Chapter 190: Absolute Values, Unsolvable Mechanics, and the Joy That Ensues…

A gentle breeze drifted by beneath a mild, warm sun.

Natsuki Subaru walked hand in hand with Emilia across an open, flat stretch of green grass, the two of them strolling in a calm, peaceful atmosphere.

As they walked, Emilia would tilt her head slightly, stealing glances at Subaru beside her every so often, then break into a besotted, blissful smile.

“What’s up? What are you grinning about over there?” Subaru couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of her.

He reached out and flicked the tip of her small, delicate nose, teasing her with a grin.

“Nothing, really… I just feel like something I always longed for has suddenly come true, and it doesn’t quite feel real yet,” Emilia said, pressing her palms together at her chest, looking a little uneasy.

“Do you know, Subaru?”

“I had a dream where you kept me shut in a pure white cage. I couldn’t go anywhere—or, well… maybe I didn’t want to leave either.”

Emilia kept walking forward alongside Subaru without breaking stride.

“Ah, but that part doesn’t matter! The most important thing was—”

“Back then—in that dream, I mean—we could only see each other once every ten days. And even when we did meet, we couldn’t say a single word to each other.”

As she spoke, something seemed to occur to her, and she pressed her lips together, letting her words trail off.

Then she clasped her hands behind her back, quickened her steps to get a stride ahead, and turned to face him, smiling brightly.

“So back then, I kept wondering… hmm, guess what I wanted to do most? Subaru?”

Was it… something like right now? Just walking and chatting together on the grass? Subaru silently answered in his mind.

Of course, he already knew everything Emilia in front of him had once gone through.

After all, not long ago, he himself had spent time in that very same pure white space!

It was there that he’d watched the entire story of the Wrath line unfold from start to finish, and now he carried a memory in his head as vivid as if he’d lived it himself.

But even though it felt like his own memory, he didn’t agree at all with the choices that version of himself had made.

True, protecting Emilia the way he had back then had been foolproof, but it had also strangled every possibility her life could have held.

The Emilia of that world couldn’t even manage something as simple as walking and chatting on the grass like this—she could only sit in that cage, waiting for their once-every-ten-days “date.”

Subaru pressed his lips together, looking at the Emilia standing so prettily before him now, a heaviness settling over his mood.

But in the next instant, the sight of her lively, happy self pulled a smile out of him despite himself—he was going to make it up to this adorable, heartbreaking girl properly, no matter what!

Subaru told himself this, quietly resolving it in his heart.

But now wasn’t the time to reveal that he also knew about the viewing space, so Subaru smiled and played dumb.

“Can’t guess. So what was Emilia-tan thinking about back then?”

Hearing that tone, like he was humoring a child, Emilia puffed out her cheeks and put her hands on her hips, pouting.

“Mou~ answering like that is just sly of you, Subaru!”

“Because I want to hear you say the answer yourself!” Emilia said, sulking, seeing that Subaru only watched her with a teasing look, smiling and staying silent like some old man perfectly content to sit back and wait.

So she gave her eyes a playful little turn and spoke up.

“Then let me give you a hint—I had another dream, too—”

Emilia paused, unconsciously touching her long silver hair, then continued softly.

“In that dream, Subaru really was an unstoppable existence—you cleared every trial in Sanctuary alone, wiped out the Great Rabbit, one of the three great Mabeasts, and the White Whale too, brought Roswaal under your control, and won over Reinhard, the strongest fighter of them all!”

Hearing this all at once, Subaru couldn’t help but widen his eyes.

Wait, Emilia-tan, what did you just say?!

Who cleared every trial in Sanctuary?

The first two trials, sure, he could believe that—in his memory, he’d used the qualification Echidna, the Witch of Greed, had temporarily granted him to push through those two trials in a row.

But right before the third trial, at the witches’ tea party, he’d refused Echidna’s request to form a contract with him, and because of that, he’d lost his qualification to continue the trials.

Yet now Emilia was saying that in her other dream—likely drawn from another extra memory in her mind—he had somehow cleared the trials all on his own?

How was that even possible? Subaru’s brow furrowed tightly; suddenly things felt a lot more complicated.

And beyond that, what else… he’d won Reinhard over?

You’ve got to be kidding! Subaru figured his expression right now must be quite something—he could maybe come up with explanations for the rest, but winning over Reinhard? That was just absurd!

If the strongest man in the world had really joined Emilia’s camp, standing on their side—paired with his own Return by Death mechanic—

Then what came next was easy to predict: absolute stats, an unbeatable mechanic, the joy born from it, teaching him to steamroll through everything in his path…!

Just thinking about it made Subaru shudder, and he couldn’t help but feel envious of that other version of himself in that unknown, unrealized possible world!

What kind of cheat-code existence was that? Had they really ended up in the same otherworld?

With Reinhard pledging loyalty, wouldn’t he be able to point at anything and have it destroyed? How was that any different from holding a nuclear weapon in your hand?

Then later, whenever he hit trouble and got killed and looped back, he’d just point a finger and summon King Reinhard down from the heavens—talk about a dirty trick!

“Pfft!”

Just then, Emilia’s sudden burst of laughter jolted Subaru out of his thoughts.

Subaru looked up blankly, and there was Emilia, clutching her stomach, laughing happily.

“Just as I thought—I knew you’d make that troubled face when you heard that!”

Emilia said cheerfully, wiping away the tears of laughter at the corners of her eyes.

Once she’d laughed herself out, she gradually reined in her smile under Subaru’s sulky gaze, and slowly began describing everything she’d seen from her own perspective in that “dream.”

“Even though the Subaru in that dream was amazing, somehow he never seemed very happy…”

“Maybe it’s because Betty, who never formed a contract with you, kept wanting to die; because Rem fell into a coma from being devoured by something; because Otto quit and left of his own accord; because you never truly won Garfiel’s trust and recognition…”

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew in from the distant horizon, tousling both their hair and clothes as they stood facing each other on the open grass.

Emilia reached up with her right hand to sweep her hair back, speaking softly and steadily as she recounted, one by one, the fates and sufferings of everyone in that other world.