Echidna: [Myon myon myon myon myon…]
Subaru: [――. I've been thinking about this for a while now.]
Echidna: [Yes? What is it? If something is on your mind, feel free to speak. We are in this together, no? Why would you become shy about it now??]
Subaru: [Don't phrase it in a way that grates my nerves every time… What is this "Myon myon" thing?]
Echidna: [――? Nothing at all, it is merely a ritual for reading your memories from the Magic Crystal.]
Subaru: [Not that, I'm talking about that lackluster chant. Why "Myon myon myon"?]
Echidna: [Oh, that. It would seem that, before I was born, there was a magic user who made quite the name for herself in an era when magic had yet to be systematized.]
Subaru: [Oh, really? Someone like that… are they related to this?]
Echidna: [Yes. The name of that person is Myonmyon.]
Subaru: [Myonmyon!! That was a person's name!!!!]
Echidna: [So, when those who received her instruction would use magic, they would chant this to remember the words of their master…]
Subaru: [So, you mean that Myonmyon was the master's name?]
Echidna: [That is how it is. I suppose that mystery has been solved?]
Subaru: [Now that I've solved it, I guess it was a mystery I didn't really need to be bothered with…]
Echidna: [Hey now, you have me explain it to you, and now you say this? What a terrible boy you are.]
Subaru: [And you, who continually accompanies this terrible boy, also have a strange taste.]
Echidna: [Hehe… well, what do you think? Do you regret it?]
Subaru: [Regret what?]
Echidna: [That day, the day in which you took my hand. That is how you have gotten to where you are now.]
Subaru: [――No, I don't regret it. This, was the best choice I could have made.]
Echidna: […Huh?]
Subaru: [Don't be such a pushover, Echidna. You and I are in this together. No matter how many times, how many dozens, how many hundreds of times it takes to redo, I'm taking everyone with me into the future. You're gonna have to tag along for the ride, too.]
Echidna: [My my, I had nearly forgotten. You have quite the talent for flirting with Witches, no?]
Subaru: [It's not a good idea to start a rumor mill… Hey, you're not gonna continue with "Myon myon"?]
Echidna: [That is correct. For the time being, I would rather talk to the you of the present than delve into the you of the past.]
Subaru: […I see. Do as you please. Wicked Witch.]
Echidna: [Oh, but of course. ――I, am quite the Wicked Witch, am I not?]
"End"
Translation Notes:
[1] Anchor (依り代, Yorishiro) A vessel for a spirit. As a different example, the crystal Emilia keeps on herself and where Puck rest in an Anchor. Read More:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorishiro
[2] The idiom in the original Japanese, 「鬼の首を取ったように」is translated literally here as "like taking the head of an oni". This idiom means to treat something as a big deal when it is not. So Echidna is making a big fuss out of nothing.
[3] In the last section of the chapter, there are two words rendered in katakana rather than kanji, which we decided to italicize. However, it is worth giving a brief explanation of the possible significance of this choice. The two words were human, referring to Subaru, and love, referring to the emotions of Echidna towards Subaru. Often, rendering a word in katakana instead of kanji can be used as a stylistic choice to signify a lack of understanding of the word or an abstraction. My personal belief as a translator is that this is being used to signify that despite the use of these words to describe Subaru as human and Echidna's love, they are void of the typical meaning we ascribe to these words. They are being wrapped in the common, palatable ideas we are used to, yet are completely antithetical to them. Echidna's love and Subaru's humanity are so far off from the concepts of love and humanity we all share, that they are completely different concepts being referred to with the same words. This is backed up by a line in Chapter 1 of Kasaneru: "Even if he were to take the hand of the Witch, he would not lose the soul and dignity of being 'human'." The "human" in this line is the same word, but rendered in kanji and with double quotes:『人間』. The transition to this same word now being in katakana shows that taking Echidna's hand did lead to him losing his humanity.
[4] The original Japanese titles for the four chapters has a quirk where the word for "Accreting" that is written as 重ねル gradually changes into katakana カサネル (which is pronounced the same) as shown:
第一章 『魔女と 重ねル 異世界生活』
第二章 『魔女と 重ネル 異世界生活』
第三章 『魔女と かサネル 異世界生活』
第四章 『魔女と カサネル 異世界生活』
This perhaps signifies how Subaru is progressively falling deeper and deeper into "Accreting".
Thank you for reading our translation for Re: Kasaneru IF (Blu-Ray special edition)!