Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 9

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  “It means that you’re belittling my rights…the very few things I personally own, yes?”

  A chill raced up Rem’s spine. The next moment the man moved. Without warning, he listlessly raised his dangling arms, and a faint vortex of wind erupted.

  Right after, in a line directly above the man’s arms—the ground, the air, the world, broke.

  “—”

  Around and around, around and around, Crusch’s left arm, severed at the shoulder, danced in the air.

  The arm, still posed as if it were holding the invisible blade, flew, scattering blood droplets all around as it fell to the earth. The blow sent Crusch’s body crumpling down; she began to convulse from the bleeding and intense pain.

  “Lady…Crusch—”

  After spending several seconds dumbfounded, Rem snapped back and leaped toward Crusch. Putting her hand against Crusch’s bleeding wound, Rem wrung out the scant mana she had to stop the bleeding and treat it with all her strength.

  Crusch’s arm had been cleanly severed—flesh, bone, and nerves sliced through. No matter how out of place, Rem couldn’t help but admire the terrifyingly perfect cut.

  “Ferr…is… Uaa…u?”

  In Rem’s arms, Crusch’s vision wandered as she spoke those words. Her right hand gripped Rem’s foot hard enough to make her bones creak.

  Rem bit down, enduring Crusch’s struggle to live. She glowered at the wicked deed of the man before her.

  Rem had absolutely no understanding of the indecipherable man’s means of attack and defense. As she pondered how to shield the wounded Crusch and get her away from the man, Rem suddenly realized that something else felt off.

  During all of this, the other knights had strangely not joined the battle.

  “Aaah… No matter how much I eat, it’s still not enough! This is why we can’t stop livin’. Eat, eat, bite, chew, swallow, swallow more, tear, crush, drink! Gorge! Aaah, that was a feast!”

  The same time the insight hit her, the high-pitched voice of a youth reached her from behind.

  A chill equal to that caused by the man before her caused Rem to look back in fright. And behind her, at the center of the stopped convoy of dragon carriages, she saw a blood-smeared youth kicking the knights who had fallen before him.

  He was a short youth with light-brown hair that went down to the knees. His height was equal to Rem’s or even lower; he was probably twelve or thirteen years of age. Under his unkempt hair, he wore tattered clothes over his diminutive frame. His bare limbs were covered in dirt and grime, and stained from large amounts of blood spatter.

  Not one of the knights tumbled at his feet was moving. The youth had wiped out the surrounding knights while Crusch was battered in the white-haired man’s attack.

  “You…are…?”

  Rem’s lips quivered, for she was dumbfounded that she had not even sensed the combat taking place.

  Hemmed in by bizarre opponents to the front and the back, Rem picked Crusch up and slowly backed away. Blood flowing from Crusch’s wound was staining the grassland red; the air felt chill, as if to mock Rem’s fearful heart.

  Rem’s trembling question prompted man and boy to glance at each other’s faces. Then the pair nodded, as if giving each other a signal, whereupon devilish smiles came over both, as if such violent acts were deeply familiar to them; then they introduced themselves.

  “Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins of the Witch Cult, Regulus Corneas, charged with Greed.”

  “Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins of the Witch Cult, Lye Batenkaitos, charged with Gluttony.”

  2

  They were members of the Witch Cult—and archbishops at that.

  Ignoring Rem, who froze when their titles reached her ears, the excitable-looking youth—Lye Batenkaitos—looked around at the fallen knights, fondly licking his lips.

  “Oh yeah, coming here for a bite like this was a great idea. Considering that they took out our pet, this is…a rich harvest. It’s nice, it’s great, it’s neat, it’s all right, it’s good, it’s good, it’s great, isn’t it, of course it’s great! It’s been a while since we’ve been able to eat our fill!”

  “To be honest, I just can’t understand that part about you. Why can you not be satisfied with what you have right now? You know, people can only carry what will fit in the two hands they are born with. Why can’t you understand that and hold your own cravings in check?”

  “We hate lectures, and we don’t need any. We don’t care if what you say is right or wrong, either. To us, nothing matters besides the feeling of an empty stomach.”

  Batenkaitos of Gluttony slurped his saliva as Regulus of Greed let his shoulders sink.

  With two Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins having appeared simultaneously, Rem desperately searched her nearly stalled head, earnestly hammering out a plan to break out of the situation.

  With the combat ability present, it was impossible to crush the two men who had appeared before them.

  Crusch’s bleeding had stopped, but she was in nearly as precarious a condition as before. As it was unclear if the knights were dead or alive, Rem could not count on them to bolster her fighting strength. Rem herself had depleted her tiny reserve of mana by treating Crusch; even if she went into demon mode, she could not picture an outcome where she was triumphant.

  “—”

  When she glanced around the area, she could not see any sign of the Iron Fangs. One of their units was transporting the wounded beast men and hauling the recovered head of the White Whale. Likely their commander, Hetaro, had seen an opportunity and beat a hasty retreat. Perhaps, if she bought some time, they might return with reinforcements.

  Even if that was true, she doubted they would arrive in time.

  “Are you here because…we defeated the White Whale? To avenge the demon beast…?”

  “Ahh, don’t misunderstand. We’re not interested in the dead White Whale. We’re interested in the people who killed the White Whale. Somehow it did whatever it liked for four hundred years, but you managed to kill it. I hoped you all would be ripe for the slaughter…but it turned out even better than I expected!”

  Batenkaitos bared his very sharp teeth as he wildly shook his head in vigorous excitement.

  “Love! Chivalrous spirit! Hatred! Tenacity! Triumph! All bottled up and simmering for such a long, long time! Just having them passing down my throat makes me feel full! Is there a more beautiful food in the entire world?! No, no, nay, nothing, surely nothing, certainly nothing, absolutely nothing!! Drink! Gorge! That is what brings joy to our hearts, and our stomachs!!”

  Rem couldn’t understand anything he said.

  Batenkaitos continued to writhe as if he’d dined to excess. As his laughs reverberated for a time, Rem silently shifted her gaze; that gaze caused Regulus to wave a hand with an exasperated look.

  “Relax. I’m not anything like him. I’m just here by pure coincidence. You think I hunger and thirst like that? I have nothing to do with such vulgar behavior. Unlike him, always pathetically unfulfilled, I would be satisfied with, well, you, even as you currently are.”

  Regulus motioned to Crusch’s lopped-off arm, wearing a sunny expression as he stood before Rem.

  “I dislike…conflict and the like. If times remain ordinary, peaceful and gentle, that is enough for me. That is best. I have no ambitions greater than what I can reach with my meager hands. As an individual, my hands are full simply protecting what little I call my own.”

  Regulus closed his fist, drunk on his own performance. Rem wondered how someone who could take the lives of a land dragon and several humans, or inflict a grievous wound on a single woman, could speak like that.

  On the one hand was Batenkaitos, who writhed from incomprehensible hunger, immersed in self-satisfaction while waving around his pet self-serving theories; on the other was Regulus, a strange man through and through. They truly had to be Witch Cultists.

  Simmering anger welled up within Rem as she rose to her feet.

&
nbsp; Rem laid Crusch, sleeping like the dead, down on the ground; she lifted up her own weapon in Crusch’s place. Rem’s little remaining mana swirled around, and a number of icicles rose in the air around her.

  Seeing this, the expressions on Batenkaitos and Regulus changed.

  “Have you listened to a single word I said? I told you, I don’t want to fight. After hearing that, if you’re going to act like this, that would be…ignoring my opinion. That would be infringing upon my rights. That is something even my unselfish heart cannot forgive.”

  “Is that all you have to say, Witch Cultist?”

  As Regulus inclined his head, Rem spoke thus, her demeanor resolute. In contrast to Regulus, taken aback by the sight, a strong glint rested in Rem’s eyes as the chain of her iron ball rang out.

  “Someday a hero shall appear—a hero to destroy you all. However self-serving you are, however much misfortune your self-satisfaction creates, that man, the only hero Rem loves, shall surely bring you what you deserve.”

  “Heh, a hero? Well, that’s more fun. If you trust him that much, that’ll make him all the tastier for us!!”

  Batenkaitos clapped his hands in delight as he stared at Rem, seeming to assess her. He was looking at her neither as an enemy nor as a woman. There was but a single, undiluted sentiment resting in that gaze: that of a hungry beast licking its chops in front of its food.

  They were an ego run amok and a violent hunger demon. Rem boldly faced them both with pride.

  “I am a senior servant of Marquis Roswaal L. Mathers…”

  As Rem made her introduction, she stopped halfway after speaking her title, shaking her head.

  At that moment, for that instant only, Rem introduced herself the way she truly wished her name to be known:

  “Now I am but a woman in love—I am Rem, the woman assisting Subaru Natsuki, the man I love most, the man who will become a hero.”

  A beautiful white horn jutted out of Rem’s forehead, granting Rem vigor as it collected the mana stored in the air around her. Power filled her entire body as she moved the hand gripping the iron ball’s handle in a rhythmic motion and called forth more and more icicles.

  Her eyes were wide open. She was aware of the whole world around her. She felt the air around her. But the only thing traced by the back of her mind was an image of him.

  “Prepare yourselves, Archbishops of the Seven Deadly Sins—Rem’s hero shall surely come to strike you down!!”

  Raising her iron ball high, Rem leaped, her body shooting out, pounding the icicles home the same instant. Batenkaitos seemed set to strike them down as he opened his fang-filled mouth wide and spoke.

  “Ahh, that’s the spirit… Then, without holding back, let us feast!!”

  Something struck her. Something struck her. And in that instant, she thought…

  I hope that when he learns that I am gone, it sends a ripple through his heart.

  In her final moment, that was Rem’s only wish.

  CHAPTER 6

  TO EACH THEIR VOWS

  1

  As she lay on the bed, her face was tranquil, enough to make someone think she was merely asleep.

  When he looked at the lashes on the borders of her closed eyelids, he could absentmindedly think, Wow, it’s been a while. Her expression while awake was usually taut, but one could catch a true glimpse of her age on her face when she slept.

  Now that he thought of it, he’d never once had a chance to see her sleeping face.

  She was always waking up Subaru, always being strict with him, and only now did he realize just how lovely she looked when she let that hardness soften.

  He’d seen her surprised face, her blushing face, her pouting face, her crying face, and the smiling face she showed him when they’d made up. He’d had so many chances to realize it before.

  “—Rem.”

  Rem was not sleeping in the maid uniform she usually wore. There was no flower adornment for her pretty blue hair. To a maid, those were armor for battle—now she needed those things no longer.

  “So this is where you were.”

  Subaru was idly spending his time in that quiet, unmoving room when someone spoke to him.

  When he slowly turned around, he saw a woman standing at the room’s entrance wearing a light-purple dress. The woman had long, beautiful hair, and behaved with refined elegance as she walked over.

  But there was a faint bewilderment to her gait, as if she sensed something awry that did not match the nobility she had been born with. And when she approached, that discordant feeling spread to Subaru as well.

  “Is she…?”

  “Nothing’s changed at all. It’s not like I can do anything, so I’m just sticking around. It’s kind of pathetic how I’m clinging to her like this…”

  “I wonder if that might not…make her happy, somehow.”

  As Subaru hung his head, the woman timidly offered words of consolation. But those words, which could not possibly put his mind at ease, made Subaru unwittingly glare at her.

  “…I am sorry. It seems I went too far and offended you.”

  “…I’m sorry, too. I’m just frustrated. Rem would be angry with me. She’d say, ‘Subaru, you must not take things out on other people’ or something.”

  Subaru lowered his head to the apologetic woman, weakly smiling as he mimicked Rem’s manner of speech.

  In the back of his mind, he could hear her voice saying those exact words. And yet her voice reached no one. There was no one to point out that Subaru’s act was nothing like the real thing.

  Subaru’s hollow, farcical action made the woman before him don a pained look, covering her eyes. Without thinking, she shifted that right hand to her own left arm—holding it as if to support the freshly reattached limb.

  Silence descended on the room, and Subaru shook his head, knowing he could not allow it to continue. When you’re feeling despondent, continued silence becomes comfortable, and it is easy to become apathetic and stop your legs. But that was not what the man Rem believed in ought to do.

  “Did you…need something from me?”

  “Yes. The others have assembled in the office for some kind of discussion. It would be good to have…uh…”

  The woman looked like she’d been rescued by his prompting as she continued her words about the business he’d surmised. But halfway through those words, her cheeks awkwardly tensed. Seeing this, Subaru pointed to himself and spoke.

  “I’m…Subaru Natsuki.”

  “…I am sorry. Master Subaru Natsuki, is it? I shall properly remember. I am very sorry to have been so rude to you after all I have heard you have done for me.”

  “It can’t be helped. There’s way too many things you have to keep track of right now, so don’t worry about it.”

  The woman’s demeanor was genuinely apologetic—but the ill feeling from that very graceful, feminine behavior tore at his chest. He wasn’t rude enough to actually say that, though.

  “Well, I’ll see you later, Rem.”

  Turning his head back, Subaru gave the sleeping Rem a gentle pat on the head. Her chest faintly rose and fell; her body was warm to the touch. Her living, physical body was firmly present.

  For her, lost to the memories of others, that was the only thing that remained.

  “The office, you said. It’s bad to keep everyone waiting, so let’s go, I guess?”

  “Yes, let us do so, Master Subaru Natsuki.”

  The woman smiled charmingly as she addressed him by name. The fleeting femininity of the gesture really rubbed him the wrong way.

  Recognizing his distaste, Subaru turned his face aside, making an amiable smile to conceal what truly lay in his heart as he spoke.

  “Sorry to make you come all this way to get me…Crusch.”

  He addressed her by name, even though she already seemed to be another person entirely.

  2

  It was all over by the time Subaru arrived back at the royal capital.

  “Who’s Rem?”
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br />   Emilia had spoken those words to Subaru, turning her head to the side quizzically.

  Perhaps, if the words and gesture had given the slightest hint of Emilia making a bad joke, Subaru would have followed suit and said something flippant in turn.

  But Subaru had not seen even a single smidgen of such hope from Emilia’s demeanor, and as shock overtook Subaru, Emilia never broke into a Just kidding! no matter how long he waited.

  It was the same for Petra and the other children. None of them remembered Rem.

  Faced with that fact inside the dragon carriage, Subaru desperately had it race to the capital.

  It can’t be. There has to be some mistake. That was what he believed.

  After all, everything should have turned out all right. Subaru ought to have grabbed hold of the best possible outcome. He’d accomplished his objectives, protected the people precious to him, and overcome sadness and anguish, carrying on the struggle in spite of his heart being scarred many times over.

  And yet—

  “—”

  When Subaru’s feet stepped into the office, the gazes of those already in the room gathered upon him. He imagined the uncomfortable feeling he got from them was damage wrought from the blame they harbored toward themselves.

  The three people in the office were Emilia, Ferris, and Wilhelm. Adding the recent arrivals Subaru and Crusch, that made five people participating in the discussion.

  “…Ah, I’m glad you’re back. Lady Crusch, sorry I made you run an errand.”

  “Not at all. It’s quite all right, Master Ferr—”

  “—Ferris is fine. We’ve been together far too long, it’ll make me feel lonely if you add Master or anything else at this point, meow. No labels, okay?”

  Greeting Crusch upon her return, Ferris spun his words with a reassuring tone of voice. He’d stripped off his royal guard uniform in favor of a feminine outfit with a short skirt.

  Led by Ferris’s hand, Crusch looked conflicted when she sat beside him and spoke.