Chapter 198: Echidna, Liberated the Sanctuary?

“Heh heh, Cap’n, how about that? Bet you’re pretty surprised, huh? Pretty happy to see me?”

Garfiel stood with his hands on his hips, his back to the manor gate, laughing heartily at Natsuki Subaru and the others.

Garfiel?!

The instant Subaru got a clear look at the man’s face, he froze. Surprised and happy—yeah, that summed it up perfectly.

But why was Garfiel here? Wasn’t he supposed to be in Sanctuary?

While he puzzled over it, Subaru’s eyes caught on the familiar-looking necklace hanging around Garfiel’s neck, and understanding dawned on him.

Oh, right!

Both Garfiel and Frederica each carried a necklace that let them freely come and go from Sanctuary—letting demi-humans like them, who carried only a quarter of the blood, step outside its boundaries.

Right, but here was the problem—

Subaru’s gaze drifted slowly, gravely, from Garfiel to the pink-haired girl beside him, who was looking around with open curiosity.

No—calling her a “girl” might be a bit misleading. As far as Subaru knew—

this half-elf, wrapped in heavy robes, with a pair of pointed ears just like Emilia’s and a habit of calling herself “this old body,” was several times his own age.

—Ryuzu Cielo.

If Subaru’s memory served, that was her name.

But as a half-blood, she shouldn’t have been able to leave Sanctuary at all, right?

So what exactly was going on here…?

Suddenly, something Roswaal had told him not long ago surfaced in his mind: Sanctuary had blown wide open!

“Ah, found you.”

A faint but delighted voice suddenly reached Subaru’s ears—a voice he knew well, the same one he’d heard from Ryuzu Cielo back in Sanctuary.

But what did those words mean?

Found him? Found what? Some treasure, some hidden relic, something else precious?

Puzzled, he lifted his head, only to meet Ryuzu’s gaze bearing straight into his, brimming with delight.

In that instant, the curiosity and inquisitiveness that had filled her eyes melted into the joy of seeing an old friend, and she let out a long breath, patting her flat chest lightly, as if relieved that some secret plan she’d told no one about had finally come to fruition.

While Subaru stood there dazed and confused, staring fixedly at Ryuzu and Garfiel, everyone else assumed he was simply baffled by what Garfiel had just said.

“Sorry, Garfiel. I hate to say it, but you’re rushing things again.”

At that moment Emilia, standing at Subaru’s left, stepped forward, cutting in before Subaru could ask his own questions.

“Why don’t you introduce yourself to Subaru first? Otherwise how’s he supposed to know why he’s supposed to be happy to see you? As for the surprise part… let’s hope it’s not the bad kind!”

Emilia put extra weight on her last words, reminding Garfiel that the Subaru standing here right now had no idea who he was.

Garfiel might fight like a wild, reckless beast, but underneath it all he was actually rather perceptive.

Sure, back when he’d barely spoken to more than a handful of people, cooped up in Sanctuary all those years, he’d been a bit slow on the uptake.

But he’d grown since then, and with good friends like Otto and Subaru at his side now, he immediately caught the hint buried in Emilia’s words.

So he quickly raised a fist to his mouth, cleared his throat, and pointed a finger at Subaru.

“Uh, right, what I meant by ‘Cap’n’ just now was the guy I respect most—my boss!”

“I took one look at your mug—real fierce-looking, screams ‘true man’ all over—so I figured I’d go ahead and pledge myself to you as my boss right there. That’s why I asked if you were surprised, if you were happy about it!”

Garfiel shut his eyes and rattled off this nonsense without missing a beat. Sure, he might be perceptive, but that didn’t mean his mouth—or his methods—were anywhere near as refined!

Honestly, they should just swap him for Otto as the supply officer of Emilia’s camp and send Otto out to brawl instead.

In any case, one of the most useful things Garfiel had picked up from following his self-declared boss, Natsuki Subaru, all this time was a thick skin—which was exactly how he managed to spout nonsense here without so much as blinking.

“Huh?”

Knowing full well that Garfiel had gone through a Return, Subaru found it almost impossible to keep a straight face after hearing that little speech.

Rather than spout garbage like that, he might as well have just said Subaru looked handsome—at least then Subaru would’ve been too flattered to think straight.

“So, what actually happened over in Sanctuary?”

“And what do you mean by Sanctuary ‘blowing up’?”

Subaru shook his head, unwilling to keep going back and forth with Garfiel, and cut straight to what he actually wanted to know.

“You’re asking me what happened?”

At those words, Garfiel’s carefree grin faded, and his expression slowly turned serious—even the X-shaped scar on his forehead seemed to take on a fiercer edge.

He looked Subaru straight in the eye and spoke gravely, slowly.

“…I have no idea!”

“???”

Subaru stared at Garfiel’s innocent face, a question mark practically hanging over his head, half-tempted to laugh out of sheer exasperation.

You don’t know? Then why the dramatic buildup? And here he’d actually been looking forward to an answer!

Apparently picking up on the exasperation in Subaru’s eyes, Garfiel sighed, his carefully-built seriousness collapsing all at once, and he hurried to add more.

“‘Cause everything I know, you already said yourself, Cap’n!”

“Sanctuary—it literally blew up! That’s exactly what happened!”

Everyone present who knew about Sanctuary, Roswaal included, went pale at those words.

They’d expected as much, but hearing it confirmed straight from the source’s mouth still hit them hard.

“So, right at the time, I was heading off to that pile of stone ruins to take on the Sanctuary’s Trial.”

“Then, right in the middle of the trial, this earth-shaking boom went off out of nowhere. I figured it was just my imagination and didn’t think much of it!”

“Then, the second I stepped out of the trial grounds, the old hag showed up right in front of me and said Sanctuary had already been freed, and that she wanted to leave with me.”

“Bottom line is, I’m just as clueless about all this as you are!”

Faced with everyone’s stares, Garfiel scratched his head irritably, then jerked a thumb toward Ryuzu Cielo standing behind him, throwing his hands up.

“If you’ve got questions, ask the old hag. She probably knows something!”

“While I don’t put much stock in age myself, being constantly called an old hag really does put a lady in a foul mood.”

Seeing everyone’s eyes turn toward her, Ryuzu smoothly slid her gaze away from Subaru’s, then flashed a positively deadly smile at Garfiel beside her.

“Garfiel, call me that again and I’ll kill you. Understood?”

Ryuzu said it like she was joking, but her tone carried not a shred of warmth.

“Old hag—no wait, why do you feel so weird today?”

Garfiel’s brows knitted tight as he studied Ryuzu carefully, a flicker of wariness creeping into his eyes.

He hadn’t noticed anything off while dragging “Ryuzu” here by the collar all the way to the manor. But now, he could tell something was wrong.

It seemed Sanctuary wasn’t the only thing that had changed—so had this old hag standing in front of him, whose personality now seemed utterly different.

No… or was this really Ryuzu Cielo at all?

Doubt was already taking root in Garfiel’s mind. He’d lived alongside Ryuzu Cielo in Sanctuary for ten years; they knew each other inside and out.

That old woman, having lived so unbelievably long, always referred to herself with that archaic “this old body”—so why would she suddenly care so much about age now?

On the other side, Subaru’s brows were furrowed just as tightly. Something about this Ryuzu instinctively felt off to him too.

But if something really was wrong, would the impostor really be dumb enough to show this many obvious cracks, right in front of him?

If she really were a fake, would she really be careless enough to let so many holes show, right in front of him, and to make her interest in him so obvious?

So the only explanation left was this: the Ryuzu standing before him had to be a Ryuzu from some possible world he didn’t know about—which was why her personality had changed so drastically.

The moment the thought crossed Subaru’s mind, the women around him—Betty, Emilia, Rem, and Ram—arrived at the exact same conclusion.

They’d all been to the viewing space, so they all knew that many people came from possibility-world versions like the Wrath line, where their personalities and behavior diverged wildly from the versions they knew.

Honestly, compared to some of the changes they’d seen, this little shift in Ryuzu was nothing at all.

Back in the viewing space, they’d even seen Ferris and Crusch—a master and servant bound by the deepest of ties—fail to recognize each other, treating one another as total strangers. After that, what could still be considered impossible?

“Garfiel, calm down. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten what we saw back in ‘that place’?”

Ram, draped over Rem’s back, sighed and spoke to Garfiel, sounding exasperated.

As far as she was concerned, she’d already decided this Ryuzu was definitely “one of them”—the same kind of person as everyone who’d come through the viewing space.

Because with her keen powers of observation, while everyone else’s attention had been elsewhere just now, Ram had specifically noticed the moment Ryuzu’s gaze had locked with Subaru’s.

The emotion that had flickered in Ryuzu’s eyes in that moment was one Ram recognized all too well.

Unbelievable as it sounded, that expression had been… love!

That was exactly why Ram had chosen to warn Garfiel just now.

Still, even so, Ram couldn’t say she was one hundred percent certain the woman posed no threat at all.

But… Barusu was here, wasn’t he?

Draped over Rem’s back, Ram instinctively turned her head to look at Subaru.

Just the sight of that man’s face was enough to put her at ease.

Ever since learning in the viewing space that Subaru possessed Return by Death—the power to undo any mistake and start over—her worries about the future had all but vanished.

After all, as long as Subaru was willing, everything could always begin again!

Sure, the Wrath line she’d lived through was a living, breathing counterexample—a total bad end!

But if anything, that only made her cling more stubbornly to her belief that it had all just been a one-time mistake.

After all, the reason Subaru had refused to reset back then, wandering around like a walking corpse, was her fault—Ram’s fault.

But she’d changed since then. As long as she kept a close eye on Barusu’s mental state, nothing like the Wrath line tragedy would ever happen again.

And, on top of that—Ram’s eyes gleamed.

If Barusu’s mental state ever grew unstable, wouldn’t that actually be an opportunity? If she and Rem comforted him together, wouldn’t that leave a deep impression on his heart—maybe even let her claim him all to herself?

Just thinking about it, Ram’s lips curved up in an involuntary smile.

And Ram wasn’t the only one entertaining such thoughts. The others, all confident that Subaru could Return by Death regardless, weren’t overly suspicious of what Ryuzu had said either.

After all, whatever happened, Subaru would be there to catch it, wouldn’t he?

“Is… that so?”

Garfiel’s brows stayed knotted; Ram’s words made some sense to him, and yet a nagging unease still lingered inside.

He glanced around at everyone, silently hoping someone would object to what Ram had just said. But no one spoke up.

Only Ryuzu Cielo, standing behind him, took the opportunity of his turned back to let her gaze sweep across the crowd—mainly the women—taking in every flicker of expression on their faces.

Then, whether from something she read in their expressions or from seeing straight through what they were thinking, she couldn’t hold back a low, quiet laugh.

Not even the wide robe covering the lower half of her face could muffle the sound.

“What are you laughing at over there? Is something funny?”

Subaru raised an eyebrow. He privately shared much of the same reasoning Ram had voiced—that this Ryuzu probably hailed from some other possibility—but he wasn’t about to let his guard down entirely.

After all, the changes in everyone else had some kind of logic behind them.

Emilia drifting toward yandere tendencies, for instance, wasn’t strange at all.

Emilia’s latent yandere streak had been documented as far back as the Sanctuary arc, when he’d been badly mauled by the Great Rabbit and later encountered the icy, cold version of Emilia in the trial graveyard!

Beyond that, everyone else who’d changed was someone he had a close relationship with.

But… this Ryuzu Cielo standing before him?

He couldn’t recall having any particularly deep connection with this ancient half-elf—at most, he’d heard her tell him a bit of Sanctuary’s history once.

So… her origins here were definitely worth pondering.

“Hmm… in a way, it really is quite funny!”

Ryuzu made no attempt to hide anything about herself, meeting Subaru’s gaze with open, unguarded ease—which only left him more thoroughly confused.

Then Ryuzu changed the subject, addressing one by one the questions everyone was most eager to have answered—

“None of you need to keep guessing. This body is, without a doubt, Ryuzu Cielo—not some impostor wearing her face!”

“As for the matter of Sanctuary, as you’ve all no doubt already gathered, Sanctuary has been fully freed. And the one who freed it—”

Ryuzu spoke each word clearly, deliberately, making sure everyone could hear, a faint, ambiguous smile playing on her lips. That confident air only lent her words more weight.

But—

“You mean the Witch of Greed freed Sanctuary? But why would she do something like that? Wasn’t Sanctuary supposed to matter a great deal to her? Wasn’t it tied up in some secret scheme of hers?”

Petra frowned, voicing her confusion.

“No, little girl, it wasn’t the Witch of Greed who freed Sanctuary—it was Echidna!”

For some reason, Ryuzu shook her head, cutting in almost the instant Petra finished speaking.

“What’s the difference?”

Petra asked, taken aback.

“Of course there’s a difference, I suppose. Echidna is… Betty’s gentle mother. Absolutely not some existence like the Witch of Greed…”

Betty said, eyes lowered, sounding a little hurt.

By contrast, Roswaal beside her looked coldly indifferent, the shadows of night hiding his expression—but even so, his disdain for Betty’s naive way of thinking was unmistakable.

A teacher was a teacher; the Witch of Greed was merely one identity the teacher wore. How could Betty fail to grasp even that much?

Or maybe—after four hundred-odd years spent keeping watch over the Forbidden Archive for her teacher’s sake—some resentment had finally taken root.