"Oh, how pathetic of you, Subaru, to go and die like that."
Shaking off the daze from lying there slack-jawed, Subaru sat up and looked around.
He should have woken up feeling refreshed, but his mind was hazy — probably because this wasn't from ordinary sleep. As he tried to recall what had happened before he lost consciousness, the first thing that came to mind was the familiar surroundings of where he was.
"Roswaal's mansion… the living room, right?"
"Oh, Subaru, you're awake?"
Just after he murmured that tentative confirmation, it was
With her silver hair braided into three plaits, her expression had brightened somewhat. She walked over to where Subaru lay on the long sofa, bent down, and brought her gaze level with his.
Staring into his eyes with those round pupils, Subaru flinched his shoulders slightly and said: "So, uh… what happened, Emilia-tan?"
"I heard you scream the moment you came inside the mansion. Otto and I were both so startled. So we rushed in and…"
"Was I… asleep?"
"That's a bit of an oversimplification, but… you're not entirely wrong, maybe?"
Emilia pressed a finger to her lip and tilted her head. Her relaxed demeanor conveyed none of the urgency Subaru's condition might have suggested.
Seeing that she was already in a laid-back state the moment he woke, Subaru had deduced that whatever had happened couldn't have been too critical. Even so, the strangeness of it all was impossible to shake.
He was fairly certain that right before he lost consciousness, some creature with sharp fangs had — "Emilia-sama, might I have a moment?"
A knock came from outside the door, and a woman's voice called to Emilia. When Emilia turned her gaze that way and gave an affirmative "Yes," the door slowly opened.
As Subaru idly watched the door swing open, a question suddenly occurred to him.
— Hm, that voice sounded unfamiliar.
And his doubt was promptly dispelled by the figure that appeared on the other side of the door.
"Your beverage and a fresh towel — oh my, you've awakened already, I see."
The person who spoke those words, a gentle smile forming on her face, captivated Subaru's gaze.
She was a woman with long, transparent golden hair and a perfectly straight back. Every movement carried an air of refinement, her graceful motions utterly devoid of wasted effort.
She wore the servant's uniform commonly seen around Roswaal's mansion — in other words, a maid outfit — and she wore that cute yet functional ensemble with impeccable neatness.
On the tray in her hands, as her words indicated, sat a pitcher and a towel, which she placed silently at the central table of the living room. — If one were grading her, the performance would score a perfect hundred.
Except for the small matter that her build and her smile were downright terrifying.
The maid outfit was impeccably worn, but the wearer stood slightly taller than Subaru and had a muscular build that was hardly distinguishable from a man's. On a man, that physique would read as sturdy and rugged; on a woman, it immediately crossed the line from "athletic" to something far more imposing.
And as the finishing touch to her otherwise perfect performance, her smile — that lovely expression was utterly ruined by the cluster of sharp fangs clearly visible from across the room. On closer inspection, her narrowed eyes held an unusual sharpness, and her green irises gleamed with the predatory focus of a feline hunter locking onto its prey.
"How do you do. My name is
"Face scary —?!"
Subaru cut off her polite self-introduction with a reflex blurt far too honest for its own good. The moment the words left his mouth, the woman in question — the very person who'd heard them — stiffened slightly. Her fierce eyes blinked several times before — slowly, inevitably — tears began to well up.
"Fu… eh…"
"Huh?"
"Subaru, you idiot!!"
The woman turned her face away, words caught in her throat. Subaru stared at her in dumbfounded silence. An instant later, pain shot through his ear as a furious shout accompanied it.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Crying out in pain, he turned to see Emilia glaring at him with her usually gentle brows furrowed sharp.
"How could you say something like that to a girl! Frederica has been so devoted to Subaru, and you —"
"Please, stop, Emilia-sama. It's quite all right. It was my fault — entirely my fault. I was just so overjoyed at being recalled to the mansion that I got carried away. …I forgot that I'm not exactly someone whose appearance puts people at ease."
She tugged at Emilia's sleeve, and the woman — Frederica, as she was called — shook her head to the side. With her free hand, she covered her mouth.
"I apologize for startling you. And I must apologize for my earlier conduct as well. To have mistaken the returning
"Intruder… ah, wait. I think I'm starting to see how the pieces fit together."
Released temporarily from Emilia's wrath, Subaru rubbed his ear and turned over Frederica's words. Gradually, the broad outline of the situation became clear.
In other words, the mysterious person Subaru had encountered immediately upon entering the mansion was — "It was Frederica, who had returned to the mansion, and she repelled me thinking I was a trespasser. Then Emilia-tan showed up afterward, cleared up the misunderstanding, and here we are… that about right?"
"That is exactly correct… You are remarkably quick on the uptake."
"It'd be weird if I couldn't follow along at this point… No, before that —"
Confirming with Frederica's affirmation that his interpretation was correct, Subaru glanced at Emilia behind her, who was pointing at Frederica with her chin jutting out. He understood that gesture all too well, as well as the thoughts behind Emilia's crossed arms. So, he climbed down from the long sofa and faced Frederica directly.
"I'm really sorry for what I said to you right off the bat. Waking up like that, goofing around — I said something no man should ever say to a woman. Cook me, fry me, whatever you like — just, uh, please don't make it hurt too much."
He bowed his head with an attitude that was more timid than anything one could call "dignified."
It was true that the first impression between them had been far from ideal. But unlike Frederica, who had been acting on genuine suspicion, Subaru's words had been nothing but a thoughtless blunder.
As he said, he had to accept whatever punishment she deemed fitting, if it would clear her anger. Preferably without physical pain — ideally just a torrent of verbal abuse that would scour his soul clean.
But Subaru's resolution to face this manly-yet-wimpy apology was — "— Fufu, you are quite an amusing person."
— swept away entirely by Frederica's smile, her hand still covering her mouth.
Before the question marks forming over Subaru's head, Frederica dipped her head of lustrous golden hair and assumed a posture similar to his own apologetic bow.
"I must apologize in turn. I had been… testing you, at Emilia-sama's request."
"Testing?"
At Frederica's explanation, Subaru and Emilia tilted their heads simultaneously. Neither understood.
It made sense for Subaru, but if her words were true, it made no sense for Emilia to be just as puzzled. Yet when Frederica saw the two of them making the same confused gesture, her smile deepened.
"Though I had a sense of duty to protect the mansion, I still committed an act of discourtesy against you, a guest. I steeled myself for the consequence — that the only recourse left to me was to offer my head on a platter."
"Whoa, don't jump to the execution verdict so fast. I'm a guy you can talk things out with, you know?"
"Yes, Emilia-sama made precisely that same assertion. And she was incredibly passionate about it — laying out such beautiful words on Subaru-sama's behalf that even I, the listener, was starting to blush —"
"Wha!?"
Caught off guard by Frederica's revelation, Subaru let out a strange noise and looked at Emilia. There he saw Emilia, cheeks flushed red, trying to play it off — "Fredericaaa."
— no, that wasn't it. Emilia stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at the maid with a look that didn't suit her at all. In response, Frederica calmly replied, "Oh my, how frightening."
"As usual, Emilia-sama, you have no sense of decorum. Normally, in a scene like that, the proper response — regardless of whether the statement was true or false — would be to blush and panic. That is the elegant way of things."
"Wha, really? …Well, I'm not falling for it today. I do learn eventually, you know! Yes — Frederica's eyes go all funny when she lies!"
"I was not aware of that. By the way, Emilia-sama, are you aware that your own ears grow longer when you tell a lie?"
"Liar!?"
Emilia, who had been pointing at Frederica with a triumphant expression, panicked at the words and grabbed both of her own ears. But the mere fact that her reaction had been so easily elicited meant Frederica had already won.
The flustered Emilia didn't seem to realize her defeat yet, but having witnessed the whole exchange, Subaru let out a sigh, shrugged his shoulders — "Total defeat, huh. …Do I need to introduce myself? My name's Natsuki Subaru."
"Yes, of course I'll accept that. Why don't we get to know each other properly?"
With that, she lowered the hand that had been covering her mouth, revealing a grin packed row upon row with sharp fangs. Seeing that muscular presence — so different from her earlier flustered reaction, now weaponizing even her own smile — Subaru finally relaxed for good.
* * * * * * * * * * * "Now that you mention it, I think I heard something about this. There was a maid who quit right before I came to the mansion. I've been here about a month, so… that would make it roughly three months since you left?"
"That would be about right. I resigned due to personal reasons. I remember how terribly lonely it was to leave this place. …Though I didn't expect to return so soon."
Frederica laughed behind her sleeve. So long as she covered her mouth like that, combined with her striking golden hair and eyes that managed to read as dignified, she could pass for a beautiful woman.
That impression was only undermined by her seemingly mischievous personality and those awful fangs.
The location was still the living room of Roswaal's mansion. Subaru and Frederica had just finished a brief exchange of information beyond their names. And as he listened to her self-introduction again, he remembered where he'd heard that name before.
"That means you and Emilia-tan had already met three months ago, right?"
"Hmph. That's right."
"That 'hmph' is weirdly archaic. And the way you're sulking is adorably old-fashioned, you know."
But Emilia wouldn't even look at Subaru's way. She had seated herself on the long sofa and was turning only her hearing toward the conversation, making no effort to join in.
Ever since she'd realized Frederica had gotten the better of her, this was how she'd been acting.
In any case — "You came back just the last two or three days, right? Three days after we left the village… no, four, counting travel time. Sounds like we just barely missed each other."
"When I returned, the mansion was completely deserted — I was quite surprised. Fortunately, there was a letter left in the Master's office, so I wasn't completely lost."
"A letter?"
"Yes, from
There was a seasoned weariness in Frederica's wry smile, and Subaru figured she and Ram must have worked together for quite some time. And that meant, simultaneously, she had spent just as many days with
"Ram called you back?"
"I don't know the full reason myself. But if Emilia-sama is here, she should be able to explain."
All eyes turned toward Emilia's cheeks. For her part, Emilia still had her face turned away, radiating a "Right now I am furiously angry and pouting" aura. Though the way she kept sneaking glances with half-lidded eyes gave away that she was very much paying attention.
"Emilia-tan, calm down — actually, this time I'm not even the one who made you mad. Frederica should be the one apologizing properly."
"Please forgive me, Emilia-sama. I was in the wrong earlier. I was so happy to see you after so long that I couldn't help myself."
"…You won't tease me like that again?"
"No, I shall not. I, Frederica, absolutely shall never use that trick on Emilia-sama again."
Frederica's apology still carried a faint whiff of sophistry, as far as Subaru was concerned. But their goddess Emilia took her at face value, relaxing her sour expression into something more like "Well, I suppose there's no helping it."
"Fine. I'm not angry anymore. Is that good enough?"
"Yes, I'm terribly sorry, Emilia-sama. — She's so easy."
That last murmur, for some reason, was audible only to Subaru. He stared at Frederica in shock, but she was the picture of innocence. And Emilia, oblivious to having been called easy, rested an index finger against her cheek and said: "So… the reason Ram called Frederica back to the mansion… was what, exactly?"
"R-right. To suddenly summon back someone you'd dismissed, there must have been some urgent need… Actually, that does ring a bell."
Urgent need or not, the mansion and
In other words, Ram had called her back to bolster the mansion's defenses in an emergency — "Ram's housework ability is catastrophic, and the mansion was falling apart… right? In just a few days, it kept getting worse and worse, like there was nowhere left that was livable."
"That was the real reason?! And it's so painfully… No — she actually did have that self-assessment! She was right about that, but come on, at least try a little harder!"
He'd read too deeply into it. The actual reason was so mundane it almost hurt.
Emilia gave a wry laugh at Subaru's outburst, then let her gaze sweep through the living room — no, through the entire mansion beyond.
"But thanks to Frederica coming back, the mansion is clean again. Rather than stubbornly insisting on handling things herself and making everything worse, I think Ram made the right call to leave it to someone capable."
"Emilia-tan, I really don't think you meant that as a compliment, but it hit me right in the chest! And also, it still shouldn't be a reason for her to just give up immediately!"
"As for my opinion of Ram, I'll leave that aside — for my part, it was a satisfying job for the first time in a while. Fortunately, everyone was away, so I could devote the time I would have spent on chores to cleaning and tidying the mansion."
Frederica radiated competence from every pore. Subaru held his breath at the sheer capability of this woman as a housekeeper, but at the same time, he was painfully reminded of the truth.
The compensating power of the world, the erasure of Rem's existence caused by the authority of Gluttony.
"So if Ram alone can't keep the mansion running, it's only natural to rely on someone else…"
That was why Ram had contacted the resigned Frederica and summoned her back. To keep the Roswaal mansion functional without Rem, she had brought in Frederica as a replacement.
But Subaru was the only one who knew this sorrowful truth. Frederica had responded to being needed, and Ram had simply acted because the gap in capacity between herself and the mansion had become untenable. That was all there was to it.
Still — "This is probably none of my business, but… is it, like, a prerequisite that you have to be some kind of weirdo to be a maid at Roswaal's mansion?"
"…? Given that the Master is our employer, Subaru-sama, where exactly are you going with this?"
"Wow, that's terrifyingly convincing!"
That alone was more than enough to settle every question he'd ever had.
With that, Frederica nodded with satisfaction, then straightened up and looked directly at Subaru. He braced himself. "By the way," Frederica said, lowering her voice.
"The carriage out front — there's been a driver waiting there for nearly an hour now… Is that quite all right?"
"Hm? Oh, Otto, right. Right, left alone for an hour… Hmm, well, I guess it's fine? I'd like to make sure
"After braving the gates of hell together, that's cold even for you, Natsuki-san! I never imagined my priority would be lower than a dragon's!"
The one who threw open the living room door with dramatic flair was, naturally, Otto — the very subject of their conversation. He stood with his shoulders squared, nostrils flaring, glaring at Subaru with undisguised irritation.
At his appearance, Subaru rose slowly, shook his head, and let out a sigh.
"No, you've got it wrong, Otto."
"What do I have wrong? At this point, even if you tried to retract what you just said, it's too late —"
"You're not lower priority than a dragon. You're *much* lower priority than a dragon."
"That's even worse! You've just dug a second bottom!"
Satisfied with Otto's stomping reaction, Subaru turned his gaze toward the window. That was the side facing the main gate — where Patrasche's carriage should be parked.
Following his gaze and catching on to his intent, Otto said with a pained expression: "Patrasche-chan is stabled, if you're wondering. She's a proud and difficult girl, but she seems to want to avoid causing trouble for Natsuki-san, so she's actually quite docile."
"Coming from you, I almost doubt the blessing of 'Divine Protection of Language.' If you anthropomorphized her, she'd be a full-on kuudere — Patrasche. When did that flag get raised?"
"I wouldn't know anything about that. Anyway…"
As Subaru scratched his head, confused about the origin of Patrasche's devotion, Otto steered the conversation elsewhere. It was still about the carriage, specifically — "The girl you had lying inside — what should we do about her? It seems cruel to keep her cooped up in the carriage. If you're busy, I can carry her to a room…"
"Don't touch Rem."
Otto's offer had been well-intentioned. But the coldness in Subaru's own voice — sharp enough to make even him flinch — startled him.
He'd spoken in a low murmur, dark and heavy, weighted with something thick and unyielding. Fortunately, the women didn't seem to have heard. But even as a tremor of unease ran through him at the strangeness of his own voice, Subaru pressed on: "…I'll carry her in myself, so don't worry about it. Having a girl in your arms isn't good for your back either."
"For the record, traveling merchants regularly carry heavier goods than that, so I don't think I'm as fragile as Natsuki-san seems to think."
Subaru let the light joke deflect from his earlier outburst, and Otto — after a moment's hesitation — played along. Grateful for the courtesy, Subaru let out a long breath.
That had been an overreaction, plain and simple. He hadn't meant it — no, the fact that it had been unconscious was precisely the problem. His nerves were wound too tight. He'd started viewing anyone who tried to interact with Rem — regardless of their intentions — with hostility.
"This isn't a good trend… Dammit, how pathetic. Why do I always…"
He was supposed to have gotten past this. So why did he keep tripping over the very next stone? Why could he never find something strong enough to keep him standing straight?
If Rem were here, if he could keep his eyes on Emilia — if he'd been with both of them, he'd surely have something unshakable to hold onto.
"Self-inflicted… no, I'm making Rem pay for my tab. What a deadbeat I am."
There had to have been a better way.
Until just before the last loop ended a few days ago, he'd believed he'd done the best he could. But surely — surely there had been a more perfect path, one without a single gap, the absolute best outcome. Subaru had missed the road to that outcome, had compromised his way through something merely adequate, and arrived at an incomplete future. Rem's sacrifice was the price of that failure.
If Subaru had been smarter, he would have noticed.
Before evacuating Emilia and the others from the mansion, Subaru had entrusted a letter to Crusch's envoy. The letter had been blank inside. At the time, he'd assumed a
At that point, the Witch Cult couldn't have known the full scope of the threat Subaru's party posed. And planting distrust toward Emilia's camp through something as roundabout as swapping a letter's contents seemed far too indirect for them. Most importantly, if they were going to tamper with it, rewriting the contents would have been far more effective than replacing it with a blank sheet.
So why had the letter been blank? If it wasn't the work of a Witch Cultist, there was only one answer.
"Rem wrote the letter's contents. I asked her to send it, and Crusch was the one who carried it — so only the fact of delivery remained, while the contents were erased."
That was the end that awaited those whose names and memories were devoured by the authority of Gluttony.
Their existence was erased from the world, leaving behind a patchwork of nonsensical gaps. The dissonance that you could only notice if you were paying attention — and that you couldn't even notice, because the erasure itself prevented you from being aware of it.
If that was the case, then for whose sake, for what purpose — If he had absorbed the fact of the blank letter more deeply, if he had examined it more carefully and seen through to the truth, perhaps things could have turned out differently.
Thinking back to Emilia's words, the letter had arrived the night before the final day. If its contents had already been blank by then, it meant Rem had been attacked by Gluttony around that time. At that point, Subaru hadn't been long separated from Rem. The thread of reunion — infinitesimally thin though it was — should have still been there.
But in reality, Subaru had overlooked that chance. Why, he couldn't say. Had there been no dissonance at all?
Ram, who doted on her younger sister. Emilia, who had been in the capital alongside Rem. The fact that neither of them had said a single word about Rem — how had he — "…Ah."
And then it hit him.
The instant it did, Subaru let out a foolish sound and slapped his hand to his forehead. Then, in one fluid motion, he walked to the wall and slammed his head against it.
The impact. The pain. But once wasn't enough — twice, three times.
"Su, Subaru!?"
The three of them stared in disbelief at Subaru's bizarre behavior. Emilia was the first to recover, and she called out to him in alarm. She grabbed his shoulders from behind, pulling him back from the wall and turning him around.
"What's gotten into you all of a sudden? It's not exactly new for Subaru to do weird things, but that was a bit much — see, your forehead is all red now."
"I was just absolutely floored by my own stupidity. Seriously."
Feeling the cool touch of Emilia's fingertips on his forehead, Subaru shook his head vigorously in self-mockery. Just as he'd said — he could barely stand to look at his own idiocy.
Subaru looked straight at Emilia, who was still close.
"Emilia-tan, I have a favor to ask."
"What — what is it? Subaru, you're too close, your eyes are scary…"
"Could you, I don't know, verbally abuse me for a bit?"
"Huh?"
Emilia's eyes went wide with surprise. Reading rejection in her expression, Subaru reached out, took hold of both her shoulders so she couldn't escape, and brought his face even closer.
"Please. Don't forgive me — just berate me. I'm begging you."
"I-I can't do something like that! I don't think Subaru did anything wrong, so…"
"Please make that possible!"
"When you say 'make that possible'…"
"Please! If you do this, I'll dedicate my soul to Emilia-tan…!"
"That's way too heavy a thing to say! Fine, fine, since there's no other way…"
After much agonizing over Subaru's desperate, borderline-perverse request, Emilia finally relented with a resigned nod. She gave a small cough, glanced up at Subaru from the corner of her eyes, and said: "Subaru, you idiot."
"Ugh."
"Naughty boy, stubborn, selfish, rotten brat, mean-spirited, always getting carried away."
"Ughguh…"
"Worrying about other people when no one asked you to, even though you can't even take care of yourself. Defending an unpopular half-elf like it's nothing — what a pushover. Stepping forward when I'm the one being hurt and being rude, then getting chewed out — what a reckless fool."
"Ugh… huh?"
"Never giving a straight answer when someone's asking, dodging with vague words like a coward. The biggest idiot who shows up to help when someone's in trouble even though they just had a huge fight. The scumbag who gives people the answer they need when everything seems hopeless. And then, when it's all over and everyone else is scrambling to clean up, he's the only one who collapses and sleeps — what a lazybones. Subaru, you absolute bottom-feeder."
"'Bottom-feeder' — is that even archaic? …Anyway, Emilia-tan."
He'd expected a barrage of abuse, but the insults she'd heaped on him were nothing like what he'd imagined. Rather than cutting him with ugly wounds, the words were delivered softly, deeply — with a tenderness that hurt not only Subaru's heart, but Emilia's as well.
Subaru called her name. Emilia looked up at him, lips still pouting.
"What?"
"Somehow… is that really how you see me?"
"I really let that one slip, didn't I? I went with the momentum and I don't even know what I was saying half the time. …Do you think it was honest?"
"Hmm, hard to say. Whether something said in the heat of the moment is the truth or just a momentary outburst… that's a tough call, if you ask me."
At the very least, Subaru knew from experience that words spoken in a rush could come back to haunt you.
Were they the truth that had always been lurking inside? Or merely a fleeting emotional purge that the momentum had carried out of him?
That answer, he thought, was probably something no one would ever know.
"Thank you, Emilia-tan."
"I just criticized you. And you're thanking me for that? …Subaru, are you a pervert?"
"I'm an Emilia-tan-specialized pervert. As long as the signal comes from you — verbal abuse, slander, a haiku about traffic safety — anything刺激 my pleasure centers."
"I didn't understand the last part, but it sounded way too weird, so I'll let it slide. — So? Are you satisfied?"
After answering with a chuckle, her eyes clouded with worry at the very last moment.
This was exactly why Subaru couldn't walk away from her — it was so unfair of her to show that so naturally.
Seeing that gesture, Subaru flashed a grin.
"Yeah, I'm fine. No wait — I'm definitely not fine. If Emilia-tan would do that thing where she gives me a kiss for courage or a good-luck charm, then maybe…"
"Unfortunately, our request window for today has closed."
"Goddamn it! I blew it! Why do I always… come in too late…?!"
Seeing Subaru collapse in genuine despair, Emilia couldn't help but smile. In any case, after wallowing in his failure for a while, Subaru got to his feet with a snap and surveyed the room.
"That aside, something's come up. Sorry, Emilia-tan, but I need a little time. It shouldn't take long… What's with that face, Otto?"
"I've just been made to witness an embarrassingly intimate exchange, and I'm in the mood to demand compensation — but we can negotiate that later. …What are you going to do?"
From outside the conversation, Otto grumbled unhappily. Subaru crossed his arms and tilted his head. Come to think of it, Otto didn't know there was one more person in this mansion whom he hadn't yet met.
If he were to explain to Otto where he was about to go — what would be the right words?
He wrestled with it for the briefest moment, then uncrossed his arms and said: "I'm going to go see the drill-haired loli who's been holed up in that musty room."
With a statement that completely abandoned any obligation to explain, Subaru left Otto utterly bewildered.