This was the uppermost floor in Roswaal Manor’s main wing, the private study of its lord, Roswaal L. Mathers.
His voice was like a whisper, but it reached its mark with no difficulty. Of course it did.
The small body of Roswaal’s speaking companion was sitting right across his lap.
“It’s been five days since that spectacle—time enough for you to see how this shaaall proceed?”
“I suppose so— He is no good.”
Ram heard her master’s voice in her ear as he stroked her pink hair. Roswaal and Ram were the only two people in the room; there was no sign of the twin’s “other half,” Rem.
Put simply, that day’s report was about the issue of Subaru and Ram’s education of him. With her stating that his education was going most poorly, Roswaal stared for a moment before laughing.
“Ahaaa, is that so. Completely useless?”
“Barusu really can do nothing at all. He’s no good at cooking, clumsy at cleaning, and the very thought of entrusting laundry to him disturbs me. He’s oddly skilled at sewing, but besides that, nothing can be left to him alone.”
“In a place with so many girls, that, too, is a grave matter, is it nooot?”
At that age it cannot be helped, Ram seemed to say with a strained smile, looking up at her master as she thought back on the details of the previous four days. In that brief but vivid time, even a stranger would have noticed the grimace replacing Ram’s graceful, neutral expression.
“It is quite raaare to see such a face on you. Is he so worthless?”
“Worthless through and through. It is not that he is clumsy; it is that he does not know. I cannot but think he was raised poorly. However, he is also lacking in culture.”
“So haaard on him.”
Roswaal held back a laugh. Ram sighed a little, shifted her position in her master’s arms, and sank farther against him. He gave Ram’s pink hair a good stroke with his palm.
“So, Ram, the important part— Do you think he is involved?”
Roswaal maintained his smile, his tone of voice unchanged from before. The subject was unstated, but she knew what he wanted to hear. Ram closed her eyes, thinking for a little while.
“I cannot rule it out, but I think the possibility is low.”
“Hmmmm. Why is that?”
“He stands out too much to have been sent to infiltrate this House… Not in a good or b… No, in an especially bad way… In the first place, Barusu himself is…”
The words seem to pour out of her mouth.
It was, in a fashion, a reply to his question, so Roswaal greeted her answer with a satisfied smile. It was the smile of a master that said: It makes perfect sense. Though the smile was not being sent her way precisely, Ram realized her cheeks were burning nonetheless.
“I see, and I must agree with that. Meaning he truly is a benevolent bystander.”
As Roswaal spoke, the chair creaked as he shifted positions. He turned opposite to the desk, straight toward the large window through which shone the moonlight.
Roswaal’s oddly colored eyes seemed to twinkle; the corners of his lips rose at the scene below.
“I muuust say, he certainly doooes not discourage easily.”
The private study overlooked the manor’s garden. There, in one corner of it, he saw a black-haired boy speaking and laughing with a silver-haired girl. As was typical, the young man made one-sided conversation, but the girl didn’t seem to mind.
“How chaaarming. I no longer possess such passion.”
His words were like a soliloquy, but Ram looked into Roswaal’s eyes from close up as she replied.
“Women are happy when they’re pursued.”
But in contrast to the luster in her eyes, Roswaal’s eyes narrowed in a teasing look.
“Perhaps you measure Subaru higher than I thought?”
“…He is no good at all, but I do not think poorly of him. He knows nothing related to the work, but what he simply does not know, he can be taught.”
Responding to the dissatisfaction in Ram’s eyes and her chilly voice, Roswaal used the hand with which he had brushed her hair to caress her cheek. Ram seemed too enchanted to speak as Roswaal pondered her reply.
It was rare for Ram to speak of others like this.
Her unexpressed counsel to her master was, Let us get to know him better. It seemed the two maids were quite fond of the black-haired young man. There is beauty in enthusiasm, Roswaal thought with a nod.
“Based on my position, I shooould probably intercede, yeees?”
Roswaal commented as he looked down on the cute rendezvous in the garden with his yellow eye alone.
“Both are such children. Nothing will happen regardless.”
“You do have a point.”
Faint laughter filled the private study as they pulled the curtain over the window overlooking the rendezvous between the boy and girl below.
—What happened after that, not even the moon was given the privilege to see.
11
With the moon still lingering in the center of the night sky, Subaru was full of optimism.
He stretched out the wrinkles visible through his manservant outfit’s sleeves and checked how he looked in the window. It’d already been four days since he was wearing these clothes, so he thought it was about time he felt used to them.
“Not bad, not bad at all. I can do this. Right out of the bath, I look fifty percent sexier in the mirror. I feel like this is gonna work!”
Whether it was objectively 50 percent was another question, but it was important to reassure himself.
Trying to at least surround himself with an attractive aura, Subaru took a long, shallow breath and stepped forward. He was walking on the shortly mowed grass of the garden, heading for a green-covered corner lined by high trees, a place where the blessings of the moon were all the more remarkable.
There sat a girl, her silver hair twinkling in the moonlight as a pale light surrounded her.
Subaru now knew that the firefly-like pale glow actually came from spirits. That fact added to how watching the surreal scene bewitched his heart, like a demoness that wouldn’t let go. He unintentionally stopped in place, his breath catching.
Perhaps sensing him, the girl’s closed eyes abruptly opened. The two amethyst jewels caught sight of Subaru approaching.
“Oh, hi. R-real coincidence bumping into you like this?”
“You come like this every day, you know. As for coincidence…don’t we live under the same roof?”
One glance from being spotted before he could speak threw Subaru off his game; for her part, Emilia sighed at the already typical line from him. Undeterred by his slip, Subaru smiled at Emilia.
“Hearing the words under the same roof really gives me a tingling…”
“The word tingling really sends a shudder up my spine. For some reason, I don’t like it.”
With Emilia staring up at him, Subaru scratched his cheek and sat next to her like it was perfectly normal. They were a mere three hands apart, proof that the sense of distance between them had lessened.
Emilia, by now used to Subaru sitting next to her, did not bother to point out the distance.
Between her daily morning ritual and mealtimes, his sitting beside her was something she now took for granted.
It was unclear whether she was silently permitting it or simply giving up on forbidding it, but either way, Subaru was happy to be so close.
“So, what are you doing?”
“Mm? An extension of the morning routine. I can meet most of them in the morning, but I can meet some of them only at night, so…”
Subaru nodded in response, readily accepting Emilia’s reply.
He was finally accustomed to living in a world where time was measured in “day” and “night.”
Incidentally, daily life over a twenty-four-hour period was largely as one would expect. Living in accordance with the body’s internal clock brought a sense of tranquility like nothing
else.
His four days of training as a manservant had also been four days acquiring that world’s common knowledge. That said, learning servant work came ahead of academics, so his overall comprehension was still rather thin.
“Gives me new perspective looking back on my school days with the weekends off…”
Subaru had often disparaged his Spartan instructor during the last four days. But such one-sided comments from Subaru still furthered the friendly conversations he had with Emilia at night.
Subaru silently watched the side of Emilia’s face as if bewitched by the dreamlike scene.
Emilia suddenly commented, perhaps finding it rare for Subaru to be lost for words.
“It’s no fun to watch, is it?”
How Emilia somehow sounded apologetic made Subaru sit up and shake his head.
“Nah, I could never be bored being with you, Emilia-tan.”
“Wh—”
The straight-hitting statement made Emilia’s breath catch as her cheeks reddened. Seeing Emilia’s face flushed from the surprise attack made Subaru redden up to his ears.
After all, the line he’d said just then had been the complete, literal truth.
Subaru rapid-fired his words as if trying to explain away his blushing.
“Ah, er, I mean, we hadn’t had a chance to settle down and talk for days, right?”
Emilia nodded in full agreement.
“Th-that’s right. Seems you’ve had quite a time learning how to work at the manor… You’ve been working your heart out, huh?”
“Hearing that makes me so happy I wanna cry…”
Glossing over the atmosphere, they buried that topic in a deep hole and turned it into an unintentionally bittersweet moment.
Assessments of Subaru’s work over those four days had been rather harsh, and even if he managed to somehow bribe his superiors, it would not change his score of “totally useless.”
Subaru’s first job, since he was lacking ability in the domestic fields of cleaning, laundry, and cooking, was to acquire the skills required of a servant at a manor. His current grade for all of the above was stuck at C.
“Shortening the sleeves of my uniform and putting buttons on an apron got me top marks, but that’s it.”
“You really are exceptional in only one area.”
“Well, I tried to grow up to be a guy with an edge instead of perfectly round and flat…”
Subaru’s skill at sewing was a product of how his parents had raised him, but he, too, wondered what in the world they’d been thinking.
Emilia, not knowing of Subaru’s introspection, gave honest praise for his self-confidence.
“I see, is that so. I’m glad that you’re confident in something, too.”
Subaru made a rather conflicted smile at the sight of Emilia being happy for him.
“Besides, it’s not like you’re awful at the other jobs. Ram and Rem keep this quiet, but they have been praising you, you see…”
“Seriously? So I’m making ground even with my seniors here? So, what, cutting myself with the knife, knocking over the bucket, and messing up the laundry, it all raised my relationship points?!”
“I think you should reflect on that just a little.”
Emilia made a pained smile at Subaru’s stating his glaring failures. Her violet eyes gently narrowed, looking at Subaru, examining him carefully at close range.
“But work’s hard every day, isn’t it?”
“Super hard, totally tough. It makes me wanna borrow Emilia-tan’s arms and breasts and lap for some low-stress healing.”
“Yes, yes. If you’re making light of it, you must be all right.”
Emilia reached with a fingertip and gave Subaru’s forehead a light push. Subaru, weak to the pressure, could not resist Emilia’s fingertip, making a showy tumble backward onto the grass.
He let out a pleasant sigh as he felt the soothing coolness of the grass and gazed up at the star-filled sky. A world without city lights made Subaru appreciate the beauty of the stars and the moon in the sky more than ever before.
“—The moon’s so pretty, isn’t it?”
“There are some places you just can’t reach, right?”
“I wasn’t asking for it at all, and you hit me with something like that?!”
“What, did I say something bad?”
Subaru’s attempt at dropping a romantic line fell flat due to cultural differences in a different world. He pressed a hand over his heart to show he was apologetic, startling Emilia.
“Ah…”
“Oh, darn it! I was tryin’ to hide that…”
Subaru tried to hide his blushy smile as he moved the hand Emilia was staring at behind his back… The left hand that had borne the brunt of his repeated failures at work.
Subaru stuck out his tongue to try to gloss over it, but Emilia lowered her eyes with a serious look.
“So, everyone else is working hard, too.”
Emilia’s murmur sounded like she was criticizing herself.
Subaru silently acknowledged what Emilia was thinking as she spoke to herself like that.
Subaru wasn’t the only one learning something at Roswaal Manor. Emilia was in the middle of absorbing a wide variety of things that she had to learn as a royal candidate.
Subaru and Emilia were after much different things. To compare the pressure on the two of them was nearly outright rude.
Bearing such heavy burdens must have been exhausting. Perhaps Emilia carried worries that she couldn’t discuss with anyone.
Belatedly, Emilia asked a question.
“…How about I cast a healing spell?”
“Nah, it’s fine. I’d rather not heal it and leave it like this.”
“Why’s that?”
“Mm, it’s hard to put it into words… It’s kinda a sign of how hard I’ve worked?”
Subaru thought that they weren’t typical words coming from him as he strongly clenched his beat-up hand.
“I don’t mind working hard as much as I thought I would. Being able to do things I couldn’t do before…it ain’t bad. It’s hard, it’s really tough, but it’s kinda fun. I mean, Ram and Rem are surprisingly strict, that loli’s annoying, seen less of Rozchi than I thought I would, though…”
“Roswaal would probably get prickly if you told him that.”
“Nobody uses prickly anymore…”
Subaru bent a hip to emphasize his bending the conversation. Then, rising to his feet like a spring-loaded doll, he brought his right hand to his forehead in a tidy salute toward Emilia.
“Well, just need to knock down the problems one by one. I mean, this is the only place for me to live… Either way, it’s fun, see?”
In his original world, living “easy” had been just fine with him. But he couldn’t expect that kind of peaceful daily life in this world. Hence, Subaru sought as much “ease” as he could.
Having been senselessly tossed into that world, one could call it Subaru’s stubbornness toward his fate.
Subaru’s display of determination made Emilia’s expression freeze like time had stopped. Only her eyes moved, blinking several times over, before a smile suddenly came over her.
“That’s right. Yeah, I think that, too… Goodness, Subaru, you’re such an idiot.”
“Wait, isn’t that reaction weird?! Shouldn’t we be falling back in love or something?!”
“I wasn’t in love to begin with! You really are such a… I’m an idiot, too.”
Subaru looked hurt at the exaggerated reaction. Emilia’s final murmur never reached him.
Emilia’s smile deepened. The softness of her charming smile was as if the earlier pressure on her was long forgotten, like Subaru had unintentionally bewitched her with his own spell.
He couldn’t express how Emilia looked at that moment with mere words like pretty or cute.
“E M D (Emilia-tan’s Majorly Divine)!”
“I’m genuinely grateful and you joke about it like that…?”
Emilia tapered her lips in a slightly annoyed pout and pushed a finger into Subaru’s forehead again.
It was likely not Subaru’s mere imagination that these occasional touches carried more warmth than they had before.
“Having said all that…it’s nice that you’re trying hard, but how’d you get your hand all beat up like that, anyway?”
“Oh, this one’s simple. This afternoon, I tagged along when Rem went shopping at the village close to the mansion. The kids were playing around with me when this little dog-ish thing chomped on me.”
“So it’s not the product of hard work?!”
“Nah, it’s so big you can’t notice the traces of hard work… I didn’t think I was the type animals hated, though…”
Back in his own world, children and little animals loved him—that, or he just looked like a pushover. That made the former result odder still. But his effect on kids was still going strong.
“The village kids… They smacked me, kicked me, and blew snot on me, too. That sucked, damn it.”
“Somehow you seem good at looking after little kids, Subaru.”
“That’s taking it the wrong way, Emilia-tan. Winning them over now means I’ll reap the rewards when they grow up. I’m a long-term thinker, see.”
“Yes, yes. I will admit you’re honest about your petty stubbornness.”
Emilia, accustomed to Subaru’s silliness, let it roll over her as she stretched and looked up at the sky.
“I’d best return to my room now. How about you?”
“I can’t sleep by Emilia-tan’s side, so I’ll head back, too.”
“You get that job only when you’ve polished your skills with your current work.”
“Now you said it. Just watch, they’re gonna write legends about me…!”
Subaru took Emilia’s words to heart, burning with enthusiasm. Emilia made a strained smile as Subaru looked back and raised a finger.
“Ah, right. Would you come with me tomorrow when I give the village brats some payba—er, a lovey-dovey da—er, go to watch the cute little animals?”
“Why did you correct yourself several times…? And, ah, I…”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 2 Page 8