It happened almost two months later that Subaru learned more about Satella.
"In the Royal Selection! A silver-haired half-elf! Backed by Margrave Roswaal L. Mathers! Not Satella, Emilia—!"
Swooping at the sudden rush of detailed information after a period of radio silence, Subaru claps hishands, looking overjoyed.
This unexpected procurement of information resulted from an official announcement from the Royal Palace, giving news not only in the Capital but all through the country about the competition
for the throne.
When Subaru first saw the bulletins posted around town about it, he mocked them as just being some stupid country election—when his eyes shot open.
The candidates consisted of five women—and one of them was the girl he was seeking.
"Royal Selection, the Royal Selection... if she's a candidate for ruler it means she has pedigree. Ofcourse she does, think of how graceful she is when she's just walking around. Emilia, she's Emiliaaa..."
Learning her real name makes Subaru's heart feel light, as if it's sprouted wings.
He'd figured out ages ago that Satella was an alias. And also figured out why she—Emilia—had introduced herself to Subaru with a fake name.
After all, if a silver-haired half-elf introduced themselves as Satella—
"People'd think she's involved with us guys and stay away from her. It was a desperate measure to keep me from danger. Her face's so adorable, her thoughts are so adorable."
While speaking sadly about being a half-elf, and looking scared of being rejected, she showed consideration for others and utilized her lineage in an attempt to distance them from harm.
What a noble, piteous girl. So emotional it's squeezing his chest. When,
"—Natsuki Subaru! Beloved of disciples! Are YOU PRESENT!?"
"—"
A shrill voice like a strangled fowl echoes unpleasantly through the room, calling Subaru's name.
Subaru grimaces, puts the bulletin he pinched from the Capital on his bed, reluctantly opens the door, and exits his room.
He leans against the closed door, waiting, when an unhealthily pallid man comes into view down the poorly-lit hallway.
"I had been SEEKING YOU! Why, why, why is it that you were here, INDULGING IN SLOTH!? When! We! Must! Follow the Witch's auspices, and answer to her love with diligenceeeeeeeeeeeee!!"
"Cut it out with the false accusations, Bete-san. I'm just obeying the gospel's instructions. Gospel's telling me to spend my time here."
"What! The gospel so instructed you!? At this juncture, at this opportunity, in these circumstances, what cogitations must the Witch have, to instruct a disciple as devout as you to idle, even that slightest conjecture lies beyond! MY! FACULTIES!"
Not only is his screaming noisy, his movements are obnoxious too.
Indeed a madman, this Betelgeux Romanée-Conti. It truly does take an effort not to sigh.
He's an unlikable lunatic, but definitely a conductive character for Subaru.
After all, everyone in the group of Subaru's affiliation is a selfish portrait of egotism, and it's questionable whether the normal disciples have any sense of self-consciousness.
Subaru's arbitrary speculation is that the normal disciples' dull emotions might be due to something operating on their consciousness, so their affiliations won't leak while they're doing everyday
things.
But who cares about supposition. The important thing is what Betelgeux, in a position of authority very different from the normal disciples, is trying to achieve with this visit.
Subaru has been part of this group for two months now, and life's been generally alright.
Though, while the living's alright, movement- and mental health-wise it's a nightmare.
Having frequent interactions with madmen and religious crazies is, being that Subaru's humanity cannot depart the realm of the commonplace, entirely agony.
His dwelling is a cave hidden in the mountains.
It's a surprisingly liveable spot, and hospitable enough that Subaru can fashion a section as being 'his room', but stuff like how it's far from civilization, and has hard floors and cold walls is something that generation Z Subaru has to endure.
But that said, he isn't a good enough actor to succeed in hiding his connections to this group. As a compromise, he's living here, being productive by learning and stockpiling information about this world.
"So, you have some business with my hermit self?"
"Are you NOT AWARE? Of the foolish event being conducted in this country!"
"Stuff happening in this country'd be... you mean the Royal Selection?"
"INDEED! The Selection! HOWEVER the problem does not LIE THERE! The Selection itself offers no importance, it is the one participating! That being, the silver-haired half-witch!"
So that he can lecture the ignorant Subaru, Betelgeux presents the official notice for the Selection—the exact same thing Subaru has decorated the room with—and jabs his finger at it.
Naturally, on that flyer is the face of a girl so cute that Subaru's staring has burned holes into it.
Betelgeux's bony finger, quite expectedly, points at her.
"WITNESS! This visage! This stock! Twin blasphemies against the Witch! This being is not one we may overlook! The time of the Trial is UPON US!"
"Trial."
"EXACTLY!"
Screeching, Betelgeux slaps the flyer flat against the cave wall before slamming his fist into Emilia's personal description, sending blood flying everywhere.
This self-harming madman, intoxicated on pain and blood, has desecrated Emilia's paper image.
"If it coheres, take her! If not, forsake her! Should she be verified as a suitable vessel for the Witch, we shall accept her into OUR FOLD! The Trial must commence!"
"And you're asking for my help?"
"Yes, CORRECT! I have contacted others, but doubt those nonbelievers will respond! WRATH alone may present possibility, however she is presently distant from this nation... thusly! We alone shall depart!"
With duty in his heart and a torrent of tears streaming down his face, Betelgeux shoves his bloody fist into his mouth, sucks his wounds. The corners of his mouth tear as his teeth bite down on his hand, wounding his skin and flesh in a gruesome and repellent display.
But Subaru instructs himself to withstand the sight with ironclad will and dons a cool facade.
"Mind if I come along, then? I don't exactly know the details though, Cardinal."
"So you are kindly accompanying! Aaah! AaAaAa! How so very so very so very so very very veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery... JOYOUS!"
"That's getting way too enthused when I'm just saying I'm going with."
The wry smile Subaru gives is legitimate.
After nodding so many times his head could practically fall off, Betelgeux snaps his legs back into proper posture and whips around, his back to Subaru.
"We DEPART IMMEDIATELY! I have already given my fingers instructions along journey here... we will reunify with them, and travel to Mathers' Domain. Then we shall follow the GOSPEL'S LEAD!"
"Roger. ...And also, what's the Trial?"
"A SOUND QUESTION. It is a test to ascertain suitability of the Witch's vessel... namely, a trial to determine whether the receptacle possesses the strength, the quality, and moreover the qualifications
to host the WITCH'S SOUL!"
Subaru replies to the unhelpful explanation with a knowing nod.
He knows none of the specifics. But compared to his time spent in agony not knowing anything about Satella=Emilia, it's inestimably preferable.
And it sounds like this means he'll get to be involved with Emilia again.
Though it also involves—
"—Now, now now! Now now now! WE DEPART! WE TEST! Should the vessel be suitable, then upon us now is the WITCH'S ADVENT! A chance after these many centuries that we may fill all of our
seats!"
"If the Witch Satella descends here, does the vessel...?"
"MARTYRED! HOWEVER, that is VENERABLE! So venerable that I would take the role were it possible! Were my person capable of befitting Satella's spirit, I would endure all iterations of inestimable suffering for my desire to SEE HER AGAIN!"
"So she gets erased. Does she now."
Mumbles Subaru as he follows behind Betelgeux, who has begun walking.
It doesn't reach cackling Betelgeux's ears, secluded in his own world as he is, that faint and quiet murmur—
"Oh, does she now?"
—Neither does the madman notice Natsuki Subaru's dark smile.
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He thrusts the sword into their skinny body, twists.
The feedback coming from the point of the sword informs him that he has just severed something vital.
And with a thin rasp of breath—
"Don't think you're gonna believe me when I say this, but."
"Wh, y...?"
"I thought you were one of the better ones out of a group of unlikable people, Bete-san."
His eyes are wide in shock as they look down despairingly at Subaru's.
Surprise remains with him as he slowly topples backward, Subaru unsheathing the sword from his chest. The momentum makes Subaru stumble backward. He breathes deeply.
At Subaru's feet lies Betelgeux Romanee-Conti in pool of blood.
Betelgeux, dying, his heart destroyed at Subaru's personal doing.
"It was a real effort setting this whole situation up. For how crazy you act, you're just a little too meticulous. Seriously, I got stuck so many times."
"What, are... YOU... SAYING?"
"I'm talking about all the trial and error it took for me to get here. I mean this goes for planning out my strategy too, but getting my trump card and stuff was seriously dicey. You have no idea how relieved I am."
Betelgeux crawls, forcing strength into his powerless limbs. But he lacks the strength to get to his feet, merely creeping backwards, as if retreating from death.
Subaru doesn't have to do anything.
Betelgeux doesn't have long to live.
"I couldn't see Unseen Hand at first, was panicked about what the heck was going on. Dealing with your fingers was posing a bunch of trouble too... right now, I really feel like I accomplished something."
"Ghh, auhhh..."
The blood flowing from Betelgeux is the last dregs of his life.
It shows no signs of stopping as it instead compounds in intensity, Subaru watching him bleed out while he reveals everything, mastermind style.
The black, invisible Unseen Hand.
Betelgeux's confidants and reserve stock of bodies, the Fingers.
And the ability to migrate to those bodies, his life-extending Possession.
Making full use of all three, Betelgeux had been the very picture of his beloved 'diligence' as he attempted to corner Emilia. Downing him had truly been a back-breaking effort.
In fact it took Subaru over four hundred runs of trial and error to get here.
"Which makes you the person I've spoken to most in the world. I know how crazy lopsided this is, but I feel like you're kinda a friend. Watching how you do everything you can to reach your goals, playing all the cards you have, I mean I have to say I was touched."
"What are you saying... what are you saying what are you saying are you saying
areyousayingareyousaying!!"
At the very end of the end, livid strength enters his moribund body. Focusing absolutely all of that strength on himself, Betelgeux uprights his dying form.
He spits blood—literally, as it spills out from his mouth, his bloodshot eyes shooting open as he turns toward Subaru.
"Betrayer! Traitor who spurns the Witch's love! You cannot be, you cannot be, FORGIVEN!!"
Betelgeux reaches out his blood-soaked hand.
He's not doing it to activate Unseen Hand.
There's no point to an invisible arm when it's perceptible.
What Betelgeux is clinging to is—
—The terms for evil spirit, Betelgeux Romanee-Conti, to hijack another's body.
The process for him to possess the bodies of those with groundings as spiritualists.
There is only one person here who meets those qualifications—
"Your body is—!!"
Mine! Is what Betelgeux intends, but Subaru just sighs.
He leisurely walks over to Betelgeux, and slams a kick into his dying face. The force of the blow dislodges some of Betelgeux's teeth—stunned, Betelgeux recoils.
He hadn't be able to transfer to this suposedly-pilferable body.
Subaru's response comes not in words, but upon his raised left hand—where there, upon his fingers, floats a dim, red light.
It's an entity called a minor spirit.
Which has entered a contract with Natsuki Subaru who has groundings as a spiritualist, a cute tool for lighting dim pathways.
Evil Spirit Betelgeux can only possess the bodies of spiritualists who lack contracts.
Who could guess how many deaths it took Subaru before he figured that one out.
"It's been the longest three days of my life. Though from your perspective we didn't know each other very long at all..."
"NATSUKI SUBARUUUUUU!!"
"You targeted Emilia. —Regret it."
Betelgeux spits a shriek of enmity, when Subaru kicks him in the chest and swings the sword down on his face. The blade plunges into Betelgeux's skull, demolishing his brain and his life.
The grating death-wail comes to a pause. Subaru leans his weight onto the sword in Betelgeux, sighing.
In reality very short, but by Subaru's perception incredibly long, the battle with Betelgeux is over.
Feelings of both accomplishment and despondency flood into him.
"Hmmhmm? Looks like you're already done too."
After a period of silence, a voice addresses Subaru.
He turns around, to find a massive silhouette skulking through the shrub and bush—belonging to a black-pelted beast with a lion's head and four horrible limbs, approaching him.
Naturally, the one addressing him is not the beast. It's the girl mounted on its back, giving Subaru a flirty glance.
"Yeah, I'm all done. Thanks, Mei Lee."
"No worries. You're paying us, and you looked after Elsa. But are you sure about this? I thought they were your pals."
"Have to wonder. If he hadn't tried to kill me at the end then maybe you could've called us friends with an age gap, but he tried to kill me so... unfortunately disqualified from friends, I guess?"
While using his sleeve to wipe away blood that rebounded on him, Subaru shrugs at the girl, Mei Lee. She puts her finger to her chin.
"Hrmmm. I'm not trying to kill you, so does that mean we're friends?"
"Following the logic, it does. You and me are friends, Mei Lee."
"Ahh, yay! Now when you count Petra-chan and the others too, I have lots of friends!"
Clasping her hands together, Mei Lee happily rocks her shoulders as she sits atop the beast. Her childish attitude makes Subaru raise his brow, and her statement about having friends astonishes
him.
"Huh, I'm surprised. It's one hell of a thing to say this, but you actually have friends."
"I doo. I killed them all though."
"—"
Says Mei Lee, smiling slightly, and not looking guilty in the least.
Killed them. So they were probably people she was involved with through work. He had been thinking that Mei Lee had some childlike aspects to her, but yeah her morals are twisted.
Well she's Elsa's sister so what do you expect.
"Either way, it was a serious help that you filled in where I couldn't. If you weren't here, I never would've managed to kill all the fingers by myself."
"Don't worry 'bout it. But, did you really need to go out of your way hire us? You could've asked someone more proper, like the Knights."
"Wouldn't be able to realise part of my goal if I did that."
"Goal?"
Mei Lee tilts her head as she attempts to probe Subaru's thoughts. But Subaru gives no further explanation, just crafts a smile and,
"Rest of this talk's for the adults. Children such as yourself would not need to hear of it, Mei Lee."
"Ahh! Geez, you're treating me like a kid! I don't care 'bout you anymore mister, I'm done, I don't caaaareeee!"
Says Mei Lee angrily, for the beast to growl as if set off by her anger.
She's siccing her pet on him. After all the effort he went through to finally kill Betelgeux, he'd really rather not have this attempt end in failure.
Labouring to repair Mei Lee's mood, Subaru toils his best as her bootlicker.
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A few days after the Royal Selection began, a rather large change came to the territories of Lugnica.
The biggest change was that the front-running candidate for Ruler, Duchess Crusch Karsten, dropped out of the running—although the only one who understood the whole truth of the situation was Subaru.
Because all traces of this so-called 'Crusch' have been erased from the world, eliminated alongside the fact of her having ever existed, revised by the world as having never been there at all.
Which means that the Royal Selection had now always been four people, that the memories of Duchess Karsten's supporters have been twisted, and they became allies of other squads.
"Man, the White Whale's fog's terrifying. Just going off erasing records of people."
It's a mystery why it's ineffective on just Subaru. But, being that Subaru doesn't feel any particular sensation himself, it's just a pain with how weird inconsistencies keep popping up when he's having conversations with people.
He wishes he could just forget about this stupid Crusch Karsten.
Someone who died because they fought an enemy they couldn't hope of rivalling would never get opportunity to come back.
The only person in the world who could get that opportunity is Natsuki Subaru.
And so the defeated do nothing but act as reminders: don't do the idiotic things they did.
But a change other the one irrelevant to everyone except Subaru also occurred.
Which is—
"Royal Selection Candidate, Emilia. Who subjugated perennial tormentor of the world, the Witch Cult's Cardinal of Sloth!"
The Kingdom is alive with the news, and apparently even foreign nations know about the achievement.
Even Subaru is surprised at what effective propaganda it is. A victory dovetailing from 400 years of death, claimed by Natsuki Subaru—which he transferred in entirety to the shady clown man supporting Emilia.
The question of how the Margrave would respond to negotiations to give Emilia the achievements was honestly a bet on par with subjugating Betelgeux, but—
"He was so cool with it it was gross."
Margrave Roswaal L. Mathers received Subaru's proposal, easily consented to it, and immediately announced that the Betelgeux subjugation was Emilia's achievement.
Although feeling something fishy about him, Subaru has no qualms about Roswaal's actions.
This world disparages Emilia for stupid bullshit reasons. And still Roswaal announced himself as her supporter, became her patron and promoted her participation in the Selection.
Perhaps it was simply whimsy, or more likely he was hoping to benefit should the one-in-a-million chance occur that Emilia takes the throne.
The way he swooped in with spit trailing everywhere in response to Subaru's Betelgeux report made good proof of that.
"No issues. Do whatever you want, Mister Margrave. So long as you're on Emilia's side, I'll dump myself on your side too. Just as you expect, the Ruler will be Emilia."
Subaru will do everything he can with his death-defying power to achieve that.
But if it happens that Roswaal has some foul desires or unbecoming thoughts about Emilia, then—
"All it means is another gravestone erected for Emilia's sake."
If he's going to keep operating in the shadows, unknown to Emilia, then he has no choice but to entrust the more public activities to Roswaal.
In exchange, Subaru will bring every single possible plan into fruition from behind closed doors.
And for that purpose—
"Went out of the way to salvage you. Gonna be getting your help, Blue."
"—"
In the back of the cave sits a metal-barred prison.
Chained inside that cold space is someone wearing dirty clothes. Cat ears sprout from the head of this dainty, knight-uniformed girl—ish man, apparently.
While Subaru was running around putting things in order after Betelgeux's death and the White Whale's rampage, he found these spoils and took the tool home.
But as of present, Subaru has had very few chances to behold the healing talents of the fabled Blue.
Hell, he's not even healing his own injuries, just staring at the prison floor and weeping without end.
"...Someone, tell me. Tell me. Why am I... where's His Highness? What was I for? There was somebody. There had to be somebody. Everything's strange if there wasn't. But..."
"Man, I'm stuck. Gonna take some time for this one."
Subaru scratches his head as he withdraws from his chest pocket a note. It is the notice which informed about the start of the Royal Selection, which Subaru has been keeping zealously and unfailingly on his person.
The notice no longer looks like what Subaru's familiar with. There are supposed to be five candidates listed—but now there's four, and the descriptors have diminished.
Change owing to the abolishment of Crusch Karsten's existence had affected the notice.
But Subaru remembers. He may have been utterly ignoring her, but he has reread this thing more than countless times. Crusch Karsten's Knight is named Felix Argyle.
Which should be the same as this healer here, Blue.
"My guess was that when someone's erased by the Whale's fog, your memories compensate by changing in a way that doesn't feel awry, but... just look at this."
"Someone, someone tell me... His Highness, His Highness? His Highness, and, someone else...?"
"When they're so huge that you can't compensate for the missing memories, guess this's what happens to you."
When the missing person is such a massive part of someone's character, of course they'll collapse when that person disappears from the world.
Which is why Blue has wound up mumbling over and over like a broken doll.
Unfortunately, not even Subaru knows how to mend Blue's broken mind.
Subaru never interacted with the one who safeguarded Blue's heart. And even supposing that he does go back in time, it's not certain where he'd return to.
And so Subaru does not know what story had been spun between them.
"But still, I did find a nice pawn here. Everything's fine. I'll fill your heart's fractures in for sure."
"Someone, please... tell me. I, why am I..."
Blue shows absolutely no reaction to Subaru.
It might look hopeless, but Subaru proceeds with no alarm. He's prepared to take his time.
A Knight healer bereft of his support. You don't get pawns as easily manipulated as this very often.
And so, Subaru earnestly, wholeheartedly,
"This time, I'll definitely figure out how to keep you from killing yourself."
I'm ready to die any number of times challenging you, he asserts.
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