ARC 4 THE EVERLASTING COVENANT Chapter 70 [What Comes After Hell]
――What on earth was he watching?
Expelling earsplitting shrieks, Emilia was crying Subaru’s name.
Subaru's body was leaning limply against the bed, its wide-open eyes devoid of life.
Well, naturally. With its throat pierced by a dagger, and with that much lost blood, it couldn’t possibly be alive.
It's not every day that you'd get a chance to look down at your own corpse.
It was a twisted sensation, as if he had detached from his dead body as a ghost and was being made to watch the spectacle that followed.
Even if the majority of that feeling was false, the fundamental part was not.
――What Subaru was being forced to watch was unmistakably the scene after his death.
The room’s furnishings, the people present here, and the wretched figure of his dead self.
Putting these together, Subaru realized precisely what he was being shown here.
It was the result of his thoughtless act after defeating the Sin Archbishop, Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti, and saving Emilia, when he first learned of the loss of Rem.
Having felled the White Whale, repelled Sloth, and saved Emilia and the Arlam Villagers, Subaru was at the height of joy when he was sent plummeting to the pit of the abyss upon learning that Rem was lost.
He had raced the carriage all the way to the Capital――where he found the sleeping Rem in Crusch Karsten's Mansion, and, once he confirmed that her consciousness was gone and no one could remember her, Subaru immediately committed suicide by stabbing a knife through his own throat.
It was almost a reflex, without a single moment of deeper consideration.
He had merely done it to reject the scene before his eyes, to ask Return by Death for a chance to retry the past and retrieve what had been lost.
――But, this rash deed came to no success, and the place he returned to after his suicide was immediately before he stabbed his neck, after already having reunited with the sleeping Rem.
Return by Death's savepoint had been updated.
Its merciless timing had stolen away Subaru's only means of retrieving Rem, and once again plunged him into the depths of the abyss.
It was after that, when he sealed his resolve and made his oath to restore her and to somehow keep standing to now, but――
{Subaru: It's not… my fault…… This… it's not my fault. I didn't know…… I've never seen any of this}
He had never seen this scene before.
Well of course. Subaru was already dead in this world.
Though he had the means to return after losing his life, he never knew what happened to the worlds after he died. Or rather, there was no way for him to know.
But still, it was not until this moment that he had even considered it.
Experiencing his own death, rewinding the world, then proceeding along a different path to bypass the dead-end, the world in which he died gave him no information beyond "How" he died, and served as nothing more than a transit point.
Judging these worlds to be mere checkpoints towards his ultimate, desired future, and having decided to make full use of Return by Death, he had regarded even this present world as no more than a waypoint.
But now――that was crumbling.
{Subaru: Stop. Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop it please stop!}
Rejecting the scene before his eyes, Subaru shrieked a voiceless shriek.
But, without a throat to raise a sound, no eyes to avert his gaze, and no ears he could cover, the world went on engraving its outcome into Subaru's consciousness.
――As punishment for the careless deed he committed.
[???: Emilia-sama, what――!]
Overhearing Emilia’s wails, a new character stepped into the horrendous scene.
An old man, wearing a brand new butler's outfit over his muscular body, carried by strides that gave no indication of his injuries――Wilhelm.
Skidding into the room, the old man unwittingly fell silent at the sight before him.
――So even the Sword Demon Wilhelm could make such a dumbfounded face.
Subaru was hit with that out-of-place thought as he saw Wilhelm's face head-on.
That was just how far Wilhelm’s expression deviated from the usual, unable to hide his shock at the sight of Subaru’s corpse.
[Wilhelm: What in the world has…… no, now's not…… Subaru-dono!]
But Wilhelm’s bewilderment only lasted an instant.
Shaking his head to promptly suppress his bafflement, he rushed to the collapsed Subaru’s side. Emilia continued clinging to the lifeless body, oblivious to Wilhelm's approach.
[Emilia: Subaru…… Subaru you…… liar…… you said th… we’ll be together……]
[Wilhelm: Emilia-sama, I beg your forgiveness――!]
While Emilia condemned Subaru’s betrayal like a curse, Wilhelm pushed her aside to reach the corpse. Without any strength to support her own body, she fell to the floor, but Wilhelm immediately turned from his momentary attention towards Emilia back to resuscitating Subaru, who was still soaking in the fresh, profuse pool of his own blood.
[Wilhelm: ――――]
His expression grave, Wilhelm took off his jacket and used it to cover Subaru’s throat as he unhesitatingly drew out the dagger. Blood sprayed out, staining Wilhelm’s perilous visage, but without even blinking, he immediately plugged the wound.
The bleeding stopped, while Wilhelm pumped on Subaru’s unbeating chest, attempting to revive his heart.
[Wilhelm: Ferris! Felix! Come quickly!! Emergency! Hurry!!]
Aiming his shout outside the room, Wilhelm applied pressure to Subaru’s wound as he continued the resuscitation effort. However, the volume of lost blood was far too great. His limbs and face were drained of color, and anyone could see that Natsuki Subaru’s soul was no longer present.
But still, Wilhelm had no intention to give up.
[Ferris: Old Wil', what’re you yelling ab――hk!]
[Wilhelm: Felix, quickly! The blade's punctured his throat! There's not a second to lose!]
[Ferris: ――――!]
Rushing up at the call, Ferris immediately nodded at Wilhelm's command, cloaking his hands in a blue, undulating aura as he sent healing magic into Subaru's fallen body.
Gazing down on his own soul-departed corpse, Subaru saw a seriousness on Ferris' always easy-going face that he had never seen before.
{Subaru: That's…enough……it's useless. It won’t work. You can’t save him anymore……}
Anything they do would be pointless now.
In Subaru's memories, there was nothing about being saved after this attempted suicide.
Natsuki Subaru had impulsively plunged a knife into his own throat in rejection of reality, leaving irreparable wounds in the hearts of those around him, while he himself disappeared without feeling the slightest pang on his conscience.
Those were the facts. Those two's desperate efforts would come to nothing.
[Wilhelm: You mustn't die! I absolutely won't let you die! If I lost my benefactor in this way, I could not live with the shame……!]
[Ferris: Why did he have pull this stupid stunt now……tch]
Wilhelm shouted, pressing on the wound, and Ferris muttered this agitated complaint while casting the gentlest magic in this world.
This scene, and the ripples of their emotions, went on striking at Subaru's heart.
But despite their desperate efforts――
[Ferris ――――]
[Wilhelm: Felix! Why!? Why have you stopped healing!? If this goes on……]
[Ferris: It's over, old Wil'. ――His soul isn't here anymore]
Wilhelm closed in, but Ferris pushed him away. Removing the Sword Demon's jacket, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off Subaru's wound. The gash had been perfectly closed, and it was impossible to tell that it had been a fatal injury. Subaru's body had been restored to the same state as several minutes ago.
Except, neither the volumes of spilt blood nor his departed soul remained.
Looking down at Subaru's pale, lifeless face with the wound wiped away, Wilhelm shook his head,
[Wilhelm: Why…… why did you do this! Why would you… so lightly…… Subaru-dono, you were……!]
His fist struck the floor with the sound of a hard crack.
Blood mixed into the fractured floorboard as Wilhelm's fist was cut along with it. His knuckles dripping with blood, Wilhelm bit into his lips as if enduring unbearable regret.
Directly opposite the clearly emotional Wilhelm, Ferris only looked down at Subaru with a pained expression. His cat-ears drooped as he gazed at Subaru's unpeaceful expression,
[Ferris: ……Weakling, coward. You just abandoned everyone important to you……pushed all the pain and all the suffering on everyone else…… are you satisfied nyow?]
It was too severe to be mocking, and too kind to be a condemnation.
The complexities of the emotions hidden in Ferris' voice was too far beyond what Subaru's frozen thoughts could comprehend.
But it was clear from Wilhelm and Ferris' reactions,
――That Subaru had done something irreversible to them both.
[Emilia: ――――]
His thoughts completely stopped.
What was he seeing right now?
He knew. He already knew what he being made to see.
He was being made to bear witness to his own sins.
[Wilhelm: ――Emilia-sama?]
Wilhelm suddenly called her name.
The astonishment in his voice was because Emilia had suddenly stopped crying, and her collapsed body was no longer trembling.
Noticing this change, a touch of pain scraped across Wilhelm's expression. The loss he had just tasted, how much more strongly must it have struck Emilia? This expression was simply because he realized this.
The old man firmly closed his eyes, and stood up.
Then, he walked over to the fallen Emilia, and extended his hand to help her up.
[Wilhelm: I must apologize for my actions, Emilia-sama. But it would be harmful your health to remain like this. Please, take care to……]
[Emilia: ――he told me]
[Wilhelm: Emilia-sama?]
[Emilia: Even though he told me he loved me……!]
Lying sideways on the floor, hugging her knees, Emilia curled into a ball and screamed.
"You're being like a child", there was no one who could chide her for that. Wilhelm furrowed his brows as if enduring pain, and even Ferris turned away, unable to bear watching Emilia's grief.
[Ferris: Eh?]
Baffled, Ferris's eyes and mouth opened wide as a stupid noise escaped his throat.
As if guided by that voice, Wilhelm followed Ferris' gaze, and was stunned.
[Wilhelm: ――――]
――Before their eyes, Subaru's supposedly-deceased body sat up.
{Subaru: ――――!?}
Faced with this incomprehensible sight, even Subaru's consciousness was aghast.
The risen body stretched out its limbs with the choppy movement of a mechanical doll as it stood up with its head tilted ninety-degrees sideways, its eyes slowly opening.
Its unfocused gaze, its gleamless eyes, leered over the room.
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I made it back! We rented a crappy van that took us almost 2000km over the last few days. I’ve been coughing almost the whole way but that just seems to be the default at this point. I’ll be settled in one place for the remainder of the trip, so hopefully I can get more chapters out!
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Chapter 70 Live Draft: