“Ah. Well, that’s good. Bye-bye, then!”
With a smile, Ferris gave his carefree salutation and finally left the guest room.
Subaru, feeling utterly exhausted for some reason, flopped down from the sudden rush of lethargy.
“I’m supposed to be getting treatment. Why do I have to feel this tired from it?”
“Are you all right, Subaru?”
“Mmm… I’m all right…I think. I don’t really get it, but you saved me from something?”
“That is unclear. Master Felix does not appear to hold any ill will toward you, so… I do not know the true motives behind his previous behavior.”
Seeing Rem ponder the matter, Subaru turned his head, perplexed.
“Errr, so what state was I in earlier, anyway?”
“Until just now, Master Felix was interfering with all the mana in your body, Subaru.”
“That so? Just figured healing required it. It’s not a good feeling, and it’s pretty awful, to be honest, but somehow I put up with it…”
“Having another person’s mana in you like that is the same as taking that person inside you. That made Master Felix’s words much easier for you to accept, you see.”
“The way you said that sounds pretty bad, you know?!”
Subaru stood up in a hurry, patting his body down to check things out.
“Am I all right? There’s nothing weird going on? My heart isn’t becoming more womanly or my speech having more feminine twists to it or something?!”
“It is all right, Subaru. You are quite splendid. I am always watching you, so please believe me.”
Subaru thought for a moment that he couldn’t allow the peculiarities of her statement, but instead, he let it roll over him as he patted his chest down in relief. He also gained a new appreciation for just what position he was in.
“Now that I think of it, this is, like, one of the enemy’s main headquarters. I’ve been relaxing and letting my guard down a lot, though…”
“Please be at ease. It is true that you are incorrigibly laid-back and slow to catch on, but I am keeping guard, so there is nothing for you to be concerned about.”
“You couldn’t leave out the ‘incorrigibly laid-back’ part?!”
That moment, the truth struck him clear as day. Just imagining how much Rem had been waging a one-woman war while he was idly whiling away his time made him want to run out the door.
“I’ll try to be a bit more careful from now on. Everyone here is an enemy, after all.”
“…An enemy, you say?”
He was trying to pull himself together after having been so focused on one thing. But in his determination, Subaru didn’t notice that Rem was murmuring something.
After ensuring his body was safe and sound, Subaru gazed at the magic crystal on a wall of the room to check the time.
“Oh, time’s a-wasting. How about you help me study until we get called for dinner, Professor Rem?”
Subaru headed to a desk in the room. The remaining abbles were on top of the desk, sitting alongside study material he had brought with him from Roswaal’s mansion.
In other words, it was study time for Subaru, who had not yet mastered the language of this other world.
“I really cannot get accustomed to being addressed like that.”
“Well, I think it’s all right, since you’re the one doing the teaching… If you don’t like it, I can stop, Professor.”
“No! Please continue! It is something you call only me by! So Subaru may not call anyone else that! If you do, I will be upset!”
“Well, if you’re gonna be like that, I’ll be relentless, too! Nggggh, you won’t outdo me…!”
Subaru chose an odd point to make a show of stubbornness, fiercely turning toward the table. Rem stood behind Subaru, watching him affectionately. But from time to time, she would stare into the distance, her mind wandering as her face showed faint signs of strain.
“Professor, I don’t understand this part very well…”
But all traces of that look vanished the instant she heard Subaru’s voice.
“Oh Subaru, you are helpless. You could not get anything done if I were not here with you. I would not mind if you demonstrated your gratitude from time to time…?”
5
“Excellent timing. Subaru Natsuki, would you come with me for a while?”
Subaru had finished bathing and was on his way back to his room when someone addressed him in the lobby on the second floor of the Crusch residence. The long-haired woman was ascending the stairs and carrying a tray when she called out to him.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure who it was, since the outfit and aura she gave off were completely different from usual.
Subaru’s only reaction was to raise his brows.
“…Miss Crusch?”
“It is. Is there something odd about…? Ah, I see, this is the first time you have seen me in an outfit unrelated to my duties. I imagine it has startled you.”
Crusch seemed to realize what had unsettled him. The outfit she normally wore that resembled an army uniform was gone; in its place, she wore a nightgown with thin, dark fabric and a cape over the shoulders. Unlike the scrupulously buttoned-up military uniform, the nightgown showed off her very feminine physique with every step, greatly altering the aura she projected.
Subaru was averting his eyes, feeling vaguely embarrassed, but Crusch apparently hadn’t noticed. She continued, “Either way, it is fortunate that question has been resolved. To return to the original question, do you have some spare time? If it pleases you, I would like to have a drink with you this night.”
“…I don’t drink alcohol, though.”
“You may sip water if you wish. I do not intend to drink enough to become inebriated.”
Crusch smiled a little as she rose farther up the stairs. Subaru was a little thrown off but, finding no reason to court her displeasure, made a short run to catch up.
She led Subaru to a balcony on the third floor of the mansion. A white table and chairs had been placed in one corner of the terrace. Crusch sat down first and indicated the opposing chair with her gaze, so Subaru meekly complied.
“The breeze is very refreshing tonight. It’s the perfect weather, since I like to drink my liquor while watching the night sky.”
“I’m wondering why you invited me today, though. You could have invited Ferris or someone?”
“Of course, normally I would have Ferris with me… However, he must work late this evening.” Crusch must have been referring to Ferris’s work as a healer, in great demand even in the royal capital. Just as Ferris had done for Subaru in the evening, he treated numerous people on a daily basis. It was a packed schedule that made almost no allowance for free time. “Besides that, it’s good to exchange drinks with someone of a different rank and position once in a while.”
“I said it once already, but I don’t drink alcohol, you know?”
“You can simply add plenty of ice. You may even fill it with cold water if you wish. Now, then?”
The tray on the table had a pair of wineglasses on it. In one, she poured amber-colored alcohol; in the other, she poured clear water. Subaru accepted the water, reluctantly touching his glass to Crusch’s.
The light clink was accompanied by the sound of the ice shifting within it as Crusch narrowed her eyes.
“It seems you are anxious about a number of things, but please be at ease. I have not brought you here out of any desire to interrogate you. I swear that it is no such petty trick.”
“Ah, no… I wasn’t worried about that.”
“There is no need to try to hide it. I can see anxiety and doubt in the night breeze around you. As we belong to rival camps, I am actually relieved by your wariness. That way, I do not forget my own principles.”
Crusch made a show of enjoying her half-filled glass, savoring it with her red tongue. Subaru, desperate to wash away the sense that she could see right into his mind, poured the cold water down his thro
at.
“So these last few days, you’ve been pretty busy… Is it related to the royal selection?”
“—Ha-ha-ha! As soon as I tell you caution is unnecessary, you plunge straight into the heart of the matter. I certainly did not expect that. I do think that is exactly how rival camps should be, however.”
“Not knowing my place and not reading the mood are kind of my defining characteristics.”
“I would add spinning your own vices into virtues to the list. Certainly, it is the royal selection that has kept me occupied these last few days. It has added to Ferris’s and Wilhelm’s labors as well.”
Her wineglass held at an angle, Crusch spoke smoothly and in good humor. She seemed even more attractive than usual to Subaru’s eyes, so he shifted his attention to the courtyard, which was in sight of the balcony.
“And it’s related to all the stuff you’ve been hauling into the mansion and the people coming and going?”
“A sharper eye than I expected… Or rather, the scale was large enough that you could not fail to notice.” With no sign that her good mood was waning, Crusch loosened her lips and replied to Subaru’s question. “It’s not unrelated at all. My house is currently assembling all the men and materiel possible for a particular task. It may cause you and Rem some trouble in the coming days.”
“I feel like it’s us who are causing you a lot of trouble, but… What’s this particular task?”
“—Have you heard the details of how Wilhelm came to enter my service?”
After his question was answered with another question, Subaru couldn’t say anything. He understood only that the “particular task” Crusch had mentioned concerned Wilhelm—and that the details were not a topic he could broach without the old man’s permission.
“You are free to speculate… It seems I have said too much. Wilhelm might well scold me for this.”
“Wilhelm doesn’t look like someone who’d talk to his master like that, though…”
“He is a man without mercy. You should watch him instruct me in the sword at least once. He must think of our first meeting as a rather embarrassing one himself.”
Crusch made a wry smile, savoring the wine with the colorful tip of her tongue as she switched subjects. Subaru also sought a change in subject to reset his mind.
“So you have sword lessons every day, too, huh?”
“Surely you are not saying I should not wield one because I am merely a woman?”
Subaru instinctively responded with embarrassment, but Crusch winked at him.
“I jest. It is merely something I am accustomed to hearing since my youth—that the little Karsten princess is both a maiden as well as a crazed fencer. I was considered the fool of the duke’s house for my love of getting my hands dirty more than flowers.”
“…That’s pretty different from the rumors I’ve been hearing. In public, all the common folk are praising you, saying you’ll leave your mark on the kingdom’s history.”
“The people changed their appraisal when they learned of my exploits. The sudden shift was rather calculating of them in my opinion, but it is my own fault for not having produced results in all that time. I do not intend to blame lords for altering their public stances. As for the rumors in the city, I can only call them embarrassing.”
She was apparently a big enough person to accept whatever people said about her deeds, for good or ill. Crusch never averted her eyes from discussion about being “merely a woman.” Public opinion had dramatically changed because of her exploits—which jogged Subaru’s memory about something.
“So that famous first battle was what changed how everyone thought of you?”
“Mm…”
As Subaru pursued the topic, Crusch rested her lips on her wineglass as she let out a small sound. Her amber eyes narrowed.
“It is embarrassing.”
She turned her head with an uncharacteristic pout on her face. Subaru countered, “How can it be embarrassing? I heard demon beasts attacked your land, and you handled it great in your father’s place. That’s pretty cool for a first battle, isn’t it?”
“Of course not. Let me correct one misperception. I did not fell the demon beasts. I merely drove them off. I was a princess hastily and impudently taking command in place of her injured father.”
“But it worked, didn’t it?”
“Of course it did. I could not allow my first sortie to end in failure after I brushed aside my father’s objections. However, the problem is the extent of the results. To me, my naïveté at the time is a shame most difficult to bear.”
Her mood had not fallen, but Crusch wasn’t sugarcoating anything, either. She didn’t think it was worthy of heroic tales. The topic Subaru had chosen was, from her perspective, a sore point of sorts.
Thus, Crusch concluded the topic, shooting Subaru a jovial look.
“You are rather fond of needling people yourself. As expected of a political rival, I suppose?”
Subaru was completely unaware that he was such a person, but she’d given him no room to argue. He brought the ice-cold glass to his lips and tried to change the topic in an attempt to smooth over the awkwardness.
“S-so incidentally, what else has changed besides that?”
“—Let me see. Since word of the royal selection spread, the number of proposals has increased by leaps and bounds. Though such talk comes with the territory of being a duchess to begin with.”
“Pfft!”
Subaru spewed out water without thinking when his probing of a rival’s internal circumstances took an unexpected turn.
“P-proposals, as in, proposals for marriage?”
“I will soon be twenty years of age… Marrying then is not uncommon. It is awkward due to my gender and position, so I have deftly evaded such talk until now.”
“Ahh, the…duchess thing must really intimidate the men…”
“A rather blunt way to put it. But that is indeed the case. A few have come forward to take my hand, each trying to make me his, but… That was then, and this is now.”
Crusch closed her eyes as a larger sip of wine flowed across her tongue.
Her position as a royal candidate made her an especially pivotal person for the nation. No doubt there was a horde of potential suitors coming out of the woodwork who’d never made an attempt for her hand.
“Miss Crusch, you’re pretty optimistic about this proposal talk. Are you looking to get married?”
“I wonder. It is a topic I have pondered myself. If I were to marry someone, he might be of great assistance to me in many situations, including ascendance in the royal selection. But all the candidates are single women, so the conditions are the same for all. I suppose matters are slightly different for Priscilla Bariel, who is a widow.”
Hearing Crusch’s opinion, a wave of anxiety pressed against Subaru’s innards.
“I-I see… Everyone’s single. Similar conditions… Marriage, huh…”
Marrying someone of high status meant bringing that person into one’s political camp. If Crusch had received marriage proposals, the other candidates probably had, too.
Naturally, the same could be said for the young Emilia.
“Forgive me, Subaru Natsuki. I have been somewhat mean to you in revenge.”
“…Eh?”
Subaru, distracted by the possibility of Emilia marrying, was slow to react to the apology.
“All individuals chosen as candidates for the Dragonfriend Ceremony are forbidden to marry during the royal selection period. Nominally, it is because one should put the kingdom before the self, but in reality, it is more of a desperate measure to prevent marriage ties from exacerbating political conflict.”
“Th-then all these marriage proposals you’ve been getting?”
“I will assess them all after the royal selection is complete. Making the proposals beforehand rather than after the fact is more acceptable, I suppose. I will not make empty promises only to revoke them later, however.”
Subaru
sighed with relief. If marriage arrangements were prohibited, there was no danger of Emilia being married off to someone behind his back.
“But one can hammer out all the details while leaving the actual marriage for later.”
Subaru sullenly complained, “…Miss Crusch, do you enjoy toying with the hearts of men?”
“You prodded at my own source of shame first. The least I could do was to return the favor.” Crusch tilted her glass without a single hint of guilt. “Besides, people are usually too conscious about differences in rank to be honest with their own hearts. I have a rather deep interest in how such affairs will be settled.”
“Worry about your own love life before someone else’s, sheesh. If you’re pushing twenty, you must have one?”
Since she’d been toying with him, Subaru tried to counterattack, but the reply he received was unexpected.
“Unfortunately, having been born a Karsten means I cannot hope for freedom in marriage. I am still a woman, however much I may deviate from the conventional norms.”
In contrast to Subaru’s romantic fantasies, Crusch had already given up on her own freedom to decide her relationships. It was a natural view of marriage in a world where status and family determined partners regardless of personal interest.
As Crusch’s eyes gazed at the melting ice in her glass, they quietly held unshakable will and resolve. Subaru took his time trying to form a rebuttal, but he was unable to speak a word.
With the night breeze blowing across the balcony, Crusch ran a hand through her fluttering hair.
She had pale skin. Almond eyes. Beautiful green hair, and a profile filled with such beauty and elegance as to shake others to the core. As much as she said that she deviated from the norm, Crusch was a beautiful woman. That fact did nothing to detract from the sublime nobility of her beliefs.
Unable to bear the silence, Subaru chose a topic that might have been overly vague.
“Miss Crusch… What do you think of the royal selection?”
“Mm,” she began in response, closing her eyes as she thought it over. “I spoke of it at the royal selection conference, but I harbor misgivings about the state of this country.”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 5 Page 5
