Loop 5 - Part 25

A few hours after arriving at the Mathers domain, Wilhelm reported to Duchess Karsten.

"Lady Crusch, the evacuation was a success and we have already eliminated the troops in the forest, including the 'fingers' under the Sin Archbishop's command."

Despite the danger posed by hidden hands, their bearers were powerless against firearms that could kill them from a distance beyond their range.

"Good work. Did you find the infiltrating cultist and the load of igneous stones he hid in a carriage?"

"That's right. Thanks to the information Sir Leandro gave us, all the threats were negated."

Crusch nodded, thinking how amazing it all was. Having the ability to anticipate things like that was invaluable.

"I'm glad I made an alliance with him. With his skill and knowledge, he's capable of achieving anything he wants if he sets his mind to it. I can only imagine a handful of people powerful enough to stop him."

Crusch bit her lip, thinking about how much it would benefit her to have someone like that in her camp. Although Leandro had expressed his desire to stay with Emilia, those feelings might change in the future; besides, he had said things like Crusch was amazing and that he saw her as a better ruler, which denoted the respect and admiration he had for her.

Finally, Leandro didn't miss any opportunity to flirt with Crusch, which indicated that he was attracted to her. However, as much as she longed to have him in her faction, Crusch would never stoop to something as vulgar and superficial as using her body to seduce him. However, that didn't mean she was going to give up on recruiting the young man either.

"I'm going to convince you somehow."

"Then I'm leaving. I still have to check on the situation with the plains groups."

Wilhelm left Crusch with Felix and departed on an earth dragon.

"It seems our work here is done, Lady Crusch."

"Yes. We should go back too."

She turned to her own earth dragon, but stopped before mounting it.

Rem and Julius came running over, both of them looking worried.

"Master Felix! Lady Crusch!" The maid exclaimed in agitation. "Have you seen Leandro?"

"No." The duchess frowned. "I thought he went with you when you left us to go to the mansion."

"He told us something else." Julius explained, dismayed. "He was supposed to stay here to reassure the villagers who hadn't yet evacuated."

"He went off on his own again..."

Rem clenched her fists, frustrated by the situation. Suddenly, Felix timidly raised a hand.

"Well, I think I have an idea of where it might be..."

"Did he say anything to you, Felix?"

The cat boy nodded slowly, keeping his head down with a guilty expression: he was protecting himself from a possible reprimand.

"Please don't hate me for this, Rem! Leandro said it was a sure thing and he didn't want to expose you unnecessarily."

The maid walked towards him, staring at him.

"What did he do?"

Felix sighed and let go.

"He went to kill the Sin Archbishop."

***

Already in the carriage, Emilia found herself accompanied by the village children. They weren't bad company at all, but she couldn't concentrate on even childish conversation.

"Why didn't you come to see me?"

"You have to understand, Lia. He must be very busy right now. He doesn't have time for you."

Puck's response was meant to sound sympathetic, but it was also hurtful and planted a seed of doubt in the half-elf.

Leandro certainly didn't have the power or the arrogance to want to do all the work. Given that, was he really that busy, or did he just not feel like talking to her? Maybe he was angry with her because she didn't pay enough attention to him? Because she didn't help him the way he helped her?

From Emilia's perspective, that made sense. He'd already done so much for her, but what had she done for him? Had she risked her life for him? Had she dedicated her free time to entertaining and advising him? Had she helped him with his insecurities?

No, maybe that wasn't it. We had to look deeper. Did she accept him for who he was? Did she trust him unconditionally?

Emilia was sure she hadn't given Leandro even half of what he'd given her. That being the case, he had ample justification for ignoring her.

But Emilia also dismissed that possibility, remaining with what worried her most and what she had been avoiding thinking about.

The suspicion she always had, that Leandro secretly hated her, because she was just like the witch the cultists worshipped. Just as Rem had reservations about Leandro because of the miasma, Leandro might feel the same repulsion toward Emilia because of her appearance. If that were the case, she would...

"Miss Emilia!"

Suddenly, a girl's voice pulled Emilia out of the downward spiral her thoughts had formed. She forced a smile to hide her true emotions.

"Yes? What's up, Petra?"

"Do you like Leandro?"

"Huh?"

The question was completely unexpected and left Emilia in a state of confusion.

"Like? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean."

"I mean... it's... it's something embarrassing to say!" Petra blushed and couldn't continue.

"Leave it to me!" Lucas jumped up and posed exaggeratedly. "Liking someone means you want to spend a lot of time with them, play together, hold hands, and even hug and kiss!"

The boy hugged himself and stretched his lips loudly to mime it. Brothers Dyne and Cain were enthusiastic about the idea and approached Petra.

"Petra, give me a kiss!"

"Not him, but me! I'll be your future husband!"

"Lucas!? Where did you learn that?!" Emilia was alarmed. "And you two can't do that! You're too young for that kind of thing!"

The half-elf panicked at the thought of infants kissing. If any of the girls got pregnant, it would be a disaster, and she'd be blamed because they were in her care!

"Have you done it yet, Miss Emilia?" Petra swallowed and asked with difficulty.

"Me!? Of course not!" Emilia waved her hands, her face as red as an apple.

Several mischievous smiles appeared on the children's faces, and they decided to press Emilia for more information.

"But you're always walking with Leandro, and you're both grown up now! Doesn't that mean you should be holding hands, hugging, and kissing?"

"That's not how it works! For that, we both have to agree and understand the consequences of doing something so important! We also have to love each other very much, like a family!"

The half-elf was sweating from the mental strain of dealing with such an embarrassing matter, something beyond her control. She couldn't imagine doing something like that with Leandro; their relationship was not so intimate.

"Then there's no problem! You've already been on dates!" Lucas quickly pointed out this point.

"Yeah! Besides, Leandro said he wants to be with you forever!" Mild supported the statement.

That revelation shook Emilia's previous thoughts. Had she misinterpreted everything?

"Liar! He didn't say that!" Petra tried to deny it.

"Yes, he did!" Lucas insisted.

"He was half asleep!" The girl didn't give up her argument.

Leandro was certainly trying to take a nap on that occasion and had answered all the children's questions in a rather sleepy state.

"And what about that?!"

"When you're sleeping, you can't think clearly and you talk nonsense!"

"Well, Dyne must be daydreaming all the time, because he's always talking nonsense." Cain mocked his brother.

"What did you say?!" Dyne pushed him.

Emilia had to focus on the present to prevent a riot in the carriage. Unlike a while ago, she no longer looked distressed. A small smile graced her face.

"If you're not angry or disappointed, that's a relief. I hope we can see each other soon."

***

Lye Batenkaitos, the Archbishop of Gluttony, had appeared.

This was the guy who ate Rem. Not that I missed her when I watched the anime, but poor Subaru certainly missed her.

I didn't expect to have to fight this son of a bitch, much less at this point.

It's not even worth wondering why this happened. At this point, I've already accepted that the canon is fucking messed up. New characters popping up here and there, with plots I never knew about...

Currently, all I cared about was surviving and saving whoever I could, even if it changed the future a bit. It's not like it was that terrible, since if something bad happened, I had the option to use RBD (unless Satella trolled me with the save point).

"I wonder if I should just die to get out of this situation..."

"Hey, hey! In all our rush, we didn't hear your name!"

Lye exclaimed, drooling as he walked toward me. His arms swung limply, a dagger wrapped around each wrist; it reminded me of Wolverine's claws.

"My name? You can call me Zack Mydik."

Undeterred, I grabbed my own daggers and assumed a fighting stance. I stood no chance against this opponent, but I had no better options.

"... I see! That's great, very good, excellent! If you're not going to tell us your name, we just have to drag it out!"

"Here it comes!"

In a flash, Lye's bloody blades lashed out at my neck. I reacted in time and blocked them, but his physical force was so overwhelming that the impact knocked me back several feet, forcing me to plant my feet on the ground to avoid falling.

Lye stuck out his tongue to lick his lips as he struck again, beginning a frantic series of stabs that were increasingly difficult to stop.

I deflected his trajectory as much as I could and even launched several counterattacks, but I realized he was just playing with me.

I wanted to kick him in the legs, but he jumped behind me and stabbed me in the shoulder.

"We don't know anything about you, but you somehow managed to take down Sloth! You're sure to be a delicious and innovative dish!"

"Get away, you fucking piece of shit!"

I elbowed him in the chest, causing him to step back, laughing. My frustration only increased with each passing second: I knew Lye didn't take me seriously and could subdue me whenever he wanted.

"I know this is a battle I can't win! But I'm not going to give up! Maybe I can buy some time until someone arrives!"

I continued to give it my all, pretending I still had hope of defeating him; after all, that was what he wanted. Lye was trying to break my will, to drive me to despair.

Once he had me cornered and my morale was down, he would torture me to get my name.

"Your determination fascinates us! You're definitely worthy of being eaten!"

At some point, I let my guard down and received a kick to the torso that threw me back into the air. I landed hard on the ground, running out of air.

"Now I regret not bringing anyone, but how could I have imagined this guy would come?"

I ran toward the cave sticking out of the ground to hide, but my enemy was too fast. He kicked me in the back, and I rolled as I fell.

I couldn't even recover this time. Lye caught me and started slamming me into the ground. Too stunned to defend myself, I felt his knives digging into my body and tearing me apart.

Desperate, I threw my daggers at his body, but the metal bounced off his skin like rubber. I tried to cast a spell, but he broke my arms and legs, rendering any attempt at resistance useless.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

My broken bones pierced my flesh, the pain so intense I couldn't think of anything else. Lye was laughing like crazy and shook me violently.

"That's it! The pain, the fear, the agony! Those emotions are so delicious!"

The blood loss was making me feel nauseous and dizzy. Lye's face distorted in my vision, resembling a demon eager to devour my soul.

I couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted to die already, but I also wanted to skin that son of a bitch alive.

"Your name, tell us your name! Let us taste it!"

I couldn't even faint. I had to feel all the pain, all the humiliation, the fear, and the nagging helplessness of being weaker than my enemy. It was just too unfair.

As life left my body, the world flickered: strange images and sounds began to overlap reality. Petelgeuse's voice emerged from within me, laughing loudly.

He made fun of me for being so weak, so pathetic, so lazy.

"You are unworthy! You don't deserve this power! You don't deserve this love!"

It must have been a hallucination, a reflection of my mind trying to motivate me, reproaching me for my lack of strength. Ironically, my entire being was struggling to survive when I'd lost the will to fight.

"You can't even think of the obvious solution. I was wrong when I assumed you were Pride. You really are Sloth!"

"Ah."

That was the key.

Subaru couldn't have done it. Perhaps because he hated Petelgeuse to death, perhaps because the laziness factor required exerting a great deal of mental strength, or simply because the author refused to give him that much of an advantage.

Authorities were unfair powers, often wielded by undeserving users. In short, they were designed so that only villains could possess them, or at least, only they could fully exploit them, unlike the original protagonist.

That's how it worked. Those were the inviolable rules of this story.

But I'm not Subaru: I'm an imposter who took the place of the protagonist. I'm also the kind of person who loses their temper when pushed to the limit.

At this moment, the only thing occupying my thoughts besides the unbearable pain of having my body shattered, was my burning desire to completely crush Lye Batenkaitos.

"Kill, kill, kill, I'm going to KILL him!"

Sensing my anger, Petelgeuse (or my hallucination of Petelgeuse) continued to talk nonsense.

"My brain is trembling! This adrenaline, this madness, this survival instinct is proof of your love! However, it won't last long."

I opened my eyes, feeling something snap. The Archbishop of Gluttony had raised his daggers and was about to plunge them into my eyes, but his body froze instantly.

"Huh?"

An invisible force enveloped his body and caused him to fly towards the cave in front of which the body of Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti lay.

The stone structure collapsed from the impact, and rocks tumbled down like an avalanche, burying Gluttony. I wished he'd die with that, but it clearly wouldn't be enough.

I gritted my teeth and used my newly acquired authority to push my bones back into place: the adrenaline greatly reduced the pain. Finally, I tore off the fabric of my clothes to use as a temporary bandage.

As I finished dressing my wounds, the rock tomb exploded as if a bomb had gone off inside, and Lye Batenkaitos emerged, badly grazed, with a trickle of blood running from his head.

"Ah, it's incredible, splendid, marvelous! This turn of events has whetted our appetite! We'll have a feast today!"

Still smiling, Lye took a run-up and jumped towards me at great speed, but I waved my hand and one of his legs exploded.

"Waaahhhhh!?"

Gluttony's green eyes looked surprised as he noticed that one of his limbs had become a crushed, useless piece of flesh.

However, I didn't stop there. I twisted his other leg into a deformed mass, effectively crippling the bastard.

"Ah, it seems we got carried away and now we're in trouble! This is unexpected, terrifying, and in bad taste!"

He tried to crawl away, but I easily stopped him and pulled him toward me. While making eye contact, I ripped off his arms, stripped them of flesh, and buried the bones in his back.

To my disappointment, Lye's screams were like muffled shrieks, not emotional enough to make me feel pleasure in torturing him like this.

I began to crush his head very slowly, as if I were trying to crack a nut without crushing the fruit inside. I just wanted to kill him slowly.

The cracks in his head began to bleed. Despite having no legs or arms, he resisted quite a bit, rolling onto his back and trying to bite me.

"Stop! You can't do this to us!"

I was deaf to any cry or plea. I crouched down and silently pointed at his face. Lye screamed again as his eyes popped out of their sockets and floated toward my hands, which closed over them to crush them.

"ENOUGH! WE WON'T DIE THIS WAY!"

Furious and desperate, Lye thrashed like a fish out of water; his body flashed rapidly, changing shape again and again, but it did nothing to save him.

I flattened my hand like an imaginary sword and swung it vertically. Lye Batenkaitos's body split cleanly in two without me having physically touched him.

Blood and guts spilled out, forming a disturbing image, but I was so insane that I barely reacted, as if I'd just gotten rid of a mosquito. I looked at my hands and marveled at this newfound power.

"What is this? It is not the hidden hand nor the invisible providence."

In fact, authority had given me something more raw and pure, without a predetermined form. It reminded me of the power I had seen Sekhmet, the Witch of Sloth, display.

A strange energy surrounded my body. I instinctively knew I could change its shape at will. That's how I'd used it a moment ago, like a kind of psychic force or telekinesis.

"This is your very own Sloth Authority, a power you can only access when your mind enters an altered state. Right now, it was your extreme anger that triggered its activation. Isn't it ironic that one sin feeds another?! This is love, love, love!"

Instead of questioning the fact that there was a phantom voice explaining things in my head, I just nodded and sat down on the floor, because I was dizzy.

"I see. Does that mean I can't use it normally?"

"You can, but even if you're the most compatible user, the authority will be much weaker, as your brain limits it to prevent you from overusing it. Ah, I couldn't grasp such power! My love wasn't compatible, I wasn't diligent enough! I'm so unhappy, unlucky, unhappy!"

"Why shouldn't I use it too much?"

Petelgeuse didn't need to answer my question. I felt something warm oozing from my eyes and nose. I brought my hand to my face and realized I was bleeding from places that definitely shouldn't be bleeding.

"Shit... Now I get it. By the way, I've been wondering something. Are you the real Petelgeuse?"

"Hahaha! Define 'real.' Am I the Petelgeuse who went mad after killing his loved one, precisely for love? Am I the Petelgeuse who naively preached vindication? Or am I an amalgamation of both, recreated by your own unstable mind?"

"How annoying, you could have told me there's no right answer."

"In fact there is... You are Petelgeuse."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

I wanted to keep talking, or rather, thinking; but as the adrenaline wore off, all the pain and exhaustion overwhelmed me. Even as I lost consciousness, the throbbing pain in my head was terrible.