"I really wished you wouldn't interfere with this. Now I'll have to kill you, and Mama will take out her frustrations on me... And Meili... This is your fault." Elsa narrowed her eyes at him and then charges towards him. He dodges just in the nick of time. "You have to take responsibility for your actions! Do you have any idea what Mama does to failures? You wouldn't live to tell the tale!"

She strikes again and he dodges, but the edge of the blade grazed his chest, which started bleeding. Subaru tries to create distance between the two by jumping backwards. "Elsa, is there a way to talk you out of this by any chance?" He asked desperately.

"No, just accept your death. I can't wait to see your bowels." She seemed to blush at the thought of his internal organs, which kind of freaked him out. She readied her blades and charged at him once more.

"Dona!" He casted a simple Earth spell, a wall of hardened dirt appeared in front of him and the momentum of it sent Elsa backwards. He ran backwards once more, creating distance. He saw 4 familiar glows of light approaching him. Oh thank god, I don't think I could've survived much longer. Right, time to charge up my batteries. I have a strategy, but I need her to think I'm desperate.

"Goa!" He sent a minor ball of flames towards Elsa, who dodged with ease. She saw from the loot house that I can use fire magic, now she also knows I can use Earth magic. I think I recall Felix saying being able to use more than two affinities is exceptionally rare. As long as she doesn't know I have contracted spirits I should be fine. The less she knows, the better.

Elsa charged towards him, he casted "Dona" once more, but beneath him the time. It shot him into the air. He raised him arm towards Elsa and casted several "Goas". She dodged each one of them with ease, laughing crazily as she did it.

I'm about halfway charged, once all the mana is absorbed I can act out my plan. Subaru landed on the ground with a roll. Elsa didn't waste time in slicing at him. He tried to dodge but ended up getting struck in the leg. He grunted and jumped away from her. Son of a-.. That hurt.

Subaru! We're back! A familiar voice, none other than Elle the water quasi-spirit echoed in his mind.

"Yes, I'm preparing some spells, gonna need you all to be on your very best behaviour. Lui, can you cast that spell on me that increases my reflexes."

Yes Subaru.

He felt something in his chest warm up, and his skin seemed to glow, but that may be his imagination. Looking up he saw Elsa charging at him, but with the spell it almost seemed as if time had slowed down. Using a tiny bit of wind magic from Ve, he propelled himself to the left. She flew past him, her eyes locked onto his.

Mid-air, Subaru's mind calculated a thousand equations in a second. The mana had flooded his body, and he couldn't possibly drain any more. Feeling his batteries were full, he decided to act out his plan. I hope you enjoy the show Elsa, I spent a while writing this. And by a while I mean, like, during your monologue.

He scanned her body, which was still in the air, shooting like a bullet. The moment her feet touch the groun- there!.

"Una, lock her feet into the ground."

Yes sir!

Mounds of hardened soil emerge from the ground and wrap themselves around Elsa's feet and shins. All the blood in Elsa's is rushed to her head as the force of the G's tugs on her organs. She drowns in a wave of nausea and light-headedness

"Ol, block her senses, including the one that lets her determine whether she's upright."

Aye aye.

Subaru might've hallucinated it due to the dim lighting and his only source of energy being adrenaline. But he could have sworn he saw fear and panic on her face for a split second. An image of him casting El Shamac on Rem the night before flickered through his mind, he felt guilty for a moment but remembering what was going on grounded him to reality.

She was flailing her blades around, obviously as a last ditch effort to stop the spell. Due to her not feeling the binds on her feet, and not even knowing if she's standing upright, she is unable to free herself. Excellent, next step.

"El Huma!"

A large icicle erects from the ground and stabs through Elsa's chest, impaling her. She of course doesn't feel it, but it keeps her in place. He raises his arm and readies himself to cast two spells simultaneously.

"El Fula! El Goa!"

Three blades of wind appear out of thin air and shoot towards her, followed by flaming balls of fire. The wind blades tear through her leg and arms. Making clean cuts and letting the limbs fall to the floor. The flames land on the remaining parts of her, burning away her flesh. And now for a screenshot.

"Ol, cancel the El Shamac."

Uh, are you sure?

"Trust me."

Very well.

Ol lifted the blinding spell and let Elsa's senses return to her. However currently all she could feel was immense pain shooting through her body. The burning of her skin, the icy bite in her organs, the sting of losing limbs.

"Ul Gabam!"

A bright flash of light appeared in front of her eyes, she felt the retinas in her eyes disintegrate as her optic nerve disabled, her brain shut it down in an attempt to protect it. She let out a scream as every receptor in her body went into overload.

"Ol, you can re-cast El Shamac now."

That was a very smart move.

Elsa stopped screaming, Subaru assumed it was the spell's effects cutting off her pain. And now for the cherry on top. The fatality move. The ultimate blow. The U to the wU.

"Al Huma!"

A large body of ice encased Elsa, freezing her in place. Her face was stuck in a screaming position, and the fire extinguished. "Holy... Christ!"

The air around him was stale, and he had drained his mana reserves. Only a minimal amount remained, which he had left there to maintain his spirit's existence. They had told him about them needing constant mana otherwise they'd die.

He fell to his knees, as the entire fight replayed in his mind. "Damn... I'm awesome. Haa." Exhaustion hit his body like a truck. Man I'm tired... The U to the wU?... Did I really think that?

His interior celebrating was interrupted by growling, and an alarming amount of footsteps around him. He raised his head and saw red eyes glowing in the dark. The moonlight reflected off their teeth and their fur blew in the wind.

Ah... Fuck... I did the best I could... Elsa, you were a good opponent.. Damn.

He fell to the floor, gazing up at the stars. He closed his eyes, welcoming the death that was about to take him.. But it didn't... Seconds passed by and nothing happened. He opened an eye and looked around, seeing maabeast corpses littered across the opening. What.. The fu-

"Subaru! Are you okay?!" Subaru turned his head to the sound, although his neck felt stiff and his brain felt really heavy considering there wasn't much up there. His eyes fell onto a red head, in a white knight uniform, covered in a wet crimson liquid. "Reinhard." He muttered.

Reinhard rushed towards him, scooping him in his arms. His eyes were filled with panic as he inspected his body. Subaru followed his gaze, and saw the cut on his leg. Ah... Fuck that's actually a lot of blood. "Mana, I need mana." Subaru said with a croaky voice.

Reinhard nodded and placed a finger on his temple, transferring whatever mana he had. Although the Sword Saint didn't have any affinities, which is super rare, he still had mana. Sure, it generated very slowly and he never used it, but it was still there.

As soon as Subaru felt the amount of mana was sufficient, he called on Elle. "Hi, can you heal up my leg for me please. And my chest."

Of course Subaru. Even she sounded tired. Then again, he only contracted with her the night before. She had probably never even spent this much mana in her entire lifetime.

The familiar warmth of healing magic would have been felt in his leg, if his brain wasn't too tired to acknowledge it. The exhaustion of today's events mixed with the heat radiating from Reinhard made him drift off to sleep. What a night.

"Reinhard? What happened to Subaru?" Rem rushed over, looking at the black-haired boy in concern. "Is he okay?"

"He's been healed by his spirits, but it appears that the exhaustion has caught up with him. Currently he's just sleeping, and my Divine Protections indicate he's in stable condition." The red head explained, slowly walking further into the village.

Emilia and Ram had left the mansion and joined the village in their defence against the maabeasts. Waves upon waves of them kept invading the small town, but with their combined efforts they were stopped. Roswaal was nowhere to be seen, and Rem had delivered the unconscious child to the nurse's house, where she was being treated.

Reinhard had woken up from his sleep, sensing something was wrong. He couldn't find Subaru in the mansion, and in a panic he searched for Rem to make sure she hadn't killed him. When he couldn't find either of them, he woke Emilia and Ram to acquire their assistance and alert them of the problem.

Ram used her clairvoyance to locate the two and witnessed them running from a pack of maabeasts through the eyes of a bird. They sprinted to the village and saw the chaos. The villagers were fending off from the maabeasts, trying not to get slaughtered.

Reinhard fought them off, while Emilia healed the injured. Any prejudice the villagers had against her had seemingly disappeared once they saw she was truly a kind person at heart. Meanwhile Ram tried to locate the spare barrier crystals. Inconveniently, they appeared to have been misplaced and no one could find them.

'I should talk about it to them once this is all over.' Ram had thought to herself.

Rem led Reinhard to an empty house with a spare bed, where they placed Subaru. As much as the Sword Saint wanted to keep guard of him, Rem insisted that he continue to save the villagers while she would keep guard of Subaru.

She promised to not harm him, and Reinhard's Divine Protection of Empathy detected no feelings or thoughts that would contradict her statement. "Besides, the people would feel safer being protected by Reinhard Van Astrea than just some maid."

"If you harm him, I will end you." He left the building.

'You're a failure Reinhard, deal with the aftermath of your mistake. That's what she means.. She's right... My stupidity and slothfulness has once more hurt Subaru. I need to-'

His train of thought was interrupted by an incoming wave of maabeasts.

Subaru's eyes fluttered open, and they stung like hell. His body felt heavy and every nook and cranny ached. He groggily wiped the sleep from his eyes with his working arm, but every time he used a muscle it burned. He tiredly looked around the room, and was surprised to see Rem asleep on a chair next to him. He had expected to see Reinhard, or Felix, knowing how much of a worry wart the red head was.

"Hey guys, any of you awake?"

I'm awake, the rest are asleep. Lui answered quietly.

"The second she tries to make a move on me, cast El Shamac on her."

I... I see.. Will do.

His cleared his throat, feeling mucus leave his throat and entering his mouth. Ew, that's disgusting... He found a handkerchief in his pocket from a few days ago and cleaned up with it.

The rustling of the covers woke Rem up. She slowly opened her eyes, and yawned. She looked kind of cute like this, she looked innocent and unaware. Nothing like the terrifying look on her face when she attempted to kill him. His chest felt warm, but was that the sunlight shining through the window or the million volt smile she gave as she took bearing of her surroundings and looked at him.

He shook his head. She tried to kill me. I can still feel the pain in my arm... But... Why don't I hate her?... I don't trust her.. I'd rather she not be around me. I wouldn't mind never seeing her again... Yet... I don't feel anger towards her...

"Subaru-kun, you're awake." She whispered warmly. A scene from Skyrim flashed through Subaru's mind as he tried to sit up. "You're probably in a lot of pain, I'd recommend staying in bed. Emilia and Ram are still asleep, and Reinhard is securing the perimeter with some of the villagers."

Subaru tried to nod, but his neck hurt too much. He gave up on trying to move and relaxed his sore muscles. "H-how.." He paused to clear his throat, his voice was croaky. "How many villagers are lost?"

Rem took a while to answer, biting her lip and glancing between him and the window. She opened her mouth and took a deep breathe. "Eleven villagers have been killed. Four are injured. Two have gone missing."

Subaru's eyes shot open. His mouth quivered as it hung agape. "That's.. Seventeen total losses... How many.. People live in this village?"

Rem sighed. "Irlam village has a total population of roughly one hundred and twenty."

That's nearly a sixth of the population... How could I let this many people die... I need to become stronger... I need to save everyone...

Wait when did I become so selfless? When did I start caring so much for people I've never met?... I don't know..

"Rem can tell that Subaru-kun is feeling troubled. You don't have to feel like it's your fault. You're not even a knight and you brought down a dozen maabeasts along with The Bowel Hunter... You did the best you can." She tried to soothe him and moved closer to him, trying to pet his head.

He flinched and pushed her hand away. He saw her frown but she clearly understood that her actions had consequences. She retreated back onto her chair with her smile faltering.

"My best? You know nothing about me... Don't you dare act like you do." With his voice cracking and breaking, Subaru tried to scowl but his muscles were too exhausted to maintain it. He looked away from Rem and stared out the window. He heard her sigh, but he elected to ignore it.

A knock at the door was heard, then the sound of said door being opened. Subaru turned his head and saw his favourite red headed knight... Or, the only red headed knight he knew. "Reinhard." He called, his voice still croaky.

Reinhard rushed over to him and wrapped his arms around Subaru, who had sat up upon his arrival. Subaru hugged him back and patted his back awkwardly. "I'm okay Reinhard, just a bit tired." Subaru admitted.

Reinhard pulled away, sighing in relief. "When I woke up at the mansion, I realised it was already nightfall and you weren't in the mansion when I searched for you. I couldn't find.." He turned and looked at Rem, glaring at her. She flinched at his gaze.

Subaru looked between the two and sighed. "Rem, can you let me and Reinhard talk in private please." Rem nodded, getting up from the chair and exiting the room, closing the door on her way out.

After waiting for her to get of earshot, Reinhard continued. "I don't think we can trust her. She tried to kill you Subaru." Subaru nodded in agreement.

"I don't trust her, but I don't hate her guts. Sure, she tried to kill me, and I am rather surprised myself that I'm not holding any hard feelings. But she seems to have noticed I'm not the person she thought I was."

"Even so, we need to keep an eye on her... Ah, not that it matters. We travel back to the capital today, the carriage is surely on its way by now."

"Yeah, I'd love nothing more than to leave this forest of hell and return to my bed. I can't wait to get my arm back. Man, it's just one thing after another. What's next? A massive flying whale attacks us on the way back?"

Reinhard bit his lip and scratched his head. "I really hope the White Whale doesn't attack us."

Subaru blinked a few times while his mouth flung open. "Wait.. Wait wait wait... A FLYING WHALE EXISTS HERE!?" He shouted, which was a very bad idea due to the fact that his throat hurt worse than stubbing your toe.

Reinhard shushed him. "You'll damage your throat if you shout like that Subaru. Please do take more care of yourself. You seem to have no value of your own life."

Subaru smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, that's probably due to my life back in my home country. But, seriously. A flying whale exists?"

"It's one of the Great Maabeasts. Along with the Great Hare and the Black Serpent."

Their conversation was ended by the door opening unexpectedly. They both turned to look and saw a pink haired maid at the doorway. "Ram?" Subaru muttered curiously.

"We need to talk." She deadpanned as she closed the door behind her, approaching the bed and drawing a chair next to it. "About the incident last night."

"What of it? Are there more maabeasts?" Reinhard asked.

"No, but... I don't think it's just a case of a barrier crystal malfunctioning."

Subaru and Reinhard's eyes widened. "What do you mean." They said in unison.

"When I went to search for the broken crystal in question, it wasn't even there. And when I attempted to locate the spares which apparently were stored in a storehouse of sorts. They were missing, all of them." Ram explained.

Subaru took a second to process it as Reinhard fell silent. "So you think that a third party is involved, and set it up to look like an accident ? I see what you mean, but wouldn't the attacker try to do something else about the remaining crystals? Them just disappearing is kind of conspicuous."

Ram nodded. "You're not as pathetic as I thought, Barusu." The statement earned a chuckle from him, but a glare from Reinhard. Her eyes widened as she felt her blood run cold but she cleared her throat and continued before he used something like the Divine Protection of Death Glare.

"As I was saying. According to the village elder, yesterday morning they changed locations of several item stocks. They have a bi-annual inventory check and try to organise it to maximise efficiency. In other words, it would seem as if they had committed an organisational error and couldn't replace it before they all got slaughtered. Even if they left a dozen or so witnesses, none of them would have checked the inventories for the crystals." Ram swallowed at the end of her statement, she doesn't usually talk this much and her throat was starting to hurt. "Also, when I looked around this morning to verify, I found a few small shards about a dozen steps away from the barrier. Perhaps the attacker missed them in the dark."

Reinhard sighed and buried his face into his hands. "So it truly must have been an organised attack. Could this also explain Elsa's involvement in the matter?"

"Before I froze Elsa last night, I heard her talk about someone called 'Mama'. If anything, that could be a lead. Perhaps her contractor or something of the sorts." Subaru suggested. I swear these spirits are enhancing my intellect or something... Or it could be Lui having woken up and decided to cast a spell to help me out.

Ram's eyes widened and she let out a faint gasp. "Wait, you're the one who fought Elsa? I thought it was Reinhard!"

Subaru glanced at Reinhard with a raised eyebrow. "It was indeed Subaru who fought her and defeated her. I have no affinities for magic and therefore couldn't have possibly frozen her. I didn't witness the fight myself, however his spirit of Earth told me about it. It appears Subaru constructed a plan on the spot and executed it perfectly, achieving the best outcome." Reinhard didn't even breath between his sentences, the admiration sparkled in his eyes.

Subaru chuckled nervously and rubbed his neck. "Wait, you can speak to my spirits?"

'For someone like the Sword Saint to talk so highly of an individual... Barusu must be a very talented person. Perhaps I massively underestimated him... I was clearly wrong about the situation with my sister. I didn't see the fight myself but it was clear by the outcome he had the upper hand. Did he forgive Rem because he saw the incident as so insignificant? Did he only see Rem as such a pathetic opponent he couldn't care less about it? I must be wary of him, he could be a threat to Roswaal... I know Roswaal is teaching him magic, but for him to defeat the Bowel Hunter after just the second lesson, even with the help of spirits. It's a near unachievable feat...' Ram's internal monologue was interrupted by the door opening once more.

Emilia stepped into the building, the sunlight making her skin glow. It reflected off her hair, giving her a divine aura. "Subaru, I heard what happened. You did a very good job at saving those children. Reinhard, thank you for helping the village and taking down the Bowel Hunter once and for all."

Subaru and Reinhard chuckled together, while Ram stayed silent. "What's so funny?" Emilia asked, she felt hurt. She tried to thank them, and congratulate them. She spent the past twenty minutes rehearsing the conversation with Puck and had stood outside the door anxiously for the past five minutes. And they laugh at her attempt?... 'How am I supposed to be queen if I can't even thank people correctly?'

"No it's just that, Ram made the exact same mistake." Subaru started.

Emilia looked on in confusion.

"Subaru was the one to defeat the Bowel Hunter, Lady Emilia."

It was now Emilia's turn to widen her eyes.

The village Elder, Subaru, Reinhard, Ram, Emilia and the village's second in command sat in the room, as several chairs were in a circular formation across the room. Except for Subaru,who was currently laying in bed, still listening.

"I understand why Sir Reinhard, Sir Subaru and Lady Emilia are here, but why is the Margrave's maid here?" The second in command, Nick, his name was, asked.

"Lord Roswaal has given me permission to act as his representative when he is absent. Along with the fact that I did aid in fending off from the invasion. And I am the one who discovered the truth. Which is the purpose of this meeting." Ram stated calmly.

A silence ensued, and Subaru coughed to clear his throat.

"Okay, I'll bite, what is the purpose of this meeting?" The elder asked.

"Ram, along with me and Reinhard have reason to believe this wasn't just some accident." Subaru paused to let the village leaders process the first part. "Ram did some investigating and found that the barrier crystal wasn't just malfunctioning, it was completely destroyed."

Emilia gasped in surprise. "So maabeasts can destroy barrier crystals now? This is a problem."

Ram shook her head. "No, Lady Emilia. I also searched through the storehouses to find the spares, however they have all disappeared. I asked the Finance Director about it, and they showed me the inventory records. I know you had a organisational clean up, and I checked every storehouse twice over to make sure. Someone has stolen them, then broke the barrier crystal. Staging it as an incident."

"Oh dear Od... How could this happen... Why would anyone do such a thing." The village elder buried his face into his hands. He felt.. Despair.

"I know this may be hard to hear. But we must know if there are any people who would want to destroy the village." Reinhard's voice remained calm, but comforting.

Nick had gone silent, but cleared his throat. "I cannot think of anyone in particular... But, I don't mean any offence to our lord but it isn't a secret that he's not very loved by society. People think he's bizarre and especially now that he's sponsoring a half-elf.. Not that that's a bad thing! I just-"

"It's okay, I know what you meant." Emilia giggled.

Nick sighed in relief. The village elder had taken his face from his hands and recollected himself. "It is true that someone could have tried to stage this incident, maybe to antagonise Lord Roswaal... If the capital hears that he nor Lady Emilia couldn't even protect his own subjects then how could she possibly be fit for a queen?"

Emilia gasps, taken back. "You're saying someone would have killed off an entire village just to stop me from being queen?" She sounded hurt, and looked to be on the verge of tears.

"Emilia, we don't know if that is the actual reason. It's just a theory. Either way, during my battle with the Bowel Hunter she mentioned someone called Mama. This may be our only lead into figuring out who attacked the village." Subaru explained. "So for now, I think it would make sense to increase the security of the village. Although I don't know how someone stole the crystals, you need to keep objects of high importance in a more safer location."

The Village Elder nodded in agreement, then scratched his chin in thought. "Didn't... Didn't that child only show up recently?"

Nick's eyes widened. "You're saying you think she stole the crystals?"

"She did act very.. Strange.. All I'm saying is questioning her might improve our chances of finding the culprit. Besides, getting those crystals back in one piece would save us a lot of money. We're struggling enough as it is to survive through the year without crops." He sighed.

Subaru blinked a few times. "Without crops? Why aren't you growing any this year?" Now that he recalled it, a lot of fields were empty when he took a walk earlier.

"Ah, we're leaving them to fallow. Planting wheat so many times in a row drains the soil, I'm afraid." He sighed.

Ah, I think I remember that... Wait, I read an article on crop rotations once, I was really bored. I wonder if there is a spell for reliving memories? Ah I'll think about it later.

"Do you know what crop rotations are?" Subaru asked. The village elder shook his head and raised an eyebrow. "I see, never mind. It's a technique from my homeland though I can't recall it from the top of my head. I'll look into it."

"Homeland? Where are you from?" Nick asked, curious.

He only chuckled in reply. "No where you've heard of."

Reinhard helped Subaru onto the carriage, it was hard to climb with only one arm. In the corner of his eye, he saw Rem approaching. "One second Subaru, I need to talk to someone." Subaru raised a brow but nodded, and closed the door.

Reinhard turned around to face Rem. "Hello Sir Reinhard, I would like to talk to Subaru." She smiled but the coldness of his glare threw her off.

"You will do nothing of the sorts." He paused, hearing her gasp and widen her eyes, he felt satisfied. Before she could stutter in a response, he spoke. "You act cold towards him. Then you try to kill him. The fact that he didn't execute you astonishes me, but it reminds me of how kind hearted he is. If it was up to me, I would kill you myself. But Subaru would hate me and I can't ha-" He stopped, realising he was off subject.

"But I need to talk to Sub-" He cut her off once more.

"YOU WILL REFER TO HIM AS SIR SUBARU!" He's never raised his voice before. All eyes around them turned to the duo. He cleared his throat. "We're leaving, I recommend you let us depart in peace." And with that, he turned on his heel and entered the carriage, closing the door behind him.

When he entered, he noticed Subaru asleep, laying down on his side. The seats were a pillowed leather, giving a higher level of comfort than the straw beds in the village. 'He looks like a kitten when sleeping like this... What are you thinking Reinhard... Stop.'

The ride was rather uneventful. Subaru had slept the entire time, but Reinhard insisted on staying up. It has been twice now that his oversleeping had endangered Subaru. So he decided that staying awake would keep him safer.

When they arrived at the mansion, Subaru jolted awake as the carriage came to a halt. He sat up and yawned, stretching his arms-... arm.

They stepped off the carriage and made their ways into the manor. Subaru knew what he wanted to do, so he went straight to the library after excusing himself.

He made sure he was alone, and sat down at a desk. Three things. One, learn the language. Two, take a look at this Gospel. Three, crop rotations.. Lets leave the gospel for last.

He conversed with his spirits for a few minutes, and it ended with Lui casting a memorisation enhancing skill. It provided him with a photographic memory for as long as the spell was cast. He looked at the papers in front of him, and learned away.

Thirty minutes passed, and the mana drain was getting quite heavy. He stopped the spell and took a break. That was amazing. I have pretty much learnt the entire language now. It just takes a bit longer to read.

Right, now crop rotations.

After another conversation with his spirits, he found out that Ol could send his mind through time to relive memories. It was a lot simpler than it sounded, and Subaru had the experience of being a spectator through his own body.

Right, crop rotations. Ol said I just need to visualise what memory I need to see. So, I was sitting at my desk, looking at my computer.

The scene around him changed, only for him to see himself half naked watching... Ugh.

Wrong memory! Okay! I was reading about crop rotations on Wikipedia.

The scene changed once more, and he was able to reread the entire article.

When he came back to reality, he wrote down as much as he remembered on paper. Writing this down ensures that I won't forget later. I can create a copy and have it sent to Irlam village. I'm not a fan of using them as a test subject, but they're the only people who trust me enough.

Now, for the last trick. The Gospel!

He pulled the Gospel out from the desk drawer, and sighed in relief to see it still there. He left it there intending to read it the day before, but due to several events he had to stay at Roswaal's mansion an extra night.

He opened it and flipped through a few pages and realised... He couldn't read this. God fucking dammit... Reinhard told me about how reading this could turn someone insane, and how only witch cultists have them. Asking anyone about it would paint me in a suspicious light, and I doubt they'd want to read it anyway.

Then again, this doesn't look like any of the languages I found in the book Reinhard lent me. It looks similar to Gustekian but there are still several differences... Hmm.. WAIT! We captured Elsa, I could ask her... I doubt she'd want to translate it for me, or even tell us anything at all..

Unless..

"Hey Ol, is there a way to use the spell you just casted on me, but for me to live through someone else's mind?"

Uh. Maybe.. I've never thought of that, we could attempt to create the spell. You asked us to create that Gabam spell, but we could only create it so fast due to its simplicity... This sounds a little more complicated so it could take a while. A few days to a week. The Yin quasi-spirit explained.

"I see, well if you could start that as soon as possible that'd be great."

Yes sir.

I'm probably over complicating it, but I'm thinking of forcing the pages to Elsa, then using the spell to live through the memory of her reading it. Logically, I experience every emotion, sensation and thoughts the person goes through at that time. If Elsa can read it, then I should be able to understand it too...

Ah, it's a big if.

A knock at the door interrupted him from his thoughts. "Yes?". A servant opened the door and turned towards him.

"Master Reinhard requests an audience with you, a very important guest has shown up and he thinks it's important you meet them."

Subaru made his way through the halls, eventually finding the lobby. A flash of purple stood out in his peripheral vision. He turned his head and saw Julius and Felix standing side by side.

"Ah! Subaru-kyun!" Felix grinned. Subaru sighed and walked over to them.

"Felix, please stop calling me that." He rubbed his tired eyes.

"Subaru, congratulations on your knighting." Julius smiled and patted Subaru's shoulder.

"Huh? My knighting?"

"Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you the fifth Royal Candidate. Felt!"

Subaru turned his head to see Felt, that thief girl from his first day there, in a rather large yellow dress. Uhh... What.

She turned to him and they locked eyes. She gasped. "Subaru!?"

"Felt?!"

Ooooohhhh! How was that? Arc 2 is finished. I know that for the moment the arcs are very similar, but there will be a lot of canon divergence in the following chapters.

I really hope you enjoyed it up to this point. I have put an amount of effort into it. Again, if you have any criticism or want to say anything, please do leave a comment. The amount of serotonin I get seeing all the people enjoying it enough to actually put effort into writing a comment about how much they enjoyed it, and what they found bad and good. It motivates me to continue.

Anyway, this won't be updated for a while. Maybe a week or two. I'm going to be writing the Spirit King book instead. Once it's around the same progress I'll come back to this.

I may take a break too, not for too long though otherwise I'll forget about the fic. If I haven't updated this by mid June, spam my dms! Anyway, I'll (hopefully) see most of you over at the Spirit King fic! Au revoir!