Natsuki Subaru is summoned to a parallel world on his way home from the convenience store. He's entranced at first by the fantasy world suddenly stretching before his eyes, but the cute girl he believes summoned him is nowhere to be found, and soon enough he's utterly lost. Then a gang of punks surrounds him, but he quickly learns that he doesn't have any of the powers that he thought all people transported to a parellel world should have. Just when he's about to be beaten senseless, a girl appears...

After being attacked by someone the first time, sliced open by Elsa the second time, and stabbed in the back by punks the third time, Subaru should have been dead, but found himself back where he started in the same parallel world every time. He finally realizes he’s acquired the power to go back to the time and place he started from, which he calls “Return by Death.” In hopes of changing the fate awaiting Felt, Satella, Old Man Rom, and himself, Subaru takes off for the fourth time.

The scattered pieces of the puzzle finally come together, and Subaru realizes for certain that the shaman who cursed him is in the village at the foot of the mountains. He heads there with Ram and Rem and makes sure all the villagers touch him so that he can find out, with Beatrice’s help, who cast the curse. But the truth he finds is not what he expected, and he finds himself rushing toward the village again…

As Emilia joins Priscilla, Crusch, and Anastasia in a meeting of the royal selection participants, Reinhard enters the hall with Felt. According to a new prophecy seen on the Dragon Stone, there are five priestesses with the potential to be the kingdom’s next ruler. Reinhard announces that Felt is the fifth priestess, meaning it’s time to formally begin the royal selection, but Felt refuses to have any part in it.

“I just wanted to protect her. That feeling wasn’t a lie. Where did I go wrong?” Rejected by the one who meant more to him than anything, Subaru is still unable to recognize that he may have done something irreversible. He then finds out that some disturbing movement has been detected within Roswaal’s domain, where Emilia and the others are. He’s certain that he can save them somehow, so in spite of Rem and Crusch’s opposition, Subaru makes his way back to Emilia…

Upon returning to Roswaal’s mansion, Subaru is greeted by an unbelievable sight and wails that this was not what he wanted to happen. Stricken with despair, everything before Subaru starts to go white as, finally, he hears a voice: “You were too late.”

Subaru laments that he could not do anything or save anyone, and has no options left. Exhausted, he suddenly takes off running at full speed as if he’s made a decision…

Subaru devises a new plan to correct the mistake of the blank letter sent to the manor, encourage the evacuation of the villagers and move Emilia away from her current location. With these preparations complete, he enacts the second part of his plan designed to cut off the Fingers before severing the Unseen Hand once and for all.

Emilia is hurriedly ushered to the capital along with the villagers under the orders of a mysterious benefactor while escorted by a rag-tag group of individuals from various and opposing factions. She has but one question on her mind: who could this man be and why would he go so far? Meanwhile, Subaru and Julius face off against the Archbishop of Sin Betelgeuse for the ultimate time. Unfortunately, he is very persistent even beyond death, belying his nature of Sloth. Subaru is relentlessly chased while he catches up to Emilia to save her one last time and answer her question.

Amid dying countless times, Subaru finally led the troops to victory against the White Whale and struck down the schemes of the Sin Archbishop of Sloth. After overcoming a painful ending to his these ordeals, he was reunited at last with his beloved Emilia…only to learn that Rem’s existence had been erased from the world, wiped out by the White Whale somewhere in the middle of his death loop. And now that the White Whale is defeated, Subaru and the others face a crisis no one could have expected.

After completing the final trial, Emilia emerges from the graveyard into a blizzard heavy enough to block her vision. The people of the Sanctuary and the villagers of Arlam huddle together behind a giant wall of ice, created to shield them from the bitter cold by none other than the great spirit who was once contracted to Emilia. When Emilia touches the ice wall, something flows into her from within it. With a nod of acknowledgement to the voice she hears, she finally takes action.

The magic Roswaal is using to control the weather generates enough mana to attract the Great Rabbit, which draws closer to the Sanctuary in a massive horde. Emilia takes Roswaal and Ram to shelter in the graveyard with everyone else, but the Great Rabbit horde has already grown enough to engulf their surroundings. Just when all hope seems lost, Subaru and Beatrice appear before Emilia. So begins Subaru and Beatrice's first battle against the Great Rabbit, one of the Three Great Mabeasts.