This page is about the event. For the anime episode, see Episode 44. The Permafrost of the Great Elior Forest (エリオール大森林の永久凍土) is a major event that took place approximately 100 years before the arrival of Natsuki Subaru into the world. The battle that took place here had significant impact on Emilia and Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti, the Sin Archbishop of Sloth, and it had a major influence on both the world’s geography and the events of the present day.
In Emilia’s youth, the Witch of Vainglory, Pandora, visited Elior Forest with the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop of Greed and the Black Serpent in tow, with one goal in mind: to find the seal hidden within the forest and release whatever was held within. This conflict led to a drastic change of direction for the entire Witch Cult, as Petelgeuse, having taken in Witch Factor of Sloth, which he was incompatible with, was driven mad and became the new Sin Archbishop of Sloth. Similarly, the conflict ended when Emilia, in her grief and rage of losing her mother figure, Fortuna, froze over the entire forest, herself included, leaving Pandora to take her leave after wiping Emilia’s memory, with her goal incomplete.
The forest and elves remained totally frozen for the next century, and sometime after Emilia was awakened from her slumber, she made up her resolve to undo the damage, leading her to taking part in the Royal Selection and setting up the course of events that lead into the present-day story.
Background[]
For as long as she could remember, Emilia lived in a room named the “princess room” until one day, a “fairy” guided her outside. She witnessed her aunt Fortuna, Archi Elior, and the other elves meet with Petelgeuse, but quickly had to return to her room. A fairy returned at a later day to show her outside once again, and this time, she learned of the existence of Elior Forest's seal and was led to it by the fairy. On her way back, she adventitiously met Petelgeuse. From then on, Fortuna was less strict about keeping her cooped within her room at all times.
The Arrival of Greed and Vainglory[]
As Fortuna and Petelgeuse were walking through the forest with a playful Emilia who had learned that the “fairies” she knew were lesser spirits, they encountered a lone man standing in their path. Having come to take Fortuna as his 79th wife, he came to the forest and began his snide speech about his rights. However, Petelgeuse and Fortuna still questioned who he was, to which he called himself the Sin Archbishop of Greed, Regulus Corneas. Petelgeuse stated he had made it so that only he and those he took with him were allowed to enter the forest and asked why he was here, to which Pandora made her appearance, to the spirit’s tremendous shock, claiming that Regulus was brought there by her command. Then, she said that her goal was to open the seal and complete the ultimate goal of the Witch Cult.
Intending to avenge her brother and his wife, Fortuna release several ice spells against her, piercing her body numerous spells, and dropped a block of ice on both her and Regulus. However, with Regulus complaining about his life being trampled on, he easily shattered the ice, revealing both himself and Pandora to be completely uninjured. Wishing for the two to escape, Petelgeuse had Fortuna take Emilia and run. Wishing to get rid of both of his enemies, Petelgeuse decided to pull out the Witch Factor of Sloth, and, apologizing to Flugel for his decision, he implanted the Factor into himself, something which caused Regulus some distress, and Pandora to tell him to prepare himself.
Petelgeuse confronts the Witch of Vainglory.
After a grueling and painful transformation, Petelgeuse used his Unseen Hands to grab Regulus by his foot and slam him into the ground nearby with incredible force. Impressed by his decision, Pandora granted the spirit the title of Sloth, to which he claimed not to want. After she asked what he saw with his eyes, he claimed he saw hope and attempted to attack Pandora. However, his attack was intercepted by Regulus, who once again had taken no damage whatsoever. Deciding he needed to get rid of Greed first, Petelgeuse unleashed many invisible attacks against him.
Despite his newfound strength, he merely exhausted himself as he continuously failed to injure the Sin Archbishop or even make him budge. Annoyed, Regulus released a single attack with his Authority, severing the spirit’s arm from his body. Mocking Petelgeuse, he stomped on his head and prepared to crush it under his foot. However, he was stopped when Fortuna returned and unleashed El Huma against him, sending him flying backwards. Having come back to make sure that Petelgeuse wasn’t alone, they prepared to confront Pandora again. Regulus, angered at being interrupted from killing Petelgeuse, was prepared to kill them. Pandora, however, told him to calm down, leading him to try and kill her by turning her into nothing more than a bloody mist. Despite this, she not only survived, but she sent him away and completely undid all of the damage that was caused by his appearance, with the exception of Petelgeuse taking in the Witch Factor. With all the distractions out of the way, Pandora confronted the two.
The Great Freeze[]
Having been sent away by Petelgeuse, Fortuna brought the frightened Emilia to their home, where Archi was waiting for them. Fortuna intended to return to Petelgeuse’s side and tasked Archi with taking Emilia and escaping, claiming that if the seal in the forest were to be opened, the world would end this time. After saying her goodbyes to Emilia, she left, and Archi ran as fast as he could with Emilia, attempting to comfort her as she was afraid of what might happen to Fortuna and Geuse. They met one of Petelgeuse's fingers, a member of the Romanée-Conti family, along the way. However, the Black Serpent, which Pandora had led there, managed to attack the finger, killing him, and then hit Archi’s leg, corrupting it with some form of disease. Severing his leg and freezing it, he told Emilia that he was fine and created an illusion of flowers, telling Emilia to run in that path and that he would catch up. With Emilia gone, the disease took over his entire body.
Running as fast as she could, Emilia, guided by the lesser spirits that had helped her before, eventually found her way to the giant pair of doors that she had found before, where she found Pandora waiting for her. Pandora, who had been responsible for manipulating the lesser spirits, attempted to persuade Emilia with opening the seal, helping her to see the key that she was unaware she had. With Pandora attempting to push her into opening the seal, Emilia said that she had made a promise with Fortuna not to come near the seal, which Pandora found to be admirable. Soon after, Fortuna arrived and attempted to kill Pandora again to protect Emilia. However, with every successful attack seemingly managing to kill the Witch, she merely appeared nearby, apparently unaffected. She even used an illusion to make it appear as though Fortuna slapped Emilia, toying with her the entire time.
Fortuna is killed.
As Fortuna stated her resolve to keep the Witch from the seal and protect Emilia, Petelgeuse appeared, his vision red with his own blood. Using his Unseen Hands, he attempted to kill Pandora with a sneak attack. However, after apparently piercing through her, the illusion he was under faded, and it was revealed that he had instead struck Fortuna, leading Petelgeuse to breaking down. With Fortuna dying, she tried to comfort Emilia as she passed. Pandora appeared behind Emilia and said that the person which she made the promise with was now dead and that the promise no longer needed to be upheld, intending to use this to have her open the seal.
Pandora’s attempt backfired dramatically. After taking Fortuna’s hairpin into her hair, Emilia told Pandora to die and attacked her with ice. Though Pandora survived and attempted to persuade her again, Emilia ignored her and told her to die again, proceeding to attack her with yet another attack. Realizing that her attempt did not go as planned, Pandora was told to die repetitively and received many fatal attacks: being crushed between ice, pierced by a beautiful ice structure, completely frozen over, to name a few. Unfortunately, Emilia could no longer her own power and merely continued to yell at the Witch to die, unleashing an intense cold from her body.
With the tremendous amount of power she held within her body, which Pandora claimed to be even stronger than her own, Emilia accidentally froze over the entire forest, freezing all of the remaining elves completely solid. The ice even started to freeze over her own small body. Pandora decided to completely wipe her memory of this day, putting Emilia in a trance of sorts as her power continued to run wild. Leaving Emilia to freeze over, she walked over to Petelgeuse, who was still in the maddening sadness of having killed Fortuna himself. Whispering something into his ear, she finally drove the spirit fully mad, and she left with him in tow. In the end, Emilia was left completely frozen over, and the forest and the people within were completely coated with ice and snow.
Aftermath[]
Directly following the permafrost of the forest, Puck found Emilia, and he would proceed to spend decades watching over her until eventually unfreezing her. The Kingdom of Lugunica maintained the belief that the permafrost of the forest to have been caused by a great spirit, and so they decided against treading there to not rouse the spirit's anger. Petelgeuse delved into insanity, becoming the Sin Archbishop of Sloth, which effectively extinguished the Witch Cult's moderate faction. The incident, serving as an example of Emilia's power, came to influence the conflict between Puck and Melakuera nine decades later, culminating in The Day of Red Earth and Sky. Around one hundred years after Emilia and the forest's permafrost,[1] the circumstances of said permafrost led her to joining the running for the Royal Selection at the behest of Roswaal L. Mathers, her sponsor, in hopes of obtaining the Dragon's blood stored in the Royal Castle and unfreezing the elves with it. Around the time that The Day of Red Earth and Sky occurred, official records stated that the Great Elior Forest's permafrost had persisted for over one hundred years.[2]
During the Battle for Priestella, Regulus, having served as a Sin Archbishop for over a century and an indeterminate number of decades in total by that point,[3] would meet Emilia once again, taking her as a replacement for Fortuna, whom he had originally sought to make into his 79th wife. Though initially not recognizing her, after having the secret to his Authority discovered with the combined efforts of her and Subaru, and being sent into the underground of Priestella by Reinhard, he finally realized who she was. In his last moments before drowning, he could not bear to imagine the influence his death would have on her and the possibility of her celebrating getting revenge for Fortuna and Petelgeuse by defeating him. However, in a twist of irony, Emilia did not remember where she had met Regulus from.
Trivia[]
- In the nineteenth chapter of the web novel release of Arc 3, during the Royal Selection Ceremony, Roswaal stated that the permafrost suddenly occurred a hundred years ago. However, mentions of the time at which the forest's permafrost occurred were moved to Arc 4 in the light novel.
- In the web novel version of Choose Me, Puck told Beatrice that he spent three centuries wandering the world until he found Emilia.[4] However, this was cut from Volume 15, and the only indication of Puck being within the forest during the century that Emilia was frozen for most of was in the Anastasia Camp chapter of Another Memory Snow, where Julius recounts a story from his grandfather about a “Phantom Father of the Snow” while he was along the border between Lugunica and Gusteko.
References[]
- ↑ “Apparently, it was about a hundred years ago.” Re:Zero Light Novel Volume 13, Chapter 3, Section 4.
- ↑ In the northeast in the Dragon Kingdom of Lugunica, the Great Elior Forest was known as the Frozen Forest. Within Lugunica, this forest was considered to be an extremely unusual environment, and according to records, its peculiarities had persisted for over a hundred years. Re:Zero Prequel: Bonds of Ice, Chapter 2, Section 1.
- ↑ I’ve been doing this for years, decades, a century and some decades, and unlike those other fools, I’ve carried out everything right as a Sin Archbishop. Re:Zero Light Novel Volume 19, Chapter 6, Section 1.
- ↑ “After I left you, I spent about three hundred years wandering the world before I finally found Lia. I’m not sure what you’re waiting for, Betty, but I know your wish will come true.” Arc 4, Chapter 129, Section 3.