His feet slid as his right hand drew his sword from his waist. In one motion, he sliced through the wind as he slid the blade out of the scabbard, aiming it at the horn on Rem’s forehead—the timing was perfect. Even Rem could not respond in time to the sudden attack. But—
“—Ah?!”
Through a combination of the blade’s broken tip and Subaru’s own timid, halfhearted step at the end, the blade missed a direct blow to her horn, passing a few millimeters short.
Subaru was appalled at having let his tiny moment of opportunity slip through his hands.
“I chickened out! I didn’t have enough courage for the last part!!”
His body swam as he got nothing but air.
Subaru’s momentum carried him past her, exposing his back, and Rem raised her left hand to stab him. The long claws on her fingertips would surely go right through Subaru’s back and stick out the other side.
He regretted dying one step away from success, and at Rem’s hands at that.
The very moment he thought it—
“Whoaaaa—?!”
The ground beneath his feet exploded, with the resulting cascade of rocks vaulting Subaru straight up.
The scattering rocks pelted his body all over. Skin breaking and bleeding, Subaru looked down from midair to see the cause of his pain.
South of the point where the ground had exploded under Subaru, he saw the demon beast puppy in a low crouch. The Urugarum had kept a low profile since leading the pack down the cliff, waiting for its opportunity to take Subaru and Rem out in a single cascade of rocks. And so, seeing Subaru create an opening, it had spectacularly intervened with the goal of sending both him and Rem flying.
However…
“—!!”
…its plan was foiled when Rem roared and stomped onto the ground from which the rocks were erupting. Force canceled force, ending with only her blue hair heavily disheveled. She’d canceled out magical force with raw violence—smashing the spell with brute force.
The cascade of rocks ceased, and Rem’s shoulders eased as she held her big sister preciously in her arms.
Subaru, still above her, had vanished from even the furthermost reaches of her mind.
Buffeted by the magic spell, Subaru whirled head over heels with no idea which way was up. But his right hand kept the sword firmly in its grip even then; fortunately, he landed not against the rock wall but merely on the hard ground.
And Rem stood right below him, her head exposed, not noticing him whatsoever.
There would be no better chance, nor no chance after. It was now or never.
He gripped the single-handed sword’s hilt with both hands and swung with all his might.
He had arrived at this point at the end of a long string of coincidences.
Opportunism for the win. Miracles were awesome. Even if purely by whim, sometimes God did good work—although God’s work would also have helped tremendously with the previous attempt.
And now he was right above Rem, unnoticed, her head fully exposed…
He made a strained smile. There was no time. Rem was close at hand, and so was a slow, leisurely world with her.
He saw the horn. He swung the sword past its apex with all the energy he could muster.
“Laugh, Rem. Today, I’m more demonic than any demon!”
The blade flashed straight down, aimed at the white horn—
The high-pitched sound of steel striking steel sharply echoed through the demon beasts’ forest.
The next moment, Subaru crash-landed, his own painful yelp merging with the echo.
INTERLUDE
REM
1
Compared to her older sister, the girl named Rem had a very difficult everyday life.
Even among humanoids, the might and mana possessed by the demon race were head and shoulders above the rest. Their robust bodies and the quality of the mana they employed granted them peerless fighting strength. They boasted the title of the mightiest of all humanoid races.
The single weakness the demons possessed was their crushingly low population. A race dedicated to producing the mightiest individuals did not give breath to great numbers, and so, despite their strength, the demon race was obliged to dwell in poor villages deep within the mountains.
Because they were a race dwelling far from human habitation, there were strict taboos among the demons to protect their limited numbers.
To their race, twins were abominations. This was one of the unbreakable laws of demon kind.
By nature, demons are born with two horns on their head. In tranquil times the horns are hidden, but when circumstances change and their demon instincts awaken, the horns appear on their heads and consume mana from the surrounding area. Their horns draw in and control mana from the atmosphere, greatly heightening their combat capabilities. This purpose made them the pride of their race.
But twins were born with only one horn each.
Among demons, the “hornless” were considered the dregs of society. Losing even one was cause for ridicule. Twins lacked something deeply precious from the moment of their birth. What else could they be but abominations?
And so, it was taught that twins were to be discarded immediately.
The fate of this pair of twins ought to have ended then and there. And it would have, had one of the twins not displayed her gift from the heavens with a tremendous burst of magical power the very moment the chief, having made the bitter decision, was about to render judgment by his own hand.
2
The older twin was named Ram; the younger, Rem. Both occupied the lowest rungs on the ladder among the tribe.
Their daily lives were far from pleasant. Even though their lives had been spared, they were still twins. Both were treated as hornless from the beginning and raised inhospitably by their people.
In spite of their connection by blood, their own parents acted distantly toward them. Their fellow tribesmen did not hide their contempt for the two “abominations.” For both of them, it was the worst childhood imaginable.
The hostility continued until the demons realized what they were capable of—or more precisely, until the older of the twins became aware of it herself.
The most accurate term describing Ram during childhood was wonder child. She had talent that exceeded even that of great demons throughout their storied history. Indeed, their entire race was enthralled by the beauty of Ram’s horn, which allowed her to use a vast amount of mana in spite of her youth. Her demeanor was as forthright as the single, pure white horn on her forehead, lacking any hint of becoming drunk on her own might and potential, making it seem natural for their brethren to bow their heads before her.
It was very special treatment for a girl who was not yet ten years of age.
Even their cold and distant parents, even their kin who had openly scorned them, even the chief who had tried to slay the twins shortly after birth—all were speechless before Ram’s authority. She was destined from birth to become the pinnacle of the horned demons, the mightiest of all humanoid races.
Members of a race that prized individual strength were flawless in their politeness toward an individual with such power. And yet, Ram never once used the tribe’s reverence for her own benefit.
All Rem could do was stumble down her older sister’s path to glory.
She had no abilities above the norm. Her mana supply was strictly average, with her body’s capabilities in line with what a normal demon with only one horn could do. Compared to Ram, she did not have a shred of confidence; she cowered behind her sister’s back like a shadow.
That was how the young Rem coped. That was how she protected her immature heart.
It wasn’t that she was jealous of her older sister. She admired her. She adored her.
It wasn’t that her parents hated her. They loved the younger as well as the older.
It wasn’t as if their people had spurned Rem. Of course they had high hopes. She was her little sister.
Her sister,
kinder than anyone; her parents, full of expectations; all her kin, cheering her on to excel like her twin—these were the little cuts that chafed Rem.
No doubt it was the direct consequence of her and her sister looking like two peas in a pod. Yet even though their heights and faces were identical, their qualities as demons were on completely different scales.
Of course, Rem strived to change those circumstances. It may have been no more than shallow, clumsy trial-and-error efforts by a young child, but Rem tried any and every way of getting closer to her older sister, to beat her in even a single area.
But Ram was simply better at everything.
And so, Rem was still a young child when she learned that the sister to whom she was closest, the sister she loved more than anything, occupied an area that she could never, ever reach.
She could never stand by her sister’s side. Ram would always walk ahead of her, bathed in the light of the world. Rem’s place was behind her sister, cowering behind her back, peeking out once in a while, only to shrink away from the dazzling light.
Once she gave up, she could accept the sufferings of daily life, like a reed bending with the wind.
—She wondered how long she would have to bear her own weak capitulation.
3
One night, Rem awoke, unable to sleep well because of the heat.
She slid off the wooden bed and pulled the blankets off her sweat-covered body. When Rem looked around, she suddenly realized that her older sister, always sleeping beside her, was gone.
I have to look for my sister right away, she thought.
If her sister was awake, she had to follow behind her majestic gait. To do so without fail, even for matters as trivial as waking up briefly to pee, was Rem’s obsession at the time.
I have to go outside—but only then did Rem belatedly notice the source of the warmth—flames that enveloped her home.
When she touched the doorknob, she yanked her hand back from its heat. At that moment, the truth sank in. Rem’s sleepy sense of smell was awoken by the scent of something burned; her forehead felt itchy as her horn grew, appearing fully.
Instantly, she used her solid body to break the door down and dash out of the house enveloped in the hellish flames. She didn’t know why this had happened, but she obeyed her instincts to flee, to get outside.
Rem kicked apart the brittle fence and rushed from her home to the outside world.
Even then, a single, fanatical thought ruled in her mind: I have to leave the house and have Sis tell me what to do.
But then, that thought fell by the wayside at the sight awaiting her once she left the house.
In the center of the village was a pile of burned bodies. The burning houses and flame-swept trees had turned her familiar world into a reddish hell in one night.
When Rem saw the faces of her parents among the corpses swallowed by the flames, she immediately abandoned all rational thought and fell to her knees then and there.
Rem remained kneeling as a group of men dressed in black robes calmly surrounded her. Even up close, the deep shadows of their hoods hid their faces until they were very close; even then, they were not faces she recognized. However, when Rem did not sense a single trace of goodwill from them, a smile came over her that seemed alien on her cheeks.
That smile was the one that hid her despair for the good of everyone else.
The figures did not respond in the slightest to the expression or the pain behind it.
The shadows approached her, raising their hands and swinging the glimmering silver blades within them down at the girl—but their heads flew off in the next moment.
Blood. In a single moment, four lives had been taken with such skill that the heads never raised a shout, never even realized what had happened.
The familiar feel of the mana pulsing against her skin instantly told Rem it was the work of her sister. She stood up.
If her sister was here, Rem had to follow her lead.
She didn’t even need to look around. Her eyes located her older sister immediately.
The face identical to Rem’s own was warped with grief. The older sister ran over to embrace the younger, sighing with relief and relaxing her body when she realized Rem was unharmed. Rem hugged her sister back, never feeling more pathetic, or happier, in her life.
—Rem did not clearly remember what happened next.
She thought that she’d leave everything up to her sister.
That was best. That was right. Sis always chose the finest option among all available possibilities.
And yet, they had been surrounded before she realized it.
Even with silhouettes so numerous they formed a wall, Rem looked at them in a daze, still believing that Sis would somehow overcome.
Her sister pushed before her, straining herself yelling. Tears flowed from her cheeks; her body seemed to shrink as she made a desperate plea.
When they threw her sister to the ground, Rem felt troubled. To look down at her sister was to contradict her way of life. To stand behind her sister, to hide behind her back, was what brought meaning to her existence.
Her sister screamed. She returned to her feet and spread her hands out before her. She unleashed the mana. The power would flow through her sister, and invisible blades would descend upon the world, slicing everything around them.
But the moment before unleashing it, her sister turned around, embraced Rem—then, an impact.
And then, Rem could only watch.
She saw steel flash at her sister’s head from the side. She saw a white glimmer dance in the reddened sky.
She saw the severed horn spin round and round and round.
She saw blood gush out from her sister’s forehead. She heard someone’s high-pitched scream.
She listened to the cries of the sister she adored, the sister who had shielded her and taken the blow for her, as the beautiful white horn that she had so envied tumbled through the sky.
—Finally. It finally broke off.
That was the thought she had.
4
Rem did not understand the details of what occurred after that point.
What she did grasp was that at some point, they’d lost consciousness, only to awaken far from home with a huge mansion all around her, and that her sister, who had lost her horn, was there with her.
Her sister had regained consciousness first and was overjoyed to see Rem awaken, but Rem was lost in thoughts of her twin, whose abilities ranked lower than the average person’s now that she had lost her horn.
On the surface, her behavior was largely unchanged, but there was no trace of the talent she had commanded in every area. Now that she struggled with even minor things, Rem had many opportunities to help her.
And so, one would think that Rem would develop a superiority complex toward her now universally inferior sister—but one would be wrong; the inferiority complex took root in Rem’s spirit even deeper than before.
In other words, Rem felt shame at the fact that her sister had gone from beloved by the whole world to having to endure life at the bottom.
Rem’s guilt was spurred on by the admiration she had for her older sister. Had Rem’s heart been filled with only jealous thoughts, no doubt it would not have been so. But Rem loved her sister. And she was not so shrewd or self-serving to live and forget the thought she’d had that moment when her sister’s horn was broken.
“I have to do everything in Sis’s…Sister’s place…”
Rem changed how she addressed her older sister and put her days of hiding in her shadow behind her. Rem’s battle had begun.
In all things, in all duties she was assigned, all she could think was, Sister would do this. She’d always been right behind her sister, watching. Her sister’s judgment had never failed.
Even so, the results were always less than she expected. That was natural, for her sister was incredible. With a flawed little sister like her, even both of them working together could not reach the same place.
—There was no longer any individual life for the girl known as Rem.
To Rem, the only thing she could do was “live the life Sister would have.” That she could not fulfill such a role made her unable to believe that she had any real value.
Days and months passed. There, in the mansion that had taken them both in when their homeland was burned away, the gap between their reality and Rem’s ideals wore at her day after day.
It was not that she minded her role as a servant. The lord of the manor had benevolently given them a place to stay, and moreover, she adored her older sister enough that she did not mind offering up body and soul.
If problems arose during these untroubled days, Rem took full responsibility.
You have done well, the master would say in praise. She had heard such words from her homeland many times over.
Don’t force yourself, her sister would say to Rem out of concern. But even forcing herself was not yet enough.
Why do you push yourself so hard? one irresponsible person had asked Rem.
—That was obvious.
Because she was inferior in anything and everything. Even if she pushed herself to the breaking point, whittling away her soul and burning her body to ash, she would never reach that which ought to have been.
—What could she do to atone?
And so, Rem dedicated her life to cutting open the path that her sister ought to have walked herself but that Rem had stolen from her.
For Rem was a substitute for her sister in all things and nothing more.
5
With her obsession strengthened, the seven years wore upon Rem.
Others dutifully commended Rem on a daily basis for her earnest hard work, though to Rem these efforts never yielded satisfactory results. Even Margrave Roswaal praised her as a capable worker, to the point that he commanded her to serve at his side during that significant time when the royal selection was underway.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 3 Page 18