"Time rewind?" Puck popped out, showing intense interest in the topic.
"He didn't, tell you?"
Yimi hopped down from Beatrice's lap and went over to Puck to lick his fur.
Since Puck was the Great Spirit representing fire—and in this world, 'fire' magic meant the control of temperature—after contracting with Emilia his magic was basically all ice now. So to Yimi's tongue, his mana tasted just like ice cream.
Puck stretched his neck out obligingly. Sharing a cat's nature himself, he had no aversion to this kind of hierarchical gesture, because when Yimi licked off his mana, it actually helped him burn through his surplus and keep the mana-heat from setting in.
"Yimi, what was that about time rewind just now?" Emilia was still stuck on it.
"It's, time rewind."
Yimi didn't know how to describe the thing. She'd caught the word vaguely once, back with Akemi Homura, but at the time she'd only cared about Magical Girls and hadn't paid it much mind—she hadn't understood what 'restart' even meant.
It wasn't until she experienced it firsthand in this world that she made the connection.
"So before, I was cooking something, and I finished and went to sleep, and then I just woke up cooking again, and then he framed me!" She put deliberate weight on those last three words.
But no one seemed to care about the false accusation she'd made countless times already.
Yimi could only go on: "And then he, died in the little shack, and I started cooking again, and he framed me again, and ran into the little shack, and that's where he met you."
"I understand now." Puck nodded, then pointed a paw at Beatrice. "Betty, once you're back, teach my niece how to put her sentences together properly."
"There's not much to be done at this age. And why niece?"
"The day he met me?" Emilia looked down at her own lap, frowning.
'Because you saved me.'
Yimi's words were vague—but vague didn't mean incomprehensible. The day he'd met her, time rewind... the term wasn't exactly a household word in this world, but it wasn't beyond understanding either.
The first time she'd met Subaru, she'd only thought he was a very strange person—someone who'd appeared out of nowhere and offered to buy back her insignia.
Had Subaru and she actually known each other far earlier than that?
Emilia thought back to their argument, to the way Subaru had left his words half-spoken, forced to swallow them down.
Was it that she simply didn't remember?
What Subaru had done was wrong, and presumptuous—that much was beyond doubt. But there was something in it she should have known and had suddenly forgotten, and until she understood that, she couldn't accept any of it. If it really was as Yimi said, then why wouldn't Subaru say anything at all?
Emilia's hand clenched hard at the collar of her dress. She turned and slid open the little window separating them from the carriage driver. "Excuse me—could we turn back right away? It won't affect what we've paid you."
What on earth is going on? I have to get a clear answer!
"Honestly." Beatrice turned her face away.
"Now? We've already reached the village. I don't mind either way, but let the earth dragon resupply first." The village wasn't one of Roswaal's; the earth dragon was quick on its feet, but not that quick.
"The village?" Emilia blinked, then looked up at the sky, where a mass of black storm clouds hung. "Didn't you take the safe route?"
Since Roswaal hadn't arranged anything, this driver wasn't the one who'd brought them out here.
"Safe route? Little lady, you mean that big pit up in the sky? Only a fool would trust a place like that to be safe. Haven't you heard the saying—an old earth dragon trusts only the roads it's walked itself."
The words had barely left his mouth when the earth dragon hauling them slammed to a stop, jolting the carriage behind and sending Yimi tumbling straight off her seat and back into Beatrice's arms.
"What's the matter? Is the earth dragon spooked?" The driver reached out to try and soothe it, but it didn't seem to have much effect.
He looked ahead, then grabbed at the dragon's neck in terror, trying to change course. "There's a Witchbeast!"
But they were already on a road running through the village; forcing a turn now was extremely difficult—more than enough time for the Witchbeast to lunge and tear into them.
"Please, don't panic—we can help deal with it." Emilia soothed him and hopped out of the carriage. "How could there be a Witchbeast inside a village?"
A place like this ought to have a barrier to ward Witchbeasts off.
Beatrice climbed down and raised a hand toward the road ahead. "Seems the old earth dragon's experience isn't worth much after all."
But just as her Yin Magic was about to trigger, Yimi—who'd scrambled down after her—suddenly shifted back to human form right beneath her, the top of her head pushing Beatrice's hand up a full forty-five degrees, so that Beatrice's spell flew wide.
"What is it?" Beatrice looked at Yimi, puzzled, but without reproach.
"They, aren't."
At Yimi's words, Beatrice noticed a huge insectile feeler poking from the window of a nearby house; wedged in the alley between two buildings was another massive something.
Beyond those spots, in countless corners they hadn't noticed, were hideous, skin-crawling creatures. If every one of them was a Witchbeast, then even ten mages would be hard-pressed to cope.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Watching it all in terror, the driver simply mounted the earth dragon, cut the harness rope in one stroke to free himself of the hard-to-turn carriage, and bolted off alone with the dragon.
"You!" Beatrice glared furiously at the fleeing coward's back.
"Big dumbass!" Yimi cursed him off on her behalf.
Beatrice pinched Yimi's little mouth shut, with just a bit of force. "And who taught you that?"
"Betty." Emilia called to her softly, backing slowly away two steps and lowering her half-raised right hand.
"It has no urge to attack us."
Beatrice released Yimi's mouth and looked at the 'Witchbeast' that had first frightened the driver off. The first thing anyone would notice was its countless compound eyes—like a fly magnified thousands of times over, its revoltingness magnified just as much.
She looked at Yimi. "Did you notice something?"
A flicker of gold crossed Yimi's eyes—her least-favored 'Revelation,' telling her only that the 'person' before her was suffering here, and warning her against doing something cruel out of a misunderstanding.
She walked slowly toward the fly, reached out, and cast a glow over it. The warped light spread across the fly's body, and its whole shape began to change—until it had turned into the form of a person.
A little boy only slightly bigger than Yimi sat there hugging his shoulders, trembling. It looked like a healing effect, but in truth it was still just another act of shunting the 'misfortune' onto someone else.
"What is this?" Emilia clapped a hand over her mouth in shock at the sight.
"Could it be..."
Every monster in this village had originally been a person?