["Hehe…" Gallagher suddenly threw his head back and burst into loud laughter. "Hahahaha! You've got guts! Impressive! Not bad—I underestimated you..."]
[Gallagher slowly walked up to Sunday and coldly looked at this young man whose face still remained expressionless and unmoved by wind or rain: "I admire you. And then? Does this prove that I killed your sister and that stowaway?"]
["This proves that you and the memoria meme [Death] are birds of a feather—that is already enough."]
[Sunday clenched his fist and took a deep breath: "Listen carefully. I do not care at all how you managed to do it… Right now I only care about one thing, the answer to one question—"]
[Almost every word of his was squeezed out from between his teeth, word by word, gritted: "—You bastard, you damned stray dog, why did you kill her?!"]
[Gallagher did not answer him directly. He only laughed as he sat down on a nearby sofa. Between his fingers he flipped a lighter and lit a faint flame in the shadows: "Those involved are confused—people cannot see the sand in their eyes; they only know that the sand is there."]
["Want the answer? I can give it to you."]
[Gallagher quickly extinguished that flickering flame. Only then did a pitch-black, enormous shadow appear behind Sunday without anyone noticing. Before he could turn around, the meme's tail stinger had already pierced through his chest, splashing a pool of transparent "blood" on the ground.]
["…Everything is only because of that damned twist of fate."]
——
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.
"Ah?? He even dared to kill Sunday?!"
Stark had just thought that Sunday was brewing some peerless conspiracy and still had countless trump cards left to play—yet the next second he was dead?!
...It gave the stifling feeling of having cultivated in the mountains for thirty years, preparing to leave the mountain and display great ambitions, only to step into a hunter's trap and finally die without treatment.
"Just what is the background of this Mr. Gallagher? He can actually command a memoria meme to commit murder inside the Oak Family residence... Isn't that a bit too arrogant?" Sein tilted his head and gulped down a mouthful of beer, his cheeks flushed. "Hic... Well then, now even Sunday has gone down together with Aventurine. If the primordial dreamscape has a tavern, maybe the two of them can sit down and have a drink?"
"As long as the two of them don't start fighting, it's fine." Fern looked toward the white-haired girl who had been burying her head in food the entire time. "Lady Frieren, do you know why Mr. Gallagher killed Miss Firefly and Miss Robin?"
"Unclear, but the reason is definitely not hatred." Frieren swallowed the food in her cheeks in one gulp and revealed a satisfied, comfortable expression. "I guess... hehe, it's because those two knew things they shouldn't have known, and Gallagher wanted to silence them! One of them was investigating inside the primordial dreamscape, and the other was not far from the truth—they must have grasped quite a bit of intelligence, right?"
Frieren lowered her voice with a serious air: "And this Gallagher… is only a good person on the surface. The fact that he can be in league with a memoria meme is enough to show he is not a kind person. You must know that the memoria meme originally intended to make a move on Stelle! At the beginning, Gallagher wanted to kill Stelle!"
Stark suddenly understood and slapped his thigh: "So that's how it is! I never expected he was pretending so well that even Miss Himeko was deceived! ...But if even Mr. Gallagher cannot be trusted, then who should the Express crew trust now? The Family?"
——
Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World.
"Oh my?"
Puck floating on Emilia's shoulder showed a brief look of surprise, his tail gently swaying: "I never expected Sunday cared so much about his sister. I thought he was the type of ambitious person who, at a critical moment, could discard his sister at any time to achieve his plans?"
Emilia turned her head to look at the spirit on her shoulder and slightly furrowed her brows: "Puck, you can't say it like that either... The fact that Mr. Sunday carefully keeps the light cone of him and his sister when they were little is enough to show that he himself deeply cherishes his feelings with Miss Robin."
"Rather, this Mr. Gallagher is related to [Death]. This is enough to show that he is the true mastermind behind everything, right?"
"But his position stands on the side of the Express crew." Natsuki Subaru sat on the sofa, enjoying the black tea Rem had just brought. "This guy also said he is only thirteen years old… Thinking about it now, this 'thirteen years old' is probably the judgment he obtained only after fusing other people's cognition and beginning to form self-awareness, right?"
...The young uncle suddenly became reasonable.
Puck slowly floated above Natsuki Subaru's head: "Speaking of which, what would 486 do if he encountered this situation?"
"Hmm? What is it?" Natsuki Subaru did not react for a moment.
"—If Emilia were killed by someone in a dream, yet a more powerful person told you to give up investigating the cause of her death, what would you do?"
"Me?"
Natsuki Subaru scratched his head. He rested his chin on his hand and silently thought for a good while, then suddenly stuck out his thumb: "Of course I would stake my life to find Emilia-tan's whereabouts!"
Emilia's face instantly flushed red, and her voice also became stammering: "4-486! Don't suddenly say things like that!"
"Tsk…"
Ram appeared behind Natsuki Subaru at some point and lightly knocked the tray in her hand against the back of his head, producing a crisp "pa" sound.
"A waste like 486 who cannot even do daily cleaning properly still wants to talk big about staking his life. Next time please do not speak of such arrogant and disgusting topics."
——
[The night was as dark as ink. A gentle breeze brushed across the desolate ruins. Between the broken walls and residual structures, wild grass swayed under the moonlight. Fireflies flew in groups by the pond, drawing fine, fragmented trails of light in the darkness.]
[The corpse of a True Sting was slowly burning. By the pond, a mecha stood on the grass. A cold mechanical voice broke the silence of the night: "Command, this is AR-26710. Received, please respond."]
[Only the chirping of insects answered its call. On the water's surface, the reflections of the fireflies intertwined with the starlight, as if another miniature starry sky.]
[Footsteps came from behind. Another mecha of a different model slowly walked toward it and said calmly: "Most likely there will be no response."]
[The rock wall to the side suddenly trembled. A heavier, more robust heavy mecha stood up from the ruins and asked: "What do we do? We are the only survivors nearby."]
["No matter what, we have to establish contact with the other mechas... Hmm?"]
[AR-26710 seemed to sense something. It turned its head. Behind it, a burst of firelight flickered, and a white-haired girl in combat attire gracefully descended from the flames—she had actually released the mecha herself.]
["In that case…"]
[The girl picked a small purple flower beside her and brought the flower to the tip of her nose. "This is faster, right?"]