Jon Ureña's Blog, page 70

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 34)

I thought I had already covered the entirety of the ninth volume of the original "Re:Zero" novels, but I was mistaken. Although most of what's told in this entry doesn't happen in the original or the anime adaptation, it would fall in that volume.

The previous part concluded maybe the most harrowing of the loops that the protagonist has gone through so far. He discovered that the people that like him, pieces of shit as they are, don't agree with him killing himself. When the time comes to choose between the Apocalypse on one side and recovering his dick on the other, the man makes his choice. However, the Witch of Envy is a traitorous whore, so the whole thing ends up being a waste of time. You are welcome.

By the way, both in the original and the anime adaptation, all that happens after the protagonist discovers that Rem has fallen into a magical coma is that he suicides himself once, but after he discovers that Satella has updated the save file to a later point of time and he can no longer go further back, he gives up on saving Rem. That's how much he cares. To be fair, he had "I love Emilia"-ed her in the later half of the first season, so it's not as if he hasn't proven already how much of a bastard he is.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

First season

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
-Link for part 22
-Link for part 23
-Link for part 24
-Link for part 25
-Link for part 26
-Link for part 27
-Link for part 28
-Link for part 29
-Link for part 30
-Link for the post-mortem

Second season

-Link for part 31
-Link for part 32
-Link for part 33

As your ass rests on the bench while Emilia's head reposes on your shoulder, and the tween takes similar liberties with the opposite side of your body, you use the excuse of needing to sleep to close your eyes and disappear from reality. Usually you could rely on your emotions to guide you. If you needed to pull yourself out of a loop, your rage or your shame could impel you to perform way beyond what you would have believed possible of someone as useless as yourself. However, contradictory emotions keep now pulling you in circles inside of your mind. You feel relieved as if waking up slowly from an operation for which they pumped you full of drugs. Merely sensing your legs, your feet, your genitals, or something as small as slightly sliding your feet forward and backwards while you pretend to sleep, mainly so other people don't bother you, makes your heart race. But merely moments later you are overwhelmed with despair. Your life is controlled, puppeteered by the ghost of a mass murderer who died hundreds of years ago, someone considered by your new world as the worst creature to ever exist, and she has shown you in no uncertain terms, despite her lack of communication skills, that you are going to keep living on her terms.
Rem is lost. Rem is asleep already, maybe forever. You try swatting away the bobbing feeling of impotence that threatens to make you cry, because you already know it to be worse than useless: it's like ruining your day because you can't help remembering a beloved pet who died a long time ago. Those feelings won't bring the dead back, nor will they return Rem to her previous state. And despite what you confidently told Puck before you ruined that reality, the fact that you can confide in nobody else makes you feel as if you are being kept in solitary confinement.
Also, you can barely look at the current Emilia in the face. In this reality she hasn't yet dared to clarify that you are accepted back into her camp, and more importantly that she wants you to remain forever by her side, because with your terrorist hunting stunt involving two armies, you have turned into something closer to a symbol in the half-elf's mind. The first person in this world, possibly the last ever, who would fight impossible odds for this girl's sake. You can't exactly blame her for having fallen, or believing herself to be, in love with you. Only a fool in love would have risked his life to that extent for someone who had thrown him away in no uncertain terms.
Rem will remain in a coma likely for the rest of her life. You will take care of her body, of course you will, and seeing her withering away slowly while you fail to help her wake up will be your punishment. If you had never dragged her into saving Emilia, she would be fine. You sacrificed her. For a moment you ask yourself whether it was worth it, but you didn't only risk losing everyone at the mansion, but Puck destroying the entire world. You had no choice. You should repeat it to yourself until your emotions believe it.

At one point you realize that your carriage isn't moving anymore, and that people are raising their voices both outside and on the back of your carriage. You snap out of it and open your eyes. The kids sitting in the opposite bench seem worried as well as the couple of male teens, one of which seems to have a savior complex that could rival yours.
"Are we under attack?", he asks you as if you have a clue about anything right now.
"What's going on?", you mutter.
"The driver said that we have come across remains of a few carriages nearby," Emilia says next to you, "as well as some dead ground dragons, as if another caravan has suffered an attack. He has gotten off his seat to get more information."
Ah, you have reached that point of the journey. Even though you don't want to handle any of it, you are itching to get away from such a confined space, and from being surrounded by these people. You also want to walk around on your own two legs. You stand up. They don't hurt.
"I'll check it out. Stay here. Whoever attacked the caravan is already gone."
"We don't know that for sure...", Emilia says, concerned.
You get off the carriage. It's the right hour for breakfast, and the sun burns bright. As you walk towards the crowd that is inspecting the remains of the carriages strewn on the grass, you feel your throat tighten, and you want to smile purely out of relief. This is true magic, being able to propel your heavy, cumbersome torso and all the shit attached to it without experiencing excruciating pain for every step forward, such pain that if you had a gun at hand you would have blown your head off. You want to run around, do somersaults and in general bother all these concerned people by acting like a weirdo, but suddenly your emotions are pulled to the opposite side of the spectrum. You haven't won anything. This is the relief of a slave that isn't shackled for a day, although he shouldn't have been a slave in the first place. And yet, at moments it feels wrong not to feel those shackles, not to suffer those tides of acid-like pain splashing against your mind and corroding your sanity. When pain cares so intently for you, you can't help but care back.
You shake away those thoughts, and the first thing that strikes your eye is a dead ground dragon lying next to some broken wooden boards that must have belonged to a carriage. You crouch down to the dragon's side. A gash runs across his midsection, tearing through flesh and organs alike, but the cut seems made as if by a scalpel handled by a giant surgeon.
"Subaru!", Julius calls from the small crowd of people inspecting the destruction.
You stand up as the knight approaches. I told you we would see each other again, you think, even if the current you has never heard those words. The guy is appropriately worried.
"These carriages belonged to the duchess' caravan. It's her coat of arms. I don't see any corpse of the many wounded that they were transporting, nor or the duchess, but there are splashes of blood without corpses, so they likely were hauled off by the survivors."
"Yeah..."
Julius stops himself with his lips separated, and his brow furrows in confusion.
"You aren't surprised by this?"
You feel a rush as if you've been caught masturbating. How tiresome. As if you didn't have enough dealing with your regret and your guilt because Rem's comatose body will be waiting for you in Crusch's mansion's yard, you have to figure out how to act properly even though you are an open book.
"After that Petelgeuse invaded my brain, I don't think that many things are going to surprise me. But I'm certainly concerned."
Julius seems to accept your excuse. He looks around for someone, and his gaze fixes on Ferris, who is standing alone near a broken part of a carriage that features Crusch's coat of arms. The hairs on Ferris' cat tail are standing up, and before you know it you are staring at her bubbly ass.
You shake your head and walk towards her. Halfway through you realize that Julius isn't accompanying you, because he's checking out the wound in the dead ground dragon. As you approach the cat-girl from her side, you see in her profile that she's gone pale from worry. You suddenly feel that you shouldn't speak to this person. You stop. Even though you can't help but feel regret at how much you hurt Ferris through your failed suicide attempt, the current version of the cat-girl has no reason to despise you. In fact, after that whole business of hauling her ass through the village's streets, she might have warmed up to you. Your brain isn't built to separate the different versions of the same people you know, particularly whatever groove or fold of that mushy garbage filling your skull where emotions spark.
When Ferris notices you standing nearby, she shoots you a look that glistens with distress.
"Subaru. Who would have ambushed their caravan? My lady might be..."
You step forward and hug her. You feel her soft, flax-colored fur as you hold her head against you.
"H-Hey!", Ferris complains, stunned.
"It was a terrible attack and it took the most precious person in the world, but Crusch is alive. Injured, but still kicking. If any of her limbs are missing, you will be able to reattach them."
Ferris pushes you off without too much effort. Her arms are trembling.
"Your words mean little when we haven't found any member of her caravan. And don't hug people without their consent, especially being yourself."
You sigh.
"Always going on about consent."
"What do you mean always...!? And of course I should! Ah, I can't deal with your weirdness right now..."
"You can deal with surprisingly little."
A likely angry retort dies in her lips. She has clenched her fists. She frowns, turns away and walks off.
You briefly attempt to reach out to her by lifting your arm, but you give up. No matter what you try, you always end up hurting this cat-girl.

On the way to the capital, Emilia is too concerned about the ambush on Crusch's caravan to bring up how things have changed between you two, but she does interrogate you about how you organized the operation, how many enemies you faced, where were they hiding, and particularly about Petelgeuse. You want to redact the details of how they were going to use her for their ritual, but in the end you come up clean about everything. It's her life, she has the right to know. By how Emilia lowers her head and wrings her soft hands over her lap, you can tell that it must feel like an echo of all the hate she has received over the years for having been born a silver-haired half-elf. Those birth characteristics made her a suitable vessel for the Witch of Envy.
You again relate to Emilia's situation. She is trapped in a way of life she never asked for nor wanted. You are both victims of circumstance. However, you still avoid looking at her in the face to an extent that must be confusing her. Your brain expects the half-elf to cry her eyes out half-crazed, until the point that she breaks. After how you abandoned Emilia in that ruined reality, you can hardly imagine her behaving like a normal human being, as if she were forcing herself to act normal while her broken self pushes to emerge. Everything she confessed to you, how she wishes you would remain by her side forever, how she was determined to take care of your every need after you destroyed your lower half, and even Puck's words about how Emilia would love you to the end, all that must be resting under the surface she exposes to the world. It might be more need than love, though, for someone who seems to have been abandoned by everyone in her past, and whom the world has attempted to exile almost every day of her life.

Your caravan reaches Crusch's mansion a few minutes after the sun has set. While Otto maneuvers to find some place to park the carriage, a rush of nerves constricts your throat. Even though you know that Rem has already fallen to that magical coma, you feel as if there's a chance that this time reality played out differently, or that Satella did listen to your pleas and somehow intervened to change Rem's fate. None of that has happened, of course. You already know that no matter how many times you guillotine yourself from now on, you won't return to a moment where Rem isn't already lost.
You stand up along with everyone else on the back of your carriage.
"What should we do? Should we gather in some building?", Petra asks you.
You don't want those adoring eyes she insists on attracting your attention to. They make you feel ashamed, as if you have deceived her to gain her trust.
"No idea. You guys should ask the mansion staff. The duchess is a smart one, she will likely have ordered her people to make your stay comfortable."
When you exit the carriage, Emilia catches up to you and walks by your side close enough that her hand touches yours a couple of times. A crowd of people are unloading the carriages, hauling shit around or just hindering your movement in general, and you manage to lose Emilia in the tumult so you can beeline towards the wounded. You want to feel bad about it, but you don't.
You reach the area set up for the wounded. As some low level healers tend to the many injuries, a few of the wounded moan, wail, swear and scream. One of the wails comes from Ferris, who is kneeling and hugging the lying body of the duchess. Next to her rests Crusch's detached left arm from the elbow to the hand. Although Julius told you in the previous reality that the duchess had survived and that the cat-girl had managed to reattach her arm, you hate to see the duchess injured, and it disturbs you to witness someone as tough-minded as Ferris crying her eyes out.
You are stalling here. You should run straight to Rem, but you feel cold sweat on the back of your neck, and your stomach is churning.
"Crusch is alive, isn't she?", you ask cautiously, because you don't want Ferris to snap at you.
The cat-girl contains her sobs for a moment to look over her shoulder. Her eyes are red and teary.
"Something is wrong with her brain."
A sharp pain pierces your heart. You counted Crusch amongst the saved despite her temporarily losing half of an arm. You don't want to see someone as wonderful as the duchess spend the rest of her life half-retarded from brain damage, and it would have been your fault to an extent, given that you dragged everybody into your operation.
"What do you mean?", you ask with a thin voice. "Did she get hit in the head or something?"
Ferris dries her eyes and passes over Crusch's legs so she can begin reattaching her arm. She must have gotten such a shock initially that she forgot that time is of the essence. Crusch's face looks a bit paler than usual, but there's intelligence in her lovely eyes, and she's looking at you confused as if she doesn't know what you are doing here.
"Crusch, how are you feeling?", you ask.
"Is... my name Crusch? This girl also called me that. I don't remember. I don't remember anything."
You go cold. The duchess' voice had trembled with fear, as if she woke up in someone else's body and couldn't understand anything about her current situation. You crouch next to her and grab the metallic hand of the gauntlet that contains the duchess' remaining hand.
"Crusch, it's me, your son! Please tell me you haven't forgotten me!"
Ferris lets out a surprised noise, and Crusch stares at you bewildered.
"My son...?", she asks with a vulnerable voice. "But I feel much younger..."
The cat-girl glares at you while she illuminates the cut-off point of Crusch's left arm with her healing magic.
"What the hell are you doing, Subaru!? Don't fuck with her mind!"
You excuse yourself and stagger away from Ferris. You feel woozy, and your legs are trembling. As you dry the cold sweat on your forehead, you try to integrate the news even though your thoughts are muddled. All the memories of Rem have been stolen from the world except from your cursed self, and Crusch's memories have disappeared as well, but only her own? It's too big of a coincidence. One of the people who ambushed the duchess' caravan must have that ability, which could mean that there's a way to reverse it. No, that doesn't make sense necessarily. Wilhelm can chop someone's head and his limbs off in a couple of seconds, but that doesn't mean he can reattach them back. However, you need such a hope to go on.
You progress through the line of wounded, shuffling half the way, until you spot Rem's beautiful light blue hair. She's lying on a sheet with her arms at her sides. Her eyes are closed and her mouth slightly open, and there is no expression on her face. It looks as if she's sleeping peacefully, except that nobody has woken up from such a sleep.
It doesn't matter that you already knew. You can't save Rem. While your heartbeat become painful, as if your blood isn't pumping properly, you let yourself fall to your knees. You hug Rem tight, pressing your cheek against hers, and you cry silently.
Maybe a minute and a half later a male voice you recognize, that of the nerdy doctor that led you to Rem in your previous reality, speaks to you from behind.
"You know this woman?"
You are too busy grieving to answer, and you also wish that everybody else in the world except for your comatose girlfriend would disappear. A moment later you hear the doctor again, and he sounds closer.
"Excuse me, but if you don't actually know her, I'm afraid I have to ask you to stop touching her."
You clench your teeth, and turn enough to glare at him over your shoulder.
"She's my girl. Leave me alone!"
"But nobody knows who she is, and she has-..."
"She's fallen into a perennial sleep like in the cases you read in your medical reports! And she will never wake up again! Leave me alone! Leave me the fuck alone!"
The doctor stares at you dismayed, with his mouth open, but he must have recognized your grief.
"I... apologize."
He walks away.
A couple of minutes later your anger dissipates and you feel sorry for the guy, who likely has worked hard to treat the wounded. Nobody else but the Witch of Envy is at fault for people around you not knowing everything you would need to explain to them, and you should be grateful that some people, like Emilia, would want to spend time with you, but for the foreseeable future you just want to lock yourself in the bedroom that Crusch assigned to you, hug Rem through the night and hope that your dreams allow you to forget for a while about your present.
If you had forgotten about Rem as well, what would this world do with a young woman who nobody knows and that has fallen into a coma for the rest of her life? You don't want to think about it. You push Rem into a seated position, and after you hug her from behind, you manage to lift her up and lock her knees so she stands upright enough for you to maneuver to her front, rest her armpits over your shoulders and squeeze her breasts against your back. Once you lean forward and your legs bear Rem's dead weight, you feel as if you would have needed several years of weightlifting to handle this task. You hobble along the line of wounded towards the mansion's entrance.
"Subaru, we finally find you."
Julius approaches you shortly after you've walked past the area reserved for the wounded. Emilia is standing next to him, and when your gaze falls on her face, for a moment you don't see her as she is now but as the pale ghost that had stared at your detached head while your consciousness faded. A moment later the stream of tears running down her face, the dribble of saliva coming out of her mouth, as well as those dead eyes, disappear, and you stare back at a curious and confused Emilia who has no clue why you are carrying a sleeping girl on your back.
"Sorry", you say with a raspy voice. "My legs might give out at any minute. We can speak along the way."
You continue towards the mansion's entrance. Although Julius does glance at Rem, he doesn't know her and he must have figured that it's a personal matter of yours, so he doesn't bring it up.
"So, what's up?", you ask.
"I asked around regarding who ambushed the duchess' caravan. Surprisingly, it wasn't an army, but-..."
"Two men with superpowers. One with his hair almost bleached white and who wore a maybe military uniform, and the other a mix between a homeless person and a caveman."
"... You must have asked the same soldier, because he used that very expression to describe the second man. I shouldn't be surprised that you found out about important information before anyone of us."
A woman in her thirties wearing a servant uniform more modest than Rem's, you guess part of Crusch's staff even though you don't recall seeing her during your self-imposed loop, opens the mansion's main door as she notices you three coming. You thank her and keep going.
"I just found out something real bad, though", you say with a low voice. "One of those men must have some ability to steal or manipulate memories related to people, because Crusch doesn't remember who she is, nor did she know Ferris, her best friend from childhood."
Julius stops in his tracks. When you briefly stop as well, even though your legs are wobbling and feeling Rem's breasts pressed against your back is stealing blood away from the limbs that should carry her, you see in the knight's face that he probably shouldn't have learned this information. He belongs to a camp opposite to Crusch's, and the duchess having lost her memories probably means she won't ever reach the throne. Whatever. Unless Priscilla wins the race, which would likely end up in disaster for the kingdom, Anastasia Hoshin would likely do a decent enough job leading this nation, even if it involves turning it into a subsidiary of her company. And it's not like you care about the politics of this weird world anyway.
"That is terrible", Julius says with concern. "The ambush turned then into a successful assassination of a royal candidate, which might have been the original purpose."
"Because without her memories she's basically disqualified", you add for him.
Julius looks troubled.
"The duchess is a wonderful woman. My lady doesn't want to win by losing a person who would become one of her most competent vassals. I hope that this is merely temporary, but I..."
"You need to return to your household and inform Hoshin. I know. Right in time, too, because I'm not strong enough to carry such weight for long. Not that I'm calling her fat."
Julius glances at Rem, but otherwise he pretends he hasn't noticed her. He nods at you as he rests his hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword.
"I'm glad to have taken part in your operation, Subaru. We did a great service to the world, despite our regretful losses. And I apologize, again, for my behavior at the royal summons."
"You can't win me at regrets. Thank you for everything, man. All the spirits and the support and in general for having my back when nobody else would. I'm sure we'll see each other again."
Julius smiles agreeably, and then he leaves.
When you turn towards your assigned bedroom, which is located near the end of this long hallway, Emilia is standing in your way. She isn't blocking your path purposefully, and when she realizes you intend to pass she steps aside, but she looks as if she wants to ask you a million questions while she alternates between attempting to read your expression and studying Rem's face.
"This girl is wearing one of Roswaal's servant uniforms, and it's stained as if she has fought in the operation, but I don't recall seeing her, and she certainly wasn't working at lord Roswaal's mansion..."
You want to wipe the sweat beading on your face.
"I'll explain as much as I can bear to about the situation, but please let me reach the bedroom first. It's been a horribly long day."
"Sorry, of course..."
Once you reach your bedroom, Emilia opens the door for you, and then you carefully place Rem on the bed as if she fell asleep over the bedspread. You repose her head on a fluffy pillow. You doubt she will notice, but you want to make her as comfortable as possible. After Rem looks as if you can do nothing else for her at the moment, you sit heavily on the edge of the bed, rest your forearms on your thighs and you breathe a deep sigh.
You had forgotten about Emilia. She's waiting for you to address her existence, and she looks worried and uneasy.
"Subaru, who is she? This is the bedroom where we had our fight. Did the duchess house this girl here after they cured you?"
"No, this is still my bedroom, because Crusch hasn't officially told me to leave her place."
Emilia attempts to smile, but the corners of her mouth are trembling.
"She looks similar to Ram, very much so. Subaru... Why is she wearing one of our servant uniforms, where do you know her from? I mean..."
"You know her, Emilia, even though her memories have been erased from your mind. As you heard, one of the men who ambushed the caravan had some ability to manipulate people's memories, either making someone lose theirs or erasing the memories of a certain person in everyone else. That last ability sounds godlike and I would have never expected it of anything else than that damn whale, but..."
"The memories of this servant have been stolen from other people? Is that what you mean? But how come you remember her?"
"How come I was able to defeat Petelgeuse, an ancient great spirit, inside my mind? Maybe I'm just that great."
Your self-aggrandizing remark steals a smile out of Emilia despite her concern, as if she believes it.
"Even though I've never had to live through it, the White Whale is known to erase people as if they had never existed, so it's certainly possible... This woman worked at our mansion, then."
You look back at Rem. For a moment you expect to see her awake and smiling softly as she listens to your conversation, but she's gone. It's as if she isn't present, as if you care for a shell. You feel the warmth behind your eyes signalling incoming tears. You don't want Emilia to see you cry for Rem; you feel it would soil the relationship with the demon servant somehow. And you want to be left alone with your beloved.
"Her name is Rem, and she's Ram's little sister."
Emilia lets out a surprised noise. She walks to Rem's side and leans to look closer.
"I mean, I can't deny the resemblance. That's horrible. We need to bring her home. I don't know how Ram will take this... I can't even imagine her having a relationship with a sibling, alone as she always is."
"Yeah, Rem has been removed from all the memories you hold of Ram, but the sisters are really close. Rem is the sweet one, and Ram the one who would make you want to throw yourself off a window after having to stand her insults for an hour."
You are exhausted, you are hurting, and you wish to get under the sheets and hold your comatose girlfriend through the night. However, Emilia seems to be winding herself up to speak.
"Is she...", she begins cautiously, with a nervous smile, "going to sleep in your bed...?"
You want to sigh, but don't.
"I suppose you have noticed she isn't merely asleep. The doctor told me she's fallen into a sort of perennial sleep. It seems there have been other cases through the years. She might never wake up."
Not only your words cause Emilia's pupils to tremble, but you realize that she's caught something else in your tone that she hasn't liked. She stares at you worried, with her lips separated.
"That's... I think I have heard of such cases", she says with a low voice. "I mean, did you..."
You wipe whatever remains of the sweat from your face. Your legs are tingling from exhaustion.
"I'm not going to have sex with Rem while she's in a coma, if that's what you are implying."
Emilia blushes and looks away.
"You speak so freely about such a thing..."
"Well, it wouldn't be my first rodeo, if you know what I mean. But given the amount of half-beasts running around in this fantasy world, that phrase might have unintended connotations."
"Still, I'm not sure if it would be appropriate. I mean, she's a girl and you are... You are taking it too casually is what I mean."
You stare up at Emilia, who is forcing herself to hold your gaze even though she seems embarrassed and concerned about whatever relationship you might have with this other girl. Emilia, with her otherworldly beauty, her silky silver hair and those big purple eyes, is one of the most gorgeous sights you have come across, and merely looking at her brightens your day. However, while initially, the first time you met her, she seemed remote and unapproachable, now she seems like a silly teenager. Why wouldn't she look like that to you, though? Merely hours ago you won after fighting everyone in your life who wanted to stop you from guillotining yourself. You had possibly, likely, condemned another world to die, and now this Emilia is having trouble articulating her jealousy. You aren't such a suitable vessel for Satella then, you think.
"Emilia, I want to sleep next to Rem, and she would have wanted to as well. It wouldn't have been the first time. I'll take care of her."
Emilia snaps her head back in surprise, and although she tries to contain it, her face shows a dismay as if she had asked you out on a date after working herself up for days, only for you to tell her that you already have a girlfriend. You don't want her to suffer in any way, but you are also way too tired about everything, and beyond this kind of shit.
"It's okay, Emilia. We'll speak in the morning. I'm going straight to sleep, I need a serious break from all the nonsense we've been dealing with."
The half-elf lowers her head and shows you her back. After a couple of steps she turns towards you again and holds her hands in front of her waist.
"Subaru, I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry that we ever fought."
You sigh.
"Yeah, me too."
"I feel like you truly... are there for me. I don't like how you broke into the royal palace and interrupted the summons, but I understand your intentions. Still... I should have realized how hard you will push yourself for my sake. I would have never believed... I can hardly believe that you organized such an operation to save me. I would have never thought that someone would care about me that much."
"I do, Emilia. I want you to be happy and free."
She lifts her hand to her heart, and tears come to her eyes. She dries them quickly. Her emotions surface on her expression, but after she glances at the sleeping girl lying close to you, Emilia lowers her head.
"You will return to the mansion with us, right?"
"If you let me. I will fight for your sake, regardless of whether or not you reach the throne."
Although Emilia smiles gratefully, she's also confused as if you are sending her conflicting messages. Maybe only a fool in love would have pulled off what you did. But then again, this world would have ended if you hadn't fought your way to Emilia.
"Well, ah... See you tomorrow, Subaru!", she says, and leaves.

After she's gone, your heart sinks. You hide your face with your hands. A few people are having an animated conversation somewhere on the other side of the hallway. You listen to Rem's soft breathing, as remote as if it came from another planet.
When a few minutes later you pull one side of the sheets off to move Rem under them, you realize that her clothes are way too dirty and bloodstained. She should look comfortable even if she likely won't feel it. You leave the bedroom to locate some servant, and you come across a blonde guy with short, curly hair and a thin moustache. You had seen this guy almost every day during your self-imposed loop of two days, but you never bothered to learn his name, if he even has one.
"I need a change of clothes for my girl."
"What size?"
You don't know, so you lead him to your bedroom. When he peeks inside as if he doesn't want to enter it, he sees the unconscious woman wearing a bloodstained servant uniform. To his credit, his expression doesn't change.
"Is the miss dead? Has there been... an accident?"
"C'mon, man. She's just in a coma."
He arches an eyebrow while looking at you.
"I need to change her clothes", you add. "All that damn blood, it's unsanitary. Bring me something fresh. One of Crusch's nightgowns would be fine."
"One of the lady's...!?"
"You can grab one from her laundry basket."
"I will certainly not do that. I can bring you something reserved for the servants."
"From the female servants, please."
Before he closes the door, for a brief moment he looks as if he's suffering. He does bring you a beautiful, silky white nightgown a couple of minutes later. You undress Rem, although it's more difficult than the other times because she's not contributing. After you have undressed her to her panties, the sight of her pale breasts and her pink nipples makes you want to bury your face in them like you've done often. You want to lick every centimeter of her soft skin. Once you pull down her panties, the sight of her pussy, as well as the slightly sweaty smell after all that fighting, makes you salivate. You realize how hungry you are, although right now you wouldn't take anything less than that delicious meal in front of you.
After you have dressed Rem with her beautiful new nightgown and she looks so inviting that you want to jump in the bed with her and cuddle all night long, you shiver and realize that you've gotten harder than the crotch of your pants allows. You perk up, and from your mouth escapes a sound of delight. You grab your genitals through the pants, feeling up the bulge. That's right, you have a dick! Until a few hours ago a part of your brain had ran a process in the background to prevent you from thinking about your mangled genitals, but you are complete again!
You pull down your pants to your ankles and grab your dick. The smooth flesh thickens against your palm and your fingers. What a miracle of nature! Truly, no wonder some people believe in a creator of the universe. Such a magnificent organic device to procure you pleasure must have been created by God himself!
The door opens, and after Ferris takes a single step inside, she freezes with her mouth open. She stares wide-eyed at your genitals.
"I have a dick, Ferris!", you proclaim, elated. "Isn't it wonderful?"
The cat-girl lifts her gaze to your eyes and slightly raises one side of her mouth as if she's tasted something sour.
"It's okay, I guess. I came to ask if you wanted to eat dinner, but I see you are busy."
"Ah... Ferris, I want to apologize."
She narrows her eyes while doing her best not to look down.
"I'm the one who burst into your room without knocking. I truly should have known better, as in I must have hit my head really hard not to imagine I might bump into a situation like this."
"I mean that I've been a piece of shit to you. I always manage to make you mad, even though you've been cool with me."
"You haven't been that bad, beyond your weird utterances and your pathetic attempts at pretending you aren't checking out my ass. And I can't blame you for the image that just got burned into my eyes. You are still holding your erect penis, Subaru."
"Yeah, well. I had to celebrate."
"I better leave."
As she closes the door, she mutters something about how they need to install some door bolts in this mansion.

A few minutes later you shut the light off and you lie under the sheets next to Rem, whom you have turned so she rests on her left shoulder and her weight leans on you. You feel her warm breath on your face. By now you have gone soft; the sexual arousal had shielded you from this gloom and loneliness. While tears run down your right temple and moisten the pillow, you hug Rem's limp body and let her personal smell overwhelm you. You are home, even though Rem is somewhere far away.
"It's just the two of us from now on, Rem", you whisper, and then sniffle. "Plenty of it will involve me holding you in bed, just like you wanted."

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 33)

This part covers the remainder of the ninth volume of the original "Re:Zero" novels.

In the previous part, a maimed, dickless protagonist attempted to kill himself, but everyone around him wants to force him to live. He tastes Emilia's snot.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

First season

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
-Link for part 22
-Link for part 23
-Link for part 24
-Link for part 25
-Link for part 26
-Link for part 27
-Link for part 28
-Link for part 29
-Link for part 30
-Link for the post-mortem

Second season

-Link for part 31
-Link for part 32

Your consciousness, everything remaining of you that knows you need to hold on to your goal and keep going, is a little boat bobbing in a red tide of pain. You don't know for how many minutes you have lied on your back, resting your head on a few pillows, as you concentrated on the noises Emilia made as she turned around on the bed or her breathing patterns changed. Every time you had thought she was going to drift into deep sleep, she snapped out of it, and sometimes she even asked you to confirm if you were still there. She seemingly had signed on to a life of constantly fearing you are going to leave her behind to die. Fortunately for her she won't have to remain in such a nightmare for much longer.
It feels like the same time of the night you used to wake up at every two days for so long. Or maybe you just want to feel like you can start again. You have been listening to Emilia's deep breathing for some time, and you won't have many other opportunities to escape from all the people who intend to keep you alive against your will.
You descend from the bed as slowly as if you were sharing your bed with a sleeping bear. When you let your body rest on your stumps, the nerve endings sizzle with pain, forcing you to clench your teeth and shiver. Sharp, shooting pain like abscessed teeth. You grab your crutches and alleviate your body's weight a little, although the cold sweat has already come, and your body demands that you turn back and lie on the soft mattress. You venture towards the door fearing any creak of the floorboards. You would have thought that after all the nonsense you have been engaged in, like attacking a whole branch of a terrorist group, handling a psycho cat-girl who could have blown you up at any moment, and defeating an ancient ghost inside your mind, dealing with opening a door wouldn't make you so dizzy, nor your heart beat so fast.
The light of the full moon illuminates the hallway. You close the bedroom door behind you slowly, and when the door latch enters its hole, you take a moment to control your breathing and return the saliva to your mouth. You hadn't understood how exhausting it is to fight pain. You thought you had an idea, but not remotely to this extent. It feels as if staying sane while these waves of pain engendered in the mangled lower half of your body besiege your mind is a full-time job with unpaid overtime.
You push forward through the hallway towards the entrance. Along the way you trip and fall forward onto the carpet, and the thud sounds so loud in the silence that you are sure it must have woken up every inhabitant of this mansion. Wilhelm will exit his room, where he likely sleeps standing up and with his eyes open, and will storm through the hallways until he finds you. He will imprison you in you assigned room, or maybe throw you straight in the dungeon.
As you pass in front of the half-open doors to the kitchen, you spot through the glass panes that Ferris is slumped on a chair, bathed by moonlight. She has changed her clothes to a tank top that shows her flax-colored soft fur covering her arms and most of her chest, and she's also wearing something resembling pyjama pants. She is sipping on fruit juice. What stops you on your tracks are her eyes. She's got the thousand yard stare of a traumatized veteran.
She suddenly lifts her gaze and it connects with yours. Her eyes glint in recognition. You go cold. After a few seconds, Ferris lowers her face and takes another sip. You keep pushing forward.
After you maneuver to open the front door, as you are pulling it to close it behind you, you fall on the tiles leading to the entrance. You are already out. You hear a soft wind blowing and the grass of the vast yard rustling. Seemingly only Crusch's carriages remain parked near the exit gate. All the merchants are gone, and the wounded that had been distributed in a large area deeper into the yard are gone, with only a few sheet bundles abandoned behind. Then you spot, faintly illuminated by the moonlight, the black frame of a curled-up ground dragon. The mansion's staff must have tried to drive this beast away, but you had communicated to her, somehow, that she should stick around just in case you needed her. Such devotion and loyalty, when you truly have done nothing to deserve it, makes your eyes teary.
You've managed to close half of the distance with the ground dragon when she lifts her reptilian head, she shoots you a glance and then she jumps to her feet and runs towards you. She nuzzles your face, almost making you lose your balance. You hold one of the crutches sideways under your armpit and attempt to climb to the ground dragon's saddle. Patrasche immediately throws herself on the ground so you won't have to make so much effort.
As you hold both of your crutches under one armpit, because you fear abandoning them here only to need them later, you pull yourself onto the saddle. Although you end up resting what remains of your ass on it, the effort had sent an electric, nerve twisting pain running through your bowels. You go cold and hold your breath. For a moment you felt that something had ripped inside of you, but fortunately you only evacuate your bowels. What feels like plenty of mushy shit spreads between your ass cheeks, and presses against your flesh as your weight settles on the saddle. Then you smell it, the acrid, pungent stench of something like diarrhea, which somehow smells worse here than in a bathroom. Patrasche had already stood up, and bends her neck so she can shoot you a look. Her mostly inexpressive face doesn't clarify if she's staring at you appalled or concerned. Either way, the shame makes you want to cry.
"Sorry, girl. I couldn't help it. It feels almost liquid, too. I hope it doesn't run down the saddle."
When you ride out of the mansion's grounds as if you are suddenly travelling on a jet plane, you feel as giddy as you possibly can. You are mostly free. You can go where you need to. You doubt that random guards are going to stop you just because of your stench, so it should be a smooth escape from now on. Still, you try to put as much distance between you and the few couples walking under the lamplight. You failed to see one of those couples turning a corner, and the guy wonders out loud, somewhat amused, what's with that smell, only to glance at you as you pass by and then they become overwhelmed by second-hand shame. It feels as if you are discovering whole new ways of hurting people, of ruining their days, of creating uncomfortable memories for them that they will regret owning. No matter, you repeat to yourself. In a few minutes you will find yourself floating in Satella's black bath of love, and then she'll listen to you as you plead for her ghostly self to send you back further in time. She loves you, she keeps repeating. She can do you that favor.
As you are riding through a poorly illuminated stretch of street, something the size of a small ball zips flies past your head, turns around and hovers in place. You order Patrasche to stop, and the pain delays you from recognizing that Puck is attempting to block your path, arms crossed, glaring at you furiously.
"What in the royal fuck is wrong with you!?"
You inspire through your teeth, suddenly angry. You have neither the time nor the wish to deal with this little punk.
"Wrong with me!?", your voice cracks with raw emotion, and Puck's eyes quiver in response. "You are a talking, flying cat! I'm on a schedule here! Don't get in my way!"
His round, shiny eyes blink slowly, but his expression doesn't change.
"Even when Emilia was a child, during the worst moments of her life, I didn't witness her break down like this! All the work I have done since then, undone! You organized such an operation to save her, or claiming to, but you hurt her like this!?"
Patrasche has become agitated. She must sense the hostility of you both. She tries to bypass Puck, but he slides to the side so he keeps hovering menacingly close. You stroke the dragon's scales to calm her.
"I kind of pity you, Puck, for having taken care of Emilia for so long. She clearly needs help, and not any kind that either me or a talking, flying cunt can provide."
"You must think I'm joking around. Emi might never recover from this. I don't know if you even believe in the nonsense you spouted about Satella sending you back to the past if you died or whatever, but it worked enough on her. She needs to believe that you wouldn't ruin both of your lives for nothing! And what the fuck is that stench!?"
"I'm sitting on a cushion of near diarrhea, because I can barely feel anything in that area of my body ever since that huge dragon stomped me against the ground. Still, I would have thought that Ferris, claiming to be the best healer in the kingdom, would have done a better work than this. I swear that nasty cat-girl barely helped me, out of spite."
"And you blame her!? Why would she waste her energies and her talents on someone who deliberately threw away his life, and a hard-earned victory, while spitting on the faces of everyone that liked him!? I would have left you back at the side of Flugel Road as carrion."
You close your eyes tight. A steel-like hate is cooling your chest. This little shithead would fly away from any of your attempts to punch him or grab him, but you mainly fear the consequences of wasting your time here.
You order Patrasche to move past the hovering cat, but he shouts at you with a sharp voice and flies closer to your face. His cat eyes glisten with rage.
"You don't seem to understand, kid, that I'm a great spirit."
"So you keep saying. It can't take much to be considered great in your realm."
"Why, you... You should think twice about pushing me further, because you can't imagine what I would do to you. I have protected Emilia from far lesser threats to her well-being than what you represent now, and I didn't leave those people in pieces large enough for any burial!"
You perk up, and a noise of delight escapes your grinning mouth.
"That's right! You can just kill me! Let's go, then! I'll dismount my ground dragon and send her home. I'll stand there. You can throw one of those ice avalanche spells at me, freezing me instantly as I fly backwards against a wall, and then I'll shatter into pieces! That will be so awesome. Thank you, Puck!"
The little cat deflates as if you found out he was going to play a terrible hand, but in addition he lifts his paws to stop you while you are trying to figure out how to dismount Patrasche without invoking more nightmarish pain.
"Why would you jump into certain death so willingly? Are you actually trying to die?"
Your heart is pounding against your chest. Another disappointment. Everybody just has to make your life harder, and can't even do the one thing they should be able to. What a bunch of useless bastards.
"Actually!?", you exclaim, your voice raspy out of agitation. "The fuck you mean actually!? Weren't you snooping on the conversation between Emilia and me!? Are you that deaf, or stupid!?"
Puck laughs nervously, but he looks disturbed.
"C'mon, buddy, you can't just give up like that. Having ruined your body must hurt a lot, but-..."
You clench your teeth while you feel your pulse in your temples.
"What the fuck would you know, Puck?", you ask with a low, hollow voice. "Have you ever experienced inhabiting a physical body? I doubt you entertain yourself possessing people like that deranged freak Petelgeuse did, so really, what the hell would you know about the experiences us human beings go through? No wonder you keep fucking around as if we have all the time in the world to waste, with your disgraceful sloth."
"I like joking from time to time... but this is serious...", Puck murmurs while looking as if he has no clue how to handle you.
You want to keep berating the little cunt, but Patrasche is shifting her weight nervously. You wonder if she understands that you wish to die as soon as possible. The ground dragon might be the only living being that for you isn't at fault for something right now. You lean forward to pat her neck, and Patrasche bends it so she can press her head against your shoulder, her snout almost smothering you as she makes comfortable noises with her throat.
"Yes, I know you're nervous too, girl. Don't worry, we'll get out of this shitty situation soon."
While stroking Patrasche's neck, you turn your head to the side and spit out a small sigh through your teeth. You turn your attention back to Puck, who's still looking at you with a worried expression.
"The only thing worse than how you have mangled your body is you dying", the little cat says seriously, "Emilia can learn to endure your current state, and she might get some psychological benefit out of taking care of your useless self, maybe for the rest of your life, but if you die..."
"So you aren't going to kill me?", you interrupt him sharply.
"Obviously I can't."
"Fucking poser!", you explode. "Pussy ass bitch!"
You hear voices coming from somewhere above you. A few of the inhabitants of the closest residential building to where you have ended up arguing with this bastard have opened some windows and are talking to each other with concern. You would have thought they would yell at you two to shut the fuck up and allow them to sleep, but they are staring at Puck as if they have never seen a flying, talking cat before. Your world is filled with half-beasts, some of which that devour other human beings, but they are surprised about Puck?
The little cunt hovers closer to your ear while eyeing the onlookers nervously.
"Hey, we are making too much racket around here. Let's find somewhere quieter to talk."
"I have nothing to say to you, Puck. Fuck off."
You order Patrasche to get moving, and shortly after the onlookers have disappeared behind a couple of buildings. You don't like how in this new street the magical streetlights illuminate a larger stretch of it. You don't want to see any light. You want to navigate in the darkness until you find the sharp instrument that'll grant you your suicide.
Puck is keeping up with you, flying like a bird in formation.
"Stop following me, shithead!", you shout without looking at him. "I have somewhere to get to!"
"I can't let you die, Subaru."
You shake your head. Hot tears are growing in the corners of your eyes.
"Everyone in this weird fantasy world, you are all fucking useless."
A group of young people, somewhat inebriated, comment on your stench as you ride by. You yell back at them to shut the fuck up. They laugh and call you a crazy cripple.
"I can't believe you are discarding Emilia's feelings like this", Puck says as if he's thought about it for a while. "When I met you, you were dirt broke and with nowhere to fall dead. And you seemed like a good guy, helping Emilia with her huge problem. I don't understand what would make you turn around when you are so close to living the life next to one of the sweetest, most beautiful girls around. You are better than what you are showing me."
You order Patrasche to stop, and for a couple of seconds she drifts on the paved stones. You turn your head to Puck, who is hovering in place. Although your furious glare should already communicate that he shouldn't push you further, you have a good bunch of stuff that you have wanted to tell him for a while.
"You are taking the high road!? You would destroy the entire world because of some fucking contract! You are ready to murder millions, maybe every single living being in this planet, if Emilia dies for whatever reason! You think you have any fucking justification to berate me, to question my actions!? You are a fucking lowlife!"
Puck's cat face twists in a mix of shock and panic as he floats backwards.
"How do you... How would you be able..."
You keep glaring at him while breathing through your mouth. Shouting, letting your anger go, distracts your body from the waves of pain. Maybe you should have ran around while yelling like a maniac and punching every solid surface from the moment you woke up with your body ruined.
Puck turns his head to the side as if he's thinking of what to do. He suddenly flies upwards and vanishes.
Patrasche keeps staring with suspicion at the space where the so called great spirit disappeared, but you stroke her rough scales and urge her to keep going.
"If we are lucky, that's the last we are going to see of that little bastard in this reality", you say with a hollow voice.

You finally reach the plaza from which you can see the governmental building, three stories high and with fancy arched windows, that during your long, self-imposed loop in which you did little else than fuck around and literally fuck around, had become your personal church. You stop Patrasche and look up at the building in reverence. Back in those days you had walked through the streets up to this plaza like a pilgrim. You used to have legs. Seeing the building again makes your chest fill with warmth. If you can get to that roof, in a couple of minutes you'll be dead. You will have left behind this unacceptable world of a Rem that has fallen asleep forever, and this body that can't walk by itself and that pisses and shits itself at will.
You guide Patrasche to stop next to the stretch of fence where you learned they hide a set of spare keys behind a loose stone in the short wall over which rises that wonderful fence, a top-notch suicide device. Bars of tough metal rise on an angle ending in spikes, and anything caught falling through them would be trapped in between only to get sliced by the unnecessarily sharp anti-trespass measure waiting at the bottom. The motherfucker who designed such a gaudy fence must have known exactly what he was doing.
It takes too much time, particularly when your body screams in pain that you should perish as soon as possible, to communicate to Patrasche that you needed to dismount her, grab the spare set of keys, mount her again, open the gate, close it behind you, and then move up to the side door. Behind that door wait the three flights of stairs that lead you to the roof access door.
When you dismount Patrasche again you realize two things: first, you will need to climb three flights of stairs while coordinating yourself on two stumps and the crutches, and second, that liquidy shit is dribbling down your thighs. You wonder if at the end of this, even if you die and recover your legs and your Rem, you will have regained your dignity.
Patrasche touches your face with her snout as you rest your weight on the crutches. She seems to know that you are about to leave, although you wonder how far she believes you are going. You are about to tell her to wait for you here, but this loyal beast is capable of remaining in front of this door for years after some unfortunate public worker removes your beheaded corpse off the ground. Your throat tightens, and you sniffle for a bit.
"I shouldn't be so sad, when I'm about to see you in a little while. But maybe it's true, all that stuff that Emilia said about this reality continuing on after I'm gone, and I'll make you suffer through it. Find yourself someone else to care about, girl. I'm not worth it."
You drag yourself up the three flights of stairs while your vision gets blurry from the effort, and get the key into the lock, opening the door that leads to the roof. When you emerge outside, you are blasted by a strong wind. It is colder than you expected, and your bones ache from the windchill. Your body is covered in sweat.
Even though the nerve endings in your stumps seem tired of sending you pain signals and have gone almost numb, what remains of the shit dribbling down your legs keeps dripping on the floor. You approach the point of the roof edge from which you'd just have to let yourself fall forwards. The bent ends of the fence below are like a lover opening her arms to you. Then you see her. Emilia is running right towards where you beheaded body would fall, and her long, silver hair is trailing behind. A shiver makes you tremble. You consider maneuvering to hide from view, but she is already staring up at you. How has she found you?
"Step back from the edge, Subaru", Puck's serious voice reaches you from behind.
You look over your shoulder, but the little cat flies in an arc until he hovers a couple of meters in front of you.
"You brought her over to watch me die?", you ask with a thin voice. "You Machiavellian son of a bitch."
"I told her to come so you will face the damage you will cause her. You are right, maybe I don't really understand how it feels to have ruined your body to that extent. I will never know, thankfully, what it takes to keep going. And yet you must, because that sweet, loving girl down there will break if you throw yourself off this roof."
You feel as if your heart is going to escape through your mouth. Against your best judgement you look down at Emilia. She's holding her hands against her lips as in prayer, while her tears drip on her knuckles.
"Please!", she pleads. "You told me you would sleep with me from now on! You agreed that I would always be with you! Please don't do this!"
"You should know by now that my words don't have any value, Emilia." Although you tried to sound as calm as possible, your voice is trembling. "I just say things to free myself from undesirable situations. I'm a terrible human being, and you should have never cared about me to any extent."
"No! You fought so hard to save me, and even when we didn't know each other at all, you offered me your help! That's who you are! Even if you are hurting, I will make it all better. I'll find a way so you don't feel that pain anymore, and you can rely on me for everything that your broken body won't allow you to do anymore! I will always be there for you, so please!"
You swallow. There's no point to these emotions. They don't understand, they don't know, and when you wake up back at Crusch's mansion, none of this will have happened. Knowing that doesn't stop your tears from falling.
"If you end up staring at a corpse, Emilia, find someone else to fill that gap in your heart."
Emilia gasps. She lunges towards the side door for a moment, but she must have considered that as soon as she disappears from view she will hear the thud of your body hitting the ground. She jumps back to where she was standing before, and she puts her hands on her head as she stares at you with a horrible look of impotent despair.
"Subaru", Puck says with a stern voice. He's glaring at you as if he wants to stab you for every second of pain you are inflicting on Emilia. "I have no clue how you know what will happen if Emilia dies, and I know you won't bother telling me now. But you understand what you would do to this world if you jump to your death."
"No, Puck. What you would do. Not me."
"It would happen nonetheless."
"That's how you justify your actions, your mass murder of millions? You are worse than Satella. You are certainly incapable of loving anybody."
"It's…" Puck bites his lips. "It's for the best."
"Best? That's the best you have? At least Satella's reasons are pure, even though the fucking idiot doesn't understand the consequences!"
A gust of wind blows through your hair, and you hear nothing but the sound of a carriage passing by on a nearby street. Puck slides closer to your face. Judging from his expression, he seems to be at his wit's end.
"I'm not bluffing here, kid. I can't stop Emilia from killing herself if she wants to, and I have no doubt that she will if you die. She wasn't exaggerating about all she said. She will love you, you know, to the end. You have to choose between freeing yourself from your pain, the extent of which I can't properly understand, or condemning this world, including that innocent, wonderful girl down there, to death."
"You don't understand shit, but that's alright."
"Subaru, look at me. You live, and Emilia will care for you every day, she will tend to your every need, you will have her all for yourself. If you die, your spirit is most likely going to disappear into oblivion."
"You people have no clue, and wouldn't even if I could manage to explain myself entirely through this pain. You are such a bunch of fucking idiots who can't understand nor make an effort to."
Puck looks panicked. You guess that the so called great spirit doesn't have the physical strength to restrain you in any way, nor the power to avoid killing you. What a pitiful bastard. You burst out laughing.
"What would you want?", Puck asks with a shaky voice. "What would it take for you to step back from that edge?"
You speak as you continue laughing.
"A united world under one religion, a single strong man to head it who will rule with a fist of iron and pave the way for a new order. An end to the repression of the masses by the greedy nobles. A complete change in the culture and values of society. Castor oil replaced with pancakes and tea made from honey. That is my final wish."
The little cat shivers, and his expression twitches under your gaze. You didn't even impress me when you resurrected as a dozens of meters tall mountain of fur, right before the end.
"Puck, you useless cunt," you say with rage, "you don't know me at all. I will always do what is necessary, no matter the pain. It doesn't matter if nobody else understands."
You hunch over to look at Emilia. She's sitting on the floor as if her legs just gave up, and her arms hang limp at her sides. Even though her watery eyes keep pleading, she knows.
"I do love you, Emilia. Not remotely as much as I love my Rem, but enough that I will face Satella over and over so one day you will live happy and free."
You push yourself off the edge and drop the crutches. The way this wind rushes in your ears, along with the weightlessness of your body, feels like a return home. For a moment you wonder if you have misjudged the jump due to your mangled lower half, but as those spikes grow further apart in your field of vision, you know you have succeeded. You feel the thick metal clamping your neck, and then an orgasm of pain severs your head. The view, bathed in moonlight, twirls wildly. Something hits you on your left temple like a boxer's punch, but before you know it you are resting on the gravel. You are free from having to command any part of your body under your neck, you are free from the onslaught of pain your useless body kept assaulting you with. You have won.
You know your consciousness will last a few seconds. Emilia is sitting a few meters from you, and her face is frozen except for her tears and the dribble of saliva coming out of a corner of her mouth. Her eyes stare at yours with no hint of life.

Once the blackness envelops you and Satella's liquid-like love seeps through your pores, you do feel safe for a moment. Then it tastes differently, as if a stalkerish madwoman had bottled her vaginal juices after years of touching herself while thinking of you, and had forced you to bathe in it. The Witch of Envy, biggest whore in the universe, dispensing her love to any undeserving scum.
"Come already!", you yell, or think, at the darkness in front of you. "I know you are there! Quit your fucking theatrics!"
Her claw-like hands, with the fingers outstretched, emerge out of the blackness, and the elongated arms follow them.
"If you love someone, you should fuck them," you say, "not fuck them over. Why would you have sent me back to the carriage instead of to a moment when I could save the person I love? Or is that your..."
You don't have a body, and therefore no pain that your nerves would insist on informing you about, but you figure that if you had, a chill would run from your head to your toes. Is that it, Satella? It must be. It's your envy. You want me alive no matter how much this world insists on ruining me, but you can't allow me to have someone that would love me like you do. No, who would love me like a living person is supposed to love another. You haven't loved for real in four hundred years. No, knowing you as well as I do, you never had even when you breathed and your body hadn't rotted.
Her glowing, purple eyes stare at you through a black mist.
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I lo-"
"Send me back to Crusch's mansion like you used to do, Satella", you order her. "You fucked me over willingly, didn't you? Change it back."
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I-"
"I know you understand me. The first time we met you said my name. Just that one time, but you showed your hand. If I'm truly your champion, your one beloved, you owe it to me."
The Witch of Envy has tired of embracing you, and she lets you float in place while she begins to slide back into the darkness. She never reacted, she never answered. She loves because she needs to love.
"If I had arms," you say, "I would reach you and strangle you. I would squeeze your ghostly life out of this place until we both disappeared."

The sensations return to your brain like a big wave striking you against a wall. You feel the vibrations of the bench on your ass. The light of the rising sun oozing through your closed eyelids. The smell of grass and dirt gets stuck in your nose. Your head is resting on someone else's, while a small, warm body hugs your right arm and rests its head on your flesh.
You open your eyes. In front of you there's a line of kids and two male teenagers sleeping. You look down at your legs. They are there, they don't hurt. You move your toes inside your shoes. You close your legs to squeeze your balls, which lift your penis. You feel hollow, as if you had woken up in a morgue after someone pulled out all your organs except for your brain.
You stand up slowly but forcefully, yanking your right arm out of the tween's embrace. Emilia was saying your name only to break into a yawn. A nausea is rising to your throat as if all the acid in your stomach is fighting to escape your body.
You lunge towards the opening of the tarp in the back of the carriage. When Emilia raises her voice to question your action, you fall to the floorboards and grab the jutting board that separates the back of the carriage from the outside. Vomit gushes from your mouth and your nostrils.
Some kids say 'eww'. You feel someone's hand rubbing your back, and then sliding upward to caress your neck.
"No, don't vomit like that, general!", Otto's concerned voice comes from the driver's seat. "The ground dragons hate it when it splashes their legs. If they get too annoyed it could cause a collision! Please, give him this bag."
Emilia lifts her hand from your neck and you hear her footsteps rushing to the front of the carriage, and then back. She holds a paper bag under your mouth. You vomit into it. Your vision has blurred, you have gone cold, you want to die.
"Just let it all out, Subaru", Emilia says sweetly. "You will feel much better."

The protagonist has gone through horrible nightmares, but this loop felt like the worst. He utterly failed; by the end he only gained further regret, shame, disappointment and mental scars of all kinds.

In the original, Ferris not only is a guy, but he's not a half-cat so much as a "I just have cat ears and fur-like hair, and otherwise I'm human". My version of Ferris not only has a pussy and larger breasts, but she's also covered in flax-colored fur except for a few places like her face, her palms, part of her breasts, part of her pussy presumably, and hopefully her ass or else cleaning that would be a nightmare. The combined impression must be fucking horrifying, but clearly someone is fucking these abominations in that fantasy world.

Fortunately I managed to write it although I've gone back to work. Yesterday I returned to the office on an hour and a half of sleep, because I always suffer from insomnia whenever my routine changes. Today, a Saturday, I worked the maintenance shift. Initially I panicked because the proxy blocked the AI Dungeon site, and writing the entry by my lonesome would defeat a significant part of the purpose of getting through this retelling in the first place. Fortunately I managed to connect remotely to my home PC and finish the rest of this part. I feel sick!

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 32)

This part covers some of the ninth volume of the original "Re:Zero" novels.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

First season

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
-Link for part 22
-Link for part 23
-Link for part 24
-Link for part 25
-Link for part 26
-Link for part 27
-Link for part 28
-Link for part 29
-Link for part 30
-Link for the post-mortem

Second season

-Link for part 31

You don't know for how long you have lied on your back while covering your eyes with your forearm, and trying to meditate away the waves of pain coming from your mangled lower half. Suddenly an uproar comes from the carriages in front of yours. Your driver slows down and then veers towards the side of the road. Julius opens the tarp on the back, and after looking around for a moment, he jumps out. For a while it sounds as if plenty of people are getting out of their carriages and then either exclaiming in surprise or shouting at each other. Eventually Ferris, looking worried and angry, also peeks out from the opening in the tarp only for Julius, who had returned, to startle her.
"There are remains of broken or destroyed carriages, as well as dead ground dragons and blood. No human or demi-human corpses, but it looks as if they were hauled off. Ferris, they bear your household's coat of arms."
Ferris gasps and jumps out. You opened your mouth before you could formulate what to ask, but ever since your conversation with these two ended, they seem content with ignoring the stain you currently represent.
You take the opportunity to look around you for any possible tool to kill yourself, but there's nothing but floorboards and the benches. Through the opening in the half-closed tarp on the front you see that the driver must have gotten out to check out the carnage.
The knowledge that you will have to tolerate existing in your broken body at least until you reach the capital gives way to the regret and sadness that you must have been right: Crusch's caravan was attacked by the White Whale. It must have been such a rare occurrence for the whale to repeat the same hunting grounds mere hours later that it even bewilders the local inhabitants of this weird fantasy world. You keep repeating to yourself how much you need to die and return to the past, but your mind insists that for all you know you will return to the carriage you were sharing with Emilia and those kids, and it will be impossible to rewind the universe further. It must have been Satella's decision, though, instead of some kind of limitation in your power.
Your thoughts are interrupted by an agitated argument behind the back tarp. A few seconds later it is thrown open, and both Julius and Ferris get in. The cat-girl stares at you with a mix of anger and perplexity.
"I wasn't lying to you guys", you say with a raspy voice. You cough. "My girlfriend was truly coming back to the capital on that caravan, and suddenly Emilia didn't know about her existence. Maybe only some got eaten... The duchess might have survived. Clearly enough people survived to organize a new caravan and keep going."
Ferris' eyes look blank. She turns away from you and keeps walking until she sits down heavily on one bench. She hides her face with her hands.
Julius crouches next to you.
"Is this the first time you have reached the remains of the duchess' caravan?"
"You believe me now, Julius?"
"I'm making a serious effort to, and that you had foreseen this ambush lends credence to your words."
"That's good. Yes, this is the first time. After I learned from Emilia that the memories of my Rem had disappeared from others' brains, I killed myself successfully, but then Satella instead of sending me far enough in the past, she sent me back to mere minutes before as I was sitting on the carriage! That rotten bitch... I tried to kill myself for the second time, but I failed and ended up talking to you guys."
Julius narrows one eye as he looks troubled.
"You don't choose the point you return to?"
"I wish! No, Satella used to send me back to Crusch's mansion a couple of days ago. I was ready to return and fight the cult all over again, but that looped witch changed the rules. I need to plead with her to move the return point further back."
"Plead with... How is speaking with Satella like?"
"Far more annoying than you would think. It's a one-sided conversation. Turns out that being trapped in a dark space for hundreds of years hasn't done wonders for her mental health. I can't tell what's she's thinking, if coherent thoughts even remain in her ghostly head."
Julius look down, and then he arches an eyebrow as he runs his hand through his light purple hair.
You should give this guy a break. He's already working hard enough remaining on your side as wild shit comes out of your mouth.
"Let's leave it for now", you say. "We will need to see the extent of the damage for ourselves once we get to Crusch's mansion."
"If my lady has died...", Ferris begins to say with a hollow, teary voice, but she doesn't finish the sentence.
"She hasn't been eaten by the whale, Ferris. That much is obvious."
Julius nods slowly. He stands up, shuffles to a bench and sits down.

Your caravan has been navigating through the capital's busy and noisy streets for a while. Even though you never enjoyed the tumult of the capital, nor of big cities back on your world, having returned to a functioning community makes you feel safer, and more importantly offers you more opportunities to kill yourself. You need to figure out how to get rid of the people around you who want to force you to keep existing in this reality, and then drag your broken body to something or somewhere that would provide you a safe death.
Your driver announces that you have finally reached Crusch's mansion. For a moment your heart swells. The duchess' place had become a home away from home, a haven full of memories, plenty of them happy to various degrees, although most of them keep stealing your sleep. As you try to sit up, whatever remains of your hip cries out in pain. You clench your teeth. Did this damn cat-girl heal you at all? Did she fail to offer you any relief as a punishment?
When you are considering asking her, the carriage parks, and the dismayed healer jumps out of the carriage. Julius stands next to you and offers you an understanding look.
"Do you want me to carry you?"
You avoid his gaze.
"Julius, how does one walk by himself in this fantasy world when his lower half has been obliterated?"
"I never had to consider it before. Maybe there are some healers inside who could guide you properly."
You end up hanging from Julius' back like a humiliated backpack. The sun has already set, although the sky hasn't darkened entirely. As Julius journeys through the throng of people unloading carriages, carrying the wounded somewhere or just running around for no fucking reason, you think that you can never allow yourself to fuck up this bad ever again. You either kill yourself safely or you wait until you can. At this point of your unnatural life you believe you can take any kind of pain, and even enjoy some of it. You have certainly sought it out before. But the regrets and humiliations pile up in your mind, and they will accompany you for however many times you wake up in that black oven to join your goddess.
Julius is carrying you through an area where the wounded either lie unconscious, get treated by low level healers, or aren't wounded at all and instead are covered to their ankles with whatever sheet-like thing was at hand. It's hard to distinguish anybody's voice or their words, but you both end up recognizing Ferris' wail. It cools your blood to hear such a sound coming out of a woman that seems determined to tough out any problem.
A few seconds later Julius has located the cat-girl, and he stands a few steps from her kneeling self. She's hugging a lying body whose upper half Ferris is covering, but the military uniform as well as the pieces of plate armor identify her as Crusch Karsten. Her left arm is detached near the elbow and lying next to her on the grass. Whatever removed it sliced through the gauntlet as if it were made of butter. You feel Julius' shiver through your body, as you are leaning on his back.
"The White Whale didn't do this", you say low enough that only Julius hears. "No way it cut Crusch's arm in such a way."
Only when you mention the duchess' name you need to contain a sob. The duchess is dead. The coolest woman you have ever met, the best mother figure you have ever had, who had cared for you so much and that was so fair and honorable with everybody. She's gone.
Julius walks away from the sobbing cat-girl for a few steps.
"Something even more nefarious than that monster must have assaulted them. Maybe some of the wounded can-..."
A nerdy-looking guy in his thirties approaches you. He's wearing a grey robe stained with blood.
"You need medical treatment, right? Did you come with the new caravan? Let's move over there, please."
Julius follows the man. You are passing by other healers and plenty of wounded.
"H-Hey," you begin to say, even though your words feel stuck in your throat, "did you see a blue-haired servant among the wounded? Very pretty, great body."
The doctor snaps his head back.
"You knew her? Nobody remembered seeing her before. They concluded that she must have been a stowaway."
You gasp close to Julius' ear.
"Please, bring me to her!"
The doctor nods. Julius follows the guy for around ten seconds, and then you spot Rem. She's lying face up on a sheet. Although she has her eyes closed and her lips slightly open, her chest rises and falls as she breathes normally. Her servant uniform is stained with blood, but not more than it already was when you bid her farewell at the village. She's not injured.
The mental block that had allowed you to keep going up to this point breaks down. As warmth surges to your face and a sound of blood rushing deafens you, tears fall from your eyes. You turn your head away so they won't drip on the knight who insists on helping you.
"Please, set me down next to her", you say with a thin voice.
Julius does so. Both the knight and the healer stare as you stroke Rem's hair and rest your forehead on hers.
"Julius, this is my girl. I have no clue what's going on... She doesn't seem injured." You look at the healer, who keeps a solemn expression. "What's wrong with her?"
"I had only read about her apparent case in medical reports, but she has the same symptoms as a few people who were found over the centuries in apparent sleep, and interestingly some of the identities of those people were unknown as if they had popped up from nowhere, which made me doubt that this woman was a stowaway."
"She isn't a stowaway, she's one of us! She took part in the operation, fought the cultists and all that. The memories of her have been stolen somehow."
The healer makes the universal noise of understanding.
"Something similar to the White Whale's powers, then. However, it hasn't affected you."
"I don't know why. Doc, what's the problem with her then? Why isn't she conscious?"
The healer tightens his lips and narrows his eyes.
"I'm sorry, but the people with this condition... They fall into a perennial sleep. I don't recall reading that any of them woke up eventually. Such a terrible thing..."
"That's horrible", Julius says with a pained tone. "Could be the work of a curse, or a rare power."
Your heart beats in your neck as you stare at Rem's calm face. You need to be alone with her, you want to hug her tight and forget about the world. She won't wake up? She'll stay like this forever? You have to abandon this reality. Satella must allow you to return further back in the past so this won't happen.
"A magical coma", you say as your voice trembles. "Rem, I specifically asked you not to do this."
When you turn your head back to both men, the healer's lips are tightly pursed as he avoids eye contact, and Julius has a thoughtful yet pained expression while carefully looking at you out of the corner of his eye.
"Don't worry about me, doc", you say with a hollow voice. "The supposed best healer in the kingdom, Ferris, has already treated my injuries, supposedly. I'm as good as I'll ever be."
The healer nods, although he looks you over again.
"I will be around. If you need help you can ask any of us. As the lady ordered, we are here to treat the casualties of this operation."
Julius stares at the healer as he leaves, and then he speaks to you in a low voice.
"I figure you want to spend some time alone. I also want to ask around whether any of the people who returned with the duchess can give me any detail about whoever ambushed them."
"Thank you, Julius."
"I'm really sorry about your beloved."
After he leaves, you lie on your shoulder and stroke Rem's face. You open her eyes, but her eyeballs stare at the stars blankly. You are feeling numb except for the waves of pain that occasionally make you clench your teeth. No doubt that if you stayed in this broken reality you would have to tolerate some degree of this continuous pain for the rest of your life. You would go insane.
You look around, but apart from the wounded, bandaged and bloody, most of which seem dazed although others are sitting up and eating dinner, there's a conspicuous lack of swords or daggers to stab yourself with. You would have thought that you wouldn't have to beg too much for someone to kill you, and that some would assist you eagerly, but this fantasy world keeps surprising you in the same way that a bug in your food is a surprise.
When the first healer looking person, a woman, is about to pass you by, you call out for her to stop.
"Excuse me, I kind of had an accident with my legs. Is there any chance you can give me some crutches, small ones, like for a half-beast person?"
The freckled woman with curly red hair smiles at you sweetly, and you get some encouragement from her eyes.
"I can get you a pair."
After she leaves, you feel truly grateful for the first time since you woke up at that carriage. You focus on Rem, on watching her as much as you can given that you had thought her lost forever, but you feel a disconnect between her comatose self and you. It's like she's an echo, or an embodied memory of the person she was, not because she's fallen to this curse or whatever it is, but because you will abandon this reality and the sooner the better. After you have integrated the notion that you are a temporary inhabitant of a failed reality, you need to make an effort to interact with people you knew while respecting the boundaries of normal behavior, at least until you are seconds away from the salvation of death. You owe it to those people, at least.
You wait patiently for the healer to come back, and once she does, she's about to hand you a couple of sturdy-looking, wooden crutches when she gets startled.
"What is that ground dragon doing here?"
As soon as you turn your head, a rough, mostly dry tongue licks your forehead and your hair, rasping your skin and you are quite sure pulling out a few of your hairs. Patrasche's black head and her bright orange eyes fill your vision. As soon as your gazes connect, she growls as if whining. Although you have become half a person, you can't help but smile at her.
"Didn't want to worry you, girl. I've gotten into a bit of trouble, but it's alright."
The healer remains silent for a few seconds, but then hands you the crutches. She looks at the ground dragon as if she wants to ask you to send Patrasche away, but you suppose that she pities your broken self.
"She won't step on the wounded or charge into them", you say to the healer. "She's a good girl. From now on wherever I go she'll go."
The next time you lift your face, the healer has left. You rest your head on Patrasche's neck as she nuzzles what remains of one of your thighs.
The healer has given you crutches short enough that they might allow you to maneuver around while standing on the stumps. Ferris did close them, at least. As soon as you can move somewhat freely, you can find the way to kill yourself. There's hope.
You realize that Julius is standing close to Rem's feet. She's looking with a troubled expression at the sleeping demon servant.
"Did you find something out, Julius?", you ask.
"I have. Apparently the duchess' caravan was ambushed by two men."
"Two men did this? And they caused people to forget Rem?"
"They clearly weren't normal men, by the descriptions I have received of the attack. One of them, a young man wearing a white, maybe military uniform and with hair almost bleached white, seemingly destroyed two caravans, killing all the wounded it was carrying, as effortlessly as if he had just willed it. While the carriage one of the people I talked with was riding veered off the road, the one carrying the lady charged towards the man to run him over. However, the man exploded her carriage. Miss Karsten survived that attack, although their memory of how seemed hazy. The duchess confronted the white-haired man. Her blessing failed to cut through him, and in turn he tore off half of her left arm. Chaos ensued. The soldiers I spoke with couldn't tell me anything more except that they got a glimpse of the other man, and they described him as a mix between a homeless person and a caveman, with sharp, shark-like teeth."
"This world just gets better and better, huh?"
"At some point those men just left. Maybe this ambush was a message instead of an attempt at extermination."
"But they killed Crusch." Your throat closes, and you blink away the impending tears that were forming in your eyes. "Her camp is exterminated for all intents and purposes."
"Ah, no. The duchess is alive!"
"She is?"
Julius attempts a smile, but a quick look at your mangled body and the comatose girl, one of whose hands you are holding, sours his mood.
"I saw a soldier helping her walk into the mansion as Ferris kept healing her reattached arm."
"Crusch was walking on her own?"
"Mostly."
"That's good. It doesn't change my situation, but..."
Julius briefly rests his hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword. After he looks over the many wounded and then how a few carriages are exiting the mansion's grounds, he turns his attention to you and holds your gaze as if he will never see you again.
"Subaru, you told me the truth, isn't that right?"
"I did, yeah. As hard as it is to believe, and strange as it has been for me to live it."
"I need to come back to my household and inform the lady. If you and I don't see each other again..."
He looks troubled, and doesn't seem to know how to continue.
"We will see each other again, Julius. If not in this reality, in another one. You are a good guy. I'm glad we met."
Julius tightens his lips and nods.
"I've known you to do what is necessary no matter how risky and unorthodox. Don't give up, Subaru, whatever giving up looks like for you."
Julius turns and walks away briskly towards the main gate.
You rest your head next to Rem's. As you stroke her soft hand, you close your eyes and try to focus on that feeling instead of on the pain coursing through your body. This isn't your Rem. Your girl is waiting for you to come back and keep her at the village so she will never fall into this state.

Some minutes later, you sit up as much as your elbows and your shattered hip allow you to. Patrasche had curled up next to you, and when she notices you staring at her, she lifts her head slowly. Her reptilian face somehow looks depressed.
You put the crutch pads under your elbows and you grasp the grips. You make an effort to stand on your stumps, but they have retained enough nerve endings for them to feel as if you are filing your teeth. The pain makes you want to groan. Your eyes get watery and your heart beats loudly. You push yourself to advance the equivalent of a few steps when you realize that Patrasche has stood up as well and looks gigantic close to you.
"I don't know how much you understand, girl, but stick around. Don't get too far from the mansion. I might need you."
You clench your teeth as you keep pushing forward. Your arms are already trembling, and a couple of times the tip of a crutch gets stuck in the grass or the mud and you keel over. One of those times you get a mouthful of grass. Although there are people around, you refuse to look up in case someone wants to offer you help.
You were beelining towards the gate when the black pants of a suit appear in front of you, determined to block your path.
"Mr. Natsuki, where are you going?"
You look up at Wilhelm, who has grown taller all of a sudden, and you regret looking him in the eyes. His gaze is stern in a similar way as it was during your self-imposed loop of two days when you were ransacking Crusch's wine cellar and in general had discarded every shred of human decency. Although back then you just didn't care, now shame burns in your chest. But you've had enough of existing in this body. Trying to explain your situation to more people would be a huge waste of time.
"Taking a walk. I figured that I better get used to these crutches, as I'll have to use them from now on."
"It's too late in the day for that, as well as too soon after your suicide attempt. Miss Ferris has ordered the staff to accommodate you in your previous bedroom. Some sleep will contribute to seeing things clearly."
You want to argue, but you suspect that Wilhelm will forcefully drag you into the mansion if you refuse. At least he allows you the dignity, if you can call it that, of pushing yourself with the crutches without helping you. Everyone you come across inside the mansion stands aside as you pass, but you make a point of not looking up at them to figure out who they are. You don't want to remember their expressions.
Wilhelm does open the door of the bedroom for you. You stand in the doorway and you find yourself staring in pain at the bed. You should have woken up here. So many of your recent memories, some of the strongest of your life, had involved waking up in this bed. At the same time you not only feel an urgent need to sleep, but also to eat something. You need to ignore both as well as the constant pain running in the background.
You climb the bed and arrange the pillows so they will support your back. As you were about to look at Wilhelm and plead somehow with him to leave you alone, your crotch area feels wet. You try not to think about your crotch, about the mangled state of that vital area of your body. Far less damage to it would have already signalled that the time had come for the entire universe to rewind. You don't sense anything resembling dick muscles that would contain your pee. You hope that it won't smell. God, you seriously need to die as soon as possible.
"Mr. Natsuki."
Wilhelm's serious tone wakes up from your turmoil. You force yourself to swallow your shame and stare at him.
"Why would you do this?", he demands to know.
Your mouth runs before you bother to think about some proper lie.
"I'm a weak man, sir Wilhelm. After surviving this operation I realized that I don't want to live in a world where such horrible people exist and cause so much pain to others. I would have never become as strong as you, or even enough."
You aren't sure why you have said something you know it to be false, nor how it came out of your mouth as if you were being honest. Wilhelm lowers his head, but the stoic expression in his old visage doesn't change. After a few seconds, he turns enough to offer his profile.
"Lady Emilia wished to see you. She will come in shortly."
Your heart sinks. You were about to reach for him with your arm as if to keep him from calling her over, but you want to avoid disappointing Wilhelm further if only to prevent those memories from infecting your mind.
"Please, no."
"She will see you, and you will speak with her in private. You need to become at least strong enough to face the consequences of your decisions."
He exits the bedroom and closes the door quietly. You feel cold, you are in pain, your crotch is leaking, and the thought of facing Emilia's despair forces you to swallow and press your fist against your mouth to contain a rush of nausea. I need to die, you think. I need to die. I need to die. I need to die. I need to die. I need to die. I need to die.
The door opens. You don't look up. After it closes, from the corner of your eye you distinguish Emilia's white dress lined with purple, and how her hands, that she's holding in front of her waist, are shaking. You stop breathing. After a while, from her mouth escape sounds resembling sobs, and her dripping tears fall down your frame of vision. Emilia walks closer to your side as if to force you to look at her.
Her beautiful face is contorted in anguish, and her purple eyes keep pushing out tears like an open faucet. Her eyes are red as if she hasn't done anything else than cry ever since you failed at killing yourself, and her hair is somewhat disheveled. You picture her crouched against a corner of the carriage they were keeping her in, rocking back and forth while clutching at her hair. What could you say to someone you have hurt to this extent?
"S-Subaru...", she mumbles. "Why... why did you, you would have d-died? Why did you d-do it? What's wrong? I'm lost. That's the problem. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me..."
It feels as if your heart is shattering into pieces. The fact that it's not only makes it all the more unbearable. This girl has lost it.
"It's not you, Emilia. My plan was to prevent you from dying, but I knew that I..."
You are trying to spin some lie that would justify your suicide attempt, aren't you? You are going to lie to her as well. And why? For her to run away in tears, giving you enough space so you can finally escape this mansion and the well meaning ways all these people you've come to appreciate want to keep you alive. That's maybe your only true talent: knowing exactly what to say so people dismiss your existence. You are going to hurt her sensitive soul even further. I despise you, Satella, you think, and acid-like rage sizzles in your heart. Even just for allowing me to come back in time to face this nightmare, I despise you, you rotten witch.
"I'm... I'm sorry", you say. "Please forgive this pain I have caused you. It wasn't my intention."
You reach for her hand, which feels cold, and stroke it. Emilia's lips tremble.
She does nothing but stare and you and sob. You swallow, and push yourself to keep talking.
"I'm broken, but please, don't cry. You-"
You don't get to finish your sentence. Emilia's free hand balls up in a fist, and before you know it her punch lands straight in your nose. The back of your head hits the headboard. It knocks the wind out of you, and you are left speechless.
"Stupid!", she shouts. "How can you even think of leaving me! I..." She breaks off as she tries to find words. "I need you!"
She didn't punch your nose, which is dripping blood on your chest, because you almost died, but because you would have left her side. Even though you don't want to, that annoys you.
"And there's the whole thing that I would have died, right? As in I wouldn't be alive anymore?"
Emilia narrows her eyes, although it doesn't stop any of her tears from falling.
"I-I don't want you to die, Subaru. You need to remain by my side. I want you to keep living and stay with me. Didn't you understand that? Why did you do it? Why would you try to die?"
"Emilia, I don't know if there's any point in telling the truth to you right now, in this broken reality, but I just can't take your crying face. I can barely look at you."
"Why, why would you do that? You would have killed us both!"
"Damn it, Emilia. Listen to me. You people don't listen, even when I bother to explain myself. I didn't intend to die in the sense that I wanted my consciousness to disappear. I have a blessing, okay? A power given to me by Satella, that silver-haired half-elf that most of the world hate you for. She granted me a power to return in time whenever I die. I tried to kill myself because I would travel back in time to a moment when I could prevent Crusch's caravan from departing from the village before the fighting ended. That's all, okay? Now please stop crying. I'm going to die just by looking at you like this."
"B-But why would you do that? That's insane!"
"Of course it's fucking insane, but that's how it is! Do you think I want to die? Well, I have wanted to die many times, but even if I did want to disappear entirely, Satella would prevent me from doing so! I'm forced to keep struggling even if I completely lose all will to exist. If I don't manage to kill myself, Rem is gone forever, and then I truly will want to die for real. There's only so much I can take. Satella doesn't reset my emotions nor my memories leaving only the foreknowledge. I have to bear all this fucking garbage on my own. Do you know how hard that is!?"
Emilia stands there sniffling and crying and trembling. You realize that you want to be angry. Maybe anger is a bandage for this despair rising in your chest. If you hate the world you can survive it.
You pull on Emilia's hand you are still holding, and as she staggers forward you embrace her and rest her cheek on yours. Her hot tears wet your skin.
"Emilia," you begin softly, "I will kill myself because Satella's blessing will allow me to return back in time. You won't lose me, I won't leave your side. I will wake up hopefully in this bed a couple of days ago, if Satella listens to me, and I will gather enough forces to rush to the mansion and save you. I will repeat it as many times as I need. So you have nothing to worry, no reason to cry. My broken body just makes things a bit harder, that's all. Pain I can take. I will take all of it. Don't suffer for me."
Emilia hugs you back and cries into your shoulder.
"Please, don't die. P-Promise me that you won't die."
"You and your promises. No, I can't promise you that. I will kill myself, Emilia, because I will return back in time. Please tell me you understand that. I can barely keep it together anymore. I need to leave this reality. Did you understand what I told you, Emilia?"
"Y-You say that you have a blessing that makes you return in time if you die...?"
"You haven't lost it that much, then. That's right. So it's okay, you know? It all seems scary, but that's just the surface view of things. Dying isn't so bad after all! I don't want to get into the details of that blessing or my on and off relationship with Satella, but that's how it is."
She tries to break the embrace, but you hold her tight against her will. She's shaking. After a few seconds she tries to push herself off by supporting herself on the headboard. You don't know why you are restraining her like this. Everything hurts, you can barely tell what you are doing.
Then, she hugs you tight once again.
"If... If that's true... Then I'm prepared to die as well."
You remember, as a distant memory, that an impossible winter will descend if her heart stops beating. What a troublesome woman. Dating her would be such a rollercoaster. The sex would likely be amazing, though. You no longer have a dick.
"Don't get so dramatic. I will die so none of you needs to suffer any longer. And as soon as I can I will kill myself!" You break into song. Your thoughts contort and stretch and seem about to snap. "I will stab myself in the throat with a broken bottle and soak the duchess in red, and run up to the baroness and shove my tongue in her mouth so her dog runs me through with his sword, and start fights with every thug in town so they break every one of my bones, I will invent a gun and blow my brains out! I will take my globs of blown out brain and gobble them down and then I will vomit them on the ground!"
Emilia just cries louder. Upon hearing her, you burst out laughing. Ah, it's such a joke. The whole thing, every single moment you have lived through, every second of your miserable life, is a terrible joke.
You move your hands to Emilia's shoulders and separate her from you. Snot runs down her nostrils and slides down her lips. You grab the back of Emilia's head, which startles her. The girl's eyes look dazed, as if she has no clue what's happening and she isn't built to process any of this. You pull her into a kiss. Her eyes widen, her limp body feels cold in your arms.
You see something stir behind Emilia's eyes, and the blankness begins to go away. Then, she bites your lower lip. A tiny cut opens up and a streak of blood appears. She spits out your lip.
"Your mouth tastes like boogers, Emilia", you say. "You need to take better care of yourself."
Emilia stares at you as she breathes through her mouth. Her eyes look at yours, then at your nose, down at your bloody lips, and back at your eyes. Her fingers uncurl from their fists, and she grabs your shirt.
"What if I believe you and I allow you to die", she says with a surprisingly sober voice. "What would happen here?"
"Then, as the story goes, I would be freed from my torment. I would ascend into heaven and live there for all eternity. Nah, I'm just playing around. The world will rewind. I will wake up hopefully in this bed a couple of days ago, and you will be waiting at the clown's mansion for me to come and save you! I will ride on a white horse to my princess and fight the dragon..."
Emilia pulls away from you and takes a step back. Her body shakes. Although she looks confused, half out of her mind, all of the information that you just gave her might be sinking in.
"What if it doesn't for us? What if it does for you but not for us?"
"W-What do you mean?"
"What if I shot a shard of ice through your brain and you returned in time, but in here I would be staring at your corpse? What if the you in here dies even though your consciousness has gone back?"
You don't want to deal with this level of lucidity, not from Emilia now, and not when you need to die as soon as possible. Your crotch is wet, you might shit yourself at any moment, and your dick is gone. Why am I spending my time arguing?, you think. I should bang my head against a wall until my head bursts.
"I don't know the answer to that, Emilia. I just know that I do come back. I don't want to think if I'm actually leaving a whole reality behind every time I die."
"But what if..."
You grab Emilia by the hand. Her reddened eyes are unfocused.
"Listen to me, Emilia, I'm going to kill myself. If you end up staring at my corpse, remember that I'm somewhere else not being dead. I will treat the other Emilia real good. I will ride to that clown's mansion and save her from the ancient ghost. I will make everything okay."
"I don't want some other me to be with you!", she shouts, closing her eyes tight and hunching over. "I don't want you to leave me again! You are the only person I trust in this entire world, that has my back and would be there for me, besides a great spirit! I couldn't sleep because I understood it, even though we fought and I was so angry. I don't want you to leave my side! I want you to stay with me forever, so please, don't die!"
You hug Emilia. Your hands rub her back as her sobbing gets louder.
"You silly bitch."
"I-I will take care of you, every way you need. I'll make it so it doesn't matter that you have lost your legs and your genitals. I will be your caregiver forever."
"Even if Satella hadn't cursed me, I'd rather die."
She pounds on your chest with her fists.
"No! Don't abandon me in a world where you don't exist anymore!"
"Even if this reality continues and I leave behind a corpse, I'll always be with you. I'm part of you, specifically for you." She cries harder as you rub her back and kiss her forehead. "You're going to do great things for this world, Emilia. You helped me more than you could ever know."
You feel a sharp pain in your neck. Emilia has bit you. The wound leaks blood down your chest. Was that my carotid?, you think. No, it's not pumping. Just my luck.
"I can taste your love in my mouth", Emilia mumbles.
"My love for Satella is leaving my body. That rotten witch is the only one for me. You can't hold a candle to her, Emilia."
Emilia begins to cry harder as she lays against you. You don't want to say anything. Your whole body hurts. How can you feel this pain and remain lucid? What a curse to be able to think these thoughts. You need to lose Emilia, or somehow make her kill you. But she won't, so you should sneak out, leave all these people who for some reason came to appreciate you, and disappear in the capital.
"Hey, you're still with me, aren't you?", Emilia asks with a hollow voice.
Her purple eyes stare into yours. You nod. Even through the redness and the tears and the madness she's gorgeous.
"I'll stay with you", she adds.
"Yeah, you will. Come up here, lie next to me. Sleep with me from now on, will you? If my crotch leaks everything I drink, you can clean it with your tongue."
"I'll always be with you."
"Yeah."
You kiss Emilia. She tastes like snot and blood, yet still sweet. Emilia climbs to the other side of the bed rolling over you, and then rests her chest on yours while seeking your mouth. Her silky silver hair tickles your face. You wrap your arms around her and hold her close.

I don't know what the fuck was going on with the last scene. I entered it with the only note that she should bring up that the protagonist might be leaving a whole reality behind each time he dies, abandoning his friends and possibly dooming them. Everything else that ended up making that scene came out of the flow of writing it, of the half-delirious protagonist dealing with an almost broken Emilia. I kind of feel worse about Emilia after exploring that scene, to be honest.

In any case, I've been recalled into work. From tomorrow I'll return to the routine of waking up at six in the morning, going through shit I don't care about and that squeezes my energy and rasps my nerves so after I get home at four I can do little else than rest. Hopefully I'll be able to continue with this strange retelling even though half of the nights during my periods of working full-time I hope I don't wake up again.

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 31)

This part covers some of the ninth volume of the original "Re:Zero" novels.

This entry starts the second season of this strange retelling I'm writing, and it hits the ground running. Sort of. In the last entry for the first season we were enjoying a nice denouement but it got fucked when the protagonist discovered that other people's (at least the half-elf Emilia's) memories of his girlfriend, a sweet demon he's in love with, have been erased, which likely means that she got eaten by a flying whale. This is a weird story.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

First season

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
-Link for part 22
-Link for part 23
-Link for part 24
-Link for part 25
-Link for part 26
-Link for part 27
-Link for part 28
-Link for part 29
-Link for part 30
-Link for the post-mortem

You must have stayed frozen in your seat for a few seconds, because when the warmth returns to your face and you can think again, Emilia has finished asking you a question that you haven't heard. Your heart is pumping in your throat as you feel sweat beading on the back of your neck.
"Subaru," Emilia says with concern, forgetting that there are sleeping children on the carriage, "what's wrong? All the color drained from your face. What is it about this Rem person?"
After you lick your lips and gulp down your increasing pulse, you open your mouth to speak.
"Emilia, if there is any chance that you are joking around, you need to tell me right now."
"I'm not joking, I really don't know who you're talking about." A couple of the children have woken up and are looking around to figure out how far you have travelled. Emilia leans closer to you and puts a hand on your shoulder. "She must be someone that you met in the capital, but I don't understand why you would react like this just because I don't know who she is. Did she tell you she was related to Ram...?"
You hunch over and bury your face on your palms. The caravan that was carrying Rem must have come across the White Whale. That's the only explanation. They felt so confident that the beast wouldn't return to the same road after it had set up her hunting grounds there the night before, but maybe it's the first time that has happened. You can't be surprised, with your abysmal luck.
Rem is gone. If Rem is gone, none of what you have achieved matters.
"What is it about this person that has you so upset? Please, tell me", Emilia pleads.
A hand touches your other shoulder. You turn your head towards it enough to realize that the tween, this Petra, seems troubled by your reaction.
"Are you okay, sir? Have you gotten sick because of the ride?"
You try to control your breathing as you steel yourself for what's to come. You are now stuck in a world without a future. But that's fine, isn't it? You can undo it, and that's what you, and only you, can do. Wind back the universe. You will wake up in that bed back at Crusch's mansion. You will have to fight the cult all over again, but that's alright. You will beat them again eventually.
You stand up, yanking your right hand away from the tween's embrace. You look at the opening of the tarp on the back of the carriage, and then look back at Emilia. The half-elf is staring at you with her mouth half open, stunned in confusion.
"Excuse me for a moment, Emilia", you say with a hollow voice.
You walk up to the edge of the carriage and peek out. The big ground dragon that pulls the next carriage, a ground dragon much larger than Patrasche and that you figure must be used to freight goods, looks at you with its orange, reptilian eyes as it runs. You can't see what carriage comes behind.
Some floorboard behind you creaks. Someone has stood up.
"Subaru, what are you doing?" Emilia says. "Don't peek out like that, it's dangerous!"
The driver from the next carriage, a merchant, has opened his mouth to speak. You feel dizzy for a moment, but then you jump towards the spinning wheels.
Emilia screams as you hit the ground close to the approaching wheels, which takes the air out of your lungs, but the inertia makes you roll and tumble. Something hits your legs, maybe the wheels themselves, and you spin in the opposite direction. As soon as you can support yourself on your hands, you realize that you are looking at how the carriage that you had jumped towards is now leaving you behind.
Your right ankle burns. Maybe it's broken, but it doesn't matter. You want to gasp for the air you've lost, but it doesn't matter either as long as the oxygen that's still in your brain and that allows you to think and move will remain there for a few seconds more.
You look behind you. Another carriage is approaching you blazingly fast, and its spinning wheels look like curved guillotines. You lunge to lie on the path of those wheels so they will crush your head. As soon as your ear hits the grass you hear Emilia yelling for the caravan to stop.

You are submerged in a pitch black womb. Whatever substance is enveloping you caresses you as if promising you that you have nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. It shelters you, it protects you from pain, regret and disappointment. It's the purest love you've ever known.
You don't remember those wheels crushing your brain. Maybe it happened faster than your senses could process it. Nevermind that, the world outside doesn't matter. Surrounded, cradled by this love, why would anything else matter? You are experiencing this because Beatrice messed with your insides, and that allows you to retain memories of the love that waits for you each time you die. However, once the world has rewound and you have to confront again the known future and the many obstacles on your path, the memory of this love is insufficient. The feeling doesn't survive past the experience, and the words that you try to convey the memory through are the faintest echoes, as if you tried to recreate from your memory the whole experience of eating the best meal of your life. All that's left of it is a longing, a deep-seated desire that you know will never be quenched with anything else but this love.
Satella's elongated, claw-like hands emerge out of the blackness, followed by her open arms as she moves to embrace you. The hazy, glowing purple eyes stare at you, or through you. The silhouette of her long hair floats as in zero gravity.
Your old friend, the Witch of Envy, who has warmed this black bath of love for you. So close to Satella, maybe the God of this universe, it would be so easy to give up. You could ask her to swallow you whole like she did with Petelgeuse, and you would experience this love in its true form. You would never again have to go through pain, nor all the horrors waiting for you out there. Her shadow would drink your tears and close all of your skin openings so no other tears would fall.
You should have known that the White Whale could have attacked Rem's caravan as they returned to the capital. You already knew that the monster had hunted on that road less than a day before, but you believed other people's words because you always assume that they know more than you about what's going on in their fantasy world. You had seen the White Whale up close, and it had eaten Rem as she chose to sacrifice herself so you could keep living, but after this battle with the cult went on hiatus for a while, you let Rem march to her death. You imagine yourself holding her hand, squeezing it tight, to prevent her from leaving you. And Rem didn't die alone, did she? She went along with Crusch and all those wounded people, so the duchess is likely dead as well.
Satella has crossed her elongated arms behind your back, and if you had a body you would just need to lean forward to feel with your mouth if there is one in her ghostly head. You had been so occupied worrying that you hadn't realized that her litany is washing over you.
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I lov-"
The Witch of Envy's ghost is looped and you broke the pattern by introducing Petelgeuse. She had swallowed him, and you are next. It seems so obvious now, yet you hadn't considered it until this moment. She will pull you tighter towards her, and what remains of you will dissolve inside her shadow. What does it matter? Let this nightmare end, Satella.
No. Of course you can't disappear. Rem is gone, and you might be the only person in all the worlds that remembers that she existed. You are the only one who can bring your beloved demon servant back. You want to build a future with her, you need to keep going if just for her sake. Even in this bath of love you can feel such shame for your weakness, that you considered for a moment letting go.
You were wondering what to do if Satella pulled you towards her shadowy self, but she doesn't. She remains in place proclaiming her love to you. There is someone there, then, someone that understands that you aren't Petelgeuse, that you should be sent to the past, even though her mouth and vocal cords are looped.
"Satella," you say, or think, "thank you for giving me a chance to come back and save the people I care about, even if I have to push through such nightmares. I have no clue why you chose me, why you want to keep me alive, but I will be eternally grateful."
"I love you I love you I love you I lo-"
"Yeah, yeah."
You feel her breaking the embrace and pushing you softly, or maybe you are standing in place while she floats away. In any case, you will return to Crusch's mansion and do it all over again. The Witch of Envy can listen to you, and she understands.
"One day I will return to you for the last time, and you will have me all to yourself."

You return to a confusing flood of sensations in a shock. Your mind works hard to understand what's happening. You have your eyes closed, but light is seeping through your eyelids. The morning light must have been flooding that bedroom in Crusch's mansion as you slept. Wait, you used to wake up at night. You aren't lying, you are sitting up.
As your heart beats faster, you open your eyes and find yourself staring at a line of sleeping children and two male teenagers. Your head is resting on someone else's head. Emilia's. Someone is hugging your right arm and resting her head on it.
A noise of surprise escapes from your mouth.
"No! What am I doing here!? Why have I returned to the carriage!?"
The children begin to stir, waking up from your shouting. Emilia lifts her head from your shoulder and attempts to speak, but a yawn overwhelms her words. You struggle for a moment to free yourself from Petra's hug, then stand up in the middle of the carriage, facing the half-open tarp on the back. Your hands are shaking.
"Why did you send me here!? I even told you I needed to come back to save people I care about! Why did you choose another moment!?"
Emilia grabs your shoulder, and you turn sharply towards her. She looks concerned, like a mother who has run to her baby's room to figure out why it was wailing.
"Subaru, it was a nightmare. You are okay. You are back here with us. The fighting is over."
You shake your head and bury your face on your palms for a moment. As Emilia was saying something, you grab her shoulders, which startles her, and speak loudly to her face.
"Emilia, where is this caravan going!?"
"What are you... Subaru, we are going to the capital. You know this. It's okay, you just had a terrible dream."
"The terrible dreams don't end when I wake up. They haven't done so for a long time! Where in the capital are we going!?"
Emilia frowns in confusion.
"To the duchess' mansion. Sir Wilhelm told me that she had arranged for the wounded to be treated at her place, and that we would rest there for a while before returning to the mansion, in case there w-..."
"What is the duchess' name, Emilia? Tell me her full name."
"Crusch Karsten. Subaru, what's going on? What has you all riled up? I don't understand..."
You look around you as if any of the people present could offer you a real answer. The male teenager who had taken your sword is saying something to you, but only a couple of seconds later you process that he had asked if there was any problem. A couple of the youngest children are looking up at you with fearful confusion. Otto has turned around on his driver's seat and asks if everything is okay back here.
Your brain is throbbing. When you look back at Emilia you realize you are scaring her as well. Even though nausea is rising in your guts, you lower your voice.
"Emilia, do you know who Rem is? Does the name Rem mean anything to you?"
She shakes her head slightly.
"I-I mean, because it reminds me of Ram. Is that someone you met at the capital?"
"Who is Ram's little sister?"
"Ram is an only child, as far as I know. Subaru, please tell me what's going on."
You step back. So Rem got eaten by the whale but Crusch didn't? Was that bad luck, or did Rem sacrifice herself again? No, she wouldn't sacrifice herself to save other people, right? So she must have gotten eaten but enough of her caravan survived, included Crusch. What does it matter, though? Satella should have sent you back to the duchess' mansion, not here! You need to speak to her, you need to plead with her to send you further back.
You turn and lunge for the opening in the tarp, but as you are about to jump towards the wheels of the next carriage, someone grabs your arm. Emilia. Although her grip slips, you trip on a jutting vertical board and you fall out. You hit the ground under the shade of the huge ground dragon, and his hind legs trample the lower half of your body. A rush of red pain short-circuits your nerves, but as your body rolls, you feel the wheels trapping your legs. You are lifted by an overwhelming force, and then a crunching sound reverberates through your bones along with blinding pain that threatens to make your brain shut off. After a few moments you feel yourself lying on something, on the grass, but you can't understand anything you are seeing, and a droning sound pounds on your eardrums.

You blink a few times to clear your vision. You see a cat-girl's face cropped against a blue sky and a few shreds of clouds that slide downwards. You know this cat-girl, it's Ferris. She looks tired and angry, as if she had been forced to work overtime for several days, but her pupils also tremble as if she has to force herself to hold your gaze.
"W-What...?", you mumble. "I didn't die?"
Ferris separates her lips and frowns like you've just insulted her.
"No, despite your best intentions, you survived", she says with a hollow voice. "To whatever extent you will consider your current state 'surviving'."
Almost everything under your ribs hurts in a way you hadn't felt before. It's like being half-submerged in cold pain. You attempt to lean on your elbows to get somewhat comfortable, but the lower half of your body feels all wrong, as if it didn't have the proper weight. You realize that your dirty and torn pants end in shreds at the half length of your thighs, and that the remainder of your legs is gone. You are lying on the back of a different carriage, near the closed tarp that covers the entrance.
Your brain is scrambled. You rest your head again and look at Ferris.
"That didn't work at all. I screwed up bad."
As if the cat-girl had been containing herself until now, she trembles, clenches her teeth and almost screams in your face.
"They got destroyed, your legs! I can't do anything, I can't reattach them! You understand!? You will stay like this forever!"
"I didn't want to bother you, Ferris. You shouldn't have gotten to me. Don't worry, I don't care about my legs. They don't matter at all at this point."
"The hell do you mean, they don't matter? Why... Why did you try to kill yourself? Why, after all we went through, when we won and we are returning home, you try to die? Do you really understand the consequences of what you have done?"
You raise a hand towards her face, but Ferris swats it away while tears grow on the corners of her eyes.
"It's alright", you say with a voice that trembles from the pain.
"You fought so hard to save Emilia and all those people, and you convinced us to help, to just kill yourself afterwards? I can't begin to understand, it's like I'm speaking with someone else."
As you think about your options you realize that you are in a far worse position than you thought. Without the ability to move around freely, the options for killing yourself get reduced significantly. And now at least Ferris, Emilia and those kids know what you intended to do. Are you going to ask the cat-girl to hand over the closest sword so you can plunge the point into your throat? Will you ask them to support you until you can throw yourself from the back of another carriage?
You must have been staring in turmoil at Ferris for a bit too long, because she lowers her head and slumps her shoulders.
"If you wanted to die when you were healthy, I don't want to imagine how you will feel now. You haven't only lost your legs. Both your hip and your genitals are essentially gone. You want me to bother explaining it in detail? I wouldn't want to live any longer if I were in your position."
You want to think about it, but you contain yourself. You reach for Ferris' robe and grab it near her throat to lower her face closer to yours. She's startled enough not to resist.
"Ferris, you can boil my blood. It would be easy for you, you said. Do it."
The cat-girl trembles in anger. The tears overflow, and she raises her hand to slap you. For a moment she restrains herself, but then she hits you hard with a loud smack. Your cheek burns.
"You would ask that of me!? Every person I fail to save, that I come too late to heal, bears on my soul and makes me lose sleep, and now you, after what we have gone through together, you ask me to murder you? You fucking coward, you miserable waste of skin! Did you for a moment think about the people who had come to appreciate you and that you were going to abandon? No matter how much you suffered without telling anyone, if you kill yourself you are only passing your suffering to everyone you knew. You are multiplying the pain, forcing those people to carry it with them for the rest of their lives! Did you think about how this was going to affect Emilia? They told me that when she ran to you and saw the extent of your injuries, she went hysterical. She broke down like an animal. Wilhelm offered to keep an eye on her and try to calm her down, but even then for a good while we kept hearing her crying from whatever carriage they put her on. How do you think she's going to feel from now on? She clearly cared immensely about you, and you hurt her like this."
Tears roll down your temples. You swallow to clear your closed throat. None of that matters, you tell yourself. This world will end.
"Ferris, you said yourself you wouldn't want to live like this. Please, if you cared at all about me, boil my blood. I'm sure they will think my body couldn't stand the injuries."
Ferris lowers her head to glare at you furiously.
"I will not, under any circumstance, contribute to your or anybody else's attempts to commit suicide."
"Ferris, I'm not suicidal."
The cat-girl snaps her head back, which makes you let go of her robe, and from her mouth escapes half of a shrill laugh before she stops herself. She's gone pale. She shakes her head slowly while scrutinizing you with pity.
"Oh, no. You have lost your mind."
"I haven't! I mean that I..."
The terrible pain you are experiencing for what seems like the first time is making it harder and harder to think, even though you would have supposed that you wouldn't care. You can't explain to Ferris the power that Satella granted to you. She had already mocked you back at the capital for the stuff that came out of your mouth at the royal summons, and it bothered you that she had considered you little more than a delusional fool. You need to push her buttons, make it so she wants to kill you.
You hold her gaze and force an expression of anger and disdain.
"Ferris, I despise you. You are nothing but a worthless subhuman, a pawn belonging to an enemy camp. I just pretended that I cared about you because that would make you lower your guard. I wanted to exploit your ability. Once Emilia sits on that throne and we control the police or whatever public force dispenses violence to keep the country running, we will round you up to kill you and bury you in a mass grave. I will personally hold you as I cut your throat."
Ferris stares at you disturbed and wide-eyed. She breathes through her mouth for a few seconds, but then she speaks softly.
"You are a terrible liar. You aren't to any extent the person you just pretended to be."
"Ferris..."
She stands up slowly and stares through the tarp that covers the back of the carriage.
"Don't talk to me."
You groan.
"This is why I got along with you people, and came to care!? So you would prevent me from dying when I need to!?"
She lowers her gaze towards a point above your face. Her eyes are cold.
"Fuck you for making me care in turn. I wish I had known."
You feel a sting in your heart, which has been beating too fast ever since this conversation started.
"Damn it, Ferris! Let me then talk with someone else who has any sense! Ah... Get me Julius. That guy knows things, he might understand!"
"I'm here, Subaru", says the knight's hollow voice from the other end of the carriage.
Ferris closes her eyes tight, shakes her head and walks out of your frame of view only to get replaced by Julius. He looks dismayed and guilty, and he seems to be forcing himself to hold your gaze instead of looking at the disaster that the lower half of your body has become.
"I have no idea what to say, Subaru", Julius says. "I wouldn't have expected anything like this to happen."
You clench your teeth to resist the pain as you support yourself on your elbows.
"Julius, you are a man of culture. You seem the type that got his hands on complicated books to study your arts and figure out how to perform new spells, right?"
"I don't know what that would matter. Whatever I learned from so much studying didn't prepare me to stand next to you now."
"I'm going to tell you something hard to believe, but it is the truth. Listen to me carefully, Julius."
The knight didn't seem to be paying attention. He crouches next to you and narrows his eyes as if to contain pain or shame.
"I apologize, Subaru."
"Why would you need to apologize?" You shake your head. "Nevermind that, listen..."
"I had never witnessed a great spirit possessing a human being, although I had read in ancient texts that such a possibility existed. I would have never expected anyone to be able to resist such a possession, given the power that a great spirit must hold to be considered such. When you won against Petelgeuse, I was so relieved that I thought it was over. I wanted to celebrate, to rest. But I was a fool not to consider that the battle must have scarred your soul at a fundamental level, that the madman must have left something residual that could cause you to behave wildly." He turns his head slightly to glance at your lower half, and he swallows. "I am the spirits user, I should have known better."
Ferris pops up next to him. She has crossed her arms, and she glares at you with a twisted expression as if she needs to keep herself from vomiting.
"He's fully lucid. He knew what he was doing. I hope you understand that you will force someone from your camp to help you piss and shit, for the rest of your life. That's if they don't throw you away."
Lucius frowns and looks up at her as if he wants to smack her.
"Ferris, please. Stay back and let me talk to him."
"Hey!", you shout, which makes them turn their heads sharply towards you. "Shut the fuck up for a moment and listen to me. At least you, Julius. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Petelgeuse. That ancient ghost is old news. Forget about him. I intended to die not because I was suicidal and couldn't deal any longer with the many horrors I've gone through. I just found out that my girlfriend, a servant belonging to Roswaal's camp, has been eaten by the White Whale."
"What? Your girlfriend just died?" He looks to the side to think about it. "That's horrible, and I understand that such a pain could cause you to become suicidal, but..."
"I told you I'm not suicidal, damn it!"
"How would you know that she got eaten by the White Whale?", Ferris asks somewhat mockingly.
"The White Whale appeared on this road last night, and it must have stayed around and ambushed Crusch's caravan."
"Crusch's caravan? In that case we wouldn't remember my lady! And why would you believe that your girlfriend, if you aren't making her up, has been eaten by that monster? Every memory of her would be missing!"
You want to rub your temples, but you don't want to lie on your head again, and your trembling elbows barely feel strong enough currently to support your weight.
"I have no idea why everybody else has forgotten Rem and I haven't, but this has happened before! She got eaten by the White Whale once, she sacrificed herself to save my life, and now she's gone! She must have come across the White Whale as she was travelling back to the capital! That's the only explanation!"
Julius narrows his eyes and seems to be churning his thoughts to understand you, but Ferris inspires loudly through her teeth and stomps the ground. The fur on her cat ears is standing up.
"She died once before!? You are insane! You are completely out of your mind! I can't believe this... I can't deal with this."
She walks off. Julius glances at her for a moment, but seems reluctant to look back towards your face again.
"Julius," you start again with a serious voice, "I don't want to remain in this reality for a moment longer than I need to, so I will explain myself properly. I have a blessing, similar to other blessings you people seem to have. In my case I found out that whenever I die I get sent back to the past. That's what I was trying to do. I wasn't suicidal, this is just my way of solving problems. An extraordinarily painful way of doing so."
As you take a deep breath, Julius chimes in.
"If you believe that this girlfriend of yours has died and you have that blessing, it would make sense for you to commit suicide, certainly..."
Finally, you think. This Julius guy is the only one with brains around here.
"That's exactly it! So now you understand why I need to die. I have to return to a point in the past where I can prevent my girl from dying."
The knight holds your gaze as if testing you with a polygraph.
"I have never come across mentions of such a blessing. An ability like that would be unimaginably powerful. It's hard to believe that nobody else has had it before. The previous owners would have wanted to write down their experiences with it, like many owners of powerful blessings have over the centuries."
"It might be a bit more special than other blessings, I don't know. It was given to me by Satella herself."
From the other side of the carriage, Ferris gasps and then chuckles mockingly.
"By Satella herself!"
Julius snaps at her over his shoulder.
"Ferris, please, enough!"
You cough.
"Don't fight with each other. Yes, Julius, by Satella. Whenever I die she's there. I find myself in a darkness, and the ghost of that witch appears. She embraces me for a moment, she tells me she loves me, and then pushes me out. When I come back to my senses I've returned to the past. That's how I've found out about this assault on the village and the mansion! I died a few times trying to prevent it, until I approached both Crusch and that Hoshin broad. C'mon, look at me. Do you think I'm so intelligent as to figure out the details of the Witch's Cult assault through some sort of spy network? I don't even know how to read!"
"Let's say I believe you, and truly I want to", Julius says. "Someone as dangerous, the epitome of mayhem and destruction that Satella is, would only grant a blessing to her high-ranked followers, wouldn't she? Why would she give it to you?"
"I have wondered that myself. I don't know, Julius, nor does it matter at this point. Can't you, I don't know, detect this blessing, through a spell or something? Maybe detect Satella's essence in me? Petelgeuse said when he saw her that her essence must be woven with me, maybe with my soul or something to that effect."
Julius closes his eyes and looks as if he's thinking harder than usual. When he opens them again, he speaks slowly.
"Petelgeuse saw Satella inside of you?"
"Yeah, that's how he disappeared. He went all blubbery when he faced her, and she swallowed him. He must be dissolving inside like half of the world from back then."
"Why... Why wouldn't she eat you as well, so to speak?"
You sigh.
"I don't know, man. She just won't."
Julius rubs his chin while a bead of sweat rolls down from his light purple hair to one eyebrow.
"I loathe that this question has appeared in my mind, but I have never learned of any person who had been blessed by a witch, or believed to have been, that wasn't also a crazed cultist. You aren't associated with the Witch's Cult, are you, Subaru?"
You sigh deeply. You are exhausted by trying to keep your mind coherent while it insists on informing you of so much pain coming from what remains from your lower half.
"Associated as in what? As in I have a blessing given to me by Satella herself?"
"If you share their goals, maybe, or some of them."
"I don't want Satella back. She can't help herself from loving everybody, I know that very well, and if she resurrected, I have no doubt that she would dissolve everybody inside of her unless someone stopped her. That seems like the Witch's Cult biggest goal that I'm aware of."
"Indeed..."
"Lucius, Satella did grant me this blessing. I don't know why. Maybe she fucked up. But I retained my free will, and I'm using it for good. That's as much as I know."
Julius nods as he holds your gaze. You have no clue what he's thinking, and after a few seconds he hasn't said anything. Your elbows have had enough. You let yourself lie on your head again, and the vibrations that run through the floodboards remind you for a moment of the peaceful sleep you had what feels like half an hour ago, when you still had your genitals.
"So... are any of you going to help me with my problem?"
"I believe you, at least that you believe in the truth of your ability, so I don't think of you as crazed. However, I don't have any proof beyond your words. It will take consulting with people more knowledgeable on these kinds of powers, as I had never heard of such a blessing. I suspect that to learn enough about Satella's grants, we would need to locate and interrogate the other Archbishops of the cult."
"That sounds good and all, but I mean, are you going to kill me, or leave a convenient sharp weapon nearby?"
Julius' expression twitches.
"I am sorry, Subaru, but I cannot contemplate killing you, nor making it easy for you. I would need to be completely sure about your ability to consider helping you in that regard."
You breathe deeply.
"What about you, Ferris?", you ask loudly and irritated, "have you warmed up to the thought of killing me?"
"I told you not to talk to me, you fucking bastard."
Julius closes his eyes and stands up. After a few seconds he speaks.
"We will reach the mansion and figure out if the duchess' caravan has been ambushed along the way or not. As of now, on our way to the capital, it's too early for any drastic measure such as you dying."
The knight turned away to finish the conversation, but you speak up, which makes him stop.
"Will you at least look out for whether we come across remains of Crusch's caravan? I suppose that they would be obvious, but I need to make sure."
"That I can do."

Some observations. One of my favorite things when writing fiction is setting up very complicated situations and/or conversations and then "roleplaying" as the protagonist to figure out how to succeed at them. Is partly like playing a videogame. In this case, getting through the emotionally taxing last scene of this part was very rewarding. I felt I learned plenty about Ferris as well, which is important in the case of this retelling because she's even a different gender than in the original, and her personality is somewhat different.

It's good to keep going.

Post-mortem for the first season of my "Re:Zero" retelling

First season

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
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-Link for part 30


All first thirty parts of this strange AI-fueled retelling cover the three first arcs of the original novels, which amount to the entire first season of the anime adaptation. Roll credits while "It’s All Been Done" by Barenaked Ladies plays in the background.

From now on I’ll go over each arc covered, highlighting the differences between the retelling and the original, and possibly the anime adaptation. Do not keep reading if you haven’t read the retelling or if you intend to read it in the future.

Arc 1: this first arc encompasses from the moment that Subaru gets transported to a fantasy world until he gets accepted into Roswaal’s camp. In the original novels, this arc establishes a few vital setups for the rest of the novel, but very few in comparison with the length of the arc. First, the protagonist is from Earth and knows nothing about the fantasy world he has been transported to, except that for some reason he can understand the spoken language. He meets Emilia, whose magical trinket has been stolen. In the original and the adaptation, the trinket is an insignia, but in the retelling I called it medallion. No reason beyond that I prefer the word medallion, and so does the AI, because when I was prompting it for suggestions during the rest of the retelling, GPT-3 keep trying to make the medallion a vital part of the narrative. It really doesn’t matter beyond the first arc. The arc goes further by establishing that Emilia and the protagonist can work together, and that she can trust him; very important for the half-elf given that most other people want to despise her because of her heritage. The most important setup is that Emilia, grateful because the protagonist helped her, accepts him as part of her camp. He either remains in or tries to come back to Roswaal’s camp for the rest of the story so far.

In my retelling, the very first entry (so part 1) develops this entire arc from start to finish. When I started writing this thing, I hadn’t expected to go as far as covering the entire first season, so my philosophy regarding how to use the AI’s input was different. I intended to prompt the AI continuously not for suggestions, but for it to guide the narrative. In the very first sentence that the AI produced for this retelling, the thugs beat the protagonist up and steal his cellphone. The cellphone is a huge deal in the original novels: he first attempts to use it as payment for Emilia’s insignia/medallion, although it ends up failing, and in the third arc the cellphone is the only vital thing that allows them to pinpoint the exact time and location of where the White Whale is going to appear, which allows them to hunt it down. That loss alone changes the narrative significantly.

In the retelling, the protagonist got beaten up so bad that the people taking care of him get him out of the capital. In the originals nothing like that happens: Emilia saves him from the thugs and they start looking for the medallion. Going further, they find the loot house belonging to Old Man Rom, only to realize he has been killed. The killer murders the protagonist as well as Emilia, and the protagonist learns that he can travel back in time whenever he dies. In my retelling he doesn’t die until the beginning of the third arc; by then in the original novels he had died like seven or eight times.

In my retelling, the protagonist ventures into an inn only to get tricked by Puck, and he wakes up to get interrogated by a very guarded, suspicious Emilia, although in the original she’s more easygoing. I kind of prefer my version although she wasn’t very developed at that point. It fits better with her lifelong issue of people hating her and taking advantage of her because of her heritage.

In the retelling for the most part I completely ignored the steps that the protagonists take to handle the theft in the original. The AI suggested asking around in the inn, because the thief was supposed to have visited it or something. I went along with it until the AI gave some answers, and then Emilia and the protagonist got moving. In the retelling I don’t explain how they find this loot house; one supposes they asked around. In the original the best moments of this arc happen after they locate the loot house and a few fights ensue. The protagonist dies a few times and we get introduced to a contract killer called Elsa Granhiert, who is completely absent from the retelling, although she’s prominent in the fourth arc. This video is part of a scene where the negotiations for the insignia/medallion fail in the anime adaptation because of this contract killer.

My retelling doesn’t do any justice to this arc. As I mentioned, instead of using the most prominent plot points of the arc and filling the stuff in between with AI suggestions, I let the AI handle most things. The AI had Felt, the thief, just giving up the medallion because she was annoyed, which made this resolution exceedingly easy. Having helped Emilia (who is very assertive and generally hostile in this part, in contrast with the original), she accepts to bring the protagonist home to Roswaal’s mansion. In the original the protagonist saves Emilia from getting murdered, which gives her a way bigger reason to bring the guy home. Although so much has changed regarding the original, as I mentioned this arc basically just provides three big setups: the protagonist is from another world, the protagonist helps Emilia, Emilia accepts him into her camp. Other setups might be important in later arcs (still not translated), but not currently.

Arc 2: this arc encompasses the early life at Roswaal’s mansion up until the point that the protagonist breaks his promise to stay “home” instead of fuck up the royal summons for Emilia, and the half-elf exiles him from her camp. In the retelling that happens in parts two to four in their entirety.

The most significant thing that happened for me in this part of the retelling is that I found the humorous tone that I wanted for the remainder. However, at this point I hadn’t quite settled on how to play certain characters, Emilia in particular. Her behavior at the final confrontation in part four isn’t consistent with her later anxious, shy persona (which is necessary for the events of the yet unwritten fourth arc). In the original there's some of that going on; as soon as they are introduced, neither Ram nor Rem behave like they will for the rest of the story a few plot points later.

This arc has two halves, both in the original and the retelling. First they find out there’s a curse going around. After they solve that, the whole stuff with the royal summons happens. Very distinct halves. Regarding the curse, the original novels also introduce the element of Rem wanting (and succeeding) to murder the protagonist because she believes he’s a cultist. Through that subplot the narrative ends up planting a friendly, trust-based dynamic between the Oni servant and the protagonist, and we also discover that she can go berserk. Rem never goes berserk in the retelling, although I had tried to introduce it at a couple of points. Further setups are planted in the original regarding the relationship of the protagonist with the people of the village, and Petra in particular (Petra appears briefly in the last few entries of this retelling). The original novels use that trust for them to bolster Emilia’s confidence when the time to evacuate the village comes. I did nothing of the sort in the retelling; in fact, the protagonist is kind of a dick to the villagers. It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

At this point of the retelling I was also going along with the AI’s suggestions more than I would later on. As the protagonist, I was attempting to provoke the AI a bit so it would come up with interesting angles. Puck’s weird behavior in this arc is mainly the AI’s thing, which prompted the protagonist to be annoyed with him for the rest of the retelling (and that dynamic is one I have loved to write). I also was letting the AI come up with the backstory for plenty of stuff. Asking the AI to act as other characters and see what it comes up with is fascinating, and that whole part of Rem explaining her Oni nature is virtually all produced by the AI. In the original, Rem doesn’t have fangs nor needs to consume blood. That ended up setting up one of my favorite moments in this retelling, when Rem murders the protagonist through sucking him dry and crushing his throat during sex.

In this part of the retelling I let the AI produce some rather unexplained stuff, like that whole thing about tsunderes and tsundere-slaps. Tsundere is a term that mainly only those that read manga and/or watch anime know, and the AI used it unprompted. I have no idea how it recognized that this retelling had anything to do with an anime. It also produced, unprompted, that annoying village chief who believes himself to be a wizard. Myself playing as the protagonist, I was mostly focused on annoying people around so the AI would come up with interesting situations.

Beatrice is one of my favorite characters in the original novels and the anime adaptation, but I couldn’t use her that much in this retelling. However, she has a significant role in this part. The AI set a strange tone by having the hundreds of years old girl sucking the protagonist’s hand to cure it; I was so bewildered that I made it canon. The AI also came up with the stuff about her storing and taking care of corpses. No such thing happens in the original. I wove it with Beatrice’s adoration of her as of yet not introduced Mother. Beatrice is far more kooky on the retelling than in the original, although she’s very weird and sheltered to begin with.

Beyond the absence of anything involving Rem attacking the protagonist (which kind of fucks up the setups regarding how their relationship blossoms, to be honest), the biggest changes regarding the original and the adaptation is that dealing with the demonic infestation is much easier in the retelling. In the original there’s not only that demonic puppy, but a whole bunch of demonic dogs in the forests that the protagonist and both servants attempt to hunt down. In terms of setups for incoming arcs, the two necessary points are that there was a demonic infestation present (that plays out in the fourth arc), and that the protagonist and the servants sort of bonded. Ram grows dismissive of the protagonist for being useless, while Rem becomes protective and fond of him.

Regarding the second half of this arc, a prominent setup is how much the world hates Emilia, and the AI presented it almost immediately by having random people berating her as her and the protagonist go for ice cream (sort of a running joke that the AI started). That whole thing about having balls (which prompted nastier testicle-related stuff later on in their relationship dynamic) was something that the AI came up with. It doesn’t fit Emilia at all, I don’t think, but it was surprising and memorable enough, so I made it canon for the narrative.

I needed to present Priscilla Barielle, a very underused character in the original but that I thought had a lot of meat going for her. In the retelling she managed to beat up the thugs without issues almost immediately (the AI’s doing). In the original and the anime adaptation there is further back and forth not only between the protagonist and Priscilla, but also with Old Man Rom, the loot house owner from the first arc, who is looking for the thief. That whole subplot with the thief isn’t present in this retelling; in reality, Felt, the thief, is another royal candidate, and it’s found out in the first arc when the current Sword Saint (not introduced in the retelling) sees the thief holding the medallion. Felt is present during the royal summons, but completely absent from that sequence in the retelling. It hasn’t paid off as far as the first fourteen volumes go, so I don’t worry about it.

In this part of the retelling, the protagonist bonds a bit more with Rem, which I suppose is part of why they become romantically involved later on. Her sister, the pink-haired demon servant Ram, is mostly just guarded and introverted here, but not as dismissive as I played her in the third arc of this retelling. I prefer her having that sharp distinction, because there’s nobody else behaving in such a way in this story. The closest character is maybe Priscilla, but everything else about that noble is different, so they don’t intersect.

Regarding the royal summons, the original novels play Roswaal to be a very hostile lord, even though it’s part of his plan: he had assumed that the protagonist would sneak into the royal summons and then interrupt it, and Roswaal went as far as flinging a fireball at him, knowing that Emilia would stop it with her ice-based spells, which would show the people gathered there how much she cares or something (if she was that close to Satella as they believe her to be, she wouldn’t have cared). For most of the sort of philosophical conversations going on with Emilia and the council leader, as well as some of the other royal candidates’ introductions, I relied on the AI’s suggestions, and it had interesting things to say particularly regarding Emilia’s motives. In the original, Emilia’s motives are as simple and lame as something vague about wanting everybody in the kingdom to be treated equally.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted the protagonist to go nuts after interrupting the royal summons. In the original him embarrassing Emilia and losing her trust is one of the biggest setups of this arc, so I might as well push it as far as possible without breaking the AI or the narrative in general. The AI came up with interesting stuff for the leading council member to say, and also a bit for Julius, who ended up becoming good pals with the protagonist. The AI also decided to cut short the beating that the knight gave to the protagonist. There’s no setup needed there beyond that the protagonist is powerless and that he can’t support with actions his intentions to save or protect people.

I love the verbal fight between Emilia and the protagonist at the end of this arc in the retelling, although Emilia speaks out of character quite a lot. I was going more for a parody than a completely consistent narrative, which changed as I kept writing more and more entries. In reality Emilia would have never insulted the protagonist like she does here, and due to her past she’s so sheltered and anxiety-based that she would have imploded instead of lashing out; in fact, her gaining the ability to lash out instead of implode is a significant part of the fourth arc of this story for her character development. Whatever. I like rereading that conversation from time to time, because I find it quite funny. Funny trumps internally consistent in my book (at least in a 'book' I'm not going to publish).

Arc 3: this arc encompasses the moment that the protagonist finds himself exiled from Roswaal camp, up to when they defeat the Sloth branch of the Witch’s cult and Emilia accepts him back. In the retelling that’s from the fifth entry to the thirtieth in their entirety. In the original novels as well as the anime adaptation, this arc is the longest, but it’s far out of proportion in the retelling. By this point I was serious about making something coherent, a proper retelling, instead of just playing around.

I wanted to explore the dynamic of the protagonist finding himself as a guest in another camp, an opponent of Emilia no less. I found Crusch Karsten underused in the original, and I ended up loving her weird dynamic with the protagonist, how the guy’s focus on strange, uncomfortable fetishes molded his characterization. Some of the most serious parts of this retelling involved him dealing with this camp’s characters (I’m thinking for example of his suicide attempt through stabbing himself in the throat, and Crusch trying to stop him). Crusch also gives him the arc goal: to become a man that deserves respect. And it’s through gaining the respect of these strangers from a fantasy world that he gains the power to defeat the previously unbeatable Petelgeuse.

There were major changes in the characters regarding both the original and the adaptation. I wasn’t sure how to play Wilhelm until the AI decided it for me by beating the protagonist savagely during their first “training session”. It fits Wilhelm, who had earned the nickname of Sword Devil, and who is almost single-mindedly focused on killing the beast that slew his wife. He has a black and white mentality regarding success, which is a perfect counter to the protagonist’s at that point uncommitted attitude.

I chose to go as far as changing Ferris’ gender. In the original he’s an almost archetypal “trap boi”. He got introduced in the anime before the royal summons, and he felt so out of place in a camp that includes Wilhelm and Crusch (despite Crusch’s fondness for Ferris), that it took me out of the story. That added to the fact that the beginning of the whole royal summons thing in the anime adaptation (and the original novels) is one of the most boring moments of the story, made me think that “Re:Zero” had already produced as much brilliance as it ever would, and back in 2016-2017, when that aired, I stopped watching it, which was a mistake as it ended up becoming one of my favorite fictional stories. So yeah, in this retelling Ferris is a tough but caring stylish female who is mostly focused on protecting her camp from possible outside threats, and that despite her initial intentions ends up caring for the protagonist. Sometimes her name is translated as Felix for obvious reasons, but I prefer the aforementioned name. I ended up loving her character and that weird sibling dynamic between her and the protagonist, even though in the protagonist’s fucked up mind that familiar relationship also has sexual undertones. She’s, however, much more playful when she’s introduced in this retelling than later on, but I see it as her playing the role of an inoffensive, dumb girl for strategic reasons.

In this arc, the protagonist travels to the mansion and discovers that most everyone has been slaughtered. He experiences his first death (by this point in the original he had died many times) and finds out that he has the superpower to return to the past whenever he dies. He also grows an aversion to the clownish lord Roswaal, who remains absent for the rest of this arc, due to his inability to protect his subjects.

In general there’s much more stuff back at Crusch’s mansion than in the originals or the adaptations. I just liked that dynamic and wanted to explore more of it. The most prominent feelings of this part of the arc in both the original and the adaptation are the frustration and despair because the protagonist, due to his nature, seems completely incapable of convincing people to help him, and the terrible events are destroying his mind. I wanted to push for that as much as possible. We have plenty of instances of him trying to either convince the powerful people he knows, or venturing towards the mansion only to fail to save people with progressively worse damage to his own psyche, to the extent that those two entries of him getting voluntarily stuck in a long, long loop of two days happen. I loved writing that part.

I think the first true point of this retelling when I felt, ‘shit, I owe this thing I’m doing to give it as much weight as I can’ happened at the ninth entry, when the protagonist faces baroness Priscilla Barielle. Writing that negotiation ended up being so surprising and memorable for me (I reread it often), that even if this strange retelling wouldn’t find any audience, I wanted to do a proper job regardless. I ended up liking the dynamic with Priscilla to the extent that if the AI had suggested that she would agree to help the protagonist, I would have had her tagging along for the rest of this arc. The AI never agreed, though, which the original Priscilla also wouldn’t have done.

In general, one of the biggest conceptual changes is that while in the original Satella forbids the protagonist from revealing any detail about his power (she stops time and squeezes his heart if he does so, at one point she even kills someone else to punish the protagonist), and it causes tremendous problems for him, because it leads to misunderstandings of every kind, I consider that it falls into the bad category of conflict: the conflict that would get resolved if people could speak about it. Also, it doesn’t make sense that Satella would prevent the protagonist from revealing it. Why would she care? Although we still don’t fully know why Satella chose the protagonist, she clearly wants him to remain alive, but she doesn’t give a shit about the people in his life. So why prevent him from speaking about it? No clue. For the retelling the protagonist is fully able to explain it, but the extent of how much others will believe him will be a matter of characterization. Thus the protagonist has to learn how much to reveal or conceal. It’s more interesting that way as far as I’m concerned.

Once the White Whale kills Rem and the protagonist fails to save Emilia, to the extent that the half-elf believes that he belongs to the Witch’s Cult and had deceived her all along, the retelling goes through a sort of inflection point in which chaos theory has already affected so much stuff that many brutal changes are necessary. In the original around this time, the protagonist went catatonic as a way to protect his mind from the horrors he was experiencing. Then he gets captured by Petelgeuse and has to witness Rem being tortured to death in front of him. That makes him keep living only fueled by his wrath. Even though none of that was any longer possible for the protagonist in my retelling, he clearly needed to break psychologically in order to find his own way out of his hole, and therefore that self-imposed loop came to be. I love that insane sequence and I reread it fairly often. It allowed me to venture into the psychological depths of self-hate, self-destruction, masochism, etc., that the original narrative allowed, and that are subjects I’ve always been naturally inclined towards.

Thing is, from then on, when the protagonist finds the strength to get out of his hole, I relied on the original narrative as little as possible beyond the points I knew I had to hit: they come across the White Whale (but they can’t kill it here), they kill Petelgeuse first, but they hadn’t learned about his ability to jump from body to body, Ferris discovers a spy that triggers an explosion that signals the final assault of the Sloth branch of the cult on the village, and Petelgeuse ends up attempting to possess the protagonist. Everything else I played according to the setups that the retelling had ended up producing. I preferred Petelgeuse’s end in this retelling to the original version, the details of which I won’t get into. As terrible as that ancient ghost was, he was fueled by a one-sided obsession/love for the only person in this world he believed would want to love him back. In that sense I see him as a sort of tragic character. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve known a bit about obsessive love myself.

I’m not sure how I’m going to play from now on the relationship between the protagonist and Emilia. In the original, the half-elf is the protagonist’s romantic interest from the moment they meet each other, although Emilia doesn’t seem to be into him. The fourth arc deals with Emilia’s character development, because she needs to face head-on a huge problem that she isn’t built to handle. We’ll see how that goes in the retelling, as I’ll hopefully cover it as well.

Anyway, that’s as much as I can come up with to mention in this post-mortem of sorts. I might add some new stuff in the future.


Cast


Natsuki Subaru



Emilia


Rem


Ram


Puck



Beatrice


Lord Roswaal



Duchess Crusch Karsten


Ferris


Wilhelm


Julius



Priscilla Barielle


Aldebaran


Anastasia Hoshin


Mimi and Tivey Pearlbaton


Ricardo Welkin


Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti


Satella (Witch of Envy)

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 30)

This part covers some of the ninth volume of the original "Re:Zero" novels.

In the previous part the protagonist finally confronted the Witch of Frost after he fucked up bad at the royal summons in one of the first entries of this retelling. We learn that the world sucks and that it hates the Witch of Frost because she was born. I don't like the village chief.

This entry is the last one covering all the events that became the first season of the anime adaptation.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

-Link for part 1
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-Link for part 25
-Link for part 26
-Link for part 27
-Link for part 28
-Link for part 29

The plume of black smoke raising from the burning corpses widens and dissipates in the afternoon air. All the dead that your people intend to bury with honors are loaded in the carriages, and thankfully the combination of Crusch's army's carriages as well as the merchants that stayed behind are enough for everyone to travel back to the capital. However, some of the villagers, particularly those whose loved ones have died, refused to leave, and intend to bury their dead in the local graveyard. Nobody wanted to force those to leave despite that some cultists might remain in the proximities, so Ram just approached you near the entrance of the village to inform you that she's staying as well.
"Someone needs to make sure that the mansion won't suffer any harm, and Beatrice isn't going to move any finger for it."
"Ram, you have barely recovered from spending all your mana, right? The villagers that won't come with us are the angriest, and they are grieving. What if they attack you?"
The pink-haired servant snorts as she holds your gaze with a smug expression. However, a faint smile appears on one corner of her mouth.
"In your mind it must be a miracle that we survived until you appeared in our lives."
"I just don't want you to die."
"I accept your concern, but you should worry about your own defenseless self." She looks towards the gathered carriages, a couple of which are already moving up to the road that leads out of Roswaal's domains. "Get going. I'm sure you have planned to celebrate that your gamble paid off, and you should. Don't let my sister drink too much, she can barely handle it."
A warmth fills your chest, and you want to cry.
"Can I get a hug?"
Ram narrows her eyes and steps back.
"You just love pushing the limits of indecency, Barusu. Any of these carriages must be waiting for you. Farewell."
After Ram disappears past some house, you move towards the empty carriages and the people gathered nearby. Some of the half-beast mercenaries are talking animatedly with some of Crusch's soldiers. The mercs' mounts, a species of big wolf, are either hanging out excitedly or being driven around by the half-beasts that are sitting on them. You haven't seen neither Ricardo nor Mimi for a while, and you figure that they must be handling things on the nearby road to make sure everybody can leave in an orderly group.
Emilia calls you from behind. She's standing there with a shy smile and holding Puck with both hands. The magical cat is licking his paws while eyeing you with an amused expression.
"Which carriage should we get on, Subaru?", Emilia asks.
You both walk around for a few seconds until you spot a familiar face near one of the empty carriages. It's Otto. That unfortunate bastard has stayed around after all. You approach him while a smile grows on your lips.
"So you survived, Otto, and even waited around for us to finish. That's very considerate of you. Can we get on your carriage?"
Otto nods, but then looks weirded out.
"Wait a second, I don't recall ever telling you my name, general. Did I?"
"Of course! How would I know it otherwise?"
Otto shrugs, and then smiles with gratitude.
"I couldn't abandon you people after you saved me from being roasted alive, could I? Even though I admit that I thought there was no way that we would survive a full-on assault by those crazy cultists. A couple of times I looked out from my tarp, there were pieces of houses hovering in the air and being thrown around! I should have braved the mist last night. I wouldn't have been caught in such a mess!"
"You certainly wouldn't have been able to. Well then, old pal, I'm getting on your carriage and sleeping like a half of the way back to the capital."
Otto is a bit puzzled by your words, but he agrees and climbs into the driver's seat.
You nod to Emilia and then get on the back of the carriage. It's empty and in shadows thanks to the tarp covering it. There are two benches on opposite sides. You sit close to the back, and before you realize it Emilia has sat next to you, so close that your thighs almost touch. She looks at you with a smile in her gorgeous face, and your breath thickens. You remind yourself that you have a girlfriend whom you love very much.
Puck walks down from Emilia's arms onto the bench, next to his protegee.
"What do you think about all this, Puck?", you ask. "You have remained in the background ever since we arrived. I miss the sound of your cat voice."
Puck narrows his eyes suspiciously.
"I wanted Emilia to stay hidden until you people killed every last one of those freaks. You would have done so, as you have proved. But I couldn't stop her from surfacing and then having to deal with people who hate her."
"Puck...", Emilia begins.
"It's all done, can't change any of it. I just don't want to expose you to that kind of stuff, Emi. The world is much harsher than you think."
Emilia lowers her head slightly.
"I knew there are plenty of evil people out there. I just thought I had left it all behind..."
"Nevermind that, Emilia", you say with a conciliatory tone. "We both need to sleep, and we'll be able to in a short while. Just imagine it, closing your eyes and feeling the carriage moving through that very long stretch of road while knowing that everything is over. Just like being a child again and sleeping in the back seat of your parents' car as they drive you to your aunt's."
Emilia offers you a calm smile, although she's arching her eyebrows in confusion.
"What's a car? A kind of carriage where you come from?"
"Ah, yes. Pretty much."
"I want you to tell me about your country, Subaru. I'm really curious about how you lived there, and also how you ended up coming to Lugunica."
You sigh and close your eyes.
"Yeah, a long, confusing tale for another time."
As you hear how a couple of carriages maneuver towards the road, a bunch of excited voices approach the back of your carriage. You haven't closed the tarp, so you see a few children, two male teenagers, and a skinny tween with reddish-brown hair down to her shoulders. One of the male teenagers asks whether they can get on the same carriage, but the younger people from their group are already occupying the seats. The skinny tween girl with reddish-brown hair attempts to squeeze herself right next to you, even though the bench can't hold her entire ass, and both you and Emilia are forced to shift yourselves further down the bench. You suddenly find yourself on the shaded back of a carriage surrounded by excited and loud non-adults. Your body hasn't technically reached adulthood yet, but around these people you feel like you need to worry about the mortgage payments on your house. Damn it, they won't let you sleep!
"I saw you got on this one, sir, and Petra decided that we should join you." You recognize the male teenager as the guy you gave that sword to, shortly before you discovered that Petelgeuse had occupied a blonde teenager's body. This guy isn't topless anymore, he's wearing a worn shirt torn in a couple of places that show that they've bandaged his torso. "We will feel safer, I think", the teenager adds. "They say it's a long way to the capital, and that road is dangerous."
You are beginning to feel dizzy, and look to your right to the adoring eyes of the tween looking up at you.
"I must thank you again for saving my life, sir!", she says excitedly. "I'm Petra. I don't think I ever told you my name..."
This Petra person reminds you of some archetypal girl next door type that you would have during middle school, a girl that would come up to your room without announcing herself, and that would make you worry about the location of your porn mags.
You must have stared at her in silence for a moment too long, because she looks down and she tries to hide the hurt with a soft smile.
"It's okay if you don't remember. I'm sure you have saved many other people in this battle and others."
"No, I do remember. It's just... It's been a long day."
"That's for sure", the male teenager says.
"What's... that about saving her life?", Emilia asks softly.
You turn your face towards her to figure out how to explain it, when you stop with your mouth open. Emilia is worried, her pupils are trembling. You would have rather stayed in a carriage that only contained you and Emilia, and of course the driver, but in her case she has found herself surrounded by villagers that at any moment might explode against her for being a half-elf, a witch, or a combination of both. Her anxiety must have skyrocketed. Puck has vanished as well, you guess to avoid getting fondled by these children.
You grab Emilia's hand and squeeze it.
"I saw them being pursued by a cultist, and I charged into the guy with my dear ground dragon. That poor girl was miserable before because I preferred to get on a carriage and sleep than ride her. My ground dragon, I mean."
"You are a true hero, Subaru", Emilia says without a hint of sarcasm.
"I just did what needed to be done."
Petra leans forward to look at Emilia's face.
"You are so beautiful! You are the witch that lives at the mansion, right?"
"Y-Yes..."
"That's so cool! I wish I could do magic too."
Other children agree. Emilia closes her eyes and squeezes your hand tighter.
Otto turns around from the driver's seat.
"Everything well back there? We are departing. Hopefully we won't run into mist on the way to the capital. Fingers crossed!"
You hold your breath for a few seconds as you feel the structure you are sitting on vibrate. The view of the village is receding. You suddenly feel yourself about to melt into the bench. How is it possible to be so tired and yet remain conscious? At least Ferris focused her healing magic on your face for a few seconds and that's all it took for people to stop asking who beat you up. You just want to be gone for a good while, free from your consciousness, until you feel you can face another full day again.
Maybe fifteen minutes later the caravan is passing through a small village. Its sounds of people living their normal lives feels so incongruous with the carnage that the people almost next door lived through, or died in, for hours. Your gaze falls on the male teenager's for a moment, and it seems like he was waiting for an opportunity to talk.
"Sir, do you remember that teenage girl, the blonde, pretty one?"
It ruins your mood, and you feel your chest caving in. Please, leave me alone, you want to say.
"She wasn't from the village, right?", you ask with a hollow voice.
"No, we had never seen her before. She barely said that she had come yesterday from another village, but she didn't explain why. We don't get those kinds of visitors... We also never saw her again after she fled to those woods."
"She was a cultist."
The children look at each other, while that male teenager's expression sours.
"You are sure... I had wondered if that was the case, after such as sudden attack. That's terrible. What happened?"
"She infiltrated the village, so..."
You can't deal with talking about it. Your throat is closing. You suddenly realize how shady it looks. For these people you are one of their lord's employees, and you were the last person who saw alive that beautiful teenager. For all you know this guy suspects you raped her, killed her and buried her in the woods. Certainly the staff of some other lords in this world would have done so. And you have a reason to feel guilty, because you did order Patrasche to kill the girl, although Petelgeuse had already raped the girl's entire self.
"I am sorry, but... she's gone."
The teenager nods, rests his forearms on his knees and hangs his head down.

You must had dozed off for about twenty minutes when a tumult wakes you up. You hear someone shout some instruction, and it evokes the sudden panic that you felt when you first saw that army of half-beast people mounted of huge wolves as they ran towards your caravan.
After this bad nap, you look around confused in that half-conscious state during which you can barely tell what's real. Some of the children are asleep. Emilia has rested her head on your shoulder and remains asleep, breathing deeply and drooling a bit out of the corner of her mouth.
"Where is the general? Has anybody seen in what carriage he got on?"
You have to think for a couple of seconds to realize that you just heard Ricardo. You pat Emilia's cheek a couple of times, and she rouses slowly, blinking and drying her lips.
"It seems that the mercs are looking for me, Emilia", you say. "I'll come back in a bit."
"Ah, sure..."
You move aside the opening of the tarp and step down to the road. A couple of mercs who were looking around while mounted on their wolves spot you, and they whistle over their shoulders. You turn around the carriage and spot Ricardo, who heads towards you. Thankfully the two meters tall wolf man doesn't look troubled. As he approaches you, you look at the scenery. You don't recall ever seeing this place, but given that towards the horizon in the direction of your caravan the ground goes flat, loses all trees and bushes and a seemingly endless desert of grass begins, you suppose this is the start of Flugel Road. Before the road you are standing on links up with what you suppose is a highway in this world, a couple of signposts and some half-rotten buildings seem to indicate that there's a different road to follow, and indeed a narrower road heads in perpendicular.
Seemingly all the half-beast mercenaries except for those looking for you have gathered near the crossroads. A few of the carriages that have maneuvered that way are carrying the corpses of half-beast people.
"It looks like you are leaving us, Ricardo", you say.
The enormous wolf man stands a few meters from you, and you realize that his frame was hiding both Tivey and his psycho sister. When you let your gaze linger on Mimi for a moment, you want to grimace. Her mostly matted, orange fur is dirty with blood, and her mouth is surrounded by dried blood and vomit. Apparently her half-beast friends see no problem with this tiny creature walking around and interacting with people even though she looks as if she's just gobbled down a bunch of human remains. They might as well hang a board from her neck that reads 'cannibal'. These people must look at Mimi and think, 'yeah, this is an acceptable way to live', while you want to dunk her head into a bucket of water. Don't look at me, please.
"Yes, it's time to part ways, general!", Ricardo says with some regret. "The fighting is over, and now we ride for our headquarters so we can honor our dead brothers and sisters."
You want to hang your head low, but you force yourself to look up at the guy, even though his huge mouth full of teeth is in the way.
"I am really sorry about every one of them that died. In particular about that half-sloth guy, for some reason. I suppose he was symbolic for this whole operation, you know?"
"I told you it was alright. I told you, didn't I? I'm not sure. They fight because that's what we do best, and what we love. And we can change the world for the best, can't we? It just takes cleaving through enough people. That's how it's always been!"
"You know, Ricardo... Despite the constant terror and the waking nightmares that I was about to get ganged up on by a bunch of cultists who would make a pincushion out of me, now that I've survived and I can look back at those hours, I enjoyed that whole teaming up to murder people thing. It was a bloody good time!"
Ricardo snaps his head back to laugh loudly. Some of his merc pals laugh as well. You spot both the half-boar mercenary and the fox scout, and you point at them.
"I'll miss you guys as well, mainly because I talked to you. You did a good job."
They both thank you. Ricardo offers you his hand to shake. Although you try to, you can't close your human hand around his. It also feels like it's made of iron.
"Ricardo," you say, "I've set my goal in life to be able to cleave a guy in half just like you."
He closes his eyes and grins, and then he grabs you and messes up your hair while he almost bursts your eardrums with more laughter. When he lets you go, it feels as if your scalp has detached.
"You'll need to eat more meat, general!"
Tivey raises one index finger and takes a step forward.
"G-General, something else..."
"Ah, yes. I'm also glad to have met you, Tivey Pearlbaton. You are the only person I've met in this world that I can say with absolutely honesty that I would never want to do your job, under any circumstances, and yet you do a great service for mankind, and I suppose for half-beastkind as well."
Tivey adjusts his monocle and seems confused about your words.
"Th-thank you, sir. It's also interesting for me to learn a-about how people different than me d-do things, and think."
Mimi moves forward so she stands next to her brother. She avoids your gaze, and her tiny psycho eyes are secreting some terrifying, mostly transparent liquid. Ah, those are tears. She's also sniffling.
"What's the matter, Mimi?", you ask nervously. "Does your belly hurt because you ate more people?"
Mimi shakes her head and then she rubs her eyes with her tiny fists. Tivey puts a hand on her shoulder.
"M-Mimi, the general is about to l-leave. You wanted him to do something, d-didn't you?"
You swallow as Mimi looks down and wrings her hands. Tivey shrugs.
"S-She wanted a hug, general."
You shiver, but it's not as if you can afford to disappoint her. You crouch in front of Mimi to lift this little psychopath up to your chest. There are even globs of human meat caught in tangles of her fur. Her stench invades your nostrils and it makes you dizzy and nauseous. She stinks like a wild animal forgotten for weeks in some basement.
She looks at you with teary eyes as her pursed lips tremble, and she opens her arms. Best to get this over over quick, you think. You squeeze Mimi a bit, and against your best judgement you feel sad.
"I guess that if I disregard that you belong to an opposite camp, that you have the hygienic sense of a years-long hikikomori, that your favorite thing in this world is murdering people through supersonic booms coming out of your mouth, that you are a cannibal, and that whenever you are near me I fear for my life, you are pretty sweet."
Mimi sobs close to your neck.
"I love you too, mister!"
When you lower Mimi to the ground, she runs up to Ricardo and hugs his leg. The wolf man picks her up and sits her on his shoulder. Mimi cries softly.
You clear your throat.
"Well, I guess that's that."
You stick around as they mount their differently sized wolves and they organize another caravan. Emilia has also stepped down from the carriage and is observing the whole situation likely feeling out of place. It seems that Wilhelm, Ferris and Julius have already said their goodbyes, because they merely nod or wave a hand as the others leave.
You suddenly remember, and run up to Tivey while he's shifting on his saddle to get comfortable. You point to his big satchel.
"Shit, Tivey. I completely forgot. You are still holding on to it, aren't you?"
"W-What...? Ah, yes. Though I don't know w-why anybody would want to keep this thing..."
He takes out Petelgeuse's Gospel pinching it with two fingers as if he wants to touch it as little as possible. You grab it confidently.
"We have the best library of magical tomes in the kingdom. If these things should remain in the world, they should be stored in those bookshelves."
You stand there and wave as the Iron Fang diminishes in the distance. Up to the moment when you could no longer tell the details, Mimi had looked over her shoulder towards you as if she were about to turn back. You pray to Satella that you never cross paths with that little monster again.

You dream that you are walking through a forest under a thick canopy that keeps you in the shadows. You wander for a long time while you smell green. You are looking for something, or trying to find your way back to something. If feels like you have been walking around for an hour, but then you come across a clearing. Maybe twenty meters from you, some worn out stone steps climb to a raised platform on which stands an old ruin, some megalithic temple covered in vines. Its entrance is like a wide open mouth, its insides black. Maybe you will find her if you venture into the ruins.
When you open your eyes, the sunlight is entering through the half-open tarp. Must be a few minutes after sunrise. Everybody else is still asleep. Petra has hugged your right arm and is resting her head on it, Emilia and you have rested your heads on each other's. You listen to her breathing softly.
For a moment a surprising thought enters your mind, one you would have never expected to feel again: you are home. You belong in this world. You have met far more people that you appreciate here than in your previous world, although you try not to think about your parents. You don't feel the need to go back. You don't want to go back. You were lucky that some freak mistake, or Satella's inscrutable decision, snatched your miserable bones from that dreary world to drop you in this one. You can see yourself enjoying a long romance with Rem, marrying her, having children and then raising them to carry some sort of legacy in this world, not knowing a thing about where you truly came from.
Your chest swells with warmth, and before you know it a few tears are running down your cheeks.
"Subaru, why are you...?", Emilia begins to ask softly, but she yawns.
You dry your eyes.
"Nothing. I was thinking that it's alright, you know?"
She rests her head on your shoulder as she seems to think about it.
"We survived. We see the sun rise again. I suppose that remaining alive is something to celebrate, even though we get used to it."
You turn your head to look down at her as you feel the weight of her head on your shoulder. She holds your gaze with her beautiful purple eyes that reflect nothing but trust. She separates her wet lips slowly to smile. You realize that you've held your breath for a moment, and that not only your heart is beating fast, but you feel your blood concentrating in your crotch. You might as well have woken up next to her in bed. I'm doing this to Rem, you think.
You clear your throat and straighten your back. Emilia seems to sense that you've become uncomfortable, because she sits properly as well.
"We... should have never fought, Subaru", Emilia says as softly as she can, maybe hoping that none of the sleeping children can hear her. "You are the only person I've felt truly comfortable with. I should have understood your intentions at the royal summons no matter the shame I felt at the time. We could have argued about it without punching each other verbally. But it's alright from now on, okay? You will remain by my side, and after this is over we will return to the mansion."
You swallow. You don't think you are imagining that characteristic warmth in her tone, and for once you don't like that your pants feel much tighter.
"Listen, Emilia, ah... After Roswaal decided that Rem should stay in the capital to secure allies, we grew really close to each other, to the extent that we started dating. It's pretty serious already. We had been harboring thoughts and feelings of that kind for a while..."
Emilia's brow is trembling, and she looks down at her lap as if thinking. But then she shakes her head and looks at you confused.
"But she didn't stay behind. And besides, she's done nothing but berate you, treating you as close to an uninvited guest as she could. Did you really... I mean, I don't understand what you are talking about."
"Ah, you thought I said Ram." You chuckle. "Yeah, that'd be fun. Dating her would imply getting stepped on verbally every time you shared a room with her. Despite the occasional thrill that could provide, in very small doses, I meant Rem, her sweet sister."
You shake your head while you smile, but when you look back at Emilia, she's arching an eyebrow.
"What do you mean, Subaru...?", she asks.
"Well, like Ram put it, her sister loves useless and broken things. We were meant for each other."
You begin to scratch your head when the confusion in Emilia's face makes you shiver. You hold your breath until she speaks again.
"Subaru, Ram doesn't have a sister. Who is this Rem?"

Some observations. With this entry I've finished what you could consider the first season of this retelling. I will write a post-mortem regarding how the retelling turned out so far, and how it compares with the original as well as with the anime adaptation. I'll also reread some of the entries to retouch them a bit, and then I'll upload them to my more public blog. Although I hardly doubt anybody is reading these words, hanging the retelling for the public at large means that strangers might come across it and enjoy it, instead of the people I have on my friends list on here.

If someone would have told me just on the first of November that thirty days later I would have written a novel-length retelling of the entire first season of one of my favorite fictional series, I would have told that person to quit smoking crack and to lose my contact info. Although I tried my best to publish a couple of books around two years ago, the whole process burned me out, particularly because virtually every writer I met in person made me sick to my stomach in one way or another. I couldn't connect with any of them. After I uploaded those two books and they barely sold any copy, I drafted the entire first volume of a next novel which due to its complicated plot, or what passed for it, had to be divided in two. After I finished that first draft I realized that I had gotten out of it psychologically as much as I needed, and there was no point in continuing further because there was no audience. I didn't write any fiction at all afterwards, until this month. At least working on this retelling has made me rediscover the joy of writing fiction for the hell of it, to inhabit those fictional worlds, hang out with cool characters and explore interesting conversations and/or situations. So I call that a success as far as I'm concerned.

Worst part about this is that I'll likely get recalled back into work next week. While I'm working full time I can barely do anything else but rest when I'm not at the office. I do want to continue and retell "Re:Zero" up to volume fourteen, which is the latest translated, but it will be hard.

In any case, I have posted the following video a bunch of times, but it's still fun, and summarizes in eight minutes humorously all the events that this retelling has covered so far (with edited footage from the anime adaptation): Re:Zero IN 8 MINUTES. As it becomes obvious, though, some of the stuff has happened so differently in the retelling that although they lead to the same result, more or less, some steps in between are completely different.

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 29)

This part covers some of the ninth volume of the original "Re:Zero" novels.

In the previous volume, the ancient ghost that called itself Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti finally got to meet his beloved. The protagonist realizes that he can't delay confronting Emilia, and therefore his regrets, any longer.

The part after this one is the last that covers all the events of the original novels that became the first season of the anime adaptation.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
-Link for part 22
-Link for part 23
-Link for part 24
-Link for part 25
-Link for part 26
-Link for part 27
-Link for part 28

You turn around and walk back towards the house that Petelgeuse had picked. Once you open the door and step inside, you hope that Emilia has decided to follow you. Feeling your hands tremble like this should be comforting after you nearly lost control of your entire body, but you can only remember Emilia's face back at that clearing, what feels like so long ago, and how impotent you had felt every time you thought about travelling to Roswaal's domains and attempting to save the half-elf's life.
When you clear your throat and turn towards the door, Emilia is inside and closing it. She's eyeing the shelves you half-broke when you threw yourself against them, and the random stuff that fell out of the shelves. Spatters of your blood have stained the wooden floor all the way from where Emilia is standing to the shelves, as if you paced back and forth while having a nosebleed.
You scrutinize Emilia's expression, her half-frowned brow, her tense lips, and the pain and worry that glistens in her purple eyes. You are struck by who beautiful this half-elf is, in a way that you had forgotten. Although her anguished face was amongst the last things your brain tortured you with when you tried to sleep back at the duchess' mansion, when you stand a few steps from Emilia and have to hold her gaze to explain why you came back, her otherworldly beauty makes you feel as if her having invited you to live in the mansion of her absent clown lord was a mistake, a temporary lapse of judgement in the half-elf due to how happy she was that you both retrieved that medallion that she should have never lost. This woman is as close to royalty as it gets in this kingdom, and you are an idiot who has embraced death a few dozen times only because you needed to experience that pain again.
"Did they beat you up?", Emilia says, worried.
"... What?"
"Your face. When I came to the plaza I noticed you were there, and you hadn't received those injuries. I see you exit this house while holding on to those two, one of whom is the knight that beat you unconscious back at the royal summons, and your face looks as if one of them held you as the other punched you repeatedly."
You let out a nervous laugh while you dismiss the notion with a hand gesture. You grin to alleviate her worry, but you realize that you are probably showing your bloodied teeth.
"Nah, I did it to myself! I figured it was about time, you know? Besides, that cat-girl will heal me after she rests, so maybe in around half an hour, or eight."
Emilia sighs. She covers her eyes with her palm as her shoulders slump.
"It's all so confusing. I don't understand, not a bit."
"That knight, the captain of the Knights of Lugunica, is not that bad of a guy after all. We've been helping each other ever since we arrived at your lord's domains and had to handle the cultists' units. He even told me I have the qualifications to become a spirits user!"
"I... I asked around and they told me that you organized this whole operation, that you had found out that the Witch's Cult was going to attack today, and that they would have killed me as well as everyone at the village. You allied with two royal candidates so they would lend her armies to save me."
"It was both Rem and me. The organization part, I mean. I couldn't have done it on my own. But still, yeah. And their leader turned out to be far more dangerous than we had imagined. I can hardly believe we managed to kill that guy..."
Emilia lowers her head slightly as regret shows on her face. You want to know what she's thinking, but like Puck told you, she must have barely slept these past few days, mostly because of the argument you both had and that ended with Emilia exiling you from Roswaal's camp. Added to such a determined assault on her life, her thoughts must be spinning.
"I don't know what to say... It doesn't sound like something that the person I fought with, and told I never wanted to see again, would do. I did... tell you to never come back, that we were never to see each other again."
You step forward and hope that the dried blood clogging your nasal passages won't prevent you from speaking.
"Emilia."
She lifts her face towards you, apparently surprised by your serious tone. She has separated her lips slightly, and her eyes are moistening as if she's holding back tears.
"You will have a hard time believing some of the things I'm about to tell you, but please have in mind that I'm telling the honest truth. I can't get into it right now, but that first time we met at the inn, when you thought I was involved in stealing your medallion, I was seeing a half-elf for the first time. I hadn't either seen a full elf, or any percentage of elf. Furthermore, the name Satella didn't mean anything to me, except that if I heard it it would have reminded me of a fattening chocolatey treat from back home that I used to enjoy quite a bit. When I first saw you, beyond how remote you felt because of your extreme beauty, you were wary of me beyond that you thought I might have contributed to stealing something so valuable. You were trying to hide who you are, what you are, that you were born a silver-haired half-elf in a world where almost everyone reacts with irrational hate at the very sight of you. You believed that I would repudiate you as well. Why wouldn't I, from your perspective?"
Emilia's pupils are trembling as if she's forcing herself to hold your intense gaze, and her chest is rising and falling faster.
"You didn't know who Satella was...? You aren't from Lugunica, but I have a hard time believing that she wouldn't be known in any part of the world."
"It's the truth. After we talked for a bit, I wanted to help you. You seemed to be in serious trouble, and I also was in serious trouble, so I guess we could relate to each other. But you kept your guard up. You constantly expected anyone to damage you, or betray you. You must have thought for a while that I would manipulate you along the way and then throw you in the dirt, stealing your medallion."
"I-I did think that, yes. I shouldn't have, because that's not how you are, but..."
"But then again, that's what you had to expect. Why wouldn't I have betrayed you? Why would I care about hurting a half-demon?"
Upon hearing that insult, even though you are making a point, her eyes water. Although she dries them slowly with her clenched hand, she sniffles a bit. You don't expect her to talk, so you continue.
"We retrieved that medallion from the teenage thief far too easily, particularly in comparison with these nightmares I've gone through later on, but in any case we enjoyed a meal together. You must have been thinking that I was some great guy because I let myself be seen in public with you, right? That I didn't care about the reproachful glances that other patrons likely cast at us."
Emilia stares at you in silence as if she's wondering how you can read her mind.
"I'm not as good as you thought back then", you say with some sadness. "I had found myself having to exist in this world with nothing but the clothes on my back. I brought a few more things, particularly my cellphone, but a bunch of thugs beat me up half to death during my first day in Lugunica, and stole it. I was happy to interact with you, to do something good for someone I felt sympathy for. To reduce even a little the pain of the stream that flows through every dimension. Truth is, you could have bid me farewell that very same day and returned to Roswaal's mansion as if you had never met me. My life wasn't your responsibility, I was just someone who had helped you. You could have thrown me away. Most people would have. But you brought me home with you and gave me a new life."
Emilia opens her mouth and attempts to speak, but she closes it immediately as if she's afraid that she's going to let a sob come through. Her lips are twitching.
"During the period I had your trust," you go on, "before I ruined everything at the royal summons, I met the Emilia that everyone in this world would know you to be if they could look past the conditions of your birth that they can't tolerate. You are kind, sweet, honorable, sensitive and loyal to those who deserve it. You are someone who doesn't deserve in any way or form to be hated, let alone by most of the world. And your friendship was what made me able to be a person again. It's what anchored me in this world. Even for that reason alone I will forever fight for your sake, and help you achieve whatever you set your mind to."
"Subaru, I..."
She bursts out crying both out of her eyes and her nose. She tries to stop it with her palms, but her back is convulsing and her legs trembling. An aching pain pierces your heart, and you walk up to her and embrace her tightly. Surprised, she stiffens for a moment, even though her tears are dripping on your neck, but then she frees both of her hands, that you had trapped between you both, and she hugs you back.
Although you have more to say, and she must as well, you don't want to burden her with more words to consider. This poor girl had to suffer you almost ruining her only chance to move up in this world, you angered her even more when she gave you a chance to explain yourself, and after failing to sleep properly for a few days because you had screwed with her emotions, a terrorist group murders a bunch of people because they were trying to get to her, kidnap her and torture her to death. Knowing her, she must feel guilty about all of it. She already hates herself for having been born a half-elf, or at all. You wonder if there's anybody who deals with mental health in this fantasy world, because Emilia might be headed for a psychiatric institution. If she allows you to remain by her side, you'll try to make her life easier as she recovers both emotionally and mentally. In comparison you feel that you've had it easy.
After some time she ceases to tremble, although her silent tears keep running down your neck. She's breathing softly against your skin as she lets her body lean on you.
"Emilia," you begin quietly, "before I came here I regretted stuff, mainly being unable to find the strength to do what I needed to, what everybody else seems to do effortlessly. But I never regretted my actions towards another person. However, ever since I broke that promise to you and not only I attended the royal summons, but I even butted in to insult those old bastards, there hasn't been a single night that I haven't wished to go back and respect your decision. I think I believed that above your promise there was another one that I made with myself, that I wouldn't allow any harm to reach you, that I would stand in between and get hurt so you wouldn't. But you didn't need my help. Even if you couldn't defend yourself, that magical flying cat of yours has your back. Still, when I learned that it wouldn't be enough, that the Witch's Cult would launch such an attack that you would almost certainly die, I couldn't stay put, because above all I couldn't deal with you dying. I had to become someone else, someone capable of earning the respect of the people who could help me save you."
"I have heard enough", she says with a soft, tired voice.
Emilia's silver hair is tickling your face. She breaks the embrace and steps back. You open your mouth maybe to apologize, because she must have grown sick of hearing your excuses, but she's breathing softly through her mouth and she looks relieved. She pulls out a tissue from somewhere inside her dress and blows her nose.
You swallow.
"If you still want me to leave, to never see me again..."
"You are a dummy, Subaru."
That silences you. Emilia lifts her head towards you and smiles. Then she turns towards the house's main door.
"I already spoke with the injured sir Wilhelm. Maybe the merchants that have stayed will be able to carry all the remaining villagers, as well as the fallen, back towards Crusch Karsten's mansion. Sir Wilhelm explained that the duchess agreed to take care of the wounded and organize proper burials for her people, and now also for the villagers that the cultists killed to get to me. We better get things moving as soon as possible, because I need some proper sleep."
Your breath thickens. You catch up to Emilia as she's stepping into the street.
"Besides," you say, "why would it bother me that my friend is a half-demon? I'm already in love with a full demon!"
Emilia turns her head sharply towards you.
"What? Who is that person...?"
Rem must be on her way to Crusch's mansion through the abnormally vast and flat stretch of grassland that Flugel Road cuts through. In less than a day, you figure, you will return to that mansion, and all the fighting and the fear of getting murdered at any moment will have ceased.
"Many things have happened at the capital ever since we last saw each other. Way too many... I'll try to convince Crusch to let us ransack her wine cellar for a proper party, both to celebrate that we survived and to honor the dead."

As Emilia and you were returning to the plaza you came across two of Crusch's soldiers who were hauling the remains of two villagers towards a line of corpses. Everybody seems to have understood that the fighting has ended, because there are already four distinct areas where corpses are either lining up or piling up. In the opposite area of the plaza you spot Ricardo carrying under each arm the limp body of a half-beast comrade. In an area close by shine the armorial bearings of the House of Karsten in the bloodied corpses of the human fighters. The cultists, all identifiable by their black robes, or sometimes just because they are chopped in half, are getting thrown into a pile that you guess someone is going to burn before you leave. It seems that nobody is bothering to gather the lumps and globs of meat and bones that remain of those people, some innocent, that the tiny psycho has blown up. That means she likely won't be processed for war crimes, which would end up with the half-beast lieutenant blowing up everyone in the court.
As you accompany Emilia, who is trying to avoid looking at the corpses, your gaze falls on two people that are standing near the center of the plaza and chatting amicably: Julius and Wilhelm. The old man is standing by himself without anguish in his aged face, and you can only tell that he got seriously injured because his military uniform is torn horizontally in the abdomen, showing the bandages underneath. You walk towards them until a few seconds later you realize that Emilia either hasn't noticed or preferred to speak with someone else, because she's beelining towards Ram. The pink-haired maid, whose servant uniform is also stained with flowers of blood where she got stabbed, is quarrelling with some concerned villagers. You realize there's a small white figure perched on Emilia's shoulder and staring back at you. It's her great spirit guardian, Puck. When he holds your gaze, he nods, turns around and fades away again. What's with that self-satisfied face?, you think. As usual, you didn't do shit!
Neither of the knights have realized you are approaching them. Wilhelm should have by this point, so he must be interested in the conversation enough to have lowered his guard.
"Sir Wilhelm!", you say animatedly, "I should have known you are too tough for something as minor as getting disemboweled to stop you."
Both Julius and Wilhelm turn to you. Julius offers you a small smile, although Wilhelm looks tired from up close.
"Mr. Natsuki. It seems there's life left in these old bones of mine. Julius explained your confrontation with the Archbishop. It seems you defeated him as he were taking possession of you. For all the decades I have trained, I don't believe I would have been able to best the madman in those circumstances."
"Well, as you saw during the royal summons, maybe my biggest talent is pushing people's buttons until they'd rather implode than keep pursuing their lifelong goals."
Wilhelm nods, and in his eyes you sense that his respect for you has grown to the extent that he may consider you close to an equal. You feel like contradicting that impression. If it weren't for Satella and the power she gave you, you would have never been able to pull off any of this. You would have had to witness the people you came to care about getting killed one by one. No, most likely you would have died even earlier. You are a bystander tangled in events you have no business handling, starting from the day that, for no apparent reason, you were snatched from your own world into this one.
You are startled by a loud cry of sorrow coming from some streets away. When you turn towards the source, even though the nearby houses are blocking the view, you try to focus your hearing so you can tell whether there's another attack underway. Even above your quickened heartbeat you pick up from what you had discarded as background noise that quite a few people seem to be either arguing with teary voices or even crying somewhere in the village. When your gaze returns to the knights, Wilhelm seemed to be waiting to explain it to you.
"After an assault of this magnitude, the survivors return to their abodes and some, or many, find out that their loved ones haven't outlived the danger. We will need to deal with it on our way back, given that Ferris believed that enough merchants stayed when the fighting broke out at the plaza."
"Ah, Ferris has gone to organize the evacuation with the merchants."
"That is correct."
You have gone cold, and suddenly you want to sit down, grab your knees and hide your face behind your forearms. Without really wanting to, you gaze at the corpses of villagers lined up nearby. You recognize some of the faces from the people that were guarding the bottlenecks while holding on to their worn swords and pitchforks, but there are also women, and a few teenagers and children. You never cared for these people, not to the extent that you kept them in your thoughts and wished to visit the village, but they didn't deserve any of this. A fouler thought creeps into you: you could have prevented those deaths. You can prevent those deaths. You just have to grab the nearest dagger lying around, hide in some house, plunge the dagger into your throat and wait for a while. You would have to start the fight from zero, but maybe next time the lines of corpses belonging to your side would be smaller. If you repeated the fight long enough, the accumulated foreknowledge could make it so you wouldn't lose any. You contemplate pursuing that idea, and your legs tremble and your mouth dries. You want to be alone.
Julius' serene voice returns you to the present.
"Tell me you have received good news, Subaru. Lady Emilia has embraced you back into her camp, hasn't she? I can't imagine she wouldn't after this operation succeeded."
"She wasn't... that clear about it, but after the fight we had back at Crusch's mansion the last time we saw each other, she's certainly more receptive to me coming back. Wilhelm... have we truly won this?"
"If you are referring to the amount of soldiers and innocents caught in the way that we have lost, I must say, as callous as it might sound, that there's hardly any mission or battle that doesn't end with regrets such as these. I will turn the question around. You had correctly deduced that the Petelgeuse I killed years ago wasn't the only one, and you are the person he attempted to possess last. Would you say that this time he has been thoroughly vanquished?"
"Ah, you mean that the ancient ghost might have jumped to another one of his Fingers. Maybe the remaining vessels lay on that pile of corpses, but even if any of his Fingers remain out there, I have no doubt that Petelgeuse is finally gone. I saw him inside of me, I mean I witnessed his true inhuman form, and he dissolved into nothingness. Petelgeuse is gone."
Julius sighs, while Wilhelm nods and narrows his eyes.
"Then the threat is extinguished. We have victory."
From a corner of the village, a man's voice screams with a mix of sadness and anger, and you recognize Ram's voice attempting to placate the source. You turn towards them. Although you can't tell many details from this distance, a man with long sideburns and a wart under his nose, who is holding a dead child in his arms, is shouting at Emilia even though Ram is attempting to stand in the way. You excuse yourself to Julius and Wilhelm, and walk quickly towards Emilia's side.
The villager is crying his eyes out even though he's frowning as much as those muscles allow him to, and veins are bulging on his temples. As he shakes, the male child's arms swing limply. You dare look at the child's face. His eyes and his mouth are open, but his skin looks cold, and he must have gotten some mortal wound on the opposite side of his body given how much it has stained the villager's shirt.
You faintly remember having spoken to this kid back when you lived at Roswaal's mansion and you came to the village, even though all those memories seem hazy and distant now. Your throat is closing up.
"This is your fault, witch!", the villager screams at Emilia. "My wife and child! They are dead because of you!"
Emilia is trembling. You can only see her profile, but she has gone even paler, and tears are jumping from the corner of her eye.
"I-I know it's my fault... I'm sorry..."
"Sorry!? Sorry doesn't mean anything! If you hadn't appeared in our lives, Witch of Frost, the cult wouldn't have attacked us! If you weren't here, my family would be alive! Your tears don't mean a thing!" The man throws the dead body of his son at Emilia's feet. After sobbing for a second, he looks up at her with disdain. "Are you going to run back home to your lord's mansion now that my family is dead?", he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Emilia attempts to talk, but she chokes. She presses her trembling fists into her eye sockets.
Ram lifts her palm and addresses the villager with a stern voice.
"Your losses are regrettable, and yet that doesn't give you the right to berate lady Emilia. She isn't in charge of the Witch's Cult. Those fiends are solely responsible for the mayhem. I assure you that all the villagers will receive the appropriate compensation from our lord."
"Appropriate compensation!? What amount of money is going to solve this!? And where is lord Roswaal!? He chose to present that half-demon as a royal candidate, painting a target on this village!"
"He has left us to die!", some other villager shouts from behind the bereaved man.
Some of the villagers that were wandering around and even helping the soldiers haul corpses are gathering close by. Amongst them is none other than the shithead chief of this village, whose wizard costume, more appropriate for Halloween than for any corner of this fantasy world, remains unblemished as if he's hidden himself in a cellar for the entire fight. So many good people have died but this fucker survives unscathed? There's no justice in this world.
You are about to intercede when you catch the expression on Emilia's face as she turns away from the man. It's a close echo of how lost and devastated she looked that day at the clearing, what now feels like so long ago, when she had believed that you had betrayed her, that you belonged to the Witch's Cult and that you had manipulated her all along to deliver her to the Archbishop so she could be sacrificed. It didn't take much longer for her mind to break.
As sharp pains pierce your heart, you rest your arm on Emilia's shoulders and force her to walk away from Ram's stone wall. After you have separated her enough, you hug her tightly holding the back of her head. She's drenching your neck in tears.
"T-This is w-what I have done," Emilia mumbles almost out of breath, "b-because I exist..."
You press your cheek against hers, and her shivers run through you.
"Nobody is at fault for anything just because of their condition of birth. These people don't feel like they can blame something as faceless and monstrous as the Witch's Cult for their actions, so they need to pin the blame on whoever they believe provoked the cult. You are the victim in all this, Emilia. The cultists intended to torture you to death. You don't need to carry this guilt."
Emilia tries to contain herself from wailing.
"But I feel it... that it is my fault..."
You have made her walk slowly until you reach the a nearby rock formation, which makes you feel that you aren't as exposed to everyone's gazes. After a couple of minutes her back has ceased to convulse, and her eyes are like a leaky, silent faucet. You hold Emilia's beautiful face between your palms, and she looks up at you with her reddened eyes as she sniffles.
"Emilia," you begin with a shaky voice. "if you could go back in time and you knew that this attack would happen and all these people would die, would you return and do things differently?"
"How does a hypothetical situation matter..."
"Please, Emilia, I'm asking you seriously. Please... Would you return again and again until nobody died?"
She closes her eyes tightly to try to stem her tears, but when she opens her eyes again the tears come back.
"Would I be a goddess in that scenario? Would I be free from my emotions? Maybe I should say that I would return... But I'd have to live through every minute of this nightmare again, fight every step of the way, and accrue every wound in my mind. There's only so much I can take, Subaru. I feel... like I'm about to break. I feel it down to my bones. Maybe this is the best scenario. Maybe in all others the Witch's Cult caught me. I can't... go through something like this ever again. I want to be at peace."
She leans forward as if she wants to hide her face, and you embrace her again. As her heartbeat pounds against your chest, you remember Roswaal, that clown bastard who you haven't faced for a long time. You doubt that Emilia would have gotten tangled in this fight for the throne of her own volition. He must have manipulated her somehow. This girl can't tolerate continuously a world that seems designed to wound her, even kill her if given the chance. Even if she can defend herself with her magic, and her familiar is powerful enough to destroy the entire world, you feel the need to keep Emilia safe, to fight until you secure whatever conditions are necessary so she can be happy.

Cards on the table: I don't believe that this confrontation with Emilia is a proper payoff for the setups back at part four of this retelling. Back then I felt like writing a sort of wild parody than anything internally coherent. I love their idiotic argument so many parts ago, but that Emilia doesn't sound like the person who she solidified to in this retelling. Emilia has always risked losing her mind because of all the hate she has to tolerate, added to her terrible past and her sensitive nature, and that's something that I'd rather explore with her character.

Also, that damnable village chief keeps popping up. The AI made him up entirely maybe as early as in the third part of this retelling; in the original I think the chief or leading elder is some old woman.

I have already written most of the following part. I wished I could have finished this one yesterday, but my entire afternoon was wasted on me nursing a migraine, and today I still have to deal with a residual headache from it.

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 28)

This part finishes covering the eight volume of the original Re:Zero novels.

In the previous part, Julius handled the current boss battle mostly by himself, until Emilia came and stole his thunder by blowing up Petelgeuse's head at point-blank range. Then that whole setup of the Archbishop having recognized the protagonist as a Finger comes into play.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
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-Link for part 26
-Link for part 27

You barely pay attention to where you are running, nor can you focus with how dizzy your mind has gotten. You step on puddles of blood and almost trip on a few of the corpses. The dirt you are leaving behind passes in a blur.
"Where are you fleeing?", Petelgeuse says in your head. "Where is the ally that will fight this battle for you, undeserving champion? But I understand now Satella's will, the brilliance of her design. A simple book, no matter the greatness of its predictions, can get lost or stolen. A living Gospel? That's another matter! With your predictive blessing and both my diligence and my authority, we will scour this world until we find a stable vessel for our witch. You will witness it, you will see it through to the end."
As you run and red pinpricks cloud your vision, you wonder whether to stop next to any of the weapons, most of them blood-dyed, that lie on the dirt. But Petelgeuse is already inside. What if you die and wake up in Crusch's bed only to find out that Petelgeuse has returned with you? As a fear you had never felt makes you tremble from head to toe you realize that you might be about to lose all control of your body, and that you will be jailed like any of those Fingers were, doomed to witness this ancient spirit puppeteering you to murder anyone he wants or needs, probably including the people you appreciate, until he resurrects Satella and that witch consumes the entire world.
You can barely feel your legs, as if you had woken up suddenly from a terrible nap in a bad posture. You stop in the middle of the street. No, you haven't stopped, your body has stopped. Your body turns to the door of an open house, and it calmly opens the door and closes it behind you. You manage to separate and move your lips to let out an anguished shout, and as you recover the feeling in your hands, you pound them against a table. You are in someone's living room.
"The process is irreversible", Petelgeuse says calmly. "In a few minutes you will be fully under my control. You, your consciousness, your spirit, will be trapped inside, and I will have to listen to you first complain and plead for a long time, but eventually you, Satella's champion, will realize the futility of it. I fell out of grace because I shut my ears and my eyes to any but the choices I had already made, and our witch decided to correct it through reorganizing Sloth with a bicephalous leadership. I accept her decision! Misjudging that half-demon was but a minor hindrance in our plans!"
Your back tries to straighten itself. You fight against it not because you want to stay hunched over, but because you need to reassert the control of your own body. Anguished noises escape from your lips, and tears brim from your eyes.
"I'm still here", you say with a raspy, wavering voice. "You won't be able to make me disappear while I still fight."
"You are indeed here, you troublesome believer, and in a way you will remain in this body forever, as I said! No matter, I will listen to your pointless lamentations! Our many interactions up to this point must have prepared me to tolerate, despite your shamelessness and foul demeanour, our impeding living arrangements."
The door opens forcefully and hits the wall as if someone kicked the door in. You hear labored breathing, the footsteps of two people.
"Subaru! Are you well!?", Julius asks.
You turn towards them. No, your body turns, and also your mouth moves, forming words and pouring a voice by itself.
"This body isn't Natsuki Subaru anymore, but the Archbishop of Sloth, Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti. Despite the disgraceful nature of you rotten unbelievers, I am glad to make your acquaintance again, spirits exploiter. You have found me in a good mood!"
You witness the horror in both Julius' and Ferris' eyes. The knight unsheathes his sword as his face twists in anger.
"Leave that body immediately, fiend! Subaru, I know you are still in there. Don't stop resisting!"
Your lips open to talk again, but amongst the points of your body that haven't gone numb, you find one thread of control in that area of your face and you pull. You manage to close your lips, to purse them so no sound escapes. Your hands move to your mouth and forcefully stretch it open. You regain control of your legs and stumble backwards as if drunk.
"This is... still... my body... you piece of...", you slur with your mostly numb lips.
Julius is pointing his sword forward as if to charge at any moment. His cheeks are twitching. Your eyes are already failing to obey you, and from the corner you can feel more than see Ferris trembling.
Petelgeuse's deep, slimy voice talks inside of you, and it feels like being bound, gagged and blindfolded while your kidnapper leans in your ear.
"Never has possessing a Finger felt so difficult! Then again, all the others understood and believed in our plan to resurrect our witch, while you, despite having been blessed, keep struggling against it! Which were the words you used to disparage Satella's endless love, back at those woods? You said that if Satella embraced you, you wouldn't be able to do or be anything ever again, didn't you? Satella, in her everlasting love and comprehension, has designed our bond! As I command your body, you will learn, you will get accustomed to pursuing Satella's love without hindering yourself with the sloth of what you consider free will, which only serves to increase pain and despair! Don't you worry, I will work diligently to return our witch back to us, and you will be rewarded for eternity!"
Most of your body that had tingled like numb limbs after a bad nap now you can't feel anymore, and only some other parts of your body, that you can barely locate, allow you a restricted control. It reminds you of the time you failed at that clearing, when Emilia's face of betrayal burned inside your eyelids, and after she died, the gargantuan physical form of her great spirit looked down at you as he froze you to death, along with the rest of the world. You don't know what to do, you're paralyzed, imprisoned, guided and denied of free will, all at the same time. You can only yell inside your mind to stop this, to no avail. Petelgeuse has accrued hundreds of years of experience in possessing human bodies, and for all you know there's no way to reverse it. You can't win.
That sword's tip, that Julius holds aimed at you, is close enough that maybe you could regain enough control of your legs to drag your body into the weapon. It would only take it piercing a carotid artery, and hopefully Ferris will understand, accept your decision and avoid healing you.
You concentrate all your willpower, while yelling inside your head, until you locate your leg muscles and coordinate them to move as if you were breaking the shell of ice that had fastened them to the ground. One step, another. Julius stares at you with the expression of someone who witnesses a zombified friend lunging towards him. The sharp point of his sword is a few centimeters away.
"You are trying to die!", Petelgeuse shouts in your head with an amused tone. "Even though Satella has designed this possession, had intended your use as a Finger, you hope that her blessing will send you back to a past where you will regain your free will! My fellow believer, you are ignorant to the end! I assume you picture the safety of whatever point of the past you have returned to every time you fled because you wouldn't fight, but this time you will bring me along with you, and you will have undone your allies' diligent efforts to massacre my fellow believers!"
As you keep inching forward with a shambling body, you keep arguing with yourself frantically. If you impale yourself on the sword, will you be playing right into Petelgeuse's hands? Will you truly wake up back at Crusch's bed only to find that your body hosts two souls, and only his in control? Petelgeuse can't know that for sure, he is just interpreting this possession as Satella's will because he needs to believe that he never lost his witch's favor. Just a few inches more, and that sharp point will plunge into your carotid. Your vision is getting blurry, but you can sense in Julius' fearful eyes that he understands, that he won't retract his weapon.
"You were born in a body that would betray you at the worst times," Petelgeuse's deep voice says quietly in the chamber of your mind, "that one day, when you had barely begun to walk in this world, would cease to function, and your spirit, likely failing to remain behind, would disappear into an abyss where nobody would be able to reach you. Give up on this life, on this pointless diligence, you irrational creature. Why hold on to something that only brings you pain? You were meant to give up control here, so has our witch willed it. Accept it. Move on."
Without realizing it you've regained control of your teeth, only to clench them. If you could only lunge forward, that sharp point would impale your neck right through your carotid. You locate some muscles in your back, then you concentrate your willpower in pushing yourself forward. As your body was about to impale itself, Petelgeuse's retrieves the control from you as if he had been playing around until that moment, and instead of piercing your neck the point slices your cheek open. You feel the burning sensation, as well as the wound bleeding, like hazy memories of a distant injury.
"You intended to die, didn't you, Subaru?", Julius asks as both his lips and his brow tremble. "Don't give up. You are courageous, someone who does what is right no matter how much it will jeopardize the rest of his life. Remain and fight."
Petelgeuse moves your eyes to glance at Ferris. The cat-girl's shoulders have slumped, and her arms are dangling. She holds your, or Petelgeuse's, gaze, but when the tears that had grown in the corners of her eyes fall down her cheeks, Ferris looks away. She has the expression of someone waiting for a veterinary to give her pet the final injection.
"He's already gone", Ferris murmurs. "Can't you see that? It's not Subaru anymore."
Thank you for the vote of confidence, Ferris, you think. If you managed to impress a snob like the captain of the Knights of Lugunica with your talent to annoy people until they lose their minds, even if Petelgeuse eventually wins, you will twist his balls to the end.
You locate all the points of your body that can respond to your control to any degree, surrounded by tingling oases of numbness, and you pull those threads as hard as you can. Your body stumbles backwards. When you sense that you are about to hit some shelves, you throw your body into them. A bunch of stuff crashes around you or fall on your head. You wrestle control of your lips, but Petelgeuse steals it and shouts out loud.
"You shameless moron! Do you intend to damage this body? Do you prefer to injure yourself to the extent that we will both be trapped in a broken shell, with only my authority able to move us around while our corpse-like body hangs limp? Is that how you would prefer to keep existing? You lack any common sense! I must have truly disappointed our witch for her to punish me to this extent!"
You find the threads that move the fingers of your left hand, even though you can't feel it at all. You close your shaking hand into a fist and focus all your willpower into launching it against your nose, hitting it with a loud crack. While Petelgeuse fills the chamber of your mind by yelling something, you launch your fist against different parts of your face over and over. The vision of one of your eyes has narrowed and reddened.
Petelgeuse, who hadn't ceased to shout at you while you ignored him, seizes the wrist of that hand with your other.
"You won't stop nor listen to reason no matter how much you inconvenience even yourself!", the ancient ghost shouts angrily. "You aren't even a person, you are a wild animal! What a horrible curse I must live through. Blessed be Satella, I must regain her favor as soon as possible!"
You snatch some control of your lips.
"Suck... my balls... you bit-"
Petelgeuse purses your lips and shakes your head.
"Enough with this farce!", he shouts in your mind. "You shameless beast... I allowed all the other Finger's souls, my fellow believers in Her love, to remain next to me as I commanded their bodies to further our cause. I listened to their advice, I soothed their concerns. Their loss, having been murdered either by you or the barbarian fools that chose to follow you, fills me with shame! Now, shackled with you, I see the true extent of how those believers had blessed me with their diligence! You cannot be reasoned with like an intelligent being that deserves any modicum of respect, so instead I will punish you and train you like a wild beast! You despise giving up the control of your body, even though I share the eyes and the ears for you to experience along with me? Then you will find out the alternative!"
You feel as if you are falling, or being pulled down, and suddenly everything goes dark. You are plummeting, have been plummeting, for what feels like a few minutes through a thick blackness. You were already panicking, but now you just need to yell out incoherently.
"There's a chamber inside all of you perishable creatures," Petelgeuse begins, "a solitary cell that houses the essence of your soul, from which it escapes once its shell finally succumbs to time and decay. Can you imagine how small that place is, how dark, how disconnected from anything you have pointlessly held on to in that painful world outside? There will be nothing but time and your consciousness for you to contemplate the disgraceful decisions that you have pursued up to this point. How long do you think it will take until despair breaks you and you accept what you should have from the beginning, that you are nothing but an agent for our witch to help her return to Her world? But don't you worry, once you understand, I will allow you to join my side as a fellow believer!"
You cease to fall without hitting anything, as if you had never plummeted to begin with. You are surrounded by an opaque darkness. In your terror you can't understand nor notice anything else, but in a few seconds you feel it enveloping you, seeping inside of you, filling you. A nurturing, loving warmth as if you floated inside a womb. Have you died? No, you remain alive, at the very abyss of your self. You know this place.
"What... What is this?", Petelgeuse says with a trembling voice. "My entire self is being caressed, like someone wants to extricate me from all the pain!"
Petelgeuse's surprised voice comes from your side as if he were standing next to you, and when you turn towards the source, although you don't feel like you possess a body, you see a shadowy being darker than the surrounding black. It's a spindly humanoid with knobby joints and an elongated head in which three hazy red eyes glow, one slightly above and in between the regular ones. This guy had never been a human being, he just likes wearing them.
You don't feel fear any longer. Fearing anything down here feels like an absurd waste.
"What, you don't recognize it? You can't feel it down to your ghostly bones? You claim to have worked for it for hundreds of years, to have focused diligently on a plan that would eventually distribute it to everyone, whether they wanted it or not. Weren't you her favored at one time? So how come you aren't able to tell?"
The shadowy figure grows closer until all three of its eyes glow like Julius' minor spirits.
"It cannot be Her. Satella's essence would have to be woven to..."
He shuts up, so you speak in turn.
"I did tell you that whenever I wanted I could meet our witch. Every time the mind-killing pain of dying had passed, I found myself dunked in her love, and I could speak to her, in what passes for having a conversation with our beloved Satella. I don't understand it either, Petelgeuse, but there she is."
Petelgeuse turns his head sharply to your right. Maybe around four meters deeper into that opaque darkness, the tips of claw-like fingers, darker than the surrounding black, emerge slowly as if floating towards you. You see the rest of her elongated hands, and then her arms as she opens them slowly like inviting you to embrace her. First two pale, half-imagined lights in the distance, her hazy, glowing purple eyes show up in the silhouette of her face. Her long black hair floats as if underwater.
"The queen of your fantasy world, in her ghostly flesh", you announce.
Petelgeuse has stepped towards Satella. His shadowy figure trembles from head to toe, and from his mouth escape weird noises that first sound like some incantation to you, but you realize that he's crying.
"My beloved, the light of my existence", he says with a quivering, teary voice. "Even though I have fought for so long so one day I could meet you, to my depths I doubt I believed I would achieve it, that any of the vessels would be worthy of you. I had nothing else but you in my mind, and yet I failed to understand that you didn't entirely approve! I disappointed you! Forgive me, please, my witch, my beloved! I will do anything, anything in this world to please you!"
As the ancient ghost inches closer, the witch's extended hands have floated past Petelgeuse's sides and slowly move to bend until they meet behind his back. If Petelgeuse stepped forward a step and a half, both of their faces would meet.
A bell-like, soft voice floods this dark womb, enveloping you.
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I lo-"
Petelgeuse's mouth emits a moan-like noise of rapture.
"I-I love you too! I knew you would, despite it all! I knew that you would love me! I had kept doubts, I had kept fears, and yet I should have never ceased to believe for a moment! Of course you, my beloved witch, would accept me!"
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I-"
Petelgeuse barely manages to speak between his sobs.
"I had spent so much time waiting for nothing, watching the world pass me by, because I had convinced myself, in my disgraceful sloth, that I wasn't to interfere, I wasn't to meet, I wasn't to touch anybody else! I was never wanted, never needed! I wondered for so many centuries why I came to exist! But you appeared. I watched you as you moved through this rotten world blessing it with your love, and then, in your final act of goodwill, you gave your love to half of the lost, pained creatures that were, unknowingly, asking for you to save them! And you keep loving them, and will love them for the rest of time, even though those left behind will forever hate you! My witch, my love! You see my shame, you see my pain, and yet you love me!"
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I lo-"
Satella's elongated arms have crossed behind Petelgeuse's back, and is drawing his face near as if to kiss him deeply. Petelgeuse hugs the witch while his legs wobble. He is wailing like a child.
"I love you too, Satella. I have always loved you more than anything in this world, and I always will!"
As if floating in slow motion, the Witch of Envy hugs Petelgeuse tighter. Her face touches his, and her long, suspended hair rests on his shoulders. Petelgeuse's shadow is seeping into the witch, merging with her. The ancient ghost's wails cease. Every spindly, knobby limb dissolves into shadowy shreds that are attracted to Satella's body like water pouring down a drain, until nothing of Petelgeuse's remains and the witch floats in place, embracing herself with her claw-like hands.

The sudden light blinds you. As you blink, one of your eyes sends pangs of pain, and it shows your hands resting on your lap as if through a red filter. You feel your head, your torso, your arms, your legs, your feet. The sensations return to your body in a shocking flood. Your clogged nose as you try to breathe through it. Your bruised cheeks. The metallic taste in your mouth. A burning area on your lips. Your back aches as if you've pulled something. The knuckles on your left hand are bruised and bloodied, maybe broken. Numerous painful scratches in your torso and your forearms assert their presence. There's a faint pain in your testicles. You are so tired as if you've kept conscious through sheer obstinacy. Everything hurts, everything bleeds.
You let your body go limp as you sigh deeply.
"Goodbye, Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti, Archbishop of Sloth", you say with a thin voice. "What a fucking freak."
"Subaru!", Julius shouts.
It startles you. You lift your head to realize that Julius and Ferris are standing a couple of meters away from you, bewildered and scared. You had forgotten. How much time has passed?
"I guess that's that, guys. If you don't mind, I'll rest here for a moment."
Julius steps towards you, but Ferris crosses an arm in front of him to stop the knight.
"This must be an act. That ancient spirit must be trying to pretend he has left Subaru's body."
Julius stares at you with his trembling pupils. Sweat has beaded on his forehead. Even though he's still wielding his sword, he has lowered it.
"We haven't known that great spirit to behave in such a way, but still, if that's you, Subaru, will you allow Ia to enter you? A possessed body should reject her immediately. We would know for sure."
You swallow the blood in your mouth, and then contain a cough.
"Go ahead, you can put inside me whatever you want."
"... I will ignore the connotation of your words, and yet they reassure me. That wouldn't have come out of Petelgeuse's mouth. Ia, please check if our friend is in the clear."
The small ball of red light flies out of Julius' chest and, after an unnecessary dance, it plunges into yours. You don't feel any different, although at this moment you doubt you can feel anything but terrible.
You cough a couple of times, and when you look back at the knight, he's staring at you wide-eyed.
"A great spirit was taking possession of you, and you defeated him... with your willpower."
His voice sounded like he witnessed you picking up a mountain and placing it somewhere else because it obstructed your view. You would rather hear him, or anyone else, scolding you, and that makes you a bit sad.
"Help me up, will you? I'm so fucked I'm surprised I haven't pissed myself."
Julius sheathes his sword quickly, and both him and Ferris lift you back to your feet. The knight keeps staring at you as if you are some display in a museum.
"C'mon, it wasn't as easy as you think", you say. "While trapped inside myself, I opened a portal to another dimension and I dragged Petelgeuse into it. I had to pursue him through many worlds made possible through different, incomprehensible laws of nature. I fought monsters and met gods who granted me powers capable of destroying whole star systems. After aeons of the same embittered fight, I managed to pull my final move on Petelgeuse, who dissolved into the ether. Then I came back to meet you fine people again after such a long absence."
Julius shakes his head and laughs softly.
"I see your previous experience has served you well."
You turn both Julius and Ferris towards the house's entrance and then put your hands on their shoulders.
"Let's get out of here and figure out what remains to be done until we can finally sleep. I won't get up from my next bed for a fucking week."
"I agree", Julius says.
As you walk towards the door, you notice Ferris is averting her gaze while drying her eyes and her cheeks with her furry hand.
"Sorry for worrying you, Ferris", you say softly.
"Shut it."
The light of the sun falls on you again. You let your pals walk in front of you for a moment as you try to steady your legs. This must be it, then. Petelgeuse is gone, so the Sloth branch of the Witch's Cult has ceased to operate until someone else occupies that seat, maybe in like a couple of weeks. You found your determination after you had settled for guillotining yourself like a hundred fifty times, you went on a road trip, you bonded with cool fantasy people, you witnessed and partook in a bunch of gruesome murders, your team killed the same person over and over, you almost lost your testicles, one of the leaders of seemingly the worst terrorist group in this fantasy world is dissolving inside a ghost, and half of the village is dead. That worked out pretty well.
"Lady Emilia", Julius says.
The silver-haired half-elf is standing next to a puddle of blood and the upper half of a cultist's torso. She's wringing her hands in front of her waist while staring at you as if she can't figure out what to say. Julius looks at Emilia and then back at you. He nods, and speaks to Ferris.
"Let's give them some space."
As Ferris walks away, she talks over her shoulder.
"Those wounds in your face aren't life threatening, and I'm squeezed out of mana. I will take a look at you after I rest."
"Sure! Don't worry about it."
As both Ferris and Julius walk slowly towards the plaza, occasionally glancing at the corpses and trying not to step on the bloodied dirt, you clear your throat and step closer to Emilia. Your heart is pounding so hard you feel nauseous.
"Let's get inside that house over there, and we'll both say what we need to."

Some observations. If you have either read the original novels or watched the anime adaptation, you know that's not how Petelgeuse's story ends. In fact, that whole continuous life that included convincing two royal candidates to grant him his power, then travelling towards Roswaal's place and stopping along the way to murder a legendary monster (they manage to slay the White Whale in the original, the motherfuckers), then killing plenty of Petelgeuse's units and his Fingers, ends when Subaru gets possessed and he, realizing he won't be able to control it, demands both Julius and Ferris (who is a guy in the original) to kill him. They do, and Subaru goes back to a moment in his past where they had gathered to talk strategy right after they killed the White Whale (thankfully he didn't have to wake up again back at Crusch's place). He does nail his second run through, with barely (if any) casualties. I don't like how they dispatch Petelgeuse in the original, although I won't mention the details, and I prefer my version. Ending with him meeting his witch, which is all he had genuinely wanted to do, pays off the setups better as far as my tastes go.

This link to a video is a heavily edited compilation of Petelgeuse moments from the anime adaptation. The version of the guy in the original novels is a bit more unhinged than mine (and a lot more at certain points), but the fantastic voice actor really upped the game for the anime adaptation. Plenty of ad-libbed stuff made it to the animation, and he became a very memorable antagonist. Particularly that whole stretch in the cave back in episode fifteen of the first season, I think, is stuff that nightmares are made of.

So goodbye, Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti, you fucking freak.

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 27)

This part covers a bit of the eight volume of the original Re:Zero novels.

In the previous part, the protagonist finds out that some people he likes remain alive. His future sister-in-law christens him with a new name. Also, Wilhelm should have gone for the head. Another one of Petelgeuse's Fingers dies, and the following boss battle ensues.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
-Link for part 22
-Link for part 23
-Link for part 24
-Link for part 25
-Link for part 26

Before you realize it, you have left Ferris behind and moved further into the plaza to get a handle on the situation. Petelgeuse has a fresh new body, but Wilhelm, the only fighter who could deal with the invisible hands due to his mad skills, is having trouble keeping his guts inside. You get the sense that you have already lost, that none of the previous tricks you pulled on the Archbishop of Sloth are going to work anymore.
Julius is retreating backwards from the house, a street over, that Petelgeuse popped up from. The captain of the knights is wielding his sword, and you suppose that his sense of honor will force him to face the enemy, even one whose numerous weapons Julius cannot see.
You approach Julius from the side to avoid adding to the general panic that the guy is likely containing.
"You intend to face this crazy fellow, I'm guessing", you say cautiously.
Julius is staring intently at the opening of the street that this new Petelgeuse is likely to come through. Only a slight frown betrays his nervousness.
"Someone has to defend these people and end the threat, and we can't count on Ricardo or that lieutenant either. However..."
"I forgot to tell you. When Petelgeuse was occupying that teenager's body before, I interrogated him about his nature, because I had gotten the sense that we weren't dealing with a human being. He admitted that before he had been occupying human bodies for hundreds of years he was already conscious. He emphasized that he regretted being detached from the world's affairs, and he suggested that he had seen cultures cease to exist during that period."
Julius shoots you a knowing look.
"Most likely Petelgeuse is a great spirit, then."
"Does that help you? I mean, you are a spirits user. Don't you have some spell to banish the guy to another realm, or trap him in a container?"
Both of you snap your heads towards a loud crash that came from a street over. Petelgeuse's ghostly arms surface over the roof of the closest houses, and they sway like the grass as the madman, still hidden from view, makes his way calmly to the plaza. Julius repositions himself to keep distances with the madman before he shows up, and you imitate him.
"No such spell exists, I fear", Julius says. "Subaru, I'm not Wilhelm, but I believe I would be able to best this madman if I could see the invisible arms."
"We are fucked, then."
"Not necessarily. I do have a risky spell that would require your help."
"What can I do?"
"It's an uncomfortable and intrusive procedure. It consists on connecting our senses. We would feel, hear, and most importantly see what the other sees. In this case I would limit the sight so only I can see through the other's eyes, meaning that I would fight an enemy whose attacks I can anticipate."
"You had me at uncomfortable and intrusive. Fire it up."
Julius exhales in amusement, and offers you a small smile.
"I appreciate your eagerness, Subaru. I hope you will tolerate it. And I will also retrieve Ia, as I will require her help for this fight."
He makes a gesture with his hand, and the red ball of light exits your chest and flies in an arc into the knight's own chest. Julius closes his eyes and murmurs some incantation. In a few seconds you feel as if another body had overlapped yours. You feel the striations of a sword's grip pressing against your hand that is grasping it. You feel yourself wearing a fitted uniform, tighter than the clothes you would prefer to wear, particularly in the crotch area. You feel yourself wearing warm boots. You feel long hair touching your neck. You taste another guy's saliva. You feel another heart beating next to yours. Julius wasn't kidding around. It feels like having a stranger's hands all over you.
"Right there, I see them!", Julius says. "Focus on those ghostly arms, and try to blink as little as possible. Also, although it's too late to mention this now, your body feels awful, Subaru. You should have told Ferris to check on you."
"Thank you for the validation. So I had a reason to whine for feeling like utter shit."
The ghostly arms move past the last house that was hiding Petelgeuse's fresh Finger, and she comes into view. It's a woman maybe in her late thirties or early forties, with long, black hair and already quite wrinkled. She looks more like a librarian than your Beatrice. While she keeps her head turned towards you both, she walks further into the plaza.
"Your most competent ally, despite how quickly he's approaching the natural end of his perishable container, can no longer fight your battles for you, Satella's champion!", Petelgeuse shouts with a voice that sounds as if his Finger was a long-time smoker. "Who else are you going to sacrifice in this pointless effort to stop us from bringing our witch, your own benefactor who has granted you such a blessing, back into the world that belongs to Her?"
You point with your thumb towards Julius. Although the knight has his eyes closed, he sees your gesture from your own eyes, and takes a few steps forward while holding his sword in a fighting stance.
"This guy", you say. "A kind of stuck up knight slash spirits user who might, fingers crossed, surprise you with his talents he's trained so many years to hone."
Petelgeuse snaps his head back.
"A spirits user!?"
Julius murmurs some words you don't recognize, apparently directed to his spirit groupies, because all six of them multicolored balls of light exit his chest and fly around him like debris in a tornado.
"That's right", you say with a snarky tone. "One very well acquainted with dealing with lazy, slothful spirits who have spent longer than the span of human lives watching the world's affairs pass them by. I figured that you two would have plenty to talk about."
Petelgeuse clenches his teeth as his ghostly arms wave nervously. He looks like he suddenly regrets having stuck around after giving up on using Emilia's body as a vessel.
"By the way, Petelgeuse, what was that move you wanted to pull and that you were anxious for me to witness?", you ask. "You really made me curious there."
"I already told you we had spoken enough, and that my actions would speak for me! But I assure you, undeserving champion of our beloved witch, that for all your hollow boldness, you will regret that tone!"
Before, you had found Petelgeuse unbelievably annoying and you wanted to yell at him to shut his fucking mouth, and now you just want to poke him until he gets so annoyed that he’ll start talking again. This is bad. You have no clue what he intends to do.
"Hey, you are the one who started talking the moment you showed up in the plaza with your new Finger."
Petelgeuse takes a deep breath and shakes his head. He opens his mouth as if he is going to launch into another tirade, but he ends up groaning and swings some of his ghostly arms towards Julius. The knight isn't moving, and for a moment you think of lunging forward and pushing him to safety, but at the last moment he pirouettes out of the way of two incoming arms that were about to slap him away, and as he twists he slices one of those arms at the wrist.
"What!?", Petelgeuse shouts. "Another one of your allies can sense my authority!?"
"I already told you that Satella is doing all she can to nullify your blessing. You should expect no less."
"Blessed be our witch for choosing the most pestiferous jester as her new champion", Petelgeuse says with a scowl. "You make me regret I didn't pull your head off when I didn't yet know!"
"Plenty of people have told me something to that effect."
Petelgeuse hunches his shoulders and focuses on swinging his ghostly arms as quickly as possible, as if he couldn't wait to dispatch Julius. The knight has managed to jump or pirouette out of the way so far, although in some of the swings way too close to the approaching arms. At one time he had to jump between two of them as if he were in an obstacle course in a television show, but he managed to slice through one of the ghostly arms as he passed in between. The detached smoky arms twitch in the dirt for a couple of seconds before they dissolve. The remaining arms aren't regrowing faster than Julius can cut them. Your eyes are already getting irritated by how little you are blinking.
A few seconds later, as Julius was twisting to avoid a swinging arm while at the same time slicing through it and closing distances with the madman's body, you feel something burning across the side of your torso, as if something had scraped your skin. No, not your torso, Julius'. He had cut it too close this time, and the ghostly hand had hit him. You feel his teeth clenching, but he recovers and twists around to slice though that smoky arm as well. Petelgeuse has now fewer intact than usable hands, but it would only take a good swing for Julius to be flung out probably to his death.
"General!", Ricardo's loud voice comes from somewhere behind you. "You were here all along? We had been looking for you!"
You were about to turn your head when you remember that under no circumstances you should do so.
"Yeah, we've been a bit busy, having to kill different versions of the same ancient spirit and all."
"You survived, mister!", Mimi says from a few steps behind you. "If you had died, I couldn't have dealt with that! I would have exploded every bad person I saw!"
At least if you die you won't have to see Mimi go on a rampage against whoever she considers a bad person at that moment. Having the lieutenant so close but being unable to pinpoint her exact position makes your body tremble. You hope it doesn't distract Julius.
"I'm helping the captain of the Knights of Lugunica with this fight, even though it looks like I'm not doing anything. Any chance you guys can try to kill Petelgeuse's new body as well?"
Out of the corner of your eye you see Ricardo wielding his enormous slab of sharpened iron. His arm looks as big as a construction beam.
"Sure, I'll chop that woman in half!" After he takes a couple of steps forward, he stops as if he just realized something. "Wait a second, she's using those invisible weapons, right? That cowardly... That's no way to wage war! I am sorry, general, but I can't fight something I can't see!"
"I understand that much. Well, wait around from a safe distance until we get some sort of opening, I suppose."
You hear a quiet slithering sound behind you and know that Mimi is moving, but in which direction? As Julius has managed to close distances to the extent that if he found an opening he might manage to sprint to the madman's body and chop his head off, because you hope he witnessed Wilhelm's mistake and he isn't eager to repeat it. Another swinging arm, this time from above as if trying to slap a mosquito against a surface, wounds Julius again. You feel his left shoulder muscles tearing, and you end up having to blink away the surge of pained tears in your eyes.
"Watch me, mister!", Mimi shouts. "I will take care of this bad woman real good!"
The lieutenant is running almost in parallel to Julius' position, as the ghostly arms focus on the knight. The half-orange, half died red with blood furry image of the tiny girl, one you can't focus on, jumps as she opens her mouth wide. The bone-scratching tone she emits distorts the air in a wavering cone towards Petelgeuse, but in less than a second the madman, startled, uses one of his half-sliced arms as a shield. The ghostly arm explodes like a cloud that was punched through.
Mimi has landed and is standing confused.
"What? That didn't do anything!"
"Mimi, get out of there!", you shout. "The bad guy has invisible weapons, remember? Despite how terrifying you are, I don't want to have to see him grabbing you and squeezing you like a lemon!"
The half-beast lieutenant was taking her time to think about it while Petelgeuse, annoyed, diverted one of his regrown arms from Julius towards Mimi, but Ricardo sprinted up to her, grabbed the lieutenant and carried her away.
You were about to yell at the mercenaries to stay further away, when something punches you hard at the height of your kidney. No, not in your body, Julius'. As you fight to steady your breath, you see that the knight has fallen on the dirt and that a ghostly arm is sweeping towards him. Julius reaches for his sword, and in a movement he jumps to his feet and then over the ghostly arm, slicing the already handless arm at the height of the smoky elbow.
That day at the royal summons, even though Julius' beat you up to a pulp, he was restraining himself. That makes it even worse; given his ability it must have felt for him like fighting a toddler.
"You don't throw a single ally at me, but two at once!", Petelgeuse yells at you angrily. "You disrespect our witch with your cowardly actions!"
"You can't pretend to be that surprised after you've repeatedly called me shameless in most of our conversations. If I had an army full of these superpowered pals, you can be sure I'd make them pile up on you."
While sharp pains run through Julius' body, the knight keeps inching closer and closer. Only a quarter of the ghostly arms remain, but you hardly call it winning when Julius needs to offset his left shoulder, which isn't rotating right, and that it would still only take any of the flailing arms grabbing him to lose the knight. You would regret sacrificing this guy to go on with your life.
Some people shout first surprised, and then some angry, from the opposite side of the plaza, from which a couple of streets lead you to the uphill road that ends in Roswaal's mansion. The shouts increase to become a clamour. Sharing your senses with Julius is making you a bit dizzy, which gets combined with how tired your body was from before, and from the pains that run through Julius' body as his remaining healthy muscles help him evade the ghostly arms. You want to turn your head towards the clamour. Will you have to deal with a new batch of enemies?
Julius cuts off another limb, and as the detached part dissolves next to him, the knight holds his sword so it points forward as if he were about to charge.
"I've had quite enough", he says with an irritated tone.
An energy surges through you, through Julius' body, something that feels close to Ferris' healing magic, but that instead activates your body like a few coffees hitting at once. The multicolored minor spirits that danced around Julius slide towards his front and orbit Julius' blade quicker and quicker, tracing circles of light. Then Julius jumps forward while shouting something you can't make out, and the multicolored lights blend and gush into a stream towards Petelgeuse. The madman lets out a noise of surprise, and as he jumps backwards, he folds his ghostly arms to shield himself. However, when the stream crashes against them they all dissolve from the point of impact to the swollen shadow coming out of Petelgeuse, and the madman is thrust backwards. The body he's occupying rolls on the dirt until it hits the wall of the closest house behind him. However, she quickly stands up.
You end up blinking from confusion. You can't see the ghostly arms any longer? No, they don't seem to be there. You have no clue what kind of final move the knight has pulled off, but it must have worked. Still, you doubt it will take long for Petelgeuse's authority to recharge.
As the clamour from the plaza gets closer, from the sideline appear both Ricardo and Mimi. The wolf man is grinning, and he lunges forward towards the defenseless Petelgeuse while holding his enormous sword at the beginning of a swing.
"There's my opening!"
Julius is also charging, but Petelgeuse curses, and he shouts some incantation as he kneels and pounds the dirt with his fists. In a rumbling of rocks scraping against each other, the bedrock under the dirt bursts out from around Petelgeuse and closes over him, forming a solid cocoon.
Both Ricardo and Julius stop their charges. Ricardo almost falls forwards. Both fighters as well as you stand confused, trying to think about how to overcome this development.
The clamour only got louder and clearer. Some of the onlookers are yelling, and they sound just like the villagers who you had to argue with before this madness started. Witch, it's the witch, they shout.
"That I can see!", Mimi says.
She giggles. After running a few meters towards the rocky hemisphere, she shouts her cone of distortion. The rock explodes in a plume of debris, and the rest of the rock that hadn't been affected either falls or crumbles. The black-haired woman jumps over the remains of her defensive spell. Mimi's explosion must have shot rocky debris into the hole, because Petelgeuse's current Finger looks injured as if she caught half of a shotgun blast. A dozen wounds mostly on her torso but also on one side of her neck are bleeding. Petelgeuse opens his mouth to talk, but he coughs first.
"Despite your unfair assault, I remain blessed by our beloved witch, and I've rested as much as I needed!"
The Finger's body trembles, and her shoulders begins to extrude a churning shadow. Julius lets out a noise of surprise and prepares himself to charge again, when suddenly something crystal-like crashes into Petelgeuse, tearing out his right arm. He stands there surprised, and barely staggers for a moment before he turns to look at whoever injured him. Another projectile, a shard of ice, plunges through his abdomen, impaling it and remaining in place. Petelgeuse groans in pain.
Emilia is walking from the opposite side of the plaza towards the madman. She has extended her arm, with her palm facing forward, and in the blue-white aura emanating from it float ice particles.
"You came and killed all these people because you wanted me", Emilia's clear, bell-like voice sounds both angry and teary. "I won't hide from you any longer, evildoer."
Seeing Emilia shocks you. That long, silky silver hair. Her otherworldly beautiful face. You hadn't faced her for so long, ever since Puck froze you to death and then you couldn't find the strength to reach the mansion again, that the silver-haired half-elf had become a mythical figure in your mind, more like a character in an allegory to illustrate your regret. As you snap out of it, her use of the word evildoer echoes in your head, and you want to facepalm. This girl needs to get out more.
Petelgeuse coughs blood. Only the fingers of his ghostly arms have grown out of the churning shadow over his shoulders. His legs wobble, and he collapses on his knees as he closes his remaining hand around the shard of ice, as solid as a crystal pillar in some cave, that has impaled his body.
"The unfortunate half-demon, the volatile, unworthy vessel that doesn't deserve to host Satella!", Petelgeuse slurs mockingly. "You are right, we wanted you, we moved diligently to find you, and added to the pain of the world because you were born for a single reason, one you can't even fulfill any longer! Worthless creature!"
Emilia's frown deepens as she gets closer. She shoots another shard through her hand, and it skewers the black-haired woman's throat.
"That's true. I'm the half-demon whose existence only causes pain, only arouses hate."
As blood pumps from Petelgeuse's throat, he is about to fall on his back when he supports himself on his one hand, and then he searches for you amongst the onlookers. He stares at you intently as a smile grows on his mouth. That's not the face of someone who has lost. A shiver shakes you.
Tears are running through Emilia's cheeks and dripping on her fancy white and purple dress as she walks forward. Petelgeuse's authority is elongating into defined arms that end in long, claw-like hands, but Emilia stops next to the madman and shoots a shard right through the Finger's skull. The shard flies a few meters above the dirt before it falls and breaks into pieces. Petelgeuse twitches in place for a moment as darkened blood pours from the opened hole in his head, but then falls backwards slowly until he lays on the dirt.
You find yourself retreating step by step. Emilia is standing there looking down at the corpse. Although she just killed someone who would slaughter anyone on his way to kidnap her and torture her to death, she's crying even more, without letting a noise pass through her pursed lips. Her anguished face is clawing at your heart. It's your fault, you feel. I'm responsible for that unending pain. Your breath thickens, and suddenly the state of your body, after so much running around, so much fear and a few sustained injuries, is dragging you down as if you are about to pass out at any second. You open your mouth to speak, but at the same time you don't want to draw her gaze towards you.
Julius sheathes his sword and steps forward.
"Lady Emilia, we-...", he begins to say, but Ferris reaches him and forces him to turn around. She's lighting her healing magic on her palm and focusing it on the wound in the knight's abdomen.
"I'm about to run out of mana," Ferris says while looking as if she hasn't slept for a couple of days. "but this wound is serious. Please don't move until I say so."
You realize that Julius has deactivated his ability, and you only receive the information that your own senses process. Your mind is a mess. You feel nauseous, and your dizziness is increasing. You feel yourself reeling backwards. Your vision has gone blurry, the hazy figures of your allies grow distant. Suddenly a foul, nauseating feeling overwhelms your body as if you had fallen in a septic tank. As you struggle to breathe, a deep, slimy voice whispers in your ears. No, inside your head.
"Fellow believer in her love, chosen of Satella! I told you, didn't I? You must have kept it in the back of your head as your allies fought for you, as you witnessed your half-demon friend murdering that Finger of mine. I told you I wouldn't leave without a Gospel."
You turn and lift your hands slightly, with your palms to the sky. No, your hands moved by themselves. A tingling sensation is spreading to your limbs as if your body is going numb. You look up and your gaze falls on Julius as he's waiting for Ferris to cure his wound. He must have seen something in your eyes, some terror, because he snaps his head back and his expression distorts into worry.
Most of these people you have grown to consider your friends. You don't want them to see you like you fear you will end up in a matter of minutes. You turn away and run.

Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 26)

This part covers a bit of the eight volume of the original Re:Zero novels.

I have felt like shit since I woke up this morning, for some reason, and I didn't think I was going to get anything done today. Thankfully I'm a masochist, so instead of resting I got to writing.

GPT-3 is a cutting-edge language processing algorithm used in the premium version of the online site AI Dungeon.

-Link for part 1
-Link for part 2
-Link for part 3
-Link for part 4
-Link for part 5
-Link for part 6
-Link for part 7
-Link for part 8
-Link for part 9
-Link for part 10
-Link for part 11
-Link for part 12
-Link for part 13
-Link for part 14
-Link for part 15
-Link for part 16
-Link for part 17
-Link for part 18
-Link for part 19
-Link for part 20
-Link for part 21
-Link for part 22
-Link for part 23
-Link for part 24
-Link for part 25

As soon as you and Patrasche leave the woods you realize two things. First, Patrasche's ribcage on one side is bloodied and some of the ribs must have broken. In a couple of parts the skin and the muscles beneath have split, showing the white bone underneath. You regret that you chose to ride her again, after she got flung out by one of Petelgeuse's ghostly arms. The ground dragon's breathing is labored and she isn't running as fast as she has accustomed you to. You try to order her to go slower as you return to the village, but she either doesn't understand your request or she ignores it. Although you can only guess about the anatomy of ground dragons, you figure that getting their ribs crushed isn't beneficial for their health. Second, Petelgeuse's flailing, ghostly hands stick out over the roofs of the houses that hide the view of the village's plaza. The bastardly ancient ghost must have brought over all his Fingers for the assault, and he had only kept a low profile until he found you. Now that you've messed with his head, he might have no qualms about killing whoever he comes across, even if just to spite you.
You guide Patrasche to return to the village from the main entrance instead of jumping a fence again. You don't want to force a beast this injured to jump. As you pass by the carriages that you were supposed to use for the evacuation you catch sight of someone's eyes peeking from a slit in the tarp. The merchants must be waiting for the battle to end, at least those that have decided to stay, because you recall having seen more parked. You can't be sure of much at this point, given how you are pushing your mind and your body beyond the point where you would have supposed you would have passed out.
You ride Patrasche retracing your steps around the corpses and puddles of blood. A loud crash comes from the village center, and you spot a ghostly hand that has grabbed a piece of a house. A moment later, that arm throws the piece somewhere in the plaza. You imagine that only Wilhelm would be skillful enough to deal with an enemy that attacks with unseen weapons, but you don't know if he remains alive.
As you reach the frontline where you had parted ways with Ricardo before, the corpses of cultists, plenty of them chopped into pieces, form a sort of barricade. At the side of the street, somewhat hidden from the source of the flailing, ghostly arms, you notice Ferris. The cat-girl is standing on her two legs, and next to her, the tiny quartermaster glances anxiously at the mayhem in the plaza. Only when you dismount Patrasche and bring her closer to the cat-girl she realizes you have appeared. Despite her worry she seems relieved to see you.
"Ferris! It seems like your leg works properly."
Her black tights are cut around the break-off point as if she had used scissors, and the magically created flesh that shows in the gap looks barely better than smooth scar tissue.
"I've done all I can for now. If we survive, I'll have to keep treating it for a few days at home." She gives you a reproachful look. "I was sure we would have ended up finding you amongst some random corpses, Subaru."
"You need to trust me a bit more. I'm not that squishy."
"I stand corrected."
You realize the absurdity of holding this conversation while ghostly arms flail around, possibly squeezing the guts out of people.
"Is anybody handling Petelgeuse right now?"
"Wilhelm. He's striking the dirt towards Petelgeuse so he can locate the arms and cut them at the wrist. They don't seem to regenerate that fast. I doubt anyone but Wilhelm would be able to pull off that move."
"Yeah, I don't know what we would have done without that terrifying old man. Listen, Ferris... Could you take a look at my ground dragon? I don't want to bother you, but she got hit real bad."
You had expected Ferris to argue, particularly given how exhausted she looks, but she nods. You order Patrasche to lie down resting on her healthy side, and the cat-girl lights up her palm with her magic.
"Thank you", you say. "I'll move up to see what I can do."
"You will do what you want as usual, but your luck is going to run out eventually, Subaru", Ferris says.
You were about to walk briskly towards the plaza when you realize that Ram is sitting on the dirt and leaning against the wall of the house next to you. She looks at you with her usual self-assured expression, but her servant uniform has been ripped in parts, and the dried blood around the holes suggests she got stabbed. As you crouch next to her, she turns her head towards you slowly.
"Ram, you look as if you are about to pass out. You are going to make it, aren't you?"
She closes one eye.
"I am finally safe now that my future brother-in-law has made an appearance."
"Beyond your sarcasm, you really don't look good."
"Ferris has taken care of my wounds. I ran out of mana after defending the plaza so valiantly, and in case you haven't noticed, no regular cultist remains standing."
"I don't want to return to the capital and have to tell Rem that you died. Fortunately I didn't come across your beheaded corpse this time. I'm sick of storing nasty shit in my head."
Ram narrows her eyes and then shakes her head slowly, as if it takes her too much energy.
"You make no sense as usual, Barusu."
"Subaru."
"Barusu suits you better. Embrace your new name."
You stand up and brush some dirt off your pants.
"I was going to say that you can't be a terminal case if you keep speaking like that, but you'd probably spend your last energies demeaning people."
"This senior servant has a reputation to uphold."
Although you get the feeling that Ram intended that interaction to be reassuring, it just soured your mood. You move up to the plaza until the source of those flailing and swinging arms that a couple of houses are obstructing come into view. Petelgeuse is occupying a man wearing the Witch's Cult's uniform this time. From the few details you can make out from your position, the guy is in his early thirties, and his messy hair and his somewhat tanned skin make him look like he lives in some beach town. He's standing near the opposite end of the plaza, and his ghostly arms, some of which have been sliced at different heights, are targeting the incredibly fast figure of Wilhelm as he maneuvers to strike the ground, showering the air around him in dirt so the way the particles glance off the invisible arms reveal their positions. His speed suggests that he has a supernatural power of some kind, because you can't imagine that a human being can possess such a speed and coordination no matter how many years he trains, and much less in a man maybe nearing seventy.
Like Ram said, every other black robe you spot covering a body belongs to a corpse of the many strewn about. Their corpses as well as those of both armies' soldiers you brought with you, and some villagers, paint the previous battlelines in bodies and blood. If it weren't for Petelgeuse, maybe your people could consider this a victory. Although the madman is grabbing debris or pieces of houses to throw them at Wilhelm, which could bounce and crash into the onlookers, there are plenty of villagers and soldiers staring at the confusing spectacle, and simultaneously guarding the bottlenecks from which new threats could arrive.
"Subaru!", Julius' surprised voice reaches you from your right.
The purple-haired knight, who is wielding an expensive-looking sword and whose white uniform of the Knights of Lugunica is splashed with blood, stares at you as if you've come back from the dead. You walk towards him, but he snaps out of his surprise and moves to meet up with you.
"I guess you also thought I would have been killed by the first danger that came my way", you say.
"Ferris mentioned that you had been involved in the blast and almost killed, but that despite her trying to keep you safe you had left to locate others. We asked Ricardo to find you again. Their lieutenant also went along. I guess you came back by another route."
"By the same one, actually. I don't know where that wolf man and that tiny psycho must have gone. Nevermind that, I admit that if it weren't for Ia, that red minor spirit groupie of yours, I would have satisfied your expectations. She saved me a couple of times!"
Julius smiles slightly, although a glance at Petelgeuse still fighting lowers the corners of his mouth.
"Do you feel Ia in you, as if your body's temperature had risen and it was fighting a foreign object?"
"Not at all. I had to question if Ia was still there."
"You must be highly compatible with spirits, Subaru. That isn't a common occurrence. With years of training you could become a spirits user."
"Well, for now I would be content if talking with the great spirit in Roswaal's library didn't take my head for a spin."
A loud crash startles you both. It seems that Petelgeuse had grabbed a mercenary's corpse and thrown it against Wilhelm, but after failing to hit him, it had broken a window in one of the houses. The mangled remains of the half-beast are sliding from the window frame to the dirt, leaving a trail of blood.
Julius stares at the ongoing fight while frowning, and widening his nostrils.
"Subaru, I fear we might have failed. With the Witch's Cult having assaulted the village, and so many people having fallen, maybe Emilia has been slain as well. Nobody seems to know where she is. Failing to save lady Emilia is a regret I would carry for the rest of my life."
"I already told Crusch about it, but I assure you, Emilia is alive. I suppose I'm being dumb for blabbing about this, given that you back another royal candidate and all, but there's a safeguard measure in case Emilia dies, and it hasn't triggered. I cannot tell you any more than that, except that it means with a hundred percent certainty that my friend is alive somewhere around here."
Julius looks at you inquisitively.
"I have only questions about your explanation, but you seem sure about it. I am glad. We might win yet, to whatever extent such a carnage could be considered winning."
You look at the crowd of onlookers, at the villagers who had survived this onslaught, some of which you recognize, like one idiot with long sideburns and a wart under his nose. They are holding on to their swords and pitchforks and kitchen knives.
You remember the beautiful teenage girl you decided to kill, and a pang squeezes your heart. Lucius notices your expression and seems about to ask for your well-being when you interrupt him.
"Lucius, that isn't the first version of Petelgeuse that has appeared in the village. When I was looking around while riding my ground dragon, he revealed himself as occupying a girl's body, who wasn't wearing the cultist robe."
"A girl? You mean a child?"
"A teenager."
"But she must have died, right? Otherwise he wouldn't have been transferred to this new body."
"Yeah... What a waste."
"Did you slay her? How did you manage to achieve it, if you don't mind me asking, Subaru?"
"I confused her a bit until my ground dragon took position, and then my mount headbutted her against a tree. My point is that she wasn't dressed as a cultist. Petelgeuse must have ordered all of his Fingers to come to the village. The moment Wilhelm kills this one, if he manages to, we'll find ourselves facing another. We might need to figure out if there's any possible cultist hidden amongst the onlookers."
Julius nods energetically, and looks around to spot every group of villagers that are witnessing the fight.
"I'll go around asking if someone doesn't know any of the present members. I prefer you don't do it, Subaru. If one of them is a cultist, he might attempt to kill you or someone nearby."
"Good. I'll see if I can help Wilhelm in any way. I managed to annoy Petelgeuse to the extent that he cried. Maybe I can distract him enough that Wilhelm will be able to cut off his head."
You run hugging the side of the plaza towards some spot that will give you a clear look of this version of Petelgeuse. You confuse a bunch of Crusch's soldiers and half-beast mercenaries you pass in front of, given that you are moving closer to the madman while unarmed. Wilhelm severs one of the ghostly arms at the wrist, but he still doesn't find an opening that would allow him to behead the madman.
You put your hands at both sides of your mouth and shout.
"You are the most annoying person in the world, Petelgeuse! No wonder Satella doesn't love you!"
Petelgeuse snaps his head to look at you, and he frowns in disgust. Wilhelm could have taken the opportunity, but you have distracted him for a moment and he looks surprised that you are still kicking. It seems that nobody has any confidence in your ability to stay alive. Wilhelm seems to understand your intent, because he increases his efforts to close distances with the madman's body.
"Our beloved's shameless champion makes an appearance!", Petelgeuse yells mockingly. "Only our witch in her eternal love and acceptance would have granted one of Her blessings upon someone who uses others to slay his foes!"
"Too bad she didn't give me like a bunch of invisible hands to slap ground dragons with. But it seems that we both wasted our time talking in those woods! You haven't learned a thing!"
Petelgeuse has fixed his gaze on Wilhelm, who keeps striking dirt towards the ghostly arms. Talking to you at the same time doesn't seem to be screwing with the madman's coordination that much. You wouldn't have guessed this bastard was such a good multitasker.
"You are mistaken about that, yet what a fool I would be if I expected such a hollow man, a production of this broken world, to comprehend without having the truth explained to him! I took heed of your revelations, which belong to our beloved Satella, and I understood that I may have fallen out of favor with our witch due to my single-minded diligence! I would no longer contemplate alternatives, I would have discarded any vessel but that of your half-demon! However, I will regain Satella's favor by resurrecting her in a vessel and allowing Her to drown this rotten world in her endless love!"
"I told you the ritual will fail if you use Emilia! You just don't listen!"
"Shameless idiot! Didn't I just share with you that I accepted your revelations!? There was truth in those words, despite their venom and your naked attempts at hurting another fellow believer, one as diligent in his service of our witch! That half-demon, a spirits user whose past is fraught with despair and destruction, would make an unstable vessel, and I would be foolish to risk the ruin of the world as per your revelations! She shall not host our beloved! The half-demon is not worthy of Satella!"
You let out a noise of surprise. Did you actually manage to convince this guy to quit? And you didn't even have to lie, beyond Beatrice's role in calibrating the piece of herself that Satella implanted in you.
"Great! Then why are you wasting your time? Pack up and go home! Leave us alone already!"
As Wilhelm inches closer and most of Petelgeuse's ghostly arms have been sliced at the wrist or even near the elbow, the madman's mouth cracks into a devilish grin.
"It would be so easy for you, wouldn't it, Natsuki Subaru? If I left now with nothing, I would have wasted my diligence! Would you ask me to fall into such sloth? You should have know better! Occupying this new Finger has freshened my mind. I will fight your allies until I can leave with a Gospel!"
For a moment you are tempted to get his greasy book and throw it at him, in case he just picks it up and makes his exit. However, this madman would take the opportunity to slaughter everybody you appreciate, just to assert his power over you.
"I left the Gospel back at that clearing, Petelgeuse! Not only I couldn't read it, but it had been stained with liquids other than your blood! You got that mad at me suggesting how I prayed with my imaginary Gospel, but what have you been doing with yours?"
Petelgeuse distracts himself to shoot you a self-satisfied look, as if he held a revelation greater than those he had learned from you.
"I believe we have spoken enough, current chosen of our beloved! My actions will speak for me! I am anxious to witness Satella's champion react t-...!"
Wilhelm had sliced through another ghostly arm, and the madman's focus on gloating about some trump card had slowed the invisible arms to the extent that Wilhelm had found a unhindered path to Petelgeuse's body. The old man burst into a charge that skewered the madman's heart. The onlookers cheer.
"We have suffered too many deaths at the hands of you and your devils", Wilhelm says with a tired, angry voice. "You will run out of Fingers."
Although Petelgeuse's body trembles and blood pours out of his mouth, he smiles.
"You are no longer the king's dog that terrorized my fellow believers and could have prevented the return of our witch. Your body has decayed on its way to the grave, and so has your wit."
Petelgeuse grabs Wilhelm's wrist with his left hand, preventing him from pulling out his sword, and with his right hand the madman produces a cross-shaped dagger and plunges it into Wilhelm's guts. From your position you see the shock and the anguish contorting his face. Although the old man reaches with his free, trembling hand to prevent the dagger from slicing further, with his last breath Petelgeuse cuts open Wilhelm's abdomen, disemboweling him.
Petelgeuse's current body collapses on his knees and falls backwards, resting on the tip of the sword he's impaled in.
You stand there in shock, as if you couldn't comprehend what just happened. No way that can happen to Wilhelm van Astrea, the most terrifying old man in the world, someone who would defeat every enemy he faced and eventually, not too many years later, would die a coward's death on his bed back at any of Crusch's properties. You shake your head and run towards the old man while yelling his name.
When you crouch next to him your body turns cold. Wilhelm's bloody intestines have spilled out of the huge horizontal gash, and are now caked in dirt. The old man's face is beaded with sweat, and he has the look of someone who realizes he's fought for the last time.
"Mr. Natsuki", he says with a surprisingly calm voice. "I feared you had perished."
"I fear you are the one who is going to die, old man. Ferris will have to take a look at you."
You gather his viscous intestines, brush the dirt off a bit, and try to pile them up over the wound. You move behind the old man's head and grab the shoulders of his uniform to drag him backwards.
"Please, someone help me! We need to get him to our healer!"
Some of Crusch's people, who by their shocked expressions know Wilhelm, grab the old man's legs and you all haul him back towards Ferris.
"That wasn't the last Finger", Wilhelm says with a tired voice. Blood is leaking from the corners of his mouth.
"I know, man. We'll figure something out. The duchess is going to wait for you, so you better not disappoint her."
As soon as the cat-girl realizes what's happened, she runs up to you and orders to lower the man to the ground. She motions for Tivey, the Iron Fang's quartermaster, to approach her.
"Tivey, give me some water to clean the wound."
You look over her shoulder to see Patrasche looking at the wounded man with a lucid, healthy expression. It doesn't relieve you enough given that Wilhelm's life is leaving him by the second.
Tivey pours water on the dirty intestines as Ferris wipes them a bit with some sort of bandage. As she pushes the intestines inside, she focuses her healing magic on his pierced insides. Ferris lifts her head towards you and had opened her mouth to speak when the roof of a house a street over explodes as if a fireless detonation had gone off. Then, a segment of the wall of that second story breaks apart and falls to the dirt below. The smoke clears up around a woman with long, black hair, who is also wearing a black-robe with its hood down. Rising from the swollen shadow above her shoulders, around ten ghostly arms wave nervously, and after a moment they coordinate to lower their owner to the ground.