ReZERO_Starting Life in Another World Vol. 6

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  Rem smiled at this Subaru, stating:

  “Let us start over from here, from step one… No, from zero!”

  “—”

  “If you find it difficult to walk alone, I shall support you. Let us divide the load and support each other as we walk. You said that to me on that morning, yes?”

  So let’s laugh, hug each other, and talk about tomorrow, he had said.

  Leaning on each other, supporting each other as they walked, he had said.

  “Please show me the best in you, Subaru.”

  He’d shown her nothing but the worst in him for the longest while. After all, it was Subaru himself who had cast the indelible “spell” upon her.

  It was his duty to take responsibility and see it through.

  “…Rem.”

  “Yes?”

  When he called her name, she quietly responded.

  He lifted his face. He looked straight ahead. He gazed into Rem’s eyes.

  Softly, gently, they awaited the reply from Subaru’s lips.

  So he wanted to be the Subaru Natsuki she loved so much.

  “—I…like Emilia.”

  “—Yes.”

  Seemingly knowing all along, Rem smiled and nodded at Subaru’s confession.

  He knew full well how cruel he was being to that smile, that gentleness, as he continued, “I want to see Emilia’s smile. I want to be in her future as a help to her. Even if she told me I’m in the way, not to come back… I want to be by her side.”

  Now that he’d accepted Rem’s feelings, he again voiced the feeling that remained unchanged inside him. But the way he felt it was different from before.

  “The idea that she’d put up with anything from me just because I liked her…was pretty arrogant, huh?”

  “—”

  “Even if she doesn’t get it right now, that’s fine. Right now, I want to save Emilia. If there’s a future of pain and suffering coming for her, I want to bring her to a future where everyone can smile.”

  So he offered his hand to Rem, right at his side, and asked, “Will you…help me?”

  He knew it was an underhanded way to respond to the feelings she had offered to him. He knew he was using her emotions. But it was that Subaru, the Subaru who would not give up on the future of those precious to him, whom she loved.

  “I can’t do anything by myself. I come up short in everything. I don’t have the confidence to just walk straight ahead. I’m so weak, fragile, and puny, so… Will you lend me a hand? Help keep me on the straight and narrow when I take a wrong turn?”

  “You are a terrible person, Subaru. Right after you dump a girl, you ask such a thing?”

  “Hey, it’s pretty tough for me to ask someone who turned down a once-in-a-lifetime proposal of mine, you know?”

  Rem was unable to hold back a little sigh at Subaru’s weak chuckle.

  They smiled at each other for a while. Then Rem straightened up, elegantly grasped the hem of her skirt, and in a display of perfect courtesy, she said, “If this will bring a future where Subaru, my hero, can smile, then I humbly accept.”

  “Yeah, you just watch. You’ll have a front-row seat.”

  Rem took the hand Subaru had offered as they exchanged their vows. She let out a small “Ah” as Subaru drew her close, burying her petite body in his chest. He was grateful that there existed a girl so soft, so warm, and who liked him so much.

  “—The man you fell in love with is gonna be the coolest hero there ever was!”

  It was hot within her breast.

  As Subaru embraced Rem, she buried her face in his chest, hiding her expression.

  Her breathing was hot. Her forehead and cheeks were hot as she rubbed them against him.

  But the tears flowing from her eyes were probably the hottest of all.

  —Even then, Subaru could not like himself. He still hated himself.

  But a girl had told Subaru she liked him.

  If there was a girl who could like him, just as he was…

  —Emilia was watching. Rem was watching. He could not yield.

  “—”

  The tale of Subaru Natsuki would begin anew.

  His life in another world would start over.

  —From zero.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE CARD THAT’S BEEN DEALT

  1

  The room was silent but filled with a strained sense of tension.

  Feeling that tension on his skin, Subaru moistened his parched lips with his tongue, grateful that arrangements for the first step of the scenario were in place.

  To Subaru, each and every face now present was absolutely indispensable. After all, he had no strength of his own. Lacking ability and manpower, all he could do by himself was to die in vain as he had done to that point.

  “Now I can finally understand why you have gathered us here and delayed my supper.”

  Crusch Karsten, sitting on the sofa with her hands crossed atop her knees, broke the silence, murmuring with a look of understanding on her gallant face.

  “Reawwy? To be honest, Ferri still has some doubts, meow. I mean, how does such a clumsy boy get that look in his eyes all of a sudden?”

  With an expression as casual as his tone, Ferris kept his guard up as he gazed at Subaru. He was brimming with a willingness to defend his lord from any danger.

  “—”

  In contrast to Ferris, Wilhelm kept his silence as he sat to Crusch’s left. Wearing his sword on his hip, the aged swordsman closed his eyes, with only his refined martial spirit hovering about him. There was no trace remaining of the warmth with which he had greeted them upon their return from the lower city. Now, he was wholly immersed in his role as a man wielding his sword for his master, Crusch, rather than for himself.

  Subaru was meeting Crusch and her retainers in the reception room of her residence, a place of which Subaru had few good memories. Twice in the past, he had endured bitter hardships there.

  He was meeting with Crusch, Ferris, and Wilhelm. That much was the same as before. But there was something different this time.

  “It feels somewhat uncomfortable to be back so soon after my first visit. I fully expect that Mr. Natsuki will say something to sweep away such misgivings.”

  The blond man of delicate features, defined by his comical beard, commented with a chuckle. This was Russel Fellow, a representative of the Merchant’s Guild who possessed great influence in the royal capital.

  Subaru lightheartedly slumped a little at Russel’s apparent diversion.

  “Rem’s calling one more person over right now, so please wait just a little longer. It isn’t guaranteed my guest is coming but…it’s a good bet.”

  “I await a prompt arrival. Incidentally, may I inquire as to your evidence for this ‘good bet’?”

  Russel didn’t even blink in the face of Subaru’s presumptuous statement. Subaru’s lips twisted as he faced off against a real merchant with a head, mouth, and tongue superior to his own.

  “It’s a simple story. The person I invited is sensitive to the smell of money, or so I heard them say personally. If that’s true, there’s no doubt. That was true for you as well, wasn’t it, Russel?”

  “My, my, you certainly have me there.”

  Russel put a hand to his forehead, seemingly indicating that Subaru had scored a point on him. Of course, even Subaru wasn’t blithe enough to take the gesture at face value.

  He was well aware of the danger posed by the narrow tightrope he planned to walk. The rope was just about set to be tied on both ends.

  The crossing was yet to come.

  Subaru would do it, supported by the power of borrowed courage.

  A few minutes later, the door opened and a lone girl—Rem—appeared.

  “I am sorry to have kept you all waiting.”

  “That’s okay!”

  Subaru brought up his right thumb with a wink as she walked to his side and leaned her face close to his ear.

  “She said that she would be slightly
delayed but that she would definitely come.”

  “—That so. All right, good work, Rem.”

  With that, preparations for Subaru’s tightrope performance were complete.

  Before arriving at the negotiating table, he’d prepared the argument he would use to move the deal in the direction he desired. Subaru’s memories and experiences in this new world had led him to a single answer.

  “Apparently, the last participant will arrive slightly late, but all the actors will be on the stage. No point waiting any further—should we start?”

  Subaru’s statement brought a change in the air and various reactions from others in the room. Crusch made a thin smile; Ferris strongly pursed his lips. Wilhelm maintained his silence, his expression unchanging even then. Russel slowly sank into his chair.

  Seeing their reactions, Subaru took a deep breath and calmed his emotions.

  He could feel his own heart pounding rapidly. His blood circulated throughout his body. The deep anxiety simultaneously residing in his head made everything before his eyes seem to dim.

  But Rem, right beside Subaru, gently touched his sleeve in an effort to put him at ease.

  “Subaru.”

  She wasn’t holding his hand, nor was she asserting her own existence. That little act of consideration was very Rem-like. The sense of relief enveloping him was as if ten thousand cavalry were riding to his aid.

  Rem was watching. He could not disappoint.

  “—Okie.”

  Subaru hid his fears behind an impetuous smile and challenged the first wall.

  He needed to thread the eye of a needle, both to get to a Happy End and to take one step closer to becoming a hero—for the sake of the girl who believed in him, the girl who’d told him she liked him.

  Just as Subaru lifted his spirits and faced forward, Crusch raised a finger and spoke.

  “Subaru Natsuki, there is something I wish to confirm—I would hear, from your own lips, the purpose of this gathering.”

  As she sat, she raised a hand and rested her chin against it as her sagacious gaze landed on Subaru. Even though she knew full well the answer to her question, her posture showed no sign of softness that would allow Subaru to say so.

  Now that he had failed time and time again, he understood.

  —The game was on before he had even spoken a single word.

  “Of course, what I want is—”

  So Subaru made a grandiose gesture, smiling powerfully to keep himself from being cowed by Crusch’s rapier-like gaze and repeating his earlier failures.

  “A negotiation so that the Emilia camp and the Crusch camp can become allies on equal terms.”

  He thus began to challenge the first of many obstacles standing in his way.

  2

  The exchange with Rem along Main Street had made Subaru decide to restart in a true sense.

  This was his sincere answer to Rem, who’d told Subaru she believed in him even after he’d bared everything inside his heart. Thanks to that, he gained a clear awareness of what he had to do.

  “There’s way too many walls I have to climb over to get there, huh…?”

  The sheer number of the obstacles standing in their way didn’t change the fact that they were one move away from checkmate.

  Subaru scratched his head as if he was trying to put his thoughts in order.

  “But I’ve still gotta do something. Will you help me, Rem?”

  “Yes. If that is what you desire, Subaru…”

  Rem readily nodded.

  Even after Subaru opened up to her, the same trust hovered in Rem’s eyes as before. They lit two fires inside Subaru: courage and a sense of duty.

  Subaru no longer held any thought of hiding from Rem his own humiliation and panic at having his hands tied. After all, he’d half bawled his eyes out while venting every complex he had. Rem, too, had revealed truths that had raged within her; in a true sense, Subaru and Rem were now friends for life.

  And because Subaru had set his heart on something, his head remained remarkably clear.

  “First, let’s double-check the time we have left. If we head back now, that’ll be just under an hour…and then…”

  As previously established, the time limit until the Witch Cult caused upheaval in the Mathers domain was five days—or rather, to be precise, they had a grace period of only four and a half days. He also needed to consider the sealing of the highway during that time. In reality, he had only two days to prepare.

  “And those two days are full of unavoidable problems to deal with.”

  The number and nature of the barred gates they had to bust through put previous sets of loops to shame. Clearing any of them alone was hopeless. A fist large enough to smash through the lot of them was required.

  The first problem was, naturally, the Witch Cult. If they didn’t stop the fanatics under Petelgeuse’s command, there was no way to save anyone at the mansion, let alone the residents of the village.

  The second was, though the killer and means had been varied, Rem’s certain death.

  Even if Rem went with Subaru, fate would invariably lead her to her death. The first time, she’d died far from where he could see. And he had been despondent when she was lost to him before his very eyes the second and third times. It was no exaggeration that the shock was what had driven Subaru down the path of giving up entirely.

  The third problem was that Emilia’s death would trigger an indiscriminate rampage by Puck, the Great Spirit.

  Thinking back, Subaru deemed the possibility that Puck had been the cause of his death on all three loops to be very high. When he considered his icy demises from the first time around through the third, he was almost certain of it.

  All those walls were formidable, but all three had to be grappled with, or else the future world Subaru Natsuki wanted to live in would be lost. That would mean betraying the image of the hero who Rem believed in.

  “—Whole bunch of ’em.”

  Subaru murmured under his breath, underlining the depth of the problem.

  Rem, watching Subaru as he sank into thought, made no reply to his murmur, nor had Subaru been looking for one. Subaru knew that she was simply waiting for the words that had to follow.

  She was waiting for the best judgment of how she might contribute greatest to the hero she loved the most. That was the present Rem’s reason for existing and her ultimate means of expressing her love.

  With Rem silently watching him, Subaru used his limited time to search his memories for any clue, any way to break out of the trap of limited time.

  —His head tied itself into knots. His mind was on fire. Neither his flesh, nor his abilities, could live up to those current ideals.

  —Think. Remember.

  To not let his death that third time be in vain, to not let the will of the girl he’d let die that third time be lost in vain, Subaru’s mind assembled everything that had happened during that third, finished world into one heavy pile.

  The people he’d met. The conversations he’d had. Partings. Encounters. Anger, madness, sadness, despair, recovery.

  And—

  “There’s a…possibility?”

  Suddenly, something little more than a single option rose up in the back of his mind. Each of the threads was weak, so fragile that tying them together threatened to make them collectively snap. They seemed far too unreliable to rest his hopes upon.

  —But he was all in. It was worth a shot.

  “Rem. We need to talk. I have a few things I wanna ask you.”

  “Yes?”

  Subaru sought Rem’s cooperation in drafting the plan that he’d only just thought of in his head.

  “Now that Emilia’s participating in the royal selection, it looks like the Witch Cult is gonna move. If they go after Emilia, there’ll no doubt be harm to the mansion and the village. I wanna stop that.”

  “The Witch Cult…”

  A grave look came over Rem’s eyes the instant she heard the words. But as Rem nodded at Su
baru’s words, her self-control held those emotions in check.

  “Master Roswaal also has concerns that the Witch Cult might make a move. Though I do not know the details, I believe that he has studied the matter and drawn up countermeasures.”

  “But that’s not gonna be enough.”

  In fact, Subaru didn’t really know what countermeasures he’d taken against the Witch Cult. He didn’t know if they hadn’t been executed or if they had just proven ineffective. Either way, whatever preexisting preparations Roswaal had set weren’t up to the task, and he knew that hell would come to pass without fail.

  Now that Subaru knew that future, he had to secure the power to protect the lives at the mansion and the village without relying on Roswaal.

  “I’m pretty sure the Witch Cult is gonna come in a quick, decisive battle. Rem, what does the mansion have to fight with?”

  “…This is a difficult thing to tell you, but the possibility Master Roswaal is absent from the mansion is quite high. He had planned to visit an important associate within his domain upon his return from the royal capital.”

  Based on Rem’s prevaricating reply, the situation was the same as last time. Roswaal wasn’t there. The only people at the mansion at present were Emilia, Ram, and Beatrice. Only three people, and one of them was Beatrice. He was deeply suspicious that the uncooperative girl would willingly engage the Witch Cult in battle.

  That made Subaru recall the exchange between Beatrice and him the last time around, if only a brief one. He remembered that he’d asked Beatrice to kill him. He remembered Beatrice’s face, turning eyes toward him like that of a child whose hopes had been betrayed—

  “Right now…I’ve gotta set that aside.”

  Subaru somehow brushed off the girl’s tearful gaze and faced Rem once more.

  “So that leaves two people to fight. Even if you and I go back there, we’d just be two drops against a bucket.”

  “As the majority of the main residence’s fighting strength rests with Master Roswaal’s personal abilities, I cannot deny it. If Frederica was still with us, it might be a different story, but…”