
"No... No, no no no no..."
--Why are you still alive?
Why did they have to die?
"That's not it... I'm not... I don't want this to happen..."
I had ideals. I had delusional hopes.
When Subaru heard that Emilia was in danger, he thought it was a revelation. He believed that this was the opportunity he had been given to make her, who had given up on him, reconsider her views of him.
Just like before, Subaru believed that he would save Emilia, receive her gratitude, bridge the gap of their small misunderstanding, and walk together hand in hand.
They assumed that the difficulties, dangers, and tragedies that would come their way were merely stepping stones to their future. They underestimated their ability to recover from whatever happened.
If the price to pay is this huge number of deaths,
"It's not my fault... I, I..."
Shaking his head, Subaru stood up, turned his eyes away from the warehouse, turned his back on Rem's corpse, and ran towards the mansion.
"Someone...someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone...!!"
He crossed the threshold, went around to the front of the mansion, and tried to slam open the front door, but the door was stubbornly shut, as if it had considered Subaru an outsider, and no matter how many times he slammed his body into it, or how violently he kicked it, there was no sign of it opening.
Frustrated, Subaru gave the door a final kick and then headed back towards the garden. He stepped over the rolling black-clad corpses, jumped over them, and headed towards his destination.
He picked it up, dragging it so heavy that his arms creaked, and headed to the terrace on the garden side of the mansion. He took a deep breath, flexed all his muscles, and then,
"--Ah!"
The centrifugal force of the chain he was holding caused the iron ball to spin, and the glass it struck was shattered into pieces, scattering widely across the room.
Subaru hurriedly squeezed through the path he'd forcibly created and slid into the mansion. The shards of the partially shattered window tore thin slices through his skin, leaving numerous lacerations all over his limbs, but at that moment, Subaru felt no sharp pain.
"Someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone..."
As if clinging to it, as if possessed, Subaru's lips continued to seek the presence of another.
It was the same as when he ran into the village, but now he was searching for something completely different.
That is,
"It's not my fault... It's not my fault... It's not my fault..."
I wanted someone alive to confirm that.
Or perhaps the very fact that someone survives is an affirmation of that.
So Subaru sought out the living. He craved them. He had to find them.
Otherwise, Subaru would not be able to affirm himself.
It is impossible to maintain mental balance if you believe that this tragedy was caused by your own careless thoughts.
In order to keep my heart from breaking and to avoid being held responsible for the deaths of so many people, I had to protect myself with plausible explanations.
Subaru staggers around the mansion, his upper body swaying unsteadily.
Unlike the garden, the interior of the building showed no signs of being ransacked or destroyed. The scenery inside was the same as the familiar mansion, and for some reason, this place, which remained normal despite the outside world being filled with death, seemed terribly frightening.
He put his hand on the door of the nearest room, opened it roughly, checked inside, clicked his tongue, and closed it with all his might. Compared to the enormous number of rooms in the mansion, there were far too few people actually using it.
There were four people connected to the mansion that Subaru had yet to confirm their existence - until he found one of them, Subaru would keep opening and closing doors at random.
"Damn... damn! Why... why, no one... if it was always like that..."
Subaru grumbled in a strained, half-crying voice and roughly ripped his bangs out.
Normally, Subaru would be able to reach the archive managed by Beatrice so easily that he wouldn't even need to aim. And yet, now, at this crucial moment, he just couldn't find it.
Right now, I wanted so badly to hear that nasty remark.
He could even bear being treated carelessly like an insect and having people sigh in irritation, as long as they were alive and affirmed Subaru with their lives.
"Come out... Come out... Please, I'm begging you... Help me... Help me...!!"
Unable to hold back the tears any longer, Subaru ran around the mansion with tears running down his cheeks. All that escaped his mouth were sobs and effeminate complaints of someone who would take his hand and rescue him from this despair.
Passing through the guest room where he'd first woken up in the mansion, trampling on the carpet that Beatrice's magic had turned into an infinitely looping hallway, crawling on his hands and knees in the dining room he'd frequented so many times, turning his back on the kitchen where he'd struggled to make mayonnaise, leaving the public bath where he'd been tasked with cleaning - the most laborious job he'd been given - behind, he ran up to the floor where the servants' rooms were gathered, turning all the rooms nearby over to peer insideーー,
In the seventh room, they found Ram's body.
Subaru, who had witnessed so much death in such a short time, immediately knew that the Ram lying in bed was not asleep.
Her translucent white skin had lost all its blood and turned pale, and her lips, conversely, were a more crimson red than usual. In stark contrast to the manner in which her identical looking sister had died, Ram's appearance, even in death, was somehow pitiful, even with makeup applied to her face.
If she kept quiet, she'd pass off as a cute maid, as she usually said lightly.
The woman lying on the bed probably did not die here in her sleep. Someone had carried her to the bed in her death and arranged her appearance in this way.
It was probably Rem. What was she thinking before her sister's death, how many times did she shed tears while applying makeup to the body, and what were her feelings as she left her sister alone?
Now that Rem herself has been murdered so brutally, we will never be able to know what went through her mind.
Subaru touched his fingers to Ram's cold lips, a small amount of vermilion makeup staining the tips of his nails. He rubbed his fingers together, playing with the color with his fingertips, and before he knew it, he had sat down in the corner of the room.
I vaguely looked up and saw the figure of a dead person, peacefully asleep, that I would have believed if I had been told that he was just sleeping.
The sight of her silently welcoming Subaru back home condemns him, the living.
Just like the many hollow eyes that had looked up at Subaru in the village.
Lips that would never tremble again showered Subaru with silent curses, endlessly.
"fire"
Subaru crawled away from the bed where Ram was sleeping. He forced his trembling arms and unresponsive knees to stand up, and, staggering, put his hands on the wall and got away from the room as quickly as possible.
"Stop it... It's not me... I, I, I'm nothing...!"
Covering his ears, shaking his head, and trying to weave words to defend himself with a hoarse throat, Subaru tried to get away from the voice of resentment whispered in his ear. But that voice, that despair, followed him wherever and wherever he fled, as if mocking him.
He dragged his feet and ran down the hallway. He reached a landing with stairs. He put his hands on his hands and knees and climbed the stairs. He fell and stumbled many times along the way, blood dripping from his bumped lip, but he finally made it to the upper floor hallway and tried again.
Only the dead greet Subaru. With Ram dead, there are only three living people left. His feet naturally avoid Emilia's room on the same floor. On the second floor, Ram had been found dead in her own private room, assigned to a servant. The image of Ram dead in her room flashes through his mind, and the tears that should have dried up well up again. He thought he had already expelled all the water from his body, the sobs he was spitting out and the stomach juices he was spitting out, but the never-ending sadness, with a pain deep in his chest, urged Subaru to run.
Without that, I would have just sat there, with my head in my hands, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, knowing nothing, asking for nothing, being given nothing, having nothing taken away, loving nothing, being loved nothing, nothing beginning, nothing ending, nothing changing, and remaining stagnant.
Whimpers and tears streaming down his crumpled face, Subaru staggered to the top floor - Roswaal's office. The heavy double doors remained silent, their strength seemingly guarded by a sturdiness that seemed capable of fending off any ill will that might approach the mansion.
However, such hope quickly fades away.
In this place where everything has ended, there can be no safe place, no forgiving place, and there shouldn't be.
Pushing it open, a cool breeze flows out into the hallway.
The chill stung his arms, and Subaru suddenly remembered how lightly dressed he was, leaving him defenseless against it. He wondered where his jacket was, then remembered that he'd given it to Petra in the village, and was disgusted by the fact that he was trying to protect himself with such pointless thoughts.
I stepped into the room, and could not help but feel half-resigned to the possibility that Roswaal might be leaning against the desk in his office, now dead.
With Rem dead and Ram's life crushed, it's hard to hold on to hope for others. She no longer knows whether she's running around the mansion searching for the living, or whether she's losing hope and trolling her memories with despair.
However, the world had betrayed Subaru's hopes three times before - in the village, in the garden, and in his private room - and now it was not going to betray him a fourth time.
There was no one in the office.
He looked around the deserted room, searching behind desks, under the shelves where the furniture was placed, and even crawling around behind the reception desk, but he still couldn't find any trace of it.
More than a little, a feeling of relief took hold of Subaru.
It was a sense of relief that he hadn't had to find out whether Roswaal was dead or alive - and also a sense of self-love that he would no longer have any reason to be tormented by the dead.
"--?"
Suddenly, Subaru heard the wind rattle the window and turned around.
Looking, the moment he opened the door leading to the hallway, an extremely cold wind blew into the room, tapping on the window and rustling the leaves of the potted plant in the corner of the room.
A wind current is being created.
Having found a way through the door, the wind blew around the room, carrying with it a cold breeze, before blowing outside. Feeling this with his own skin, Subaru searched for the source of the wind, relying on his senses and intuition――
"Such a scheme..."
The moment he fiddled with the mechanism hidden under the ebony desk, a sound like gears meshing rang out, followed by a low sound like a millstone being ground, and the bookshelf installed on the far wall of the office slid nearly a meter to the side.
As Subaru was stunned by this unexpected contrivance, a gaping black hole appeared before him on the other side of the moved bookshelf.
I approached cautiously and peeked inside, seeing a stone corridor that continued for just a few steps, and beyond that a spiral staircase leading down to the floor below.
"A hidden passageway...?"
It is probably something to prepare for emergencies.
As a Margrave and a lord of a territory, Roswaal would naturally have to prepare an escape route as a means of self-defense. Whether or not he would ever actually use it, it was easy to see that someone like him would have been happy to prepare one.
I never thought I would actually have the opportunity to use that passage.
The cold wind blowing through the room seemed to be coming from that loophole. In other words, the wind was blowing through the passage on the other side of the loophole, starting from somewhere even deeper and colder.
Subaru held his breath, took several deep breaths, and when he saw that his fast, sharp beating heart had calmed down even just a little, he leapt into the loophole.
The wall was cool to the touch, and I wondered what material it was made of, but it emitted a faint blue glow and ensured visibility up to a few meters ahead.
Relying on that light and placing his hands along the wall, Subaru made his way down the spiral stone staircase to the floor below, paying close attention not to lose his footing.
Subaru was filled with anxiety at stepping into a completely unknown place, wondering how far it continued and where it was heading, but what burned his back even more strongly than those negative feelings was the anger at the existence of this hidden passage.
If the wind is blowing, it means there is an exit.
In other words, someone must have used this loophole to try to escape. There were three survivors that he hadn't seen in the mansion - considering whose office it was from, it was obvious who had abandoned the devastation in the mansion and fled.
Did he just leave that, abandon that terrible scene, leave the girl who loved him so dearly to die, and then run away? Did he shamefully run away, afraid for his life?
Subaru doesn't notice that the roots of his teeth are trembling with anger and joy.
Anger toward a person who has turned to a vice that goes against justice, is despicable, and should be slandered.
The joy of having found someone on whom to direct all the resentment, curses, contempt, abuse, and blame of the silent dead.
With a manic smile of mixed emotions, endless tears flowing, and blood dripping from his bitten lip, the madman heads downstairs.
Subaru wondered how many flights of stairs he had gone down. In terms of steps, it was quite a lot, but in terms of height, it wasn't even the level of going from the third floor to ground level. The loophole seemed to lead to the basement of the mansion, and at the end of the stairs, the passage continued straight ahead again. The material of the wall was still the same blue-glowing mineral, and Subaru pressed his palm against it, which took the heat away from his fingertips, as he continued on with a twisted smile.
He was chasing after the remains of the living. That was something that made Subaru happy right now.
I was happy to know that the person ahead of me would be someone who had made decisions just as poor as mine and deserved to be yelled at.
I was really happy to be able to find the living in a world where only the dead exist, and to find out whether I was really alive or not.
"Hmm, oh..."
Suddenly, his palm, which had been pressed along the wall, lost sight of the wall and stroked the open space. His body instinctively swam forward, and what unfolded before him was a small room that was slightly larger on all four sides than the hallway he had been in up until then.
In the dimly lit space, there were a number of pillars lined up and dotted about. The uneven spacing of the pillars made them look odd, but if the passageway itself had been built in a rush, it was easy to see why it was so sloppy in design.
Convinced, Subaru passed by the annoying pillar. At this point, his limbs felt extremely sluggish and tired. He felt fatigued, as if his hands were stuffed with lead, and even his already vague thoughts began to slow down.
I struggle to even take one step forward as I continue to walk. My mouth is so dry it even hurts, and the blood that had been flowing from my lips has stopped before I even realize it.
His eyelids felt heavy, and his shoulders felt as if weights were weighing down on him, restricting his movement, but still, his sheer determination, resentment, and madness drove Subaru forward.
Dodging the pillars that dot the hall and passing through small rooms, Subaru spots an iron door ahead in the blue light. Passageway, stairs, passageway, small room, and door - could it be that what he is looking for is on the other side of this?
--What on earth were you looking for?
Before his stagnant thoughts could reach an answer, his bloodless fingertips would reach out. Subaru stood in front of the door, his mouth opening and closing as if panting, and abandoning his empty thoughts, he grabbed the door handle, driven only by his sense of duty.
--At that moment, a searing pain ran through my right hand as it touched the handle.
"--Ahhhh!"
A scream of intense pain erupted from his throat, and Subaru shook off his right hand as if trying to tear it away. The burning pain spread to the entire palm of his hand that had touched the knob, and he let out a groan of pain as he looked down at the devastation his right hand had sustained.
--The index finger of my right hand was broken.
"--teeth?"
Stunned and dumbfounded, Subaru looked at the right hand he had raised in front of him.
His right hand had turned white, and the skin on his palm had peeled off in shreds - of the five outstretched fingers, only the index finger was missing.
Slowly, he turned his gaze to the door ahead, where what had been Subaru's right index finger was still clinging to the handle he was sure he had grabbed.
--Hurry up, I can't finish it.
Pushing that thought away with his incoherent thoughts, Subaru aimed his right hand at the handle to retrieve his lost finger. However, he had even more difficulty moving his body than before, and he couldn't get his will to flow from his shoulder to his elbow, and then from his elbow to his arm. Frustrated by his inability to move his arm, Subaru stepped forward to try and close the distance between him and the door - but his right ankle broke apart at the base, and he collapsed sideways.
"--ahhhhh"
An inaudible sound escapes from my throat.
I don't know if it was a scream of pain or just a meaningless torrent of life.
The moment he opened his mouth to let out a sound, the inside of his body was filled with the white stuff and he became unable to move.
His lungs were spasming, and he was breathing unsteadily. Taking short, shallow breaths, desperately trying to send oxygen to his lungs that wouldn't expand, Subaru's eyes darted around the extraordinary situation.
I don't know what happened. All I can feel is a vague sense of my whole body.
His right ankle was shattered into pieces, and he felt a pain and sense of loss he had never experienced before.Then, at the moment he collapsed, he saw that the right half of his body, which had been crushed under his toppled body, was also losing parts of itself, just like his right ankle, and was beginning to crumble.
With his lips no longer trembling, he exhaled the breath that was barely keeping him alive. Subaru realized, only now, that the exhaled breath was visibly white.
My face is stuck to the floor, and I know that if I move my neck, my cheek will peel off. I no longer feel any pain. I move roughly, and my cheek and the outside of my right eye fall off in chunks. It doesn't matter. Finally, I turn over and see the upside-down room I passed by.
Looking down at it from below, Subaru finally realised that the reason the alignment of the pillars dotting the small rooms was uneven wasn't due to shoddy construction.
All of the things lined up in the small room are icicles of dead people frozen in ice.
They were victims who, like Subaru, had wandered into this white demise and turned into ice statues. And that was soon to be the end for Subaru as well.
He had already stopped breathing.
A limited amount of oxygen was circulating through the brain, but it was strangely slow and the brain was barely able to maintain consciousness, and its existence was on the verge of disappearing in the frigid world.
I don't understand anything.
I can't see anything.
Starting from his feet, his body gradually turns into shards of ice, and he is no longer Natsuki Subaru.
If that was to be said, then perhaps the person here was not Natsuki Subaru, but merely a madman wearing the skin of one.
I lost feeling in my lower body. My arms were nowhere to be found. My right eye had fallen off. It was a wonder that I could still see with my remaining left eye. Where does life reside? The brain or the heart?
There was no way the answer would come out in this frozen world――
"--It's already too late."
A murmur of cold voice echoes in a world dominated by white.
--Natsuki Subaru was shattered into pieces, his fragments vanishing from the world