Chapter Text
Envy
***
Greetings everyone, I am the narrator of this fanfiction, nice to meet you, my name is Ancient Narrator. To tell you a little bit about myself, I am the one who tells the stories. Today I am here to tell you this story. Relax and sit back, the story is about to begin.
I hope you enjoy it.
A book with a black cover and no writing appears in the narrator's hand. The narrator opens the book.
***
Natsuki Subaru, a 17-year-old teenager, was shopping at the grocery store late at night. After playing games and sleeping all day at home during the day, he woke up late at night and was hungry. So he left home to buy some groceries at a convenience store near his house. Subaru was yawning and blinking his eyes as he couldn't get enough sleep. When he finished his grocery shopping, he left the checkout with a bag of groceries. He started walking calmly home, yawning and scratching his eyes and muttering every now and then.
As he did so, he did not realize that the world around him was bending and twisting. When he reached the crosswalk, he stopped and looked left and right, wanting to make sure he hadn't been hit by a car. It was after midnight so there weren't many cars on the street. His eyes itched again and the world around him changed without him knowing it.
Subaru opened his eyes and found himself in a square. The sun was just rising, there was hardly anyone around, only vendors. Looking around, it looked like a medieval town; the stone road, the old-style brick houses were indicative of this. There was a fountain behind him, the sound of it in his ears. He turned around and took a better look around. It was a market, the vendors had gotten up early to sell their wares and had taken their places, there was not much else around except the carts carrying the goods.
Something caught Subaru's eye; the people pulling the carts were not horses, they were bipedal creatures that looked like some kind of lizards, and he saw a few non-human beings around, or half-humans as they were called.
It was then that Subaru realized he had been summoned to another world, a fantasy world. Without realizing it, Subaru's breathing quickened with excitement and what he didn't know was that a power was slowly emerging inside him. To calm himself, he walked over to the fountain and sat down.
"I've really been summoned to a fantasy world. I used to think these were stories... Heh, so what? You don't know what's going to happen until it happens to you, do you?" he said to himself, pure excitement and happiness in his voice. He was the happiest person in the world right now.
He just looked around for a while, he didn't know how much time had passed. Suddenly his head started hurting, he held his head and shook his head to relieve the headache. At that moment he heard this voice in his brain:
“The authority of envy, the ruler of space and time.”
Huh?
The voice began to explain: "The ruler of space and time allows its user to manipulate space and time at will. This power would come with a great drawback, but since the current user is not from this world, the rules of this world do not apply to him. I am addressing you, the user of this ability, you are allowed to use this power as you wish. You can do whatever you want without any drawbacks. You must discover the power for yourself. I hope you will use it for good," the voice said and was silent forever.
Subaru was trying to make sense of what was happening. His headache was gone now and he felt quite fresh, as if some of the emotions in his body were no longer there, but he didn't care.
"The authority of envy, huh? Sounds like a pretty powerful ability," he said in a whisper, thinking about what his new power would do.
His eyes shifted to the bag in his hand, he put his hand inside the bag and took out a packet of chips. He opened it and started eating.
“This will satisfy my hunger for a while,” Subaru said as he continued eating.
As he calmly ate his chips, he noticed that the sun was slowly rising. The market was slowly filling up with people. When the bag of chips was empty, he picked it up and decided to test his strength. He focused on the packet and tried to rewind the time inside the packet.
As Subaru began to use his power, time obeyed him and quickly rewound the time inside the packet. The empty package slowly began to fill up with potato chips again.
Seeing this, Subaru's eyes widened in surprise. “Wow, great!” he said.
He looked at the packet, now it was as full as before. He took one and ate it, it tasted just like potato chips and he could feel the crunch and salty taste in his mouth. Subaru repeated this several times, finished the packet and rewound his time again. After a while he felt full.
"So the chips in my stomach don't disappear when I rewind time. Great, now I have an endless supply of food," he said with amusement in his voice.
***
A gentleman who started the day early, red-haired, blue-eyed and well-dressed. Even though it was a day off, he had his sword around his waist and was out patrolling the city. When he arrived at the market, he saw people shopping and strolling through the market to meet their daily needs and socialize. He smiled slightly and continued on his way.
Suddenly he heard a crackling sound and reflexively turned his head to find the direction it was coming from. It came from a young man sitting on the fountain. He was holding a package and had opened it. The boy was a bit strange looking; he had black hair and eyes, which was quite rare. His clothes were not ordinary, they were made of a very high quality fabric. This appearance of the boy caught Reinhard's attention. Reinhard couldn't tell if he was a child or a teenager, but it was obvious that he couldn't be a child, maybe the same age. The young man dipped his hand into the bag in his other hand and pulled out something yellow and curly, then put it in his mouth and started chewing.
“Is it eatable?” thought Reinhard, becoming more and more curious.
For a few minutes the young man was eating the curly things in the package. After a while he stopped eating and looked at the package, stood there for a while and then started eating again with a surprised, happy look on his face, repeating this a few more times.
When the young man said, “Great, now I have an endless source of food,” he turned his attention back to him. The young man's face was pure excitement and happiness, he was watching the market and looking around him as if in a new world.
Reinhard, overcome with curiosity, started to walk towards him, and after a while they were only a few steps apart.
"Excuse me, sorry to disturb you. I couldn't help but notice you, I saw that you were quite excited, is something wrong?"
***
Subaru heard someone speaking and turned his head towards the sound. To his right stood a man, not much older than him, with red hair, blue eyes and well dressed. His voice was respectful and curious.
“Oh, no, no bother, sir, I'm just new here,” Subaru said.
Reinhard extended his hand, “My name is Reinhard van Astrea, nice to meet you.”
Subaru did not hesitate to shake the man's hand when the man extended his hand to shake his hand. "Nice to meet you Reinhard, my name is Natsuki Subaru," he said.
The moment they shook hands, Reinhard's insides began to storm, all his divine protections were activated, even his divine sword was ready to be unsheathed. The reason Reinhard wanted to kill Subaru right then and there was because his “divine protection of empathy” was activated.
Inside Subaru lay a force so powerful and malevolent that Reinhard almost trembled, but Subaru had no intention of being a threat to anyone. Reinhard felt strong feelings of excitement, happiness and peace from Subaru.
Subaru was surprised when Reinhard didn't stop squeezing his hand and looked at him with a pensive expression. "Rein, are you okay? Did something happen?"
Brought back to reality by Subaru's voice, Reinhard let go of Subaru's hand and bowed slightly. "Forgive my rudeness, Subaru-san, I was just a little distracted. And excuse me, Rein?"
Subaru chuckled lightly. "Heheh, sorry, your name is a bit long, so I decided to give you a nickname. I usually give nicknames to my friends, sorry if it offends you. Subaru-san? Please just call me Subaru."
Reinhard smiled at Subaru's nickname for him. “It's okay, Subaru, I'm not offended, you can call me whatever you want,” he said.
Reinhard smiled at his new friend and asked him where he was from.
"I guess I am not from here, not even from this world. I came here from a different world, it happened so fast that even I didn't realize what happened," Subaru said. He opened the bag of chips again and handed it to Reinhard, “Do you want some?” he asked.
Reinhard accepted Subaru's offer and dipped his hand into the bag, took a chip and put it in his mouth. As Reinhard chewed the chip, a crunchy and salty taste spread through his mouth. It was the first time Reinhard had ever tasted anything and he liked it.
“This tastes pretty good Subaru, it's the first time I've ever eaten something like this in my life,” he said and took another one. “Back to the topic at hand, so you are saying that you come from beyond the great waterfall?” he asked.
Subaru didn't know what the great waterfall was, but he nodded, “Like I said, I'm not from this world and I came here out of nowhere. I found myself standing over there at sunrise in the morning and I was quite surprised. I looked around for a while and discovered that this place was different from my world, so I came here and sat down. Man, this world is a bit strange, but what I found most unfamiliar was that I couldn't read the writing of this world,” Subaru said and sighed.
“I understand. If you come from beyond the great waterfall, it is normal not to be able to read the writing of this world,” said Reinhard, who could only nod as he listened to Subaru's explanation. Reinhard involuntarily continued to eat chips.
So the two of them continued their conversation. When Reinhard reached into the bag for another chip, he realized that it was empty and for some reason he felt embarrassed.
“I'm sorry, Subaru, I ate too much without realizing it. Forgive me, I used something that was yours as my own,” he said with sadness in his voice. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some gold coins, “Accept these, Subaru,” he said and handed them to him.
“Don't worry Rein, you didn't do anything bad,” he chuckled at Reinhard's embarrassed demeanor and showed him the package. A second later the bag was filled with chips again and closed as if it had never been opened, “See, good as new,” she said with a smile.
Reinhard almost had a heart attack when he saw the package being filled and closed again, but his divine protection prevented it. “S-Subaru, what the hell just happened?” he stammered, trying to understand what was going on.
“It's my power, or part of my power,” he smiled and winked, “I'm telling you first, so let's keep it a secret between us, okay?”
And he began to explain again, "As you can see, this power was given to me when I came here. It's a strange power and hard to explain, so what you see is what you get."
Reinhard was still puzzled but nodded his head in agreement. He was happy that Subaru had told him about it and he smiled. “I see, Subaru,” he smiled, then he thought of something, “Does that make me your first friend in this world?”
Subaru nodded, “That's exactly what it does my friend, you're my first friend in this world and I think we're going to get along pretty well,” he said and made a fist and extended his hand towards him.
Reinhard gently nudged his new friend's hand with his own.
This was the beginning of a great new friendship.
***
Subaru had left Reinhard to explore the city. As he walked in silence, he thought of something. He tried to make some of the coins Reinhard had shown him. He squeezed his hand and thought about the coins, after a second he felt his hand getting heavier and when he opened his palm he had 10 gold coins. Subaru smiled and went on his way. He felt comfortable refusing Reinhard's money, after all, he was his first friend in this world.
In the following hours, he walked through the parts of the city he could and entered an alleyway. It was shady, as the sun didn't shine much, and it provided some relief from the heat outside. He stood there for a while. If someone from outside had looked at him, he would have thought it strange, but no one had paid any attention to the alley.
Suddenly he felt three beings behind him. One was tall, one was fat and the last one was short, but the air they gave off told Subaru to pay attention to them.
“Hey kid, give us what you got and get the hell out,” the skinny one said, and the others chuckled.
Subaru looked at them and at the bag in his hand, but he didn't intend to do anything. He just turned around and started to walk out of the alley.
The men behind him were surprised at first, but then the taller one ran up to Subaru and pulled the knife from his waist. He lunged at Subaru.
Subaru quickly dodged him as he was about to strike. The man seemed quite surprised by this, but he ran towards him again and instructed his other friends to attack Subaru.
The three of them attacked Subaru, narrowly avoiding every move and blow, but his body was relaxed as if he had done this a hundred times. The men marveled at Subaru's fluid movements, like water. Then suddenly a voice stopped them.
“Get out of the way,” a voice said. When she got in the middle of them, she stopped and turned around, as if she was running away from something. This person was a girl with blond hair and red eyes, she couldn't have been older than 13. She was quite skinny and had features that suggested she had been hungry for a long time.
Subaru analyzed her for a while and then saw that she was holding something in her hand. Her breathing was a little fast from running, but it was as if she did it every day.
She looked around and saw three men surrounding a young man, but all eyes were on her as she distracted them for a while.
“I have to go, stay strong,” she said and made a peace sign with her hand, then she started running, the wind blowing past her as if to support her.
The girl stepped out of the wall and disappeared from sight, while the four people present could do nothing but blink their eyes. A few seconds later the skinny one moved towards Subaru again, but he dodged her again.
Subaru was about to hit the skinny one when they heard another voice: “Drop what you stole!” It was coming from someone angry and tired from running.
Subaru turned his head and saw the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had violet eyes, long white hair and ears a little longer than a normal person's. Subaru involuntarily held his breath, he was so mesmerized by this girl that he couldn't take his eyes off her.
But then she repeated: “I said give back what you stole!” she said menacingly.
The four men looked at each other. “Did you steal something?” said Subaru.
The other three shook their heads in the negative, then the four heads turned back to the girl.
The girl seemed to understand what had happened. Her threatening tone changed and she calmed down.
“Did you see a girl pass by here?” he asked.
“You mean a skinny girl with blond hair and red eyes?” asked Subaru.
“I didn't see her eye color, but yes, her hair was blonde, she ran this way,” he said.
“She climbed over that wall and disappeared,” said Subaru.
The woman nodded and headed in that direction.
Again the four men were alone. Subaru sighed deeply and shook his head from side to side. Then he knocked out the three thieves faster than anyone could notice.
Subaru left the alley and started walking through the market, whistling and looking around. After a while he saw a girl crying in the middle of the street, he calmly approached her and crouched down. The girl suddenly tensed when she saw the stranger with the evil eyes. Seeing this, Subaru took the gold coin in his hand to comfort her and showed it to her, then lost it. When the girl saw the magic show, her eyes widened with excitement and she focused on Subaru.
Subaru smiled at her and asked, “Why are you crying, little one?”
The girl looked at him with teary eyes, “I lost my mother, I can't find her,” she said, and the tears started flowing again.
Feeling sorry for the girl, Subaru reached out his hand to her and smiled, “If you want, I can help you find your mother, little one.”
The girl happily took Subaru's hand, said, “Yes,” and smiled.
When Subaru saw the little girl's smile, he felt as if all the ice in the world had melted. Subaru walked around the market with the girl, looking around for the girl's mother. After a few minutes, they heard a voice behind them.
“Plum!” a voice called out.
Subaru and Plum turned around, and when Plum saw her mother, she let go of Subaru's hand and ran towards her mother.
“Mommy!” she shouted and hugged her mother.
Subaru watched with a smile as the girl met her mother. Plum stopped hugging her mother and ran back to Subaru.
“Sir, thank you,” she said and hugged him.
Plum's mother came to Subaru and thanked him. Subaru watched happily as the mother and daughter walked away.
“Subaru?” a voice called out.
Recognizing the voice, Subaru turned around quickly and smiled as he saw the friend he had met today.
“Rein,” he greeted him.
Reinhard approached Subaru and took his greeting.
“That was a good thing you did, Subaru,” Reinhard said.
“Rein, are you following me?” asked Subaru.
Reinhard blushed at Subaru's question, "No, not like that. I just couldn't help but watch what happened, that's all," he said shyly.
Subaru chuckled, “Oh, come on Rein, I'm teasing you,” he said and his chuckle turned into laughter. Reinhard's face was now a defiant red against his hair.
They started chatting again, but this time Subaru decided to help Reinhard with his patrol. This way, he could spend more time with him and learn more about this world.
A few hours later, it was dark, but the two were still chatting.
"Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, today I encountered a thief and someone looking for her," Subaru said.
Reinhard raised an eyebrow, signaling Subaru to continue.
Subaru continued to explain. "The thief was a girl; she had yellow hair and red eyes, but she was quite thin, as if she hadn't eaten anything for days. She was maybe 13 or 14 years old. I think her height was stunted due to malnutrition, but she was quite agile, and when she started running, it was as if the wind was helping her from behind," Subaru said.
Subaru's deductions impressed Reinhard. He decided that Subaru was an observer.
"Then I met a girl who was looking for the thing stolen from her. She had purple eyes, white hair, and a healthy body, so she was eating well, but what caught my attention the most were her ears. She was an elf or a half-elf. But Reinhard, I don't want to sound like a pervert, but the girl was quite beautiful, I wish I could have talked to her," Subaru said and sighed.
Reinhard was caught off guard by Subaru's last comment, but then he started to chuckle.
It seems Subaru doesn't know that half-elves have a bad reputation in this world since he's not from here. It's better to leave it like that for now.
Reinhard thought and chuckled again. Subaru raised an eyebrow at Reinhard's chuckle and looked at him.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Nothing," he chuckled, "nothing."
***
The sun had already set, and Subaru and Reinhard were still talking. Subaru had learned a lot about this world. There were 4 kingdoms in this world, the world was flat, not round, and there was a big waterfall at the edge. He learned that Reinhard was the most powerful person in this world.
“Dude, you're a monster really,” Subaru said, laughing.
Reinhard's face suddenly turned sad and he lowered his head slightly.
Subaru noticed this immediately and asked, “Rein, is something wrong?”
“No, no, Subaru, nothing's wrong, it's just old memories coming back to me,” he said, his voice sad.
“Wait a second Rein. Are you upset because I called you a monster?” asked Subaru, more questions starting to form in his mind.
Reinhard nodded his head in agreement.
“I'm sorry Rein, forgive me if I upset you,” Subaru bowed his head and apologized to him. “I won't call you a monster again, please don't be sorry.”
Reinhard's sadness slowly faded and his old smile returned.
*I will beat whoever upset Rein like this,* Subaru thought.
Subaru felt the air getting colder.
“Is it getting colder, or is it just me?” and suddenly he turned into a block of ice.
When Reinhard saw Subaru turn to ice, it was the first time he had ever felt such horror. He stared at Subaru, Subaru was frozen in place, as if he had always been an ice sculpture.
Reinhard didn't know what to feel, he felt fear, sadness, anger and melancholy all at the same time.
Then some of his divine protection kicked in. He also gained some new divine protection to protect him from the cold.
Reinhard felt a lot of mana accumulating a few kilometers away from here. Suddenly it started to snow and everything else was buried in snow.
“I will destroy whatever caused this,” he said with anger in his voice, the first time he had ever been so angry.
Reinhard arrived at the place where the mana was gathering, it was a slum. The mana was gathering in a house upstairs, it looked like a loot house. Suddenly the building blew up and a giant cat came out of it.
“My daughter is dead... according to our contract I will freeze the world,” said the giant cat.
Reinhard looked at the cat, and then he looked at the house, and there were three bodies in the house. The first was of an old man, the second of a young half-elf girl and the third of a girl of about 13 or 14 years old. They were all dead and their deaths were very bad, all three of them had their stomachs cut open and had other severe wounds, none of them had survived.
The giant cat looked at Reinhard, “You sword saint you are too late, my daughter is dead and now I will freeze this world completely,” he said, his voice ice cold.
Reinhard's sword was ready to be unsheathed, he reached for it.
"Wow, my God, this place is so cool."
Reinhard turned in the direction of the voice.
Reinhard turned his head and saw Subaru standing next to him, he couldn't believe what he saw. His friend, who had just turned into a statue of ice, was now on his right and smiling.
“S-Subaru?” Reinhard stammered.
Subaru turned his head towards him, “Hi Rein, it's getting a bit cold, isn't it?” he asked, then wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.
The giant cat turned his attention to Subaru.
“You... you're the boy my daughter met today. You helped her, but it didn't end well,” the giant cat said, sadness and anger in his voice.
“Your daughter?” asked Subaru.
The giant cat turned its head toward the house. Subaru looked into the house and saw the blonde-haired girl he had met today and the white-haired half-elf, both no longer alive. There was another dead body inside the house, a large white-haired man, unfortunately he was no longer alive either.
Subaru felt a deep sadness at what he saw.
“What happened here?” he asked in a shaky voice.
“My daughter Lia followed the little blonde-haired girl here to retrieve her stolen belongings. Then when she went inside, she found the thief girl and this giant man dead inside. Before she knew what had happened, she too was cut in the stomach and collapsed,” the giant cat said.
“I am Puck and our contract is that I will cover this world with ice,” said the cat again.
Subaru looked sadly at Puck, then at Reinhard. Reinhard had his sword in his hand and was ready for battle.
“I can fix this,” said Subaru.
The giant cat and the sword saint looked at him in surprise.
“You can't fix anything, it's all over,” said the giant cat.
The sword saint sadly nodded his head in agreement, “Unfortunately Puck is right Subaru, you can't fix anything. Puck has frozen everything within hundreds of kilometers and it's spreading every second, I can't feel a single sign of life right now,” he said sadly.
“Hundreds? Man, that's crazy,” Subaru said, amazement in his voice.
“Subaru, stay behind me. I have to kill Puck, I have to destroy him so at least he won't hurt other innocent people,” Reinhard said.
Subaru nodded, “Just a second Rein,” he said, then walked forward a little, picked up a small piece of ice from the ground.
“Puck. You killed a lot of innocents, you need to be punished,” he said and threw the piece of ice towards Puck.
Reinhard looked at the piece of ice and so did Puck. The piece of ice went into the giant cat's chest.
For a few seconds nothing happened, but then many ice spikes came out of Puck's body and immobilized the giant cat.
Before Puck knew it, he was completely riddled. Reinhard's eyes widened in shock. The great spirit of fire had been riddled by a single piece of ice.
When Reinhard saw what Subaru had done, he marveled at his incredible strength.
“No wonder my divine protections kicked in today and my sword was ready to be unsheathed,” he thought.
“I will not kill you in one blow for taking so many innocent lives,” Subaru said coldly, his voice even colder and more threatening than Puck's.
Puck tried to move but he couldn't, his whole body was stuck, after a while the giant cat started to disintegrate.
“Now that we've gotten rid of the giant cat, it's time to fix everything,” Subaru said.
Reinhard looked at him confused, trying to understand what Subaru was saying.
“Sorry Reinhard, goodbye for now, but we will meet again... even if you don't remember,” he said.
With that, time began to flow backwards, and the only one who would remember it was Natsuki Subaru.