It seemed that when his emotions were running high, he could draw out even greater power.
Subaru had vaguely realized this a short while ago.
And right now…
he was at his absolute emotional peak.
Not long ago, Emilia had died, and he himself had been inexplicably frozen to death by Puck.
Then he woke up again in front of the apple stand.
Emilia was still alive, and time had reset to the morning.
It was all too much for Subaru to process so quickly.
His first fight with an enemy, his first time falling for a girl, his first time feeling anger and sorrow over someone else’s death, and his very first time dying.
His hatred for Elsa, his anger and confusion toward Puck, his disappointment in himself, and his immense guilt toward Emilia.
There were far too many things waiting for Subaru to think about and process.
Those emotions piled up in his chest, ultimately converting into sheer power when he clenched his fists.
“Has everyone calmed down?”
Subaru took a deep breath, addressing the entire room, including himself.
“What terrifying strength.”
Old Man Rom let go of the club he had been wanting to put down anyway.
Looking incredibly relieved, he turned to Felt.
“Felt, return the item to the young lady.
The owner’s identity this time might be quite extraordinary.”
Felt was still bristling like an angry cat.
“What the hell?!
Even if this black-haired guy seems strong, I can hold him off!
Rom, you just take the insignia and run…”
“Felt!” Rom’s expression turned stern.
“To be able to hire help of this caliber…
we cannot afford to provoke them.”
Hearing the word “we,” Felt’s combative aura vanished instantly.
She reached into her pocket, gripping the object inside tightly.
“This was worth 20 holy gold coins…
Fine, take it back!”
With a flick of her slender arm, Felt tossed a blur through the air toward Emilia, looking incredibly reluctant.
Emilia caught it.
The red jewel in the center of the insignia immediately shone with a dazzling light.
Phew…
Emilia breathed a sigh of relief.
For some unknown reason, Rom’s attitude had taken a sharp turn, and they had managed to get the insignia back without any fuss.
They had avoided a more violent conflict.
Congratulations, congratulations…
—Gliding silently like a shadow, a figure in black moved silently behind the silver-haired girl.
Subaru’s pupils shrank to pinpricks—he dashed!
Clang!
A hand as powerful as a steel vice clamped down on the incoming kukri knife.
With another surge of Subaru’s strength, the blade was instantly crushed to dust, leaving his hand completely unscathed.
“Ha!”
The moment she realized she was being attacked, she raised her hand and fired an icicle.
The attacker jumped backward to dodge the ice, simultaneously widening the distance, and landed steadily near the door.
It was none other than Elsa Granhiert.
“Thanks for the save just now, Subaru!”
Puck popped out from beside Emilia, waving his paw at Subaru in gratitude.
“…Mhm.”
Facing Puck, Subaru only gave a quiet hum of acknowledgment.
His voice carried a sense of alienation he hadn’t even noticed himself.
Even though [Return by Death] could rewind time to before anything had happened, letting everything start from zero…
…There were some things that simply couldn’t be forgotten.
No matter how hard he pretended not to care, no matter how desperately he tried to forget, his body still remembered.
“My, you have such fast reflexes, boy~”
Elsa pulled a brand new kukri knife from beneath her cloak.
“Whoa, what an aura.
How wonderful!”
“Hey!
What are you trying to pull?!”
Before Subaru could even throw out any trash talk, Felt was the first to start cursing.
She took a step forward.
“Weren’t you here to buy the insignia from me?
Why did you suddenly attack?!”
“I changed my original plan,” Elsa said, showing off the kukri to the room.
“Since the owner is present, I might as well kill everyone involved.”
“You…” Felt gritted her teeth.
“You failed to finish your job, you know.
You talked a big game, but your execution was sloppy.” Elsa looked languid, yet poised like a viper flicking its tongue.
“In the end, you’re just a slum rat~”
Elsa’s mastery of trash talk far exceeded anyone else’s in the room.
Subaru didn’t want to listen to the woman’s nonsense anymore.
Emilia and the others only saw a blur in front of their eyes—
—BOOM!
The roof of the loot house collapsed, the walls blew outward, and thick smoke billowed into the air.
A massive crater, several meters deep and wide enough to fit an entire soccer team, now occupied the floor.
Subaru stood in place, holding his punching posture, his eyes never leaving the direction of the crater.
“What astonishing strength!
You’re amazing, boy~ Truly amazing!
Good thing I prepared in advance…
I originally didn’t want to wear it because it was too heavy, but putting it on was the right choice.”
Cutting through the white smoke, Elsa leapt into Subaru’s line of sight, her black hair dancing in the air.
“My cloak is woven with a spell that can block a single attack, which is the only reason I escaped with my life.”
Swinging her kukri, she walked forward slowly with steps as light as a swallow.
Subaru couldn’t see a single injury on her.
Aside from that, she looked exactly as she had before.
In the nick of time, Elsa had used her cloak to block Subaru’s attack, sparing herself from being instantly blown to pieces.
She didn’t use the cloak in the last loop…
Subaru recalled the previous encounter and summarized it in three words: No chance to.
“So?
Are you going to surrender?
You only had one cloak, right?” Subaru finally got the chance to fire back some trash talk.
“I can throw more than just one punch, you know.”
“That’s perfectly fine~” Two patches of sickly red flush appeared on Elsa’s cheeks.
The corners of her mouth curled up, and her pupils dilated.
“Oh my~ To be able to have a massacre with such a formidable opponent like you…
today is truly my lucky day!”
Sure enough, no matter how many times he ran into Elsa, Subaru felt a deep, instinctual revulsion toward her.
“Old Man Rom, Felt, stand back!”
“Don’t worry, boy.
Right now, I only have eyes for you.
Even that half-elf can’t enter my sights.”
Elsa licked her lips, dropping her center of gravity like a venomous snake preparing to strike.
“The Bowel Hunter, Elsa Granhiert.”
“Invincible, Subaru Natsuki.” Subaru kicked off the ground and hovered beside Emilia.
Elsa initiated the attack.
Keeping her posture low, she charged straight ahead with her blades raised.
Defying gravity, she dashed wildly along the walls.
The icicles fired by Emilia and Puck could only hit her afterimages.
Thud!
Dodging another icicle, Elsa melted into the shadows with a bewitching smile, closing in on Subaru and Emilia from a crawling, low stance.
“Not a chance.”
Subaru instantly appeared right in front of Elsa, grabbing her head with one hand.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
Elsa was fast.
The moment Subaru grabbed her head, her twin blades flashed in a frenzy, wildly striking every part of Subaru’s body—but he remained completely unscathed.
The attacks that could at least leave white marks on his skin in the previous loop were no longer even capable of scratching the hair on his arms this time.
The only casualty was his tracksuit.
BOOM!!!
A sound even louder than the first explosion shook the area.
With a single hand, Subaru threw a punch that broke the sound barrier, slamming Elsa’s head viciously into the floor.
The loot house was completely annihilated, reduced to nothing but rubble.
The resulting shockwave of air pressure uprooted the trees in the surrounding clearing.
Elsa lay in the center of an even deeper crater.
No, “lay” was the wrong word.
From any angle, the “thing” in the crater was just a pile of mashed flesh and bone.
It was entirely impossible to tell that it had once been a woman of stunning beauty.
And naturally, a pile of mashed flesh and bone had long since lost the ability to “lie down.”
So, to be precise: Elsa was smeared all over the crater.