Gouto breaks one of the windows and jumps into Justice’s room.
“Oh wow, you remembered my name! I’m proud of you! I’ll remember this while I’m eating you!”
He fires five tendrils at Justice. Justice is able to dodge three of the tendrils. The two tendrils that hit him, both hit his left and right arm. And started pulling him closer and closer to Gouto. Just as Gouto is about to bite Justice, a burst of wind comes flying from both of Justice’s hands.
Both of them slice Gouto’s cheeks. It was a clean cut that made Gouto scream in pain. The tendrils let go of Justice, and Justice falls down.
“Agh! I’ll make you pay for that, you brat!”
“El Minya!”
Multiple purple stakes, that shined like icicles, started flying at Gouto. But he successfully blocks all of them with his tendrils.
“I should’ve figured. Someone like you would not have been defeated by weak a weak move like that, I suppose.”
The person who was spitting this out was Beatrice. The overseer of the Forbidden Library. She had looked around 11-12 years of age but was probably 13-14 years old, she also had blonde drill hair with blue eyes and pink butterflies as pupils.
“Ah, Beatrice, is that you? You don’t look any different than the last time I saw you.”
To Justice, it had seemed that they knew each other. But he was confused how. As far as Justice’s known, Beatrice hasn’t been outside of the Mansion once. If Gouto was a guest at one point, then Justice would’ve been able to recognize him a little.
“Justice, was it? Could ya move? Young Betty and I have some issues from the past we need to solve.”
“Sorry~, Mr. Gouto. A~s lo~ng as I’m ru~l~ing over this M~ans~ion, ther~e will be no fight~ing in here~.”
“Roswaal, you’re here too?! Ah man, Justice, I owe you lots!”
Gouto regrows some of his tendrils and fires them at both Roswaal and Beatrice, distracting them. Meanwhile, he grabs Justice and jumps out of the window. He lands on his feet, close to a girl.
“W—Who’re you?..”
“I’m Gouto. I don’t think I’ve seen you before. What’s your name?”
“I’m a half-elf who lives in and protects this Mansion. Judging by you breaking into Justice’s room and attempting to kidnap him, I will be attacking you.”
That was Emilia. Her skin was as pale as snow, and her looks could only be described as stunningly beautiful. If anyone were to ask who the most beautiful girl in the Wald Domain was, most people would say ‘Emilia.’ She had long, silky, white hair, that drapes down to her back, that she tied in a braid. She had beautiful purple eyes, with blue pupils.
“This is why I don’t like women. Every single one of them is so passive aggressive. They don’t taste as well as men do, either.~”
He drops Justice onto the ground and runs straight at Emilia. He throws a punch, but instead of landing on Emilia, it landed on a forcefield made out of ice. She jumps back and creates icicles, surrounding Gouto. As soon as she snaps her fingers, all of the icicles start flying over to Gouto.
He blocks all of the ones he can see, by using his fists. He uses his tendrils to cover his blindspots.
Once all of the icicles have disappeared, Gouto starts running towards Emilia. She starts casting icicles out of her hands. But it appears to have no effect on him, as he runs through it casually. Once he was close enough, he throws a punch at her——very fast. The punch itself looked clean and knocked away Emilia very far.
She was knocked out, in only one hit. Emilia was one of the most powerful mages in the Wald Manor, so surely she would’ve survived at least three punches. But clearly, that did not happen.
“One hit... He knocked her out in one hit... Is this guy really that powerful?!”
“Thanks, kid. I’ve just been finding food today. I really do owe you one. I’ll eat you very gently, unlike I did with the maid. What was her name again? Rum? Rom? Meh, it doesn’t matter.”
“I bel~ieve th~e gir~~l you are re~ferring to wa~s named “Rem”. I shall g~et ve~ngeance for her.”
Justice knew that Rem’s death wasn’t the only reason Roswaal wanted to kill Gouto. Perhaps the two of them and Beatrice go way back.
Nevertheless, Justice needed somewhere to hide, so that he won’t affected by the sheer destructive battle between Roswaal and Gouto.
“Mister Justice~ I wo~uld recomme~~nd hidin~g~ in t~he Ma~nsion. O~ur ba~~ttle isn’t goi~ng to be a~s pea~ceful as Misses Emilia and Gouto’s battle.”
Justice gets up and runs as fast as he can into the Mansion. Gouto fires one of his tendrils at Justice, only for it to be cut by Roswaal’s wind magic.
“I c~an’t h~~ave you h~u~r~t anymo~re people.~”
Roswaal says while looking very happy. He seemed to be eager to finally be able to destroy Gouto. But as Justice thought, Roswaal wasn’t planning to kill Gouto just for Rem’s death.
“You’re still the same old Roswaal I know and love. You’ll do anything to secure yourself a better future. But I’ve decided that once I kill you, I’ll take the boy, and make him my betrothed. I’ve had too many good things happen to me because of him.”
“You’re not the same Gouto I knew. You’re absolutely disgusting. Talking about marrying a child.”
Suddenly Roswaal sounded like the Roswaal that was talking to Ram——dubbed ‘Serious Roswaal’ by Justice. Gouto was initially a bit shocked at the transition between Roswaal’s playful side, to his serious side.
“Enough chit-chat, let’s start this battle already!”
They both start running at each other. And when they meet, they bot throw a punch at each other’s face. Roswaal’s punch was able to knock away Gouto, as his punch was enhanced by Magic. Roswaal starts flying and chants
『 Ul Goa 』
He then starts firing a large number of powerful fire bullets. Gouto sent his tendrils to deflect the bullets. When the tendrils hit some of the bullets, a powerful flame scattered, burning all of Gouto’s tendrils, and rendering them useless.
Gouto jumps, high enough that he can reach Roswaal. He punches Roswaal downwards, it sends him flying like a meteor. He grows only three tendrils and sends them down to where Roswaal is. The tendrils find themselves to be cut by Roswaal’s Wind Magic.
『 El Dona 』
A large chunk of stone starts homing at Gouto, he blocks it, only to be incinerated by fire moments later. Roswaal flies up to where Gouto is, and finishes him off with a punch, amplified by electricity, downwards.
Roswaal soon flies downwards. When he hits the ground, he creates a knife made completely out of wind.
“Judging by everything, it was easy to determine that your weakness was Wind Magic.”
A mere second before Roswaal stabbed Gouto with the wind knife, Gouto pierces Roswaal’s chest with one last tendril, Roswaal falls down forwards. Gouto stands up and smirks.
“You underestimated me too much. You let your guard down as soon as you thought I was defeated, which was your ultimate downfall.”
Gouto said while talking to Roswaal’s lifeless body. As Gouto was walking to the Mansion, he found himself falling down. He tried to get up, but couldn’t. He already knew what happened, but still decided to look at his legs—— which weren’t there.
“So first, you decide to kill my sister, as if that didn’t already break my heart. Next, you decide to kill Lord Roswaal. My... my... MY LOVE!”
All of this was said by a young girl——a maid with medium length pink hair that covers her left eye, large red eyes, and young features. It was Ram. She had looked full of wrath. She fires a blast of Wind Magic, that slits his throat——killing him.
She walks up to Roswaal’s corpse and sits down next to it, she puts her head on his back. All you could hear were the cries of a young maiden mourning the death of a lover. Justice thought that she would’ve been at least a little happy because she avenged both Rem and Roswaal.
But he was wrong.
But he was wrong.
The next day, both Justice and Emilia have healed from the injuries they got the previous day. Although, the front lawn of the Mansion was still trashed from the battle between Gouto and Roswaal. And it didn’t seem as the front lawn would be restored to what it used to look like, anytime soon. As they only had one servant left.
“Aqua, do you know if you’re able to resurrect Roswaal?”
The girl who asked that was the successor to the Wald domain, Lund Wald’s daughter. Mallow Bello Fiore Nasrene Wald, known as ‘Mallow Wald’ to most.
She had medium length golden hair with a black bow. She has a yaeba [Human teeth, especially upper canines, with an uncommonly fang-like appearance] and Red eyes.
“I can only revive people that have died of natural causes, such as a heart attack.”
That was Aqua. The Ex-Water Goddess that once lived in heaven, herself. She is described by most people as being supernaturally beautiful, and supernaturally dumb sometimes. She has blue waist-long hair that is partially tied into a loop with a water-molecule (H₂O) shaped clip.
Aqua’s Goddess clothes carry a blue color scheme, with her attire consisting of a vest, detached sleeves, thigh-high boots, a miniskirt and a transparent underskirt. She also wears a divine relic; a translucent pink hagoromo, which can disappear and reappear around her at her will.
“Of course you can’t! The one thing you’re good for is resurrection, and you can’t even do it without conditions. Are we sure you were even a Goddess?”
“Grrr, take that back, you damn human! Or I’ll make sure you burn in hell for disrespecting a Goddess!”
“Guys, now reaallllly isn’t a good time.”
Emilia, knowing how much a child would’ve been traumatized by all the deaths, walks up to Justice, who was sitting on his bed looking sad, and tries to comfort him.
“Hey, Justice? Justice? Juuussssttiiccce? Can you hear me?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I can...”
He tried to pull off a fake smile. But the smile was easily seen through by Emilia.
“Justice, are you all right? If something’s wrong, you’re welcome to talk to me about it.”
He was going to tell her that there was nothing wrong, but then he realizes it. Why should Justice be the only one struggling to change things in each timeline? If he could tell Emilia about his ‘Return by Death’ ability, maybe she could help him fix everything.
He looks at her, but the way he was staring at her made it seem like he was glaring. He hesitates to say it because he knew that she wouldn’t believe something as ridiculous as reversing both space and time when you die.
“Ms. Emilia... I’ve died several times up till now, I’ve died.”
She doesn’t respond. Justice expected this because of how absurd what he had said sounded. So naturally, he was going to explain what he said—— if only he could. Emilia’s face remained motionless, so did Justice’s body. He could not move it, no matter how hard he tried to. It was as if time had stopped.
Everything had a black and white tint to it.
A Shadow-like figure starts walking up to Justice, the closer the figure had gotten, the more his heart would hurt. It hurt more, and more, and more.
The moment color entered his vision, he puts his hand to his chest and slowly breathes. He didn’t understand what happened but knew that telling anyone about his ‘Return by Death’ could make whatever just now happened, happen again.
Now, Justice had truly learned the definition of the word “fear”.
“Justice...”
Justice heard a voice next to him. When he turns around, he realizes that Emilia was still there. She had a worried look on her face, that look changes from worried to drowsy, real fast.
Blood starts coming out of her mouth and she falls out of her seat.
“Ms. Emilia..?”
“Ms. Emilia?!”
He presumes that she’s asleep and goes to wake her up. He realizes that Emilia was dead. He runs out of his room and tries to get someone to help him.
“Somebody help! Ms. Emilia is... Ms. Emilia is...”
Justice stops running. He looks around, only to realize that nobody is in the mansion. He starts slowly walking—— until he trips on something. When he looks at he tripped upon, he looked full of despair.
“What’s... going on..?”
The thing he had tripped on, was a corpse. Ram’s corpse. He had not understood what was going on. If anything——or anyone had attacked the mansion, Justice would’ve at least been able to hear what happened.
The scared and confused Justice went on walking around the mansion cautiously, finding the corpses of his loved ones, one after the other. What Justice wasn’t able to understand was that there weren’t any drops of blood next to the corpses. Unable to understand what had happened, he sits down. Waiting for ‘the killer’ to come to him and kill him.
He did not care what would happen to him, at this point. He’d rather himself die than his loved ones. He sat down and waited until he could see a small figure walking closer to him. This was it, this could be part where he dies, and possibly save everyone in the next timeline.
“You have the look of someone who believes he’s the world’s most unfortunate soul.”
He finds a familiar face. As they’re walking closer, Justice thinks that he might’ve found the light in all this despair.
“You——you’re still alive?—”
-=Chapter 5 End=-
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