It was about six hours into the journey—by Subaru's subjective reckoning—from the time they'd left the royal capital when he noticed the dragon carriage beginning to slow.
As the scenery outside the small window gradually shifted at a more leisurely pace, Subaru furrowed his brow in suspicion and reached up to stroke his chin. The rough stubble he felt under his fingers all but confirmed that his subjective assessment of the time was roughly accurate.
Rubbing his sore backside from all that sitting, he stood up and made his way to the front window leading to the driver's seat. He hadn't used it while they were at full speed, not wanting to get in
"Rem, why are you going so slow? We don't have time to dawdle—"
"The sun will be setting soon. Traveling at night increases the chance of running into bandits or magical beasts. I think we should stop at a nearby village for the night."
Rem didn't turn around as she spoke, though she leaned slightly back from the driver's seat toward him, her voice carrying a note of quiet resolve.
Hearing this, Subaru propped his chin on his hand and knit his brow thoughtfully.
"A nearby village… That's one of the two Wilhelm mentioned, right? I think the one where you could trade lizards was called Hanumas—could it be that one?"
He asked more out of hope than expectation, suspecting the answer was no. And sure enough, Rem shook her head.
"It would take another six hours to reach Hanumas. The village we'll be arriving at shortly is called Fleur. I'm sorry."
"Hey, it's not your fault. …But we can't really keep going another six hours, huh? Then wouldn't we just stop at some midpoint?"
Subaru countered Rem's subdued tone with a proposal to push on. But Rem, as before, shook her head.
"I'm sorry, but if we travel all the way to Hanumas from here, we might not arrive until after midnight. In that case, we might not be able to secure lodging, and arranging a dragon carriage in the middle of the night would be difficult regardless."
"Guuh… Yeah, that's true too. It's not like arriving at Hanumas automatically solves everything."
Subaru had been sunk in thought for the same amount of time that Rem had. Of course she had already considered the kind of half-baked proposals he was coming up with—that was precisely why she was making this suggestion.
Closing his eyes, Subaru fretted over the course Rem laid out. But the conclusion came quickly.
"We'll stay at Fleur and leave first thing tomorrow morning. That way the earth dragon gets some rest too, and maybe we won't even need to find a replacement dragon in Hanumas."
"Yes. If we leave early and make good time through Hanumas as a waypoint, we might be able to return to the mansion by tomorrow evening."
Her voice carried unmistakable relief at how readily Subaru had accepted the plan. Sensing that from behind, Subaru thought to himself that he really shouldn't keep piling burdens on Rem.
Her devotion to her master—the mental toll she must have borne when she'd sensed the approaching crisis to the mansion, more acutely than even Subaru had—was immeasurable.
He had no right to add to that weight by being stubborn and unreasonable. He'd already overridden her wishes at the Crusch estate, insisting she come along despite her protests. The last thing he wanted was to make things harder for her.
—and fortunately, securing lodging upon arriving at Fleur proved no trouble at all.
After tying the earth dragon to the stable adjacent to the inn—or should he call it a dragon house?—Subaru and Rem settled into their rented room and set about getting to sleep far earlier than usual.
Subaru forced down a meal too meager to really call dinner, took a quick bath to wash off the grime, and burrowed into his futon, trying his hardest to rest his body.
But— "Can't sleep…"
Worry for
And yet, lying in bed, he couldn't help but wish for the sunrise to come as soon as possible.
He'd had plenty of time to think.
And he would have even more tomorrow, during the day.
More than that—even during the journey itself, and back at the Crusch estate, he'd been given ample time to think. In all those hours, he'd turned things over and over in his mind, and the conclusion he'd arrived at was the action he was taking now.
So what Subaru needed wasn't more time to agonize. What he needed was action—pure, focused action to bind his will to a result.
And then— "…Subaru-kun, is it okay if I come in?"
A knock at the door, and the hesitant creak of it swinging open.
Rolling over, he saw Rem peering in, half her body already inside the room. She'd changed out of her usual maid uniform and was wearing the thin nightgown he'd seen before.
He tried to recall when that had been, but before the memory surfaced, Rem noticed he was awake and stepped inside.
Sitting up, Subaru looked at her.
"If you can't sleep alone and you're feeling lonely, I gotta say, the timing's not great. If you're feeling calmer, I've got an absolutely killer bit I could pull out, but right now…"
"That is a terribly exciting proposal… but that's not why I'm here. Before we go to sleep, shall we continue with your treatment?"
"Treatment?"
Still sitting up in bed, Subaru crossed his arms and tilted his head at Rem's words.
Lately, whenever the word "treatment" came up in his mind, the only thing that came to thought was the gate adjustment that Felix performed.
But that was something only Felix could do—that was the prerequisite for the treatment in the first place.
"I can't think of anything else that's out of whack… What are you talking about, Rem?"
"Just what you're imagining—treatment for your gate. I've been watching how Felix-sama does it, so I can at least manage the method. The effect will probably be much weaker than his, though."
She paused, then looked up at him with those upturned eyes. "But it should still feel much better than doing nothing."
Of everyone at Roswaal's mansion who excelled in water-attribute magic, besides Rem herself, the only one Subaru had actually seen cast it was
"Subaru-kun?"
"Ah—yeah, sorry."
Rem's voice pulled him out of his nostalgia. Subaru cleared his throat awkwardly to cover it up and nodded.
"Sure, I'll take you up on it. I wasn't going to sleep anyway, and if it helps even a little, it'll ease my conscience about owing Felix a bit."
"Is that so? I'm glad."
Rem let out a soft sigh of relief, smiling gently.
When Subaru turned and sat with his back to her on the bed, Rem placed both hands on his shoulders from behind.
Her fingers—smaller and more delicate than Felix's—brushed against the nape of his neck. The sensation tickled, and Subaru gave a slight shiver, but he surrendered himself to the warmth that slowly spread outward.
Over the past week, he'd felt this sensation of mana flooding his body many times through Felix's palms.
Compared to Felix's treatment, it was somewhat less potent—whether because of the difference in the amount of mana she could channel or something else—but there was none of the queasy discomfort that made him want to retch.
On the contrary, he began to feel wrapped in something soft and gentle—like being rocked in a cradle, or floating in a warm bath with just his face above the surface.
"Whoa, that's amazing. Honestly, this feels way better than when Felix does it."
"Does it…? I was worried that, being so inexperienced, I wouldn't be able to satisfy you very well, Subaru-kun."
"Not at all. It feels really nice, and it's kind of… making me sleepy…"
In truth, the sensation was so soothing that if he let his guard down even slightly, he'd drift right off—which was incredible, given that he hadn't been able to sleep at all before.
Considering that sleep was essential, going along with Rem's suggestion was clearly the right call.
"It's perfectly fine if you fall asleep, you know? I'll make sure you're tucked in properly, covered with the futon, and then I'll enjoy your sleeping face for a bit before I leave."
"I'm not worried about catching a cold with my stomach exposed, and there's plenty to nitpick about the whole 'enjoy my sleeping face' thing, but you went to all this trouble—how could I fall asleep in the middle of it?"
He still had enough self-awareness to know he wasn't quite so selfish as that.
He could feel Rem smile softly at his response. She shifted her hands slightly along his shoulders, then reached around to cradle his neck from behind.
The warmth flowing from her palms seemed to intensify, and Subaru felt his eyelids growing heavier. But fighting against it, he rubbed his eyes with his hand and tried to keep his thoughts connected through words.
"I bet… she's gonna chew me out at first, huh…"
"…Perhaps. And I might get scolded by my sister too. 'Why did you come back?' she'll probably say."
"I'll explain things to
What should he even say? His thoughts were sluggish, and the right words wouldn't come.
As the weight of his eyelids won out and his vision began to blur, Rem extended the hand that had been resting on his neck and drew him into an embrace from behind.
"So long as you take the time to face her honestly and put your true feelings into words, she'll understand someday. I'm sure of it—because of how sincere your feelings are, Subaru-kun."
"Is… that right? Yeah… I guess so… Because I feel… this strongly… about her…"
His voice was growing distant. No—Subaru's consciousness was beginning to pull away from reality.
The drowsiness had long since passed the point of comfort and become something closer to a curse. His eyelids had transformed into an impenetrable cage of will that simply refused to open any longer.
He could no longer sustain awareness. His neck went slack, and his head dropped forward.
And just before his thoughts completely severed from reality— "Please, somewhere in your heart… keep a place for Rem too."
As she spoke, he felt the faint brush of Rem's lips against the back of his head—like a whisper against his skin.
That was the last thing he registered before Subaru's consciousness plunged into darkness.
* * * * * * * * * * —When consciousness was drawn back to wakefulness, Subaru felt the heat of sunlight burning against his eyelids.
Still lying in bed, he lazily raised his hand to shield his face. Strong light streamed through the room's large window, and the futon draped over him to the shoulders radiated enough heat to make sleeping uncomfortable.
As he idly processed these sensations and came to recognize his surroundings—he noticed something wrong.
"Sunlight like this… at this hour?!"
Snapping awake, he threw off the futon and leapt from the bed, rushing to the window. He shoved it open with fumbling hands, letting cool air pour into the room. His hair rippled in the breeze as he looked up at the sky—there, high, impossibly high, hung the sun.
"You've gotta be kidding me. Tell me this isn't happening. I overslept…?!"
From the sun's impossibly elevated position, there was no mistaking it—this was well past dawn. It was midday at best, or worse, even later.
"What is wrong with me?! Am I a complete idiot?!"
Slamming the window shut, Subaru bolted from the room and charged next door.
Rem should have been asleep in the room right next to his. The fact that she hadn't woken him meant she was still under, obviously lost in her own slumber.
"Rem! Rem, wake up! We slept way too long!"
He pounded on the door, cursing himself from the bottom of his heart for this incredible lapse. Rem, who had never once overslept until now, could perhaps be excused—the strain of driving the dragon carriage and the general exhaustion of travel. But as for Subaru himself, this was purely and simply his own carelessness.
Frustration and anxiety simmered into an anger he could barely contain, and his fist struck the door with increasing force.
Still no response from inside. Was Rem's sleep that deep, or was something else going on?
"Damn it, fine. Rem! I'm coming in!"
As he spoke, Subaru eased the door open and peered inside.
His precaution was meant to account for the possibility that she might be changing or sleeping in some state of undress. But all his concern proved entirely unnecessary.
Because— "…Rem?"
The room was empty.
Pushing the door open fully, Subaru stepped inside and looked around.
The flat, lifeless bed bore no trace of anyone having slept in it. The sheets, undisturbed, showed not even the faintest sign that anyone had lain there.
A cold premonition crept up his spine, but he forced himself to keep searching the room for any trace of Rem.
But no matter how hard he looked, there was nothing—no sign anyone had been there at all. The only thing on the table was a ceramic cup that appeared to hold the remnants of a drink.
Their meager luggage—the few belongings they'd brought in—was nowhere to be found. That fact hit Subaru like a wave of vertigo, and with his heart pounding, he raced downstairs.
At the inn's reception desk, the same owner who had welcomed them the night before sat waiting. He looked up at Subaru's frantic descent, face white with alarm, and— "Oh my, good morning! It seems you slept well last night."
He said this with the merchant's practiced smile, rubbing his hands together.
But Subaru wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. He slammed his hands on the reception desk and leaned forward.
"The girl with blue hair who was staying with me—where did she go?!"
"Sir, sir, please don't be so agitated. You'll frighten the other guests…"
"Answer me! Where did Rem go?! Where did my companion go?!"
The owner flinched at the sheer force of Subaru's fury. Then, choosing his words with care, he stammered out an answer, one halting phrase at a time: "Your companion, she… well, late last night. She used the dragon carriage you arrived in, and, yes…"
"I can't hear you! Spit it out!"
"She left! During the night! She rode out on the dragon carriage you came in on, and she left your share of the lodging fee and your belongings here with me!"
The owner practically shouted the words, then hurried to produce a bag from just below the desk. He set it on the counter and pushed it toward Subaru.
"This is your luggage. The lodging fees were prepaid—she gave quite a generous amount, so there's no problem at all…"
"No… problem… at all?!"
The owner had clearly been trying not to provoke Subaru further, but his carefully chosen reassurance only stoked the flames again.
"NO PROBLEM?! LIKE HELL THERE'S NO PROBLEM!!"
With a roar, Subaru's fist slammed down onto the bag on the counter. He clutched his head in both hands.
Questions, doubts, anger, grief, outrage at the sheer injustice of it all—all of it clashed inside his skull. He tore at his dark hair and stared up at the ceiling.
"What were you… what were you thinking, Rem…?!"
His scream echoed hollowly into the sky, met by no one—not even an understanding ear to receive it.
* * * * * * * * * * *To Subaru-kun,* *By the time Subaru-kun reads this letter, I'm sure he is very angry with Rem.* *I won't ask you to forgive me for leaving you behind and heading back to the mansion. But please understand.* *It is far too dangerous for me to take Subaru-kun back to the mansion right now—both considering the situation there and Subaru-kun's physical condition.* *So please, Subaru-kun, stay here in this village, in Fleur, and wait for Rem to return. Once everything has been settled, I will definitely come back for you.* *I'm leaving all the money with you. I've paid the innkeeper a generous sum so you can stay here as long as you need.* *Please, I'm begging you. Wait here until Rem comes back. —Please.* * * * * * * * * * * Subaru sat with his head buried in his hands, letting out a long, weary sigh after reading the letter mixed in among the luggage.
He was in the inn's first-floor sitting room, perched on a sofa. Not a soul was around him.
The inn was sparsely occupied to begin with, and the owner—still shaken by Subaru's earlier outburst—had steered him to the sitting room and then kept well out of sight.
Subaru had found the letter in his luggage during the throes of his overwhelming emotions, and had taken his time reading it through. This was where things stood now.
"You're such an idiot, Rem…"
The letter was written in careful, precise handwriting—all of it in hiragana.
The fact that Subaru was still learning to read and could only manage hiragana was well known to everyone at the mansion, especially the twin sisters who often served as his tutors.
He briefly entertained the paranoid notion that this letter might be the work of some third party who had kidnapped Rem. But the depth of care etched into every line on that stationery was far too genuine for that to hold.
In other words, the letter was unmistakably from Rem—and there was no doubt that its contents reflected her own will.
Of her own volition, she had left Subaru behind in the village and returned to the mansion alone.
The letter expressed concern for Subaru, who was far from fully recovered, and assured him of provisions for his future. But Subaru's heart had no room left to receive those gestures of kindness.
For him, the letter distilled a single, piercing sentiment.
"Rem… You too? You're saying I'm too weak and useless to count on…"
Left behind once again—every line of the letter was, in essence, another verdict of his inadequacy.
He read and reread the letter over and over, searching desperately for some hidden intention—some code meant only for him to decipher.
But no matter how many times he read it, the words offered no new interpretation.
"Fine. …Then I'm done. I get it. If you say you're leaving me behind… I won't rely on you anymore."
Through gritted teeth, Subaru spat the words and rose to his feet.
On the counter, he peered down into the open mouth of the bag. Just as the letter had said, it was stuffed with a considerable sum of gold and silver coins.
The travel funds had been managed by Rem, but Subaru supposed Roswaal had entrusted them to her before they'd left the royal capital. Even to Subaru—who had yet to fully calibrate his sense of money in this other world—the amount was clearly enough to live on for more than a year, provided he wasn't spending extravagantly.
In other words, used wisely, this money could be a powerful tool for achieving his goal.
"I'll hire a dragon carriage with a driver and go straight to Roswaal's mansion. I don't know the going rate, but I'll have to make it work."
In the worst case, even if arriving there left him completely destitute, he wouldn't care.
Once the money's purpose was decided, all that remained was action.
Clutching the bag, Subaru strode out of the sitting room, his footsteps ringing loud against the floor as he headed for reception. The owner sat hunched small behind the counter and visibly shrank as Subaru approached.
"Wh-what can I do for you, sir…"
"I want to ask you something. How much would it cost to hire a dragon carriage to get to the territory of Marquis Roswaal—the, uh, Mathers domain?"
"A dragon carriage…?"
The owner's initial tone was probing, but once he judged that Subaru had regained some measure of composure, he quickly considered the question.
He glanced at the bag in Subaru's hand and the prepaid lodging fee from Rem, weighing all of this as he answered: "To rent a dragon carriage alone, four gold coins should suffice. The price varies depending on the quality of the earth dragon and the cargo wagon, as well. Whether it's a round trip or how long you'd need it also affects the cost."
"That's it? That's totally within range. What about with a driver?"
"With a driver, the rental period is treated more explicitly as short-term. If you won't be returning the carriage on the return trip, that changes the price as well… For a one-way trip, I believe five gold coins would cover a carriage with driver."
He added the caveat that he wasn't an expert and couldn't be certain, but Subaru thanked him—at the very least, he now had a rough idea of the going rate.
Given the amount Rem had left in the bag, such an expense would still leave plenty of change. Subaru allowed himself a bitter smirk, thinking he'd been careless and had underestimated just how determined Rem was to have her way.
But that fleeting ease was shattered by the owner's next words.
The owner prefaced his next remark with a hesitant "However," then looked away as though pained.
"The dragon carriage you're looking for—unfortunately, there are no shops in Fleur that rent them out. You'd have to wait for a shared carriage and travel to the royal capital or Hanumas first…"
"Wh— You're kidding. Not a single shop that rents dragon carriages?"
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience. And I hate to add to it, but the next shared carriage won't arrive for over two days… The 'fog' has been particularly severe in this area during this season."
The owner delivered this devastating news with an apologetic expression, and Subaru withdrew every plan he'd just formulated—once again, he found himself marveling, reluctantly, at Rem's ironclad thoroughness.
The scheme had probably begun the moment she'd suggested they stop for the night in this very village of Fleur. She'd left Subaru in a place where dragon carriages couldn't easily be hired, and even securing proper transportation by conventional means would be a struggle.
Without the ability to operate a dragon carriage himself, Subaru couldn't very well resort to the worst-case option of stealing an earth dragon and riding off—that was a crime he couldn't bring himself to commit.
Everything was calculated to keep Subaru right here in this village, uninvolved in what was to come.
"Sir, are you alright?"
The owner's brow furrowed with concern as he watched Subaru lean against the reception desk, pressing a hand to his forehead.
Subaru managed an "I'm fine" and turned his thoughts to his next move.
If renting a dragon carriage was out, the worst-case option would be to set out on foot. But alone, Subaru couldn't handle the bandits and magical beasts Rem had warned about—and more importantly, he had no idea how to navigate.
And only now, with bitter hindsight, did he realize how negligent he'd been: in all his time in this world, he'd never once bothered to look at a map.
Where the royal capital sat on this world's map, how far Roswaal's domain was from the capital, how large a territory it encompassed—he hadn't the faintest idea.
All of it was the bill coming due for his ignorance. The price of his lack of study. The excuse that this was "another world" no longer held water. There had been opportunities to learn, opportunities to know—and he had squandered every single one.
"Walking is out. No shops that rent carriages. …There has to be something—think!"
He summoned everything he'd seen, known, and learned in this world. If need be, he could even draw on those seventeen idle years spent loafing in his old world.
He racked his brain, searching desperately for anything useful.
The option of throwing in the towel, following Rem's instructions, and idling away his time here had never existed. If that were the kind of man he was, he would never have left Crusch's mansion in the first place.
Subaru was trampling on the trust and care Emilia had placed in him, pushing forward to reach her side despite everything. The thought of failing like this, in such a sorry state, was absolutely unacceptable.
At that moment, Subaru's brain began spinning at a speed that threatened to burn itself out.
Everything—the accumulated frustration, the hardships, the grievances that had piled up to this very moment. Those memories and humiliations, jumbled together, merged with the specter of an end where he might achieve nothing at all—and against that, his mind whirred with the ferocity of a furnace, refusing to yield.
And there—in the memories of days past—Subaru found a hint. Something that might crack open his current situation.
It was— "I've got a question for you, owner."
"Y-yes, what is it?"
The owner eyed Subaru warily—this man who had gone silent, his eyes bloodshot, clearly churning through some inner tempest. But Subaru paid no attention to the owner's apprehension. With those same bloodshot eyes, he fixed the man with a stare.
"There are merchants in this village who have their own dragon carriages, right? I want to negotiate with them. Can you set up a go-between?"