By the time they arrived at the village, bonfires burned brightly, pushing back the dark of night.
Normally, there was no way anyone would have so many fires lit just to keep it bright at that hour.
Rem, standing beside the out-of-breath Subaru, picked up on the strange atmosphere; her face showed she understood something was wrong.
A young man from the village recognized the pair and hurried over.
"Hey, it's the two from the mansion. What are you doing here at a time like—"
Rem interrupted the youngster's question. "It seems good that we are. Has something happened?"
The young man seemed a little surprised by Rem's manner of speaking, but he immediately replied excitedly.
"Yes. Actually, a bunch of village kids are missing. We knew they were out playing before it got dark, but…well, that's why a whole bunch of people are looking."
Since the youngster in front of them wasn't being specific, Subaru cut in before Rem could ask further.
"The missing kids, that's Luca, Petra, Mildo, and them?"
"Y-yes, them… Do you have any idea where they went?"
When the young man answered affirmatively, Subaru clicked his tongue and kicked the ground. His gaze shifted outside the village—toward the wall that separated it from the forest.
"Who else is looking for the kids besides you?"
"All the young men in the village, plus Muraosa."
"The kids are in the forest. You'll never find them by looking around the village like this."
Subaru's declaration brought a change in the young man's face. He seemed like he wanted to ask Subaru more, but Subaru patted his shoulder and ran toward the trees.
"I'm going into the forest. Tell everyone that's where the kids are!"
Subaru made a beeline toward the woods, paying no heed to the questioning voice behind him.
Rem hurried to keep up with Subaru, giving him a look wrapped in doubt about how certain he seemed.
"How do you know such a…?"
"I can tell. No, I know. If what the brats said was right, they should be this way."
A tall wooden fence surrounded the village. The pair climbed over a section bordering the forest and cut among the trees as they headed deeper in.
Subaru had just been going by his memory of what he'd heard, but Rem, walking beside him, suddenly lifted her face.
"—The barrier has been…severed."
Rem's surprised voice made Subaru grit his teeth, because he had been right.
Rem pointed to a crystal embedded in a large tree right before their eyes. Judging from how it wasn't glowing, it must have been placed there to power a barrier blocking off the spaces between the trees.
Subaru remembered several times when people had pointed to the forest and spoken of the barrier. He couldn't recall exactly when, but Ram had told him point-blank not to go into the mountains.
"What does the barrier being cut mean here?"
"It means that demon beasts can cross the boundary. This forest is their habitat, you see."
"Demon beasts…? Huh? So, um, what are they, anyway?"
Subaru's question made Rem's eyes waver as she delivered a textbook reply.
"They are beasts imbued with dark power, the enemy of intelligent life.
It is said that the witch created them."
"More of the witch, even here, geez…"
Subaru grimaced at the piece of vocabulary that stuck out, but Rem's explanation made him certain: He knew who the "shaman" was, and that this was just a prelude to an attack on the village.
Before Rem's eyes, Subaru stepped into the gap between the trees she had called a barrier and headed deeper into the woods.
"—! Subaru, what are you—?!"
Rem, surprised, raised her voice to stop him.
"The kids are in there. I have to save them."
"Do you have hard proof of that? Master Roswaal's permission is required before crossing the ba—"
"The scar on my hand is proof!"
He raised his left hand so that Rem could see the animal bite mark on the back of it.
It was the scar left by the bite he'd gotten in the village that afternoon when the kids had surrounded him and he'd touched the puppy.
Beatrice had pointed to that scar and said that the being that made it was the culprit behind the curse on Subaru. Meaning—
"The kids had a cute puppy with them. It looked like a dog, but what if it wasn't a dog? What if it was a demon beast that curses whoever it bites?"
That puppy had bitten Subaru not once, not twice, but three times. If he hadn't been bitten this time around, he had no doubt Rem would've been bitten instead.
Human hands hadn't cast the curse; it was more like a natural disaster.
Just like rats were the medium through which the Black Plague spread, demon beasts were the vector by which the curse was propagated.
The kids had followed the demon beast into the forest. There was no telling whether or not they were safe within.
"This gets worse the more time passes. We don't know if the kids are already cursed, but for now we've got to bring them all back to the mansion and purify them."
"Hold on. You cannot simply decide that on your… In the first place, the situation is too suspicious."
"Huh?"
Rem pointed toward the village, which happened to be toward the mansion as well.
"To have such a problem occur while Master Roswaal is absent… Are you certain this is not a diversion for an attack on the mansion?"
"So what would you do? Abandon the kids in trouble right this minute, go back to the mansion, and batten down the hatches? I mean, yeah, we can do that, if you're all right with everyone in the village being dead by morning."
Even as he said it, Subaru was well aware of how cruelly he'd put it.
Rem was just trying to do her job and minimize the risks to the people at
the mansion. It was natural for her to think that way, and he had no intention of blaming Rem for it. But there came a time when you had to make a choice, no matter how much you tried to push it away.
And Subaru knew only too well that the greatest regret came from choosing not to choose at all.
"Rem, let's go. We've got to do something."
"Why are you that determined to…? Subaru, what connection do you have to the vill—"
Perhaps it was her still being unsure about his judgment, but it was the first time Subaru had heard Rem murmur in a feminine fashion.
Here was Rem, prim and proper through thick and thin, uttering such soft complaints.
If he was being honest, Subaru would've said he was scared to go forward. His legs were trembling from fatigue, but from another reason as well. Who could have blamed him if he'd displayed the face of a coward he was desperately keeping concealed?
But Subaru slapped his own cheeks to make his heart forget its slide toward weakness and escape.
"—Petra wants to be a clothing maker in the capital when she grows up."
"…Ah?"
"Luca wants to follow in the footsteps of his dad, the top woodcarver in the village. Mildo wants to make a wreath from flowers from all the flower beds and give it to his mom as a present…"
"—"
Subaru recalled each face one by one in the back of his mind as he continued, counting with his fingers.
"Meyna's all happy because a little brother or sister will be born anytime now, and those brothers Dyne and Cain are both working hard to get Petra's hand in marriage…"
He let out a small laugh. Then he shook his head to Rem, who stood in silence.
"I know their faces, their names, and what they want to do in life. I'm not some stranger anymore." Subaru hated kids.
They were noisy, rowdy, and they talked trash with no respect for their elders. They thought nothing of discourtesy or disrespect, were brash and unreserved—it was like looking at himself in the mirror.
"But, Rem, I promised them I'd do aerobics with them again tomorrow morning."
Subaru had thought the same things during the loop on the first day after his summoning.
It'd be easier just to let things go. But he ran forward because he couldn't.
He looked at Rem. She was conflicted. She hesitated.
Looking weak, powerless, about to break out in tears—that was Subaru's job.
Seeing her looking weaker than he, Subaru resented himself for hardening his resolve. He loathed that he was a small and petty-enough person to use others to protect himself, even though he was the incurable scaredy-cat.
If his own cowardice could be used as a tool, he'd use that, too.
"I keep my promises and expect others to keep theirs—I'll do aerobics with those brats again, you'll see. That's why I'm heading in." —He had no idea courage was such a terrifying thing.
Subaru was so focused on keeping his hands from shaking that he didn't even notice the tremor in his voice. From behind, Rem watched all this, then silently closed her eyes. Then…
"Then it cannot…be helped."
"Rem?"
Subaru lifted his face as Rem's tongue abruptly loosened.
It was practically the first time since he'd met her that she'd displayed clear emotion on her face.
"After all, I have been assigned to watch over you, Subaru. I cannot accomplish that duty if I let you go by yourself, can I?"
Rem sounded like she was teasing Subaru, leaving him in shock before he finally shook his head.
"Yeah, I suppose not. Keep a good eye on me to make sure I don't do anything suspicious."
"Yes, I will. So, let us be off?"
Seeing Rem standing beside him, Subaru felt like it was the first time they had truly stood side by side.
He had an urge to thank Rem, but before he could find the words, he noticed it. As Rem walked beside him, she had at some point taken an iron ball in her hand. Attached to a handle via a long chain, the metal looked much too heavy for the ease with which she carried it.
"Er, ah, Rem, that's…"
"For self-defense."
"Er, but that's…"
"For self-defense."
Subaru and Rem traded words along those lines as they walked into the woods without any path to follow.
He desperately tried to re-harden his resolve and revive the courage he'd wrung out of himself at such great pains.
7
With Rem maintaining her combat readiness with the iron ball "for selfdefense" in one hand, the two continued exploring the night-covered forest.
The moonlight was obstructed by the tree canopy, bringing a deep, black darkness over the forest. As they stepped around the trees obstructing their path, plowing forward through leaves and branches, their bodies picked up scratches that oozed blood.
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 byebye, 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 too 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…
—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.
His eyes roamed the area, but he saw neither any sign of Rem catching up to him nor any avenue for escape from the demon beast. Indeed, the latter had already lowered its head, clawing the ground.
He had no time to hesitate.
"Tch… Shit, if you're gonna come, come!!"
As Subaru vented, he stripped his jacket off, wrapping the well-tailored garment around his left arm.
In a confrontation with a wild animal, the thing you had to worry about the most was its sharp fangs. Wrapping thick fabric around your arm to limit the damage was the least you could do against a four-legged beast.
He'd remembered seeing police dog training on TV in his old world and instantly copied that. He thrust his left arm out, glaring at the demon beast as it tried to figure out when best to leap at him.
The way the demon beast kept its center of gravity low, not moving a muscle, unnerved Subaru.
"Hey, what's with the laid-back attitude here?! Hey! Come on! C—" It vanished.
Suddenly, the demon beast that should have been right in front of him melted into the darkness.
Fright froze his throat as an indistinct black cloud headed for Subaru's outstretched left arm. The next moment, he felt sharp fangs punch through the thick fabric, with the demon beast biting deep into his flesh.
"That—!"
In an instant, he felt a jabbing pain, intense enough to turn his vision red, slam directly into his nervous system.
But…
"—Didn't hurt!!"
He poured strength into his left arm, tightening the muscles so that the fangs sunk into his muscles wouldn't come out. As a result, the demon beast clamped on at an angle was now completely unable to move.
Its two red eyes met Subaru's gaze. Subaru bathed in the beast's overwhelming enmity as he said, "You bit me, you mangy mutt—!"
Wrapping his whole left arm around the demon beast, Subaru whipped his body around, hard. Centrifugal force sent the demon beast floating into the air, spinning it backward toward the fallen tree—and slamming against an outstretched branch.
"—!"
The sharp branch ruptured its hide, making a dull sound as it rent the beast's flesh. Its dying howl echoed throughout the dark forest.
The demon beast, impaled through its back, kept Subaru's arm clamped in its maw for a while, but it finally relented as it stopped moving. Subaru, for his part, fell to his knees.
"I…won?"
Seeing that it was not breathing, Subaru murmured as he yanked the demon beast's fangs from his arm. His forearm was in horrid shape under the bloodstained jacket. Upon actually seeing the wound, Subaru made a soundless whimper as pain assailed his nerves. Even so, he made a sigh of relief, grimacing all the while.
Even without Rem's strength, he had been able to get out of that crisis. He took the time to retie the jacket around his arm, using it as a bandage.
He made sure his arm could still move before walking back to pick up the girl for real this time.
"Hurts…but that means I'm alive. Crap. Anyway, gotta get back to the vill—"
He cut his words off there because he noticed that the grass had rustled once more. His hair stood up as his entire body was gripped by the sense that something bestial still lurked.
He looked back. Then Subaru murmured, "Oh come on…"
Red eyes flared through the dark forest—a horde of them gazed at him through the trees ahead, their numbers virtually beyond count.
Not that he really wanted to count, but all his fingers and toes put together probably wouldn't cut it.
Before he knew it, Subaru had thrust his arms out wide. Not to surrender to the countless points of light—but to shield the little girl behind him.
"—"
The beasts were unimpressed by his silent resolve. The red points of light ignored Subaru's wishes and leaped at him all at once.
"Ooo—!"
Subaru realized his own throat howled. He roared, unwilling to give in.
His spirit kept up the facade, telling him that he would not lose, no matter how many red eyes were before him. He was, of course, bluffing; his tiger's mask was nothing more than paper. As Subaru yelled, a demon beast rushed up to rip out his throat—
"—"
—when the head of the demon beast before his eyes exploded like an overripe melon.
Bludgeoned to death at point-blank range, its fresh blood showered Subaru's face. The demon beast's headless body sailed forward and crashed into Subaru. Blown backward by the force, Subaru rolled and, feeling unpleasant from the pain and blood, he shook his head and stood up.
—What just happened?
A blue-haired girl had descended onto the field of battle, one hand lightly grasping the hem of her skirt as it made an elegant twirl, the other wielding a malevolent iron ball.
"The children are safe and are returning to the village. I see your efforts to buy time have gone well."
"Rem, look o—!"
Subaru's elation over the arrival of his awaited reinforcements was short-lived, for now that the vanguard of the demon beast force had been cut down, two more leaped toward her slender body.
"—Hah!"
Her right arm, wielding the iron handle, whipped sideways; the iron ball followed in the wake of the whirling chain.
The destructive weapon, which ought to have been slow and unwieldy, turned with incredible force, following the arc of the swing of her arm to utterly pulverize everything in its path. Its might mowed down branches and snapped tree trunks before slamming straight into the demon beast's body. The weapon connected with such power it split the torso in two, turning it into fertilizer for the forest.
And, as the comrade beside it fell in a single moment, the other soared to angrily sink its fangs into Rem's left flank—but just before it reached her, Rem smashed her left fist into its snout from above, pummeling it out of the sky. The might of her fist caved the beast's skull in, slaying it instantly with a blow powerful enough to bury its head into the soil.
Her skill was crystal clear. Subaru had thought he appreciated Rem's destructiveness, but now he truly knew. That made his head hurt.
"Y-you're so strong!!"
"Are those appropriate words to speak to a girl, Subaru?"
"That's the only thing a weakling like me can say! You're really out there!"
Ecstatic that Rem proved far more reliable than he'd imagined, Subaru leaped as if to embrace her. He then skirted around right behind Rem as the remainder of the pack spread out and surrounded them.
Having lost two more of their number, the pack moved sluggishly. The beasts crouched, awaiting their—well, Rem's—next move; Subaru could tell that there was bitter enmity in their eyes.
"…Incidentally, Rem, do you plan on wiping them out by yourself?"
"There are too many of them. Alone, they can overcome me with numbers."
"Well that figures. In that case…"
Before the beasts could recover their bearings and come leaping at them, Subaru and Rem had the same thought. Their eyes swept the surroundings before settling on the same place—a weak point in the encirclement with only three of the beasts.
Subaru yelled in concert with Rem's attack.
"There!"
The iron ball ripped through the air, with the howl heralding the slaughter. A moment before reaching the cluster of demon beasts, the iron ball smashed into the ground, kicking up a huge cloud of dirt. Subaru sensed that the cascade of soil had thrown the beasts off.
Rem was the next to yell.
"Now—!"
Subaru ran like his body had been shot out of a cannon.
The blow from a moment before had opened a hole in the barricade, a narrow area that he could break through—
As Subaru flew through the gap, the demon beasts howled at how they had left open a path. But when they rushed in pursuit, they became easy prey to the iron snake lashing behind them.
"Whoa, traumatic sound alert—!"
As he sprinted full force, Subaru recalled the sound of the dancing chain sending his left arm flying off. Behind him, the iron ball swung ferociously, making numerous bloody flowers bloom fresh in the dark forest.
Subaru vaulted over a tree root, getting smacked on the cheek by a branch as he yelled, "Rem, I can't see where I'm going!"
"Straight…straight ahead. This will be settled when we pass through the barrier. Head for the bonfires in the village!"
Straight ahead, she'd said, but Subaru couldn't even tell which way was the front. He never imagined that the darkness, leaving him able to see only a little ways in front, would ruin his sense of direction to this degree. Nor could he grope ahead with his hands when he had a little girl weighing down his arms.
He was out of breath. He was full of anxiety that he had lost his way or that the beasts were about to catch up to him.
His left arm was going numb. The bleeding had never stopped; the fabric of his jacket was drenched in blood. He could picture in his mind how blooddrops were falling to the earth, leaving a perfect trail that led his pursuers right to him.
He saw what looked like the same scenery over and over, as if he hadn't made a single step of forward progress. A sense of irritation burned in his chest; he felt like he was about to fall to his knees. Yet, all the while… …he heard the sound of a chain whipping behind him. "Aww, shit! My side really hurts—!" Forward, forward—!
Then the darkness before Subaru suddenly lifted.
His field of vision broadened and, as his eyes instinctively narrowed at the suddenness of it, he saw man-made light off in the distance.
"Rem! I see light! Someone from the village is…at the barrier!"
Subaru looked back in joy at the appearance of a literal ray of hope. But a moment later, his eyes silently went wide.
He could describe the sight of Rem fighting to protect him from behind only as heroic.
Her perfectly sized maid outfit was ripped and gnawed to shreds; the white flesh below it was marked with countless cuts. Her vivid blue hair was all a mess, and there was too much fresh blood in it to make out the original color.
He saw Rem in a ferocious battle worthy of legend. And at that very moment, the same Rem was fast approaching Subaru as she reached out to him with a hand.
"Rem—?!"
Rem's outstretched hand shoved on Subaru's back, adding enough forward momentum to send him sprawling. He instantly protected the girl in his arms from the shock, but in exchange, he was unable to protect himself as he hit the ground face-first, banging up his body.
Subaru felt the pain and tasted the dirt in his mouth; he wanted to ask Rem why she'd done something so violent just then—but he was at a loss for such words.
"…You're kidding me…"
Subaru murmured as, right before his eyes, the soil was sweeping from right to left.
Wind enveloped the earth, sand and mud rose in a vortex, and trees were torn from their roots as the very terrain of the forest changed. Faced with the violent scene before him, Subaru caught his breath when he shifted his eyes to the point from which the flowing soil originated.
—For there, he saw the little demon beast, surrounded by a golden glow as it unleashed magical power.
—Demon beasts were enemies of mankind that possessed magical energy.
This was no curse. Curses couldn't be wielded the way that energy could. In other words, it was using magic.
"—R-Rem?!"
When he belatedly understood what was happening, Subaru realized that
Rem was no longer behind him. He also realized that Rem had shoved him to protect him from the river of dirt.
And in exchange…
"—"
…the dirt and stone had launched her uniform-clad body high into the dark sky.
The ground gave Rem a rough welcome, buffeting her small body like a fallen leaf. The way blood scattered from her and how she flew helplessly in the air proved with crystal clarity that she'd taken more damage than she could bear.
Rem was unable to soften the blow when she made a hard landing. The saving grace was that she hadn't cracked her skull on the ground left bare by the flow of the soil.
"Re… You idiot! How can you…? What have I been…?!"
Doing this for, Subaru was about to yell, but in that instant, his spine froze.
No doubt they'd all felt it, too. The little demon beast making the current of earth and the pack chasing after them…they all stopped moving.
He could feel it. He was sure of it. What hovered in the air was the heavy presence of death.
—Slowly, Rem's fallen body rose up.
Even though she'd taken such a spectacular blow, Rem didn't show any sign of injury as she stood up. Indeed, as far as he could see, all her wounds had closed.
The incredible healing energy emitted a high temperature, and her very blood boiled, rising as red steam.
Rem turned her head, slowly looking around the area. Her eyes had lost all trace of reason. Her face, covered in blood spatter, twisted into an ecstatic smile.
Then, Subaru saw.
"—A demon."
—With her headdress now off, he saw a white horn grow from Rem's forehead.
"Ah-ha…ah-ha-ha—"
She laughed. It was loud laughter like that of a little girl but overflowing with naked cruelty.
Twisting herself, Rem's body moved like the wind as it charged the demon beast pack. Faster than the unmoving demon beast in the vanguard could react, Rem smashed it with her heel. She kicked its body at the demon beasts ahead of her, slowing them down as she swung her iron ball, leaving a large quantity of bloody blossoms and beast corpses behind it.
"Demon beast! Demon beast! Demon beast!—Witch!"
Rem continued to yell with each overpowering blow as she slew one demon beast after another.
Blood scattered, skulls caved, and innards and gray matter scattered around the forest with great force.
Subaru fell to his knees, forgetting all about his pain as he took in the scene.
He didn't have the courage to raise his voice. That ought not have been so, but somehow, Subaru knew that if he appeared on Rem's radar right then, he'd have been killed in a heartbeat.
Rem's behavior was so far off that he couldn't imagine he was wrong.
Subaru was taking in the fact that Rem had gone berserk. But the demon beasts didn't simply sit and wait for death.
Unfrozen after the initial shock, the demon beasts surrounded Rem to take advantage of any opening. The corpses slain by single blows grew in number as they whittled Rem down by fang and claw.
The horde was endless. By now, she ought to have crushed at least the number that had initially pursued them, but the numbers of red eyes had increased along the way; they came in waves that seemed as constant as the tides.
"Even if she's in her Ultimate Mode, there's no way she can hold out against enemies with infinite spawn…!"
The circumstances had undergone a dizzying change, but Subaru and the others were still at a steep disadvantage.
Subaru, grasping the situation objectively, looked back when he felt another spike in magical energy.
The demon pup kept its distance from the melee between Rem and the pack while deploying a magic circle. It was sucking the air dry of its mana, preparing to release yet another force to warp the space around it.
Rem's face whipped up, apparently sensing the vortex of energy, sending the iron ball flying high so that she could whirl it to dispose of the new menace. But when Rem stopped moving, the pack of demon beasts seized their chance, leaping at Rem's back all at once.
"—!"
It was instantaneous. He was reaching for Rem's back before a single thought entered his mind.
Rem's breath caught at the impact that pushed her out of the way. Her face stiffened in shock and unrest. Her empty eyes regained the luster of reason, her monstrous smile dropped away, and her emotions spilled over.
—Ah, you can make a face like that, too, he thought in a corner of his mind.
"—Gaaaaah!!"
The next moment, something crushed the wrist of his outstretched arm.
He screamed. His right leg, his left flank, and his back felt fangs sink into them simultaneously. His vision was dyed red. He couldn't register the pain. His ankles were crushed. His belly was rent. Blood and intestines flowed out, a waste of blood and flesh. "Subaru—!!"
He thought he heard a shriek.
Even though he tried to lift his face toward it, his body no longer moved as he wished. His balance was wrecked. His crushed ankles were unable to respond at even half normal strength. He collapsed to the ground as such wounds demanded. Right before him, a maw lined with fangs was rushing at him. It went for his windpipe. Also right before him, the iron ball rent the earth and smashed it. Blood scattered. Was it his blood, or…?
His mind was wandering. He didn't know when it would vanish altogether.
He felt his life drain away. He, too, thought it was a stupid thing. He'd put the cart before the horse. What was the point of redoing it all now?
Pain. Suffering. Everything was so far away—invisible, inaudible.
Dwindling.
His life was oozing out of the hole in his side like grains of sand from an hourglass.
I'm fading. It's over. It's all…over. "Don't die, don't die, don't die—!" A voice on the brink of tears.
A cry.
I—
CHAPTER 4
THE DEMONIC METHOD
1
His consciousness floated on a distant wave.
His mind, in a daze atop the shifting tide, floated back and forth between dream and reality.
"—no other way to save him?"
"—all, I wonder? You should do as you please, then."
Far away—no, close by—at the border neither here nor there, he heard one person conversing with another.
A clinging voice. A blunt voice. A crying voice. A voice with frozen emotion. Voices.
Abruptly, he felt an embrace of a soft hand.
He remembered whose it was, because he had felt it several times before.
He craved that warmth. He wanted to go back. He didn't want it to be simply a dream.
The sensation of the hand suddenly grew distant. Far, far away, unreachable and untouchable.
"—I will…save you."
Only those words of iron determination remained.
Everything vanished. It all left, leaving him far, far behind.
And then—
2
How many times had he been knocked out cold, only to wake up like this?
Subaru stared at the unfamiliar ceiling as such thoughts hovered in his mind.
"Unngh, ow…"
His side spasmed the instant he sat up in bed. That really woke him up.
When he tried to touch his painful belly, he felt something very wrong with his left arm. The ill feeling remained as he brought his arm before him, seeing with his own eyes what a sorry state it was in.
There were white scars covering him from the tips of his fingers up to his wrist.
It wasn't just his arm that felt off.
He yanked up his shirt and saw that he had similar scars on his right side. He had more on both ankles, on his right upper arm and shoulder, and lastly, one on his butt.
They all seemed to be scars left from the demon beasts' fangs.
"I was sure I was a goner…"
He'd been bitten all over when shielding Rem.
The maws of the ferocious beasts had made mincemeat out of Subaru's flesh. He felt how low his life had dimmed in his blood and internal organs; he'd been more than half sure that it was over.
"So I barely held on to life and got patched up after…?"
Subaru carefully looked around the area as he made sure his fingers were moving properly.
The ceiling was unfamiliar; the bed, crude. The room was far too cramped to be one of the rooms in Roswaal Manor. Then he noticed the girl sitting in a wooden chair right next to the door, her head down as she slept. "—Emilia."
She showed no sign of responding to his call.
Emilia was breathing quite deeply, matching the depth of her sleep. Her beautiful silver hair was disheveled for once; more than that, her clothes were still heavily caked with blood and mud.
He was wounded. He'd slept close to morning. Emilia was sleeping right beside him. Add all that to the state of her clothing, and even someone as dim-witted as Subaru could grasp the situation.
"I'm in her debt again, huh…?"
"I wonder about that. This time, Lia might think of it as giving you a hand because your hard work brought results."
Subaru turned in the direction of the faint murmur. Puck crawled out of Emilia's hair and hovered in the air beside her.
"Heya. Good morning, Subaru. Those will hold you back, huh?"
"Maybe not. Feels a little stiff where I'm scarred, but I'm not gonna complain about having my life saved. I'm a guy, so I don't plan on whining just because my body's scuffed up, either."
He didn't intend to turn them into marks of honor from the field of battle, but the deep feelings inside him associated with the white scars would no doubt never fade.
To Subaru, what had happened to the source of his scars was more important.
"Guess it worked out like I expected, but…what actually happened after? To be honest, I don't remember a thing after the dogs went chompychomp-chomp on me."
"'Chompy-chomp-chomp' is such a cute way to put it. From what I saw when they hauled you in, it was more like, 'Chomp-munch-crunch-ripyank-tear'…"
"If it was like that I'd be dead already. Five or six extra arms wouldn't cover all that."
"Mm, well, the extra damage you didn't get was why the maid with the blue hair was in a sorry state."
Subaru's throat suddenly froze over at the casual, carefree way he put it. Seeing Subaru react like that, Puck added another thought.
"That's because changing to her demon form makes that girl heal wounds very rapidly. By the time she carried you back to the village, she didn't have more than scratches left on the outside, enough that she didn't even need recovery magic."
"Don't scare me like that, then… Anyway, Rem got back to the village, too, huh? What happened to the last kid with me?"
"You can rest easy about that. All seven children are safe. You really made the right call, Subaru."
Puck said out loud "clap, clap" as he brought his paws together without a sound. Subaru imagined Puck's paws were simply too soft for audible applause, and he twisted his lips at the sight before shaking his head, driving away such idle thoughts.
"Puck, what about lifting the curses on the kids who got back to the village?"
"Don't worry about that, either. Magic healed them a fair bit, so Betty and I will lift those curses in no time at all. They're as good as cured; you have my guarantee."
Puck thumped his own chest as he gave his grandiose seal of approval. Upon seeing that, Subaru let out a deep breath, relieved at the fact that his own actions had not been in vain.
Subaru's hand was still on his own chest as his eyes drifted back to the sleeping Emilia.
"And Emilia…? She pulled an all-nighter?"
"I told her to just be patient and wait, but she wouldn't listen. She even wore down her od to heal you, so could you let her sleep?"
"Od…? What?"
Subaru shook his head when he heard the unfamiliar piece of vocabulary. Puck toyed with a whisker.
"The magical energy that fills the air around us is called mana. Od is the opposite, the magical energy that all living things are imbued with. The total capacity varies greatly from person to person, and drawing on it really wears you out, so I told Lia to avoid using it as much as possible, but…"
Puck's words and demeanor made it easy for Subaru to imagine how Emilia had taken that.
In the first place, calling Puck out during the night was outside the terms of their pact. If calling upon Puck and Beatrice was what it took to lift the curses, Emilia wouldn't have hesitated even an instant.
She helped others, even if it meant getting hurt. That was why he loved her.
"This is someone's house in the village, right? Is it all right if I take a look around?"
If he wasn't going to wake Emilia up, it was best to conclude his quiet conversation with Puck. Subaru was in the process of sliding his legs off the bed when Puck replied with an agreeable nod.
"Probably best to move around a little and see how well the healing took, anyway."
Having received Puck's permission, Subaru slowly began heading out.
Along the way, before he stepped past Emilia, he lowered his head in a polite bow. As he bowed, he looked at Emilia's sleeping face, desperately holding out against his urge to tease her as he made his way outside.
Subaru left his room, poking his head out of the building's entryway when he saw that the village was in an uproar. He murmured, "Ahh, well, guess that totally figures."
The morning sun hadn't even begun to rise, yet numerous human silhouettes stood in the plaza at the center of the village.
It was a small village. The details of even the tiniest disturbance spread like wildfire. Women, children, and the elderly all had looks of concern as they huddled around the stout young men arguing in the center.
They were no doubt the young men who'd pursued Subaru and Rem into the forest. He saw that several were wearing bandages; apparently they'd had casualties, too.
He scanned the crowd, troubled that he couldn't find the face he was looking for.
"—So you are awake, Barusu?"
The voice came from behind. Subaru stopped and turned around. He could guess who it was from the way she'd said his name, but still, seeing her face filled him with relief.
A pink-haired maid—Ram—stood behind him.
Ram had the sleeves of her familiar servant outfit rolled up, and she was holding something akin to a basket in her hands. Judging from the large number of baked potatoes filling the basket, she was in the middle of moving them from point A to point B.
The faint whiff of steam wafting from the potatoes sent Subaru's stomach into a small growl of heightened expectations. He belatedly realized he was really hungry.
"How unsightly, waking up ready to eat after worrying others with such grave wounds. Perhaps you caught rabies from the bites?"
"That's not what these dogs are spreading. Oh, and hey, you worried about me?"
"Just eat."
"Hfwoh!"
Subaru was teasing Ram for her rare slip of the tongue. So she stuffed a hot potato into his mouth. His throat blocked off by the scalding potato, Subaru turned his face up and loudly wolfed the whole thing down.
"I thought I was gonna die there! Tasted good, though!"
"Of course it was tasty. They were freshly baked…no, steamed."
"Oh man, that I'm-so-awesome face ticks me off. Still tasted good, though!"
"Yes, yes. Be quiet if you want another one."
When she handed him the potato, he accepted it, fawning over it like a child.
"Well, I should simply thank you outright concerning the incident last night. Well done."
"Sure didn't come easily… But why are you thanking me?"
"When the people of a fiefdom suffer harm, it calls the lord into question. At that rate, the children would have fallen to the Urugarum pack…and so, I believe your actions to have been correct, Barusu." "Urugarum… Huh."
So that's what the black demon beasts were called.
Urugarum. As far as Subaru knew, it was also the name of a demon beast straight out of mythology. Somehow, the name seemed fitting to him. A single word conveyed that your life was in peril from even a single encounter with the creature.
Subaru nodded as Ram shifted her gaze toward the forest.
"We rewove the frayed barrier last night. Judging from the lack of any issues with it overnight, no Urugarum should be crossing the barrier from here on."
"That's only if no one here crosses past it, right? Not much point to it if a bunch of kids crosses it to play on the other side and a 'puppy' comes back with them?"
"That makes painful listening. I shall have a word with the villagers later."
Ram's unchanging neutral expression gave her last sentence some unpleasant subtext.
Most likely, it was the villagers' duty to check that the barrier was up and running and to report if it was not; their laxness in doing so had caused Roswaal difficulty and no doubt rubbed her the wrong way.
After that, Subaru snatched a pair of steamed potatoes from Ram before they went their separate ways. Ram was heading for the distraught villagers still arguing among themselves. Ram was surely acting out of fondness for the village. It was just like Ram to use steamed potatoes to display that goodwill, too.
"Man, these potatoes are delicious, though. Going light on the salt did real wonders."
Subaru strolled around the village, munching on his potatoes along the way. He was checking both on the condition of his body and the well-being of the children they'd rescued from the forest.
The children were still soundly asleep from fatigue and exhaustion from the now-lifted curses, but the parents and relatives of the children thanked him, almost to excess. Put bluntly, Subaru hadn't done it out of a desire for gratitude, and this sparked a near-terminal case of stage fright. Unable to play the fool to deflect his rising panic, he blushed up a storm and ran for the hills.
Having done a sweep of the village, Subaru thought he'd return to the house and wait for Emilia to awaken—but he realized he had yet to see a certain blue-haired girl's face.
"—"
Suddenly, the sight of the demon girl, laughing loudly while covered in blood spatter, rose from the back of his mind.
It was a spectacularly ghastly sight. And yet, when Subaru remembered it, he felt no fear to make his body tremble.
What was it that Subaru had felt when he saw the pure white horn grow from her forehead? Yes, back then, what Subaru felt was—
But before a word could properly express that emotion, a young girl's voice called out to Subaru.
"—There you are. Just in time."
A thicket swayed, and through it walked Beatrice, the hem of her showy dress dragging along the ground in the process.
"Aren't you going to get that long dress awfully dirty, going outside with it like this?"
"I suppose magical power might repel the sources of grime, such as mud and sand—More importantly, I need to speak with you."
Beatrice gave Subaru's silly question a serious answer and beckoned him over.
She wanted to go somewhere else—meaning, it wasn't something she could discuss with him there. Though that unnerved Subaru a little, he had nothing against Beatrice here. Subaru followed the girl, who was also his savior, then abruptly clapped his hands together.
"Come to think of it, you're here outside the mansion because you were lifting the curses on the kids, right? Thank you."
"…'Tis nothing. I suppose I only did it because Puckie asked me to."
Of course, the reason Puck asked her to was because Emilia asked him to. No doubt Beatrice understood as much. Yet, knowing this, she used Puck as her reason once again. She just wasn't a girl who admitted things straight up.
Subaru found himself growing impatient as Beatrice led him to a flower bed right by one corner of the village. With the villagers gathered in the central plaza to discuss the demon beast incident, he couldn't see even a single person randomly strolling around in such a far-flung corner.
"So, what did you bring me all the way out here to tell me?"
Subaru spread both arms out as he spoke. For her part, Beatrice's reply seemed awkward.
"I thought it had the proper atmosphere to deter you from making boorish jokes."
Her gaze seemed to be wandering as she toyed with her skirt, like she was hesitant to say something.
What's with her? Is it that hard to say…?
As far as Subaru was concerned, this plainly wasn't typical Beatrice behavior. She had the air of a little girl afraid of angering her parents.
Seeing that expression, Subaru just couldn't bring himself to drag it out of her. He crossed his arms, leaned back on the wooden fence protecting the flower bed, and waited for her to resume.
The sight of Subaru waiting seemed to spur Beatrice into a decision. She closed her eyes, then gently opened them, gazing straight at Subaru. "—In less than half a day, you will die."
3
Subaru bit down hard on the words, ground them with his teeth, and swallowed them. He stopped for several seconds as they passed down his throat, into his stomach, and finally flowed through his veins to his brain.
Beatrice raised her eyebrows in surprise at Subaru's reaction, apparently far more silent than she'd anticipated.
"I suppose you are less agitated than I expected. I thought you would be crying like a baby by now."
Beatrice still had that look on her face when Subaru raised his right hand before her, showing her a pair of raised fingers.
"Okay. There are two possibilities I can think of here."
Subaru bent down one of his raised fingers as Beatrice stood silently before him.
"First, this is graveyard humor, a really awful joke. Put bluntly, this really isn't funny, so…if you're gonna bring out a wooden sign that says FOOLED YA! and laugh, go ahead, now's the time."
He closed one eye in an attempt to lighten the mood, but Beatrice's expression went unchanged.
With Beatrice saying nothing before him, Subaru folded the second finger.
"If it's not a joke, there's only one possibility: The curse hasn't been lifted yet."
Beatrice folded her arms as if to lend support to Subaru's hypothesis.
This was the result of white scars from demon beast bites covering his entire body. They still throbbed as Subaru looked at them in a new, ominous light.
"I'll ask just to make sure. You can't lift the curse? You're not holding out on me here?"
He didn't think Beatrice would say, No one asked me to, so I will not, but he wanted to ask just in case some sliver of hope remained.
Naturally, Beatrice replied to his question with a shake of her head.
"If it was something I could remove, would it put you eternally in my debt, I wonder?"
"Hey, give me a break here. I'm already up to my eyeballs in debt to you!"
He couldn't repay her for even a smidgeon of it, not last time, not the time before that, not this time, either. Not in that world.
Subaru's reminiscing brought a suspicious look from Beatrice, but he papered things over with a hand wave.
"Mind if I ask why you can't lift the curse?"
"…I suppose you should at least know how you shall pass on. It is a simple tale. There are too many layers of curses, making the curses too complex to lift."
"…Curses have layers?"
Subaru pondered, trying to come up with an image. Beatrice spread both hands apart. Suddenly, the two hands were connected together by a red string.
"A curse is like this red string, I wonder?"
Beatrice took the string she held on each end and tied a knot with it.
"This knot is a curse rite. I suppose lifting a curse is as simple as undoing this knot. But…"
With a deft motion of her fingers, Beatrice increased the number of strings between her hands. The new strings were blue, yellow, green, pink, black, and white. She entwined the new strings into knots and tied the knots into one another.
"If it is only one curse, it can be undone. But if you mix more of them together like this…"
Beatrice held out both hands, offering the knots to him. Subaru slid a hand into the tangle. The string, connecting finger to finger, offered no sign of how it might be unraveled.
"If the curse is like this, too… Aw, crap, yeah, that's a high difficulty level there."
Even if one or two could be removed, at some point it would be impossible to know what should be touched. Of course, given sufficient
time, it was probably possible to undo the whole thing, but…
"You said it's set for under half a day from now. What do you figure happens then?"
"I suppose that part is rather simple. In half a day, the demon beasts' rite to seize your mana will activate."
Beatrice raised a finger and pointed it at Subaru as she continued.
"Would the curse's purpose be to drain your mana, I wonder? Its aim is to absorb fuel for the creature's body… In other words, you are the demon beasts' prey."
"So they attack people when they're hungry? That's a wild animal for you—keeps things simple. I suppose I should be grateful their bellies weren't empty before now."
Subaru wanted to lash out and hit something, but unfortunately, his hand was buried in the string. Beatrice watched Subaru glare at the string as he spoke resentful words before she replied.
"Are you not afraid, I wonder?"
"Huh?"
"From your point of view, what I have said is a death sentence. Also, even though Puckie and I have the means to save you, we cannot because there is no time for it."
Optimistically, Subaru had twelve hours left to live. Depending on how hungry the demon beasts were, even that time might be shortened.
Having informed Subaru of the fact that he could not be saved, Beatrice waited for Subaru's reaction. Subaru belatedly thought that Beatrice seemed to want something.
"What's with you—? You want me to blame you here?"
"—"
Beatrice didn't deny it. But she didn't agree, either. Since Beatrice chose silence, Subaru couldn't know what was going on inside her, but he made a pained smile anyway.
"Maybe your and Puck's decision feels a bit inhumane, but it's the natural, logical choice. The risk and effort involved are too much. You two are right. I don't think it's heartless at all."
He really believed that. It wasn't just because he was thinking long-term about his life. Hence—
"—I wanted to ask you something else, though. Do you mind?"
"…What is it, I wonder?"
"Does Emilia know that I'm still cursed?"
That very moment, Emilia was still sleeping in that room, having healed and nursed him to exhaustion.
If Puck and Beatrice had given up, he wondered how Emilia took it. Had Emilia abandoned him, too? That was the one thing tugging at him.
"The mixed-blood girl does not know. I suppose Puckie is not
attempting to lift your curse to hide its existence from the girl?"
"…Ah, I see. If Puck starts working on it, Emilia will be able to tell. She'd probably pick up on the fact that my being cursed like this means the chances of saving me are pretty slim, too."
When Puck had realized he couldn't save Subaru, his concern had shifted to Emilia. If he kept his silence until the curse activated, Emilia's heart would bear only the wound of his death. For Puck, who prioritized Emilia above all else, it was a good and wise decision. Puck was tougher than he looked; Subaru had to accept his judgment.
"That aside…"
Subaru switched the subject as he pointed a finger at Beatrice. Beatrice raised her eyebrows, looking at the finger pointed at her, as Subaru declared:
"You don't look malicious enough to go through all this trouble just to hand down a death sentence to me."
"…What do you know of me, I wonder?"
"At the very least, enough that it feels like I know you four times as long as you think I do."
Subaru saw the creases on the girl's forehead deepen further as Subaru's last two weeks flashed before his eyes.
His relations with Ram and Rem were as good as they'd been since the first loop. Putting aside the lap pillow, things were A-OK with Emilia. Now he knew the identity of the shaman, the source of all his ills, and the children's lives had been saved.
Looking back on the previous loops he'd gone through, this one was near full marks. It would count as the best by far if only Subaru could live through it.
"You, Rem, and Emilia healed my wounds, right? That's not the way you treat someone you figure is a goner from a curse and can't be saved."
He felt Beatrice waver. Subaru laughed at how the girl just refused to be upfront.
"Man, you suck at lying."
"It is a fact that the odds of your being saved are incredibly low. I suppose that is why Puckie did not want the girl to have anything to do with it?"
"So that's why you're playing the villain to soak up all my anger. That's way too roundabout for a little girl. So would you tell me about that reallylow-odds possibility?"
He formed a circle with his index finger and thumb, showing it to Beatrice in search of a reply.
Beatrice hesitated for a while before sighing in resignation.
"Do you remember when I explained about curses, I wonder? I said there is no way to stop a curse once it has been activated." Beatrice's words seemed off.
"Yeah, you did say that. That's why it had to be lifted before it activ— No, wait. The premise is all wrong. If that's the case, then…how'd the kids get saved?"
Subaru thought hard, unable to square that knowledge with the available facts.
According to Beatrice, lifting a curse succeeded only against a rite that had not yet been activated. The fact that there was no way to stop it after it had been activated was what made it such a scary thing.