An anxiety, a throat-scratching kind of anxiety, dominated my whole body.

My legs moved forward, my heart was directed to the future, and my will aimed for a purpose, yet it felt as if an unknown fear was slowly creeping up from behind.

Nausea hit me hard. A ringing in my ears blared. My heart thudded as if it might burst from my chest, and my legs felt so weak that, without conscious effort, they’d likely vanish from my control.

Why is this happening?

Everything should have gone smoothly. Everything was supposed to head in the right direction.

It must have just been bad timing. Just bad luck.

I should be able to do this. If I know what to do, I shouldn’t hesitate.

I understood what needed to be done; I just had to save Emilia.

If she is trapped in a crisis, it’s my job to rescue her.

That’s how it’s always been. I’ll do it again this time. Then everything will go right. She’ll come to see me in a new light. After all, without me, everything falls apart.

I don’t want to be abandoned. I don’t want to be forsaken. I don’t want to be underestimated. I don’t want to be given up on.

With desperate resolve, Subaru kept reiterating that thought.

I was out of breath. My lungs ached, my body creaked as if overworked, and every part of my unhealed body screamed in pain. But stopping was not an option.

I had to run faster, even if it was just a little bit faster.

If I don’t, I’d be caught. By that unknown something chasing me from behind, and I would be consumed.

I didn’t want that. I absolutely didn’t want that. Right now, all I could think of was that terrifying thought.

I want to see Emilia, I want her to smile at me. Why did Rem leave me behind? Where did the warmth I had last night go? Beatrice’s biting remarks and Ram’s relentless teasing felt so nostalgic and dear to me now. How soothing would Roswaal’s quirks and Pack’s laid-back attitude be right now?

I wished I could have stayed in that place forever.

For a long time, Subaru’s memories were buried in those days at the mansion.

Heading to the Royal Capital was a mistake.

All the time spent in the Royal Capital was the cause of my current misery.

Reinhardt, Felt, Old Man Rom, Crusch, Felix, Julius, Anastasia, Al, Priscilla, the Wise Man’s Association, and the knights — their faces popped into my mind one after another, and each of them became an object of my hatred.

May they be cursed, may they suffer, may they experience the fullness of agony and die.

If they weren’t here, Subaru wouldn’t have lost himself.

If I could go back to the mansion, reconcile with Emilia, and return to those heart-pounding days, I wouldn’t mind throwing everything away for that.

There’s nothing left. Nothing remains.

Everything has slipped away from my hands. So now, I will go pick it all up again.

To that end, I must continue running.

Enduring the burning agony in my lungs, the crushing regret in my heart, and the earsplitting ringing that threatened to drown my consciousness, Subaru ran on.

Again and again, the thoughts of resentment and regret passed through my mind like a relentless tide.

How long had it been that I kept running forward with such a backward mindset?

Suddenly, the dense trees that had been surrounding me started to thin out, and traces of nature transformed by human activity began to appear.

Gradually, the ground I kicked felt solid beneath my feet, and when I looked up, I realized I was on a gentle slope.

I had stumbled onto a familiar road.

There were no landmarks, and to anyone looking from the outside, it might have seemed just like another ordinary forest path.

However, for someone like Subaru, who had sought change relentlessly, having traversed this path several times, I knew this was the end of the never-ending green maze.

I hadn’t reached the mansion yet.

Just ahead of me, beyond the slope, lay the village closest to the mansion.

Suddenly, the faces of those I had grown closer to during my days there began to flow into my mind, which until then had only been filled with the faces of those from the mansion.

The overly familiar children, the locals who had oddly low levels of caution. The eccentric crowd that laughed off my otherworldly knowledge and accepted it for what it was.

It was nostalgic enough to make me want to cry.

I couldn’t understand why I had forgotten them. Alongside the mansion, there was still a place that warmly embraced me.

In that place, my worth still remained.

I had saved that village. Without me, it might have vanished. It was my achievement. There was nothing greater than that as a result of my actions.

The stronghold that was so close, remembering that made my feet quicken.

Ahead, just beyond the slope, the morning sky, undisturbed by the trees, was adorned with billowing white smoke — the symbol of daily life.

Cooking, maybe? Or perhaps boiling water? It could be from a blacksmith or metalworker. Regardless, it was proof that someone was there.

For now, that was more than enough.

I wanted someone who knew me, someone who accepted me, to just call my name. I wanted them to tell me that it was okay to be here, in a friendly manner, filled with camaraderie.

I burst forward, climbing up. As I neared the end of the incline, the source of the white smoke came into sight. I reached the top, and sweat dripped down from my forehead into my eyes, which I hastily wiped away, and then I looked at the village with a brightened heart.

And then, Subaru was finally caught up by the nightmare pursuing him from behind.

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When I charged into the village entrance, the first thing I did was search for the first villager—only to realize something felt off and furrow my brows.

As soon as I stopped, the weight of everything came crashing down on my heart and lungs.

While gasping for breath, I spat out saliva and phlegm, supporting myself on my knees as I tried to recover. Of course, during all this, I kept my gaze raised.

At a glance, the village didn’t seem to have anything wrong with it.

However, something clearly felt off.

The cool morning air filled the village, refreshing my drowsy mind. Yet, I couldn’t sense a single person anywhere.

With my arms crossed, I folded my arms and thought for a moment before I realized, “Oh.”

Having run all night, I hadn’t fully registered it, but it was still early morning for villagers, and hardly anyone had begun their day yet.

Perhaps that was why there were no figures outside beginning their daily chores.

Having concluded that, I decided to investigate where the smoke was rising from.

They say smoke doesn’t rise without fire, and wherever there’s smoke, someone must be there. If I head over there, I might encounter someone.

But that plan fell through as well; I didn’t cross paths with anyone.

When I arrived at the edge of the smoking village, no one was there.

Only the weak remnants of a fire were producing some smoke, while looking around revealed no sign of the perpetrator.

This time, a definite unease enveloped me, one that was far from vague.

My breath began to quicken for reasons other than fatigue, and my heart raced once more. Egged on by these reactions, I couldn’t help but violently pound on the nearby house door.

No response. Driven by a bad feeling, I forcefully pushed open the unlocked door and barged inside. It was empty as well. No one was there.

“Maybe the whole family is working in the fields,” I muttered a pointless joke, plastering a dry smile on my face as I stepped back outside, heading next door without stopping. This time, skipping the knocking, I invaded their home. No scream rang out; I hadn’t been scolded by any residents. It was empty too.

I was starting to lose my grip on the situation.

That ominous chill felt eerily similar to what I experienced with the Black Robes in the forest, and I lost myself, desperately searching for any trace of a person.

No matter how much I ran, no matter how hoarse I called out, no matter how thoroughly I searched all the spots where a child might be hiding for fun, I didn’t find a single soul.

Silence fell here too, leaving me behind in a world devoid of life.

Sinking down onto the ground, my exhausted body rested heavily, and I let out a long, deep breath.

No matter how many times I encountered a situation where I couldn’t comprehend the meaning of it all, I never got used to it. Of course, understanding the meaning only to find it unreasonable held the same weight.

My current reality was such that even words like “surrounded by enemies” or “difficult circumstances” couldn’t adequately express it.

Suddenly, a sharp pain echoed through my skull, and I reflexively pressed my hand to my forehead. Yet, as soon as I did, an uncomfortable sensation spread across my skin.

Looking down, I noticed that my right hand, which had been resting on the ground, was caked with the wet dirt from the floor, and it seemed I had inadvertently smeared it across my face.

The feeling of reddish-brown mud running down my nose was beyond unpleasant, and I used my clean left arm to wipe it away while glaring at the ground that had caused the mess.

I’d sensed it while running, but the ground was terribly slippery this morning. The entrance to the village and the area where smoke was rising had been particularly bad, and I’d nearly tripped at least a few times while searching for villagers.

I chose a spot in the ground that seemed firm enough to sit down on, but judging by my right hand’s condition, I suspected the damage to my backside could be significant. As I became aware of it, I felt a slight dampness in my lower abdomen, and another deep sigh escaped me.

I thought to myself that my head was starting to feel all muddled.

And rightly so. More than a day had passed without proper sleep during this arduous journey. The bland, almost tasteless emergency rations Otto had shared with me were hardly sufficient for a meal. To add to that, as long as I was conscious, my brain had been frantically worrying about Emilia, making it hard to even rest. If I wasn’t fatigued in this state, I’d probably be a high-performance artificial AI, not a human.

A pointless joke bubbled up, and once again, I wore a dry smile.

I brushed off the mud on my backside and pushed my right hand against the wall to clean it before turning to search the village once more. This was my last desperate attempt.

Having called out so fervently, having run around so wildly, still, no one has shown themselves. Surely, there was no one left in the village anymore. I couldn’t grasp where they had gone or the reason for it, but I could only accept that and cut my losses.

After circling the village, I finally returned to the edge where the smoke was still billowing. There, it felt oddly like time was still flowing for that singular, swaying spot, softly comforting my feeling of being left behind, even in the midst of time.

Upon arriving at my destination, I noted that the smoldering white smoke had all but extinguished.

The feeble tendrils of smoke swayed unsteadily in the gentle breeze, and watching this melancholic scene, I surveyed the surroundings with low expectations.

But, as expected, I still saw no one.

With yet another sigh, one whose number I could not even count anymore, I kicked the ground out of frustration. My toes sank into the wet ground, and the scattered mud sealed the fate of the fading white smoke.

The faint death rattle of the extinguishing flame tickled my eardrums, and the smoke vanished into the sky as it delivered its final farewell. With the last of the white smoke swept away by the wind, nothing remained.

Watching the dissipating smoke, I slowly lowered my gaze.

Once the smoke disappeared, that area became another space frozen in time, shrouded away from the world. There was nothing left to pull my consciousness there.

Only the potted remains of the Murawasa that had produced the white smoke lay scattered.

Scratching my head, I shifted my focus, only to see a quartered youth discarded against the wall as if left behind. Lying on his back, a cruel weapon was stabbed into his chest, and an immense pool of blood painted the earth red.

In the first house I had entered as well, I noticed a middle-aged couple crumpled together in a corner of the immediate room upon entry.

The next house, then the next, none of the figures I had been seeking appeared. Only the pitiful remains of lives stolen, their dignity trampled upon, lay scattered.

The heap of corpses was vast, and while witnessing this, Subaru continued his search for shadows. He only wished for someone to call his name, repeating that desire over and over.

But time after time through the village, his wish remained unfulfilled.

Here, in this place, there was nothing that Subaru sought. Accepting just that, while letting go of all other understanding, he abandoned any further action in the village and made his way along the path to the mansion.

Having taken unnecessary detours, I had strayed from my intentions. The results of not staying true to my original aim were disastrous. I had wasted precious time and hadn’t even reached the peace I should have already attained. Everything was pointless. It was all futile. What lay here was nothing but waste. Only waste, including myself.

Muttering these thoughts under my breath, I stumbled forward. Just then, as I neared the path leading out of the village, I suddenly stumbled—and fell.

Realizing too late that I had tripped over something, I found there was nothing around to catch my fall, and, unable to stop myself, I crashed down shoulder-first against the ground.

Pain shot through my skull, and I let out a groan from the back of my throat, instinctively staring down at the cause of my tumble, my eyes filled with tears.

At that moment—

—I locked eyes with Petra’s vacant, hollow gaze, a gaze that no longer reflected anything.

“Ohhhhhhh—!!”

※※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※

—I couldn’t escape.

Subaru’s voice, hoarse from crying, trembled as he cradled Petra’s lifeless body in his arms.

The warmth had long since vanished from Petra’s body, and her limbs had begun to stiffen. Even though an unconscious body is significantly heavier than a conscious one, that which I held was far too light, even accounting for her small stature.

Perhaps it was because of the horrifying amount of blood flowing from the gaping wound in her chest.

Petra’s eyes were wide open, her face frozen in shock, void of any remnant of pain, which meant her immediate death had spared her the agony.

There was no need for this child to endure the fear of dying from a gaping hole in her chest.

Her once adorable features had lost their color, and her chestnut locks were now matted with blood and mud, leaving her unrecognizable. I wished I could at least close her open eyes, but the hardening eyelids denied even that mercy.

I laid Petra’s body gently on the ground and covered her open eyes with my jacket, praying for a peaceful rest in her slumber.

Then, I hesitated to look up from the ground, finally confronting the horrifying reality that the familiar village had become a hellscape.

The wisps of smoke I saw billowing were the remains of the burned Murawasa.

The young man of the youth group must have fought bravely, sword in hand. The familiar sword now pierced through his torso, leaving a pool of blood that sunk him into the earth.

The couple laying on top of one another were husband and wife. The husband shielded his wife, and together, they had been run through by the same weapon, dying embraced.

There were bodies that had been butchered. There were others that had been burned alive. Torn-apart corpses. Crushed cadavers. Flattened remains. Only corpses filled the village.

Death lay scattered everywhere throughout the village.

The silent village, filled to the brim with lifeless bodies, had ended long before I even arrived.

Now, only I was left behind to witness the tragedy that occurred in this place — reaching out with both hands far too late, breathing heavily, with no one to grasp them.

What happened here?

Something must have happened; something tremendous transpired.

That something must have wreaked havoc mercilessly upon this village, violating the sanctity of all life, leaving the innocent villagers dead.

There is not a single living soul left. No one survived.

Exhaustively, every hiding place must have been thoroughly overturned, until even the bodies of those who may have been burned alive while hiding were discovered.

My mind was in disarray. Liquid gushed forth from every orifice on my face.

Tears, snot, and saliva continued to tarnish my face, which had lost all will to hold back.

I understood the fact that this had happened. Yet I couldn’t comprehend it.

What happened? I couldn’t fathom it one bit. But I knew one thing clearly.

This tragedy wasn’t going to end here, in this place alone.

When I reached that tardy realization, an unprecedented chill gripped my entire body.

It was the greatest terror I had ever faced since falling to this world, one that had come even after well over a few life-threatening moments I had overcome or even succumbed to before.

My teeth chattered.

Tears blurred my vision, the stinging pain in my eyes prickled, and my trembling perspective sought the sky.

Beneath that irritatingly blue sky, the mansion awaited me.

The place where I longed to return — the place I had desired for so long, now almost within reach — suddenly felt terrifying.

What happened here, I couldn’t understand.

It was undeniable that something had taken place.

And surely, whatever that was did not miss itself.

I was afraid. I was terrified.

I didn’t even want to think about the possibilities. If I let my mind wander there, much less say it aloud, it would surely turn into reality — that was terrifying.

So Subaru shook his head, trying to shake that thought away.

However, once that idea entangled itself through my mind, it slipped through his attempt to shake it off, whispering insistently at my ear like a stubborn ghost.

Thus, I gave up on dismissing it and turned to another strategy.

If I would speak of that possibility, if that would bring danger to her…

“Rem…? What happened to Rem…?”

That girl who should have arrived here ahead of me; I wove the words of worry for her safety, trying to deceive my heart in this desperate hour.

“If Rem had come back, there’s no way she wouldn’t have seen the village become like this…”

That was an excuse. Alone in this place, I issued an excuse my own self couldn’t convince.

“Was there something that happened…? Could it have been an unforeseen trouble…?”

That was so low. That was dreadful. I didn’t want to accept it, but I understood.

If I even brought up the possibility of losing my beloved girl, even if it would shatter my heart, I deceived myself, believing I could offer up another sacrifice instead.

I betrayed my trust.

“That’s right… Rem… Rem… Rem is…”

Stumbling forward, Subaru rose unsteadily.

Leaving behind Petra’s lifeless body, with heavy, dragging steps, he slowly headed towards the village exit—towards the direction of the mansion, moving at a snail’s pace.

Uncertain of what awaited him, not wanting to know, but somehow feeling he had to know, and still feeling too scared to take flight.

Dragging my own feet, I called out the name of the girl I clung to in need, slowly making my way up the slope toward the mansion.

※※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※

—Rem was dead in the garden.