"Just as I thought, is this girl hiding something?"
Vincent tapped his fingers lightly against the edge of his oni mask twice, his eyes narrowing slightly behind its openings.
He had been watching every detail as Shaula spoke-the casualness with which she listed the first rule, her certainty at the second, her impatience at the third, her weariness at the fourth, and that momentary hitch when she reached the fifth. That pause, shorter than half a beat, stood out sharply amid her cheerful tone.
"The fifth rule."
Vincent's voice was quiet, but carried the precision of a piece being placed on a chessboard,
"She said there was no fifth rule, but that pause betrayed her. She didn't hesitate before counting to five; she only stopped once she reached it. Clearly, she originally did remember a fifth rule-but at the last moment, she chose not to say it."
Vincent and Otto fell into thought at the same time.
Otto stood a short distance beside Vincent, his gaze resting on Shaula's expression on the Sky Curtain.
"That was an 'I remembered, but decided not to say it' sort of pause."
He frowned and began sorting through his thoughts,
"Every rule Shaula listed earlier corresponded to the 'secrets she wanted to keep'-no leaving before completing the tests, no violating the test rules, no disrespecting the library, and no destroying the tower. All those rules center on 'protecting the tower from intruders.' But the fifth-"
He stopped, the pause lasting longer than he had expected.
"Shaula spent four hundred years in the tower. She knows the layout of every floor and every secret here. She didn't skip the fifth rule because she couldn't remember it. She did it because that rule concerns something more important than all four she's already told us."
"That hidden rule may very well be the tower's true core-and the key to whether everyone can pass the trials safely."
Seeing Otto keep pulling his weight, Garfiel felt he couldn't fall behind. He had to say something to help everyone too.
So he started brainstorming, but as he thought, he couldn't help remembering his mother-if lies could preserve that family bond too, then... For some reason, his nose began to sting again. But the other little cat named Mimi wasn't here now, so he had to be strong. Garfiel could only hurry to voice his guess to stop himself from dwelling on that longing.
"Maybe Shaula's hidin' the last rule just 'cause she doesn't want the captain to leave... I mean, if it's someone you've waited that long for, of course you wouldn't wanna let 'em go."
At those unexpected words, everyone's eyes turned toward Garfiel.
"What're... what're you all lookin' at me for?"
"What a striking insight, Garfiel. Looking at it that way, that really could be Shaula's actual reason."
"That was really amazing, Garfiel!"
"You stole Betty's line, but let's say Garfiel said it on Betty's behalf."
Otto wholeheartedly agreed, and even Emilia and Betty voiced their approval and praise.
"It's nothin'. The captain just taught me well..."
Feeling he had finally helped a little, Garfiel scratched his head sheepishly.
But after seeing Subaru's conversation with Meili, Emilia and Betty couldn't help worrying about him.
Having lived through the events at the Sage's Tower, they knew very well about Meili's old habit of killing people. She had even treated it as her only way to solve problems and tried to use it on Natsuki Subaru.
Fortunately, Natsuki Subaru had ultimately resolved that problem, and Emilia had been there to witness it.
But now, the thought that this might have been experience Subaru gained through Return by Death kept Emilia and Betty from feeling happy.
"I hope little Meili doesn't really do something like that..."
Emilia could only pray sincerely, then turn back toward the events of the past on the Sky Curtain.
["Four rules in total... But..."
Shaula spoke wearily. Emilia frowned at Subaru, and he affirmed her unease and concern. If their basic premise was to resolve things without breaking the rules-
"-'No violating the rules of the tests.' That one bothers me."
"There must be hidden rules we don't know about."
Subaru rested a hand against his chin, and Julius shared his opinion. In the third floor, Taygeta's test, at least for the constellation problem involving the monoliths, no one had been punished for breaking a rule. Strictly speaking, they had merely been judged to have failed the moment they touched the wrong monolith-
"...If you failed the tomb's trials, you had to wait until the next day to try again. That's a little like the retry mechanism for the test just now. Maybe..."
Emilia hesitated there, and Subaru nodded in response.
"Say whatever comes to mind. I won't laugh, no matter what you say."
"Okay, I understand. Um, Subaru, you and Miss Anastasia both said the person who built this tower was reeeally mean... right?"
"That careful choice of words is adorable. That's right. What about it?"
"It's important to think from the other person's perspective too. So if we became that reeeally mean person and thought about what Shaula just said, wouldn't it mean this?"
With everyone watching her, Emilia paused and licked her lips. Then she crossed her hands and pointed toward the ceiling.
"Not knowing the rules you have to follow... That would be reeeally mean, wouldn't it?"
"...Meaning?"
"We have to imagine what the rules are and move forward without breaking them. Doesn't that sound like something Echidna would do?"
"...So when it comes to people with awful personalities, you immediately think of her too, Emilia-tan? We really get along."
Emilia's additional remark made her theory more credible, at least to Subaru. Those nasty ideas that didn't come naturally to Emilia-Subaru felt she was absolutely right. Setting rules that couldn't be broken, but never clearly telling the challengers what they were.
"Terrible tastes and an equally terrible personality... Incidentally, are you the one who judges whether we've broken a rule?"
"I feel like I'll know if any of the conditions I just mentioned get broken. So there's no fooling our way past them.-Neither me nor you and the others, Master. Absolutely not."
Toward the end, Shaula's manner became strangely different, her voice firm and decisive. It wasn't about Shaula's own power, but the opposite.-The power that made her speak belonged to whoever could give Shaula that ability.
"...So it's just more trouble piled onto what we already had. At this point, I'm numb to it."
"Sometimes I envy your ability to say that."
Subaru muttered dejectedly, while Julius smiled and shrugged.
"I suppose that kind of mental strength can only be cultivated by someone who regularly faces the very best. If so, that's a gap in experience I cannot hope to bridge."
"You should be more afraid of what's under your feet. Go stub your little toe on a table leg. Really slam it into one."
"Right, right, you can have your little lovers' quarrel, but don't forget what we're talking about, all right?"
Anastasia stepped between them and looked down at the seated Shaula.
"Is that really all of them? It's fine to do things other than those?"
"I swear I'm not lying this time. Besides, as long as those rules aren't broken, my body stays mine. Sorry, I mean Master's."
"I don't want it."
"I've been returned! But my heart will always be with you, Master!"
"I don't want that either."
Anastasia confirmed things again with her hands on her hips, and Shaula clearly stated her position, along with some unnecessary information. There had been some superfluous embellishments, but she would presumably keep the promise she had made Subaru downstairs-not to harm him or the others. Naturally, that came with the condition that they must not break the rules.
"Still, not being allowed outside until we finish the tests... It feels more and more like the tomb's trials."
"No, even in the worst case, we can go home if we beat her after she turns hostile, right? That's more lenient than the tomb."
"Master would never do that! You're kinder and more generous than anyone! Oh no, lying made me itchy!"
Before the sighing Emilia and Subaru, Shaula scratched at the itch she had brought upon herself. Still, she had probably told them most of what she knew. For now, they had more or less finished asking her what they wanted to know.
"All right, go, Meili! Keep a tight hold on Shaula's reins!"
"Leave it to me... Somehow, that sounds like you're tricking me into something?"
Appointed as the rider in charge of controlling Shaula, Meili puffed out her cheeks. Despite her words, she obediently climbed onto Shaula's back. She wasn't being honest with herself. In any case, as Subaru put it:
"You're completely settled in. Why are you so attached to her?"
"Maybe we're on the same wavelength? Being next to this naked big sister just makes me feel very calm."
With that, Meili leaned her whole body against Shaula's head. Subaru thought that would surely hurt her neck, but Shaula, with her monstrous strength capable of lifting a dragon carriage, didn't mind. Not only that, she stood up easily with Meili on her back.
"I'm fine with it too. I don't mind. I'll look after little one number two."
"Number two?"
"This little one is number two. That little one over there is number one."
Shaula pointed at Beatrice, who was wandering through the library alone. She apparently hadn't heard that rude remark, seemingly absorbed in something.]
When Ram saw Shaula point at Beatrice and call her "that little one over there," she gave a very quiet, almost imperceptible snort.
"Shaula calls Lady Beatrice 'little one.' There aren't many people in this world who would dare do that."
There was no anger in her voice. Instead, she spoke with an almost appraising calm,
"But she does have the right. Someone who waited alone in the tower for four hundred years spent just as long there as Lady Beatrice did in the forbidden library. They're the same kind. Their ways of interacting differ, but that feeling of being left behind is the same."
Beatrice hadn't looked up when Shaula said she would "look after little one number two," but she had indeed heard it. She had merely chosen not to respond, because she knew there was no malice in that phrase.
They were alike-both people who had been left behind.
One had waited in a tower, the other in the forbidden library. The manner differed, but the essence of their waiting was the same.
["It's rare for Beako not to bite back after being talked about like that."
Thinking that, Subaru approached the pensive Beatrice. He stopped beside the little girl and peered at her face.
"Beako, everyone's discussing things. Come join us."
"-"
"Beako? Heeey-Beatrice. Snap out of it. I'm going to kiss your forehead."
"...Then do it."
"Mwah~"
"Eeeek!?"
Feeling rather annoyed, he actually kissed her forehead. Beatrice immediately snapped out of it, backed away with a hand over the spot he had kissed, and fell. She got up, then fell again.
"Hey, hey, isn't that a bit much?"
"Wh-Wh-Wh-What are you doing all of a sudden!? That came out of nowhere!"
"It didn't come out of nowhere, and I got your permission. Are you really all right?"
The way she frantically rubbed her forehead hurt Subaru a little, but he was more worried about her. Thinking about it, this tower stood in the middle of dangerous sand dunes. It was probably filled with that inexplicable miasma too. Perhaps that was why she had spaced out.
"If you're not feeling well, hold my hand. That should help you settle down, right?"
"Not after what just happened! Give me time to calm down!"
Beatrice shouted, her face bright red. Subaru was a little surprised that she resisted his offer to hold hands, but her behavior was otherwise normal. If something was bothering her, he could find a chance to ask later.
"All right, then the only problem left is..."
"In the end, we have no choice but to blindly search for the stairs to the second floor."
Subaru turned back toward the bookshelves, and Julius finished his sentence. He looked slightly dispirited, perhaps because Shaula's rules had thwarted his idea of reporting to the kingdom and bringing in more people to investigate. Unless they completed the tests, they could not leave the tower. They would therefore have to continue searching with their current group.
"It's like looking for gold dust dropped in the sand dunes. Does that get it across?"
"That's an unusually poetic expression for you, but I honestly agree."
For once, Subaru and Julius saw eye to eye over the difficulty before them. Taking that as their cue, they prepared to resume searching for the stairs to the second floor. They had intended to put the Taygeta library out of their minds for now-just as they were thinking that.
"Hey, I have an idea."
As the two rallied themselves to face the library again, Emilia raised her hand slightly. Turning around, they saw her tilting her head, a finger resting against her lips.
"Since this tower was built by someone with a devious personality, I've been thinking aaall this time..."
"That careful choice of words is adorable. That's right. What about it?"
It felt like they were repeating themselves. Emilia added one more remark to the conversation that almost made him think he was looping again:
"So, the stairs might be-"
"The guy who built this tower really does have the worst personality!!"
Confronted with the long, towering staircase-the stairs leading to the second floor, Electra-Subaru could no longer contain his fury and shouted.
By imagining the personality of the tower's creator, Emilia had found the stairs to the second floor. And their finally revealed hiding place was-
"I thought, if they weren't in the third-floor room, then somewhere else... Maybe on the fourth or fifth floor, where we looked carefully before."
Having guessed correctly, Emilia wore a deeply conflicted expression and tone, seeming both pleased and disappointed. As she had surmised, the staircase to the second floor was in the room beside the green room where Ram and Rem were staying on the fourth floor-it had appeared in a room that had originally been empty.
"Still, we're making pretty good progress. To be blunt, I cleared the third-floor test on my first try too. You could say we finished a third of the tower in three days."
"Considering there had been no progress for over four hundred years, that is remarkable progress."
"When you put it that way, it really is amazing... No, I'm a man who unexpectedly got centuries of stagnant history moving. A man who moves history. That sounds cool."
Looking back, he had joined the White Whale expedition, defeated the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop of Sloth, and helped destroy the Great Rabbit. He had contributed to overcoming the trials in the Witch of Greed's tomb, later defeated the Sin Archbishop of Greed, and even reached the Pleiades Watchtower, which no one had ever reached.
Moreover, he had solved a test no one had successfully completed and was preparing to take on a second.
"If you skip the process and just list the achievements, I sound like an idiot..."
He had died countless times along the way, so it wasn't anything he could proudly boast about, but he had certainly pushed the world's history along far too forcefully over the past year. He hadn't deliberately tried to move it forward, but his feeling was-brace yourself, world.
"Oh, huh? What is it, Emilia-tan? You suddenly took my hand."
"...Nothing. I just thought you ought to be a little kinder to yourself, Subaru."
"There you go again. You and Beako are both so kind to me, Emilia-tan. Any more would be too much luxury."
Once Rem woke up, she would surely join their ranks too. Strict, but kind. There were also Petra and Patrasche, along with Garfiel and Otto, leaving Subaru absolutely no room to feel sorry for himself. At Subaru's answer, Emilia wanted to say something but couldn't find the words, so she could only keep staring at him.
"...I reckon this problem of yours is already in your bones, Natsuki. I don't think it's something we can fix overnight."
"Even you're saying that, Miss Anastasia..."
"Right, we'll never get upstairs if we keep standing around here, will we? We might not be able to puzzle it out like the third floor... But maybe you'll solve it in a flash, Natsuki?"
"If it's as nasty as the third floor, honestly, I'm not confident either."
Ultimately, Subaru's success in the third-floor test had been pure coincidence. If Flugel came from the same world as Subaru and was another drifter summoned to this other world, then the second-floor test might also require modern knowledge-
"If it needs knowledge I don't have, we're done for... His name's Flugel. If it throws German history at me, I won't stand a chance."
Incidentally, Flugel supposedly meant "wings" in German. He didn't know whether that was connected, but if Flugel was German, he could only throw up his hands in surrender.
"-Well, worrying won't help. As you can see, the stairs to the next question are right in front of us. What kind of man dawdles around here? Let's take it on bravely and clear it in one go."
"Unfortunately, everyone here except you and me is female."
"It's a matter of spirit! Don't throw cold water on it! All right, let's go, Beako!"
"Right-!"
Before his enthusiasm could be extinguished, Subaru scooped up Beatrice and charged up the stairs. Then he continued racing upward with all his momentum.
"Ah, Subaru, wait!"
Emilia led the others onto the stairs after him. Subaru and Beatrice thus formed the vanguard, with everyone else following behind. Deftly adjusting her position in Subaru's arms, Beatrice narrowed her blue eyes.
"It really can only be a distortion of space. We've gone such a long way straight upward, yet it doesn't feel as though we've gone outside the tower."
"Maybe you just can't tell from the outside, and the tower actually is shaped like this."
"Just to accommodate this staircase? In that case, it would look strange from outside, and deliberately hiding the stairs would be meaningless."
"True. I was just saying."
Agreeing with Beatrice's reasoning, Subaru panted lightly and looked overhead. Strangely, though he was running up the stairs, he never felt any closer to the floor above. Despite running for so long, it felt like he was going against the motion of a downward escalator.
"That nastiness Emilia-tan mentioned is feeling more and more real...!"
They had only provided stairs without actually connecting them to the floor above-just as that terrifying thought made Subaru shudder, almost at the same instant, the space above him suddenly opened up.
"Whoa-!?"
"Aah!"
The endless grand staircase was suddenly swallowed by white light, startling Subaru and Beatrice. He stumbled involuntarily, pitched forward, and stopped, but the stairs abruptly vanished, and his feet stepped onto a new floor. There-
"A white room... here we go again."
"Yes, I suppose."
After stopping, he slowly lowered Beatrice from his bridal carry to the ground. Stretching before them was a snow-white floor identical to the space where they had taken the third floor's "trial." Neither the floor nor the ceiling seemed to end, making this an incomprehensible space that threw off their sense of distance.
"Wow, this room again?"
One of the foreign objects in the white world was the staircase Subaru's group had climbed. Emilia and the others, following Subaru and Beatrice, emerged from the stairs one after another. Anastasia, the last to arrive, surveyed the white space and said,
"Another white room. Don't tell me this is the third floor?"
"I don't think so. There were fifty-four steps from the fourth floor to the third, but there were four hundred and forty-four to get here. That's almost ten times as many, you know?"
"Y-you counted them, Emilia-tan?"
"Hehe, counting stairs has actually become a hobby of mine lately... why are you patting my head?"
"A-anyway, great work, Emilia-tan. If this is the second floor we were hoping for..."
"Then there should be a 'trial,' I suppose. That is probably it."
Setting Emilia's question aside, Subaru looked in the direction Beatrice pointed-straight ahead from the top of the stairs, at the object asserting its presence there.
"-"
On the third floor, Taygeta, that thing had also occupied the center of the room. Touching it had started the "trial." If the conditions were the same this time, then that-
"It isn't a monolith.-It's a sword."
Julius narrowed his yellow eyes, staring at the "thing" standing in the center of the room as he spoke.
As he said, the "thing" in the white space was not the monolith they had seen on the third floor.
-The "thing" was a sword.
The unsheathed sword stood with its tip embedded in the white floor. With its hilt pointing upward, the upright blade looked exceedingly beautiful to Subaru.
It bore no ornate decorations, and Subaru could not even tell whether its material was good or bad. With no unnecessary ornamentation, only the bare minimum of steel, it looked beautiful.
"Judging by the atmosphere, it's like one of those 'swords of selection'..."
"-"
Hearing Subaru's murmur, Julius raised an eyebrow and, for some reason, restrained himself. Ignoring his inner conflict, Subaru first looked toward Shaula.
Her confident face declared, "No matter what you ask me, I don't know!" so he did not bother asking.
"Subaru."
"I think it'll probably be fine. It shouldn't trigger an instant-death trap or anything."
Nodding to the worried Emilia, Subaru slowly approached the sword of selection. Since he did not know what would happen once he touched it, he needed to give his companions a thorough warning.
"Be careful when you're helping Miss Anastasia escape. Those stairs are long. If she accidentally gets knocked over, rolling all the way down could kill her."
"I'll keep that in mind. You should be careful of Lady Emilia and Lady Beatrice yourself."
"It's all right. I'll protect Subaru."
"Okay, I'm counting on you."
Subaru answered the enthusiastic Emilia with a thumbs-up, and Julius sighed at the sight. Then Subaru stood before the sword of selection. He could touch it simply by reaching out.
Now that the sword stood embedded before his eyes with a tangible presence, it did not give him the impression of a mysterious object the way the monolith had.
"Still, I never thought the day would come when I'd be tested in the classic fantasy-world way."
Muttering to the sword of selection, Subaru drew a small breath-then touched the hilt. Immediately, it came.
"-Gain the permission of the fool who has reached the Heavenly Sword."
"-Urk!"
A voice that bypassed his eardrums and rang directly inside his head announced the outline of the "trial."
He had expected this development, so he did not embarrass himself by dropping the sword in his grasp, but the mysterious phenomenon still felt unpleasant.
After all, the voice ringing inside his head sounded very much like his "own."
"It feels like motion sickness... that voice just now, did everyone else also..."
Surely not only Subaru, who had drawn the sword, but everyone else had heard it too. Just like with the monolith, when even those who had not touched it had heard the voice.
So it should have been the same this time. Subaru turned around, and only then did he notice.
"-"
-Everyone was holding their breath, staring at something opposite Subaru. Following their gazes, Subaru turned to face forward again.
On the spot where the sword of selection had been embedded moments earlier-a figure had appeared.
"-Gain the permission of the fool who has reached the Heavenly Sword."
The voice, previously only a whisper, grew louder to Subaru's ears.
The words were exactly the same as those he had heard the instant he drew the sword. But this time, it was not his own voice ringing directly inside his head. It came from the figure before him.
"-Gain the permission of the fool who has reached the Heavenly Sword."
Merely hearing the voice made his body tremble. Was it fear? Awe? Joy? Grief? He could not distinguish between them.
An absolute difference between living beings scrambled his emotions in every way. At this distance, the voice alone could toy with life.
"-Gain the permission of the fool who has reached the Heavenly Sword."
-A man with long red hair cascading down his back. He was very tall. A head taller than Subaru, with muscles suited to his height.
The man wore no armor, only a red, Japanese-style casual robe that offered no protection-his right arm was completely out of its sleeve, exposing the right half of his body, and even from a distance, a strip of white cloth could be seen wrapped around his waist.
His hair, like blazing flames, reached the middle of his back, and a black eyepatch with a strange pattern covered his left eye. His exposed right eye was as blue as the sky.
Had he stood still in tranquil repose, his finely formed beauty would surely have made everyone who saw him turn to stare and want to paint his portrait-but a savage, cruel, and vicious air shattered it.
He was a ferocious beast with an exquisitely beautiful appearance.
The most beautiful savage beast in the world-his presence made Subaru forget to breathe.]
In the hall, Garfiel's body abruptly tensed. His gaze fell on the crimson figure in the Sky Curtain, and his pupils contracted slightly.
"So that's the first 'Sword Saint,' Reid..."
His voice was lower than usual, carrying something akin to reverence that even he had not expected,
"I've heard the legends about him, but seeing him with my own eyes feels completely different. That pressure-I can feel it even through the Sky Curtain. Him standing there, just standing there, makes the whole world feel narrower."
Ram's pale red eyes narrowed slightly. Her gaze lingered on the red figure for a moment, as though confirming something. The name Reid had come up in that Stargazer's account, but this was her first time truly seeing him.
The man called the "Sword Saint," the man Shaula called "scum," the man who had inspired both admiration and disillusionment in Julius. He stood there-like a breathing mountain range.
"-The Heavenly Sword."
Otto quietly repeated the term. It was the realm of the "pinnacle of swordsmanship."
"The second floor's trial requires Mr. Subaru to gain the permission of 'the fool who has reached the Heavenly Sword.' That 'fool who has reached the Heavenly Sword'-presumably refers to the first Sword Saint, Reid Astrea. In other words, Mr. Subaru needs to pass Reid's test to proceed."
He paused,
"Entrusting the key to the trial to someone who died long ago-that design also fits Flugel's usual style: hiding the answer somewhere he knows only he can find it. And Reid, his former comrade in arms, is that key."
"Reid Astrea. The first Sword Saint."
Al's voice came from beside the wall, calm but carrying a faint chill that seemed to rise from deep within him,
"The opponent Bro's facing this time is one of the former 'Three Great Heroes Who Saved the World.' He once fought alongside Flugel, and together they sealed the Witch of Envy, Satella."
"And now, his shadow is standing before Subaru four hundred years later. I don't know if that counts as a reunion-but I do know this won't be an easy battle for Bro."
"That red-haired man."
Priscilla suddenly spoke, with a seriousness she rarely displayed,
"Simply standing there, he fills the air with weight. He stands there like a breathing sculpture."
She paused, her beautiful, finely shaped eyes turning appraising as her previously playful smile faded.
"So this is the first 'Sword Saint,' and Natsuki Subaru must gain permission beneath his gaze. This is far more interesting than I previously imagined."
The Sky Curtain continued.
Subaru stood before the red figure, his breathing shallow and his pupils contracted, like a deer facing a savage beast.
And that figure was waiting, at his own pace, for something to happen.