A clinging voice. A blunt voice. A crying voice. A voice with frozen emotion. Voices.
Abruptly, he felt an embrace of a soft hand.
He remembered whose it was, because he had felt it several times before.
He craved that warmth. He wanted to go back. He didn’t want it to be simply a dream.
The sensation of the hand suddenly grew distant. Far, far away, unreachable and untouchable.
“—I will…save you.”
Only those words of iron determination remained.
Everything vanished. It all left, leaving him far, far behind.
And then—
2
How many times had he been knocked out cold, only to wake up like this?
Subaru stared at the unfamiliar ceiling as such thoughts hovered in his mind.
“Unngh, ow…”
His side spasmed the instant he sat up in bed. That really woke him up.
When he tried to touch his painful belly, he felt something very wrong with his left arm. The ill feeling remained as he brought his arm before him, seeing with his own eyes what a sorry state it was in.
There were white scars covering him from the tips of his fingers up to his wrist.
It wasn’t just his arm that felt off.
He yanked up his shirt and saw that he had similar scars on his right side. He had more on both ankles, on his right upper arm and shoulder, and lastly, one on his butt.
They all seemed to be scars left from the demon beasts’ fangs.
“I was sure I was a goner…”
He’d been bitten all over when shielding Rem.
The maws of the ferocious beasts had made mincemeat out of Subaru’s flesh. He felt how low his life had dimmed in his blood and internal organs; he’d been more than half sure that it was over.
“So I barely held on to life and got patched up after…?”
Subaru carefully looked around the area as he made sure his fingers were moving properly.
The ceiling was unfamiliar; the bed, crude. The room was far too cramped to be one of the rooms in Roswaal Manor. Then he noticed the girl sitting in a wooden chair right next to the door, her head down as she slept.
“—Emilia.”
She showed no sign of responding to his call.
Emilia was breathing quite deeply, matching the depth of her sleep. Her beautiful silver hair was disheveled for once; more than that, her clothes were still heavily caked with blood and mud.
He was wounded. He’d slept close to morning. Emilia was sleeping right beside him. Add all that to the state of her clothing, and even someone as dim-witted as Subaru could grasp the situation.
“I’m in her debt again, huh…?”
“I wonder about that. This time, Lia might think of it as giving you a hand because your hard work brought results.”
Subaru turned in the direction of the faint murmur. Puck crawled out of Emilia’s hair and hovered in the air beside her.
“Heya. Good morning, Subaru. Those will hold you back, huh?”
“Maybe not. Feels a little stiff where I’m scarred, but I’m not gonna complain about having my life saved. I’m a guy, so I don’t plan on whining just because my body’s scuffed up, either.”
He didn’t intend to turn them into marks of honor from the field of battle, but the deep feelings inside him associated with the white scars would no doubt never fade.
To Subaru, what had happened to the source of his scars was more important.
“Guess it worked out like I expected, but…what actually happened after? To be honest, I don’t remember a thing after the dogs went chompy-chomp-chomp on me.”
“‘Chompy-chomp-chomp’ is such a cute way to put it. From what I saw when they hauled you in, it was more like, ‘Chomp-munch-crunch-rip-yank-tear’…”
“If it was like that I’d be dead already. Five or six extra arms wouldn’t cover all that.”
“Mm, well, the extra damage you didn’t get was why the maid with the blue hair was in a sorry state.”
Subaru’s throat suddenly froze over at the casual, carefree way he put it. Seeing Subaru react like that, Puck added another thought.
“That’s because changing to her demon form makes that girl heal wounds very rapidly. By the time she carried you back to the village, she didn’t have more than scratches left on the outside, enough that she didn’t even need recovery magic.”
“Don’t scare me like that, then… Anyway, Rem got back to the village, too, huh? What happened to the last kid with me?”
“You can rest easy about that. All seven children are safe. You really made the right call, Subaru.”
Puck said out loud “clap, clap” as he brought his paws together without a sound. Subaru imagined Puck’s paws were simply too soft for audible applause, and he twisted his lips at the sight before shaking his head, driving away such idle thoughts.
“Puck, what about lifting the curses on the kids who got back to the village?”
“Don’t worry about that, either. Magic healed them a fair bit, so Betty and I will lift those curses in no time at all. They’re as good as cured; you have my guarantee.”
Puck thumped his own chest as he gave his grandiose seal of approval. Upon seeing that, Subaru let out a deep breath, relieved at the fact that his own actions had not been in vain.
Subaru’s hand was still on his own chest as his eyes drifted back to the sleeping Emilia.
“And Emilia…? She pulled an all-nighter?”
“I told her to just be patient and wait, but she wouldn’t listen. She even wore down her od to heal you, so could you let her sleep?”
“Od…? What?”
Subaru shook his head when he heard the unfamiliar piece of vocabulary. Puck toyed with a whisker.
“The magical energy that fills the air around us is called mana. Od is the opposite, the magical energy that all living things are imbued with. The total capacity varies greatly from person to person, and drawing on it really wears you out, so I told Lia to avoid using it as much as possible, but…”
Puck’s words and demeanor made it easy for Subaru to imagine how Emilia had taken that.
In the first place, calling Puck out during the night was outside the terms of their pact. If calling upon Puck and Beatrice was what it took to lift the curses, Emilia wouldn’t have hesitated even an instant.
She helped others, even if it meant getting hurt. That was why he loved her.
“This is someone’s house in the village, right? Is it all right if I take a look around?”
If he wasn’t going to wake Emilia up, it was best to conclude his quiet conversation with Puck. Subaru was in the process of sliding his legs off the bed when Puck replied with an agreeable nod.
“Probably best to move around a little and see how well the healing took, anyway.”
Having received Puck’s permission, Subaru slowly began heading out.
Along the way, before he stepped past Emilia, he lowered his head in a polite bow. As he bowed, he looked at Emilia’s sleeping face, desperately holding out against his urge to tease her as he made his way outside.
Subaru left his room, poking his head out of the building’s entryway when he saw that the village was in an uproar. He murmured, “Ahh, well, guess that totally figures.”
The morning sun hadn’t even begun to rise, yet numerous human silhouettes stood in the plaza at the center of the village.
It was a small village. The details of even the tiniest disturbance spread like wildfire. Women, children, and the elderly all had looks of concern as they huddled around the stout young men arguing in the center.
They were no doubt the young men who’d pursued Subaru and Rem into the forest. He saw that several were wearing bandages; apparently they’d had casualties, too.
He scanned the crowd, troubled that he couldn’t find the face he was looking for.
“—So you are awake, Barusu?”
The voice came from behind. Subaru stopped and turn
ed around. He could guess who it was from the way she’d said his name, but still, seeing her face filled him with relief.
A pink-haired maid—Ram—stood behind him.
Ram had the sleeves of her familiar servant outfit rolled up, and she was holding something akin to a basket in her hands. Judging from the large number of baked potatoes filling the basket, she was in the middle of moving them from point A to point B.
The faint whiff of steam wafting from the potatoes sent Subaru’s stomach into a small growl of heightened expectations. He belatedly realized he was really hungry.
“How unsightly, waking up ready to eat after worrying others with such grave wounds. Perhaps you caught rabies from the bites?”
“That’s not what these dogs are spreading. Oh, and hey, you worried about me?”
“Just eat.”
“Hfwoh!”
Subaru was teasing Ram for her rare slip of the tongue. So she stuffed a hot potato into his mouth. His throat blocked off by the scalding potato, Subaru turned his face up and loudly wolfed the whole thing down.
“I thought I was gonna die there! Tasted good, though!”
“Of course it was tasty. They were freshly baked…no, steamed.”
“Oh man, that I’m-so-awesome face ticks me off. Still tasted good, though!”
“Yes, yes. Be quiet if you want another one.”
When she handed him the potato, he accepted it, fawning over it like a child.
“Well, I should simply thank you outright concerning the incident last night. Well done.”
“Sure didn’t come easily… But why are you thanking me?”
“When the people of a fiefdom suffer harm, it calls the lord into question. At that rate, the children would have fallen to the Urugarum pack…and so, I believe your actions to have been correct, Barusu.”
“Urugarum… Huh.”
So that’s what the black demon beasts were called.
Urugarum. As far as Subaru knew, it was also the name of a demon beast straight out of mythology. Somehow, the name seemed fitting to him. A single word conveyed that your life was in peril from even a single encounter with the creature.
Subaru nodded as Ram shifted her gaze toward the forest.
“We rewove the frayed barrier last night. Judging from the lack of any issues with it overnight, no Urugarum should be crossing the barrier from here on.”
“That’s only if no one here crosses past it, right? Not much point to it if a bunch of kids crosses it to play on the other side and a ‘puppy’ comes back with them?”
“That makes painful listening. I shall have a word with the villagers later.”
Ram’s unchanging neutral expression gave her last sentence some unpleasant subtext.
Most likely, it was the villagers’ duty to check that the barrier was up and running and to report if it was not; their laxness in doing so had caused Roswaal difficulty and no doubt rubbed her the wrong way.
After that, Subaru snatched a pair of steamed potatoes from Ram before they went their separate ways. Ram was heading for the distraught villagers still arguing among themselves. Ram was surely acting out of fondness for the village. It was just like Ram to use steamed potatoes to display that goodwill, too.
“Man, these potatoes are delicious, though. Going light on the salt did real wonders.”
Subaru strolled around the village, munching on his potatoes along the way. He was checking both on the condition of his body and the well-being of the children they’d rescued from the forest.
The children were still soundly asleep from fatigue and exhaustion from the now-lifted curses, but the parents and relatives of the children thanked him, almost to excess. Put bluntly, Subaru hadn’t done it out of a desire for gratitude, and this sparked a near-terminal case of stage fright. Unable to play the fool to deflect his rising panic, he blushed up a storm and ran for the hills.
Having done a sweep of the village, Subaru thought he’d return to the house and wait for Emilia to awaken—but he realized he had yet to see a certain blue-haired girl’s face.
“—”
Suddenly, the sight of the demon girl, laughing loudly while covered in blood spatter, rose from the back of his mind.
It was a spectacularly ghastly sight. And yet, when Subaru remembered it, he felt no fear to make his body tremble.
What was it that Subaru had felt when he saw the pure white horn grow from her forehead? Yes, back then, what Subaru felt was—
But before a word could properly express that emotion, a young girl’s voice called out to Subaru.
“—There you are. Just in time.”
A thicket swayed, and through it walked Beatrice, the hem of her showy dress dragging along the ground in the process.
“Aren’t you going to get that long dress awfully dirty, going outside with it like this?”
“I suppose magical power might repel the sources of grime, such as mud and sand—More importantly, I need to speak with you.”
Beatrice gave Subaru’s silly question a serious answer and beckoned him over.
She wanted to go somewhere else—meaning, it wasn’t something she could discuss with him there. Though that unnerved Subaru a little, he had nothing against Beatrice here. Subaru followed the girl, who was also his savior, then abruptly clapped his hands together.
“Come to think of it, you’re here outside the mansion because you were lifting the curses on the kids, right? Thank you.”
“…’Tis nothing. I suppose I only did it because Puckie asked me to.”
Of course, the reason Puck asked her to was because Emilia asked him to. No doubt Beatrice understood as much. Yet, knowing this, she used Puck as her reason once again. She just wasn’t a girl who admitted things straight up.
Subaru found himself growing impatient as Beatrice led him to a flower bed right by one corner of the village. With the villagers gathered in the central plaza to discuss the demon beast incident, he couldn’t see even a single person randomly strolling around in such a far-flung corner.
“So, what did you bring me all the way out here to tell me?”
Subaru spread both arms out as he spoke. For her part, Beatrice’s reply seemed awkward.
“I thought it had the proper atmosphere to deter you from making boorish jokes.”
Her gaze seemed to be wandering as she toyed with her skirt, like she was hesitant to say something.
What’s with her? Is it that hard to say…?
As far as Subaru was concerned, this plainly wasn’t typical Beatrice behavior. She had the air of a little girl afraid of angering her parents.
Seeing that expression, Subaru just couldn’t bring himself to drag it out of her. He crossed his arms, leaned back on the wooden fence protecting the flower bed, and waited for her to resume.
The sight of Subaru waiting seemed to spur Beatrice into a decision. She closed her eyes, then gently opened them, gazing straight at Subaru.
“—In less than half a day, you will die.”
3
Subaru bit down hard on the words, ground them with his teeth, and swallowed them. He stopped for several seconds as they passed down his throat, into his stomach, and finally flowed through his veins to his brain.
Beatrice raised her eyebrows in surprise at Subaru’s reaction, apparently far more silent than she’d anticipated.
“I suppose you are less agitated than I expected. I thought you would be crying like a baby by now.”
Beatrice still had that look on her face when Subaru raised his right hand before her, showing her a pair of raised fingers.
“Okay. There are two possibilities I can think of here.”
Subaru bent down one of his raised fingers as Beatrice stood silently before him.
“First, this is graveyard humor, a really awful joke. Put bluntly, this really isn’t funny, so…if you’re gonna bring out a wooden sign that says FOOLED YA! and laugh, go ahead, now’s the time.”
He closed one eye in an attempt to
lighten the mood, but Beatrice’s expression went unchanged.
With Beatrice saying nothing before him, Subaru folded the second finger.
“If it’s not a joke, there’s only one possibility: The curse hasn’t been lifted yet.”
Beatrice folded her arms as if to lend support to Subaru’s hypothesis.
This was the result of white scars from demon beast bites covering his entire body. They still throbbed as Subaru looked at them in a new, ominous light.
“I’ll ask just to make sure. You can’t lift the curse? You’re not holding out on me here?”
He didn’t think Beatrice would say, No one asked me to, so I will not, but he wanted to ask just in case some sliver of hope remained.
Naturally, Beatrice replied to his question with a shake of her head.
“If it was something I could remove, would it put you eternally in my debt, I wonder?”
“Hey, give me a break here. I’m already up to my eyeballs in debt to you!”
He couldn’t repay her for even a smidgeon of it, not last time, not the time before that, not this time, either. Not in that world.
Subaru’s reminiscing brought a suspicious look from Beatrice, but he papered things over with a hand wave.
“Mind if I ask why you can’t lift the curse?”
“…I suppose you should at least know how you shall pass on. It is a simple tale. There are too many layers of curses, making the curses too complex to lift.”
“…Curses have layers?”
Subaru pondered, trying to come up with an image. Beatrice spread both hands apart. Suddenly, the two hands were connected together by a red string.
“A curse is like this red string, I wonder?”
Beatrice took the string she held on each end and tied a knot with it.
“This knot is a curse rite. I suppose lifting a curse is as simple as undoing this knot. But…”
With a deft motion of her fingers, Beatrice increased the number of strings between her hands. The new strings were blue, yellow, green, pink, black, and white. She entwined the new strings into knots and tied the knots into one another.
“If it is only one curse, it can be undone. But if you mix more of them together like this…”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 3 Page 13
