“What’s wrong? What has happened? If you do not explain, I…”
Hearing those words, Subaru accepted that it was right for Rem to harbor misgivings. In her eyes, Subaru’s transformation had to look sudden, even unthinkable. It was natural for her to be angry with him for dragging her by the arm all that way without an explanation.
“Ahh, my bad. I was in a bit of a hurry. I have a lot of things to think about. Sorry for cutting corners on explaining.”
“It troubles me, you know. Even I understand you have many things on your mind, Subaru, but you must speak to me about them… Though I do not mind you being assertive.”
Rem put both hands to her very slightly reddened cheeks as she let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps she had sensed from the tone of Subaru’s voice that he had regained his composure and concluded that she’d made too much of his odd behavior over the last little while.
I see. Observing Rem’s relief, Subaru thought his own lack of consideration was even more pathetic. No doubt Rem, who only knew the Subaru of before, thought that his transformation in the seconds after Return by Death was nothing short of dramatic. The experiences of several days changed Subaru in the span of a single second.
Furthermore, on that day, in his own way, Subaru was busy trying to avert his eyes from the gloom in his own heart. He’d put on a disgraceful show at the royal selection conference, had been beaten half to death by Julius at the parade grounds, had created a fatal chasm between himself and Emilia and, having been left behind in the royal capital, had lost the purpose for his existence.
He’d been idly spending his time at the Crusch residence, sinking deeper into the doldrums as he asked himself what he could do, what he needed to do, without finding any answers. It couldn’t be called anything short of ridiculous. Subaru very much thought that now.
From Rem’s point of view, that uncertainty in Subaru had vanished in a literal blink of an eye. If you couldn’t call that a thunderclap out of the blue, what could you call it?
“Sorry for making you worry. I’m all right now. I feel like you’ve had to see me all pathetic and bent out of shape, but I understand finally.”
“No, to me, time spent thinking about you is time well spent… You understand finally?”
Subaru was speaking with unclouded eyes. There was a liveliness to Rem’s voice as she replied. She couldn’t hide her reserved delight at being able to converse with Subaru like that again.
Then Subaru smiled shyly and nodded at the question Rem raised.
“I really do feel more than a little sorry for the trouble I caused everyone running around and worrying like that, but I finally know how to put everything in order. Well, no, now that I think about it, I saw it from the start, and people mentioned it to me, too… I’m just bad at giving up.”
“I think that is a marvelous thing about you, Subaru…”
Subaru smiled weakly at Rem’s soft-spoken reply. Then he looked up at the sky. Its height and breadth gently made his chest feel lighter.
The world had probably been looking down at Subaru in frustration all along. But with this, that oppressive time would finally come to an end.
The answer had been under his nose all along.
No matter where Subaru headed, no matter what challenges he recklessly faced, no matter how much he ran around doing stupid things, she’d followed him without a word of complaint.
Yes—
“Rem, I’ve decided.”
She stood close enough for him to reach out and touch as he looked straight into her eyes.
Her short blue hair fluttered in the wind. Her pale, clear blue eyes held only Subaru within them. Her petite figure was clad in a modified black-themed apron dress. The overly serious way she carried herself projected her nobility and steadfastness. The vivid floral hair ornament delicately added to the loveliness of her small, refined visage.
“Yes, Subaru.”
Her pink lips formed a small smile. She narrowed her eyes, the benevolence in them piercing right through Subaru. The soft echo of her voice, full of affection, enchanted him; she seemed to be hanging on to his every word.
“First, we’ll rent a dragon carriage. With the capital in such an uproar, hiring one seems to be rough, but we’ll play dirty if we have to. No intro from Anastasia, so it’s best to keep this on the up-and-up if possible.”
They needed a fast land dragon with plenty of endurance; if it was friendly on top of that, great.
They’d need to keep running. They needed to travel light, to keep running without pause, day and night.
“A dragon carriage, you say…?” Rem cocked her head slightly and echoed Subaru.
From the confusion welling in her eyes, Subaru’s rush to the conclusion meant his explanation had told her little. But he pretended not to notice Rem’s natural misgivings and pointed at the huge front gate.
“We’ll have to kill some time while we pick out a dragon carriage, so we should go buy some food during the downtime. Ah, I’m no good with old-style rations, though. Plain water’s better than those things.”
He’d actually eaten simple rations and preserved foods on field trips and the like back in his old world. The hateful memory had made Subaru brand both as “no good.”
“Ah, wait, maybe there’s some nice magical power to preserve food here…? We managed to make mayonnaise, so maybe we can experiment and find something good…”
“Er, Subaru?”
“Mm, ah, sorry. My thoughts started running in a weird direction. What’s wrong?”
Realizing he’d gone off on a tangent, Subaru righted himself and smiled kindly as he looked at Rem. That smile made Rem go briefly silent. Then she lifted her head, seemingly trying to set aside her doubts.
“Er, I’m sorry. I am a poor guesser, so I do not understand what you are trying to do, Subaru. Er, what are…?”
“Ahh! Right, my bad! Sorry, I didn’t realize at all! Er, just now I was completely caught up trying to make plans for stuff we’ve gotta do. So embarrassing!”
Subaru slapped his knee, grinning in recognition of his mistake.
“It took a whole lot of experiences for me to realize a few things, but the answer was obvious a good while ago.”
A wry smile, a truly wry smile, appeared.
He’d tasted bitterness. He’d chewed on his regrets. He’d shed tears over the absurdity and irrationality of it all. He’d been toyed with by a cruel fate. He’d been smeared with the blood of others, dying an absurd number of times.
All of it had led to a single answer, one he now keenly understood.
“Rem.”
Calling her name, Subaru slowly stretched a hand toward her. Rem watched his hand, waiting for his next words. Responding to Rem’s unspoken request, he put the feelings welling within him into words—
“Let’s run away together. As far as we can.”
His defeat at Fate’s hands was loud and clear.
3
“…Huh?”
Rem, unable to grasp the meaning of the words spoken to her, let out only a faint gasp from her throat. Subaru, unsurprised at Rem’s reaction, shook his head and said, “We’ll leave the royal capital and head west…that, or north. I’ve heard that we can’t get into the empire down south, so it’s one of those two… I’m not good with cold, so personally, I vote for west.”
“Er, um, excuse…”
“It’ll be a long journey with no clear end, and I don’t think we’ll have an easy time just ’cause it’s a good chance to start over. Besides, in the first place, if we rent a dragon carriage, I can’t see us ever getting a chance to hand it back. What should we do about that, huh…? Maybe buy a dragon carriage instead of renting one?”
He’d left procuring dragon carriages to Rem. Subaru didn’t know if they had some rental car–like system in place. He didn’t even know where you’d buy one. He figured there had to be some means so that you couldn’t just grab one and run, but—
“P-please wait!”
Subaru
was in the middle of that thought when Rem urged him to pause. She kept her palms pointed toward Subaru as a rare expression of nervousness came over her.
“Er…what do you mean by ‘run’? Subaru, from the way you are speaking right now, you sound as if you are trying to go to a different nation, one that is not Lugunica…”
Rem’s gaze wandered as if she half doubted her own words. Then her expression changed to an Ah! look as she clapped her hands together.
“Since it is you we are talking about, you have another incredible idea, don’t you? Something that will aid Lady Emilia and Master Roswaal…”
“Nothin’ of the sort, Rem.”
“Eh…?”
Rem seemed to be clinging to the best possible interpretation of the true intent behind Subaru’s words. But right in front of the girl who believed this of him, Subaru decisively repudiated that thought.
“I told you, we’ll run away. Even if I stay in the royal capital, I can’t do anything. But if I return to the mansion, that won’t change the fact that I can’t do anything—I understand that now.”
His powerlessness, his emptiness, the irrationality of the world—these weighed heavily on Subaru. No matter how hard he tried to deny it, the absurd would never leave him. But how light his heart had become, now that he had accepted it.
Now, Subaru was free of the troubles he had endured, almost as if they had never existed.
“So run away with me, Rem. Every last person’s told me that I can’t stay here. I didn’t want to accept it, so I kept on desperately denying it, but…ah, that’s right. I’m weak. No one’s ever told me, ‘I need you.’”
He thought he’d been…too full of himself.
He’d thought wrong. He’d been mistaken. He’d gotten carried away.
Having arrived in another world and, through the power to rewind fate and just the tiniest bit of good fortune, he felt like he’d saved people on two separate occasions, but he’d been wrong.
He didn’t even possess the power or feelings deserving of being saved by others.
“That’s not…!”
“No one’s said it. And I have been told, loud and clear…over and over.”
No one needs the likes of you.
The first time around, Subaru had ignored Emilia’s wishes and rushed out of the Crusch residence. He didn’t listen to Rem’s attempt to stop him, courting a massive tragedy as a result.
The second time around, he’d been unable to change one iota of the result, everyone had died again, and through fleeing from reality, he’d caused Rem to lose her life; again, no one was saved.
The third time around brought about the most despicable of all outcomes. He’d gotten even innocent merchants on the roadside involved, offered Rem up to the White Whale, and had robbed Emilia of her life with his own hands. Puck had slaughtered the Witch Cult, but if, after Subaru’s death, Puck had indeed destroyed the world as he had proclaimed, the damage was surely greater than any time that had come before.
What about the time unrelated to the power of Return by Death that could not be rewound? When the candidates had assembled at the royal palace, Subaru had dragged down Emilia in epic fashion. Merely by standing at her side, let alone speaking his impertinent words, he’d tarnished her reputation, and his “duel” to save face had resulted only in even greater humiliation. As a result, he and Emilia had had a falling out, and he had hurt her heart with his emotional arguments, which had been little more than outbursts of anger.
“…Kha-ha-ha!”
He laughed drily at the realization. Now that he thought back, it was a masterpiece. When he calmly reflected on his own actions, it was painfully clear that he’d been a pestilence.
He wanted to lend Emilia his strength?
There had to be people only he could save?
There was no doubt everyone was done for if he wasn’t there?
What thoughtlessness. What arrogance. Yes, what hubris.
Subaru’s actions had only worsened Emilia’s standing. Even so, he’d betrayed her enormously generous heart, and his foolish undertakings had only dragged Rem with him to her death.
Incredible. Just incredible. No doubt everyone knew that would be the result. That was why everyone had told Subaru, You need to behave, don’t do anything, your strength isn’t required, don’t butt in, just go away.
Those around him who had told him so knew a great deal about the future. They were very different from Subaru, who ought to have known that he could do nothing, that he understood nothing, that he was able to comprehend nothing.
Maybe they were the ones really doing things over?
“If they aren’t, I’m the only one…screwing up like this.”
It was pathetic.
There was no one lowlier, more unsalvageable, or more miserable than he.
What did you call a man who resigned himself to being laughed at by others and acted so as to make others laugh? You called him a clown. Subaru, who wasn’t even aware of the customers pointing at him and laughing, was unworthy of the title.
—He was just a simple, irredeemable fool.
“So I’ve decided to go away. That’s best. I know that’s best. If someone like me tries to do something, it’ll just add one more corpse…and if I’m not lucky, a lot more than one.”
Corpses. Corpses. Corpses. Corpses. Corpses.
Strangers. Acquaintances. People precious to him. Important people. People who believed in him. People he wanted to think believed in him— Endless corpses.
He’d had it.
Why did all those things have to happen to him? He’d suffered so much; didn’t he deserve some reward? Even Subaru knew that the idea that hard work was always rewarded, that any wish with a clear objective could come true so long as you gave it your all, was nothing but a pipe dream. But despite that, was it so wrong to have but one tiny wish—to avoid the worst of all worlds?
Subaru had been wrong. That was why the results continued to betray his expectations.
“Let’s run away, Rem. You, me…we can’t stay here in this country.”
Subaru had resolved to leave it all behind, flip the bird at everything, and run.
And having decided to put so many things behind him as he fled, he wanted to take only one with him—Rem, the girl standing before him.
He couldn’t bring himself to abandon everything in its entirety.
He was afraid of being alone. He was terrified of solitude.
Even in that vast world, that world of incomprehensible darkness, knowing that having nothing so that he would lose nothing was the right answer, Subaru couldn’t put aside his fear of being all by himself.
As the days repeated themselves, Rem had been the only one who’d stayed with Subaru. She’d been right at his side, watching his disgraceful displays, unsightly words and deeds, and off-the-wall way of living.
Subaru thought that made her worthy of one final gamble.
—Each of the three times, Subaru had let Rem die.
To keep her from dying, he couldn’t return to the mansion. Even when he had arrived at the mansion, she had heroically offered up her life along the way, in the end. Nor could he say with certainty that he could save her by keeping her at the royal capital. Even if they were spending their time in peace and quiet here, if Ram conveyed news of the crisis at the mansion, Rem would probably rush out of the city.
If it came to that, Subaru wouldn’t be able to stop her. And she would meet the same fate. He’d lose her again, and Subaru could clearly see how empty he would be without her. If he seriously wanted to save her, he had to get her out of the kingdom.
“You are saying all this so suddenly, I do not know what to do…”
Rem shook her head a little in the face of Subaru’s forceful plea. It wasn’t a gesture of rejection. Her expression projected the uncertainty that reigned inside her.
Rem couldn’t simply accept at face value what Subaru had suddenly said. He had cited far too few facts to make an informed dec
ision.
Subaru understood the irrationality of it, but even so, he could speak no further of the circumstances. He no longer knew how much information he could divulge with the Witch’s evil hands looming.
He felt like he’d brush against the Witch’s curse no matter what he talked about. No matter what he did, he felt like it would lead to more sacrifices to the irrationalities of Fate. And if that came to pass, it wouldn’t be Subaru who would be sacrificed but people precious to him.
“—”
—It was a stalemate. He was hemmed in on all sides. Fate had shut off every avenue of escape. Therefore, Subaru had no means left to him but that plea.
He was earnestly appealing to Rem’s conscience, knowing that it was underhanded in every possible way, knowing that he was using the feelings for Subaru that Rem harbored in her heart.
“There’s no time. I’m sorry this is so sudden. Really, really I am. I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart… But please choose.”
“Choose…”
“Me or everything except for me… Please choose.”
Subaru hated the situation he’d put her in, saying all that and making her suddenly choose based on the little information he’d provided her. But it was also a fact that giving her time to calmly think it over worked against him. He couldn’t dismiss the notion that he was using the pressure of her predicament for his own benefit.
Only in this situation, giving Rem little time to decide whether to leave Subaru there or not as he pled right before her eyes, did he have a shot at winning this.
Or if not “winning,” then fulfilling a cherished desire more like hope—the selfish hope that Rem, at least, would forgive him for running away.
“Let’s get a dragon carriage and head west. Let’s leave Lugunica and go all the way west of…Kararagi, was it? Let’s buy a little house and live there, just the two of us.”
Rapid-fire, Subaru began sketching his vision of the future. It was an ordinary, tranquil future, one surely divorced from irrationality and cruelty.
“It means using the traveling funds, so I feel bad for Roswaal, but we can just borrow what we need and send the rest back. I’m gonna work hard to help set us up from the start, too… I’ve never worked at a proper job before, but it’ll probably be all right.”
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 6 Page 18