Roleplaying through "Re:Zero" with the GPT-3 story generator (Part 66)

This entry covers part of the twelfth volume of the original "Re:Zero" novels.

In the previous entry, the protagonist met a cannibal, who convinced him about the wonders of devouring everything in his path. He's afraid that he won't be able to keep himself from biting the delicious face of the Witch of Greed, but Echidna ends up curing him from his bottomless hunger by making him swallow her spit. The protagonist, grateful, goes for more saliva, but in the end he ends up having to part ways with his ghostly lover, because some shit is going down in the real world.

First season

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Second season

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You wake up face down on the flat stones that make up the floor of the antechamber at the witches' tomb. You expected to find yourself in Emilia's arms as she was shaking you to wake up from the death-dream, but nobody is touching you. In fact, you are the only person in the antechamber, which is illuminated by a blue glow courtesy of Echidna, the Witch of Greed, so the contestants could see the interior of the tomb at night.
Echidna. You remember her. You should have forgotten her again, if you hadn't asked for her to change her enchantment, spell, or whatever she did to you that made you forget her every previous time. Everything your senses is capturing, the Witch of Greed will get to see at some moment of time, because she collects all of your memories. And even though you wake up alone in this harsh, unforgiving world that you were kidnapped into, someone as powerful as the Witch of Greed has your back. You stand up, energized.
Why would Emilia be missing, though? If she woke up, she surely would have stuck around to wake you up, wouldn't she? Did she run off to ask for help? But nobody of your friends waiting outside for Emilia to pass her trial would have been able to enter the tomb, or wouldn't have wanted to.
You push the antechamber's door and exit to the long stone corridor that leads to the enormous entrance. You can see part of the canopy of the enclosing forest, as well as stars in the partially clouded sky. You get the sense that something is wrong. If Emilia had walked down the stone steps to the clearing where everyone waited, at least you would hear some conversations going on in the silent night. But if feels as if you returned from the death-dream to a different night.
When you exit the witches' tomb and you approach the edge of the elevated platform that the tomb was built on, your mind needs a moment to process what you are seeing. There's no clearing anymore at the base of the stone steps. Instead, the witches' tomb is surrounded by something like a black lake with a wavy surface, and it has inundated the enclosing forest as well: the tree trunks emerge from the liquid, opaque shadows as if a river had overflowed its banks and flooded the entire area. But those shadows aren't a natural phenomenon that you have seen in any world.
Without you realizing, your instincts have noticed movement out of the corner of your eyes, and you have turned your head to your left. Above the lake of shadows, tethered to it as if by a thick rope of blackness, floats the hazy image of a woman, and it's sliding towards you. The hairs on your arms stand up. As the woman gets closer, you notice that her form is unfocused as you were witnessing an illusion, and her face is hidden behind a veil. You are paralyzed, frozen in fear. When the strange being gets close enough, she extends her elongated arms at her sides, opening her clawed hands as if to hold you in an embrace. You understand then who you are facing.
The Witch of Envy crosses her arms behind your back, and you now face her real life form instead of the opaque shadow you were used to seeing in the purgatory after every one of your deaths. Even though the moonlight and starlight are illuminating her, her black dress looks hazy as if you were looking at a faded photograph, but that long, silver hair only reminds you of one person. Then you hear Emilia's bell-like voice repeating those three words over and over.
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I lo-"
Even though you are about to piss yourself, you manage to push air through your throat.
"What the hell are you doing in the real world, Witch of Envy?"
"I love you I love you I love you I love-"
The swirling, liquid-like shadows appear underneath the witch's feet, and it expands covering your feet as well. They start feeling cold and numb as if you were slowly losing the sense of them being there. The spread of shadows at your feet increases and also grows taller, submerging your legs up to slightly under your knees. By now you understand what's happening. This is the Apocalypse, the same one that happened four hundred years ago. The Witch of Envy has returned, everyone who was waiting at the clearing has likely drowned in Satella's shadows, and now it's your turn.
"Stop doing this, please! Look, I'll do whatever you want! Just stop it!"
"I love you I love you I love you I lo-"
The shadows spread further and further, reaching your thighs, and then your crotch. The numbness of your body increases and is climbing through your spine. You feel as if the parts of your body submerged in the liquid shadows are having their boundaries erased, are dissolving into the blackness.
"At least try ta escape, ya damn half-pint!"
Almost as soon as you hear Garfiel's angry voice coming from your right, the blur of a person leaps towards you, and you feel yourself being grabbed and pulled out of the shadows. Garfiel must have grabbed your torso under his arm, and with a powerful jump he leaps onto the roof of the witches' tomb. As soon as he lands on the stone, he lets you go and you fall on your chest. You turn around and are surprised to find out that the lower half of your body hasn't dissolved. All the parts that had been submerged feel cold and numb as if they had been anesthetized, but you can still move them.
"Thank you for saving me, Garfiel", you say with a thin voice. "Extra thanks because I wouldn't have expected it from you."
Garfiel, the same old messy-haired hick who in your previous life had turned into a ginormous, unstoppable tiger man and had murdered Otto, your ground dragon Patrasche and a bunch of selfless villagers, is crouched near the edge of the roof as if following the Witch of Envy's movements. When he glances at you, you are surprised to see so much distress in his eyes.
"I ain't doin' this 'cause I like ya", Garfiel snaps at you as he massages his head. "It's just that nobody deserves ta drown in that bitch's shadows. She's the enemy of all livin' beings."
"Where are the rest of us? Our people, who were waiting for Emilia to pass her trial."
"They're gone, small-timer", he says with a trembling voice. "All of yer pals, includin' Ram, they all drowned in that bitch's shadow. It happened way too fast, and I couldn't... By the time I figured out what was goin' on, our people had already gone under. Like them fairy tales told about what went on four hundred years ago. We are witnessin' the end times again."
You have barely returned to this point of time, and yet this reality is already a failure. You now you need to die as soon as possible, but what if you return only for the Witch of Envy to appear again and drown your friends before you can figure out what to do? You have died so many times, most of them self-induced, yet you can't remember an instance in which you returned to the past only for the reality around you to play out differently. You are dizzy and in something close to a dreamlike state, as if your time with Echidna was the real world and now you were experiencing something close to a lucid nightmare.
"Garfiel, did you see Emilia? She must have wandered out of the tomb. Was she in the clearing when the Witch of Envy appeared?"
The punk avoids your gaze as his expression grows somber.
"Forget 'bout the shy princess, half-pint."
"No, I need to..."
Garfiel grabs you by the shirt and pull you close to his face.
"Listen up. I told ya, she's gone. Everyone's gone. Probably most of my damn home has flooded with that Witch of Envy's shadows. I wanna beat ya up for causin' this ruin somehow, but we don't have time."
You swallow. Everything is happening way too fast for your mind to process it right now.
"Alright, Garfiel. But what the fuck can we do?"
"Ya can't do crap. But that bitch made the worst mistake of her existence by returnin' to life right in my hometown, 'cause to leave it and eat half of everyone again, she'll have to get through the strongest man in the damn world. That's what I'm gonna do, half-pint. I'll gather some of the empty grans and rush that witch."
"No, Garfiel, I want to help."
"Yes, yer comin' with me. I'll carry ya like the deadweight that ya are. Can't have ya wanderin' around doin' your weird nonsense when tha end of the world is upon us. At least ya will get ta see Garfiel savin' everyone. Everyone that's left, anyway... I couldn't save Ram, half-pint. Saw her up to her neck in that bitch's shadows, and I couldn't help." Garfiel looks away, sniffs and wipes his eyes. "That damn bitch is gonna pay, I'm tellin' ya. We gotta get goin'."
You barely have time to open your mouth when Garfiel grabs you under his arm, sprints to an edge of the roof closer to the treeline, and leaps powerfully towards the canopy. He keeps then jumping from tree to tree as if he were a particularly skilled monkey. You are worried that one of the branches that zip by are going to scratch your face, and possibly your eyes, but the hick is being careful, even though you mostly remember him now from transforming into a tiger and killing people you like.
"Did you see where the witch was heading!?", you shout over the wind.
"Towards the barrier! If she gets through, ya'll have ta be the one to stop her from ruinin' yer outside world, and ya know how well that's gonna play out!"
You cough, and spit out some particles that went down your throat when you had to breath for a moment.
"So do you plan on transforming into your tiger form to defeat that witch of old!?"
You had asked the question mid leap, and Garfiel, startled, ends up landing on a big branch, then twisting you around so he can look at your face. It seems that you knowing about his monstrous transformation didn't fit his concept of you.
"What, don't you have eyes everywhere with that legion of Ryuzus?", you ask calmly. "The Mathers household also has ways to figure out the secrets of the people they are dealing with."
"So ya knew I could turn inta a huge tiger that nobody could defeat, and yet ya kept pushin' me buttons?"
"I keep saying shitty stuff to everybody, that's my niche. It makes no difference that you could kill me in an instant."
Garfiel shakes his head, and his mouth bends in a smirk despite his unprocessed grief. He leaps again towards another tree, which makes your stomach churn.
"Ya know, I gotta respect that 'bout ya!", Garfiel says. "Ya ain't playin', yer a weirdo to yer core!"
A bit later, the punks jumps down to the forest floor even though you had expected it to be flooded with the Witch of Envy's shadow. However, you both land on grass and leaves. It seems that Satella hasn't drowned all of Sanctuary yet. As soon as you straighten your back, you are startled by the sight of a couple dozen Ryuzu staring at you both from the nearby, darkened trees. Even though they are wearing the same bulky coat, you can tell from their vacant, animal-like expressions that these Ryuzus are as empty as they come, and that someone else must have dressed them.
"Alright, grannies, follow me", Garfiel tells them. "We gonna give that old witch hell and save our home!"
Garfiel runs like he knows the way, so you follow him struggling alongside the deer Ryuzu, who move as if ill-suited to a humanoid body. You end up exiting to a cleared path, which must be somewhere along the way from the barrier to the outskirts of the village. Garfiel turns and keeps running through the dirt path. You don't know whether he's heading for the barrier or towards the center of Sanctuary, but it's not as if you would do better by yourself. Garfiel is about to lose both you and the Ryuzu clones, when he stops and complains angrily over his shoulder.
"C'mon, ya lot! We got work ta do! Can't have stragglers when we gotta stop the end of the world!"
You push an answer out even though both your legs and lungs burn, and you keep blinking to keep the sweat away from your eyes.
"Hey, the rest of us aren't gigantic tigers aching to burst out of their human form."
Even though you don't have much sympathy for him, the sticky heat of the moment and the weariness of your body are bringing down your spirits. You can't help but smile a little bit when Garfiel's eyes twitch in response to your reply.
"Yeah, well, ya lot need to keep up! There's no way I'm carryin' any of ya so close to that bitch!"
Since you're in no mood to retort, you just keep quiet and follow him. After a couple of minutes you understand that Garfiel isn't heading for the barrier: he intends to confront the Witch of Envy face to face. She appears in the horizon advancing like an anaconda made out of opaque shadows. Her humanoid form is floating three meters above the ground, her black dress, silver hair and veiled face illuminated in the moonlight. When the witch spots you all, she stops and sways in place.
Garfiel, wired, orders for the deer Ryuzu to surround the witch from a safe distance and await for his signal. Then Garfiel goes down on one knee and starts transforming, his face distorting and blotching grotesquely, his frame and muscles swelling and twisting as they groan and creak. The punk, still lucid, looks over his shoulder as you retreat slowly.
"Yeah, keep a safe distance, half-pint, and witness the strongest man in the world savin' the day." The cockiness in his expression falls, and he turns somber. "Sorry in advance."
You wonder why he's apologizing, but you can't tear your eyes away from the display in front of you. The Witch of Envy keeps repeating her three words towards all present. You don't know why she hasn't descended upon Garfiel already, but in any case the punk growls an order to the Ryuzus, and one by one they sprint towards the Witch of Envy's shadowy frame, as well as her elongated veil of darkness she has been spreading behind like the trail of a snail. As the Ryuzus are about to touch the shadows, they glow blindingly and burst like grenades, punching holes in the Witch of Envy, which sways and staggers around as if weakened.
With a final expansion of bones, muscles and fur, a few meters in front of you stands, thankfully showing you his stripped back, light blonde back, the transformed punk, who hunches to emit an ear-splitting roar, then draws his claws of both front paws and leaps at the swaying Witch of Envy. In less than a second you spot shadow-like lances shooting out from the witch's frame, which impale Garfiel's body as if he had jumped into a pit of spikes. The transformed punk struggles for a second, but then the shadowy lances thrash around into the tiger's body, mincing it like revolving blades. Before you can tell what's happened, Garfiel bursts into a mist of blood, and chunks of his body fall on the path or hit the nearby trees.
You shout in disgust as blood splatters on your face. Still in shock you retreat, but the Witch of Envy advances forward, absorbing the blood particles floating over the path, and leaps towards you as if to embrace you. Everything goes dark. For a moment you are sure that you must have died, but this is far worse. The Witch of Envy has dunked you into her acid-like shadows like she did your other friends. In a panic you try to swim upward, but no matter how hard you kick your legs, you don't move an inch. As your entire body goes cold and numb slowly, you feel the endless, unearned love wanting to cradle you in its ghostly arms for eternity. You are dissolving. The boundaries that make up your body are being erased, and as that process continues, you feel as if your soul itself is being drained into the bath of shadows. You are being overwhelmed by flashes of memories, but you don't recognize the people in them. It's as if the witch's shadows holds the liquified and mixed consciousnesses of the millions of living beings she devoured. You understand that you dissolving into the Witch of Envy won't count as dying. Petelgeuse himself had said as much. The witch's victims had been stripped of their living frames, so their souls could be cradled in her love forever. Your return to the past won't trigger.
You have already gone so cold you can barely send orders to your limbs anymore, but you keep thrashing around, anything instead of giving in to this traitorous witch's bath of love. Out of the blackness in front of you emerges the witch's humanoid form. She has extended her arms, which are covered in black sleeves, and the lower half of her face, as well as her silver hair, are so close you would only need to reach with your hand to touch her. Her bell-like voice washes over you.
"I love you I love you I love you I love yo-"
You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. You need to shout, you need to cry, but you are already disappearing as a person. Soon nothing but your diluted consciousness will remain, mixed with millions of others inside of this traitorous witch.
Even if you can't change that outcome, you will finally do what you always wanted: to reach the Witch of Envy's neck and strangle her. As you extend your arms towards her, a white glow in your right wrist startles you. It's wrapped around your flesh. Why would Petra's handkerchief be glowing? Echidna. Your favorite witch did something to it. You touch it with your left hand, and the glowing handkerchief unties itself and is about to float away when you grab it with your right hand. You aren't holding a band of cloth any longer, but a sharp blade made out of white light.
You feel like crying even if your tear ducts won't work anymore. Echidna intended for you to always have the chance to kill yourself. She has saved you.
As you thank the Witch of Greed, you plunge the tip of the magical blade into your carotid artery. Instantly, a strange feeling of lightness floods throughout your entire body. You don't want to leave it to chance, so you stab yourself into both your carotid arteries a few times. You faintly feel the blood gushing out from the open wounds. You are sure that you will die before you dissolve into the Witch of Envy.
You realize that the witch's three words aren't splashing against you any longer. The upper half of her face remains veiled, but in the lower, her mouth is twisted in a grimace of grief, and tears are running down her cheeks and dripping from her chin into the blackness.
As your own vision darkens, you understand that there's nothing deceptive nor malicious about her tears. Why did the Witch of Envy come to love you like this, why would she choose a random broken kid from another world to grant him her most valuable gift?
You reach with your trembling, bloodied hand towards her veil, and although you had expected to grasp air, you feel the cloth resisting against your fingertips. With most of your remaining energies, you grab the witch's veil and pull to remove it. You find yourself staring at Emilia, those big, beautiful purple eyes of hers, from which tears flow as if she had been given the worst news of her life.
Emilia is crying for you. It squeezes your dying heart. You lift your cold hand and caress her cheek. Her warm tears wet your thumb. Don't cry, Emilia, you think. I have done this so many times, it no longer means anything. Next time you see me, I will be holding you in my arms.

You lose consciousness in a black bath of love to wake up in another, but in this one you can't panic. You don't feel your body anymore, nor are you surrounded and prodded by the dissolved consciousnesses of millions of people. You have died.
When the silhouette of the Witch of Envy floats towards you, emerging from the blackness, and extends her elongated arms to embrace you, you stare into her hazy, glowing purple eyes and wonder whether your encounter in real life changed her at all. The witch crosses her arms behind your back lovingly, as if welcoming you after a long trip.
"I love you I love you-"
"You are such a mess, Satella. You can't even agree with the different versions of yourself."
"I love you I love you I lo-"
"I guess you witnessed me making out with your victim Echidna, back in her death-dream, and you became so envious you just had to intrude into my life somehow, didn't you? And you took over Emilia's body for it."
"I love you I love you I love you I love you I lov-"
"I don't even want to hate you anymore. You didn't choose this envy, Daphne didn't choose her gluttony... Echidna is doing well with her particular burden, but the two of you idiots... I wish I could help you somehow. But there's no prison in this world that could restrain you permanently."
Satella releases her embrace and she slowly begins to drift away from you, leaving a faint purple glow in the air, which soon fades away.
"Take care of yourself, silly idiot", you say, or think. "It's a harsh world out there."