“…You did say that, yeah.”
“If I take the throne, my policies will be as I stated. In spite of that, the Dragon Tablet selected me as a candidate, someone who would surely reject the Covenant. This is either the Dragon’s will or that of some divine being. Do you not think so, Subaru Natsuki?”
As Crusch posed her question, Subaru fell silent. Since he was unable to immediately give her a reply, she continued.
“I do not overestimate or underestimate my own abilities and position. Reputation comes not from within but from others. That is especially so for one who rose to the status of candidate as I did, judged by those who thought nothing of me. It’s not how I have lived until now that should be judged but how I live from now on.”
“It sounds like you want to make people pay for judging you like that.”
“Quite the contrary. Reputation is something granted by others, but I believe it should be granted after the fact, not before. If someone has a certain level of ability, judge her once you have seen the results. And yet the Dragon Tablet brought me, one convinced of these things, within reach of the throne… Perhaps that was a smart thing to do.”
Crusch’s amber eyes narrowed slightly as they gazed at the ice in her glass. Subaru couldn’t think of a response. He felt like she viewed the world in a very different way than he did.
Unable to bear his silence, Subaru tossed the ice in his glass into his mouth and crunched it down.
Just as he tried to use the sound of crushing ice to break the silence, a scornful voice suddenly interrupted him.
“Aaah! Why is Subawu here with mew, meow?!”
In the direction of the cry, he could see Ferris rushing onto the balcony, his shoulders heaving. He hurried to the table and banged a hand on it, shaking the glass bottles as Crusch thanked him for his labors.
“Thank you for your hard work, Ferris. I’m sorry, I thought you would be back much later, so I had a drink with Subaru Natsuki as an appetizer.”
“Did you just call me an appetizer?!”
“Goodness, Ferri can’t leave you alone for one second, meow! Ah? And Lady Crusch, you’ve had much more wine than mewsual, haven’t mew?!” Ferris looked at how much liquid remained in the bottle as he spoke. “Being all friendly with Subawu… Having such a fun conversation… Aaaagh, so jealous!”
“It is true I’ve enjoyed more wine than usual. He is a rare conversation partner, and we leaped from topic to topic. Some of it was rather embarrassing, however.”
“People are gonna get the wrong idea if you put it like that!”
“Grrrrr! What is this?! And Lady Crusch, you’re wearing such a defenseless outfit!!”
When Ferris pointed it out, Crusch looked down at her mere nightgown. She inclined her head slightly, raising her glass a little.
“What of it? Do I not always dress like this when I have drinks with you in the evening, Ferris?”
“That! Is! The! Problem! Mew can’t compare your time with Ferri to a ravenous beast of a man like this! Men are wolves, meow!”
As Ferris admonished Crusch like an aggrieved parent, Subaru yelled back.
“Hey, don’t single me out here! You’re a man, too, aren’t you?!”
Subaru had not forgotten about how Ferris’s gender had thrown his heart for a loop.
“That’s because Ferri would never cast a lascivious gaze upon Lady Crusch! But the way Subaru wanders this way and that, he can’t be trusted, meow.”
“That’s enough toying around, Ferris. All at the royal selection conference know who Subaru Natsuki cares for. He would not set his sights upon a woman as lacking in charm as myself.”
When Crusch eyed Subaru in search of agreement, he hesitated for a moment.
“Err… Well, that’s true…I suppose?”
Ferris instantly cut in.
“Haahh? What? You’re disappointed with Lady Crusch in some way…? Do you want Ferri to kill mew?”
“Why do I need your approval for my answers?!”
Crusch interrupted.
“Wait. Why did a wind of hesitation and deception flow from your direction just now…? What does this…? Ah, I see. You have Rem as well. Certainly my words were not adequate.”
“And now she really has the wrong idea!”
Crusch wore a very accepting expression while Ferris glared frostily at Subaru. The conclusion she had come to was trouble enough, but the usually adorable cat boy was quite intimidating when his expression was serious.
Subaru desperately tried to explain and clear up the misunderstanding as the night breeze again washed over the three on the balcony.
In front of Subaru, who was taking little sips of his water, Crusch and Ferris filled their glasses to the brim with wine. As he watched them, he abruptly voiced something that had been nagging at him.
“You two get along really well. Been with each other a long time?”
“Hmph. Continuing to gather intelligence on the enemy?” Ferris asked.
“Not at all. You just look so close, I wanted to come out and ask.”
Ferris sat alongside Crusch, glancing at his master while enjoying the same wine. Subaru didn’t think feelings that ran as deep as Ferris’s were formed in a short period of time.
“You are right. Ferris and I have been together for a long time… Ten years now, is it?”
“Ten years, one hundred twenty-two days, six hours. Give or take, meow.”
“That’s so specific it’s scary, you know.”
Ferris glared at him. Subaru regretted his comment as the pretty boy put a hand to his own cheek.
“Even now, Ferri can’t forget that first glimpse of Lady Crusch. It’s engraved in my meowmery. Since that day, Ferri has been Lady Crusch’s eternal servant.”
Crusch commented, “You make too much of it, Ferris. I did no more than what was required of me. The fact that doing so earned me your loyalty is what I would call the most fortuitous event of my life.”
There was no distance between them. From a simple crossing of paths, they had become so incredibly close. Their relationship as master and servant surely made them the pair with the strongest foundation out of everyone vying for the royal throne.
“We get along fabulously, right? Unlike some other pairs I could meowntion?” Ferris said.
“—!”
“Goodness, Subawu, you’re too easy to see through!”
Ferris smiled, having bluntly revealed the thoughts currently rising to the surface in the back of Subaru’s mind. His cheek twitched as he glared at Ferris, but the feline eyes watched him innocently as their owner tilted his wineglass.
Crusch took up the topic instead, closing one eye and giving Subaru a stern look.
“I presume that what has brought you to a standstill is your relationship with Emilia as lord and vassal.” Crusch drew her chin in a little, gently licking her alcohol-drenched lips. “You cannot use my relationship with Ferris as a reference for resolving that stalemate. The issues between Ferris and me were resolved an entire decade ago.”
“…My ‘stalemate’?”
“Perhaps I should call it a rite of passage… Something that must be overcome by people before they can become lord and vassal in a true sense. Now that I think of it, right after Ferris decided to serve me, he explored what he could do through pure trial and error.”
Like a child being teased, Ferris’s face turned red at having his past abruptly revealed.
“W-wait, Lady Crusch! Please don’t talk ameowt that. It’s embarrassing!”
Crusch watched Ferris and shook her head.
“It is nothing to blush over. How could the sight of one doing his best to locate his place and appropriately serve another be shameful? Impressed by your resolve, I went to equal lengths to be a master who would not bring you disgrace. Even now, I do not know if I have achieved such a thing.”
“Ferri will never harbor dissatisfaction toward his lady Crusch, not in an entire lifetime!”
“You spoil me. Yo
u would say the same thing if I spent all my days in complete idleness. This is why I must have a strong character: to resist the temptations of depravity.”
It was a very humble-sounding statement, and Crusch seemed to be earnestly speaking from the bottom of her own heart. Ferris sent her an even more passionate look, but Subaru simply wanted to run away.
Seeing their relationship, and the absolute, unshakable trust between them, tore at his heart.
Crusch said to Subaru in a sharp voice, “—Do not lower your eyes, Subaru Natsuki.”
“…Eh?”
“If your eyes become clouded, your soul will go astray. That will mean your future is closed and you have lost your purpose for living.”
“—”
“When you follow your own sense of justice, you can do any number of things if you just look at the ground. Lift your face, look forward, reach out your hand. Even when doing something for others, you must be able to see them for your feelings to get across.”
Subaru’s throat caught. Every drop of blood in his body froze. For a moment, Crusch’s words drove a nail into his heart.
Still, she didn’t look at the frozen boy, but at the wine in her inclined glass.
Subaru wondered: if those eyes pierced him at that very moment, what would have happened?
—Perhaps, at that instant, he would have fallen on his hands and knees without a single moment’s hesitation.
Subaru was not only surprised at her seeing right through him, but he also had to take his hat off to her skill as a great stateswoman. Still, he was able to avoid kneeling before her because Ferris was the first to respond to her words.
“Ahh, Lady Crusch… I swear again to exhaust my life in service of my master.”
“Then I can only respond to your loyalty with the entirety of my spirit— Subaru Natsuki, strive to do nothing that would diminish yourself. I do not want to think of you as an insignificant foe.”
Ferris’s loyalty, Crusch’s nobility—both stirred Subaru’s heart deeply. He wet his parched tongue, failing to form words several times before he managed to speak.
“Lending an enemy a hand, huh… It’s awfully nice of you to give your opponents a fighting chance.”
“This matter is important enough to decide the future of the entire nation. This may be highly impudent of me to say, but if I must struggle for the throne, I wish for it to be against worthy rivals. A crown earned by defeating weaklings will do nothing to impress the lords of the land.”
“…Wanting strong opponents means you’re confident about beating them, huh?”
“I have no such confidence whatsoever. What I have is will, and I have poured effort into achieving optimal results so that I can do what I must. Furthermore, I hope that my rivals do the same.”
This was the individual named Crusch Karsten, her every thought humble until the bitter end.
Having exchanged drinks with her like this, the impressions he held of her—“sincere,” “high-class”—changed. This was a woman like a sword, fierce as a firestorm, pitiless as a naked blade.
Ferris relaxed his voice, clapping his hands together as he dissolved the tense atmosphere.
“Somemeow, the conversation became so formal. Let’s unwind now.”
Bathed in a cool breeze, Subaru realized that his brow was covered with sweat.
Crusch replied, “I am sorry for speaking so stiffly. I mustn’t get carried away with entertainment or my drinks.”
“No, no, mew needn’t apologize for anything, Lady Crusch! Subawu understands what he needs to do meow.”
Ferris’s words, summarizing the earlier conversation, sounded very hollow to Subaru’s ears.
“What I…need to do now…?”
Surely he understands had been the implication, but Subaru couldn’t put his finger on it. The only things he’d picked up during the evening spent over drinks were that Crusch and Ferris shared an unshakable bond and that he was small and confused.
Subaru didn’t see anything about what was to come or what he needed to do.
Yet in spite of that, what could Subaru tell them that he now understood?
“—”
“As far as Ferri is concerned, having Lady Emilia and Subawu all split up is kinda fun, but that’s not what Lady Crusch wants at all. Sooooo you need to make up with Lady Emilia as soon as meowssible. And do what mew can do to make that happen.”
“What I can do?”
Could he really accomplish anything, worn to the bone as he was?
“Yes. A long time ago, back when Ferri became Lady Crusch’s knight, he thought very, very hard about what he could accomplish.”
Ferris put a hand to his chest as he returned to that time in his memories. Crusch’s lips slackened slightly as she glanced over at him like that. For a moment, Subaru heart beat faster in his chest.
—Something only Subaru Natsuki could do?
He realized it, as if it had come down to him like a revelation from the heavens itself.
“There…is something I can do.”
Both of the others glanced at him as he continued, “There’s something only I can do—Yeah, that’s right. No one should’ve had to tell me that.”
Now he knew. No, he’d always known.
He’d been reminded when he had been on the verge of forgetting.
Truly, Crusch and Ferris were benevolent people. They were providing aid to the enemy with everything they had, like the famous Kenshin Uesugi.
—They had reminded Subaru of exactly what he could do for Emilia’s sake.
“Yeah… I have something. I’ve always had it.”
It had nothing to do with power, or knowledge, or rank, or status. It didn’t need to.
For, just as Ferris had said, Subaru possessed a single, ultimate weapon.
It had been in him from the beginning. But everything that had happened to him had shoved it into a dark corner of his mind.
Images of Julius, Reinhard, and Emilia came to him, one after another. All of them looked at Subaru with contempt sharp enough to cut his soul.
—These were the people Subaru Natsuki had to prove himself to.
“I just need a chance. If I can get that… I can make all my problems go away.”
Subaru felt like a dark cloud had lifted as doubt left his heart and he gained confidence in its place.
He clenched a strong, tight fist, picturing a silver-haired girl in the back of his mind.
Crusch gently turned her wineglass around in her hand as she murmured offhandedly.
“The wind blows stronger. It would seem tomorrow’s weather will be somewhat stormy.”
Then, with a small sound, the melting ice cube within her glass neatly split in two.
CHATER 2
EVENTS IN MOTION, AND REM’S DECISION
1
The tip of the wooden sword made contact with Subaru’s forehead. The next instant, centrifugal force immediately blew him away. He felt like the sky and the ground had been swapped as he wrapped his arms around himself, cushioning the blow as he made a well-formed roll. Having neutralized the damage from the tumble, he proudly licked his lips at his own mastery.
“Geh, there’s dirt on it. Ptoo, ptoo, ptoo. Tastes like grass. Ptoo, ptoo!”
“Shall we bring this to an end?”
“Surely you jest. You saw my expert falling technique, didn’t you? My genius has finally blossomed!”
Saying the words almost broke Subaru’s heart. He had mastered the skill in the course of being pounded day after day.
The boy had sparred with Wilhelm every day during his stay at the Crusch villa. He still couldn’t land even one attack, but his ability to improve his falling technique suggested that Wilhelm wasn’t simply smacking him around without a purpose.
The older man presented a rebuttal, though.
“However, it is a useless technique for a duel with real swords.”
“You didn’t need to point that out!! The pine tree of my heart has a lot of c
racks right now!!”
Certainly, in a bout that could end in a single sword stroke, a martial arts skill for properly receiving a blow and falling was not very useful. Improving a skill used solely for practicing was a misplaced priority, but it was still well worth it during sword training.
“I must say, you seem to be more spirited this morning somehow.”
“Last night, I had a little discussion with Miss Crusch about my concerns— Thanks to that, all my hesitation’s disappeared. I feel pretty good at the moment.”
“In a book I read yesterday, a character who was only beginning to become accustomed to the battlefield spoke much like you are now. He lost his life because he took his fight for granted, Sir Subaru.”
“So there’s death flags even in other worlds?!”
Apparently even in a small corner across the cosmos, there were lines that marked you for death, just like back home.
But Subaru had been anxiously awaiting Wilhelm’s words of concern.
The older man raised his eyebrows in a questioning expression.
“Sir Subaru?”
A smile came over the boy as he shook his head.
“…Nothing. Really, nothing at all.”
—At that moment, “the field of battle” and “death” were things he could welcome with open arms. Those were opportunities for Subaru Natsuki to establish his worth in an undeniable way.
“So much waste.”
“Ugah!”
When sword practice resumed, Wilhelm exploited the opening created by Subaru’s wandering thoughts, using a minimal motion to strike with his sword. He took advantage of all the boy’s excess power and unnecessary momentum and easily sent Subaru’s body dancing into the air with no visible power behind the sword attack.
“I can handle this!”
Subaru, desperate to keep from falling on his head and causing serious damage, instantly shifted his head and curled up, adopting an ironclad fall-breaking posture that could let him land anywhere without major injury. However…
“Do you really think that is the last of it?”
With one smooth motion, Wilhelm inserted his wooden sword through a gap in Subaru’s curled-up limbs, wrecking his posture. The boy’s arms and legs spread out wide, and unable to grasp what was happening, he slammed into the ground, limbs splayed.
ReZERO_Starting Life in Another World Vol. 5 Page 6
