Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 2

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  “So you decided this on your own? Roswaal didn’t order you?”

  “I will eliminate all who oppose Master Roswaal’s wishes. You are merely one.”

  “Man, can’t he train his lapdogs not to bite at people just passing thro— Ugh?!”

  Subaru taunted Rem a little to probe Rem’s true feelings, only to have the chain leap in from the side.

  “You shall not insult Master Roswaal.”

  The blunt impact made his vision waver; a sharp pain conveyed the vertical cut in his left cheek.

  With the iron ball still stuck in the rock face, she’d smacked Subaru by using the chain as a whip.

  So that was the price he paid for his flippant taunt. But he’d gotten something for it.

  At the very least, he could now confirm that Rem’s loyalty to Roswaal was the real thing. She no doubt really believed silencing Subaru was for Roswaal’s benefit. She’d decided that Subaru’s leaving Roswaal Manor was disadvantageous for Roswaal, who was supporting Emilia’s candidacy.

  In other words, this was—

  “Ah, that’s what it is— That’s how little you trust me, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  Her grudging nod made Subaru feel pain equal to a sharp blade being thrust deep into his chest.

  Subaru had dreaded that answer, for accepting it meant looking at his days at the manor in an entirely different light. So Subaru didn’t say it. He locked that horrid feeling deep in his chest. But he couldn’t help himself from laughing at his own obliviousness.

  “Damn, just look at me. I thought I’d done all right, but I was so wrong…”

  “…My sister—”

  “I don’t wanna hear it—! Take this!”

  Rem hesitated slightly for one instant as Subaru shouted and drew his cell phone from his pocket, thrusting it before him.

  —The next moment, a white light cut through the darkness of the forest, freezing Rem momentarily.

  “—Raaah!”

  Subaru screamed as he leapt in and tackled her small body, knocking her away.

  Rem was able to wield that violent device with unbelievable force, but in a straight-up collision, Subaru’s greater height and weight won out. His charge held nothing back, sending her small body flying; she lost her balance and stumbled to the ground. Subaru didn’t spend even a moment to look at her as he rushed past.

  He wheezed as he shoved air into his lungs and thought as he ran.

  If this was Rem’s decision alone, Subaru had two options for survival. One surely was to return to the manor and speak directly to her master. But if Roswaal thought the same way Rem did, he’d simply be going from the frying pan into the fire.

  “But even so…there’s Emilia…!”

  His memory of her shone brighter than that of any other. If he could trust anyone, it was her.

  —But would she, a royal candidate, trust Subaru’s words when she had the most to lose from doing so?

  “—?!”

  Instantly, the voice from the back of Subaru’s head struck him with the force of a thunderbolt.

  Without any doubt, it had been his voice that doubted Emilia’s heart. It was Subaru himself who had doubted her, knowing how she was forthright, earnest, and unhesitant to put herself in harm’s way for others.

  “Why…am I doing…!”

  His standpoint had changed, and so had his thoughts. But to doubt Emilia?

  If Subaru couldn’t even trust the person he’d resolved to protect, who could he believe in?

  He was pathetically fleeing through the mountains because of the big plan he’d formed to protect the life of someone whose heart he doubted. How sane was that?

  —He’d gather intel this time? Yeah, right.

  Why was he here, under threat from a completely unexpected direction, running for his life like this? He’d been too proud. He’d been naive. He hadn’t thought it through.

  His breath ragged, half running and half falling down a slope, Subaru was awash in regrets.

  He whined as tears clouded his vision. His steps grew clumsy. Suddenly, the trees opened wide into a clearing; Subaru saw that night was creeping across the sky. Then—

  “—Ah?”

  A blade of extremely concentrated wind lashed out, slicing off Subaru’s right leg at the knee, sending it flying away.

  Subaru watched his right foot leap and bounce with great force as he lost his balance, slamming into the ground. The impact made the cut on his cheek bleed again; his shoulder bone sounded like it’d exploded as it rammed into the rock. Subaru screamed, the cut across his whole body jabbing into his brain like an electric shock.

  “Aaaaaaagh! M-my leeeeeg?!”

  It didn’t hurt, and that felt scarier.

  Pieces of his lost lower leg were blown off, sailing into the thickets ahead. A delayed gush of fresh blood dyed the ground reddish-black; only then did the pain invade his nervous system in earnest.

  “—!”

  He clawed at the ground as unspeakable pain rippled through him.

  He pressed down on the wound, thrashed his body, pounded his free right hand against the ground, smacked a tree, and clawed at the bark as his consciousness boiled from the heat. It hurt, it hurt, it really hurt.

  He felt the pain shaving away his nerves as if a carpenter’s plane were whittling him from the inside out. Having lost so much blood so quickly, it gradually dawned on him that he was dying.

  “Mana of Water, grant thy healing.”

  A soft palm abruptly pressed down on Subaru’s thrashing body. Unable to move, Subaru shifted his bloodshot eyes and noticed the girl in the maid outfit at his side.

  It was the blue-haired Rem. Rem, who had tried to kill Subaru just now, enveloped her palm in a pale light, pouring warm magical energy onto Subaru’s amputated right leg. He felt the itch of healing magic.

  The pain didn’t vanish completely, but shock seized Subaru at the surreal scene. Subaru didn’t know why Rem was healing him at a time like this. Sensing Subaru’s gaze, she gave him a soft, casual smile. What seemed like a tiny ray of hope died with the words that followed.

  “I will not be able to ask you anything if I let you die so easily.”

  It truly sank in what an optimistic idiot he was.

  Rem stood up as she finished her first aid, making a sound with her chain as she pulled along the iron ball.

  Subaru was lying faceup with the iron ball gouging the earth as it neared him. The closer he saw it, the clearer it looked like the crude, unrefined, specialized tool for violence that it was, existing only to take life.

  Rem had deliberately brought it where he could see. Her intentions were crystal clear.

  It was the easiest way for her to demonstrate that his life was in her hands.

  “—I am confiscating this.”

  Rem spoke as she crouched and opened up Subaru’s firmly closed hand. His hand had been locked around the knife since his encounter with Rem, unable to let go.

  Rem roughly pried open his fingers and took the knife, turning it around in her hand.

  “Had you stabbed me with this earlier, you would have been able to flee a little farther.”

  Rem knitted her brows, speaking like she couldn’t comprehend Subaru’s illogical act. But Subaru, suppressing his breathing amid the throbbing pain, shook his head.

  —There was no way he could have stabbed Rem with that knife.

  That knife had been the implement in his hands when he’d spent such busy and gentle times with Rem’s back to him as Ram taught him how to peel vegetables. He couldn’t stab Rem with that.

  —Subaru’s heart lacked the strength for that.

  As Subaru continued shaking his head without a word, Rem sighed and discarded the knife into the forest thicket.

  She seemed to refocus her attention as she made the chain clank and coldly looked down at Subaru.

  “I ask you, are you working with one of Lady Emilia’s rival claimants to the throne?”

  “…My heart belo
ngs to Emilia.”

  The moment he spoke, the chain ferociously lashed Subaru’s upper body. His shirt, scratched all over during his flight, easily tore open, as did the skin underneath.

  Subaru’s scream echoed through the forest.

  “Who hired you and on what terms?”

  “E-Emilia-tan’s smiling face is…priceless.”

  She moved her wrist the other way and did the same thing again. Feeling like she’d lashed him in precisely the same place, he knew his anguished cry served as praise for her skill.

  She asked more questions like that. He made more replies like that.

  Several times more, the chain rang out. Several times more, Subaru’s painful cries matched it.

  When his consciousness faded, Rem treated him with healing magic. Trapped in a hell of repeated healing and violence, Subaru’s spirit frayed; he lost consciousness several times like that.

  Yet, his heart did not submit to Rem’s lashings.

  Rem must have felt tired of Subaru’s obstinate attitude when she wiped the blood spatter off her face and looked up at the sky.

  “If I do not get back soon, I will be late preparing the meal…”

  “…Dinner, huh. What’s on the menu today, huh…”

  “Let’s see. How about mincemeat pie?”

  “S-sorry, I think I’ll have to skip it…”

  Rem finally showed some sign of emotion as she sighed at Subaru’s behavior, flippant to the bitter end. After that, she fell silent for a while before looking down at Subaru, her eyes colder than ever before as she interrogated him.

  “—Are you a member of the Witch Cult?”

  Subaru knit his brow, perplexed at having vocabulary he’d never heard before thrown at him.

  He didn’t know what those words meant in regards to the place, the circumstances, or Rem’s real thoughts.

  “Answer, please. You are one of the Bewitched, yes?”

  “…Be what?”

  “Do not play games with me!”

  Agitated, Rem’s pale blue eyes shot daggers through Subaru in a rage. It was literally the first time Subaru had seen Rem worked up like this since they’d met.

  Rem’s pale face glowered as she looked down at Subaru with pure hostility.

  “I don’t know them… My whole family’s atheist to begin with…”

  “Still denying it? It is plain you are involved with the witch. Her stench is all over you!”

  Hatred. Rem’s eyes seethed with dark hatred as they glared at Subaru. Subaru’s eyes widened, feeling like this part of Rem, this vortex of emotion, put every single thing she’d done in a completely new light.

  “Even if Sister or no one else notices, I can smell it on you! The leftover stench of that monster makes me want to spit in disgust!”

  Subaru fell silent. Rem, standing before him, bit her lip so hard that she seemed to be grinding her teeth.

  “I was anxious and angry when I saw you speaking with Sister. You, someone involved with the one who put Sister through so much…weaseling into our precious home—!”

  Her words of undiluted malice mercilessly bathed Subaru in bitterness.

  “I have been watching you since Master Roswaal welcomed you…but the entire time, it hurt to watch you. I could not bear it.”

  Subaru had been unable to say a word. Then, Rem drove the dagger home.

  “Even if I knew that the whole time Sister was taking care of you, she was just pretending to be friendly!”

  “—”

  Rem seemed to be making up for her seemingly inadequate emotions by slamming all her bottled-up resentment at Subaru in one go. Rem stopped speaking as her shoulders shook, her eyes filled with rage as they glared at Subaru. Then, her anger abruptly wavered from surprise.

  “—What the hell…?”

  For, as Rem spoke words filled with hatred, Subaru had been crying quietly.

  “I knew it was…something like that.”

  Sobs came up his throat, hot tears slipping out of his eyes and falling upon his cheeks.

  The flood of seemingly ceaseless tears continued as Subaru said in a sorrowful, halting voice, “So that’s what it was… I knew there was some reason behind all the kindness. But…I was too afraid to ask…”

  It was the two of them who had drilled the basics of work into good-for-nothing Subaru.

  Ram had scoffed at him for not knowing how to put on a butler outfit. Rem had re-tailored the ill-fitting suit and taught him how to put it on. Ram had patiently stuck with Subaru when he’d been painstakingly learning characters. After the promise to have Rem cut his hair, she’d often been staring at him; he’d been happy to have people paying attention to him and urging him on.

  They were all kind memories he could never forget.

  “I finally learned how to peel veggies without cutting my hand. I learned how to do laundry right. Didn’t finish learning how to clean the place, but…”

  He couldn’t have hoped for more in four days. But he’d thought that, if he could get past those four days, there was much more to learn in the days to come.

  “Reading… It’s just the simple stuff, but I can do that now. I studied like I promised. I read the picture book. It’s all thanks to you two…”

  “What are you…talking about?”

  The tone of Rem’s voice fell, like she was creeped out by Subaru’s rambling words. Subaru looked straight up into Rem’s eyes.

  “I’m talking about what you two have done for me…”

  “I recall no such thing.”

  “—Why don’t you remember?!”

  The sudden burst of rage made Rem take a step back without thinking.

  Subaru forced his lying body to rise, glaring at Rem with his teeth bared as he shouted.

  “Why’d everyone leave me behind…! What did I do to you…! Tell me what I did to you…!”

  He couldn’t control his emotions. He knew full well he’d be ripped to pieces, but Subaru’s heart, his very soul, could not stop shouting.

  He’d been summoned to another world, subjected to senseless things, and in spite of it all, he’d gritted his teeth and pushed forward.

  But he’d reached his limit.

  “What’d I do wrong? What’s wrong with me? Why do you girls hate me that much…? Even…that promise… I’ve always…”

  “—I—”

  “I’ve always lo—”

  —The impact did not permit him to say any more.

  The sudden force bent back Subaru’s body; it gently hit the tree trunk behind him.

  Subaru heard nearby sounds like faint breathing and frothing water. When he shifted his gaze, he immediately discovered the cause.

  “—”

  His throat.

  Half of Subaru’s throat had been ripped out. He was gurgling air and bubbles of blood from the middle of his windpipe.

  Dumbfounded, he looked at Rem’s face as she stared at the wound.

  Having seen that much, Subaru’s eyes lost their spark, going dizzy and white.

  He couldn’t speak. His mind felt like someone had turned off the switch.

  Everything grew distant. There was no pain, no sadness; he left behind all his emotions.

  But in the end, he had the faint sense he could hear someone’s sad voice.

  “—Sister is too kind.”

  CHAPTER 5

  THE MORNING HE YEARNED FOR

  1

  “—!!”

  He wasn’t aware of the exact moment he returned to consciousness.

  The sound of heavy rain kept ringing in his ears. His vision flickered between red and white.

  The world was bent and warped.

  Unable to feel his arms or legs, he made a thick, anguished scream as if someone were wringing his intestines like wet laundry.

  He twisted his body and leapt, every movable part of his entire body unleashing fierce incomprehension.

  —He didn’t know what was going on.

  The burning pain of his leg being
severed and the scars of his body being lashed all over by the chain were…gone.

  He’d lost his blood. He’d lost his life. He’d died.

  He hadn’t wanted to die. He hated the pain, the suffering, the sadness, the fear, all of it.

  He wanted to push it all away. Everything he could see, everything he could touch, everything he could feel.

  “—!”

  He heard something. He heard someone’s voice.

  He heard a voice, like someone was desperately trying to calm a wild beast.

  The meaning didn’t get through. He didn’t understand the meaning. He didn’t want to understand the meaning.

  It was useless to listen. Listening would only get him hurt. Listening wouldn’t change a thing.

  Yet as he rejected all, color returned to the world, as did sound, as did shape.

  The senses of his entire disheveled body told him, correctly, that blood was reaching his limbs.

  His flailing hand hit something, breaking fingernails and ripping the back of his hand, making it bleed. The sharp pain jabbed into his brain, somewhat lessening the force of his scream.

  Then he realized it. Someone had grabbed and wrapped up his hurting arms.

  He felt something similar on his legs. Something was covering him, making him unable to move either leg.

  Right above him, his returning vision saw the familiar white ceiling he’d seen several times over now.

  He realized he was lying faceup on the soft bed.

  He finally breathed out, strength draining from his stiffened body, when…

  “Dear Guest, Dear Guest. Have you finally calmed down?”

  “Dear Guest, Dear Guest. Have you finally stopped flailing?”

  The instant his ears heard the two familiar voices, Subaru remembered to scream.

  2

  Subaru’s fourth first day at Roswaal Manor had begun in the worst way possible.

  Subaru lived with the shame of having already died six times since arriving in that world.

  They were most certainly not peaceful deaths. Each death came with its own commensurate sense of loss.

  You didn’t get used to the pain and suffering of it. Though he picked himself up each time, no one could understand the loneliness, the desolation, the anguish he felt.