The moment the fist collided with the face, a dull yet clear thud resounded.
The force behind Natsuki Subaru's punch was far greater than imagined, directly causing the tall Roswaal to lose his balance.
His body, like a puppet with its strings cut, stumbled and flew backward, tracing a short arc through the air before crashing heavily into the snow over ten meters away.
The packed snow scattered from the impact, leaving a shallow crater in the ground. Roswaal's cloak was covered in flecks of snow, making him look particularly pathetic.
Natsuki Subaru slowly withdrew his fist. Staring at Roswaal, who had yet to get up from the snow, he spoke word by word, his voice filled with long-suppressed rage:
"I really did have to beat the hell out of you first! You bastard!"
He had long known that Roswaal would use magic to cause the heavy snowfall in the Sanctuary, summon the all-consuming Great Rabbit, and even hire the Bowel Hunter, Elsa, to carry out bloody attacks from the Royal Capital to Arlam Village and the mansion...
With the true mastermind behind it all being this guy, Roswaal, Natsuki Subaru's patience had long since run out.
He did not want to, and absolutely would not, continue to be played like a pawn in the palm of another's hand.
Now that the main external crises were resolved, it was time to settle this personal score. He naturally had no interest in playing along with any of Roswaal's deceitful charades.
"Subaru?! What are you doing!?"
"How rude! To dare strike Lord Roswaal...!"
Natsuki Subaru's sudden act of violence left Emilia, Ram, and even Beatrice, who had just come out, completely stunned.
A deathly silence filled the air until Roswaal let out a groan from the snow. It was as if they were jolted awake, their faces etched with utter disbelief.
Natsuki Subaru had actually attacked Roswaal without any warning!
"Why did this happen?"
The girls present were all in a state of utter confusion.
"Cough, cough... How very... interesting—"
Roswaal slowly pushed himself up from the cold snowdrift. Wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with his fingertips, he showed no anger. Instead, he let out a low laugh, a sound that seemed particularly eerie in the open plaza.
Natsuki Subaru ignored the girls' shock. His gaze, like an icicle, pierced through Roswaal as he tore away all pretense and got straight to the point:
"The one who brought this endless snow to the Sanctuary and lured the calamitous Magic Beast known as the Great Rabbit... that was you, wasn't it, Roswaal?"
"Lured the Great Rabbit? Subaru, what kind of nonsense are you spouting?" Ram snapped back to her senses, her expression first showing bewilderment, then shifting to intense disbelief and a flicker of anger in defense of her master.
"How could Lord Roswaal possibly be involved in this!"
"Subaru, are you saying... that Roswaal was the one who orchestrated all of these disasters?"
Emilia gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. Her violet eyes trembled violently with shock, and her voice quivered uncontrollably.
The accusation was too horrifying to comprehend.
Compared to the others' shock and disbelief, Beatrice's reaction was far calmer, even tinged with a sense of knowing, as if it was just as she'd expected.
From the moment she learned that Roswaal had hired the Bowel Hunter, Elsa, to attack the mansion to fulfill her own wish for death, to the sudden crisis of the Great Rabbit's appearance in the Sanctuary, she had more or less guessed who was behind it all.
More importantly, causing a snowfall of that magnitude in the Sanctuary would require immense magical power.
In this day and age, there were very few mages with such ability.
Connecting all these clues, the answer pointed to could not have been clearer.
It was Roswaal who had used magic to cause the heavy snow and then deliberately summoned the Great Rabbit, plunging the Sanctuary into this crisis.
Faced with Natsuki Subaru's direct and damning question, Roswaal fell into an uncharacteristic silence. The unsettling smile that seemed welded to his lips finally vanished completely.
The mask of the exaggerated clown, which always covered his face, seemed to crack at that moment, revealing a glimpse of the cold, true edges beneath.
Although Roswaal had not admitted to anything, his silent and solemn demeanor was enough to say it all.
No one present was a fool. Ram, too, dropped her questioning tone, her gaze turning toward Roswaal with complex emotions.
"How could you... Roswaal?"
Emilia bit her lip, her face filled with disappointment.
She never could have imagined that Roswaal, who had been helping them resolve the crises, was actually the one who had started them.
"Train my resolve?" Natsuki Subaru's voice turned icy. "By forcing me into a desperate situation where saving one side means sacrificing the other? Is that what you call training?"
"Precisely..." Roswaal looked up and admitted it frankly, without a hint of concealment.
"Even with that unique Authority of yours, when the people and things most important to you are in peril in two different places at once, the physical boundaries cannot be overcome.
You cannot save both sides simultaneously.
Therefore, you must choose. You must recognize which side is your one and only priority. First, you lose one completely, then you watch as you lose the others...
The intense pain created by this process will accelerate your growth. Before long, you will be fully forged.
Into a perfect hero, single-minded and focused only on saving a single objective."
In the loops of the original story, Frederica, Rem, and even Beatrice... they had all been sacrificed like discarded pawns to Roswaal's twisted and cruel plan.
To hasten Natsuki Subaru's transformation, to achieve Roswaal's paranoid ultimate goal, these people who trusted him were all mercilessly betrayed and sacrificed.
Thinking of this, Natsuki Subaru took a deep breath, looked Roswaal straight in the eye, and said word by word:
"Roswaal, there's something seriously wrong with your head. You're an incomprehensible madman."
"Perhaps so—my mind snapped a very long time ago." Roswaal blinked his mismatched eyes, his tone terrifyingly calm. He stared at Natsuki Subaru with an inquisitive gaze,
"Ever since I was utterly captivated by those eyes four hundred years ago, I have been abnormal. But…
I could, of course, easily deny it all here and now, but I doubt you would be so easily put off, would you?
Since you've come to me with such conviction, you must have already gathered considerable evidence. It would be rude of me not to show some respect for that—"
Roswaal wasn't flustered; instead, he calmly admitted the truth.
"Respect? Respect my ass!" Natsuki Subaru took a step forward, his voice suddenly rising, his eyes burning with a fiery glint.
"What do you take human lives for? When the Great Rabbit appeared, how many people in the Sanctuary were nearly devoured? Over there, if Frederica and Rem hadn't held out until I returned, they would have been ghosts cut down by Elsa's blades. And you dare speak of respect?"
"Natsuki Subaru, you should understand that to achieve great things, sacrifices are unavoidable—" Roswaal looked at Natsuki Subaru, his mismatched eyes as still as water, his tone as placid as ever.
"What happened to those people was merely the necessary price to pay for a higher goal. If not for that—how could you have grown so quickly?"
"A necessary price?" Hearing this, Natsuki Subaru couldn't help but scoff, a mixture of irrepressible mockery and fury erupting in his voice.
"Casually dismissing living human beings as a 'price'—do you even have a heart? Perhaps I should also show my respect for your resolve to treat human lives like dirt, you bastard!"
It had to be understood that the man before him was the true mastermind who had brought the endless snow to the Sanctuary, lured the calamitous Great Rabbit, and cold-bloodedly dispatched the Bowel Hunter, Elsa, to attack the royal candidate.
Although Natsuki Subaru had already seen through it all and personally thwarted Roswaal's schemes.
But now, hearing Roswaal speak in such a nonchalant tone about the lives of his companions who had nearly been lost, the rage in his heart surged uncontrollably.
"However, in terms of the outcome, wasn't it better than I could have ever imagined—I truly wasn't mistaken about you, Natsuki Subaru."
The corner of Roswaal's mouth stretched wide to one side, forming a twisted smile that mixed admiration with madness. His painted face bloomed with a joy that was almost pure, yet utterly chilling.
"Time and time again, you have continued to create miracles, completely overturning all of my predictions. It was done—perfectly.
Not only did you neutralize the calamity of the Great Rabbit, but you also completely eliminated the fatal crisis on Rem's side. This is truly a flawless, perfect—outcome, far exceeding my expectations."
It is worth mentioning that Roswaal had spent countless hours of effort and intellect deducing the possible moves of every piece on the chessboard of fate, firmly believing that no matter the arrangement, he could ultimately force Natsuki Subaru into the desperate situation of Return by Death.
This was supposed to be an indispensable core gear in his entire plan.
However, the future had gone completely off the rails.
Natsuki Subaru formed a contract with Beatrice, and together they created a miracle, resolving a crisis not even recorded in the Book of Wisdom.
"What a disgusting face you're making."
Natsuki Subaru curled his lip, making no effort to hide his disgust for Roswaal.
"For Subaru-kun to hate me—is a perfectly normal thing—"
"But to achieve my one and only ultimate wish, I always strive for perfection. All the plotting, cruelty, exploitation, assistance, and even support exists for that purpose.
My actions have never—and will never—deviate from that."
Roswaal spoke with righteousness, even proudly puffing out his chest, completely affirming all of his unscrupulous actions.
"To speak of selfishness and treating human life like dirt with such grandiosity... this is the first time I've seen anything like it..." Natsuki Subaru let out a disdainful chuckle, looking at Roswaal with contempt.
"You are disgusting to the core, Roswaal."
"That my words and actions disgust you so—I apologize." Roswaal gave a slight nod, but his mismatched eyes showed not a shred of remorse, instead swirling with an almost fanatical obsession.
"However, Natsuki Subaru, you are my hope. In this world, the only people I can call my hope are you and Ram. —I believe in you from the bottom of my heart."
To him, without the key piece that was Natsuki Subaru, it would be absolutely impossible for Emilia to win the Royal Selection.
Life, the Royal Selection, wishes, contracts... all values were tangled and intertwined on the scales of his paranoia, all for the sake of achieving that one goal.
Reality had now completely deviated from the records in the Book of Wisdom. The world was irreversibly sliding toward a new, unknown future.
Roswaal possessed both extraordinary intellect and astonishing audacity.
In fact, in the original tracks of fate, ninety percent of the darkest, most tragic loops Natsuki Subaru experienced were cruel chess games meticulously constructed behind the scenes by this Margrave.
"I can't understand this utterly twisted way of thinking of yours."
Natsuki Subaru said, looking at Roswaal.
"Because you possess the most vibrant life." Roswaal looked directly at Natsuki Subaru, as if stating a supreme truth.
"As long as a life struggles, the future extends. And with the possibility of a future, there is a ray of hope—no matter what form that hope takes."
"So, everything you've done has been in blind obedience to the instructions in that Book of Wisdom, right?"
Natsuki Subaru said bluntly. He had long known of the Book of Wisdom's existence and Roswaal's obsession with it.
Roswaal calmly took the black-covered Book of Wisdom from his robes, his fingertips gently stroking the cover.
"You are correct—I hired the Bowel Hunter to attack the mansion precisely to temper your resolve."
He blinked his mismatched eyes, then looked at Natsuki Subaru with genuine curiosity and confusion.
"Why haven't you gone mad yet? What crucial piece of the puzzle is missing? You and I are fundamentally the same. No, you should have endured more than me; you should be the one to have fallen into madness.
You were supposed to be in a desperate situation where you couldn't survive, couldn't fight back, without completely twisting your mind. You were supposed to walk alone on ten thousand paths to cast off all weakness.
The human heart, emotions, bonds... these fragile and false things are nothing but shackles and chains that hinder your final transformation, stumbling blocks that must be severed—"
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