Roswaal went down on one knee as his hand reached out and gently lifted Subaru’s unresisting chin.
“…but in the capacity of my servant, are yooou not as well?”
Chomp.
“No hesitation, I seeee.”
After biting the creepy fingertips holding his chin, Subaru swam backward, putting distance between Roswaal and himself.
The bathroom’s size was firmly in the realm of “stupidly huge,” with a tub as broad as the oldest, best bathhouses. Plainly, it was the habit of nobles to use an excessively large amount of space, but he had to admit that monopolizing all that space felt pretty satisfying.
“Another twist I didn’t expect, geez…”
—During the previous four days, he hadn’t encountered Roswaal in the bathtub even once.
During the last loop, Roswaal had been extremely busy; the two barely saw each other. No doubt the twins had tended to his needs, but Subaru barely had any contact with him outside of mealtime, their initial meeting excepted.
“Damn it, every little thing’s happening in completely different ways than what I expected…”
“Althooough I know not what troubles you, not eeeverything in this world goes according to plan.”
Roswaal moved to Subaru’s side as he spoke of it being a tough world. He leaned back against the wall of the bathtub and let out a long sigh, somehow looking like any other man in the world enjoying the pleasures of the bath.
“I only just noticed, but I guess even you take off your makeup for hot baths.”
“Mm? Aaahh, that’s right. Oh my, Subaru, I wonder iiif this is the first time you have seen my face unadorned?”
“I suppose it is. I’m like, you look totally normal. No need to hide your face like that.”
“Cosmetics is a hobby of mine. ’Tis nooot out of any need to hide my face. It is not as if the curl of my lips or the arch of my nose are abhorrent to the eye… Oh my.”
“Don’t look at me while saying that stuff. Make three doe-eyed blinks and I’m keeling over here and now.”
Being born with bad looks was a serious drawback when making first impressions. And if Subaru wanted to complain about the face he was born with, what could he say? He looked exactly like his mother.
Remembering his parents, Subaru had a conflicted look on his face as Roswaal changed the subject.
“Aaare you getting along nicely with Ram and Rem? They’ve worked here for quite a while, so they are suuurely passing things along to their junior?”
“Well, I haven’t talked to Rem much, but I’m getting along well with Ram. If anything, Ram is a bit too friendly. Even with us senior and junior, she hasn’t treated me any differently from when I was a guest.”
“Weeell, Rem will make up for that shortcoming. It is only right sisters support each other. Those two are verrry well suited for each other in that sense.”
“From what I see and hear, Ram’s the weaker sister, while Rem always covers for her.”
In every sense, it was clear which twin sister had the superior ability at domestic work. Rem had first-rate skills across the board while Ram would have needed to work hard to come close to second-rate. Normally, that setup would give Ram an inferiority complex, but…
“But all I hear is, ‘Ram’s amazing because she’s older.’ Being so bold is unreal.”
“If you wish to speak of being bold, I think you are quiiite the specimen? But I see. I wonder if you replied and said the same things to her? It is quite a thing you are treading upon without reserve, which is quite maaarvelous.”
“The emphasis there doesn’t sound like praise at all, you know?”
Subaru didn’t hesitate to intrude on other people’s personal turf because he was so bad at reading the mood. That aloof disposition made it easy for him to get isolated. You might say that it was his bad habit to get on other people’s nerves.
At Subaru’s reply, Roswaal closed his right eye and looked up at the ceiling with his yellow left eye alone.
“It is not sarcasm. I truly believe it is a gooood thing. Those girls are a little too perfect for each other, you see. Quiiite likely, some things change only when someone comes from outside and gives a liiittle…push, yeees?”
“Something like that, huh?”
“Something like that, indeeeed.”
The two immersed themselves into the bathtub up to their necks, letting their entire bodies soak up the sensations. A little after that, Subaru raised his eyebrows, remembering something.
“Oh, right. Ros, there’s something I wanted to ask you. Is that all right?”
“Weeell, if it is within my vast personal knowledge, I wooould not mind.”
“That’s the most roundabout way of saying ‘I’m really smart’ that I’ve ever heard. But ah, anyway, how is this bath heated?”
Subaru knocked a couple of times on the bottom of the tub as he addressed what had been nagging him the whole time.
The bathtub Subaru and Roswaal were soaking in was made of stone; its pleasant smoothness made him think of marble. The bath was in a corner under the mansion, and of course it was for both genders. To begin with, everything in the bath was swapped after each time, so he had no special sense of fulfillment from getting in after Emilia.
Subaru added a thought.
“Not that I’m boiling in here. I just noticed before I got in.”
“From time to time, your inquisitive spirit truuuly astounds me. I wonder if it is youth…although I wonder if I would have had that thought when I was your age?”
Roswaal seemed to see a rare dazzle in Subaru’s youth as he nodded.
“Regardless, the answer iiis quite simple. You seeee, there is a fire-attuned magic crystal under the bathtub that heats it. When triggered by the mana of someone entering the bath, it activates and brings the water to a boil. Surely you used such a thing in the kitchen?”
“So that’s how that pot worked. I was wondering how you cooked here without gas.”
After Rem had made brief use of it, it’d been Subaru’s turn to peel vegetables. In the first place, not understanding the meaning of words like it runs on mana, spoken like an obvious, everyday thing, probably meant the dawn of Iron Chef Subaru was still a long time away.
“I mean, if it’s mana, does that mean only magic users can use it?”
“Nooot at all. All life forms have ‘gates.’ Nooo plant or animal is an exception. If ’twas not so, we could nooot achieve a society built on the use of magic crystals.”
Subaru puzzled over the new piece of vocabulary. Roswaal, watching Subaru like that, cleared his throat and raised a finger.
“Very well, shaaall we indulge in a lesson here? I, teaching magic tooo you, the somewhat unenlightened?”
“I’ll ignore the way that stuff came out and accept with grace.”
Responding to the lecture proposal, Subaru turned to face Roswaal, who was kneeling in the center of the bathtub. None of that changed the fact that both were buck naked.
“Verrry well. First, the basics. Subaru, you know what a ‘gate’ is, do you not?”
“No, you say it like it’s obvious, but you don’t know what you don’t know…”
“Your voice sounds very low all of a sudden. So you do not know of gates…or shall I saaay, totally? Mm, did I use that correctly?”
Roswaal checked on the proper use of the word totally. Among all the little expressions Subaru had imported that originated from his world, he’d used that one especially frequently, so Roswaal was quite accustomed to it.
Subaru gave Roswaal full marks for good usage. After making a high five, they returned to the lecture.
“So, what is a gate, anyway? Is that something you have or don’t have?”
“Put very simply, a gate iiis a doorway that leads inside your own body. Mana enters through the gate; mana leaves through the gate. A basic rule ooof life.”
“Ahhh. It’s like a faucet connected to MP…”
He grasped Roswaal’s simple explanation. So that
was a gate; his ears had heard the term several times over. So it was pretty much what he’d guessed.
“So if everyone has a gate, I have one, too?”
“Weeell, you surely would, if you are confident that you aaare human. So, are you?”
“There’s no purer human that’s been thrown into another world, ever. Totally normal. Totally mob-grade.”
Situations that required combat strength to bust through them were completely new to him. His scientific know-how was fairly below average; his hand-eye coordination was pretty high, but his endurance was a sore point. His Acquired Skills were Sewing and Bed-making.
One-way trip to becoming cannon fodder.
But Subaru wasn’t hung up on that; this was the second thing to be happy about since arriving in a different world. Enthralled by the word magic, his heart thumped, his eyes twinkling with hope.
“Of course the first thing I’m happy about is meeting Emilia, but this is pretty awesome! Finally, I can fulfill my dream of being a magic user… I’ve waited my whole life for this!”
“Weeell, I am glad speaking of magic pleases you so, but becoming a magic user is largely dependent ooon fortune. In the first place, the properties of gates matter a great deal. You are uuunlikely to be as blessed as a genius such as I. I boast only because I must.”
Roswaal’s behavior made Subaru hear a little ding as a flag rose in his mind.
In spite of Roswaal’s overwhelming confidence, he didn’t know that Subaru, soaking in the bathtub in the nude before his eyes, was a “guest” summoned from another world.
Tradition held that those summoned from another world possessed special abilities. So far, weapon skills were out, intellect was out, his luck modifier was either zero or somewhat negative, but: magic!
“My new hope is in your hands, Rozchi. Magic, magic, let’s talk magic some more! There’s a magic wave here, and my twinkling future’s surfing on it!”
“Is that sooo? Then let us continue. Did you knooow that magic has four basic affinities?”
“Nope!”
“Ahaaa, it feels good to have someone so senselessly, pointlessly guileless and ignorant before me, so I shall explain. The four elements of mana are fire, water, wind, and earth. Dooo you understand?”
“Got it; these are the basics, huh? Consider them absorbed. Go on, go on!”
Subaru’s request seemed to rub Roswaal the right way, so he nodded and continued his explanation.
“Fire element relates to temperature. Water element regulates life and healing. Wind element functions outside the bodies of living things. Earth element functions inside the body. So, most affinities are divided by these four categories, aaand normal humans have an affinity for one of the four! Incidentally, I shall have you know I have an affinity for aaall four.”
“Whoa, the boasting’s annoying but I’ll praise you anyway. That’s fantastic! How do you figure out someone’s element?”
“Naaaturally, a magic user as accomplished as I can discover that through mere touch.”
“Seriously?! This is what I’ve been waiting for. Well, do it and tell me!”
As Subaru begged like a puppy that hadn’t been housebroken, Roswaal gave him a halfhearted look and pressed his palm to Subaru’s forehead. The eyes of both completely nude men twinkled at the scene.
“Well, if you shaaall excuse me. Myon myon myon myon…”
“Whoa! A magical sound! Total fantasy immersion!”
Subaru was taken in by the invigorating scene before his eyes, forgetting his many sources of worry for that moment.
—Magic. Finally he, having been summoned to another world, would get fangs of his very own.
His eyes twinkling in certainty of his hope, Subaru awaited the results of the scan.
“—Yeees, I see.”
“Here it comes! What, what is it? Maybe fire element that burns like I do? Or water for when I’m calm and composed, the coolest guy in the room? Or maybe wind because of my refreshing nature, like the breeze blowing through the grass? No, no, it’s gotta be earth for my being such a laid-back, big-brother-type nice guy, definitely!”
“Yes, it’s Dark.”
“None of the above?!”
Doubting his ears at the scan result, his reaction was like someone being told he had cancer.
Roswaal then spoke in a grave tone that seemed to fit that image perfectly.
“You are completely, uuutterly Dark. Your connection to the other four elements is quiiite weak. Put differently, though, this iiis exceedingly rare…”
“So what is Dark, anyway?! It’s not in the other four categories? Some kind of reject?”
“I did not mention it, buuut there are also elements beyond the basic four, namely Dark and Light. Hoooweeever, very few people have those affinities, so I diiid not bother to explain.”
Meaning Subaru was far, far off the beaten path.
Hearing Roswaal elaborate made Subaru feel less buffeted and calmed him down.
Yes, this was a rare, limited element: in other words, a special power!
“It’s gotta be a really awesome element. Like some super-special power that comes only once in five thousand years.”
“Yes, Dark element magic is quite famous…able to obstruct an opponent’s vision, sever him from sound, slow his movements, and the like. Rather convenient uses.”
“I’m a Debuffer?!”
A Debuffer was a specialized support class dedicated to so-called debuffs—skills that weakened the enemy.
He’d had his hopes up that he could use magic of peerless, legendary destruction, able to rend the sky and split the earth, but Roswaal was breaking it to him that his magic would have crowd-control and attribute-lowering properties.
He really did seem apologetic, so it was no doubt the truth.
“Summoned from a world without weapons skill, intellect, or cheat codes…and a magical element for debuffs…”
“Incideeentally, you have no talent for magic. If my limit is a ten, yours is about three.”
“I wanted to hear that even less! This place is forsaken by God and Buddha!”
Subaru opened his mouth and made a loud groan as he immersed himself in the bathtub. Until a few moments before, it had been a theoretical hope, but expectations, once sprouted, were not so easy to brush aside.
“Well, using it at all is good, I think… Or maybe being a debuffer makes me kinda cool…?”
“Putting aside the level of coolness, there is nooo harm in learning. If you wish to use magic, by all means, learn. Fortunately for you, there is indeeeed a specialist in Dark spells here at this mansion.”
“I see, that’s it! I suppose I should be satisfied with learning magic for situations where you wanna slow someone down. Okay, let’s get this show on the road!”
Subaru was eager to have Emilia guide him into magic, drawing both of them closer together. His prior goal of following the same route as last time was long forgotten.
“You seem to harbor a misunderstanding, buuut the specialist in Dark spells is nooot Emilia, you know?”
“The heck?! Are you enjoying playing with someone’s heart like this?! So who’s the specialist, you, the elite magic user with all elemental affinities?! This sucks!”
“It is Beatrice.”
“That’s worse!!”
With a great kerplunk, water spray leapt everywhere as he let loose his loudest shout of the evening.
4
“Damn, that was all over the map. Damn that Roswaal, working me up and down like that like I’m on Buddha’s palm!”
In the washroom, Subaru’s face was red as he put his hands through the sleeves of his change of clothes. With the affinity scan in the bathtub ending in dejection, Subaru got out of the bath first.
He’d been worked up during the conversation with Roswaal, but his face felt heavy from the effects of the long bath. After all, it hadn’t been a full day yet since being healed from his wound; he had to expect some anemia.
�
�Plus I’m gonna have serious aches and pains tomorrow. Ugh, damn you, Ram; you remember this, just because I’m better than last time doesn’t mean you have to work me like a dog…”
“I will remember that as you wish.”
“Fwaaaah?!”
The timely reply, coming just as Subaru was leaving the washroom with his laundry in a basket, surprised him enough to make him jump. As Ram stood in the corridor before the washroom, his underwear, scattering out from the bouncing basket, fell to her feet.
“My goodness.”
Ram crouched, plucked Subaru’s underwear off the floor, and stuffed them into a garbage bin right beside her.
“There’s a guy carrying a basket heading to the laundry right in front of you, y’know?!”
“I’m sorry, I was gripped by psychological distaste the instant I picked them up. I had to get rid of them without a single moment to spare.”
“Considering all that, your form was very relaxed, huh?!”
Subaru tearfully recovered his underwear from the garbage bin and turned to face Ram. Seeing Ram serenely standing in the hallway, he tilted his head and wondered what she was up to. Ram seemed to reply to his unasked question.
“Unfortunately, I have already bathed, so my clothes will stay on no matter how long you wait.”
“I didn’t say anything!! And ain’t that backward for a maid?!”
“I jest. I am simply waiting for Master Roswaal to finish before helping him dress.”
“That’s pampering him a little too much. I’m sure he can dress himself.”
Apparently, in this world, there existed people who’d never in their lives worn a single shoe without a servant slipping it on their foot. Roswaal surely fit the bill.
“Don’t tell me you both help him put on that weird makeup. My low trust’s falling even further.”
“There shall be no rudeness toward Master Roswaal in my presence. Next time I shall spank you.”
It felt like a warmth-filled warning, but seeing that she wasn’t kidding, he knew he ought to take it to heart.
In point of fact, Ram had explained his chores at the mansion with great care and patience, but she had a look that suggested she’d make him work in the hog house if he asked her the same question twice.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 2 Page 11