Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 3

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  Subaru laughed drily at the pretty picture it all made.

  “You didn’t need me to carry that, did you?”

  “As you can see, not at all.”

  Ram wasn’t minded to pamper Subaru’s inner boy at all. As he saw Rem casually walk off while carrying the cask, he was painfully aware that his grunt work had been meaningless.

  “So why’d you make me do it, then? Was it seriously just a grudge against me? Stop bullying the new guy, sheesh.”

  “Do you not understand, Barusu? It is out of consideration for you, of course.”

  “I don’t get what you mean by ‘consideration’ here.”

  “Barusu, what would Lady Emilia think if she saw you coming back carrying nothing but a small bag full of spices behind Rem while she carried a large, heavy object?”

  “You’re such a considerate supervisor, it leaves me speechless!”

  As Ram knelt, he expressed deep gratitude toward her. If Subaru had come back full of himself carrying a little bag while a girl smaller than him lugged around something huge…and Emilia had seen… Just picturing it was enough to make him want to die.

  Rem, who had gone to the mansion ahead of them, returned during their exchange, looking down at the two.

  “Sister, Master Roswaal summons us.”

  Ram responded quickly to the mention of her master on her little sister’s lips. Instantly, her usual laid-back attitude vanished; she straightened herself and looked down at Subaru.

  “What are you doing, Barusu? Do you intend to make Master Roswaal wait?”

  “Just because you two know something doesn’t mean I do. Er, what, this is a meeting with all the servants?”

  Subaru felt like he was being treated like a child who was slow on the uptake as he followed behind the others. Along the way, he straightened himself in accordance with Ram’s lessons and opened the mansion’s front doors. As he did so, Roswaal, the lord of the manor, awaited the three with open arms.

  “Ohhhh, you were together, were you nooot? That indeed saves me some tiiime.”

  He had indigo hair and oddly colored eyes, one blue, one yellow. He had the delicate build of a pretty boy, but the clown makeup adorning his face put it all to waste. But all that included, the air he gave off felt different somehow.

  “Are you wearing that to go out somewhere?”

  “Precisely. I actually do not faaavor formal wear like this, either, but it cannot be heeelped. The other paaarty is troublesome to deal with in normal attire, so I am forced to go out wearing thiiis.”

  Usually, Roswaal indulged in his eccentric taste in clothing. It had been some time since Subaru had seen him wearing something with geometrical patterns, lacking the usual clownish spirit. Or rather, it was the very first time.

  Subaru could think of only two possibilities as to why Roswaal would be wearing such an outfit. Ram and Rem, thinking the same thing as Subaru, aired both possibilities simultaneously.

  “Entertaining a guest?”

  “Going on a trip?”

  Faced with questions from all his servants, a pained smile came over Roswaal as he pointed at Ram.

  “Ram is correct… I am heading out. A somewhat troooublesome message has arrived, you see. There is something I must check in the environs of Garfiel, though I do not plan on being very laaate.”

  Having never heard that particular word before, Subaru couldn’t be certain whether it was the name of a person or a place. But given that the twins seemed to know what he was talking about, Subaru nodded without objection.

  “For that reaaason, I do not believe I shall be back tonight, so…Ram, Rem, I leave matters in your hands.”

  “Yes, if you command it.”

  “Yes, even at the cost of my life.”

  Roswaal acknowledged the pair’s immediate replies with his oddly colored eyes alone before gazing at Subaru with them. Subaru, feeling backed into a corner by the differently colored glints, squirmed uncomfortably.

  “Sorry, I’m not loyal enough to swear even at the cost of my life yet.”

  “That is fine and weeell. If you swore that all of a sudden, it would feel raaather disconcerting. But I leave things in yooour hands as well, Subaru.”

  Roswaal patted Subaru’s shoulder, one eye closed, so that only his yellow iris was visible.

  “This has a fishy aroma to it. I can cooount on you to take care of Lady Emilia, yes?”

  “Yeah, you can seriously count on me for that.”

  That went without saying.

  Subaru didn’t know how much of a read Roswaal had on the situation. He didn’t know, but he’d picked up this much…

  —This had never happened before.

  Perhaps it truly meant that Subaru’s actions had changed the world around him.

  Nodding, Roswaal gave Subaru a satisfied smile before giving his faithful twin retainers various instructions.

  “Well, theeen, I shall be off. I pray that nothing shall occuuur.”

  As he spoke, Roswaal went out the entrance, with the three of them watching him go. But Subaru belatedly realized that there was no coach or carriage to whisk Roswaal away.

  Surely Roswaal wasn’t going to walk—

  “Well, I leave it in your hands—”

  When Roswaal spoke, his overcoat flapped as he made a light leap. And then, Subaru saw: Roswaal’s body sailed up into the sky, wind wrapping around it as he soared at high speed. Subaru’s mouth opened in surprise as Roswaal rose almost as high as the clouds, heading toward the mountains, growing smaller, and finally vanishing from view.

  “H-he flew… Geez, magic’s amazing stuff.”

  Subaru voiced his admiration at the solo flying he had just witnessed. In contrast, the sisters, clearly accustomed to Roswaal’s flight magic, quickly switched gears. They instantly established the order of affairs in the mansion in the absence of their master.

  “Even if Master Roswaal is absent, our duties do not change. Indeed, the fact that he is not present means we must be even more diligent,” said Rem.

  “That’s a nice professional attitude. Okay, then, let’s get this started!”

  Rem began divvying up work as Subaru rolled up his sleeves, burning with enthusiasm.

  Of course, he wasn’t just fired up about work but about the changing situation, too.

  The change clearly made the twins expect a potential attack on the mansion. They would be securely guarding the mansion, but Subaru, who knew with certainty an attack was coming, was even more on guard than they.

  He needed to discover the shaman’s identity without a single moment to lose.

  If the other side was acting faster, there was no doubt in his mind that the visit to the village that day had triggered it. In other words, Subaru’s decoy plan had worked as he had meant it to.

  All Subaru had to do now was confirm his suspicions and smoke the shaman out.

  4

  “So, it’s that time again, Beako!”

  Those were the first words out of his mouth when he pushed open the door and entered the archive of forbidden books.

  His grand and very pushy entrance made Beatrice, sitting on the footstool as she read a book, slump her shoulders.

  “Really…? How do you breach the Passage with such ease…?”

  “Intuition. It’s all intuition. I’ve got a sixth sense about these things.”

  Beatrice wore a very sour face as Subaru approached, and she abruptly narrowed her eyes, no doubt because she noticed the seriousness in Subaru’s.

  “Another half a day and you have yet a different expression. I suppose you are a busy sort?”

  “Hey, I want to take it easy, too. But the world’s enough of a mess that it’s not exactly giving me the chance.”

  Subaru, an ordinary person, had been buffeted by one problem arising after another. But he was confident that, at long last, he was catching up to the problems, instead of them purely catching up to him.

  “I want you to check something for me, so I finished c
leaning the bath in record time.”

  “If cleaning the bath came first, surely it is no great affair?”

  This applied to Subaru as well, but time in the bath was one of the few respites in a world of few pastimes. Just thinking of Rem’s reaction if she found out he’d slacked off in cleaning that place of rest was enough to give him chills.

  After all, Subaru getting along with her big sister had put his friendship rating with Rem in the dumps. Even if he located the shaman, poor relations with Rem meant Subaru couldn’t escape a BAD END. Having to advance along both routes simultaneously made Subaru feel like he was walking a tightrope.

  “If it was just a problem of which girl to get lovey-dovey with, I’d be real happy, but…”

  “Are you wandering off topic again, I wonder…? What did you want of me, then?”

  “Ah, yeah, about that…”

  Subaru sank in thought in front of Beatrice, who at least seemed tentatively willing to hear him out. After hesitating about how to put it exactly, he nodded once.

  “I think there’s a little curse on me. Can you check?”

  “…What are you saying, I wonder?”

  “I think there’s a little curse on me. Can you check?”

  “I did not tell you to repeat yourself! Has it been even half a day since we spoke about shamans in detail, I wonder?! Even gullibility has its limits…”

  Beatrice stormed over and yelled, probably thinking Subaru had some sort of persecution complex. But her expression changed midway to one of surprise; she looked up at Subaru as if some doubt had just been answered.

  “I sense a curse rite… You truly have been cursed.”

  “Seriously? I mean, I figured as much, but having it actually said out loud is still kind of a shock…”

  The whole point of the decoy operation was to get cursed, but it was still a jolt to know that he really had been. What brought a pall over his face was not only fear but his own thoughts—in other words, the fact that one of those lighthearted villagers had been an assassin.

  “Do you know what kind of curse it is?”

  “I can say nothing from merely seeing the rite. But as we discussed, the odds are extremely strong that it is a curse to take your life.”

  Subaru calmly accepted Beatrice’s statement when she looked up at him with a blink of her large eyes in apparent surprise.

  “You do not look like you think dying is a frightening thing, you know?”

  “Huh? What a stupid thing to say. I’m super scared of dying. There’s nothing more frightening in this world than death. People who say there’s worse stuff than dying should say that after they’ve tried death once or twice.”

  It was the one unshakable truth Subaru had learned from that world: Death was absolute. He could not abide it being treated lightly. Nor could he stand comparing death to other things by those who had not experienced it.

  After all, Subaru, having experienced death multiple times, had returned to the world to start over because he had himself tasted despair worse than death.

  “That’s why I’m going to get through it this time, Fate.”

  If there was indeed a deity that governed fate, Subaru had just declared war upon him.

  Subaru Natsuki would snatch back his happy ending to make up for the agonizing times he had suffered.

  Having finished his rant at the supernatural being, Subaru turned back to Beatrice.

  “So, could you lift that little curse for me? I’m short on time here.”

  But at the very moment Subaru was burning from the chance to strike the perpetrator when least expected, the girl who should have been his greatest ally cut him off at the knees.

  “…Why do I have to save your life, I wonder?”

  Subaru scratched his head as he replied, “I thought you might say something un-cute like that, so I came beforehand with a way to convince you. If I die, it’ll make Puck sad, too.”

  “…Would Puckie’s heart be greatly moved by your demise, I wonder?”

  “No, no, if I die, it’ll be a pretty huge shock to Emilia. If it’s a shock to Emilia, that’ll hurt Puck, too. And especially you, the one who could’ve stopped it beforehand!”

  “You are completely touched in the head, unable to distinguish begging for your life from using it as a threat!”

  Beatrice stomped on the floor, but apparently a rebuttal to Subaru’s declaration was not forthcoming. She sighed in annoyance and gave him a reluctant look as she beckoned him with a hand.

  “I suppose I shall yield. However, do not bother me any further, ever!”

  “To be honest, I can’t promise you that, either. If I’m in trouble, I’ll be back to ask for your help. I’ll pick the scraps from your table if I have to.”

  “Are you even aware that I am saving your life, I wonder?”

  “I’m super aware that I’m annoying you with weakling logic. Sorry.”

  When Subaru bowed his head in apology, Beatrice shook her head with a look of annoyance. After that, her palm glowed with a white light, which she gently touched to Subaru’s body.

  “I shall now destroy the curse rite. Bear in mind that it is implanted in the place where the shaman touches your body directly.”

  “Sure, don’t worry, I’m all set.”

  Subaru checked his own body as he felt the light in her palm convey its warmth.

  He’d kept track of where the suspects in the village had touched him. Only the granny searching for her lost youth had touched his butt. So, if Beatrice moved her hand to his butt, he’d know that the granny was the perpetrator. He’d also complain to Beatrice about sexual harassment.

  “—Eh?”

  But the place Beatrice’s palm touched was completely at odds with Subaru’s expectations.

  He felt a swirling heat where the white glow leaped from her palm into his flesh. There was an itchy feeling where she had touched, but it seemed to ooze right out of his body as a…

  “Black…cloud…?”

  The light in Beatrice’s hand directly caught hold of the black fog that had been the curse.

  The itchiness vanished as Subaru shuddered from that wriggling cloud having been inside his own body. Then…

  “Must you be so abominable, I wonder?”

  Beatrice crushed it in her hand before it vanished, then shook her hand as if having touched something icky. Realizing Subaru had gone silent, she harrumphed.

  “It is done. I suppose you will be fine now?”

  When she said it is done, Subaru realized that he’d stopped breathing. He rued his timid heart, but a more pressing concern came to mind.

  “Hey, Beako.”

  “Would you stop addressing me that way already…?”

  “Is the place you touched with your palm the place the shaman touched me?”

  Faced with Subaru’s grave question, Beatrice set her own complaints aside and reluctantly nodded.

  Her nod affirmed in Subaru’s mind the perpetrator behind the string of curses.

  “I’ve got to…go to the village—!”

  Now that he knew the culprit’s identity, he had no choice but to act immediately.

  He’d originally planned to wait until the next day, go to the village with Roswaal and the twins, flush the shaman in the village out of hiding, and deal with him. But he couldn’t do that now.

  Subaru’s heart continued to race as he rushed to put his hand on the door. His breath was so ragged as he ran that he didn’t even hear Beatrice call out for him to stop.

  Fate’s irrationality and poor taste in irony, dangling Subaru and the others on a string, filled him with rage. That anger gripped Subaru as he ran, yelling at the top of his lungs.

  “Just how far are you gonna take playing me for a fool…?!”

  He kept running.

  5

  Subaru dashed through the hallway, leaped down the stairs, flipped around at the landing of the stairs, the heels of his shoes sliding to a stop at the entry hall as he raised his face and yell
ed out.

  “—Ram! Rem! I’ve gotta talk to you!”

  Ram immediately popped into view, responding to the shout that probably carried throughout the entire mansion. Apparently she’d been working quite close by. She looked at Subaru’s red face and ragged breathing with her eyes narrowed in disapproval at the impropriety.

  “What is it, Barusu? Your haste is quite unsightly.”

  “Sorry, I’m heading to the village. You can’t stop me; I’ll go even if you try. I just thought it’d throw everyone off even worse if I just left without a word.”

  “The village…? Why would you…? No, more importantly, do you intend to disregard Master Roswaal’s instructions? Tonight, Rem and I are in charge of this mansion. Surely you understand this?”

  Ram glared at Subaru even more sharply.

  Ram’s position was that whatever Roswaal wanted came first. Subaru’s open disregard of her master’s command really rubbed her the wrong way.

  But Subaru wasn’t minded to retreat an inch even so.

  “Time’s short, so I’ll get right to the point. There’s a bad magic user in Earlham Village. I know who it is, so I have to go now.”

  “…You ask me to accept what sounds like a child’s made-up excuse?”

  “I can’t help it; there’s no other way to put it here. Go talk to Beako; you’ll see I’m telling the truth… Besides…”

  As he pleaded with the increasingly suspicious Ram, the great doors opened behind him as Rem emerged.

  “Sister—”

  When Rem saw the two speaking in the entry hall, she went to her sister’s side like it was second nature.

  “Sister, what is…?”

  “He says he is heading out to rid us of an evil magic user in the village.”

  Ram bluntly conveyed Subaru’s statement to Rem for him. Hearing it put that way, even Subaru thought it sounded like pure fiction. Apparently that was Rem’s conclusion, too.

  “Sister, Sister. Subaru’s joke is not very funny.”

  “Rem, Rem. Barusu thinks he has a future in comedy.”

  “Ram, Rem. I might kid around all the time, but I talk seriously sometimes, too.”

  Faced with their twin-act lines, Subaru spoke to both at once. He took a step forward as if to emphasize that he wasn’t cowed by the sisters’ reactions.