“Hraaaaaah!”
Subaru stepped lightly between the flowers, colliding head on with the giant bears charging at him in a frenzy.
He darted left and right, rushed forward, dodged back, and leapt away.
The clumsy movements of the giant bears truly could not catch him.
He precisely avoided every incoming bear paw and every bloody maw that tried to bite him.
This was almost like licking blood from the edge of a blade.
“Compared to Reid, you guys are nothing!”
One could not forget what kind of monster he had been training with all this time.
These giant bears did have numbers, but in terms of speed, they were far slower than Reid or Shaula’s needles.
After undergoing that inhuman hell training, Subaru had been completely reborn.
At least when it came to dodging attacks and running away, he was confident he could challenge the Olympics from his previous world.
Most of the giant bears’s attacks missed.
Occasionally, they even struck other bears.
The ones hit immediately flew into a rage, and once that happened, there was no stopping them.
A group of Flower Headed Bears began fighting among themselves, turning the scene into complete chaos.
For Subaru, this kind of chaos was exactly what he needed.
“You brainless mabeasts can keep fighting for the rest of your lives.
I’m going on ahead!”
The heavy stone in Subaru’s heart gradually settled down.
If the mabeasts here were only at this level, then he still had confidence that he could cross this damned desert.
Rumble—
Rumble!
The ground was shaking.
An earthquake?
Subaru vaguely felt something was wrong.
For some reason, his instincts told him that something incredibly dangerous was approaching.
Something was coming closer to this place.
This was not an ordinary tremor.
It was more like…
some enormous creature was trampling the earth, charging straight this way without mercy.
Beneath the moonlight, Subaru once again saw that familiar giant shadow.
“S-Scorpion!”
The culprit that had killed him in the previous loop.
The giant red scorpion.
Subaru clenched his teeth.
He thought he had already moved a good distance away, but he had not expected to still be within this thing’s hunting range.
Why?
Why had he spent a month here and never once seen a mabeast this huge?
Even asking Shaula had not produced an answer.
Just what exactly was this scorpion?
And why was it targeting him?
“I already went around!
And you still chased me here?
Just how much do you like me, you bastard?!”
Subaru really could not hold back anymore and cursed loudly.
The giant red scorpion seemed not to hear Subaru’s shout.
It stepped through the rolling sand, and its sharp steel-like pincers opened wide.
Seeing this, the Flower Headed Bears also charged to meet it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…”
Subaru could hardly believe what he was seeing.
The red scorpion swung both pincers like divine weapons.
They cut through iron like mud.
No.
They sliced through flesh like paper.
So many Flower Headed Bears, and all their numerical advantage did was barely slow it down for a tiny bit of time.
And even that was not enough.
They did not even buy Subaru much time to escape.
“Damn itttttttt!”
Subaru could only curse loudly and turn around to run.
This was no good.
This was absolutely no good.
That giant scorpion was fast.
Catching up to Subaru was not difficult for it at all.
No good.
No good!
As Subaru ran, he looked back and saw the giant red scorpion calmly turn every Flower Headed Bear into minced meat.
Flesh scattered everywhere, splattering in all directions.
“Uegh—”
Subaru nearly threw up again.
The sight was truly disgusting.
Those organs, innards, and blood slammed directly into his mind.
Rumble…
Rumble!
The scorpion’s steps did not stop.
It was too fast, so fast that Subaru had no chance of escaping.
‘Think of something!’
‘Hurry up and think of something!’
‘Natsuki Subaru!’
‘Haven’t you always claimed you were a little clever?
If that’s the case, then at a critical moment like this, think of a way out!’
Subaru roared inside his heart as if waves were overturning the sea.
Whoosh—
Something flew toward him.
Subaru suddenly felt the ground come extremely close.
What happened?
Was the earth moving closer?
No.
Wrong!
Only when Subaru crashed heavily onto the ground did he realize that the ground had not moved closer to him.
He had fallen.
That was impossible.
After all that training, how could he make such a mistake?
How could he trip on flat ground?
“Gahhh!”
A tearing pain surged through him.
Only then did he understand why he had suddenly fallen.
The thigh that should have been attached to his left leg had vanished, turned into shredded meat.
Blood continuously surged out from the main artery.
Subaru hugged his missing left leg in pain, his entire face twisting from the agony.
That scorpion had thrown something and smashed my leg apart?!
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
Blood is flowing away.
My strength is disappearing.
The freezing wind is crawling up my back.
So cold.
It hurts.
It burns.
Subaru shed two lines of hot tears from the pain, completely losing any trace of dignity.
As a last year high school student, this kind of torture was not something he could possibly get used to.
Suddenly—
A huge shadow covered him.
Something blocked the moonlight.
“You’ve… got to be kidding me…”
Subaru raised his head in despair and met the giant scorpion’s gaze.
Gurgle—
Multiple pairs of eyes shifted and twisted, staring at Subaru.
“Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?!”
Subaru repeated that one word again and again.
He did not understand.
He could not understand.
He had no way of understanding.
Why was this thing following him like a shadow?
Why did this creature have to block him from obtaining freedom?
Why was this world filled with such enormous malice toward him?
Why had nothing gone his way since the moment he came here?!
The giant scorpion seemed unable to understand human language.
It raised its enormous pincers.
“Wait… That’s…”
In his despair, Subaru noticed something on the giant scorpion’s body.
There were scraps of clothing caught on it.
Subaru’s pupils shook.
He could not believe it.
He did not want to believe it.
He had to believe it.
“Shaula’s clothes… Why?
Why does a monster like you have scraps of Shaula’s clothes?!”
Subaru forgot his own pain.
What replaced it was boundless rage.
That was right.
He had been stupid.
In the previous loop, this thing had come out of the underground palace, hadn’t it?
Shaula, whom he had sent to the underground palace to search for something, should have been the first one to encounter this monster.
(TL:well….)
Now, scraps of Shaula’s clothing were stuck to it, while it remained perfectly fine.
There was no need for words to explain who had won.
Subaru felt a violent pain seize his heart, a pain even greater than losing his leg.
Because the one who had made her go to the underground palace with a lie— was him.
The promise had been broken.
The vow could not be fulfilled.
And he had caused her death.
All strength immediately left his body.
“Shaula… I’m sorry.
Everything was… my fault…”
The enormous pincer reached out without reason.
Gently, it caught Subaru by the waist.
And then—
Subaru felt himself split apart.
Literally split apart.
His upper body and lower body separated, violently cut in two.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
His intestines and organs all slid out of his chest cavity.
This was not dying without awareness.
This was being cut in half.
Being cut in half.
The extreme pain made Subaru faint, then woke him from the pain again.
Over and over, until he finally died completely.
This was agony that shattered the heart.
The girl who had saved him had met a terrible end, and it had been by his own instruction, caused by nothing more than a single lie.
This was torture of the flesh.
The pain of his waist being severed open and his body left to rot alive.
Natsuki Subaru—died.