Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 20 Read online

  Copyright

  Re:ZERO Vol. 20

  TAPPEI NAGATSUKI

  Translation by Dale DeLucia

  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. 20

  ©Tappei Nagatsuki 2019

  First published in Japan in 2019 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 © 2022 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. | DeLucia, Dale, translator.

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

  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.) | ISBN 9781975383220 (v. 13 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975383244 (v. 14 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975383268 (v. 15 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975383282 (v. 16 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975335250 (v. 17 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975335274 (v. 18 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975335298 (v. 19 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975335311 (v. 20 : 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: 978-1-9753-3531-1 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-3532-8 (ebook)

  E3-20221013-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Insert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue: Moonlit Capriccio

  Chapter 1: A Hideous Banquet

  Chapter 2: The Territory Victim

  Chapter 3: A Warrior’s Acclaim

  Chapter 4: The Love Song of the Sword Devil—Fragment

  Chapter 5: Theresia van Astrea

  Chapter 6: The Results of the Battle for Pristella

  Chapter 7: Ripples on the Surface

  Afterword

  Yen Newsletter

  PROLOGUE

  MOONLIT CAPRICCIO

  1

  The taste, the color, and the stench of blood consumed all of Garfiel’s being.

  The feeling of sinking into blood was vastly different from sinking into water. He couldn’t move freely, like his body had been swallowed up by a viscous, not-quite liquid, and he could not see the bubbles of air escaping his mouth.

  Even the white moon laughing at him from on high wasn’t visible anymore.

  At the height of his fight with Kurgan, a strange mass of blood had swallowed Garfiel whole.

  His first thought was that the Archbishop of Lust had only ever been an amorphous blob of blood that may or may not even have been alive. This strange creature would have been shocking were it not for the fact that the city was already crawling with lifeless corpse soldiers and demi-beasts—brand-new threats that weren’t even considered proper demon beasts. In that context, a slithering mass of blood was suddenly not all that inconceivable.

  The problem was the precariousness of Garfiel’s situation, as he was currently smothered by blood and quickly running out of air.

  The viscous slime overwhelmed his senses of sight, taste, smell, and even hearing. As for touch, he found it impossible to feel anything to the left, right, front, or back. Since all five senses were unreliable, he had no choice but to fall back on his sixth sense.

  It was Subaru who had taught him that term.

  “—Ngh.”

  Idle thoughts. Idle thoughts. Idle thoughts. Garfiel had too many idle thoughts. Even though he had noticed it himself so, so many times, even when temporarily freed from the yoke of gravity, his mind was still restrained by idle thoughts.

  As long as his mind was preoccupied, he wouldn’t be able to move his limbs at will. He clawed for anything to steady himself, wasting his precious remaining oxygen as his consciousness slowly sank deeper and deeper into the blood.

  Victory, a breakthrough, resolution, and everything he desired slipped through his fingers and disappeared. At this rate, Garfiel would pass on in a pathetic, defeated death—

  —The pink-haired woman he loved, the cat-girl with orange fur, that unreliable and yet utterly dependable black-haired boy.

  In the midst of all the idle thoughts crossing his mind only to fade away, he saw the important things that he couldn’t allow to slip through his fingers.

  “Gaaaaaaaaah.”

  A light shone in his green eyes; his mouth opened, revealing razor-sharp fangs. Blood poured into his throat, filling his lungs, but he didn’t care.

  Howl. Howl and roar. Unsheathe your claws, your fangs.

  Garfiel had too many idle thoughts. Because of that, even on the verge of death, his stubbornness, regrets, and obsessions continued to well up to the bitter end.

  His arms and legs didn’t have the strength to break the surface of the blood. His reach wasn’t long enough. His body was too small. What if they were bigger…longer? What if his claws were sharper and stronger?

  What then?

  “—Nghhhh!”

  Responding to his self-preservation instinct, Garfiel’s body throbbed, and his flesh began to change.

  His skeletal structure shifted, groaning audibly, his limbs visibly growing. His whole body was covered in golden fur; his claws and fangs grew bigger, stronger, sharper.

  The power of the blood he had possessed from birth transformed Garfiel Tinzel into a wartiger, allowing him to break through the wall of blood.

  The moment his claws breached the surface, the gory mass popped like a bubble.


  Garfiel understood instinctively that he had killed it. His claws had torn away whatever life had been imbued within the mass of blood.

  Blood spattered everywhere, staining the street and buildings all around him a hideous crimson. Exhaling a wild, bloody breath and finally free from the pain of drowning in gore—

  “”

  The next instant, a thick arm split the air, mercilessly blowing the transformed Garfiel away.

  A fist the size of a child’s head found the tiger’s face, followed by more fists traveling along a similar arc before striking his side, abdomen, and stomach. The barrage sent him flying into the air despite the fact that he weighed many hundreds of pounds in his current form.

  As bones cracked and internal organs ruptured, lancing pain pierced his head, but compared with the agony of drowning in blood, this was practically heaven.

  —At some point, their battle had moved far away from the street where they had started fighting.

  His sense of time had been disrupted after he was swallowed up by the blood, but he couldn’t see or hear the booming clash between the Sword Devil and the Sword Saint anymore.

  The once distant control tower was approaching alarmingly fast. Twisting his body as he hurtled through the air, he landed on all four legs, killing his momentum. He came to a stop in the plaza in front of the control tower. As he opened his mouth to roar, he spotted the one who had sent him flying standing before him.

  He crouched, preparing to leap toward the enormous figure with fangs bared. At that moment, he sensed a hostile presence right next to him. Without averting his gaze, he swung his claws.

  “—!”

  He tore into a misshapen beast that let out a deep groan. It was a monster with two limbs replaced by swords, an unnatural fusion of organic and artificial—a demi-beast.

  A swarm of demi-beasts surrounded Garfiel, each one twisted in its own unique way. Like the mass of blood he had just killed, they had likely been set loose to attack anyone who came to liberate the tower—a cruel command and a futile effort.

  “—Oooooagh!”

  Garfiel roared as he tore into the approaching enemies with his claws.

  The head of the first demi-beast exploded, splattering blood and brains all around. However, the rest of the throng stepped over its corpse without hesitation, an army of beasts marching to its death at the tiger’s violent claws.

  The swarm of demi-beasts did not hesitate to throw themselves to their death in a battle they had no hope of winning. Their ability to sense danger was totally numb, and their sense of self-preservation was nonexistent.

  These were twisted, warped beings whose dignity had been trampled.

  Garfiel had no idea how they had come to be this way, but there was one thing he understood on an instinctual level: They had to be destroyed.

  It wasn’t hatred or contempt that drove him to this conclusion, but a powerful sense of duty. They needed to be put down.

  “”

  And while Garfiel continued to slaughter the demi-beasts without hesitation, a powerful aura crashed over him. It was overwhelming and instantly recognizable. A destructive attack slammed into the tiger.

  The unleashed violence fell on Garfiel like a storm. He did not even have time to try to evade. His legs slipped, and he crashed into the stone wall behind him. He coughed up blood and spat out shattered teeth. Sensing an opportunity, a demi-beast charged forward to run him through with a sharp sword—

  The next instant, Eight-Arms’s attack turned the demi-beast into a splatter of red on the stone pavement.

  “”

  The demi-beasts changed their focus to Kurgan, who stood there in silence. He swept his arm like he was brushing aside a few branches blocking a mountain path, knocking away the swarm of demi-beasts that’d lunged at him with their fangs.

  There was no way he had intended to save Garfiel. However, the remnants of the warrior code that remained ingrained in his body would not allow the tactless interference of the demi-beasts.

  This was a match between the war god and the wartiger. The demi-beasts remained unfazed despite the appearance of a new enemy. And so the bloody fate that awaited them remained unchanged as well.

  “—Ngh!”

  Garfiel roared as he swung his claws, but it was stopped by Kurgan’s three left arms. The stone pavement beneath them cracked as Garfiel’s other set of claws clenched around the defenseless torso of a demi-beast.

  “”

  Kurgan was silent, cloaked in a dreadful aura as he landed a single punch to the tiger’s abdomen while his seven other fists smashed the heads of the demi-beasts that leaped toward him.

  Blood splattered, flesh ruptured, bones shattered, and spirits flared.

  Garfiel and Kurgan visited death upon the demi-beasts, filling the plaza in a dance of destruction.

  Why am I fighting? Why am I fighting? Why is blood being shed here?

  His claws, fangs, blood, eyes, throat… He crammed all those questions in every bit of his body and slammed them into the enemy wherever he found them. His instincts swelled in joy, exclaiming that this was what real battle was.

  “—Ngh.”

  An enormous palm grabbed his head, slamming it against the building behind him. His vision flickered and grew hazy from the impact as he reflexively used every muscle in his body to resist. Kurgan’s other arms pinned him in place.

  The unbelievably powerful grip was crushing the tiger’s limbs. The sound of bones shattering and sinews tearing echoed hideously as a terrible scream tore itself from his throat.

  Death was near. If he didn’t break free soon, his life would be forfeit.

  “—!”

  For a split second, he intentionally calmed the raging torrent inside himself, letting the energy disperse.

  The arms and legs that Kurgan was holding suddenly withered—technically, they simply returned to their original form, though still lithe and muscular.

  The fur fell away, and Garfiel’s body shrank dramatically. That trick wouldn’t work a second time, but using the brief opening he had created for himself, Garfiel escaped Kurgan’s grasp. Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Garfiel unleashed the full power of his blessing of the earth spirit, causing the ground beneath Kurgan to swell and raise his body upward.

  “”

  Of course, something that basic had no chance of catching the war god off guard. In a split-second decision, Kurgan cracked the ground. He hung in the air for an instant before landing.

  However, even if it only lasted for a moment, the smallest sliver of an opening had revealed itself, and Garfiel didn’t miss it.

  “Oooooooooh!”

  Lowering his head, he grappled Kurgan’s waist. His foe reacted immediately by reaching down to pull him away. Before he could be stopped, Garfiel latched on to Kurgan’s broad torso and hurled him into the building behind them—into the control tower.

  Kurgan slammed into the wall, crashing through it and falling into the middle of the tower. It was the same wall Kurgan had slammed Garfiel’s head into. The repeated attacks rocked the tower badly, and the enormous metia that had overlooked Pristella for so long let out a harrowing groan.

  But there was no time to worry about that. Chasing Kurgan, Garfiel stepped into the tower. In the unlit darkness, Garfiel’s pupils adjusted—

  “—!”

  —and he just barely dodged the fist that emerged from the gloom, grazing him on the cheek.

  He met the next punch with his own fist, deflecting it as blood erupted from his arm. Gritting his teeth, he endured the pain. The limbs that had been crushed while he had been in tiger form were still not fully healed.

  Using his broken right arm to meet Kurgan’s next attack, he focused his recovery power on his left arm. The bones rejoined, the muscle knit itself back together, and once he was satisfied with the emergency first aid, he turned his focus to his legs, followed by the rest of the wounds covering his body.

  Of course, as that was happening, mo
re wounds kept getting added to the never-ending queue. Punching, being punched, kicking, being kicked. An explosive chain of attacks was exchanged as their brawl continued inside a tower too small to host their battle.

  The back-and-forth of offense and defense was devastating. Just like in the plaza, there were demi-beasts lying in wait inside the tower, but they had no hope of breaking through the storm of destruction.

  Kicking the floor and the walls alike, Garfiel used the whole interior of the tower to assault Kurgan from every direction. Meanwhile, Kurgan stood firm and unmoving, deflecting the claws and fangs flying at him with his hardened body while steadily returning powerful attacks.

  Meeting a punch with a kick of his own, Garfiel was sent flying into the upper levels of the tower. Crashing through the stone ceiling, he violently burst into the next floor and finally reached the top of the tower.

  “This is…”

  It was the place he had set out to reach from the very beginning.

  Without realizing or intending it, he had arrived at what had been the goal of the plan. As luck would have it, the Archbishop of Lust, whom he needed to defeat, was nowhere to be found.

  As he stared in wonder, Garfiel understood what was going on at last.

  The Sword Saint and Eight-Arms, the demi-beasts filling the tower and the plaza— it was all for show.

  Lust had sneered at their counterattack, leaving behind bait to make it look like she was still there. Garfiel’s heart burned as he remembered Lust’s maliciousness and her repulsive broadcast.

  Capella had abandoned the tower and disappeared to who knew where. And she would show up in the worst possible place right as everyone was hoping for a grand reversal.

  “Monster…!”

  Cursing, Garfiel reached for his waistcloth. It had not come undone while he was transformed or during the intense battle, and the conversation mirror was still stored there.

  Determined to warn the people who had stayed behind at the government building, he touched the mirror’s face with a finger—

  “—?!”

  An arm reached up through the floor, grabbed his leg, and started pulling him back below.

  He steadied himself against the stone floor, but it had already begun to crack, unable to maintain its integrity. The floor shattered and fell away, revealing Kurgan’s lifeless eyes.