Plunged into a world with just a little moonlight trickling through to light the way, there was only one thing they had to search for.
“—”
Rem stopped, looking all around as she sniffed the air. Her motion was like that of a police dog, and they were indeed relying on Rem’s sense of smell to guide them through the forest.
Subaru kept from speaking to her so as not to disrupt her concentration, but his unease was intense. He trailed after her small back as she stepped ahead of him, the long silence whittling Subaru’s mental state down further, when…
“—I smell something alive… It is close.”
Rem sent a sharp gaze to her left as she murmured, and Subaru followed suit. But he saw nothing there but darkness, the same as all the rest. Seized by impatience, he patted Rem’s shoulder.
“Is it the kids?”
“I do not know, but it is not an animal smell.”
“That’s enough to go on,” said Subaru, nodding to Rem as he rushed forward. She ran right behind him.
Even Rem’s expression brightened a bit from having a solid lead that cut through the darkness. She subconsciously picked up her pace.
Although, as their expectations increased, so did their unease. That fact was probably part of why Rem was unwilling to say for certain if the scent belonged to the kids.
Rem drove forward, shoving aside foliage to make a path. Subaru chased after her, out of breath as his legs began to grow heavy. But his mind was crystal clear. His eyes had begun to acclimate to the darkness, so Subaru started to make out the outlines of the forest, too—and the next moment, the forest opened up, and both arrived on top of a high little hill.
Moonlight shone down on the green slope in the gap in the forest like something out of a dream. And there—
“It’s the kids!”
There, lying on the ground, were the children, arms and legs spread as they slept.
Rem and Subaru rushed over together to check on whether they were safe. There were six on the ground in total. They weren’t conscious, but they were breathing, and their bodies were warm to the touch.
“They’re alive. They’re alive!”
“We made it in time!” Subaru shouted with joy. But Rem, standing beside him, had a stern look on her face.
“No, they are still breathing, but they are heavily debilitated. At this rate…”
“Debilitated…? The curse?!”
When he looked closer, he saw that the children all had pale faces; their breaths were short and ragged, like even that drained their strength. Their brows were covered in cold sweat as they slept with pained expressions, like they were seeing nightmares.
“After we finally found them… Rem, can’t you lift the curses?”
“My skill is insufficient. If Sister is indeed watching this place… At any rate, I will use healing magic to put them at ease. We shall carry them once they calm down.”
“Got it. I’ll… Shit, I’m so useless. I’ll keep an eye out for trouble.”
Subaru resented himself all over again for his lack of ability. Rem said nothing to him; instead, she infused her palm with a pale light—the light of healing mana—and began to treat the children.
While he kept a lookout, Subaru watched as the wave of healing began to bring peace to more of the sleeping children. At the rate they were calming, they could bring the kids back to the mansion and ask Beatrice to lift the c—
But just as Subaru was mentally putting plans in order, a girl lightly opened her eyes and called his name.
“Suba…ru?”
Her gaze looked troubled, perhaps because her mind was so hazy, so Subaru took her hand.
“You’re awake, Petra? Okay, good girl, you’re a strong girl. We’ll be taking you back real soon and making the reason you’re suffering go bye-bye, so right now you need to just rest…”
“There’s one in… Still… The forest…”
“—Hey, what did you say?”
Petra was trying to tell him something with her halting words.
The information nuggets gave him a bad feeling, so Subaru called out to Petra once more. But his voice never reached her; her eyes had closed and she’d lost consciousness again.
Subaru patted the sleeping Petra’s forehead and urgently rushed to the other children, looking them over. Then…
“Aw, crap… She’s right. I don’t see the youngest one here.”
He knew the faces of all six of the children sleeping there from spending time with them during the day. Setting aside Subaru and the puppy, it left the shy, withdrawn girl missing.
“Damn it all!”
Subaru stood up, tearing at his hair at the turn for the worse.
Rem, who’d seen and heard the entire exchange with Petra, widened her eyes, apparently alarmed at Subaru’s behavior.
“P-please wait. It is too dangerous. If she was taken away by the demon beasts, there is nothing—”
“I know what you’re trying to say. I know. I know all too well, but you heard it, too, Rem. Petra said to go get the last one of them before anything else.”
Petra was suffering to the brink of tears, weakened to the point that breathing was a struggle. Even so, she’d expressed concern for her friend rather than saying the words save me.
She was a weak little girl, but the life of her friend came before her own.
“…I want to do what Petra asked me to. If we’re gonna pick one up, we might as well do our best to pick ’em all up.”
“You are too greedy. If you pick up too much, you might end up dropping everything on the floor.”
“You’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen, Rem.”
Rem looked daunted by it all. Seeing her so surprised, Subaru spread his arms wide to make her look at him.
“I can’t do anything here, either. I can’t use healing magic, and there’s no way I can bring the kids back by myself. If so, I should use myself as effectively as I can, right?”
“What does that have to do with m—”
“You need to save your strength to carry the kids, Rem. The young men from the village will…probably be coming in after us soon enough. Just hand the kids over to them and come after me.”
The villagers had to be well aware that demon beasts were in the forest. Furthermore, they’d no doubt girded themselves with gear and plenty of light sources. All Rem needed to do was hand the kids over and tell the men to bring the kids to the mansion.
“While you’re doing that, I’ll go deeper in and look for the last kid… Hey, if it’s worst case, I’ll come running right back. But if there’s still any ray of hope, at least I can buy some time out there.”
Rem, unable to accept Subaru’s decision, grabbed Subaru’s sleeve and argued vehemently.
“You do not know your opponent’s strength. There is no guarantee when the villagers will come, and worst case, I may not be able to find you.”
Perhaps she was worried about him. Perhaps it was just her nature not to go along with uncertain plans.
Thinking that it’d be nice if it was the former, Subaru pulled Rem’s fingers off his sleeve and held her hand.
“I’ll be all right. You’ll find me.”
“What proof do you have of…?”
“I’ve got proof right here.”
Subaru smiled, pointing a finger at his own nose before pointing it back at Rem’s face.
“Even if no one else notices, you’ll notice my scent. I have the lingering stench of a villain hovering about me, right?”
Rem’s eyes opened wide in surprise. It was thrilling, really.
He laughed, like seeing this Rem before his eyes was taking revenge on that other Rem from times past.
“Subaru…how much…do you know…?”
“Ah, I’m pretty ignorant about tons of things. It’s so bad, I’d never find the answers even if I repeated yesterday, today, and tomorrow over and over again.”
He thought back on those days and how repeating them t
oo much had worn him to the bone.
He then realized he’d changed a lot to actually be able to laugh about it.
“Looks like you have some things you want to ask me, and I have a mountain of things I want to ask you. So when this is all over, let’s talk it out till our throats go dry. It’s a promise.”
And, without waiting for Rem, he kept their hands together as he wrapped his little finger around hers.
Rem remained perplexed at the sight of their intertwined pinkie fingers as Subaru moved the fingers up and down in a shake.
“There. Pinkie promise.”
“Wh-what did you just…?”
“It’s a ritual from my homeland for making a promise. It’s a terrible ritual guaranteeing you’ll get a thousand sewing needles stuck into you if you break it.”
The encroachment of Subaru Space had already exceeded Rem’s comprehension.
Rem was befuddled and confused beyond words when Subaru snapped his fingers and flashed his teeth.
“I believe in you, Rem. So I want to act based on that trust. That’s why we need to promise here.”
“—”
“I told you, right? I keep my promises, and I expect others to keep theirs. Plus I’ve got Emilia’s blessing on my side, so don’t worry, be happy.”
“H-happy…?”
Completely unable to keep up, Rem made a long, exasperated sigh as she laughed weakly.
Subaru, seeing that Rem was continuing to laugh, kept his voice down as he laughed, too. Then Rem said, “A promise, then. There really is much I want to ask you, after all.”
“Sure thing. It’s a promise between the two of us that needed making. The same probably goes for the hair, too.”
“The hair…?”
“The reason why you keep staring at my hair.”
Rem was at a loss for words when Subaru pointed it out. Guilt also seemed to well into her eyes as he watched her open her mouth.
“Subaru, I…”
“It’s all right. I’m not getting the wrong idea. You were always watching me while I did my amateur work because the shabby top of my head really bothered you…right?”
On the last day before he’d begun looping again, Subaru and Rem had made a promise—a promise for Rem to cut Subaru’s unsightly hair.
Now Subaru understood the truth behind those words.
At the time, Rem had been seized by enormous distrust of Subaru, hence the intensity of her gaze toward him. Ram had simply been trying to cover for her.
That promise had been made on the basis of a lie. He knew that now.
But Subaru would take the promise that began with a lie and make it true, smiling all the way.
“When I come back safe and sound, I’ll put myself at your mercy. I’m counting on you to make me look so cool that Emilia will fall for me without even thinking.”
“…Given what I am starting with, even I have my limits.”
“Could you please put facts like that in a less direct way…?”
This was the Rem who had always left him behind. Her agreeing to go along with his suggestion made him happy then and there.
Subaru made a satisfied nod at how the cheerful days he sought were being born anew.
Rem said, “I shall hand off the children and immediately catch up with you. Please do nothing rash in the meantime.”
“Don’t worry. After all, I’m possessed by a demon today.”
“Possessed…?”
“Possessed by a demon instead of a god. Lately it’s my favorite saying!”
Subaru posed with two fingers standing above his head to act as pretend horns.
Regardless of what she thought about Subaru’s frivolous behavior, she let his pose pass without comment.
“Please be careful.”
With Rem sending him off and turning around, Subaru went down the low hill, going deeper into the forest. He headed in the direction Petra had indicated just before losing consciousness.
“Well, Subaru Natsuki, let’s do this.”
Speaking to encourage himself, Subaru ran, clenching the hand with which he’d made the pinkie promise for good measure.
—He didn’t know if despair or hope awaited him, or something else.
One way or another, the morning of the fourth day seemed far, far away.
8
His heart was in a hurry, but he tread cautiously.
The inside of his mouth was parched; his throat was tense with stress. He kept his footsteps quiet as he guardedly advanced into the dark forest. His steps were hesitant, but not because he was afraid or timid about moving forward.
“I sure flapped my lips in front of Rem there, but…”
It was a dangerous move to go alone, but Subaru thought his odds were far from hopeless. In the first place, Subaru was a weakling; his personality was fundamentally averse to gambling. He was doing this precisely because he had a reasonable basis to think he had a chance.
“If it was that puppy from today that cursed the kids, I’ve got a shot…”
It bore the frightening title of demon beast, but surely a puppy didn’t have much combat ability. Its curse was indeed a frightening thing, but if it came to a clash of man versus fang…
“I won’t lose to that thing, right…?”
It was rather pathetic to pin his hopes on his opponent’s small size, though.
No doubt it was an optimistic and convenient thought, but he didn’t think he was wrong to be optimistic, especially because this world had given Subaru such a raw deal. If he just piled on negative images, he would lose himself, cast into despair too deep for his exuberance to get him out of.
Subaru sighed, slumping his shoulders at how his parents had taught him to look at the warped world around him. Then…
“—!”
Subaru held his breath and stopped his feet at the sudden malaise he felt. The air seemed to shift against his skin. The sweat on his brow suddenly grew much cooler.
The wind carried into his trembling nostrils the thick scent of beasts in the direction he was traveling. Whereas before the air was thick with the scent of grass and soil, it was now full of the stench of some wild animal in nature.
Subaru, unable to quash the feeling that something bad was on its way, stilled his breathing. He poked his head out through a gap in the trees. His breath caught when he saw the cause of the wafting scent.
“—”
At the end of his line of sight, in a tiny clearing, he saw a tree that had fallen due to wind and rot. A slender white leg was poking out beside it.
When he craned his neck and peered in, Subaru saw that the leg had tattered cloth over it, attached to a girl wearing her frayed brown hair in braids. He’d found her.
“—”
He held his breath and thought about this.
There was no doubt this was the girl in question. But the girl’s body did not so much as twitch while she lay on the ground. She was not conscious, and of course, he couldn’t even check to see if she was breathing from where he stood. He quickly scanned her surroundings, but it seemed like the demon beast that had left the girl here was not close by.
So the beast had dragged back his prey, then abandoned it? That didn’t feel right. It didn’t, but…
“…It’s a golden opportunity… What to do…?”
With every moment he waited during this ideal chance to save the girl, the danger increased, all the more so because Subaru had, at best, a 50 percent chance of actually handling his potential opponent.
—Why was Subaru Natsuki the one here?
What if it had been Roswaal? Or Beatrice? Or Reinhard?
If it were one of them, blessed with power worthy of heroes, the situation could be easily resolved.
But it was Subaru Natsuki who stood there. It was Subaru Natsuki who yearned for a miracle. And it was Subaru Natsuki who most assuredly could not bring a miracle about.
His rational mind pleaded for him to play the sure hand and wait for Rem. And yet…
<
br /> —Emilia wouldn’t hesitate.
The instant he thought it, Subaru’s legs stopped shaking. His pulse, quickened by the decision pressing upon him, calmed along with his ragged breath.
Subaru rushed through the grass, flying into the clearing in front of him, and made a beeline toward the girl in the shade of the fallen tree. He sat up her tiny, light body and checked to see if it had a pulse.
—Her breathing was frail, but he felt a faint, steady pulse through her veins.
“…I’m so glad.”
He was truly relieved that he hadn’t decided to abandon her.
The faint breathing and pulse might have meant she was being affected by a curse as well. If that was the case, he needed to get her healed by magic and have the curse lifted without a moment to lose.
He wasn’t exactly confident about his endurance, but he figured he could carry a single girl out of the forest…but as Subaru rose to his feet with that judgment in his head…
“—”
The sudden chill running up Subaru’s spine made him gasp and look over his shoulder.
—The bushes rustled as a four-legged beast crossed the grass and stepped onto the bare soil.
It was a beast with short black fur. At a glance, it seemed similar in size to a Doberman from his world, but it was built twice as thickly as the dogs Subaru had seen. The clawlike paws were sharp; slobber was dripping out from its fangs even with its maw closed. It made a low growl as its bloodshot eyes glared at Subaru.
It was a demon dog, or rather, a demon beast. Such a name suited its malevolent appearance.
“…This is, uh…not what I had in mind here.”
He didn’t even realize his cheek was twitching as a smile and a dry laugh came over him.
The demon beast before his eyes was clearly not the little puppy-size one Subaru had expected. In addition, the timing with which it had showed itself meant that…
“…You used this girl as a decoy and waited for her to lure me out…?”
Subaru shuddered. Perhaps it was only feral instincts at work, but the beast’s unexpected intelligence disturbed him. Either way, he didn’t have any time to ponder the matter.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 3 Page 11