As was natural once the prolonged breakfast had been cleared away, everyone gradually drifted off into their own time. That was usually how things went.
"For now,
Roswaal issued his crisp instructions with the unmistakable bearing of a mansion's master. The sheer size of his collar did tend to blur the grandeur somewhat, but as though he saw right through Subaru's inner thoughts, he smiled broadly.
"We haven't even had introductions yet, have we? Fortunately, every resident of the mansion is present in this very room."
"Much appreciated, much appreciated… Actually, wait — there's seriously only five people and one pet in the whole mansion, not counting me!?"
"Counting Nee-chan as 'one pet' is an insult beyond the pale, you know."
It was
"Right, sorry. So, not counting me, that's four people, one puffball, and one drill-head… That about right?"
"I've heard that a few times now, but what exactly is this 'drill-head'?"
"A drill is a man's soul — his romance."
"Betty regrets ever asking. Roswaal, may Betty go back now? I want to spend some quality time with Nee-chan."
Beatrice rubbed the bridge of her nose with a weary air, then turned to Roswaal with a gesture far too unladylike. Before her,
"I know you two don't get along that well, but we're going to be living together from now on, so couldn't you meet each other halfway? Please."
"Betty believes she has already made every concession she is willing to make. If you demand anything beyond that, then you had better be prepared — even if you are the head of the Mathers family."
Beatrice's tone had turned suddenly quiet, and with it came a veiled threat.
The sudden shift in atmosphere made the air in the room feel heavy. Subaru could feel it. The source was, of course, Beatrice — and of course, that was the problem.
Their first encounter had been the same: this chestnut-haired girl, despite her youthful appearance, was far, far too far outside the norm.
Her impudent little voice was one thing. Drinking alcohol was another. But these were surface-level oddities. What truly didn't mesh were the gears at a much deeper level. So— "I don't mean to get all imposing on you, but what exactly are you? You're sitting here like you belong, but I haven't got the faintest clue what your role in all this is."
"Betty is in a foul mood right now. You had better watch how you speak, human. If she so chose, she could turn you to stone and shatter you to pieces, you know."
Rather than picking up on the oppressive atmosphere, Subaru's words seemed to cut right past it. Beatrice responded with her brow lowered in disapproval.
The oppressive pressure that naturally radiated from the little girl made Subaru catch his breath.
"Betty is the caretaker of the Forbidden Library in Roswaal's mansion!"
"Nee-chan!?"
But the grey cat's relaxed interjection dispersed the tension in an instant. The little feline had been nibbling on what appeared to be a rusk — bread ends fried in a sugary coating — the kind of treat that deserved its proper name.
"Sweet! Delicious! Mew!"
"I'd say you've already lost all capacity for higher thought before the sweetness even hit, but if you could elaborate on that a little more— *mof mof mof mof mof*"
As Subaru approached to press his question, his hand reached out of its own accord and made contact with an ear, triggering the mofu-mofu. Puck continued devouring the rusks at a blistering pace while Subaru worked him over.
"Roswaal is 'something of' a magician, you see. The Mathers family has a long history, so there are all sorts of books stored here that aren't exactly meant for public eyes. Betty's contract has her guarding the Forbidden Library, keeping those books out of sight. That's about the size of it."
"That's right. Everything Nee-chan says is always correct."
"Puck's a natural-born mediator. All people are equal before a fluffy one, after all."
"Your speech mannerism is turning into 'fluffy,' you know."
Emilia pointed this out with an icy stare, and Subaru hurriedly let go. He had, without meaning to, just proven the addictive power of mofu-mofu firsthand.
A tragedy born of his love for fluff. The irony was bitter.
"The addictive power of a fluffy one has completely backfired on me… Hey, wait!"
Right in front of Subaru, playing the part of the tragic hero, Beatrice was cautiously reaching out and touching Puck's ear. She prodded the soft surface with tentative, trembling fingers, and when she withdrew them, her lovely face went all mushy from the bliss of that sensation.
The sight of her looking every bit as adorable as her appearance suggested made Subaru inadvertently hold his breath. Meanwhile, Puck happily kept stuffing his face with rusks, utterly unbothered by the fingers still caressing him.
Arms crossed, Subaru turned his face away while directing only his gaze at the pair.
"Hmph. I'm not jealous just because Puck's being unfaithful or anything!"
"Don't be so cold, Subaru. Our bond is more than that. A girl like this — you use her up and toss her aside, that's all."
"Nee-chan is so cruel… mof mof."
"Oh, sorry about that, adorable Betty. Of course I was joking. The most important person in my life is, of course, you. You're always special."
Palm-sized and supposedly a mere companion cat — yet here he was, a schemer playing with two people's affections.
It was Emilia, hands on her hips, who stepped between the pair as these sweet-yet-slightly-sleazy emotions swired.
She pinched Puck's head between her fingers and lifted him up, letting out a cry of "Nyaun" that could have squeezed the heart of any cat lover.
"Don't encourage him, Puck. And stop eating so many sweets. If you get all puffy and fat from that, I won't let you ride on my shoulder anymore."
"Hehehe, jealousy, is it? You can't stand not being number one, can you, Lia? Don't worry, rest easy. The place my heart comes home to is always yours. No matter how I drift like clouds on the wind, where I return to is always— nya-nya-nya-nya!"
While he was in the middle of delivering his teeth-rotting smooth talk, the fingers gripping his head tightened incrementally until he finally surrendered.
Emilia gazed at the now-limp Puck and let out a sigh. Then she shot Subaru a resentful glare.
"Subaru's bad influence has rubbed off on our little one…"
"Is that really my fault, though? He's clearly not a natural! Using the Iron Claw to correct behavior — I've just witnessed the dark side of a Journey to the West household."
His mood was like watching Sanzang and Sun Wukong go at it from the sidelines.
That said, he had thought their parent-child dynamic was supposed to be reversed based on how they'd interacted before. But then again — setting aside serious moments — Puck's attitude was always like that. As long as he came through when it counted, it hardly mattered.
"Well, yesterday he was useless in the moments that counted, so that's a wash… But listen, at this rate you're nothing but a talkative cat with a big mouth."
"Nee-chan is fine just like that! All she has to do is exist! Everything else is merely one facet of Nee-chan's many virtues!"
"Your devotion is seriously unhinged! And on a completely different note — a guardian of the Forbidden Library really ticks all the boxes for my chuunibyou brain. Tell me more."
He formed both hands into pistol shapes and pointed them in a twin finger-gun gesture.
With a thoroughly disgusted look, fidgeting with her drill curl, Beatrice nevertheless reluctantly began to explain in halting tones.
"Nee-chan's explanation earlier covered most of it. To put it in simpler terms… the room you entered — that's it."
"Right, the one overflowing with books."
He recalled the sheer volume of tomes and worried whether the floor would hold. So that was why it was called the Forbidden Library. On the other hand, if every single book in that collection was a banned publication prohibited from ever leaving the premises, the whole thing was starting to feel vaguely criminal.
Forbidden books — what a wonderful word, one that grabs men by the heart and never lets go.
Come to think of it, back in middle school, when the blue flower of youth was in full bloom, such treasures had been hailed under the name of "forbidden books."
The kendo club he'd belonged to had boasted an absurdly high concentration of them. There had even been a dedicated storage locker beneath the floor of the kendo dojo in the club building.
It had all come about through their ongoing feud with the baseball club, information leaks during cultural festival interactions with other schools — and then the shocking fire that broke out in the forbidden book vault right before graduation.
After that incident, the kendo club's room was shut down, and the surviving treasures were scattered to the four winds.
"Now that I think about it, I really did the underclassmen dirty. The forbidden book vault of the kendo club, passed down through generations. The neat organization, sorted by era and genre — I miss that now…"
"Betty just answered your question and now she can tell you're thinking about the most idiotic thing in the world and it makes her want to die of rage."
"Don't get your feathers ruffled. Eat some little fish — calcium calms the nerves, and you might even grow a little taller! Personally, I think a height difference like Emilia-tan's is perfect for hugging and romantic comedy scenarios—"
Feigning concern for the fuming Beatrice, Subaru was in fact sneaking in veiled claims of affection toward Emilia. But she seemed to have completely dismissed his current nonsense. Instead, she raised a finger, as if something else had caught her attention.
"Wait a moment, Subaru. Didn't you just say you entered the Forbidden Library?"
"I did. I went back to my room planning to take a nap, and that drill-haired loli had gone and remodeled the place into her workplace. And on top of that, some person called 'Nyur' went and siphoned off my life energy… Those are yakuza tactics, I swear."
Subaru's glare sharpened further as he complained. Beatrice turned her face away, pointedly ignoring him. This time, Emilia directed the conversation toward her.
"Beatrice… Don't tell me you invited Subaru into the library?"
"Absolutely not. Why would Betty deliberately lure in someone as foul as him? …He went and pulled the correct answer to the 'Door Crossing' on his own."
"My, my, the refinement is slipping from your tone, my lady. Oho ho ho ho."
Subaru pressed the back of his hand to his lips and laughed with exaggerated elegance. Beatrice burned with silent fury. Behind this one-sided display of heartwarming interaction, Roswaal — who had been silent until now — touched the tip of his nose and said, "Hmm…"
"The Forbidden Library, which even I can hardly reach through random attempts — and you're connected to it without Beatrice's permission… You two must have good compatibility."
"WHAAAAT!?"
Both of them whipped around to face Roswaal with matching grimaces, then turned back and glared at each other with identical movements, their lips pressing into the same inverted-U shape.
"Your expressions are mirror images, both of you."
"That Betty adorable as she is, paired with this? What an unfunny joke."
"Same to you, right back at it. And for the record, I'm not into the loli thing. If you say something like that, I can't even laugh anymore. I can't… I really can't…"
"Why are you making such a serious face about it?! I've had enough! You all can sort this out yourselves!"
Subaru was putting on a theatrical display of shadow crossing his face, and at last Beatrice's patience completely snapped. She exploded.
She rose from her seat, marched up to the dining hall door, and flung it open.
And then— "Huh? Where's the hallway?"
The question escaped before he could stop himself.
Because beyond the door — the one that should have connected to the central corridor of the mansion — the Forbidden Library spread out instead, packed floor to ceiling with bookshelves crammed so tightly it looked like there was no room to breathe.
Beatrice stepped into the room and turned back toward Subaru with a look of smug triumph.
"This is the 'Door Crossing.' Burn its elegance into your eyes, and tremble as much as you like. — I don't want to look at your face for quite some time."
The door slammed shut, and the small girl vanished beyond it.
Subaru's eyes went blank with shock. What surprised him even further was Ram's action: without being asked, she reopened the door that had just been closed.
When the door — which had been slammed shut moments ago — slowly swung open, beyond it was the very corridor Subaru had walked down himself.
A phenomenon that seemed impossible, given that a library had been connected to it just an instant ago.
"So that's how it works. Any door in the mansion can connect to her room. A shut-in's dream come true."
"You caught on quick. I'm not sure what 'shut-in' means, but…"
"It's a parasite that never leaves its room except when it needs food or a bath."
"Ohhh. Right, right. Then Betty is a shut-in, isn't she."
"I can hear you, you know."
Beatrice peeked her face out from behind the door, which she had cracked open just slightly. This came immediately after her declaration that she didn't want to see his face.
Subaru placed both hands on his hips and began performing rapid, staccato steps with a little bird-flap motion.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my! What's wrong? What's wrong? You just left in such a huff — did something happen? Did you forget something? Now that's a pickle, isn't it? Hey, hey, how do you feel? How are you feeling right now?"
The NDK (Needeeru? Dou? Ki?) dance erupted in full force.
The reply, though simple, was powerful: Beatrice extended her palm from behind the door and blasted him away with a burst of magic.
"You fool!"
Struck by an invisible mass of force, Subaru's body — which was hardly light — went soaring effortlessly through the air. His sense of up, down, left, and right scrambled, he flew clear over the dining hall table and slammed into the wall. The maids, rushing over with impressive speed, caught the hanging paintings and furnishings before they could fall.
They then ruthlessly kicked him where he lay at the foot of the wall. Nice follow-through.