He thought briefly about divulging his own past embarrassments to make up for it, but he could imagine what kind of scorched-earth landscape that would leave, so he firmly rejected the idea.
As a result, the silence continued unbroken, with a bead of sweat trickling down Subaru’s brow.
“My apologies you had to hear that unpleasant tale. I do not wish to waste your time with an old man’s trivial delusions. Please, forget them.”
It was Wilhelm who broke the silence, trying to act like the conversation earlier had never happened. Seeing the painful smile on his face, Subaru silently resolved to respect his wishes. Ask nothing, said Wilhelm’s silent wish. So he would ask nothing.
“You truly love your wife, don’t you?”
—Miss Rem?!
Subaru’s shock was palpable. Rem had walked directly into a veritable minefield.
Paying Subaru’s nervousness no heed, Wilhelm raised an eyebrow for a moment before he replied.
“Yes, I love my wife. More than anything, more than anyone, no matter how much time may pass.”
Wilhelm’s age itself gave his statement that much more weight.
On several past occasions, Subaru had heard Wilhelm voice his feelings for his beloved wife. In those few moments, Wilhelm had conveyed just how dear his wife was to him, but now that he knew that these were Wilhelm’s feelings for someone departed from this world, it stirred a different emotion deep within Subaru.
“If you will excuse me, preparations for tomorrow yet await. Please rest peacefully this evening.”
With the pair falling silent, Wilhelm turned his back to them and gently headed off.
“Tomorrow—”
As Wilhelm excused himself, Subaru spoke to him spur-of-the-moment.
He stopped. But he did not look back when he started speaking.
“Tomorrow, Rem and I will be fighting with you.”
“That is…”
“As if we can sit back and watch while our allies face a powerful enemy. Don’t worry. Rem can fight…and I have things to do, too.” Subaru piled onto his hastily spoken words, cutting off any rejection of his cooperation. Then he added, “Let’s join our strength together and give that whale bastard a real beating! I’ll help every way I can!”
“”
Subaru raised the thumb of his right hand as he swore that he and Wilhelm would be comrades in arms.
For a time, Wilhelm said nothing to his declaration. Then—
“—My wife was a woman who loved to admire flowers.”
Haltingly, he replied to Subaru’s oath in a very different tone.
“She did not care for the way of the sword, yet the sword loved her like none other. She was not permitted to live any life save one with the sword, and my wife came to accept that destiny.”
Subaru had personally witnessed the might of Reinhard, the current Sword Saint. The blessing of Sword Saint granted the human body an absurd level of power—enough power to define a person’s future and narrow one’s possibilities without limit.
“It is I who robbed my wife of the sword and made her abandon the title of Sword Saint.”
Once, Wilhelm had told Subaru that he was an aged swordsman with no talent—that his current state had been achieved after offering half of his life to the sword. What setbacks must he have suffered, what nails must have been driven into his heart until he arrived at that dear wish? And then—
“She abandoned the sword and became a woman—and my wife. All this she permitted so that she might live as Theresia instead of the Sword Saint— However, the sword did not forgive her.”
If she had abandoned the sword, how had she ended up part of the White Whale expeditionary force?
However, Wilhelm’s recollection did not touch upon that issue as he spoke.
“Sir Subaru, I thank you.” After a breath, he added, “In tomorrow’s battle, I shall find my answer with my own blade. I will be able to go where my wife rests. I shall finally be able to meet her.”
Leaving those words behind, Wilhelm departed the room for good.
Subaru couldn’t keep his entire body from trembling from the flood of emotions within him.
As a fellow man, Wilhelm’s determination could not fail to inspire a deep reverence within him. Wilhelm was a man earnestly, sincerely beholden to love.
“Subaru…”
Suddenly, Rem’s voice echoed across the now-silent room. Without a word, Subaru turned toward her, perfectly meeting Rem’s gaze.
“…If I am gone, will you remember me just as long?”
“…I don’t wanna answer that. It’s bad luck.”
Speaking with a voice of dismay, Subaru gave Rem’s forehead a little poke.
When he touched Rem’s forehead, she smiled with a happy expression, almost as if she’d received the reply she had been hoping for.
2
It was the following morning—seventeen hours before the appointed hour for subjugating the White Whale.
“Now then, it’s Lady Crusch’s orders, so go ahead, pick whichever one you like.”
“Even if you put it like that…”
With a cool morning breeze blowing, Subaru was at the Crusch residence, utterly lost in front of a lineup of land dragons.
Ferris, wearing a white uniform of the Knights of the Royal Guard instead of his usual feminine clothing, was having Subaru examine the land dragons. With a snow-white cape on top, and a face full of zeal, Ferris’s cheeks puffed up at Subaru’s reply.
“What?! Lady Crusch went out of her way to be so kind, and you don’t like them?!”
“It’s not that. I’m really happy I can choose the land dragon I’ll ride, but I don’t have a clue how to figure out what’s good or bad about each one. Do I look like a vet who’s been handling ’em for decades?”
“Hmm…not even a little. So how about you pick based on intuition? Considering that it’s who you’ll trust with your life, and who you might end up dying beside, Ferri won’t hold any choice against you, meow.”
“Stop that! Don’t raise weird event flags like that! I’m not planning to die here!”
Even with twelve-odd hours left before the decisive battle, Ferris didn’t seem tense whatsoever. It was better than being oddly stressed out, but Subaru thought the mood was a little too slack.
At that moment, numerous land dragons were lined up in the front yard of the Crusch residence for the offensive against the White Whale. Many land dragons were for hauling freight, but a dragon mount to take into actual combat was an especially crucial decision. He’d heard that the House of Karsten had a fine selection, including famous dragons from excellent bloodlines, but…
“No matter how much I look, I can’t really get past ‘They seem really cool.’ Rem, what do you think?”
Just like many knights setting out for battle with their favorite horse, Subaru had been given the privilege of choosing his mount. But at that rate, such a prized right would simply go to waste.
Rem, standing at Subaru’s side while stroking the neck of the land dragon in front of her, responded to his prompt.
“I wonder. In my case, I can tell most land dragons which one of us is in charge, so I have had little reason to be concerned with the differences between individuals…”
“That figures. You really know how to crack the whip. Huh, what should I do…?”
The land dragon Rem was stroking sat on the ground, almost as if to display its submission. It probably did what came naturally after sensing that it stood lower on the food chain. Subaru couldn’t really pull off the same thing, nor did he want to.
“If you spend too much time picking, we’ll pay for it later, so pick quiiiick.”
“You say it like this is none of your concern, sheesh.”
“It actually isn’t, but that’s not the point. Seriously, they’re all well bred, so you can’t go wrong with any of these guys. Just pick on intuition.”
“Well, that does make a certain amount of sense, but…mm?”
/>
With Ferris urging him to hurry, Subaru walked around to examine the various land dragons, when he suddenly stopped. Rem had been walking beside him until he froze, which earned him a curious expression.
“Subaru, is something wrong?”
“Nah… This one just kinda caught my eye.”
As Subaru stood still, there was a beautiful, pitch-black land dragon before him.
It had sharp facial features and yellow eyes. Resting atop the saddle on its back was a leather helmet for dragon riders. The variety of gear didn’t differ from that of the other land dragons, but what struck Subaru were its eyes.
“”
The land dragon’s quiet gaze gave Subaru a different impression compared to its peers. There was not even the tiniest smidgeon of the pride or fidelity that land dragons typically displayed. The pitch-black land dragon simply sat there, calmly waiting to be selected.
“Hey…you’re the land dragon I met at the mansion a while back, aren’t you?”
Subaru, suddenly recognizing the individual dragon, reached out toward it. At his side, Rem was a little startled and was instantly tempted to pull back Subaru’s hand. But faster than Rem could stop him, the land dragon nuzzled its nose against Subaru’s hand.
“…Looks like this one is number one.”
“I am surprised. I believe this land dragon is from an especially proud breed… I was concerned it might eat your hand, Subaru.”
“Okay, maybe I was a little careless just now!”
But he’d thought there was no need for such concern. Maybe he and the land dragon were on the same wavelength.
Subaru decided he’d bet his life on the black land dragon that had nuzzled him with the tip of its nose.
“Ferris, I’m picking this one. It’s love at first sight.”
“Yes, yes. Ohhh, nice pick. Subawu, you really are quite shameless… Also, don’t say ‘love at first sight’; you’ll make Rem pout.”
“I am not pouting. I will get along with it properly. I can do it.”
Subaru was a little concerned at how she added extra words for emphasis, but with Rem’s permission, Subaru’s choice of mount was decided. Ferris, who had a few other things to take care of, remained behind while Subaru and Rem headed back into the mansion side by side.
There was little time remaining before they were due to set out.
The Crusch residence had been gathering manpower in bits and pieces, forming an expeditionary force with the goal of fighting the White Whale. Even among them, there was something in the hall that especially drew Subaru’s attention…
“Wh-what are they doing here…?”
Subaru was beside himself, unwittingly staring right at them. A member of the group noticed his gaze and approached him with an audible patter.
“Guess you’re part of the expeditionary force, too! Nice to meetcha, bro!”
The voice Subaru heard had enough force to blow the crisp morning air away. The sound reached the far corners of the spacious mansion. Subaru could not help being struck by the forceful bellow.
Subaru put his hands on his ears and grimaced heavily, glaring back at the other party, but…
“I heard all about ya from the lady! You’re the one who made today’s whale hunt happen. Ain’t that right?! From here on, I’m part of the hunt, too! Glad the weather’s cooperating!”
“You’re too loud! Can’t those round eyes of yours read my reaction?!”
As a natural response to the booming words, Subaru ended up shouting, too.
His angry voice sent the dog-faced beast man into a laugh that was even more stupidly loud.
His entire body was covered in brown fur, with an oblong, dark-brown mane adorning his head like a Mahican hairstyle. However, he was almost six and a half feet tall, and the sight of his extremely muscular body clad in a leather outfit felt a lot like a truce coming after wildness and culture coming to blows. Subaru’s eyes lingered on the steel epaulet protecting his otherwise exposed upper body, and the Hoshin Company logo engraved upon it.
“That logo on a beast man from Kararagi… That means you’re Anastasia’s Iron Fangs!”
“Wha—! Your voice is too quiet, bro! I can’t hear what you’re sayin’!”
“Oh, shut up for a second! What the hell did you eat to grow that big?! What race are you?!”
“I’m a kobold, can’t you tell?! As if there could be a dog race besides kobolds?!”
“Huh, kobold… Wait, there’s no way?!”
The beast man had called himself a kobold, but Subaru’s image of a kobold was a little person with a dog face. The dog face and the humanoid body were in line with what he expected, but the body size was way, way off.
“They call me Ricardo. Nice to meet you, too, missy!”
“Yes, Master Ricardo. Thank you for your kind words. My name is Rem.”
Emotionally prepared for Ricardo’s hearty greeting, Rem politely introduced herself in turn.
When Subaru glanced, watching the exchange, he saw Anastasia with a grin coming over to the head of Ricardo’s group—a band of beast people.
When her mischievous smile met Subaru’s sour look, she teasingly tilted her head.
“Oh no, Natsuki. It would seem Ricardo isn’t very agreeable with your ears. The best way to get along with him is to not wander too close, you see.”
“It would’ve been useful to know about that before meeting him. You really are rough on people.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t help wondering how you’d react, you see…”
“Not just rough on people, a bad personality, too. Er, ow!”
As Anastasia giggled teasingly, Ricardo’s huge beast-man hand gave Subaru’s head a little push. He opened his big mouth wide to speak, which neatly displayed his fangs.
“Hey, bro! Watch your mouth when speaking with the lady! Be a little nicer to our employer, will ya! She almost never talks to anyone if it’s not about profits and losses, so she has no friends! At this point, you can probably get in good with her with a little kindness!”
“Ricardo. If you’re going to sweep something under the rug, best not to be insulting about it along the way, yes?”
“It’s not an insult! I’m worried about you, miss! Ever since way back, you never got along with people too well, so comin’ here from Kararagi without anyone you know has gotta been wearing you down, right?! But lookie right here! Heeeere ya go, friend number one!”
“Hey, don’t butt in and babble when people are talking! And don’t go grabbing a guy’s head and shaking it around like that! That ridiculous strength of yours could tear my head off!”
Assailed by literally superhuman strength, Subaru tried to somehow shake his attacker off before his neck snapped first. In a hurry, he escaped from Ricardo and immediately began neck-stretching exercises, rotating his head around.
“M-man, that was close. Wouldn’t be funny to get injured and sidelined during chitchat right before the big battle. I’m pretty worked up for this, so no way am I gonna accept that kind of foul-up…”
“What’s with the big fuss! I’m just tellin’ you guys to get along!”
“Maybe different cultures have different definitions of getting along. Are all Kararagi people like this?”
“Well, of course not. Ricardo’s special. You see a vast difference in elegance and grace between him and me, don’t you?”
Anastasia stood beside Ricardo and brazenly laid out her claim. Subaru deeply exhaled, pushing Rem forward as he countered.
“Now, look. If you wanna talk about real grace, talk about someone like Rem. See this elegance?”
“Oh no… Calling me cute like this… I’m blushing.”
“Hmm, a strange girl, but she seems nice and has excellent future prospects. You’ve got quite the catch there, Natsuki.”
Subaru almost wanted to say that it was more like they had caught each other, but Rem’s reaction was already a little different from what Subaru expected, so it was hard for him to bring it up.<
br />
Then, Crusch emerged from below Subaru and the others at the head of a motley assembly.
“From the look of things, you have finished getting to know one another.”
Crusch was not in her usual handsome dress uniform but rather, a light suit of unornamented armor. The build clearly focused on ease of movement; perhaps prioritizing mobility was in itself a feminine choice. To Subaru’s eyes, it seemed questionable how much protection it would be able to provide the wearer.
“It is better to wear gear that is easy to move in. Do not be overly concerned. An earth blacksmith engraved this with the durability blessing. So long as my mana is not exhausted, it is far stouter than it appears,” Crusch explained, realizing the doubts behind Subaru’s gaze, and she touched a hand to her breastplate.
“There’s a thing like that? As usual, magic and blessings are basically cheating… Maybe I have a convenient blessing like that sleeping inside of me and I just don’t know yet?”
“No matter how long a person sleeps, it is not as if anyone ever forgets how to breathe, yes? That is what blessings are like for those who possess them. If you are not aware of one, it is best to abandon the notion.”
Having experienced a similar put-down once before, Subaru pouted and discarded his faint hope.
Rem comforted Subaru as if she were consoling a sulking child. Meanwhile, Crusch noticed Ricardo gazing down at her, so she peered up at his huge frame and spoke again.
“I see. I had heard the stories, but you are an even greater warrior than rumored. So you are the captain of the Iron Fangs, the blade who stands by Anastasia Hoshin’s side?”
“In the end, we’re just being paid to do a job. You’re Crusch Karsten, right? Besides the usual rumors, I’ve heard about you from the lady, but seeing you in the flesh is…”
With Crusch folding her arms and looking up at him, Ricardo audibly sniffed, using his canine sense of smell. Then, the folds of his nose crinkled and his throat rumbled in laughter.
“What a piece of work! This royal selection’s gonna be pretty tough, miss!”
“Well, that’s why we have to sell favors like this. The price tag I can put on it depends on how hard you work, so better work hard, Ricardo.”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 7 Page 5