Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 12 Read online

  Copyright

  Re:ZERO Vol. 12

  TAPPEI NAGATSUKI

  Translation by Jeremiah Bourque

  Cover art by Shinichirou Otsuka

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Re:ZERO KARA HAJIMERU ISEKAI SEIKATSU Vol. 12

  © Tappei Nagatsuki 2017

  First published in Japan in 2017 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights reserved by YEN PRESS, LLC under the license from KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2020 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Nagatsuki, Tappei, 1987– author. | Otsuka, Shinichirou, illustrator. | ZephyrRz, translator. | Bourque, Jeremiah, translator.

  Title: Re:ZERO starting life in another world / Tappei Nagatsuki ; illustration by Shinichirou Otsuka ; translation by ZephyrRz ; translation by Bourque, Jeremiah

  Other titles: Re:ZERO kara hajimeru isekai seikatsu. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2016– | Audience: Ages 13 & up.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016031562 | ISBN 9780316315302 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398374 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398404 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398428 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398459 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398473 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398497 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301934 (v. 8 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975356293 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975383169 (v. 10 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975383183 (v. 11 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975383206 (v. 12 : pbk.)

  Subjects: CYAC: Science fiction. | Time travel—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.N34 Re 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031562

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-8320-6 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-8321-3 (ebook)

  E3-20200117-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Insert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Loveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveme

  Chapter 2: I’ve Already Seen Hell

  Chapter 3: A Four-Hundred-Year-Old Cry

  Chapter 4: The Taste of Death

  Chapter 5: Ending List

  Chapter 6: The Witches’ Tea Party

  Afterword

  Yen Newsletter

  Download all your Fav Light Novels from Just Light Novels

  CHAPTER 1

  LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVEME

  1

  The whisper of love echoed.

  It sweetly, gently echoed against his eardrums, his brain, his heart, his soul.

  “—I love you.”

  The whisper of love was muffled.

  Did it come from a man or a woman—? Even this was left vague.

  But beyond any doubt, this whisper of love was directed at Subaru Natsuki and he alone.

  A black wriggling shadow spoke to him softly.

  It took the shape of a person, clad in a dress the color of darkness, with long raven-black hair. The shadow stared at him with an inky sable face.

  Everything composing the shadow ensnared Subaru’s mind and body, smothering him in sweetness.

  “—I love you.”

  His thought process had ground to a halt. Subaru had even forgotten how to breathe. All he could manage was to simply gaze forward, unable to make the slightest move.

  A dense miasma made his skin prickle as the terrible spectacle of the Sanctuary sank into shadow. Like a small animal encountering a menace so overpowering that it struggled to breathe, Subaru was trapped in a world that had lost its vitality, ripped out by its very roots.

  Subaru knew this place. He had tasted its agony and despair over and over again.

  This was the world that always appeared whenever he broke the taboo, a place where time stopped and the Witch—

  “—I love you. I love you.”

  As Subaru was frozen in silence, the shadow slowly extended a finger toward his cheek.

  He couldn’t avoid it. The issue wasn’t the shadow holding him down or anything like that.

  His inability to move was because Subaru’s own flesh and blood would not permit it. Subaru’s soul refused to offer any resistance against the shadow.

  Accordingly, the shadow touched Subaru as it pleased.

  “—I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  Subaru couldn’t sense any malice from the shadow. There was no animosity. But this wasn’t because it was indifferent toward Subaru.

  Indeed, quite the opposite.

  The shadow inundated Subaru with an overwhelming level of adoration that bordered on madness.

  It was blind, almost stubborn devotion—enough to make a person ask, Why go to such lengths? Subaru felt like he was being blotted out by the inescapably crazed passion—in that moment, the shadow had no interest in anything besides Subaru.

  “—I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  The whispers of adoration swirled around inside Subaru’s skull like they were caught in a vortex.

  Love stirred his eardrums. Love drenched his brain. As love filled his consciousness to the brim, love was also boiling his soul until it fell to pieces. It was an assault by love, a slaughter by love, a violation by love.

  “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.”

  Love controlled Subaru. Love had enslaved Subaru. Love was robbing Subaru of every drop of love he had—

  “—Hey, stop screwin’ around!!”

  Suddenly, an unspeakably destructive force wedged itself between Subaru and the shadow’s loving embrace. It crashed violently into the shadow, shattering the blackened earth. As a dark shock wave erupted, the impact sent Subaru flying directly backward.

  “Whoaa—?!”

  Tumbling across the hard ground after landing, Subaru finally came to a halt when he slammed into an old graveyard wall. Once he gave his head a good shake and looked up, he noticed his mind had been freed from the supernatural fever that had gripped him only moments earlier.

  Now that the static in his thoughts had cleared, he forced his eyes open to see what was happening. Then—

  “This is seriously the worst-case scenario. Hey, can you move, damn it?”

&nbsp
; —there was a voice. Subaru spotted golden hair and a short person backing away from the shadow.

  Subaru recognized that abrasive tone and overflowing readiness to leap into battle. He remembered the sight of the peculiar stance that kept the body low to the ground and those bared fangs. The realization that he knew this person shook Subaru to his core.

  Even in his wildest dreams he never would’ve guessed who would come to shield him from peril.

  “Garfiel… Why are you…?!”

  “You serious? In this situation? Don’t make me laugh. Definitely not my first choice, but no way I ain’t pickin’ ya up.”

  Garfiel reacted to Subaru’s shock with annoyance. Still wary of the shadow before him, he grabbed Subaru’s collar even though the boy was still in a heap on the ground.

  “We’re jumpin’. Might break your neck but just grin ’n’ bear it!”

  “That really isn’t somethin’ you can just grin and b—?!”

  Before Subaru could finish his quip, Garfiel tensed his knees and launched upward, drawing a “Gwah!” of agony out of Subaru as they escaped into the air—and a moment later, the shadow on the ground swelled up and exploded.

  Rapidly gaining mass, the black shadow billowed into a wave that chased the flying pair, threatening to smash them flat. The black wave engulfed everything nearby, scattering destruction over a wide area with dreadful force and scale.

  The cascade was so fierce that the forest, the houses, and even the Witch’s tomb were indiscriminately swallowed whole.

  “Don’t go bitin’ ya tongue now!!”

  Subaru could only gape at the apocalyptic spectacle, but Garfiel didn’t falter.

  Obeying his instincts, Garfiel continued bounding ahead in search of a foothold where they might find refuge from the wave. As the encroaching darkness cracked open the muddy ground and knocked over one tree after another, they leaped and leaped and leaped—

  “C’mon! C’mooon! Hoaaaa!!”

  As the black wave mowed down the forest—tearing up the very earth and blotting out the ground wherever it passed—everything Subaru could see was churned up and consumed by the shadow as it seemed to grow large enough to envelop the entire world. That was when Garfiel finally arrived at their destination.

  There was a lone stonework house left standing at the edge of the settlement in the Sanctuary.

  The moment he touched down onto its roof, Garfiel tossed Subaru some distance away while continuing to draw ragged breaths.

  “Aww, damn it all!! That bastard…!”

  “Th-thanks for saving me…”

  “The hell? You sure don’t seem like the type who’d say thanks. Ya got a problem or somethin’, huh?”

  Garfiel bared his fangs at Subaru, who was crawling along the roof. Looking up at the ferocious darkness forming overhead, Subaru grimaced. The discomfort he felt was showing on his face as well.

  “I ain’t complaining… It’s just…I didn’t think you’d save me, so…”

  “Ha! Treatin’ me like I got no heart or somethin’. The Rose Knights of Tileos have no need for cradles, y’know? If ya don’t like it, go ahead and jump right into that thing’s bosom.”

  “Sorry, I’ve already settled on a favorite bosom, so I’ll pass.”

  Sighing at Garfiel’s jab, Subaru gently placed a hand on his chest.

  Besides the incomprehensible situation, there was another reason that made his heart leap. Getting saved by Garfiel was a shocking development.

  After all, Garfiel was supposed to be his greatest foe within the Sanctuary. The last time around, after rejecting Subaru’s declaration that he would challenge the Trial, he was the one had who incarcerated Subaru before training fang and claw on Ram, Otto, and the people of Earlham Village who had helped him try to escape.

  He hadn’t forgotten the anger he felt. It had been unforgivable. This was his mortal enemy who he needed to defeat.

  That was why Subaru had no idea why Garfiel was doing his best to save Subaru…

  “Garfiel, don’t you…?”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself. Can’t ya see the situation we’re in? Who gives a damn about our differences? Right now, what’s important is figuring out how to tear out that thing’s neck. Nothin’ else matters.”

  When Subaru pressed the point, Garfiel brushed his idle concern aside with a quiet comment. His tone had been calm, but that’s exactly what instilled Subaru with the greatest fear he had felt that day. It was then that he belatedly realized the fire blazing in Garfiel’s jade eyes…

  Rage, indignation, fury—the intensity in those eyes immediately brought those words to mind.

  As Garfiel nursed those emotions, Subaru finally found the words to ask the question he ought to have brought up earlier.

  “—Garfiel. What happened to Ram and the others?”

  “”

  “By the time I came out of the tomb, the surface of the whole area had been swallowed up already. You’re here in perfect shape, but where’s everyone else…?”

  “…They’re inside the shadow.”

  After Subaru raised his fears, hoping they would be laid to rest, the only thing that came back to him was a cruel reply.

  As Subaru’s breath caught in his throat, Garfiel made a growl of remorse and said, “It came out of nowhere. By the time I noticed what was happening, everything was already covered by the darkness. As for me, if Ram hadn’t sent me flyin’ with her wind, I probably would’ve gotten caught up in it, too.”

  “…You mean…Ram just got caught by that thing? Ryuzu and Otto, too?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. The old hag, the noisy dude—everyone.”

  “And…Emilia…?”

  “”

  Garfiel offered no reply for the trembling Subaru. That was all the answer he needed.

  Below where they stood, the ominously undulating shadow continued its encroachment upon the Sanctuary. Stunned to see the treetops of the forest steadily sinking, Subaru forgot to breathe.

  Everything was being engulfed by the pitch-black body. What happened to everything that was swallowed by that darkness? The hope that the people inside were only unconscious was dashed the moment he took a good hard look.

  Subaru could only imagine that the chances of finding survivors inside the shadow were despairingly bad.

  “Wh-what the hell’s going on…? How could…at a time like this?”

  —The Bowel Hunter, the Beast Master, the Great Rabbit…and Garfiel.

  Subaru had come flying out of the tomb ready to defy any disaster that threatened to befall him. After obtaining Echidna’s cooperation, he had hardened his resolve to face and overcome any obstacle that stood in his way.

  …Naturally, he had decided all that completely unaware of the incomprehensible entity before him now.

  “Why here, why now…?!”

  Subaru glared at the center of the swirling shadow that was devoid of rhyme or reason. He screamed with everything he had.

  “Tell me why the hell you’re here—Witch of Jealousy!!”

  His ears had heard the name over and over. He’d felt the being’s existence countless times before.

  The stories handed down for generations named her as the worst of all calamities. She was the one responsible for Subaru’s suffering. She was the root of all evil—the shadow that had engulfed Emilia and the others was none other than the Witch of Jealousy.

  “Think. Thinkthinkthink. If I don’t do something, figure something out and—and—and defeat it somehow…”

  Pounding his dull-feeling head, Subaru desperately searched for a path to victory. He had to drive back the shadow and retake the Sanctuary now enveloped by darkness. What for? You’ve already lost Emilia and the others in this world.

  “—Ah.”

  Subaru, slammed by the internal thought, made a slight sound in his throat.

  In contrast to Subaru’s roiling emotions, his inner voice had delivered an exceptionally cold-blooded judgment. It was mocking him for stubbo
rnly clinging to a doomed world that had already gone past the point of no return and demanding that he take logical, decisive action.

  What would we do even if we did manage to overcome this? There’s no way to go on. Not in a world like this.

  “…Bastard. Tryin’ to say there’s no point in comin’ after me?”

  “Wha…?”

  With one murmur from Garfiel, Subaru’s deep introspective thoughts vanished. Not bothering with the young boy right beside him, Garfiel turned his sharp, jade-colored eyes toward the shadow.

  “Scratch that. This bastard isn’t even looking this way! After doin’ all this, now ya head outside and ignore me, huh?!”

  Garfiel roared, practically spitting blood at the humiliation. But the shadow paid him no mind. Like he had said, it was already attempting to leave the Sanctuary, exiting the forest.

  After displaying such obsession earlier, the shadow suddenly wasn’t even acknowledging Subaru’s existence as it proceeded out of the Sanctuary. Unable to discern what the true intent might be, Subaru was left confused—then he shuddered, as if struck by a thunderbolt.

  A sudden flash of inspiration came to him without a single factual basis. And yet, he knew there could be no mistake. He could declare with absolute certainty that…

  “—To the mansion.”

  “Ah?”

  “The mansion! That Witch, she’s trying to head for Roswaal’s mansion!”

  The memory of the Witch’s whispers of love as well as how that it had intruded upon his thoughts even as it violated his mind and soul all came roaring back.

  The goal hadn’t been to love Subaru. The purpose was to dive deep inside of Subaru in search of everything that he cared about, to understand those things.

  The ultimate goal was to rob the world of everything Subaru might turn his love toward, monopolizing his affections.

  “As if I’d let you do whatever you want… We gotta—we’ve gotta stop her…!”

  Stop her how? asked the cold, whispering inner voice, but he stubbornly flung it aside.

  Stop her how? Figure out a plan; then just stop her, obviously.

  He had to find a way to strike down that Witch. It wasn’t pointless. There had to be some meaning in trying to stop her.