“Petra, how long are you going to sulk like that? If you keep this up, you’ll be causing trouble for Master Subaru, yes?”
“But—but, Miss Fredericaaa…”
“No buts. You heard what Master Subaru said. And yet, you are being unreasonable as a maid… No, the issue precedes being a maid. You understand, don’t you?”
“Uughu∼∼.”
Chided by Frederica, Petra hung her head in chagrin. He felt sorry for Petra as he watched her get a scolding, but Subaru knew that any intervention would only fan the flames. Though he felt bad about it, this was one point that Subaru could not yield, even if he had to become a demon in the process.
In the lounge, Subaru had proposed a plan to the pair based on his experiences from all the failed attempts he had made so far. The contents of that plan were the cause of Petra’s sour mood, for he had proposed that—
“—We shall leave the mansion empty, temporarily concealing ourselves in the village. That is what you require of us?”
“Yeah, I’m counting on you. Sorry for the unreasonable demands.”
“It was only just the other day we had the Witch Cult affair, so if that is your reasoning, then I cannot refute you.”
The basis behind Subaru’s plan made Frederica sullenly cast her eyes downward.
It had only been one short week since the Witch Cultists under Petelgeuse’s command had mounted an attack on the mansion and the village. The still-fresh memories and scars from what they had done were tremendously effective for persuading Petra and Frederica.
—His goal was to evacuate the pair from the mansion and distance them from Elsa’s imminent attack.
This was the strategy Subaru had decided on when he returned to the mansion with maximum possible speed. For the sake of persuasiveness, he’d explained that it was a precaution against Witch Cult remnants rather than assassins. For that reason, they would flee to the village not in maid outfits but outfits any village girl might wear, so as to conceal their connection to the mansion.
To be blunt, Petra notwithstanding, whether Frederica would do as he asked was a real gamble, but—
“—I cannot shirk this duty. After all, Master Subaru, you are entrusting me with your beloved dragon and a woman most precious to you.”
“…I really didn’t mean to bring that up as a way to persuade you. I’m leaving them in your care because I trust you.”
“My, such killer words. Master Subaru, you are truly skilled at tickling a maid’s heart.”
“I! I think that, too…!”
Petra raised her hands up, hopping as if declaring she was also present, drawing a pained smile from Subaru as he shifted his gaze to his arms—and to the sleeping face of the lovely girl he held within them.
Wearing thin blue pajamas over her upper body, it was the girl who continued to sleep without making even the slightest sound—Rem.
Subaru had picked her up from the bedroom in which she slumbered, carrying her all the way out of the mansion like that. She was no exception—
“Rem, Petra, Patlash—I’m entrusting them all to you, Frederica. I plan on rendezvousing with you as fast as possible, so…”
“I hope that you are able to come to terms with Lady Beatrice so that she might join us as well. —Truly, I do.”
“…Yeah, me too.”
Subaru replied to Frederica as his back teeth bit into his cheek.
When would he actually be able to fulfill that vow? Even Subaru did not know if it would be this time around or at some point in the future. But he would most certainly fulfill it. That he swore on his life.
Casting that vow into a future with no guarantees, Subaru hoped he could be forgiven for doing the best he could along the way.
“Could you cheer up for me, Petra? It’s tough to be hated like this.”
“Muu, in that case… Subaru, you said earlier that I saved you, right?”
As Subaru raised the proverbial white flag, the sulking Petra looked like she had suddenly recalled the thanks she had received earlier. When that elicited a nod from Subaru, she held a finger up and said, “Then, an expression of gratitude, please! I’ll let you off in exchange for one dayte!”
“A date? Where the heck did you hear about…? Must be from that time with Emilia, huh? You really have a sharp memory, Petra.”
The adorable proposal made Subaru recall his first date with Emilia, his reward after the demon beast incident. At the time, they’d gone together from spot to spot around Earlham Village, meaning the villagers and the children had seen them. Apparently, Petra had remembered the word from way back then.
“Got it. If that’ll do, then consider this escort job accepted. I’m honored to be Petra’s first date, so I’m looking forward to it.”
“Yes! It’s a promise!”
Petra’s face brightened with the appearance of a beaming smile, her foul mood seemingly forgotten.
That face offered nothing short of salvation. Through one girl’s sympathy, it felt like even his failures could be swept away.
“Well, I’m going to go call Patlash over!”
Straightening her back with a spring, Petra energetically raced for the rear of the mansion. She seemed almost too worked up, but her consideration for others was probably a large part of that.
The astute girl had probably sensed that Subaru still had more to discuss with Frederica.
“…Let’s make this promise again someday, Petra.”
Watching the girl receding in the distance, Subaru whispered those words for his ears alone.
This was a world that would likely vanish. The promise they exchanged would not remain within her. However, Subaru would never forget.
—All so that they could make the same promise again when it was time to choose the correct future.
“She is a good girl, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. Let me be the one to brag about her sometime, all right? I’m the one she chose for her first date after all.”
After watching Petra head off, only Subaru and Frederica remained. With the exception of Rem, asleep in Subaru’s arms, the two were alone—making this the ideal opportunity to speak openly.
Surmising what was to come, Frederica’s body was slightly stiff as she reoriented herself toward Subaru. And then—
“I know you’re about to set off and all, but can I ask you a—? Actually, make it three questions.”
“That is incredibly sudden and exceedingly shameless of you. It would depend upon the specifics.”
Adjusting how he held Rem while he broached the subject, Frederica knitted her brows. There was a twinge of unease that came over her jade eyes. For a time, Subaru mulled over just what he ought to probe at before he finally asked, “I want to ask about Garfiel. He’s been inside the tomb. Did you know?”
“—. Is there something between you and Garfiel?”
“You’re the one who warned me to watch out. Harsh words, you know? I know about your relation to Garfiel, too. That’s why you don’t have to cover anything up.”
“In but a single…really, in half a day, you would seem to have gained a great deal of the master’s trust.”
Gazing in wonder at the breadth of Subaru’s knowledge, Frederica voiced that conclusion as if speaking to herself. She apparently thought that Subaru had obtained the information from Roswaal, something he made no effort to correct.
—After all, information nigh impossible to learn in a single day was a weapon Subaru and Subaru alone wielded.
Using that as leverage, Subaru wanted to discover Garfiel’s true intentions, an irreplaceable piece of information for him to devise a way to clear Sanctuary.
Given the fact that he had the qualifications to be an apostle, his bias toward the Trial, and the slight measure of sympathy he had shown Emilia as she challenged the tomb, there was no mistaking that Garfiel bore special feelings toward that tomb.
If this was the core component of the differences in his actions from each of Subaru’s runs, then tha
t was how he would unravel the thread.
“Did you hear anything about me from…my little brother?”
“…I don’t really want to say this, Frederica, but most of it was bad. Garfiel said that you abandoned your birthplace and left.”
“”
“Ah, er, but since it’s him, it could just have been his foul way of ta—”
“No, it is fine. Thank you for your consideration, but I am all right.”
Firmly shaking her head, she left Subaru choking on his words, unable to continue. During that time, Frederica narrowed her eyes, averting her gaze almost as if to stare into the distance as she began to explain.
“It has been over ten years since I departed the Sanctuary. I have not spoken to my younger…to Garf, once in all that time. The gap has remained unbridged ever since.”
“…Frederica, is it all right if I asked why you left the Sanctuary?”
He already knew the reason why she was not held captive by the barrier enveloping the Sanctuary. The barrier, which bound those who carried mixed human and demi-human blood, did not activate if that mixture was too weak.
She was not a half-blood but a quarter. This was the reason Frederica could leave the Sanctuary.
“Still, being able to leave and leaving are two different things. I tried asking Garfiel what he wanted to do after the barrier was lifted, too…but he didn’t answer.”
“I…see. I probably wanted to create that for him.”
Subaru put on a puzzled look when he heard the vague explanation, one focused around the word that. Not noticing his reaction, Frederica seemed to be trying to coax an answer out of something amorphous that rested deep inside of her.
“Someday, the barrier will be lifted. I was absolutely certain of that. Perhaps that was simply wishful thinking on my part. If the barrier was lifted finally, the people living inside the Sanctuary would be freed…and they would come outside, having no more idea what to do than Garfiel does right now.”
“So you wanted to create that ‘something’ for them, Frederica?”
“Close. It is very much like that. A place for them, perhaps—something to give courage to those dependent on the Sanctuary, a spark for them to step outside.”
Frederica seemed satisfied with this explanation as she touched a hand to her chest. Subaru had never seen her act this way, like a bud gently blooming into a flower.
The people dependent on the Sanctuary were those with nowhere else to go due to irrational ostracism and discrimination. When the barrier was lifted and even the Sanctuary was lost to them, where would they go?
—To answer that question, Frederica had been working toward a new place they could call home.
With such conviction roaring inside of her, an earnest light shined in Frederica’s jade eyes. Coming back to Subaru’s question, “As far as the tomb is concerned,” she offered as a preamble, before saying, “to the best of my knowledge, Garf entered the tomb only once. If he took the Trial, it could only be then… I do not know whether he challenged it again thereafter.”
“So what was the result at the time? I imagine that he failed, but…”
Shaking her head, Frederica had a grave look on her face.
“At the time, I was unable to rush into the tomb after him. Grandmother simply told me that Garf had not returned, and it was Grandmother who entered the tomb and brought him back…”
“So Ryuzu is the one who brought Garfiel back, huh?”
The natives of the Sanctuary could not lift the barrier. Ryuzu had previously told him that she was bound to the place by a pact. For that same Ryuzu to enter the tomb was akin to defying the Witch’s commands.
Considering the circumstances of Ryuzu’s birth as a replica, this was truly on par with an act of rebellion against her creator.
Small wonder, then, that Garfiel revered Ryuzu, who had gone that far to rescue him and thought of the Sanctuary as a precious place.
But for the result of that trial to be Garfiel becoming an Apostle of Greed, he had to have wanted something.
“When she returned, Grandmother kept their trip to the tomb a secret. And ever since, Garf stopped saying he was going to enter the tomb. He’d said he was going to liberate the Sanctuary by his own hand and show Grandmother and the others the outside world.”
From Frederica’s lonely words, Subaru realized a truth that she herself had not.
Frederica had departed the Sanctuary in order to build a new home in anticipation of the day liberation would come. She was waiting. —Waiting for the time when Garfiel would free the people of the Sanctuary.
Frederica had ventured to the outside world to support the hope her younger brother once embraced—
And yet, that hope had been dashed midway, and now Garfiel took great pains to protect the Sanctuary.
So that’s what it was. This was the true motive behind Garfiel’s actions. Grieving for a future he could no longer see, he protected the present instead. This explained the apparent contradictions in his actions to date.
“—Master Subaru, I ask that you somehow take good care of my uncouth younger brother.”
“…Even if you say that to me, there’s not much I can do.”
As Subaru sank into thought, Frederica bent deeply at the hip as she made her request. Subaru was at a loss for how to respond. But Frederica slowly shook her head side to side and smiled.
Making no attempts to hide her mouth and leaving her sharp fangs on display, her beaming face was beautiful enough to captivate him—
“Master Subaru, the reason I ask is because I now believe you are up to the task. I will have you know, I have some confidence in my ability to read people.”
Frederica’s statement, somehow coming off as playful, made Subaru avert his gaze. He wanted to answer her expectations. But could he really say he was prepared to fulfill them this time around?
It was because he had no such conviction that Subaru could not bear to meet her gaze and hesitated in his reply.
“I humbly ask that you take good care of my younger brother.”
Even so, it was this Subaru with whom Frederica spoke once more, repeating her request with a smile still on her face.
“Master Subaru, please allow me to take Rem. Your arms must be at their limits?”
“…Yeah, actually I’ve been really been pushing it. It’s not like I can afford to just drop her, after all.”
Frederica opened her arms, which also signaled the end of the conversation. Indulging in her benevolence, Subaru handed over the sleeping Rem. He had heard once unconscious people were supposed to be far harder to lift than anyone who was awake, but her body didn’t feel heavy to him. It was as if having her name and memory stolen away had left her diluted, almost like she was going to fade away.
“”
When Frederica’s arms embraced Rem, he brushed aside the slumbering girl’s hair, burning her face into his eyes, as if this would ensure his hope, his vow they would be reunited might reach her even as she dreamed.
“—Have you already thought of a method to find Lady Beatrice?”
If there was any time to spare, he’d have spent all of it caressing Rem like that. As if to discard that lingering regret, Frederica asked Subaru, who was staying behind in the mansion, about what his next move would be.
How did he plan to find Beatrice, presumably in the archive of forbidden books even at that very moment, and bring her out with him?
“If she really wants to hide, there’s no way I’ll find her no matter what plan I come up with.”
“Then what shall you do? It is necessary for Master Subaru to meet with Lady Beatrice, after all.”
“I told you. That’s if she really wants to hide.”
As Subaru repeated himself, the Frederica’s arched in doubt. Faced with her questioning gaze, Subaru finally pulled his fingers away from Rem and turned back toward the palatial building.
It was a big, overly broad manor. Beatrice had as many hiding places as it had doo
rs. But—
“There’s no one who plays hide-and-seek who doesn’t wanna be found. I always find her because she’s hiding with the hope that someone will find her.”
And it was probably that single loophole that tied Subaru and Beatrice together.
“Take care of Rem, Petra, Patlash, and yourself too, okay?”
With that, Subaru bid Frederica farewell one last time. In response, Frederica, with Rem still in her arms, bowed respectfully.
3
The instant he touched the doorknob, Subaru wore a pained smile as he had the sense that he’d grasped “correctly.”
After all, once seeing Frederica and company off, he returned to the mansion, did a few light stretches, and walked off to search for Beatrice, whereupon the first door he selected was a bingo.
If the words he had exchanged with Frederica at the entrance were true, this game of hide-and-seek was rigged.
To begin with, the timing of just when she began that game of hide-and-seek would greatly alter how he interpreted this series of events.
To find out for certain, Subaru took a breath and twisted the doorknob—
“—You finally showed up, I suppose?”
Alongside that single phrase greeting came a current of air mixed with the unmistakable musk of old books.
That unsociable tone of voice, that grumpy way of speaking—hearing that Subaru instinctually release the tension in his shoulders. The worries that hounded him just moments before, the travails he had endured up to that point—for a brief moment, he was able to forgot them as he raised a hand in greeting.
“Heya, Beako. Haven’t seen your face in a while, but you haven’t changed one bit.”
“It has only been three days, and yet somehow the way your flippant tongue irritates me has not changed at all, either.”
It was the mistress of the archive of forbidden books and its rows of bookshelves who responded. At the center of the room, surrounded by those old books, a young girl was sitting on a wooden stool with her cheek resting upon her palm—Beatrice.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 12 Page 11
