From that morning, Subaru had about sixteen hours to kill—surely he could hold his concentration that long.
This way, he could figure out what would happen at Roswaal Manor beforehand and rush back to the manor immediately. This time Subaru would have the element of surprise on his side.
If he’d remained at the mansion, Subaru would be one more victim of the attacker’s curse. With limited means of counterattack and low overall combat ability, Subaru couldn’t take on the attacker straight up. He desperately needed any shred of information he could get on the assassin.
So, what to do? Subaru had come up with a simple answer.
“This time, my goal is to identify the attacker and nail down the details of the attack…even if it kills me.”
Having died twice so far, Subaru had determined that the attack was an assassination having to do with the royal succession. He didn’t know if he’d been collateral damage with Emilia as the main target or if he’d been killed as some kind of message to her. But having been murdered twice already, Subaru considered it highly likely everyone close to her was being slaughtered.
“Putting aside if countermeasures will work…seems like Roswaal has his guard up anyway…”
Subaru based that on the premise that Roswaal, the nobleman with a scheming mind behind his clown face, was not such a fool as to leave his king piece, bearing the name of Emilia, defenseless on the chessboard. The existence of Ram and Rem, the two servants he’d left behind at the mansion, was further evidence.
“To be honest, at first I thought it was nuts to have just two maids taking care of a huge mansion like that, but…”
They were lord and vassal, their mutual trust rock solid, bonds of loyalty formed through long service. Seeing Ram’s slavish devotion and Rem’s adoration of her had told him that much.
Roswaal had surely surrounded Emilia with people who would never betray him. The fact that one maid had retired several months before, yet, according to Ram, no replacement would be hired, assured him Emilia would be protected.
“The problem is, I don’t know if they’re on guard enough, given that I died from the attack already. If I’m the only one who died, well, good… Wait, that’s not good.”
If Roswaal’s defense plans simply didn’t account for Subaru, a wild card, then all was well and good. If it wasn’t so, that meant Emilia would come to harm as well.
And Subaru, having died three times at the capital and two at the manor, was accustomed by now to reality foiling the best of plans.
You needed to expect the worst case…and then expect worse than that.
“Here, the worst case is that Roswaal’s guard is down and Emilia gets assassinated. Of course, that’d mean Roswaal, Ram, Rem, and then Beatrice get slaughtered, too… Ugh, damn it.”
Just picturing the worst-case scenario filled him with disgust.
Though it was to stop all that, he wanted to vent at his entirely logical decision to watch events unfold from the outside.
Of course Subaru, who wore his heart on his sleeve, planned to stay on guard the whole time, ready to instantly rush back to the manor if anything happened, running around and warning of the enemy attack, but…
“Well, it’d be nice if the guy’s super cautious and runs off just from my yelling at him, right?”
Subaru voiced the optimistic view as he pulled a rope out of his knapsack. It was a rather long rope he’d borrowed from the manor’s warehouse. Subaru firmly tied one end around the trunk of a nearby tree and the other around his own waist. He used complex knots along the way as if his life depended on it, which it kind of did.
“And last, the knife to cut the rope… She’d probably be ticked off if she knew I was using it like this.”
As he spoke, he took out the knife that he’d lovingly dubbed Shooting Star. In the present loop, he’d been in a position to lay his hands on it for the first time only that day.
“I used it a whole bunch during the four days of the other loops, though.”
During his time doing odd jobs as a servant, Subaru’s kitchen duties mainly involved peeling vegetables and washing tableware. Shooting Star was the beloved blade that Subaru had used to cut potato-like veggies, apples, and, from time to time, his own hand. When, this time, he’d come up with a plan that required a knife, he grabbed that one without a second thought.
“Hopefully just for cutting the rope, but if worse comes to worst…”
The knife was not only to facilitate his escape but to wound himself if the time came, for surely stimulation from the pain of self-harm would make him able to resist the gnawing sleepiness of the curse.
If worse came to worst, he might have to turn that blade upon the enemy. And if it was worse than that—
“For suicide, huh? Geez…can I do that? Something that scary…”
Subaru looked at himself reflected in the blade’s edge as a laugh at his own expense came over him.
As he looked at the blade in his hand, memories of Ram and Rem rose in the back of his mind. Ram had insulted Subaru for his clumsy knife work; Rem had shot him shocked sideways glances when he’d cut his own hand with the knife. They angrily shouted things like, Do not cut what you are not supposed to.
“…They’d be angry with me for misusing it like this, too, wouldn’t they?”
He could totally picture in his mind both girls angry with him, with Ram glaring down at him and Rem looking aghast.
Ahh, that scene was just—
“They’d be totally pissed, huh… I hope they would be…”
The longing words leaked out from his lips. One way or another, he truly wanted to bury himself in that day-to-day life again.
“I don’t wanna die— I don’t wanna let them die…”
Subaru said it for his own benefit as he remembered the faces of the people he’d only just said good-bye to.
Subaru had cast away Emilia and the others to prepare for the next loop. Yet this time, just like the last times, he’d formed definite bonds with the girls.
He suppressed his throbbing chest. This was his punishment, the natural price to pay for what he had done.
It was a cross to bear that Subaru, having formed a plan premised on losing something, could not shirk. He had to carry both the sweet and the bitter thoughts with him.
Subaru had spent those thrown-away four days prying open that raw wound, enduring pain like that of having his flesh gouged and his bones broken, all so that he would remember it.
“You said it yourself, Subaru Natsuki. Even if everyone else forgets…you’ll remember.”
That was why he couldn’t think of this time as something he could forget.
Subaru had to continue to crave a happy ending until the last possible moment. No one had the right to decide that Emilia and the others were no more than bubbles on the edge of the time stream.
Subaru kept hidden among the trees as he observed Roswaal Manor. The resolve permeating his presumably stressed body quieted his breathing and lowered his heart rate.
He felt like his body was acting in accordance to his will in a way it never had before.
Trusting his body to that hard-earned feeling, Subaru stayed put and waited for time to pass.
6
As evening drew near, the setting sun bathed the hill Subaru was on in an orange light. Squinting from the sun’s rays, Subaru moved his tense body around, shaking out the cobwebs.
He’d already been watching the manor for something like eight hours. During that time, there had been no sign of anything unusual; the mansion remained entirely peaceful. So things really were fine there until night fell.
“Come to think of it, Rem didn’t go shopping this time…”
There had been no sign of the Day Four event of Rem going shopping. Perhaps she simply didn’t need to because Subaru’s departure meant one less mouth to feed. It was an odd discrepancy.
When Subaru realized he was smiling at the memories, his sense of tension lifting, he pinched his own
cheek. This wasn’t the place or time to let up on his concentration.
“Like I can do something stupid like that with eight hours to go. Concentrate, concentra—”
He stopped mid-word. For better or worse, it was at the very moment Subaru switched gears that the attack came.
“—!”
The instant his eardrums detected a faint sound, Subaru dove to the side without hesitation.
He’d devoted his five senses to determining when to do the evasive maneuver he’d settled on beforehand.
The next moment, he heard something exceptionally heavy make a smashing sound, snapping trees in two. The trees all around him, plus their leaves and branches, came down with a wild cacophony of snapping sounds.
Amid all that, Subaru rushed straight for the cliff and leapt straight down.
“—Aa!”
Even clenching his teeth, he couldn’t stop himself from letting out a faint cry, his insides turning over from the weightless feeling of falling. But his lifeline cut that short after two long seconds. He let out an anguished cry from the pain of the ropes biting in.
“Emergency escape…!”
Cutting the rope with his knife, he resumed his descent, the bottoms of his shoes digging into a slanted rock face. Sliding and hitting his shoulder, Subaru landed on the ground roughly, somehow keeping his footing, and ran without pausing for breath.
He tossed away the knapsack to lighten the load, breathing raggedly as he ran without a care for proper form.
“I saw it! Yeaaaah…I totally saw it!”
The object that had attacked Subaru by surprise and mowed down various trees was a spiked iron ball as large as a man’s skull. It was basically a killer bowling ball on a really, really long chain—the weapon known as a “morning star.”
Subaru had hit the dirt when his eardrums picked up the faint metallic sound of that horrible weapon’s chain.
Having witnessed its fiendish power for himself, Subaru still wasn’t biting with his teeth lined up right.
The way that thing had flown at him, his body probably would have been splattered if it had connected. Now Subaru could understand how half his body had been sent flying.
“But…he came here, huh?!”
He stomped on branches, leapt across a gulch, and raced across areas with poor footing.
Subaru had anticipated that he might be attacked. Having distanced himself from the manor, he determined that an attack on him was just as possible as a raid on the mansion itself. If the objective was to kill anyone involved, Subaru was still on that list.
“But that’s based on knowing I was at the mansion since days ago!”
That would mean the assailant had been observing the mansion for several days, drawing up plans in secret.
“—!”
Out of breath, he’d lost his way, focusing on not tripping as he headed down a game trail.
Subaru, breathing roughly, clicked his tongue at the scene unfolding before him.
“So I’ve been totally dancing on the other guy’s palm?”
Dismayed, Subaru stood before a cliff that hemmed him in.
Looking at the hard, jagged rock wall, it was like a natural fortress for resisting all attempts to climb. Naturally, Subaru had no way at the moment to overcome that obstacle.
Subaru turned around and girded himself, taking deep, ragged breaths.
The forest before him had grown darker at some point, with the trees filtering out the setting sun, making him feel cut off from the world and very, very alone.
“If you’re coming, bring it on…!”
Subaru shoved away his misgivings, opening his track jacket in front and stripping it off. He spread out the track jacket with both hands, quietly waiting for his assailant to arrive.
He was being pursued. He’d been backed into a corner. That moment, Subaru felt as helpless as prey caught in a predator’s trap. But he wasn’t so cute and helpless that he’d let himself get eaten without a fight.
He’d make the other guy earn it.
“Damn it…you coming or not?!?”
Subaru’s body demonstrated uncanny reflexes toward the lethal attack before his eyes.
He raised the track jacket aloft with both hands, catching the flying iron ball from below, enveloping it as he barely evaded by the skin of his teeth a ferocious strike to his body.
But the top was ripped from his hands as his body smacked against the wall with an undiluted impact.
But the moment Subaru lifted his eyes and saw that the iron ball, having missed its target, was stuck in the face of the cliff just as he’d hoped, he got a firm grip on the elongated chain.
Then he glared down the chain he gripped—in the direction of the assailant holding the other end.
“Now, show yourself, bastard! I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to see your face!!”
He raised an angry shout and talked trash to lift his own spirits.
Gripping the chain in one hand, he used the other to re-grip the knife he’d cut the rope with earlier. He resolved to swing it in the assailant’s face if worse came to worst. If it came to that, Subaru wouldn’t hesitate.
His eyes hardened. He wouldn’t run no matter who or what came out.
His life was in grave peril, but somehow, he was still alive. Maybe he didn’t have to throw away this time; maybe it was still possible to drive off the assailant.
Having already given up once, Subaru desperately reached out for any glimmer of hope.
Perhaps that glimmer was Emilia. Perhaps it was the maid twins. Perhaps it was that cheeky little girl or maybe Roswaal. Without intending to, Subaru forgot his situation, remembering the collection of memories he thought he’d shoved aside.
He’d made promises. Promises he had to keep.
But then…
“—You leave me no choice,” she said.
The chain made a sound. He felt slack in the chain as its wielder drew closer.
But Subaru didn’t pick up those subtleties as his eyes opened wide.
He couldn’t speak. His lips quivered as a whimper came out of his throat. Unintentionally, his fingers grasping the chain let go as he made a small, listless shake of his head, as if rejecting the reality before him.
Walking on the grass, stepping over branches, a young girl emerged from the darkness.
She was wearing a black, rather short apron dress. She wore a white lace hairpiece. She gripped a handle chained to the iron ball thoroughly unsuited to her small stature.
Her blue hair rustled in the wind as she made a familiar tilt of her head, a neutral look on her face.
“…You’re kidding, right, Rem?”
One of the girls Subaru had meant to protect was wielding the fiendish iron ball before him.
7
Instantly, the back of Subaru’s mind was completely filled with white noise.
He desperately wanted to deny the sight before his eyes, but he could think of nothing that would let him.
—Subaru’s thoughts were white, pure white, with nothing in them whatsoever.
His breathing stopped. His heart seemed to stand still, like it had forgotten to keep beating.
What freed Subaru from that state was the cold feel of the drop of sweat rolling down the skin of his forehead.
—This is bad. Bad bad bad bad bad bad.
His empty thoughts became filled over and over with violent unease and panic. No rational thoughts came. Was this truly Rem before his eyes?
Was this truly the Rem Subaru knew, her polite words sliding in like daggers, punctual to the point of obsession, doting on her impudent sister, harboring a serious inferiority complex?
With Subaru having lost his earlier will to fight, Rem looked at him as she ran her free hand through her hair.
“If you do not resist, I can grant you a quick end?”
“—You really think I’m gonna say yes? That’s like telling me to eat shit.”
“How very rude. Yes, I suppose that is in your natur
e, Dear Guest?”
Rem was behaving just like she had at the mansion, her curtsy and polite speech so thoroughly out of place that he felt like he really was seeing things.
But that could not make him dismiss the brutal foreign object in Rem’s hand.
“I’ll grant you that a girl with a blunt weapon is kind of hot, but…”
A spiked iron ball on a chain. A blunt weapon that could turn an opponent into mincemeat with one blow. Rem had to be quite a sadist to pick a weapon like that. Subaru, having tasted its might and losing his life to it once already, knew only too well that Rem’s control of the iron ball was absolute.
Little by little, Subaru ground the reality down between his teeth, his mouth forming the words he was reaching for.
“It’s kinda cliché to ask, but…why are you doing this?”
“It is nothing complicated. You are suspicious, so I will render judgment as a maid should.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of ‘love thy neighbor’…?”
“I am fully committed to this, so…”
Rem looked at Subaru like she expected a prompt response, apparently having no intention of letting him play for time. If he moved now, she’d kill him for sure.
It was less of a stalemate than staring down the barrel of a gun. Subaru’s brain spun as he desperately tried to wring a little info out of this without his anguish lowering his guard.
“—Does Ram know about this?”
Abruptly, he invoked the name of the sister sharing Rem’s face.
Ram wore three crowns: she was arrogant, rude, and overbearing. As a maid, she was inferior to her little sister in every respect, but Subaru had spent more time with Ram than anyone else at Roswaal Manor. If even Ram had become his enemy—what did those days they spent together mean?
That was why Rem’s reply was the one Subaru had sought without knowing it.
“I intend to finish this before Sister is aware of it.”
Subaru took a deep breath and looked back straight into Rem’s eyes. Rem raised her brows as she watched Subaru lick his lips as if he’d come back to life.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 2 Page 17
