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

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  And yet, at the most critical of moments, she was unable to even bring out the demon within her.

  It was her own halfhearted weakness that had brought Subaru and her older sister here and held them back.

  In contrast to the regret-filled Rem, Ram had not hesitated when Subaru offered himself as a decoy. No doubt that was because she valued Rem’s life above Subaru’s and, indeed, even her own. Knowing that Subaru’s ploy would buy them time and increase their odds of survival, she had accepted without the slightest falter.

  Though Rem thought her beloved older sister’s judgment was correct, she suddenly rebelled against the idea.

  Why was Sister so strong, strong enough to cut anything and everything away? What incredible part of her allowed her to make such a horrible decision so easily? Rem wanted to see for herself.

  “Sister… Subaru… Subaru is—!”

  “Rem. We cannot turn back. It would put his resolve to waste.”

  They were the words of her beloved sister. Her sister was always right.

  If Rem followed her, she would surely be safe, for Ram had always been right.

  —Then why did what was right feel so empty…?

  “—Sis!!”

  “—!!”

  Ram’s expression greatly trembled in response to Rem’s heartfelt shout. Ram bit her lip, her eyes wide open as her feet came to a stop. Rem instantly twisted her body, escaping her sister’s arms to fall to the ground, rolling as she looked behind them—and saw Subaru’s back as he ran.

  Far away, his run was much too slow to be called a sprint.

  She saw his black hair and his wounds all over. She saw the sway of his listless right arm, devoid of strength, and the way Subaru appeared to be hiding his emotions.

  Towering before Subaru was a giant, sheer black demon beast. Judging from its size compared to the rest of the pack, it might well have been the leader.

  Under that fearsome gaze, surrounded by predators, Subaru ferociously ran.

  No matter how much she stretched out her fingers, no matter how much her heart quaked, she could not reach his back.

  And yet, Rem shouted, as if pleading.

  “—Subaru!”

  She did not know if her voice reached him.

  All she saw was Subaru on the run, his left hand drawing the dimly glimmering sword as if responding to her call.

  2

  He didn’t understand it himself.

  Since when had he become a man stubborn enough to do something crazy like this…?

  No matter how much he wanted to put on a brave face and not make the sisters feel like they owed him, this was completely, thoroughly not like him.

  With his back turned to them, the look on his face crumbled the instant he knew they could no longer see it.

  He keenly felt both extremes of pain—dull and sharp alike. His mask had fallen to pieces, Subaru’s magnificent face scowling as his tongue pathetically hung out like that of a dog.

  “It hurts… It hurts. It hurts, Mommy, Daddy, Emilia-tan…!”

  He invoked the three most important people in his life as he glanced at his dangling right arm.

  The intermittent numbness in his shoulder was from his crash landing after his blow to Rem’s horn. He hoped dearly it was merely dislocated.

  One way or another, he couldn’t rely on his right arm for combat. With one less weapon at his disposal, Subaru had no idea how he was going to face the enemy standing before him.

  As Subaru ran, he found the demon beast pup standing in his path—the one that had been the bane of his existence more than once. Subaru wondered if it had a grudge against him to be so darned persistent.

  “I’d like this to be the last time we meet…”

  Subaru kept running as he girded himself for the cascade of stones the demon beast would surely unleash. If that hit him when his guard was down, there was no way he’d get away with just a dislocated shoulder.

  Shaking off the unpleasant image of being whittled to death by a thousand stone cuts, Subaru mentally simulated dodging at the exact moment the stones would be unleashed. He gave the demon beast a half-resentful, gimme-your-best-shot glare when—

  “Uhh?”

  He suddenly sounded quite clueless.

  Subaru could scarcely believe his eyes at the scene unfolding before him.

  The demon beast pup made a small howl before curling up its little body further. It seemed to be gathering all its strength. Before Subaru, whose eyes were narrowed with no idea what was coming next, it…

  “—!”

  The fur ball suddenly grew with explosive force.

  Poof—in the blink of an eye, it grew from the size of a cute, huggable domesticated dog to something larger than the largest breeds, to the point one might call it jumbo sized.

  “I’ve seen this in manga a lot, but seriously, where does all the extra mass come from?!”

  The reply to his question was a howl that seemed to make the entire forest shudder.

  It used its hind legs for support as it vigorously sprang off the ground. The demon beast then struck together the claws of both its raised paws, revealing them to be sinister weapons that could slice through human bone with the slightest graze.

  “Oh, so you’re not gonna settle this with magic? What did I ever do to you…?”

  Subaru shuddered at its decision to fight their final battle mano a mano as he looked around, searching for any avenue of escape—but demon beasts in pursuit were cutting off the back and the sides, making escape a difficult proposition.

  “Man, coming after me instead of the beautiful sisters… You guys have seriously demon-cursed taste… Damn it all!”

  Once he noticed it, his steps slowed as the beasts surrounded him. Apparently, Subaru had brought every demon beast in the whole forest running. His decoy operation was a huge success.

  He didn’t have time to have a nervous breakdown or piss his pants while begging for his life.

  With all avenues of escape cut off, his only option was to run straight forward. In other words, he had to take the giant demon beast down one-on-one.

  He fumbled in his side pocket. He felt a rock…a piece of hard candy…something that felt sticky and icky…and…

  “All I can do now is trust in Puck…!”

  He took it out and tossed it in his mouth as he prayed to the gray cat with all his might.

  There wasn’t much time before Subaru would reach the demon beast. They would clash in mere seconds.

  That was when…

  “—Subaru!”

  …he heard it.

  That moment, Subaru heard someone call his name.

  It had a painful echo, drenched in sadness as if the whole world were about to end, knowing that whether Subaru lived or died determined whether her heart would shatter—perhaps it was insensitive of him, but Subaru was happy.

  I’m too pathetic. A pervert. A two-faced jerk.

  It wasn’t like he couldn’t guess how the girl felt as she cried out his name. The fact that he smiled nonetheless was proof he was totally mad.

  He smiled, and smiled, and when he was done smiling, Subaru’s left hand drew out the broken one-handed sword.

  The demon beast roared before him. Subaru put all his weight behind the sword as he, too, yelled out. Their voices raised a pair of discordant war cries. Soul clashed against soul.

  A moment before they were within each other’s reach, Subaru inhaled deeply. He pictured the center of his body. He focused on the region between chest and waist, imagining a gate connected to the outside, just above his navel.

  “—SHAMAAAAK!!”

  The magical invocation permeated the air. The next moment, a black cloud erupted around Subaru.

  The cloud enveloped Subaru and all the demon beasts. The decisive battle in the forest was now sealed within the darkness.

  3

  Within the black cloud, the world was incomprehensible.

  The shape of the world, its color, its scent—none
of these things could be discerned here.

  The single firm, solid sensation came from the soles of his feet touching the ground. If not for that, surely he would not have even known which way was up inside the darkness.

  He could see nothing. He could hear nothing. He could understand nothing.

  So this was the end of the world.

  As Subaru felt his feet pressing against his shoes, he searched for something within the haze. Surely there was something that awaited him within the black cloud, something he had to do.

  —Something, something, something, something was missing.

  Faced with a world of incomprehension, he had to remember the world of comprehension.

  Why had this nothingness come? Who had brought it? What were the conditions for ending it?

  Remember, remember, remember the world beyond, the world that was firm under his feet.

  His command to his brain made thoughts erupt like sparks.

  He couldn’t make it another step. His feet were drained of all strength. Sooner or later, the incomprehension would crush him, making him doubt even the sensation of his soles. If he could see that coming, the answer did not lie outside him.

  If the answer was not outside his body, it must lie within. Even if he could not bring the oblivion outside him to heel, he could call upon his internal organs, all subconsciously functioning even then.

  The roles had been assigned. It was time to move. And so, finally—

  “—!!”

  Suddenly, he felt like his entire body was on fire.

  The unendurable sensation of heat ripped through Subaru’s body, bringing not words from his throat but a bestial cry… No, he thought it had. He did not understand even that.

  He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand, but his feet, once drained of strength, moved once more.

  Forward. His feet moved in the direction he believed to be forward.

  Awareness, oblivion, awareness, oblivion, awareness, oblivion, over and over and over, until finally—

  4

  The instant Subaru broke through the black cloud, leaping outside it, his sword hit something extremely thick. The sword in his hand was ripped out of his grasp. Subaru lifted his face and bit down his shock.

  Before his very eyes, the huge demon beast’s head remained thrust into the black cloud—and the single-handed sword Subaru had been grasping was deep in its chest.

  The surprise blow left an ugly feeling lingering in the middle of Subaru’s hand—the feeling of plunging a dull blade into the flesh of a living creature. The psychological shock was greater than he’d anticipated, giving rise to what was almost an eerie, out-of-body feeling.

  The demon beast, still in the world of incomprehension, couldn’t even feel the blade in its body.

  Even as Subaru glanced at the contradictory spectacle of a dead beast that didn’t know it was dead, he shamelessly ran, putting distance between them while he still could.

  His head was heavy; his whole body was sluggish. It was the aftereffect of using magical power without complete command of it, and thus burning excess amounts of mana.

  In the first place, using that magic should have spewed out all the mana in his body, leaving him on the ground and unable to rise again, but Subaru had played his trump card to get around that.

  “—Thanks a million, brats.”

  Subaru spat out the tiny remnants of the fruit’s skin still in his mouth as a small smile came over him.

  He’d spat out a bokko fruit, a recovery item that brought strength back to a body devoid of mana. It was amid the completely useless things the kids in the village had pushed on to him when he was heading off to rescue Rem. He had no idea where they’d found one.

  The instant he was sure he had one, his head had been able to muster that plan alone. If he bit down on it at the exact moment he used his magic, maybe he’d be able to move afterward. He’d gambled his very life on it, but the scales had marvelously swung Subaru’s way.

  Putting his back to the demon beast trapped in incomprehension, his feet took him in the direction the barrier ought to have been.

  Subaru was a beginner with insufficient mana, so he had no idea how long his Shamak would keep going. He couldn’t think of any other way to buy time, so he had to get as close to the barrier as he—

  “—Ah?”

  But Subaru’s scheme was instantly foiled by a single claw that grazed the back of his left thigh.

  The sharp pain heralded the bleeding. Subaru let out an anguished groan as he fell to his knees. But Subaru’s mortal foe would not permit him to kneel.

  Its thick paw violently grabbed Subaru’s neck, the tips of its claws digging in as it easily hoisted him up.

  “Damn it all…”

  Before his very eyes, he saw the gaping maw of the huge demon beast, open wide enough to swallow Subaru whole. Its fangs dripped with blood as its stinky breath hit Subaru’s face. He could only smile desperately at the depth of the creature’s grudge.

  “Go to hell, why don’t you—?!”

  He yanked the sword out of the demon beast and plunged it into the creature’s mouth with all his might.

  “—!”

  The fatal blow delivered to the inside of its mouth sent the demon beast roaring and flinging Subaru’s body away.

  Subaru tumbled across the ground, holding onto the sword, then held it before him as he looked up at the demon beast.

  “Yeah! How’s that, sucker?! Bite on that!!”

  The demon beast shook its head, facing Subaru in a berserk rage. Subaru, his body drenched with blood, taunted it with trash talk.

  With blood all over their faces, they only had eyes for each other. They were whittling down each other’s lives.

  They both understood. None of this would end until one of them slew the other.

  They stood off against each other. A single spark would be enough to set them off.

  The confrontation between man and beast—no, two beasts—was on the cusp of beginning. But the square impact of the fiery shot that rained down from the sky put it on permanent suspension at the sound of a man’s voice.

  “—Ulgoa.”

  “Whoaaa?!”

  Subaru shielded his face as the shock wave enveloped his body and blew him back.

  All of a sudden, the ground in front of him exploded into flames. The high-temperature impact enveloped his entire body with a ferocious wave of heat.

  Subaru, lying on his side, shook his head as burns added to the wounds already peppering his flesh.

  “What the hell just…?”

  The hot, parched air seared Subaru’s throat as he looked up…and saw. His cheeks stiffened in shock.

  —Before Subaru’s very eyes, the huge demon beast was wrapped in a pillar of fire. It was burning.

  The flames licked its entire body. The demon beast’s paws shuddered and tore at the ground in agony. With the air scorching its lungs, the demon beast could not make a sound as it writhed within the crimson sea and finally dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

  All that was left behind was a clump of blackened flesh that had lost two-thirds of its mass.

  “—”

  The unforeseen end of the demon beast was not all that surprised Subaru.

  Flaming shots like the one that had burned the demon beast to death rained down from the sky one after another, plunging into the black cloud. From outside the spread of the darkness, Subaru could not see for himself the full power of the flames upon landing. But he could guess what they were doing.

  Inside the impermeable darkness, the demon beasts were being destroyed without even realizing.

  Subaru could no longer tell if that was cruelty or mercy. However—

  “Myyy, my, myyy, who would have thooought that a mere Shamak, used chiefly for smokescreens, could be employed with this much impaaact?”

  The man who had directed the demon beast’s fiery-death scene floated down from the sky, a flippant smile on his face.


  His long indigo hair swayed in the wind. His eyes were oddly colored: one blue, one yellow. He wore a bizarre outfit over his tall, slender body. The clownish lord, mightiest magic user in all the kingdom, Roswaal, had arrived.

  Upon landing, Roswaal brushed off his pant legs and swept his long hair behind him as he looked down at Subaru.

  “Ohhhh, you look rather teeerrible, I must saaay.”

  “You’re super late to the party, Rozchi. How many times do you think I thought I was gonna die there?”

  It was definitely more than a handful.

  After flinging his abuse, Subaru lost his strength; he fell down then and there, not even strong enough to get up on his knees.

  “You sure figured out where I was, though.”

  “Ah, that is because of what Lady Emilia pounded iiinto me at the viiillage. She said, ‘Even if it’s crazy and reckless, if he’s backed into a corner he’ll probably use magic, so don’t you dare miss it from the sky.’”

  “Damn it, Beako…you let Emilia figure it out real quick.”

  Apparently Beatrice had not been up to the task. Perhaps it was for the better, given how Roswaal had miraculously entered the fray at the last moment.

  Subaru thought over the circumstances when a voice sounded in his ears.

  “Master Roswaal—!”

  He saw Ram, who’d taken a detour around the burning black cloud, cutting through some thickets. Rem was leaning on her shoulder as Ram’s expression melted in Roswaal’s presence.

  “I am sorry to have caused you so much trouble.”

  “Oh no, that is quite fiiine. Indeed, you have done veeery well in my absence.”

  Blushing hard at the words of praise, Ram pressed a hand to her chest as she made a solemn nod.

  Watching the exchange between them, Subaru let out a deep sigh of relief.

  “—Subaru!”

  Rem suddenly rushed over and embraced Subaru, drawing a sharp cry from his throat.

  “Guh!”

  Before his eyes, blue hair swayed right next to his face. The soft sensations in so many places made Subaru understand the circumstances. In any other context, he’d be overjoyed, but he had no such leeway at that moment.

  “Rem, my body’s banged up all over the… Ah, my mind’s kinda…”