The next moment, an impact blew Subaru back.
Subaru’s body, flopping to the floor but a moment before, flew. He bounced several times, his face literally wiping the floor, as Subaru realized something had hit him incredibly hard.
There was no pain.
However, he felt a malaise like everything from the tips of his fingers and toes to the middle of his chest had gone through a blender.
“What happ…”
What happened, he started to say as he tried to put his hand to the floor to lift himself.
But his shaking hand had no strength to grip the floor. That was strange. He had no balance. His right arm was working so hard; what was his left arm doing? Where’d it run off to?
Annoyed for no tangible reason, Subaru glared at his useless left arm.
—That was when he realized that everything left of his shoulder had been torn off.
“—Ah?”
Falling on his side, Subaru gazed dumbfounded at his amputated left arm.
A large quantity of blood gushed out from the wound carved into him that had sent his left arm and shoulder flying, dyeing the hallway red.
A moment after he noticed the existence of the wound, Subaru was wracked with pain like lightning coursing through his whole body.
Subaru, no longer able to process the pain and heat, flailed around like a stranded, dying fish and slammed himself against the ground several times, too choked up to even scream.
His vision faded, with red and yellow light mixing together as Subaru’s consciousness faded from the mansion.
I wanna die. I wanna die. I wanna die. I wanna die. I wanna die. I wanna die. I don’t wanna live. I just wanna die. I’ll die soon. I’m dead. I don’t know anything. Everything’s far off. Can’t remember anything. Don’t care about anything. Just let me die already.
As if responding to Subaru’s earnest plea—
“The sound of a chain…”
That faint sound was the last thing he heard before his skull was smashed, granting his wish.
9
“—!!”
Waking up screaming was an experience that was bad for the heart.
Subaru, thrusting off the sheets as he woke, breathed raggedly as he absorbed the shock.
“L-left hand… It’s here; it’s here, isn’t it?”
He stretched his left hand into thin air as if grasping for something with it.
His severed, blown-off left side was intact. Clutching his right arm to confirm it, too, was there, the sense of loss Subaru absorbed for a while made him shake and feel sick to his stomach.
Subaru felt like his heart was wrenching as he looked at his restored left hand.
Of course, there were no scars, either, not from being blown off, not from the dog biting the back of his hand.
“I’ve gone back again…”
The vanishing scars meant that Subaru had lost his bout against fate.
He’d gone back in time. Perhaps one could instead say that he’d been given another chance for a rematch.
At any rate, he had to confirm the time—and as he arrived at that thought…
“Ah, sorry. Good morning.”
Subaru finally realized that the twins were clutching each other in a corner of the room as they watched him.
Like small animals keeping their distance, neither replied to Subaru’s completely out-of-place greeting. Subaru scratched his head as he wondered what he should do.
Ram and Rem had no doubt forgotten about Subaru. That pained Subaru’s chest somewhat, but Subaru ignored the pain and formed a smile.
He’d show his sincerity as the first step to getting along. After all, even if they’d forgotten him, he hadn’t forgotten them.
“Sorry for the trouble. Subaru Natsuki, rebooted and ready to go!”
Subaru strongly rose from bed, standing and pointing his index finger to the heavens.
Disregarding the twins’ surprise at his sudden approach, Subaru remained in his dramatic pose and said, “By the way, what’s the date and time?”
—And so began his first day at Roswaal Manor for the third time.
CHAPTER 4
A DEADLY GAME OF TAG
1
—Looking back on his memories of the four days, Subaru came to a conclusion.
“So when I went back the first time, it was debilitation causing death in my sleep…”
As Subaru waited for morning, he’d been assaulted by unbearable cold and sleepiness. That feeling of having his mental and physical strength drained away was plenty strong enough to shave away his life in a short time.
Someone hit by that while asleep and defenseless would simply never wake up.
“But what about the sound of the chain…?”
He couldn’t come up with any connection between that chain sound and his debilitation hypothesis.
It was a sound specific to long, heavy metal chains. That was probably the deadly weapon that had carved a chunk out of Subaru.
Just remembering the injury made his lost body parts throb and go numb. Though his body hadn’t experienced it, his soul was rejecting the memory.
“So there was an…attacker, then? Not that I know if the debilitation and the chain were by the same person.”
What he’d gleaned this time around was only enough to judge there was a perpetrator.
Someone had attacked Roswaal Manor on the fourth night. Subaru’s name was on the list of pitiful victims. He didn’t know if any other residents of the manor were on it.
“If I’m included, it’s probably everyone. No doubt related to Emilia’s royal candidacy, just like with the fence…”
But having thought that far, Subaru clutched his head. He’d come to understand there’d be an attack on Emilia and the others. That much was a success.
“But even if I know it, I don’t have any proof to explain it with, and I’m too green to have any way to stop it…”
You could say that the problem with Return by Death was that you had no way to explain the information you got before you died.
That went double for a prediction of an attack on the manor. Even if he got Roswaal to take countermeasures, it wouldn’t help if the attacker changed his plans.
Beyond that, there was the option of driving away the attacker himself, but Subaru’s low combat ability and ignorance of the opponent’s capabilities ruled that out.
It’d probably end like last time: him crying like a baby while getting beaten to death.
“I’m just too pathetic. Plus I didn’t see the opponent’s face or weapon. A total dog’s death, geez…”
He couldn’t begin to plan to drive off an opponent he knew nothing about.
Beatrice, seated in the middle of the room as Subaru paced around her in a circle, spoke with ill humor from the bottom of her heart.
“—You are so gloomy I could die. Either stop right now or I shall blow you away. Choose.”
Subaru glanced back at the dangerous look Beatrice was giving him and innocently stuck out his tongue.
“Sorry, sorry. But for some reason, making something other than my head turn around gets my head turning, too. So let it slide, okay? We’re buddies, after all.”
“Is there such a relationship between us, I wonder? We have met only twice, after all?”
“The heart speaks louder than words. I mean, you did let me in here.”
“You broke through the Passage all by yourself, I suppose. It is really quite unbelievable.”
In typical fashion, Beatrice did not hide whatsoever her hostility toward Subaru. Subaru had made his way to the forbidden book archive on the morning he woke back up, feeling saved by her cold demeanor once more.
He’d meant to see it through, but being treated by Ram and Rem like a complete stranger was hard, after all. Unlike last time, he’d properly excused himself as he left the room, but it was truly the only place he could cling to.
“Well, I won’t cause you any trouble. Let’s have some tea and ta
ke it easy.”
“We shall do no such thing. You truly are irritating.”
The corners of Beatrice’s lips twisted in annoyance as she toyed with one of the curls of her hair.
Watching Beatrice like that, Subaru suddenly had a thought.
“Come to think of it, you don’t look like it, but you’re a magic user, right?”
“Your choice of words offends me. Will you not associate me with such second-rate imbeciles, I wonder?”
“…You don’t have many friends, do you?”
“How did you leap from that subject to this one, I wonder?!”
“Er, I don’t have any friends, either, so I picked up on it, but that’s not good for you. Being so high-handed at such a young age is going to affect you later in life. Should adjust that now while you can.”
Feeling the glare of Beatrice’s reddened face, Subaru coughed to clear the air. There was something Subaru really wanted to ask Beatrice, the magic user with the dissatisfied look on her face. And that was…
“Is there magic to…weaken someone and kill them in their sleep?”
Subaru wanted to clear up whether the debilitation inflicted on him was via magic rather than poison or illness.
In hindsight, he suspected that the terror and lethargy assaulting his entire body had been caused by magic.
For one thing, he didn’t know of any disease with an onset that rapid that debilitated and killed you within hours. Even if it was another world, it was still a little hard to believe.
He’d thought about assassination via poison, but he just couldn’t put good odds on it. When you added the fact that someone had bludgeoned Subaru to death, attacking both with poison and by weapon just didn’t make any sense.
Listening to Subaru’s question, Beatrice raised her eyebrows and shrugged her small shoulders as she replied.
“Such things do exist.”
“They do, huh?”
“It is closer to a curse than a spell, I suppose? Shamans specialize in such arts, as suits their devious natures.”
Bewildered, Subaru added the new profession shaman to his lexicon as Beatrice raised a finger and elaborated.
“Inflictors of curses, or shamans, hail from the nation of Gusteko to the north and practice an offshoot of magic and spiritualism. They are all worthless sorts unable to use their talents for anything better, I suppose.”
“But how do you call someone who can kill someone else with a curse ‘worthless’?”
“Because that is all they can do—curses have no use except to inflict harm on others. That is why they are the pettiest of all mana practitioners, I suppose.”
Apparently, aversion to the dark arts was so ingrained that Beatrice could not hide her disgust. Subaru wasn’t trying to stick up for curses, either; he simply craved all the information he could get, visibly prodding her for more.
“So curses can do things like what I said earlier?”
“I believe they can. But are there not simpler methods than a curse, I wonder?”
“Simpler?”
“I believe you have experienced it already.”
As Subaru inclined his head, Beatrice turned her palm toward him with a cruel smile. The malevolent smile that in no way suited a little girl clued in Subaru as to the true meaning of her words.
“You mean…I could’ve died from that invasive mana-drain thing?!”
“Mana is the force of life itself, I suppose. Had I continued draining you so strongly, I could have indeed weakened you until you died. It is a much easier and more reliable method than relying on a shaman.”
“So that thing you used at our first…I mean, the first day! You mean one slip and I was a goner?!”
“I held back because having your husk in here would be too much trouble, I suppose.”
“Don’t say husk! That sounds like I’m a bug!”
Subaru himself wondered why he felt such tranquility there when Beatrice truly thought of him as nothing more than that.
“Don’t tell me you were the one who killed me…”
“It would be more peaceful if I had killed you and we weren’t having this conversation. Unfortunately, I am quite busy, so I lack the time to bother to kill you, I suppose.”
Beatrice held her hands behind her back, striding past Subaru to stand before the bookshelf. The hem of her goth loli outfit quivered as the little girl stretched, trying to get to a place just a little bit higher than she could reach, when…
“Is it this one?”
“…The one next to it. Give it to me already?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Subaru took the unexpectedly thick tome off the bookshelf and handed it to Beatrice, whose cheeks were puffed out. Beatrice kept up a sullen look as she accepted the book from him, not speaking a single word of thanks as she sat on a stool in the center of the room.
He’d seen her several times like that in the archive of forbidden books. It probably suited her better than an actual chair.
“What kind of book are you reading, anyway?”
“One that contains a method for driving an insect out of a room.”
“A bug in an archive, huh… Sounds horrible. What kind?”
“It has large black eyes and a foul mouth. Also, it thinks rather highly of itself.”
“That’s pretty specific for an insect, there…”
He looked around the area, thinking of driving it off straightaway if he could.
As Subaru twisted around his neck, his eyes fell upon the book once more. Beatrice went, Ahem.
“Is there still something you want, I wonder? If not, could you please go?”
“Ah, er… Right, is that mana drain something anyone can do?”
“Should I feel slighted, I wonder… In this manor, only Puckie and I can perform such a feat. Even Roswaal cannot.”
“Huh. I thought he said he could do it all.”
So Roswaal was indulging in vanity? That or mana drain was an unexpectedly rare skill given the simplicity of its effect.
“Anyway, um, don’t go sucking people dry too much, okay? Especially me—I’m seriously short on blood right now, so I’d weaken and die pretty easily.”
“Ah, because the flesh was all restored but the blood was not? Well, I had no obligation to go that far regardless.”
To Beatrice’s declaration, made with a shrug of her shoulders, Subaru tilted his head and went, “Mm?”
The grammar she’d used just then implied something rather odd.
“The way you said that just now, it sounded like you closed my wound. Don’t tell me you’re petty enough to take credit for Emilia’s work?”
“That half-baked little girl lacks the power to heal a fatal wound. She and Puckie stopped the bleeding, but I healed the wound… What of it, I wonder?”
“Er, I’m seriously super conflicted here!”
The circumstances of Subaru’s recovery had been exposed in highly unexpected fashion.
Subaru had been absolutely certain that Emilia had healed his wounds just like she’d done in the alley previously, but…
Though he narrowed his eyes suspiciously and made a look of doubt, Beatrice was unmoved.
Barring her being a liar of exceptional gall, the truth was no doubt as she’d spoken.
Meaning Beatrice was…
“Then you’re a big filthy liar! Lot of gall you have there. Bottom-of-the-barrel personality!”
“And you have quite some gall to not politely accept the generosity of others!”
Subaru’s rude statement and Beatrice’s angry shout resulted in a staring contest between them, one Beatrice finally resolved by sending Subaru flying back with magic until he smacked into a wall.
As Subaru bounced off the wall and rolled head over heels before her, Beatrice slowly stroked one of her long curls.
“Could you finally leave, I wonder? Your hands aren’t shaking anymore, so it would seem you’ve put your fears behind you.”
“…So you noticed, huh?”
“You were trying to hide it, I suppose. I’m offended you tried to play me like that.”
Beatrice made a bored-sounding snort and shooed away Subaru with her hand like he was an annoying insect.
Her words and how she lifted her hand before Subaru’s face made his fingertips forget to tremble.
He’d died a total of five times so far, but he most certainly wasn’t used to it. Quite the opposite; the more times he died, the more the accumulated experience made his knees quiver from his raw fear of experiencing death again.
That went double for the cause of death being first-degree murder. Upon his return, Subaru’s heart creaked from despair; surely no one could blame him for his courage not reaching the tips of his fingers and toes.
“Guess there’s no more time for excuses. Man, you’re not nice at all.”
Sighing away the last cobwebs, Subaru got up and reached toward the archive’s door.
Subaru looked back and made a bitter smile toward Beatrice, who wasn’t even looking at him.
“Sorry, but thanks. See ya next time.”
“I shall take more mana from you next time, so could you simply stay away, I wonder?”
Her eyes remained fixed on her book as she verbally brushed him off. Feeling Beatrice’s attitude spurring him onward, Subaru turned the knob and slipped through the Passage. Then—
“Wait, the insect from earlier—don’t tell me you meant me?!”
“You want to leave not on your feet but through the air, I suppose?!”
And so, he flew out of the Passage.
2
In the garden, the silver-haired girl looked down at him.
“Er, may I ask if you’re all right?”
“That kindness alone heals my wounds. That much is no lie.”
Subaru slumped his shoulders as he spoke.
Sent flying by Beatrice’s magic, Subaru had been rammed through the Passage and shot out of a second-story terrace window facing the garden, tumbling onto a flower bed below. He’d almost died from a domestic dispute.
“The theory that she killed me is getting more and more convincing…”
“I think Rem fertilized that flower bed with manure yesterday…”
“Whoaaaa, three-second rule—!!”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 2 Page 14