[ "Oh, oh, thank you for making the trip out here. But hearing you speak, it feels like you're more 'Sloth' than 'Gluttony'… Are you really the 'Witch of Gluttony'?" Subaru took half a step toward Daphne.
Compared to stubbornly refusing to thank Echidna, this time Subaru said thank you right from the start.
It seemed Subaru was starting to be cautious and mindful of his wording.
"What… is… that thing? May I ask…?" Subaru said, looking at Daphne's strange coffin.
"Which thing? Please explain it clearly to the blind Daphne."
"Just… that, you know, that incredibly eye-catching, beautifully styled coffin. I haven't seen much of the world, but as far as I know, things called coffins don't have legs, nor do they run as fast as bugs." ]
.....
〜Inside, the Theater〜
"To make an impolite person act politely is truly a hardship for Barusu,"
Ram said.
And it was incredibly stiff too—what on earth was 'an incredibly eye-catching, beautifully styled coffin'?
One could tell Subaru was trying his best to be polite, but the actual results left much to be desired.
"I can't really mock the kid on this front, though. If it were me, I probably wouldn't do any better,"
Felt said.
—
[ "Ah, you mean the Centipede Coffin. Daphne's movement is restricted, so she made this child. It's powered by Daphne's sweat and urine, very convenient, you know."
"Suddenly, a piece of secret trivia I absolutely did not want to hear popped up. Though it's sudden, let me ask my question—it's about the Three Great Mabeasts you created."
"The Three Great Mabeasts?"
"The White Whale and the Great Rabbit, and there seems to be another called the Black Snake. You created these Mabeasts, right?"
"Hmm…"
Hearing this, Daphne put on a thinking face, tilting her head to the left, then to the right, and then asked: "Ah, do you mean the whale, the bunny-bunny, and the little snake?" ]
.....
〜Inside, the Theater〜
"Huh? Calling them that? Witches really cannot be understood with common sense,"
Otto said.
Referring to such monsters as a whale, a bunny-bunny, and a little snake?
"Perhaps the Witch of Gluttony, Daphne, is so overwhelmingly powerful that in her eyes, those Three Great Mabeasts really are just a whale, a bunny-bunny, and a little snake."
Anastasia said with a smile.
—
[ "Didn't I already say so…"
"Who told you to call them by such strange names? Daphne doesn't know the names other people gave them. Those children are the same; they just drifted into existence around Daphne of their own accord."
"Then, why did you create those things in the first place…" Subaru felt a surge of anger, but he suppressed it.
"What did you say?"
"Why did you! Why did you let those things—COME INTO THIS WORLD!!" Subaru could no longer hold back; he roared.
Whether out of a sense of justice, righteous indignation, or some other emotion, Subaru completely ignored the danger of the person before him and abandoned his clumsy attempts at politeness.
"It's been four hundred years since you died! Do you have any idea how much evil those Mabeasts have done? How many people have been sacrificed? A few, dozens, hundreds! Even now, the sacrifices are still increasing!" ]
.....
〜Inside, the Theater〜
"Ah, doing that is very dangerous, isn't it?"
Otto was somewhat flustered.
But despite thinking this behavior was dangerous and reckless, it was indeed very satisfying.
On what grounds, and why, did she create such monsters to bring disaster upon the world?
"Arch and everyone…"
Emilia said in a low voice, remembering the Black Snake from that day in her childhood.
"The White Whale, one of the Three Great Mabeasts, has indeed made my trade routes quite troublesome at times,"
Anastasia said.
"To create that kind of rabbit, to do that to Subaru-kun…"
Rem gritted her teeth.
On the other side, Wilhelm narrowed his eyes, waiting for Daphne's response.
Those who had been harmed, directly or indirectly, in various ways by the Three Great Mabeasts were filled with indignation.
—
[ "Why? Why did you make that monster? Why did you make the White Whale?" Subaru lamented.
"The bigger a creature is, the more filling it is to eat, isn't it?" Daphne showed a puzzled expression.
"Huh… what?"
This baffled Subaru as well.
Then, Daphne looked even more puzzled.
"The White Whale is huge, right? If people eat that child, many of them can be satisfied, right?" Daphne spoke of what she considered to be common sense. ]
.....
〜Inside, the Theater〜
"Wait, setting aside whether that White Whale guy is even edible or not, the key point is that many people were eaten by the White Whale! If the White Whale was created to be eaten, why did you let it eat people?"
Garfiel was extremely displeased.
"And in the first place, Ferris-chan has never seen any god-like person attempt to eat one of the Three Great Mabeasts,"
Ferris said.
Who would eat those things?
"Hmm… I think I can roughly understand how she thinks,"
Anastasia said on the other side.
—
[ "What… did you say…"
"And the Great Rabbit can multiply infinitely, you know. As long as that child is around, no one will ever have to starve. Isn't that amazing?"
"Many people were eaten by that Great Hare!" Subaru roared.
"Your concern backfired completely! The number of people whose lives were taken by the Mabeasts is far greater than those who filled their bellies with them…"
"Wanting to eat the other party, yet never considering the possibility of being eaten yourself. Isn't that a bit too selfish?" she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ]
.....
〜Inside, the Theater〜
"So… that's how she thinks,"
Emilia said softly.
"Tch, what kind of logic is that?"
Even Yuriusu showed a trace of anger. He spoke in as calm a tone as possible:
"First of all, no one would think of eating those three creatures; therefore, humans are only being eaten unilaterally. Even if humans not eating the Three Great Mabeasts is a choice made by humans and has nothing to do with the Witch of Gluttony, she should have at least created them to be more nutritious. To claim she designed them for humans to eat yet pay no heed to their nutritional value—what was she trying to achieve with such a contradiction? Furthermore, even putting that aside, the combat power should at least be balanced. With such an imbalance, isn't she just intending for humans to be unilaterally eaten? And then—"
Yuriusu paused, then said:
"If the goal was to solve world hunger, why not create inanimate, simple food to resolve the actual problem, instead of thinking with a beast's mentality about eating and being eaten? Finally, what about the Black Snake? If the massive size of the White Whale and the infinite multiplication of the Great Hare were meant to provide food for a long time, the Black Snake serves absolutely no purpose in terms of consumption—it is pure destruction."
Then he thought about it and said:
"According to the Witch's twisted logic, the purpose of creating the Black Snake might have been to wipe out all living things, so that hunger would cease to exist—solving hunger fundamentally. However, giving up life itself just to avoid hunger is an extremely contradictory notion."
Utter nonsense, incomprehensible, and completely devoid of logic.
—
[ "That's the logic of beasts…" Subaru squeezed out these words, refuting her somewhat weakly.
"Subaru is the same… Come to think of it, is everyone thinking of 'Gluttony' too simply? Appetite is the greatest desire in the process of survival, right? Because if your appetite isn't satisfied, you can't survive." Daphne began to explain her own values regarding 'Gluttony.' ]
.....