And yet, all the praise she earned filled Rem’s chest with vague unease.
The days and months had not made her sense of guilt fade away; indeed, they had only reinforced it—and she continued to live her life for the sake of her older sister.
And then, Lady Emilia and Sister had returned from the royal capital, bringing a foreign element into the mansion.
“My name is Subaru Natsuki. Zero work experience! Pleased to meet you!”
The wounded lad had been brought into the mansion because he had saved Emilia’s life. Upon waking, the young man negotiated with Roswaal and gained for himself the position of apprentice servant in no time at all.
Naturally, Rem was gripped by a deep sense of distrust toward the youth of uncertain origin. In particular, she could find nothing to like during the first two days, when the young man had plastered a smile on his face and worked constantly to win her and her sister’s favor.
Furthermore, there was a scent wafting around him that triggered memories in Rem that she could barely endure. It was the scent of the witch—the miasma that surrounded only a few beings in the entire world.
Ever since her homeland had become a sea of flames, Rem’s nose had learned how to pick out the scent.
She did not know why. She knew only that it triggered abominable memories and that seven long, bitter years had taught her that nothing good came from that which accompanied the scent.
She had been unable to make her antipathy plain in front of Roswaal and Emilia, but instead, she had often found herself staring at the young man while he seemed at war with himself.
Now that she had lost her horn, Sister had no need for any relationships other than her one with Roswaal, whom she adored. To Rem, who had stolen her sister’s proper place, there was nothing more important than protecting the place her sister could be at ease. And Rem would show no mercy to those who threatened their home.
As far as anyone else could see, the boy showed no sign of untoward behavior whatsoever. Yet even as her sister told her that they should only watch, Rem thought he should be driven out of the mansion as soon as possible.
By the time something happens, it will be too late. Such was the conclusion Rem had formed at the time.
—And then, she saw Subaru sleeping on Emilia’s lap.
Rem gave Emilia’s opinion on the matter a great deal of weight, but internally she was still struggling to think of how she should treat the person known as Subaru.
Rem, who had strictly observed Subaru’s every action because he was an outsider, understood that he tried his utmost in everything he did—including the sarcasm. It was in complete contrast to his frivolous manner.
And seeing him struggle so hard to produce results in spite of inferior ability reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
From the following morning onward, she saw Subaru’s demeanor and behavior in a different light. The strained atmosphere evaporated; how he approached everything changed, even if his technical skill had not.
He had gone from striving without a tangible goal to burning with desire to accomplish something. Naturally, his approach to work changed as well. He still held others back, but the quality of his work did rise a little bit.
Rem, who welcomed no changes to her environment, still regarded Subaru as a troublesome interloper, but she felt like she should at least not regard him as an enemy.
Then, when Roswaal was absent, disaster struck.
“—Worst case, the whole village might get wiped out.”
Rem, ordered by her older sister to accompany Subaru, half doubted the extreme scenario he’d suggested so seriously. However, when they reached Earlham Village, the children really were missing, and the barrier that should have blocked off the forest had been breached and was no longer functioning.
“Rem, let’s go. We have to do something.”
Rem had recoiled at Subaru’s invitation to go into the forest to rescue the children from their plight.
Of course it was strange. Rem could not grasp why someone so powerless would act so desperately for children he barely knew.
Subaru was not being reckless. He was well aware of his own weakness. And still he did not hesitate to ask others for the things he lacked. What incredible arrogance, she had thought.
They had gone into the forest, found the children, and used magic to save them. Even when Subaru wanted to go deeper into the forest to find the missing last child, Rem was not surprised.
With eyes that said he was useless, an expression that said he didn’t measure up, a voice that bit back the urge to give in many times over—Subaru never stopped struggling.
When Rem watched Subaru head into the forest by himself as she healed the children, her heart fluttered furiously. She was filled with warmth that words could not express.
After Rem had handed the children over to the young men of the village, relying on the miasma of the witch to reach Subaru once more, she had found him in a life-and-death situation, surrounded by a pack of demon beasts.
Seeing the sleeping girl in Subaru’s arms had cleared away all Rem’s doubts.
As Subaru ran, Rem leaped into action, running interference for him against the attacking mob of demon beasts. Blood and pain toyed with her, but Rem felt light, as if a weight had been lifted from her heart.
Not once had she imagined that trusting someone, trusting Subaru, could feel so good.
The next moment, Rem had sustained an impact that plunged her mind into darkness. In its place, her demon instincts took over, and she began an indiscriminate slaughter.
She learned the pleasure of making flesh fly apart. She felt delight at indulging in her power, completely forgetting her goal.
Her demon instincts demanded more blood, more lives—
“—!”
The collision against her back had sent Rem flying, dulling her reactions.
Something was holding her down. When she looked behind her, she saw Subaru’s face. The relief on it snapped Rem from reflex to rational thought.
She saw a ferocious demon beast right next to him, its fangs drawing near. She needed to jump, to reach out, to save him—so thought Rem when suddenly, the miasma tickled her nose.
That made her delay her decision by a single moment.
And then…
“—Gaaaaah!!”
…Rem finally realized that she had not changed at all.
She had committed the sin from long ago…again.
CHAPTER 5
ALL IN
1
—When Rem regained consciousness, her feet were not planted on the ground.
There was an arm firmly around her waist. Someone was carrying her. She did not think that the rough manner was any way to touch a girl. Though that was indeed the case, the owner of the arm was sprinting recklessly, with not a shred of concentration for anything beyond that.
“—Barusu, go right at the broken tree in front! You are slow!”
“Don’t…demand the impossible… I’m—haghh—running…as hard as I can…here!”
Two familiar voices, one more intimately so, were yelling at each other from close by.
The intense up-and-down shaking jostled Rem’s head back into consciousness.
“…Subaru, what are y—”
“—! Rem…you’re awake?!”
Subaru kept running as he voiced his delight and glanced down at her. Rem looked up at him, her mind still rather hazy, when something unexpectedly caught in her throat.
The side of Subaru’s face was wet with blood. Maybe he’d cut his forehead? The scars all over his body from the night before had whitened; at some point, new wounds had been made on top of them, staining both with fresh blood.
Ram, her pink hair swaying as she ran beside Subaru, made a faint, pleasant smile toward her.
“…I am so glad, Rem… You are one high-maintenance girl…”
Ram’s words were few, but only those who really knew her knew this particular
smile. She reached out and stroked Rem’s blue hair. A moment later—
“Fulla!”
She conducted the Blade of Wind incantation and used the resulting attack to slice through the trees—and cut the demon beast charging at them into discs to nourish the plants on the forest floor.
For a moment, Ram seemed dizzy; her steps went astray, making her lightly bump into Subaru’s body.
“Owwwww! Ram, you know better than to touch my right shoulder, geez!!”
“…Be quiet. You would have been bitten if not for me. You can at least be a wall for me to lean on.”
“At least pick the other should—Owww!”
Subaru was half in tears as he cried out in fierce pain.
Ram put her weight on Subaru as she bled from the scar of her lost horn. Rem watched both of them as the current situation slapped her in the face.
Why was she in a place like this? Why were they protecting her?
“Wh…y…?”
“Ah?”
“Why…did you not just let me be?”
She trembled as she voiced the question. Subaru stared down at her with a look of disbelief as Rem’s quivering lips continued.
“You and Sister coming made it meaningless. I…I have to do this myself… I should be the only one getting hurt…”
“It’s a little late for that. Ram and I are all beat up already! Hell, maybe more than you are!”
Subaru was prone to exaggeration, but he seemed to believe every word of that last sentence. She wondered what Ram thought of that, but her beloved twin did not enter the conversation. Rem felt like her sister had left her out on a limb as she desperately tried to find the right words.
“It…it is my fault. I hesitated last night, that is why… I have to take responsibility… If I do not, I cannot face you or Sister…”
“Now may not be the best time for it, but we’re actually, you know, talking! That’s seriously awesome…”
“Really, you should not have been bitten at all—”
Though Subaru didn’t look like he was listening, he apparently heard her words loud and clear. His face went stiff, looking at Rem as she confessed her sin.
Rem’s shortcomings had caused Subaru to risk himself to shield her during the forest battle the night before. When she saw the fangs had punctured and ripped Subaru’s flesh, bathing him in blood, she could only gape at what her conduct and judgment had wrought.
The same scent as on that day long ago, when everything had been burned away, had hovered thickly around Subaru. And Rem had caught a whiff of it, leaving her unable to move.
“It is because I hesitated to reach out to you that you nearly died. And then your body suffered too many curses to lift. That is why I—”
“You went off to deal with it by yourself to atone for it, right?”
Just as Subaru nodded in acceptance, Rem drew in her chin, once again acknowledging her own sin.
Rem was prepared to be scolded and scorned. Subaru should have given her a tongue-lashing before she had set foot into the forest again.
She had not let him because she had not a moment to spare to save Subaru. That, or she was unprepared to face the consequences of her weakness.
—Rem, resenting her own frail heart, thought it must surely be the latter.
She was prepared to accept whatever words he struck her with, however stern they might be. After all, that was only the punishment she deserved for the crime she had committed.
“Rem.”
“Yes.”
—Subaru’s face was truly right before her eyes.
“Bonk.”
“—?!”
The hard smack sound of bone upon bone sent sparks into Rem’s vision.
For an instant, the sharp pain narrowed Rem’s field of vision as she put a hand on her forehead in confusion. When not in her horned form, her flesh was no hardier than an ordinary human’s.
No doubt others would be able to see a faint, reddening bump from the impact to her brow.
Rem’s eyes were still wide, with no idea what was going on, when Subaru looked down at her.
“To begin with, are you an idiot? No, you are an idiot.”
“Barusu. You split your split forehead and it is bleeding again.”
Ram butted in to speak. Subaru shook his bloodied face.
“I’m an idiot, too. I know that already! But your little sister’s an even bigger idiot!”
Rem realized that Subaru had head-butted her. She didn’t understand the significance at all.
“Now look here, in my homeland, they say, ‘Three women make a market.’ Not that that has anything to do with this. But they also say, ‘Three heads are better than one.’”
What’s sagacity, anyway? Subaru murmured to himself after he spoke. “Er, anyway,” he said, twisting his neck as he continued, “it’s like how it’s easier to snap an arrow with three people than a person might think.”
“I am guessing you are using that somewhat unlike the original…”
“A-NY-WA-Y! Don’t think about it all by yourself and rely on the people around you! You understand what I’m saying, right?! If you had your heart grabbed like m—”
Subaru was about to say something when his expression changed to one of pain.
“That was over the line, huh…? Th-that’s a little strict, ain’t it?”
“What are you talking ab—? Wait, Subaru, the scent of the witch is suddenly much thick—”
Rem pinched her nose, twisting her body away from the repugnant smell.
Right beside her, the horrible, abominable stench wafted about. What had suddenly caused it to—?
But Subaru moved to set Rem’s misgivings aside with a statement of his own.
“Well, I need you to switch gears on that for now. I’ll switch gears, too.”
Rem was agape, but the serious look on Subaru’s face told her to push that question down the road. Subaru looked ahead as they ran, the tension and caution in his eyes growing stronger.
Simultaneously, Ram, again running beside him, put a hand to her painful forehead as she began to chant.
“Ram, the villa—No, the barrier’s good enough. Which way is it to get there?”
“If we can slip past the pack before us, we simply need to sprint to the left, but what are you planning?”
When Ram asked, Subaru let out a long mmm sound as he made a sour face.
“How about I push Rem onto you and I cruelly run off to the barrier on my own?”
“You intend to let me flee with Rem while you lure the Urugarum away? Understood.”
“Can you not spoil what I was trying to hide?! It’s embarrassing!!”
The speed of their run did not abate as Subaru and Ram sparred with their words back and forth.
When she heard what they were saying, Rem felt a feeling of despair, like the whole world was turning black before her.
“I cannot…save you like that… Pl-please stop this. If you do this, I…”
“Luggage should be seen and not heard! It’s all right, I’ll get past the barrier and hook up with you there. After that, I have a special plan you don’t know about to take down the demon beasts all at once. It’ll be big, an easy win!”
She had no idea what “special plan” Subaru had prepared. To be blunt, she wondered if there even was one.
Was he simply papering things over? Subaru slipping past the pack by himself was all but impossible in the first place, she thought.
“You need to do no such thing… I will wipe out the demon beasts all by myse—”
She couldn’t let Subaru do anything rash. Rem tried to move her arms and legs. But her limbs merely dangled, refusing to obey her commands. The most she could do was wiggle her fingers and move her tongue around a little. Nothing was working as she was accustomed to.
“Where is my weapon…?”
“Like I could carry around a heavy thing like that! I’ll buy you a new one later, geez!”
Pain shot through Rem a
s she realized she was unarmed and unable to move, so there was nothing she could do but be protected by others. The thought drove her to despair.
Subaru gently handed Rem off to Ram.
“Don’t drop her.”
“I believe I have more strength than you possess in one arm, Barusu.”
“Why’d you make me carry her, then?!”
“You never told me to, did you, Barusu?”
“Seriously, that’s your answer?!”
Subaru slapped his own face for missing the opportunity.
Rem looked up at Subaru from her sister’s arms, shaking her head at the unbelievable reality. She’d said so many mean things about him. Why was he going this far?
“Subaru, why are you going this far to…?”
“—Good question.”
Her inquiry sent Subaru into thought for but a single moment. He raised a finger and smiled.
“Because you’re the first girl I ever went on a date with. I’m not so cruel that I can just turn my back on you.”
As he spoke, he gently petted Rem with the same hand.
“Well, I’m gonna head off for a little bit. Take care of Rem, Big Sis.”
“I pray that you meet with us safely, Barusu.”
With that brief exchange, they suddenly parted ways, with Subaru running one way and Ram another.
Ram ran right. Subaru ran left.
The Urugarum pack coming from the front hesitated at their prey splitting up, but only for a moment. They immediately ran off in pursuit of Subaru.
“—Sister!”
“Barusu is risking his life to buy us time. I shall make good use of it.”
Sweat formed on Ram’s brow as her tone made plain she had no margin for error. The combination of wounds and fatigue slowed her down considerably. Compared to Rem in horned form, it was nothing.
When Rem thought of that, she regretted what she had done enough that she wanted to cry.
If Rem could have returned to horned form, she’d have had the power to get them through this, not only to save Subaru but to carry her older sister out of danger. She could do it all.
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol. 3 Page 19