――A body is formed.

The gnawed flesh, the torn skin, the crushed bones, the completely chewed nerves, the licked and sipped blood, the soul trampled by heinous appetite—return to its original form.

Sensation reaches the fingertips, and from there, Natsuki Subaru’s whole body jerks as if having a spasm.

On the dusty, cold, hard ground, Subaru writhes, a groan escaping from the corners of his mouth as white foam spills out.

Pain? None. Sense of loss? None. His limbs follow the torso, and even the mind that recognizes it suffers no physical harm. Thoughts are vague as if waking from sleep, but clarity is just a few seconds away—promised uncertainty.

Yet, Subaru’s body, his consciousness, refuses to return to the reality that has come back. The events leading to his return were far too horrific.

Who has ever experienced having their entire intestines devoured from within? Feeling the skin on the whole body of flesh being snatched away, as rough tongues lick away at the exposed dark red muscle and pink fat beneath.

That brain, which refuses to feel pain, can only recognize the horrifying reality of ‘being eaten’ objectively, as a waking nightmare.

“Bu, bu, bu…”

Nausea wells up, but only yellowish gastric fluid rises from the dry stomach. With the foaming spew mixing in something sour, Subaru continues to spasm while lying on his side.

As if having a seizure, or like a fish washed ashore, Subaru’s soul makes the choice to reject reality, not by his will.

Who can accept being devoured in such a manner? With the understanding of being eaten intact, who could blame Subaru for his current condition?

What chain of events, what conspiracy made him go through this?

“——”

Consciousness flickers.

Am I awake or not? Control over my body isn’t returning.

The soul rejects living in reality. Rather than allowing the consciousness to choose, it won’t even let Subaru stand before that choice.

Only, Subaru’s body is forced to tremble at the ‘lost fact’ and continues to drown in despair.

――Why.

If there were a certain word existing in Subaru’s mind, it would have been just one.

――Why.

What happened? What was it? Why did it turn out that way? Why could it only end up that way? What is happening to me now? What must I become? What should I do going forward?

――Why, why, why, why, why.

Before a problem whose answer cannot be found, without even clarity on the problem statement, the soul can only scream in agony.

――Why!? Why!? Why!?

And, it continues to throw questions that have no answers, a pitiful and unwilling sight.

Drowning in reality, tormented by nightmares, losing sight of a path to live, asking ‘why’.

That was—

“Once again, you have gained the qualifications”

To the trembling Subaru, it was a voice that whispered right in his ear.

A high, buoyant voice. One that could be heard by Subaru now, but could not be fully understood. Yet, it resonated deeply within Subaru—

“Come, to the Witch’s Tea Party.”

In the next moment, Subaru’s freshly returned consciousness again lost its sense of reality.

※※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※

On a small hill overgrown with lush green grass, a refreshing breeze reminiscent of summer blew.

The cool wind wildly shook Subaru’s bangs, as well as the tall green grass, passing through the hill, moving across the meadow, racing toward the blue sky where white clouds danced.

Lightly touching his tickled bangs with his fingertips, Subaru squints against the dazzling sunlight, then slowly lowers his gaze to look ahead.

He finds himself seated, in a rocking chair like an armchair. In between them is a small white table, and sitting across from him in a similar chair with her legs crossed sits a girl clad in a mourning dress, coloring her hair and exposed skin completely in white—no, perhaps that designation is inappropriate.

“After all, she’s the Witch who has been lazing around for over four hundred years…”

“It’s quite a rude thing to say about capturing a girl, don’t you think? In my case, I’d say my age is nineteen, so I should certainly look like a young girl, fitting for you.”

“Nineteen is surprisingly heavy. And don’t come over here with some incomprehensible judgment. Saying we’d suit each other would make me laugh so hard I’d boil over.”

“Oh my, did I just get rejected?”

“No, I’m telling you to not underestimate yourself. I’m well aware I’m a complete lowlife. The idea of suiting someone or being matched is something I earn by climbing up, not something to be handed down by someone else. I don’t have anything yet that’s anywhere near deserving of that.”

Subaru clenches and unclenches his fist on his lap, looking up at the sky with a bitter expression.

Hearing this, the witch—Echidna—leans on the white table and observes Subaru from head to toe, as if she were scrutinizing him.

“You seem to have an incredibly low self-evaluation.”

“When surrounded by giants, you naturally develop a habit of looking up while speaking. I thought I’d graduated from the patheticness of not even realizing I’m looking up.”

Reflecting on his past self, Subaru tightens his opened fist.

He cracks his knuckles using his grip, takes in a deep breath, and—

“So, what’s the reason for this invitation to your tea party?”

“It’s not difficult. I’m the Witch of Greed, the very embodiment of the thirst for knowledge. The heart that seeks and desires is a pleasure to me, and if that desire is accompanied by the questions of ‘why,’ it is the most supreme.”

Saying this, she brings a white cup to her lips.

As she swallows the contents, her demeanor softens into a faint smile.

“If I must say, I want you to understand that this was caused by your own actions in a place conducive to my castle.”

“Stop with the convoluted wording. For now, I won’t fuss about being invited to your tea party. What I want to ask about is far more important.”

Waving his hand to dismiss Echidna’s grandiose words, Subaru leans forward. Fixing his gaze on her beautiful white features, he glares without breaking eye contact.

“What happened to me?”

“Don’t you think you understand that yourself?”

“Understanding and acceptance are two different things. I think I’ve got a grasp of what my condition was objectively, but that understanding doesn’t link to my current state.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m in a state where I was going crazy, spitting foam while drowning on land, but here I can at least hold a decent conversation in proper attire. It’s more natural to think that you have a hand in this somehow.”

While exchanging light banter, Subaru’s mind spins in full gear, striving to comprehend the situation.

Invited into Echidna’s dream world labeled as a tea party, there’s certainly a sense of ease surfacing in his heart, allowing such thoughts to circulate.

Recognizing he is calm enough to think with clarity, he realizes the perilous condition Subaru’s body is in back in the real world prior to entering this dream.

Leaving behind a body experiencing a form of shock, he feels a twinge of uneasiness about being here just with his spirit.

“Last time I attended your tea party, I woke up in bed unaware, but what about the passage of time? No, for that matter—what’s happening in the outside world…”

As he ponders this, Subaru suddenly realizes that he shouldn’t be comfortably sipping tea in this kind of place.

——The Subaru who was just spasming due to shock hasn’t confirmed the time upon returning to where he ‘died.’

He hasn’t even checked the location where he was foaming at the mouth.

Burning with regrets too late, Subaru kicks his chair and stands up.

“Echidna! Get me out of here right now!”

“It would be a grave offense to leave without even touching the tea at a Witch’s tea party. You ought to reflect a bit more on what kind of presence I am—”

“I don’t have the time to indulge your remarks! Get me out of here right now! Meanwhile, outside…”

“Is your plan to once again leave empty-handed after failing the last time? Are you really planning to repeat that same pain and loss?”

With impatience boiling over, Subaru raises his voice at the calm, leisurely Echidna.

To counter his sense of urgency with a splash of cold water, Echidna questions him with a voice frozen with emotion.

“…Huh?”

“I admire the act of challenging to obtain results. Whether they are the desired results or not, I believe there is beauty in the process of trial and error to produce results. Never losing that spirit to challenge is something I find noble and precious. However—”

Echidna raises her finger at the stumbling Subaru, continuing with a gaze narrowed.

“To neglect the past results and tread the same path leading to the same conclusion… Such an act mocks the accumulation of knowledge, and I would like to part ways with those who partake in it with disdain.”

“You… are…”

“By the way, to answer your question… Outside, it is just after you completed the first Trial at the Graveyard. Fortunately, the flow of time differs from here and out there. Spending time with me for tea shouldn’t significantly delay your time out there.”

Echidna, knocking down one of the concerns Subaru had, destroys each question he had in mind.

If her words ring true, it means the time outside hasn’t deviated from that first Trial—a reset point for ‘returning from death.’

Subaru’s body, abandoned in the tea party, is likely still left by Emilia, who is currently battling through the Trial.

Not taking her statement at face value, learning about this fact from a third party distills calmness into Subaru’s growing unease.

Thus, as relief takes root in his heart, the following question emerges—

“Echidna… how much do you know?”

“As much as I can know. However, I desire to know everything in this world.”

“Don’t play around; this is an important topic. For example… right, you just said this is right after the first Trial…”

The first Trial—now that phrase feels considerably distant.

After parting from his parents in that illusory world, Subaru faced the empty school building where he encountered Echidna. After their brief verbal exchange, he returned to reality.

However, so much that words cannot express happened in the time it took to settle into this current situation—

“If I disregard that, it means our reunion is right after parting…”

“That’s correct. Certainly, the actual time is short, and even in terms of perceived time, the interval between us is minimal. It counts as having reunited in just a few minutes.”

“How much do you miss me?” Echidna says jokingly, giggling.

To which Subaru responds with a straight face, and Echidna shrugs, looking a bit disappointed.

“It seems you rarely give me the reactions I’m seeking. It’s frustrating yet oddly pleasing, feeling complicated emotions in that regard.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to entertain your complex feelings later. But more than that…”

“If there’s a feeling of excitement in our quick reunion, it smooths my tongue. Well, I suppose it’s only natural to feel that way. Because…”

At that point, Echidna pauses for a moment.

In that brief silence, she glances at Subaru with her black eyes. In an instant, the emotion that crossed her dual pupils was unreadable to the current Subaru.

Just to welcome Subaru’s perplexity, Echidna smiles brilliantly.

“Unlike me, who only separated for a few minutes, from your perspective, it has been several hours—or even days—before we meet again.”

※※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※

Repeating Echidna’s words in his head, Subaru painfully realizes he cannot grasp their meaning in just one form.

Given her tone and her meaningful gaze and smile, there is no mistake in his recognition.

She knows—this witch knows. The fragments of lost futures, which should remain nowhere in this world, that Subaru’s soul has built up throughout.

“Why…!?”

“To answer that question, I would say this: because this is my castle, and I am the Witch of Greed. I suppose you haven’t seen this from me yet.”

Before the questioning Subaru, Echidna tilts her head and extends her right hand.

As light descends upon her palm, it gradually takes form—and thus, a pure white-covered book emerges.

A book not marked with a title; it was the size of a dictionary. Excluding its glaringly pure white color, Subaru could only recall unpleasant memories tied to that shape.

“Don’t tell me that… is the ‘Gospel’…?”

“Oh? You don’t need to rely on this book to know what you’re thinking; your expression gives it away. You look like you might want to say, ‘You too?’ It seems I can infer quite a bit from what you’ve experienced outside…”

Reading Subaru’s inner thoughts from his face, Echidna gently opens the white book in her hand. As she scans its contents, she nods several times while following the text with her eyes.

“I see, I generally understand. There are parts I can’t fully grasp, but I can make up for that by reading you… Yeah, it’s indeed wonderful. It feels like filling in missing pieces, the indescribable thrill of getting closer to the answer. This is what makes living worthwhile…!”

“…You’re already dead, aren’t you?”

Subaru barely manages to interject in response to Echidna’s impassioned words, which overwhelm him.

Upon hearing this, Echidna, twisting the tips of her white hair with her fingers, dons a pouting expression.

“When you throw water on it like that, it dampens my spirits, even if it’s true. But, rest assured, I will alleviate your anxious mind… This book is not the ‘Gospel’ you remember. What it records isn’t a prediction of the future or the optimal solution. It’s simply facts.”

“Facts…?”

“If the ‘Gospel’ is classified as a book of prophecies, then what I possess could be called a history book. It doesn’t secure a definite form as a book, always vague and ambiguous, a jumble of concepts—it could be any book, a book of infinite possibilities, and it can be whatever book at all… They used to call this the ‘Book of Wisdom’ back in a world four hundred years ago. But I refer to it as—”

“——-”

“——’The Memory of the World.'”

An ostentatious title—but one that holds power in equal measure.

If her words are factual, that book can read anything that has already transpired in history, regardless of who it pertains to. It’s a truly cheating ability in terms of information gathering.

“However, I’m not fond of relying on this too much. After all, the content seen becomes imprinted directly on the mind. A magical book that skips the process of ‘knowing’ and rewrites it to ‘I knew it’—for an inquisitive being like me, its value is difficult to ascertain.”

“If you don’t want it, you can pass it to me. I have plenty of uses for it. In fact, it might just be the key to solving problems…”

“You should refrain from that if you don’t want to become a shell of a human.”

Echidna brusquely cut down Subaru’s upbeat suggestion, then held the white-covered ‘Memory of the World’ before Subaru’s face.

“Even if it seems harmless, it’s a witch’s tool. A normal person’s mind may burn out from the sheer amount of information imprinted. It’s safer not to read it.”

“Then don’t present it so ostentatiously! It’s terrifying!”

Realizing it was a solution beyond his reach, Subaru’s mood hit a sharp decline.

Pushing the magical book away with a shove of his palm, Echidna again waved her hand, turning it into particles of light. The point it takes up no space on the shelf for storage didn’t matter for now; Subaru finds himself in agreement about the extent of her knowledge.

With this magical book, certainly, the number of ‘unknowns’ could be reduced to an extreme. Not doing so might just be traceable to the unique mindset of witches.

“Nevertheless, now that I understand as much, let’s expedite this. Hey, Echidna. You know about my situation… regarding my death—”

Just as Subaru was about to articulate ‘death,’ his throat suddenly freezes.

However, that wasn’t due to the undeniably severe penalty that comes with trying to voice the taboo.

Before the frozen Subaru, Echidna waits silently, gently swaying her white hair in the wind.

The more he perceives that it’s oddly considerate of a witch, the more his heart races and the flow of his words grows heavier and slower.

The one emotion freezing Subaru’s words was primitive—namely, fear.

“Hah… hah…”

Subaru has had countless opportunities to voice that forbidden term.

The power of ‘returning from death’ residing within him.

Whether it should even be labeled a power is a difficult determination, as it forcefully obstructs efforts to relay that situation to others. It comes with an absurdity and undeniable strength that acutely injures the heart with no room for resistance or endurance.

And that venomous fangs once descended upon not just Subaru but also Emilia—who, at the time, intended to disclose everything. The feeling of loss and wailing from that moment remains etched in Subaru’s mind.

Countless times he has wished to simply die, to disappear—there were very few moments like that.

A bitterness born from the remorse and pain he has accumulated through his own foolishness. It’s pitiful and frustrating—and yet, Subaru’s heart is scared to move forward.

It isn’t the fear of enduring pain; pain itself is, of course, frightening. However, if that pain is a necessary sacrifice to draw forth the desired future, he would gladly endure it, howling his throat dry.

What Subaru fears is that by stating such information here, it won’t just affect him but also that black hand could target someone dear to him.

No, Subaru shakes his head.

During the battles with the White Whale and the conclusion with Petelgeuse, in both instances Subaru mentioned the forbidden words in scenes where others were involved.

Whenever dragged into absurdity, the words he attempted to voice would be interrupted, with the remainder thrown into the frozen realms beyond time. Thus, none have questioned him.

He has never sacrificed anyone seeking the lost words to the black hands.

——Except Emilia.

“——-”

Memories of the silver-haired girl in his arms resurface.

If he would have to experience that sensation of loss once more, it would be utterly unbearable.

He thinks about how he managed not to go insane back then. Walking with Emilia’s corpse in his arms, he wonders how he didn’t lose his mind.

So grave, so terrifying.

Therefore, fear binds Subaru, prompting him to hesitate in voicing it here.

Before him is the witch Echidna. To put it frankly, that relationship is so shallow compared to Emilia that it doesn’t even merit comparison.

Even if her heart were crushed, Subaru expects he wouldn’t experience the same level of despair or sense of loss as those moments.

Even so, he cannot act; not just owing to Subaru’s own cowardice, but the conditions are too different this time, and the formidable uncertainty haunts him.

Whenever sharing ‘returning from death’ with someone unaware of the truth, the tabooed words would sting Subaru’s heart.

When he attempted to share ‘returning from death’ with someone significant, the taboo would crush that precious person’s heart.

So what would happen if he revealed his ‘returning from death’ to someone who has seen through it from another angle?

Would the suffering end with Subaru, or would the dark hand reach for the existence before him too?

“Try it, if you wish.”

“——-!?”

“To strive for the desired results is noble. That belief remains unchanged. And to those who take action, I believe there lies the value in living.”

Unaware of what the outcome of Subaru’s deliberations might lead to, or how it might affect himself—no, it’s more than that.

The witch likely sees through the content of Subaru’s concerns.

And she is also aware that the result remains below visibility. Yet even so, she allows herself to state that he should do it because she firmly believes in the conviction she spoke of just moments ago.

“You may not even have the luxury of regretting it…?”

“If that time comes, I would hope you would weep profusely at my corpse.”

As Subaru continues to allow his tentative refusal towards making a decision, Echidna responds with a carefree attitude.

That stance itself appears to be a consideration to prevent extraneous matters from interrupting Subaru’s determination.

It’s not so much compassion for Subaru as it is her sincerity towards the results gained from that decision.

It isn’t that she hopes for it or wishes for it.

Just in that appearance, yearning for possibilities, the potential of answers propels Subaru forward.

A way of life carrying no doubt regarding one’s reason for existence or purpose.

While he understands that he cannot live that way, he feels as if being saved by that strength.

“Echidna. I have returned from death—”

And then, he would speak the forbidden words—.

At that moment, the world