Natsuki Subaru didn't know whether his intermittent no-injury ability had anything to do with his Return by Death. If it did—wasn't that a contradiction at its very core?
But one thing was absolutely, certifiably real.
"What's the matter now, big hero?" For one fleeting instant, Lye had genuinely thought Subaru might be the real Greed Archbishop—and nearly let that cost him dearly.
Subaru was kicked into a tree root. He spat blood.
So the bizarre no-injury ability wasn't permanent. Fine—not permanent was bad enough. But the part that really wasn't fine? He had no control over it at all.
"Just a nobody, and yet walking around with a scent like that—you gave us quite the shock~ Sweet, savory, can't wait to binge on whatever makes you smell so good~"
He wasn't wrong. Even without reliving the full-scale terror of two corpses in a thief's room, having his throat nearly opened had already reduced Subaru's legs to jelly.
Subaru was still a bit too naive. That bizarre no-injury ability—he had absolutely no control over it whatsoever.
And even during those brief windows, a bare-handed man had no chance against someone this capable. He couldn't swing Rem's Morning Star. He'd thought that with a new ability, he could finally play the hero for real.
'While I'm here, no one will hurt you'—how badly he had wanted to say something like that.
Seeing that the 'nobody' jab hadn't drawn out a name, Lye lost interest and reached out to touch Rem where she lay unconscious beside him.
Having just thought he'd finally gotten a proper cheat power, he had tried to copy the classic move—'you go first, I'll hold the rear'—but it hadn't worked on Rem. Petra had gotten out at least.
Subaru reached toward Rem.
Even if he was sometimes temporarily unhurt, that didn't mean he could protect anyone around him. The invulnerability was his alone. It had nothing to do with anyone else.
"Rem..."
With a long, languorous lick, Lye consumed Rem's existence and memories. They vanished from the world completely.
"Mm~ just as I imagined—a thoroughly cooked flavor. Well then..."
"What did you do?!" The stiffness settling back through his body, Subaru braced himself and forced his way back to standing.
The problem was that the fixed state hadn't just kept him from being hurt—it had also locked in the physical exhaustion he had fallen into during those brief moments when the effect lapsed. When it finally lifted for good, all of it crashed back at once.
"What did I do~? Pitiable, tearful, grief-stricken—chivalry, hatred, obsession, simmered for a very, very long time! Is there anything more delicious in this world? There isn't, is there? There definitely isn't, right? Mr. 486?"
For that last address, Lye had mimicked Rem's voice to perfection.
"So I thought you two were such an enviable little couple. Turns out you barely knew each other. She'd been desperately suppressing the urge to kill you the whole time."
"What... what are you saying?" Subaru blinked.
Lye broke into a vicious grin. "You're one of ours after all, aren't you? You've been hiding your name because you know how our Authority works, right~? That's why you sent the little girl running that way."
"Little girl? Petra..." Subaru looked in the direction he had sent her running, and felt something cold settle in his gut.
He'd sent her that way because the 'strongest' person he knew was in that Manor.
What was there?
He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know anything.
But this world was cruel. The truths he least wanted to see most insisted on putting themselves in front of his eyes.
It was a giant wolf-type Witchbeast—twice the size of any tiger from any zoo in his old world, easily.
The problem was it was coming from the direction Petra had fled. And its mouth was a mess of blood and mangled flesh.
"Huh. Already taken care of? We didn't call you over here." Lye's eyes drifted to the wolf; his hand reached toward Subaru.
One ability of the Gluttony Witch Factor was directing Witchbeasts to attack designated targets—the Witch Cult occasionally moved alongside Witchbeasts for exactly this reason. The little girl hadn't registered to Lye as a 'delicacy.' Whether she ran or died was irrelevant.
The scraps in the wolf's mouth dripped to the ground, fragments that looked like bone mixed in. For someone whose mental fortitude wasn't especially strong to begin with, this was an enormous blow.
"Ah—ah!"
Something terrible had become clear to him. Subaru's breakdown started small and swallowed him whole—he clutched his head with both hands, ugly tears sliding down the corners of his eyes.
He had wanted to save that child.
He had only wanted to save that child.
Why was it like this?
As his will fell apart, the stiffness holding his body together lifted—and the blunt agony of a kick to the abdomen, which had been patiently waiting, resumed its work all at once.
The combined assault of physical pain and shock was more than he could bear. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the giant wolf padding slowly toward him.
The no-injury ability isn't permanent. At least that much was reassuring. At least there was still a chance—
That was his final thought before the darkness took him.
"Hey?"
After Subaru fell unconscious, Lye noticed something was wrong. The giant wolf had simply... crumpled. And the scraps that kept falling from its mouth weren't coming from anything external—weren't they just the remains of a mouth that could no longer hold itself together? The shattered fragments in its maw weren't Petra's bones.
They were the wolf's own teeth.
As though something had struck it directly in the face with massive, concentrated force. The creature looked almost pitiable.
Lye raised his eyes toward the end of the forest path.
DODODODO——
Something was out there. Something he couldn't describe, something that made description feel irrelevant. Every corner of his body was screaming. The Witch Factor surged through him, driving him to flee.
His brother Roy had gone in ahead of him. Roy was likely dead in ways that couldn't get any deader.
He couldn't find the space to grieve. The Witch Factor had overwritten all of it—every cell in his body funneling into a single imperative. Get out. Now. It was no longer a decision. It was more like having already burned away his sense of self with Solar Eclipse and been replaced wholesale by 'flee at any cost.'
"..."
By the time Petra led Yimi—bloodstained, spear in hand—to the scene, Lye was already gone. Only two people in miserable unconscious heaps remained, along with a Witchbeast wolf barely clinging to life.
"Mm?"
Yimi looked down at Rem. Having just consumed a [Bizarre Eating], she could read it clearly—Rem's existence and memories had been consumed. She was an empty shell.
Yimi leaned down and extended a paw toward Rem. She redirected the misfortune outward.
Simultaneously.
Somewhere, the mind of the Sin Archbishop of Wrath went blank—
"Who are you?"
The young woman who had just worn a tense expression went slack-faced in an instant, looking up at the white-haired young man before her with total blankness.
She naturally wouldn't remember. This young man had been considered her 'husband' just a moment ago. Though she—along with the dozens of other women who were also his wives—had never wanted to be near him in the first place.
"Huh? Didn't I tell you? That expression is not allowed on your face."
His fury building, Sin Archbishop of Greed Regulus Corneas nearly threw a fistful of sand to end this wife right then and there—then noticed all of his other 'wives' were wearing the exact same blank expression, with just a faint trace of wariness underneath.
Regulus looked down at the bite mark on his hand.
Fury was practically written all over his face.
He'd known it was that person all along. And he was going to crush him right now.