The garden, which I had witnessed countless times, had transformed into a hell I had never seen before.

Brightly colored flowerbeds that once stood small had been blown away and charred, while the trees that lined the estate were broken in half and toppled.

Here and there, the gouged earth was the result of unimaginable mass explosions, and the devastation was not limited to soil alone but scattered numerous pieces of flesh.

The green grass was stained with dark blood, and the bodies in black robes lay face down in eternal darkness. Most of them were unrecognizable, with severed heads, crushed halves, and torn torsos, exceeding the gruesomeness of the village’s scene.

It served as evidence of how much rage the executor who turned those pitiful victims into corpses must have possessed.

The bloodied iron ball, the source of this tragedy, lay discarded in a corner of the garden, having been relinquished by its owner halfway through the battle, although it had smashed many enemies.

And there it was, the “demon” who seemed to be fighting with it—

“—Rem”

The corpse of Rem, pierced by countless blades and with her left arm severed, greeted Subaru.

The sheer number of corpses in this garden, besides hers, was telling.

She had fought. With malice aimed not only at the villagers but also toward the mansion. She battled fiercely, knocking down many foes, covered in wounds, stabbed with numerous blades, losing her weapons and the arms that wielded them, yet still resisting—until she died.

Her black-themed apron dress was torn and stained, darkened by the blood that gushed from everywhere.

Countless weapons pierced her body, resembling a grotesque cross, and there were enough to surpass her small frame, as if two hands were insufficient in number.

Moreover, beneath that horrific fact, the scars on Rem’s body were far more numerous than those weapons.

Again and again, again and again.

They stabbed her body with blades, withdrew them, tormenting the still-breathing Rem, playing with her life, defiling her dignity, ridiculing her existence, and embedding unhealing wounds on her.

What sin could she have possibly committed to deserve such treatment?

What were they thinking when they decided to kill her?

What did they know of Rem? She was earnest, diligent, caring, with an occasional impulsive flaw, spoiled Subaru gently, sometimes harshly; she was his ally in times of struggle, yet sometimes would leave Subaru behind. She was a loving sister who disliked herself, and just had begun to like herself a bit—

She had just started walking her own path after spending her life convinced that she was a substitute for someone else.

Rem lay still. Even when shaken, her cold, stiff body couldn’t be revived, and her once-soft blue hair, which I had caressed countless times, was now matted with blood. Face down, she lay on the ground, and Subaru couldn’t muster the courage to see her face.

Even if she wore a look of anguish until the very end or had decided to resist with a desperate face, or even had a peaceful appearance in death, he lacked the courage to accept it.

Because Rem had died because of Subaru.

Kneeling, Subaru shook her immobile body and looked up blankly. Suddenly, he noticed the oddity of the place where Rem had fallen.

The body of the girl who had fought desperately in this garden lay discarded at the edge, away from the flowerbeds, in a space rarely entered by others.

It didn’t seem strange to think so. Perhaps she had been flanked by enemies during the fight or had been chased here and met her end in this spot.

But Subaru thought the situation was suspicious.

And as his mind reeled, he finally grasped the peculiar point.

The way Rem lay, arms outstretched—her left arm missing from her shoulder, she fell forward with her right arm extended, as if she had been fighting against something behind her when she collapsed.

In the direction he looked up at, the black wooden shed was filled with gardening tools and flower seeds.

This shed, which also served to temporarily store unused furnishings, was more like a small shed than a warehouse.

Standing up, he crawled toward the entrance of that shed, feeling the familiar sensation he’d experienced many times before. It clung to his skin like a sticky mist, drained the moisture from his mouth, and dulled his thoughts with a dense, gloomy—scent of death.

Reaching the entrance, keenly sensing that stench, Subaru lowered his gaze. Under his feet, a torrent of blood gushed from the bottom of the closed door, staining the young grass.

He gasped, swallowed hard, fought back the rising nausea, and reached for the door. His hand trembled, not from caution, but from fear.

No presence of people inside. There was no need for such concern, nor did he have the mental space to think about it.

His fingertips skimmed the doorknob, repeatedly refusing to grip it. Frustrated, tears welled up at his helplessness as his body disobeyed him. Yet as he kept trying, his pinky finally landed on the handle, and with a creaking sound, the door swung open.

In that moment, an overwhelming blood stench filled the air, overwhelming his nostrils.

He instinctively covered his nose and mouth, stifling the urge to vomit as he peeked inside, abandoning even the effort to imagine the scenery within, simply burning the raw reality into his eyes.

—Inside the shed were the village Children.

Realizing that, Subaru swallowed the rising gastric juices and staggered out of the shed.

He fell forward onto the grass, emptied his stomach violently. He could only spew forth his stomach’s contents, which were now empty, yielding only yellowed gastric juice. Still, he continued to retch. The pain in his insides, the burning in his throat, the acidic taste ravaging his mouth—despite all that, Subaru just couldn’t stop throwing up.

Inside there, within that shed, he couldn’t allow himself to vomit.

No one has the right to stain those children more than this.

“Rem, is…?”

She had fought to protect the Children and then died.

The child’s body Subaru found in the village was no one other than that of a girl named Petra. He didn’t search for the corpses of all the villagers, so the possibility that there were survivors had entirely escaped his consideration.

The adults fought in the village, while only the children were sent fleeing to the lord’s mansion. And at their destination, despair struck once again, resulting in an unchanged outcome.

Brutally, mercilessly, savagely, lives had been completely snuffed out.

“Ah!”

Suddenly, an overturned sound slipped from Subaru’s throat.

There was no specific reason. He simply became terribly afraid.

Having returned to the village, to the mansion, seeking someone who knew him, there was not a single living soul remaining. Only the voiceless dead berated Subaru’s return.

He felt as if they were judging him. The lifeless eyes reflected nothing.

He felt as if they were criticizing him. The blood-dripping lips were gaping.

He felt he was detested, tied to the memories of laughing and playing with them.

“That’s not true… That’s not true, that’s not true, that’s not true…”

—Why had he survived?

—Why did they have to die?

“That’s not true… I… I didn’t wish for this…”

He had ideals. He had hopes that were mere delusions.

When he heard that Emilia was in danger, Subaru thought he had received divine inspiration. He believed that he was given a chance for her to reconsider him after she had turned her back on him.

As it had been every other time, Subaru would save Emilia, be thanked by her, bridge the trivial gaps, and walk together hand in hand.

The crises that arose, the dangers, the tragedies were but mere stepping stones for that.

No matter what happened, he took for granted that he could fix things.

If this multitude of deaths was the price for that…

“It’s not my fault… I… I…”

Shaking his head, standing up, Subaru turned away from the shed, from Rem’s body, and began to run toward the mansion.

“Someone… someone, someone someone someone someone someone someone someone someone…!!”

He dashed past, circumventing the front of the mansion, attempting to burst open the entrance door. But the door stuck like it considered Subaru an outsider and remained stubbornly closed, not budging even when he slammed into it or kicked it violently.

Frustrated, he kicked the door once more before heading back toward the garden. He stepped over the corpse in black robes, leaping over it and heading toward his target.

Lifting what was heavy enough to strain his arm, he dragged it toward the terrace on the mansion’s garden side. Taking a deep breath, he tensed all his muscles.

“—Ah!”

With the centrifugal force of the swinging iron ball, the glass shattered into a thousand pieces, scattering widely across the interior.

Hastily squeezing through the forcibly created path, Subaru slipped into the mansion. The fragments of the half-shattered window grazed his skin, leaving multiple lacerations on his arms and legs, but that sharp pain felt insignificant to Subaru at the moment.

“Someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone, someone…”

Clinging desperately, as if possessed, Subaru continued to seek the existence of others.

It was like when he had rushed into the village, but now it had transformed into something different.

In other words,

“It’s not my fault… it’s not my fault… it’s not my fault…”

He wanted someone living to affirm that for him.

The mere fact that someone else was alive might serve as that affirmation.

So Subaru sought living beings. He craved that. He needed to find someone.

Otherwise, he could not affirm himself.

If he fell into the assumption that this disaster had arisen due to his thoughtless actions, his mind would never maintain equilibrium.

To avoid crumbling inside, to avoid taking responsibility for the deaths of this overwhelming number of victims, he needed to defend himself with a plausible justification.

Stumbling, shaking, Subaru dashed through the mansion.

Unlike the garden, the interior seemed untouched, without signs of being ransacked or broken. The familiar scene of the mansion unfolded, yet against the backdrop of death in the outside world, this unchanged place felt unnervingly ominous.

He placed his hand on the nearest room’s door, roughly flung it open, checked inside, clicked his tongue, and forcibly closed it. Given the sheer number of rooms, there were far too few people to utilize them.

Among the mansion’s staff, Subaru had yet to confirm the presence of four people—he would continue to swing open and shut doors until he found one of them.

“Damn it… damn it! Why… why is it… no one… if it were any other time…”

Grumbling in a choked voice, Subaru raked his fingers through his hair violently.

Normally, Subaru would effortlessly reach the library managed by Beatrice, but now, to his utter frustration, he couldn’t find it at all.

He longed immensely for that loathed snark.

He could even endure being treated like a pest and having contemptible breaths exhaled towards him. If only she would live and affirm Subaru’s existence.

“Come out… come out… please, please… help me… help me…!!”

No longer able to contain the tears streaming freely down his face, Subaru dashed throughout the mansion. What escaped his lips were only sobs and pitiful murmurs imploring for someone to rescue him from this despair.

He passed by the guest room where he first awoke, trampled the carpet that Beatrice’s magic turned into an infinite loop, crawled through the dining hall he had crossed many times, turned his back on the kitchen where he had struggled to make mayonnaise, and left the large bath shared by the staff, rushing up to the floor where the servants’ rooms clustered, flipping through every nearest room to peek inside—

In the seventh room, he found Ram’s corpse.

It was immediately clear to Subaru, having witnessed so many deaths in such a short time, that Ram was not merely sleeping on the bed.

Her translucent white skin had lost all color, pale as death, while her lips stood out in red more than usual. In stark contrast to her sister’s gruesome death, Ram lay there as if dressed for her funeral.

Had she remained silent, even her appearance might have been charming as a lovely maid.

Carefully arranged, she had not just peacefully passed away on that bed. Someone had carried her onto the bed, arranging her visage for the final goodbye.

Most likely, it was Rem. Faced with her sister’s death, what had she thought? How many tears had she shed while doing her sister’s makeup, and with what feelings had she left her sister behind?

Now that Rem had been so brutally murdered, knowing that sentiment would be forever elusive.

Touching Ram’s cold lips, the red makeup smudging onto his fingers, Subaru rubbed his fingers together until that color clung to his fingertips, sliding down to the room’s corner without even realizing it.

He looked up blankly. There lay a dead body that could easily convince him she was just sleeping, if someone were to say so.

The sight of her silently welcoming Subaru’s return condemned him.

Just like the countless hollow eyes he had seen in the village.

The lips that would never tremble again cast soundless curses upon him.

“Ah!”

Crawling, Subaru fled from the bed where Ram lay, forcing himself to his feet. He steadied his shaking arms, his disobedient knees, and stumbled away as quickly as possible, distancing himself from that room.

“Stop… it’s not… me… I haven’t… done anything…!”

Covering his ears, shaking his head, and weaving words of self-defense through his hoarse throat, Subaru sought to escape the murmured voice of despair that echoed near his ears. Yet, the voices, the despair, taunted him, doggedly following him no matter how far he ran.

Dragging his legs, he sprinted down the hallway. He entered the landing with stairs. He placed his hands down and crawled up the stairs. During the climb, he stumbled repeatedly, fell many times, blood dripping from his abused lips, but he finally reached the upstairs hallway.

Only the dead awaited him. Ram had died, and only three survivors remained. His feet instinctively avoided Emilia’s room on the same floor. The second floor, where Ram had died, was designated as her personal room. Flickering images of Ram’s corpse in her private quarters flashed in his mind, and the tears he thought had run dry surged up once more. Having poured everything from his body, he thought he was drained; yet, an unending sorrow throbbed in his chest, urging Subaru to keep running.

Without that impulse, he could have simply sat down, hugged his head, seen nothing, heard nothing, known nothing, desired nothing, given nothing, lost nothing, loved nothing, been loved by no one, started nothing, ended nothing, changed nothing, and remained stagnant.

Sobbing and letting tears stream down his crumpled face, swaying slightly, Subaru finally arrived at the door to Roswaal’s office on the top floor. The heavy double door remained silent, its sturdy frame appearing as if it could repel the malice that had approached the mansion.

But such hope vanished swiftly.

In this place where everything had come to an end, there could be no safe places, none that should be allowed to exist.

He pushed the door open, and a chill wind swept out into the hallway.

The coldness pierced his arms, reminding Subaru that he was woefully unprotected against it. He wondered where his jacket had gone, recalling how he had given it to Petra in the village, feeling frustrated by his useless thoughts.

He stepped inside. There was a part of him that, half-resigned, expected to find Roswaal slumped over his desk in death.

With Rem dead and Ram’s life extinguished, it was difficult to keep hope for others alive. Now, as he scoured the mansion in search of living beings, he barely knew if he was chasing hope or trampling memories with despair.

However, the world that had betrayed Subaru three times in the village, in the garden, and in the private room did not confront him with a fourth betrayal.

The office was empty.

Scanning the deserted room, Subaru crawled under the desk and behind the furniture, even beneath the reception table, searching frantically but finding no traces.

A modicum of relief washed over Subaru.

It was relief at not having to verify Roswaal’s life or death—and selfishly, it was due to not being further tormented by the dead.

“—?”

Suddenly, the sound of wind rustling a window caught Subaru’s attention.

Turning around, he saw that the moment he opened the door connecting to the hallway, a piercingly cold breeze rushed out, knocking against the windows and shaking the leaves of a houseplant set in the corner.

A current of air was born.

That air, having found a path through the door, swirled around the inside and blew out again. While feeling this fact against his skin, Subaru began to search for the source of the wind, relying on the sensation and his instincts—

“Such a mechanism…”

As he fiddled with the hidden mechanism beneath the ebony desk, a sound like interlocking gears rang out. Then a low grinding noise arose, and the bookshelf installed against the back wall of the office slid nearly a meter to the side.

Subaru stood aghast before the unexpected mechanism, as a dark, gaping hole appeared behind the moved bookshelf.

Cautiously approaching it, he peered inside, revealing a stone passageway that extended a few steps, with a spiral staircase leading downward.

“A hidden passage…?”

It must be a precaution for emergencies.

Given Roswaal’s status as a border noble and his role as a lord, surely, he had to prepare an escape route for self-defense. Whether he would ever use it was another question, but it was easy to guess he would find joy in preparing such means.

He never expected there would come a day when he would actually need to use that passage.

The chilly air flowing through the room seemed to emerge from that hollow. In other words, that tunnel led somewhere deep and cold, where the wind originated.

He felt a lump in his throat, and after several deep breaths, he waited for his racing heart to calm ever so slightly before diving into the opening.

The cool wall he touched was made of an unknown material, emanating a faint, pale blue glow, illuminating a few meters ahead of him.

Guided by that light, Subaru placed his hand along the wall, cautiously descending the spiral stone steps to the lower levels, ensuring he wouldn’t trip.

How far did it extend? Where was he heading? Anxiety gripped him as he stepped into the unknown. Yet even stronger than those negative feelings was the burning rage at the existence of this hidden passage.

The wind blowing meant there was an exit.

In other words, someone had used this hole to attempt an escape. Among the three survivors he hadn’t seen in the mansion, remembering whose office they were from, it was pointless to consider who had fled, abandoning the mansion’s plight.

They left it be, forsaking such a tragedy, watching a girl who cared for them perish, and fled. How despicable, how cowardly to have chosen preservation over duty.

Unbeknownst to him, his teeth rattled with rage and an almost ecstatic thrill.

The fury directed at the one who had turned to despicable, contemptible, traitorous evil.

The joy of finding someone upon whom he could offload all those resentments and curses, all that scorn and all the invectives aimed at the voiceless dead.

With a chaotic grin, mingling tumultuous emotions, tears streaming endlessly down his face, blood dripping from his bitten lip, the madman pressed onward down the stairs.

How many steps had he descended? It must have been considerable, and in height, not merely three floors down to the ground. The passage led down to what appeared to be the mansion’s basement, and at the end of the staircase, a straight passage lay ahead.

The wall material continued to emit a blue glow, and as he placed his palms against it, feeling the coldness draw warmth from his fingertips, Subaru wore a tense smile as he pressed onward.

He was chasing after the remnants of life. In that singular moment, he felt joy.

The knowledge that whoever was ahead would be a wretched, detestable figure deserving of his scorn delighted him.

Within a world filled only with the dead, he hoped to find the living, to confirm whether he, too, was alive or if he had already perished—this was the profound happiness he craved.

“Mmm, oh…”

As he brushed against the wall, he suddenly lost contact with it, his body instinctively flowing forward into a broader space. It opened into a small chamber, distinct from the passage he had traversed.

A dimly lit room filled with unevenly spaced pillars stood there. Feeling the odd nature of the pillars, Subaru reminded himself that if this secret passage had been hastily constructed, perhaps its shoddy design was understandable.

Nodding to himself, he squeezed past the bothersome pillars. Here, his limbs felt so sluggish and heavy. It was as if lead had filled his fingertips, and even the already hazy thoughts began to dull.

Even taking a single step forward became a struggle. His mouth was parched to the point of pain, and the blood that had dripped from his lips had stopped long ago.

His eyelids felt heavy, and pressure weighed down on both of his shoulders, yet still, sheer willpower, resentment, and madness pushed Subaru onward.

Dodging the scattered pillars in the hall, Subaru found an iron door at the end of the small chamber bathed in blue light. After the passage, stairs, passage, and little room, this door was there—maybe what he sought lay beyond.

—What exactly was he seeking?

Before his stagnant thoughts could come up with an answer, his lifeless fingers reached for the door faster. Standing before the door, Subaru gasped, opening and closing his mouth while feeling nothing concrete in his thoughts. He gripped the doorknob driven solely by a sense of obligation.

—In that moment, an intense pain shot through his right hand as it touched the doorknob.

“—Aaaaguh!”

The agonizing scream erupted from Subaru’s throat, and he swung his right hand away as if trying to tear it free. The burning pain radiated all over his palm that had touched the doorknob, and as he groaned in pain, he glanced down at the pitiful condition of his injured right hand.

—His right hand was missing its index finger.

“—Huh?”

Dumbfounded and in shock, Subaru examined his outstretched right hand.

That hand, now pale and bloodless, revealed a palm with skin shredded—only the index finger among those extended was completely gone.

Slowly, he shifted his gaze back to the door. The doorknob he had grasped still bore what had once been Subaru’s right index finger.

—It needs to be reattached quickly.

With that scattered thought barely forming, Subaru reached toward the doorknob to retrieve the severed digit. But this time, moving proved even more challenging. The signals from his shoulders to his elbow, and from his elbow to his fingertips, seemed disconnected. His immobile arm felt frustratingly uncooperative, and as he tried to close the distance to the door, his right ankle shattered from its base, sending him collapsing to the ground.

“—Aaaah!”

A soundless wail escaped his throat.

Was it a scream borne of pain or just a mindless torrent of life force—he couldn’t say. But even in the chaos, he understood one thing.

The moment he opened his mouth to exhale, a white substance filled his body, rendering him motionless.

His lungs seized up, breathing became erratic. He gasped in shallow, frantic breaths, desperately trying to fill his lungs with air while his mind raced to comprehend the unusual situation.

What had happened? Everything felt incredibly vague.

His right ankle shattered, a pain and sense of loss he had never experienced before surged through him. And as he collapsed, the right side of his body fell prone, and just like his shattered ankle, he became aware that each part of his right half had vanished, deteriorating.

From the lips that would never tremble again, he barely managed to expel breath—a breath that was visibly white.

As his face pressed against the ground, he knew if he moved his neck, his cheek would peel off. He felt no pain anymore. Ripping movements led the outside of his cheek and right eye to come off entirely. He didn’t care anymore. Now that he faced upward, he could see the small room upside down, which he had just passed through.

From that position below, he recognized why the pillars that peppered that small room were arrayed so chaotically. It wasn’t due to any shoddy construction.

The pillars in that chamber were all ice columns encasing frozen human corpses.

They were victims who had stumbled into this white end just as Subaru had, and in doing so, they had become frozen statues. And soon, that ultimate fate would come to Subaru as well.

His breathing had ceased.

Limited oxygen coursed through his brain, yet it was puzzling how the brain held onto consciousness, dulled by an overwhelming lethargy. In this frigid realm, his existence hovered on the brink of obliteration.

He understood nothing.

He saw nothing.

From his toes upward, his body gradually transformed into icy fragments, no longer Natsuki Subaru.

If one were to say it that way, perhaps what remained here was not Natsuki Subaru, but merely a lunatic clad in his skin.

The sensation in his lower half had disappeared. His arms could no longer be found. Now, his right eye had fallen out. It was strange that his remaining left eye still could see. Where did life reside, in the brain or the heart?

The answer would not emerge within this frozen world—

“—It’s too late now.”

A whisper devoid of warmth resonated in the world ruled by white.

—Natsuki Subaru shattered into countless pieces and vanished from the world as fragments.