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Translated By :
- Archbishop (/u/Archbishop)
Art Source :
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ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO TAPPEI NAGATSUKI, THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF RE:ZERO STARTING A LIFE IN A DIFFERENT WORLD FROM ZERO, THIS IS A TRANSLATION OF THE FREE JAPANESE WEB NOVEL INTO ENGLISH
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After he untangled himself from Julius, and stood unaided, he turned to face the Trial.
In front of Subaru’s eyes, the figures of countless replica Monoliths had spread out across the white expanse, with the Monolith he’d touched as the center. To be honest, there were so many of them that he would get sick and tired were he to count them.
Subaru: [This would be the Trial you meant… right, Shaula?]
Shaula: [Looks like it, right? I wanna see Master flaunt his forte!]
Subaru: [Don’t start saying stuff like a band would at a drinking party…]
He would not know since he had never been to one, but that was probably how things went there.
Subaru looked around the room behind Shaula, who had cheered him on with her easy-going manner. The floor was still enveloped in white, with everything from their ability to tell distance to their ability to tell height going haywire.
The only change that stood out were the Monoliths dotted about the place, but those too were not particularly different from the first one. There seemed to be a bit of a difference in size between them, but other than that, they were the same in that they all floated in midair and were made of a strange material.
Subaru: [Speaking of other stuff that we were given as a clue, there’s still that thing from before.]
What he recalled was the voice that had echoed inside his brain upon touching the Monolith.
???: [――Touch the brightest of the Hero destroyed by Shaula.]
The sound had not come through his eardrums, but rather it had been whispered straight to his brain inside his skull; closer to that. The voice he had heard was no sound, so the general concept of it being someone’s voice could not be applied here.
If he were to put it in other words, it was like the words had been jammed into his brain like a sentence that he had thought of. There was no sound in his thoughts. Thus, who the voice belonged to was incomprehensible. If anything, it was his own.
Subaru: [That voice which could be heard was the Trial’s question, you reckon? If that’s the case…]
Julius: [Subaru, I apologize for interrupting while you are pondering, but there are a few important things I have to say. I do not think it would hurt to go ahead only after hearing those.]
The practical joker from before, Julius, sent those words Subaru’s way while the latter was racking his mind. Near the stairs which led downwards, Emilia and the rest of them were circled around the Monolith, standing still. Every one of them looked puzzled. Subaru shrugged his shoulders in appreciation of Julius, who was beckoning them to his side, and with an “Oh?”,
Subaru: [Is that so? All of you challenged it before whilst I was sleeping. Did you make any progress?]
Julius: [I guess I really cannot dub it progress. Anyways. Subaru, please try and touch the stone slab… I mean, the Monolith right here.]
Subaru: [Does doing this please you that much? Well, sure whatever…]
Subaru narrowed his eyes at Julius, who had stuck to referring to it as a Monolith, and walked over to the Monolith on his right hand side. The slab was one of the replicas of the original Monolith. As he got closer, he could see that this one was just a little smaller than the original.
Subaru: [What if it’s a trap, where the moment I touch it my arm gets swallowed up?]
Beatrice: [It’s okay, in fact. If something like that happened, Betty would become your right arm for the rest of your life, I suppose.]
Emilia: [Ah, then I’d become Subaru’s left hand. You can rest assured.]
Subaru: [Both of my arms would be gone if we suppose that though!]
Thanks to Beatrice and Emilia’s reassuring pledges, Subaru summoned his courage and stretched his hand out towards the Monolith. The act of touching it in itself was not something that worried him.
So long as his companions had recommended him to do this, and did not attempt to stop him, he had no reason to doubt his safety. The issue was simply the chance that they were concealing the truth, as with the Monolith’s self-replication――
Subaru: [Oh?]
Still full of anxiety, as soon as his fingertips brushed against the Monolith, the black stone slab shone so brightly that it almost scorched his eyes. In fact, its radiance had caused Subaru to hold his breath and immediately cover his face with his arm.
Then, after the light faded away, what remained in front of Subaru’s eyes was――
Subaru: [Huh? Where did the Monolith go?]
Shaula: [Hehehe, behind youuu~ Master.]
Subaru: [Behind me…?]
After that flash of light, Subaru confirmed that the Monolith that should have been in front of him had disappeared. Surprised by what had happened, he turned to look behind him at Shaula who had nonsensically shouted out in triumph.
When he turned around, in front of the stairs―― in other words, at the place where the original Monolith had stood, the first Monolith stood alone. The rest of them had disappeared from the room entirely.
Subaru: [So, in other words… this means?]
Julius: [That everything went back to its original state. To put it shortly, it looks like the Trial has deemed it a failure. Naturally.…]
Stepping away from the dejected Subaru’s side, Julius carelessly approached the original Monolith. And then, immediately after he stretched out his hand and touched its surface, that voice echoed out through his mind――
???: [――Touch the brightest of the Hero destroyed by Shaula.]
Once again, in sync with the challenge posed to them, Monolith after Monolith were replicated from the original and scattered all around the room with the same momentum as before. The Trial was distributed around therefrom.
In other words, they could call this a Retry.
Subaru: [I see. It must mean we can think as much as we want until we find an answer.]
Julius: [That is our guess right now. There happens to be this Monolith, but I can say that even when we went around touching Monoliths at random… We were unable to find an answer.]
Subaru: [Ah, so you’ve already tried bruteforcing it?]
Subaru broke down Julius’s mild manner of speaking to the bread and bones of it. Emilia and Meili, who had heard that explanation, were patting their heads with what seemed to be a look of embarrassment about them.
Just attempting to touch and check every single one of them, certainly it looked like they had tried to carry out that tactic. Nevertheless, it did not seem that it had done the trick.
Subaru: [It’s an Trial after all. It means we have to solve the problem and answer it.]
Julius: [It looks like our Trial taker does not appreciate answers given out at random.]
Subaru: [Yeah, seems so. So like a Sensei who doesn’t give you credit unless you write down all of your formulas, and doesn’t allow you to just put the answers in the test’s answer column. The anti-cheating measures sure do appear quickly though.]
Reaching an answer without showing how it had been derived could only come as a result of cheating or a hunch. Often times, till primary school, he would come across problems which he would find answers to using his hunches, but the main point to mathematics was to learn how to derive the problem, not to regurgitate the problem willy-nilly on the spot.
One time during primary school, he had been marked down for the lack of clarity in his working out. He remembered how resentful he’d been about it, but――
Subaru: [After all this time, it looks like my Sensei was right…]
Anastasia: [I’m sorry to butt in when you’re still absorbed in yer thoughts, Natsuki-kun, but rather yer turn ain’t from here. Come on, snap back to reality, snap back.]
Subaru: [Huh, ah, oh, my bad. But, what do you mean by “my turn”?]
Anastasia beckoned Subaru, his eyes glazed over, back to the real world, and then clapped her hand on his back. As Subaru tilted his head at her appeal, everyone looked around at each other, and broke into mutters.
What they were saying was the same thing, so combining it and paraphrasing it into other words―― “It’s down to Subaru to find out who the Hero destroyed by Shaula is”.
Emilia: [We challenged the Trial many times over until Subaru woke up. However, that girl wouldn’t even tell us whether or not she was Shaula when we did.]
Beatrice: [As far as Betty and the others were concerned, Shaula was the Sage, in fact. We thought they were the person on the drawing engraved on the silver coin, so we didn’t connect this woman with Shaula, I suppose.]
Those were Emilia and Beatrice’s replies, both of whom had not been able to hear Shaula’s story until then.
Ever since Subaru had woken up, he had seen Shaula communicate with him with an air of over-familiarity that was way off the marks of typical friendliness, and because of that it was hard to believe for him that she had refused to say anything to them. However, her not telling them anything more could not be helped, since she had kept her mouth shut towards those in the Tower.
Having said that though, Subaru was still worried.
Even if Shaula had had her tongue unsealed since then, and had become able to talk about that――
Subaru: [I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask. Hey, Shaula. If you know anything, please tell me everything about the Hero you destroyed.]
Shaula: [Leave this to me. Remembering stuff like each of the names of the guys I’ve killed is second class work… For a first-class individual like meeee~, I don’t remember past the one-hundred mark.]
Subaru: [Of course you’d say that!]
Shaula gave him a thumbs-up and then winked. Receiving that vigorous response, Subaru slapped his knee.
Just as he had expected and feared, her reply was an air-headed Shaula-like one.
He had suspected that was likely going to happen with how she had acted and talked till now. There was the chance that she, who would seemingly know the answer to “the Hero that Shaula destroyed”, did not remember it anywhere in her head.
Julius: [However, we shall not make any progress if we end it with that. Miss Shaula, do you really not remember anything? Even if it is a tiny little detail, it does not matter.]
Shaula: [That’s easier said than done. I juuuust~ Hell’s Snipe everyone who comes near to the Tower, and their corpses end up being cleaned up by the Witchbeasts outside.]
Anastasia: [Okay, but isn’t it strange? Could it be an Trial to see whether we can reveal the Tower’s knowledge in the first place? It’d be a strange sequence of events for it to require us to show somethin’ that happened after Shaula-san’s tenure in protectin’ the Tower started.]
Shaula pouted, saying she had no clue whatsoever, but Anastasia evidenced the out of place feeling in what she had stated. Everyone other than Shaula agreed with her opinion with an “I see”.
For sure, it was difficult to imagine that the problem posed inside the Tower came about after her tenure in the Tower had started. Then, naturally, that meant the period of time in which “Shaula had destroyed the Hero” came before the Tower’s construction.
Beatrice: [In other words, that means it’s from before you started firing at people at random, in fact. Come on, remember, I suppose. It’s like all of your nourishment ended up just in your buttocks and breasts, so your memory has become poor, in fact.]
Shaula: [This appearance was chosen by my Mother~. Butbut, even if you say “Remember”, it’s not gonna come out, honestly. Before the Tower was built, right?]
Emilia: [Yeah, that’s right. Before the Tower was built. During that time, do you happen to know of anyone that you kille… I mean destroyed?]
Gathered near the stairway with Shaula as the center, they desperately tried to jog her memories. However, Shaula, basking in everyone’s expectations, gave no signs that they had been successful, and she groaned with an “Ahiiin”.
Subaru: [Is it true or not that you’ve been around since four-hundred-years ago? If I name a bunch of the noteworthy people around that time, you wouldn’t happen to have killed two or three of them, would you?]
Shaula: [Master, are you thinking that about meeee~? I’m a maiden who likes to dabble with flowers you know.]
Subaru: [That’s no maiden, more like a caterpillar.]
Emilia: [Subaru, I think your way of speaking just now was ever so rude. If she doesn’t want to remember, then don’t push her and force her to…]
Subaru: [Emilia-tan, your kindness is your super-virtue, your best feature, but this woman is the type where the more you pamper her, the more useless she becomes, don’t you think!? I can tell! Because I’m the same!]
Emilia had firmly puffed out her chest and declared that. But, it was not that Shaula was unable to remember because she wished not to in the first place, but rather that her memory was so poor that she just was incapable of doing so.
The topic was one which he wanted to handle delicately, since one of his members had a bunch of difficult problems in regards to memories, but it was a different matter when it came to Shaula.
Subaru: [Practically, it’ll be no problem if I fire off some random names, right? I don’t know how one of them striking the answer would react with the Monoliths, though.]
Anastasia: [It’s definitely gotta be as Natsuki-kun says. I wonder tho’, even if we find out the answer, how can we then touch the brightest?]
Considering that the Monolith he’d touched had disappeared, and the Trial seemed to have adjudicated them as having messed up, he could predict that their answer’s final form would probably be to “Touch the correct Monolith”.
The issue then was how they would find the correct Monolith. He did not get the feeling like it would become clear even if they chipped away at Shaula’s memories, one could say.
Meili: [Buuut~, even if we think forever, we won’t make any progress, riiight~? Since naked onee-san is pretty cooperatiiive~, I thiiink~ we might as well ask her.]
Still holding onto Shaula’s bare shoulders, Meili butted in between the adults who were stumbling over what to do. She looked at the group of Monoliths with a look of boredom on her face as she fiddled about with Shaula’s scorpiontail.
Meili: [There’s nooo~ ickle Witchbeasties around, there’s nooo~ progress, and it’s really not fun heeere~. Speed things up, I wanna go back to the mansiooon~.]
Everyone: [――――]
Everyone was at a loss for words at the words which Meili had uttered. Following straight after that, Meili said “What is iiit~?”, as Subaru patted her head.
Meili: [What is it I wooonder~?]
Subaru: [Nothing, I just think it’s as you say. You’re right. This place is sandy as hell, and on top of that, there’s a bunch of scary Witchbeasts prowling about outside. We’ll quickly take care of things here, settle all our problems… wake up Rem, retrieve a means to save the people in need, and then we shall skedaddle out of here.]
Treading around things with anxiety before attempting them was a waste of valuable time.
It felt to him like the Trial had been set up by someone rather ill-natured and that he was playing right into their hands.
Shaula: [Master, Master. You do know that there’s an easy-to-stroke head right next to that lil’ ankle-biter.]
Subaru: [I said this already. You’re the same as me in that you’re the type which when pampered falls unendingly into corruption. That’s why from here on out we’re doing this the Spartan way. Hurry the hell up and remember.]
Shaula: [Do I have toooo~?]
Puffing her cheeks out in dissatisfaction, Shaula seemed to be in full-pout. However, she would be easy to handle, since after a few dozen seconds she would start humming with a face like she’d forgotten.
Julius: [Well then, our young lady requests it too. Shall we try and get on with testing out the possibilities we have in front of us without dithering about?]
Anastasia: [Mhm, that’s probably a good idea. It’s relievin’ that it’s okay even if we fail a buncha’ times. In most cases in life, things are decided in just a single bout… So, this is quite a generous problem don’t’cha think?]
Although Meili had set things off in motion, Julius and Anastasia had also come into agreement with her. Thus, it was time to make her remember “The Hero destroyed and forgotten by Shaula”, once again.
Subaru: [For now let’s go with a name that you remember… Yeah. Ah, how about Reid? That dude was the First Sword Saint, you killed him, didn’t you?]
Shaula: [AIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!]
Meili: [GYAAAA!]
Subaru: [Third Base Cleanup[1]!]
Straight after he’d nonchalantly pulled out that name, Shaula let out a high-pitched shriek and leapt backwards. Subaru performed a diving catch on Meili, who had been dropped, unable to withstand that injection of momentum.
After he safely brought Meili back to ground, Shaula, who had jumped up and fled far away into the room, had gotten smaller in view.
Subaru: [Hey! I’m sorry! I don’t really know why you’re acting like that, but get back here!]
Shaula: [P-please don’t say such scary stuff. Master’s a real mean guy. The absolute worst. A maiden’s distress. A liability issue.]
Even though she spoke frivolously, Shaula’s voice as she skulked back was shaking feebly. She sure did act tough, but she was not all that. Unmistakably, fear and dread had caused her to react like that.
Naturally, the reason behind her fear could only be but one.
Subaru: [Huh, was the First Sword Saint such a scary person?]
Julius: [How foolish. Reinhard, Wilhelm-sama and such are esteemed individuals worthy of the forefather of the Astrea family. He definitely was not just skilled with the sword, but a man of character as well. Certainly, there are some parts sprinkled into the anecdotes left behind as rumors that indicate that he was rather strong-willed, which do not overlap with Reinhard and the rest, but… if it truly is not like such, then would that not mean that the history of the Astrea Family has been twisted till this current generation?]
Subaru: [Not really, but when you unravel history, the viewpoint of prominent statesmen also changes, and you’ll find that Japanese History is sufficiently cruel too. If we compare it to that, then I mean we can’t really start speaking about dogmas here…]
Julius: [Dear goodness, let’s not delve into this sort of talk. It is alright. We can get a clarification to the story if we get her to talk, as she is a living witness. Come now, let’s listen to her.]
Julius started to ramble on with tremendous vigor at Subaru, who had hazarded a guess at Reid’s temperament from Shaula’s reaction. And to make matters worse, he had handled things by dismissing Subaru, who had attempted to defend his own point, with a laugh.
After so long, Subaru could once again see a glimpse of the figure of that gaudy Knight he had witnessed at the onset of the Royal Selection. He now knew that his attitude back then had been down to him playing the villain. Though, whenever he saw him like this, he sure did get the impression that he still was a bit of a villain, much like when they first met.
In any case,
Julius: [Your impressions regarding the First Sword Saint, Reid Astrea. Miss Shaula, I would like you to tell us your candid impression of him.]
Shaula: [He was human garbage.]
Julius: [I would like you to tell us your candid impression of him.]
Subaru: [Don’t pretend like she didn’t say anything!!]
Subaru shoved Julius’s shoulder, who had tried to ignore that inconvenient tidbit, and made him face the facts. Pointing his finger at Shaula, who had a troubled look on her face, Subaru continued.
Subaru: [Hey, listen up. The truth about the history you wanted to know about is right here. She’s a living witness to it. Go on, tell me as many anecdotes about Reid Astrea as you like, of that magnanimous man of character skilled in the sword.]
Julius: […Those who hold exceptional talent end up having confidence in themselves, more or less. That should not be chastised, rather, it should be something you take pride in. If you end up becoming the greatest swordsman recorded in history, even acting like such is, yeah, when you take into account how things were back then, it would be suitable――]
Subaru: [It’s the first time I’ve seen you so desperate.]
Julius too became flustered as if he were considering just how unconvincing he sounded.
Setting Julius aside, who had been betrayed by the history which he ever so loved, Shaula’s “Truth of Reid Astrea” was pouring out of her without an end in sight.
Shaula: [Well, anyways, he was a nasty guy. His personality was like that of an unruly brat’s in adult-form, and he loved to bully the weak. Or I guess if we look at it from that garbage’s point of view, almost all of his opponents were weak, so he’d be bullying the weak no matter who he fought against. He did that a lot to meee~ too.]
Emilia: [But, he was able to keep doing that to you even though you’re so strong? Ah, since it happened over four-hundred years ago, you must’ve still been small then too?]
Shaula: [I’veee~ been like this ever since I was born. So, between now and back then, I’veee~ not changed, however… That thing was just out of the ordinary. A total piece of shit.]
Garbage, piece of shit, the Hero of yore had been harshly evaluated as such.
The darkness was not vanishing from Shaula’s attitude, as if many hateful memories had come flooding back to her. It was the same as when a person who had been bullied recalled what the bully had done to them.
Shaula: [You should always keep that piece of shit in mind. Even if the bully forgets, the one bullied absolutely never will, and that’s a fact…]
Subaru: [I’m not really surprised since there’s a precedent in Reinhard, but it’d take quite a monster to knock you down a few pegs, and Reid Astrea’s one too.]
Shaula: [He really was the worst. But, I was able to get him to use both hands once every ten times we fought.]
Subaru: […I see.]
He could only answer with that. Had she set her goals high or low in making him use both of his hands once every ten times, and not to gain victory once every ten times?
Subaru felt like he would not be able to make Reinhard use both his hands even once every hundred times, so he could admit that her putting up a fight like that had been plenty enough.
Subaru: [Well, we can put off asking about Reid. It’s pretty pointless for us to ask if you didn’t destroy him.]
Julius: [――. ――――I agree. There’s other things we ought to prioritize right now.]
Subaru: [Didn’t you waste time doing that just now?]
Subaru could not tell whether he had a scholarly interest in it or a curiosity spurred from a simple hobby, but he judged that for now, perhaps Julius would not be of any use.
Although he felt sorry for Julius, who had gotten his illusions shattered, unfortunately for him, Subaru had no reason to care about Reinhard’s ancestor right now. To begin with, Reinhard himself was already more than plenty enough amazing no matter how amazing his bloodline was. At least considering his father’s nature, he was sure that Reinhard was much better off.
Subaru: [Then, let’s leave all speculation about who the Hero is to the guy who knows best.]
Julius: [Gotcha. I shall humbly accept.]
Subaru: [I still wasn’t talking about you, but sure. Go for it. Beako, follow.]
Beatrice: [Gotcha, in fact.]
He left the task to Julius since he was motivated to do it. And getting Beatrice to assist him as a helper, who boasted four-hundred years of knowledge, was ideal.
Emilia: [Then what shall we do?]
Subaru: [We’ll take a closer look at the surroundings.]
He would leave the Hero-related stuff to Julius and Beatrice, who would remain by Shaula, and he wanted to take a look at the arrangement issue in the meantime.
Namely, how the replicated Monoliths were arranged―― If there was some significance to their uneven arrangement, then taking the time to search for the pattern behind it probably would not be a waste.
Subaru: [First of all, the first one… is in front of the stairs.]
Emilia: [It’s the Monolith that hands out the question, right?]
The Monoliths were not lined up in a narrow enough space to the extent that they had to be careful not to bump into them; nevertheless, Subaru took Anastasia and Emilia and looked around the Monoliths inside the room.
There was a surprising difference in size between the scattered Monoliths on second look. However, there was not a single one of them that was as large as the series of original Monoliths, the figures of countless Monoliths which were one or two times smaller were scattered about.
Subaru: [At first glance… I guess there’s about seven or eight Monoliths that are about the same size as the first Monolith?]
Emilia: [I guess so? Yeah, I think so too. I think the ones that are reaaally faraway are all quite small. We’ll end up restarting things if we touch those too, though.]
Subaru: [From the way you’re talking about it, it looks like you’ve done that before… Ah, sorry. Never mind about that.]
Seeing sadness build up in Emilia’s eyes, Subaru caught himself before he said too much. Returning back in front of the first Monolith, Subaru turned to face the two girls and plunged into thought.
Subaru: [Touch the brightest of the Hero destroyed by Shaula… I feel like it’s trying to say something cool.]
Anastasia: [I guess it must be sayin’ somethin’ abstract. Unfortunately, we can’t overlook the question when we take into account what comes out of relyin’ on Shaula-san’s memory.]
Subaru: [Well, I suppose so.]
Although it was labelled as an Trial, in reality the path to the answer depended on relying on others―― but it would be unfair to rely on someone who had originally been assigned to be the Tower’s keeper.
Subaru and the others had not expected friendly contact upon making it to the Tower―― However, they ended up arriving without coming to blows with Shaula; if it had not ended up like that, they would have fallen into a quagmire of massacre. Even if they had successfully made it into the Tower in that case, they likely would not have been able to defeat Shaula.
Emilia: [If we do that, passing the Trial is going to be forever impossible, right?]
Subaru: [That’s correct if you’re saying they have no intention of letting us solve the Trial. They could put a strong guardian as a defense mechanism, and worse, were we to kill said guardian, they could put a terrible barrier that would not let us pass…]
Emilia: [But, Subaru, you don’t think that… You think it’s different to that?]
Subaru: [Mhmhm.]
Emilia turned her eyes in anticipation towards Subaru, who had touched on this issue of security. Receiving her gaze, Subaru confirmed her thoughts with a chuckle.
Those eyes were Subaru’s weakness. Subaru grew weak whenever Emilia and Beatrice gave him those looks. Rem, Garfiel and Otto would occasionally look at him like that too. Coupled with Petra, that made far too many. The only ones who did not regard him in such a way were Patrasche and Ram.
Subaru: [Ahh, it somehow feels like I could see a trend.]
Emilia: [――?]
Subaru: [It’s nothing, just talking to myself.]
Subaru’s bluff would not have worked against those who could see through him. Of course, he was bailed out thanks to Emilia not being one of those who would question him about it.
Anyways, putting that aside and going back to the problem of the format of the Trial――
Subaru: [Exceptions aside, fundamentally the problem was constructed with the assumption that it can be solved. If they really wanted to hide things properly, it’d be smarter not to leave them somewhere where there’s a chance of finding them.]
Anastasia: [But, Natsuki-kun, you’ve eyeballed this place as not bein’ like that?]
Subaru: [What was it that the keeper of this place, Shaula, said? She said this is a Great Library where you can get all the knowledge you desire. I don’t think Shaula herself could come up with such a fancy-looking phrase, so I think she’s splurging out words that were told to her by someone else. Meaning that Flugel, who built this Library and entrusted it to Shaula, intended for it to be used.]
The more he unraveled the possibilities, the more unnatural the current situation became to him.
The creator of this Great Library Pleiades must have taken steps to set it up so that the building fulfilled its purpose. For that reason, he had left behind the Trials and Shaula here as a means to screen people.
Subaru: [Does this mean that no one but those who get along well with Shaula can use it to begin with?]
Emilia: [But Shaula said that she attacked everyone who approached the Tower, right?]
Yeah, that was right.
The command that had been given to Shaula was to eliminate anyone who approached the Tower without any exceptions, and Subaru and the others coming into friendly contact with Shaula had just been a stroke of luck. If he recklessly concluded that people would not get the qualifications to challenge the Tower unless they abounded in fortuity, then,
Anastasia: [So what ya need is strength, luck, “n charm so that you”re able to make friends with Shaula-san? I think our lineup’s pretty unfit for that challenge.]
Subaru: […It sure is.]
Had they been defeated by Shaula, killed by her, or been unable to get her to cooperate with them, then they would have lost the qualifications to challenge the Great Library Pleiades――
Although it was irrational to think so, if he listed all the conditions up till now, he could only come to that conclusion.
However, Subaru could not help but have a bad feeling in just accepting that. And then,
Emilia: [Hey. Heeey~.]
Subaru: [Emilia?]
Emilia: [I’m feeling reaaally uneasy. I’ve got a real bad feeling in and around my chest.]
Emilia placed her hand to the pit of her stomach and anxiously spilled that out. As he was about to draw his eyes to that, Subaru restrained himself before he ogled her pale skin.
Clearing his throat, he frowned at Emilia and said, “A bad feeling?”
Subaru: [Huh, is something on your mind?]
Emilia: [To tell you the truth, there is. But, this may have nothing to do with everything, and even if I say it out loud, I think only you would understand me…]
Subaru: [I think I’d like you to say whatever’s on your mind right now, so you can say it to me. My thoughts aren’t necessarily correct, and it’s honestly a good thing to think about things from multiple different angles.]
Emilia: [Really?]
Having been immersed in her thoughts about what she was holding back, Emilia’s face brightened a little as she heard his words. Then she continued speaking saying “In that case,.”
Emilia: [When you touched the Monolith, you guys could hear a voice inside of your head, right?]
Anastasia: [Yeah. It’s an uncanny contraption, but I wonder what the heck it is.]
Emilia: [That voice… Isn’t it similar to the one back at the Sanctuary’s Trials?]
Subaru & Anastasia: [――――]
Subaru and Anastasia both kept their silence when they heard Emilia’s suggestion. However, even if both of them had ended up staying silent, the reason why they had done so was different.
Anastasia had plunged into silence because she had no clue what those words meant, but Subaru’s silence had been because he had been taken by surprise, and because he understood her words.
The Trials―― those had taken place at the Tomb of the Witch Echidna, an existence present in the Sanctuary.
Those mystifying phenomena that made one confront their past and confront differing presents; Subaru did not know the full details as he retired halfway through, but according to Echidna back at the Tomb, there had been a Third Trial too, which Emilia had overcome.
No, the details and hardships of those Trials were not what was important here.
What was important was that that refrain, which had informed them about the details of the Trial using their own voice, was pretty much the same as when they had challenged the Trials.
Subaru: [Now that you mention it, you’re right. Why did that slip out of my mind… I guess because they’re bad memories?]
Emilia: [Subaru, that’s because you reaaally dislike Echidna, no?]
Anastasia: [――Hk.]
Subaru: [Once you go through an experience where a savior turns out to actually be the one pulling the strings behind the scenes, you’ll be like me too!]
Ever since Sanctuary, Emilia and Subaru had spoken about the Witches only once or twice. Once he touched on the subject of the Trials, Emilia preferred to skirt around it, so he had not pursued the topic too much.
The point that they both shared in common, was that they thought “Echidna is an ill-natured fiend”. Emilia sugarcoated it more when speaking, but Subaru spoke about her as it was.
Anastasia: [Why, ya freaked me out “cause ya mentioned Echidna”s name.]
Emilia: [Ah, I see. Anastasia’s Spirit is called Echidna too… She does speak in a reaaally similar manner, right? ‘Tis strange.]
Subaru: [Yeah, it’s strange, but let’s settle this another time, alright? So, it’s similar to the Trial…]
When he’d heard the word “Trial” mentioned, he had thought it similar to “Trial”[2].
With even the way they began as a part that resembled the Trials, probably one part of the system, or perhaps a great part of it, resembled the one at the Tomb.
Subaru: [Come to think of it, the Trials too were practically unlimited in how much you could challenge it.]
Emilia: [And what’s more, about the Trials, there’s the Third, the Second and the First Floor, totaling three here too, right?]
Subaru: [――――]
Subaru and Emilia looked at each other as if they were saying “Yeah, it’s definitely like that”.
The Sage’s name, and a period of time of four-hundred years. Looking back on it, it felt inevitable that history, that the epoch of those Witches, overlapped with it.
Emilia: [Yeah, I’m sorry though. Even if we know that much, it still doesn’t bring us any closer to the answer, huh.]
Having thought all the way up to there, Emilia cut her story short with a flustered look on her face.
Just as Emilia had concluded, even if there was a chance that this place had some relationship to the Tomb, it still had nothing to do with the Trial of Taygeta.
The name of the “Hero who was destroyed by Shaula” was still something that they had to rely on Shaula for――
Subaru: […Actually, isn’t it not like that?]
Emilia: [Subaru?]
Subaru: [If we presume this place is something that’s supposed to be solvable, then it can’t be captured unless we deal with Shaula. Then there’s a mistake here in the first place?]
This was the Tower of the Sage, and that had been the Tomb of the Witch.
Both of these Trial takers shared in the same wicked disposition, but if that wasn’t only what they had in common, they had a conceivable chance to overcome them.
The Witch had tested people out in her Trials, but she did not present them any hardships that could not produce results.
Then, if the Sage tested people in his Trials, then he should not give them any hardships that could not produce results.
Subaru: [A chance for us to be able to capture the Tower without needing Shaula…]
Anastasia: [Natsuki-kun, what did’cha think of…]
Emilia: [Shhh.]
Plunging into his thoughts, Subaru placed his hand on his chin, closed one of his eyes and sunk into speculation. As he did so, Emilia waved her hand and silenced Anastasia, who had seen a ray of hope glimmering in what was occurring and spoken up.
Emilia put her finger to her lips and made a shushing gesture at her telling her to stay quiet, and after that, she turned her head back to look at Subaru. Her amethyst eyes sparkled with anticipation.
Not taking any notice of Emilia’s anticipation, Subaru’s head spun in thought.
In this Trial, Shaula’s presence was not important. Perhaps there was even a chance that those challenging the Tower would destroy Shaula were she to attack them. If he presumed that they still did not even know Shaula’s name――
Subaru: [Even if we didn’t know that Shaula is Shaula, if we assume a Shaula was involved…]
Emilia & Anastasia: [――――]
Subaru: [We mistakenly believed that Flugel’s achievement had been Shaula’s. The Sage’s achievement was that he sealed the Witch with the help of the First Sword Saint and the Divine Dragon. However, the Witch of Envy isn’t something that we’d ever call something like a Hero, nor was she ever destroyed.]
He cut out that possibility as being an incorrect hypothesis right here.
Maybe there’d been another heroic tale which the Sage Flugel had pushed onto Shaula that he just was unaware of. However, it did not make any sense that Beatrice and Julius would not recall something like that―― An inevitable possibility floated up in his mind.
Subaru: [Even if we didn’t know that Shaula is Shaula, if we assume a Shaula was involved… That’s it.]
He once again repeated what he had said.
That didn’t mean his thoughts were going around in circles. It was the opposite. He’d cut out one of the possibilities, and another one had surfaced. And, what that meant was――
Subaru: [Beako! Come here for a sec!]
Following the possibility that had struck him, Subaru lifted his face up and called Beatrice over.
Julius was trying everything he could to try and pry open the lid on Shaula’s memories. Next to him, Beatrice sprung up upon hearing Subaru’s voice that indicated he’d managed to find something. She rushed over to him, and said,
Beatrice: [That face is Betty’s favorite Subaru face, I suppose.]
Subaru: [Shouldn’t all of them be your favorite?]
Beatrice: [This one especially, in fact.]
Beatrice said that without any traces of embarrassment to her, and Subaru stretched out his hand over to her as she stood in front of him. Beatrice took his hand and looked at him with her round blue eyes.
Her eyes were asking, “What do you want me to do?”. Thus, Subaru nodded, and said,
Subaru: [It’s quite simple―― I’d like to jump a bit higher with Murak.]
Beatrice: […Don’t tell me you’re going to say you’ve given up, so you want to break the ceiling and go up that way, I suppose.]
Subaru: [Don’t be so shocked. Of course not. I just want to look down on the Monoliths from above.]
Emilia: [Look down on the Monoliths…]
Behind him, Emilia turned around to look at the Monoliths and muttered that out.
Even if she was not cognizant of what he expected to get from it, Beatrice showed no intent of wanting to ask anything beyond that. She let out a small sigh and gripped his hand more tightly,
Beatrice: [Murak, in fact.]
Pale, light purple waves faintly wrapped themselves around Subaru’s body following her incantation.
Murak was magic which kept the effects of gravity at bay and made a person far more agile. Just by jumping lightly he would be able to float up by about one meter, and if he kicked off from the floor with all his strength, then――
Subaru: [Up we go!]
Still holding Beatrice’s hand, Subaru leapt up towards the top of the tall room. Although he risen some six or seven meters, his body did not crash into the ceiling as he had expected.
The layer had expanded as if there had been no ceiling at all inside of this endless white expanse. Thus, Subaru was able to look down on the entire room from above.
Subaru: [――It’s as I thought.]
Beatrice: [Were you able to find what you were looking for, I suppose?]
Subaru: [Of course. This place is the absolute worst.]
Subaru frowned and nodded seeing Beatrice’s gaze, who had heard his mutter wrapped inside of his arms.
The two of them turned towards the ground and dropped down; their lightness of body that had helped them leap up also helped grace their landing. They landed without any issue, and he lowered Beatrice, who he had been princess-carrying, down to the floor,
Subaru: [I know the name of the Hero.]
Emilia: [Really!?]
Subaru said that with conviction to Emilia, who had seen him muse about it and then leap up. Emilia reacted in surprise to his words, and Anastasia rounded her eyes as well.
Hearing them speak, Julius and the others with him had been captivated by their talk and gathered over to where Subaru and the others were.
Meili: [Onii-san figured it ouuut~?]
Subaru: [I solved it. Along with the line of thinking of this errant Trial taker, for now.]
Shaula: [That’s Master for you! You’re makin’ me feel all tingly! Oh, how I yearned for this!]
With Meili on her back, Shaula gave him a thumbs-up and replied, then she shook her head vigorously. Looking at that from the corner of his eye, Julius looked over to the group of Monoliths, and said,
Julius: [I do not mean to doubt you right now. But please tell me how you managed to get the answer.]
Subaru: [It’s nothing spectacular. Y’all needn’t feel bad for not solving this. Because in the first place, the people who have a chance at solving this are few.]
This problem was the most contemptible in that sense.
The challengers had to overcome the obstacle that was Shaula, understand the details of the problem and yet, from the start, they had been narrowed down by the likelihood of knowing the answer to the problem.
Subaru: [The Hero destroyed by Shaula, their name is Orion.]
Everyone: [Orion…?]
Everyone looked at Shaula in confusion after they heard the word that Subaru had spoken out. However, Shaula vigorously shook her head as everyone’s gazes converged on her and said, “I don’t know them!”.
Shaula: [Nopenopenope, I’ve got no idea who that is. And even if for a sec we assume I did kill them, what sort of person who can’t even make it all the way here gets called a Hero, it’s totally ridiculous. Soooo, I don’t think I’m the one to blame here. How you may ask, well by this argument from theory! I’m suuuuper~ smart!]
Subaru: [As you can see, this woman’s not smart at all. At first, I’d suspected that she may have actually forgotten, but that’s not the case. Reason being that the Shaula from this problem isn’t this woman in the first place.]
Shaula: [I’mmm~ the only Shaula! I got this name from Master!]
Subaru: [Even the name that your Master gave you came from someone else.]
He prodded out his finger to the tip of the protesting Shaula’s nose and pushed her away before she could get closer. Following that, Subaru walked over to the original Monolith and stood in front of it.
Emilia: [Maybe once again… only Subaru knows the origins of Shaula’s name?]
Subaru: [It isn’t just me who knows, though I suppose not everyone would know―― The name of a star in my hometown is called Shaula. The meaning of its name is “the stinger”, but if I had to specify which kind of stinger, then it’d be the Scorpion’s stinger.]
Shaula had insisted on calling her hairstyle a scorpiontail, had that been a hint of some sorts, or was that some natural air-headedness of Shaula’s? Whichever one it was, there’d been a few things that had made him recall that “Shaula” was equal to “Scorpion” was equal to “Stinger”.
Subaru: [According to legend, the Hero Orion was stung by a scorpion which had been sent out to besiege him due to his boastfulness, and he ended up dying. After his death, he became a star. So, the scorpion that killed Orion also became a star due to its deed, and it’s said that even now in the sky Orion lives in fear of the scorpion …]
Beatrice: [Now that you’ve explained things, this legend has a pretty depressing vibe to it too, in fact.]
Subaru: [Anyways, think of it as having constellations where stars are illustrated by the figures of animals and people and such. You can even think of them as an asterism―― So, that’s how it looks when you look down on the Monoliths from above.]
Becoming practically weightless as a result of Beatrice’s magic, he jumped up and looked down at the group of Monoliths.
The scattered black Monoliths in this world of white―― Although the colors were inverted, a series of black stars floated about in this white world, forming a pattern which he was familiar with.
There were eight Monoliths in total which had the same size as the original one.
The number of major stars as well as how they were laid out both matched with how the constellation of Orion was shaped. And when he linked it to the last part, “Touch the brightest”――
Subaru: [The original Monolith is right in the middle. Well, I just gotta keep my eye on Alnilam and if I keep following the shape of the constellation… If I keep following Orion, then…]
Emilia: [Then?]
Subaru: [The phrasing “the brightest” is a bit of a roguish expression. In actual fact, stars shine in various different ways, sometimes they’re always bright, other times they shine brighter only every so often. Considering that, there are two stars that fit the bill for the brightest in Orion…]
When viewed from above, the two stars that fit the bill were the right shoulder of Orion located in the upper left part, Betelgeuse, and Orion’s left knee located in the lower right part, Rigel.
Rigel was always invariably bright, whereas Betelgeuse was a variable star that sometimes shone brighter than Rigel[3].]
Solving the problem by picking both of them was not a pretty solution, but――
Subaru: [I guess I’ll go for Rigel.]
He had bad memories of a name similar to Betelgeuse[4].
Subaru: [――――]
Setting his answer in stone, Subaru touched the Monolith on Orion’s left knee, Rigel.
This was not necessarily the only answer. But, most likely it should be the right one.
And at the same time he realized that, he readied himself for the precipitousness and difficulty of the obstacles that awaited them on the Second and First Floor, when considering the maliciousness of the person who had cooked up these Trials.
Subaru: [――――]
The white room was filled with a dazzling light.
Both sound and landscape were left behind, everything was blown away, before finally――
Subaru: […Whoa.]
When the light died down, Subaru and the others were left standing in a room made out of stone―― in the middle of a room that was encompassed by countless bookshelves.
Translation notes:
[1] A baseball reference. Seems to be a reference to this manga, the title of which was translated as Third Base Fourth.
[2] The two Japanese words for “Trial”, “試験” and “試練”, have the first character in common.
[3] Have a helpful image if you need help visualizing this, though not all the stars are named here. Keep in mind that while Rigel is shown as the knee here, from Wikipedia, “In the constellation of Orion as the mythological Greek huntsman, Rigel represents his knee or (as its name suggests) foot; with the nearby star Beta Eridani marking Orion’s footstool”. Tappei went with knee in the Japanese which is why you might find a discrepancy between this image and the translation”.
[4] Recall that the name of the Sin Archbishop of Sloth is not “ペテルギウス” (Betelgeuse), but “ぺテルギウス” (Petelgeuse). This is a common misspelling of his name in Japanese, in fact. The difference might be significant.
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