Chapter 58: Now What Am I Supposed to Do
While Beatrice had not yet snapped out of her shock, Yumesaki decisively used his Archive Magic, then dumped the entire plot of Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World into Beatrice's brain all at once.
If one thought about it, Beatrice was also quite a tragedy.
After being created by the Witch of Greed, not long after that, she parted ways with said Witch of Greed.
Afterward, she and the Witch of Greed Echidna made a verbal agreement to guard the Forbidden Library until That Person came.
That Person was actually what was called the chosen one.
After Beatrice straightforwardly agreed to it, she usually guarded the Forbidden Library all by herself, sitting on a small stepladder while waiting for the arrival of the person Echidna spoke of.
For the first few decades, Beatrice, who acted according to the book, didn't feel like she was suffering.
Being inside the Forbidden Library made her feel as though she were still held in her mother's embrace.
However, as time went on, it slowly began to change.
The people who entered the library over the four hundred years occasionally made her hold onto hope, but no one knew the mission of That Person, and the book also didn't give any reaction. Beatrice then rejected everyone who visited the Forbidden Library.
Four hundred years of lonely and painful waiting made her heart grow increasingly dead. She no longer cared about the people and matters around her, and no longer wanted to get involved in relationships with others.
When lonely, she, who had no place to lean on, hardened her heart, locked herself inside the Forbidden Library, and believed she would not lose to anything.
For four hundred years, Beatrice locked herself away.
Whether the key to that prison was locked from the inside or the outside, even Beatrice herself no longer understood it.
In short, four hundred years was truly too long.
The long and hopeless wait over four hundred years had completely eroded all expectations that existed.
Beatrice slowly forgot how to smile, forgot how to cry, and even slowly forgot her mother's voice and face. She had once used countless nights to reconstruct those memories just to use them as a spiritual crutch.
However, as the plot moved forward, the Witch of Greed Echidna instead uttered a certain sentence.
That Person actually never existed.
She told Beatrice to wait for That Person only because she wanted to see whom Beatrice would choose to become that person.
She considered the fact that Beatrice didn't choose anyone for four hundred years, suffered about whether to keep fulfilling the contract, and even hoped to be liberated through the end of her life, to also be a highly beautiful result.
From this matter, one could see what kind of personality the Witch of Greed Echidna had.
This was a woman with an extremely strong, wicked sense of humor.
This woman possessed feelings, but was incapable of understanding the feelings of others.
Yumesaki couldn't bring himself to use the term trash to describe this woman, but this woman indeed truly had nothing good going for her.
Therefore, he straightforwardly and quickly told the truth of this matter to Beatrice, who was still in the dark.
While Beatrice was sorting out those pieces of information, Yumesaki casually picked up a basic magic guide book from the Forbidden Library, then began flipping through its pages.
Magic in the world of Re:Zero was divided into earth, wind, fire, water, added with two types of magic namely yin and yang, making a total of six types of magic.
Among them, fire magic was magic that represented thermal energy.
Therefore, whether it was releasing fire or releasing ice, both were a type of fire magic.
Or it could be said, as long as the magic involved thermal energy and temperature, then that magic fell under fire magic.
Meanwhile, water magic was frequently related to healing magic. The yin attribute and yang attribute were categorized as quite rare, where the yin attribute was mostly magic to obscure the opponent's vision and inflict abnormal statuses.
And the mages in this world released magic through a gate.
Since the mana of a magic user was stored inside the body, their strength was determined by the size and number of each individual's gate.
Simply put, this thing called a gate was similar to the Magic Circuits in the Type-Moon universe—the more, the better.
However, not everyone had to use a gate if they wanted to cast magic.
The main female character, Emilia, was a typical example.
She was a Spiritual Arts User who could use spells by utilizing the mana in the atmosphere. She absorbed mana from the outside, then used the mana collected inside her body through her gate to cast magic. Therefore, her mana was placed on deposit outside, and her strength was not determined by the size and number of individual gates.
However, Spiritual Arts Users had one drawback, which was that they couldn't use Spiritual Arts if they didn't form a contract with a spirit.
And forming a contract with a spirit was by no means an easy thing.
Therefore, in this world, a Spiritual Arts User was a profession that was far rarer than a mage.
Yumesaki, because he entered this world through Travel Magic, didn't obtain the physical traits of this world, and also didn't possess what was called a gate.
But that didn't matter. He had mana, so he could still use this world's magic in the same way.
Therefore, Yumesaki read these magic arts with great interest.
The application of many of these magics truly opened up Yumesaki's way of thinking.
Right when Yumesaki was reading the seventh magic book, the manager of the Forbidden Library, Beatrice, finally finished sorting out the extra information inside her brain, then opened her eyes and looked toward Yumesaki.
"Who exactly are you?"
"Didn't I already say, I'm a person from another world."
Yumesaki responded to Beatrice's question while keeping his eyes on the magic book.
"Betty doesn't understand. Since you're a person from another world, why do you know everything that goes on in our world?" Beatrice looked toward Yumesaki with a complicated facial expression.
"What you say is quite interesting. On what grounds is a person from another world not allowed to know everything that goes on in your world?" Yumesaki asked back with a small smile.
Beatrice stammered, "Ah, that..."
For a moment, she really didn't know how to refute it.
"Is the information you just gave me real?"
"Genuine without a doubt." Yumesaki held up a few fingers and said, "I can swear to the heavens, it's all real."
Beatrice's tears flowed down in large beads. She never expected that the Witch of Greed Echidna would lie to her, and the person she had been waiting for for four hundred years didn't exist at all.
"Why did it turn out like this? Why did it turn out like this?"
Seeing Beatrice crying until her tears formed puddles, Yumesaki scratched his hair, then comforted, "Don't cry. Even though the truth came a bit late, aren't you liberated now? You can leave this place, you can even choose whoever you like."
Beatrice grew irritated. She stared sharply at Yumesaki while crying, then said in a sobbing voice, "Talking is indeed easy. If it really could be as free as that, then what was the painful wait Betty did for several hundred years for?"
"Uh... considered as your bad luck?" Yumesaki responded.
Beatrice was at a loss for words.
At this moment, she really wanted to cast a powerful spell to tear this sharp-tongued man in front of her into minced meat.
"If you can't speak properly, then shut your mouth."
Yumesaki nodded, then shut his mouth straightforwardly and quickly, while quietly reading the magic book in his hands.
After a short while, Beatrice suddenly said, "Can't you say something?"
Yumesaki didn't make a sound, he kept looking at the magic book in his hands.
"I'm asking you." Beatrice stared sharply at Yumesaki.
At the same time, a ball of water formed above Yumesaki's head, then came crashing down toward Yumesaki.
But in the next second, the ball of water just vanished from its spot.
More precisely, that ball of water had been relocated by Yumesaki using Spatial Magic.
Seeing this sight, Beatrice's eyes brightened. She began to test Yumesaki's strength, where one after another, magic spells were dropped in rapid succession.
Water balls, stone swords, fire thorns, wind blades...
They were all magic spells with small destructive areas but concentrated power.
It was obvious that Beatrice also didn't want to damage her own Forbidden Library.
Facing Beatrice's attacks, Yumesaki neutralized them casually while keeping his eyes on the magic book.
Each attack was met with the appropriate defense, magic was cast at the right time, and the handling was done flawlessly.
"I didn't expect that you're also a master of magic." Beatrice couldn't help but admire Yumesaki. She knew this man was very strong, but didn't expect him to be this strong.
Yumesaki still didn't make a sound.
Beatrice couldn't take it anymore. "I'm asking you, for you to not answer me like this, isn't that far too rude?"
"You're the one who told me to shut my mouth, now you're complaining because I don't answer your question. Isn't your attitude a bit too double-standard?"
Yumesaki said with an innocent face, a sentence that made Beatrice so irritated she rolled her eyes.
She was one hundred percent sure that this man named Yumesaki did it on purpose.
"You are far too childish."
Seeing Beatrice seemed to be truly angry, Yumesaki couldn't help but let out a small laugh.
"Fine, I won't tease you anymore. What do you want to say?"
Beatrice pointed at Yumesaki and said, "You should be the one who wants to say something to me."
"Me? I don't have anything I want to say." Yumesaki shook his head and said.
Beatrice stared sharply at Yumesaki. "You came to my place but don't have anything to say to me, isn't that far too rude?"
"Then what do you want me to say?" Yumesaki sighed and said, "Say that you're too pitiful? Say that you've been deceived by the Witch of Greed? Say whether the Witch of Greed is an unkind figure?"
"Shut up, you are not allowed to say bad things about her."
Beatrice fell into a panic.
Yumesaki wore a face completely out of words. "Look at that, I didn't want to say it, but you forced me to say it. As a result, after I said it, you ended up unhappy. Why go through the trouble? Why bother?"
Beatrice said, "Because you are saying bad things about Mother."
"She is your mother, not my mother."
Yumesaki said with a calm face, "To you, she has a thousand goods and ten thousand goods, whatever she did was right. But to me, this person indeed has no conscience, even deceiving her own child."
Beatrice's face tensed up, as if she had been hit hard by someone, and her speaking voice couldn't help but grow low unconsciously.
"Maybe Mother had some reasons of her own."
"What reasons of her own? The information I gave you, didn't you see it for yourself? Do you think she looks like someone who had reasons of her own?"
Beatrice instantly fell into a quiet state.
Because after seeing that plot, she indeed could not find any kind of reason possessed by the Witch of Greed.
Seeing this sight, Yumesaki also didn't keep hurling criticisms. He again shifted his target back to the magic book, then read it with great interest.
To him, magic books were far more interesting than a Beatrice who was shutting herself off.
But fortunately, Beatrice's adaptability counted as pretty good; she soon snapped out of that quiet state within a short time.
"Then what do you think I should do now?"
"You're asking me?" Yumesaki said, pointing at his own nose.
Beatrice let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Do you think there's anyone else here?"
"If I were you, right now I would do whatever I want to do, and no one would be allowed to stop me."
Yumesaki thought for a moment, then gave an answer. A person who had been imprisoned for four hundred years, now able to step out of the Forbidden Library, would naturally want to thoroughly do all the things they had never done before.
Every single person who dared to get in her way would be knocked down without exception.
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