3
After experiencing the rare second first encounter with Emilia and Beatrice, Subaru promptly—
“What sort of bad joke is this, Barusu?”
—experienced the equivalent of lying down on a bed of nails at breakfast, which was really a briefing to go over the group’s recent findings.
Emilia and Beatrice were present, naturally. There were also five other people: one guy and four girls.
This is a pretty unbalanced group.
Based on what Emilia told him, they were apparently all traveling together, comrades working toward the common goal of clearing the tower they were currently inside. Of course, since he had only seen a bit of the interior, Subaru couldn’t tell that he was inside a tower.
The group didn’t lack for variety, but the one thing they had in common was that they were all attractive.
Kinda makes me feel bad as the only person bringing down the average.
But that wasn’t the only or main reason he felt bad. His amnesia was the biggest issue by far.
Emilia took it upon herself to explain the situation as best she could while Beatrice provided helpful additions. The group’s reaction was varied.
The first move went to the peach-haired girl—Ram.
“Are you listening to me, Barusu?”
“Yeah, I’m listening. I understand why you might not believe me, but I’m dead serious. Also the way you’re saying my name sounds like it’s some curse to put out an eye… Are you that sleeping girl’s sister?”
“ ”
Ram’s eyes suddenly grew very scary.
Subaru had brought along an unconscious girl and the black lizard who’d been recuperating in what was unimaginatively being referred to as the green room. The girl had bright blue hair but otherwise looked just like Ram, and apparently part of the reason they’d come to this tower was to end her unnatural slumber.
“I’m sorry that this happened right when we’re trying to wake up your sister, but I’ve kind of got my hands full at the moment. If you’ve got complaints, can you save them for after I get my memories back?”
“…Do you really expect me to believe your story? You even talk the same as always.”
“I’m glad my core, unchanging goodness still shines through. This must be what people mean when they say a person’s nature can’t be easily changed, so hopefully you and the new me will get along just like before.”
Ram stared at Subaru even more dubiously.
He could understand why she’d find this disconcerting, but he couldn’t just play a different version of himself, either. If it was hard to tell the difference between current Subaru and old Subaru, then that didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
“We can just skip any unnecessary concerns and—whoa?!”
“Master?”
As he was talking to Ram, he felt someone practically breathing in his ear and spun around. Standing there was a woman in a black bikini top and hot pants—
“It’s Shaula! Your most beloved student and the star guardian of the Pleiades Watchtower!”
“St-star guardian…? And Master? Did you mean me?”
“Yep!”
Shaula introduced herself with a beaming smile as bright as the sun. Her carefree smile shattered the initial impression he got from her appearance. She seemed like a mature sort of beauty with her bold, skimpy outfit, but her artless behavior was almost child-like. She almost seemed like a puppy that was just happy to have attention.
“But still, you never learn, do you, Master? How many times have you forgotten me, now?”
“Wait, wait, wait! Do I lose my memory every other day or something? Is it a side effect of being summoned to this world?”
Subaru was horrified by Shaula’s nonchalant statement. He had somehow managed to accept that he was suffering from amnesia, but if this was something that happened all the time, that was a very different problem. Some kind of endemic disease in this world that he had no resistance to or perhaps an issue with the summoning were both angles that had to be considered.
“This world doesn’t seem like that harsh a place to live. How many times have I lost my memory then?”
“C-calm down, Subaru. And Shaula, don’t make things more complicated,” Beatrice said.
“Bleh. It’s not like I’m trying to tease Master. Ah, but if this makes him focus more on me, then that would be nice. Black-magic womaaan!”
Beatrice took Subaru’s right hand and tried to put him at ease while Shaula stuck out her tongue, showing she had no intention of taking things seriously. It seemed like her high level of affection for Subaru was the main reason, so he wasn’t too bothered by it, but…
“…That’s all stuff I built up before I lost my memories.”
Shaula’s beloved master and the person Emilia and Beatrice held so dear—that wasn’t him. Not really. It was a complicated feeling.
“You’re really good at causing other people trouble, aren’t you, mister?” asked a young girl.
“…Oh? That’s an awfully tender look you’re giving me. Since my affection levels with everyone have been reset, if you play your cards right and treat me nice, we might end up even closer than before, whoever you might be.”
“Hah…good one.”
The girl giggled and kicked her swinging legs.
She looked around the same age as Beatrice and wore her dark blue hair in a braid. She had an adorable face with big, round eyes that gleamed impishly.
“I’m Meili, mister. If you didn’t forget your sewing specialty along with your other memories, then I hope you’ll make me another stuffed animal.”
“Oh? If you know about my special skill, then we must’ve been pretty close. Are you a little-sister character like Beatrice?”
“I suppose she is an assassin who came to kill you and Betty,” Beatrice helpfully explains.
“What kind of joke is that?!”
That was pretty dark for a joke, but for some reason, no one was denying it. Even Meili just smiled faintly and waved her hand.
“So Ram, Shaula, and Meili have done their introductions…”
Setting aside the issue of Meili’s true nature for a moment, Subaru turned his gaze to the last two members of their party. A beautiful woman with a fox scarf and handsome young man who carried himself with undeniable poise.
Neither of them had commented on his memory loss yet, but he was looking forward to seeing the reaction of the only other guy present. Subaru was feeling a bit bashful surrounded by so many women.
But his hopes were quickly dashed.
“ ”
The young man clammed up and put his hand to his mouth. The gesture was almost blood-curdling. It was so bad that even Subaru hesitated to say something thoughtless despite his penchant for purposefully saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Subaru even wondered if this guy was the most shaken of them all by this news.
“…I’d like to give him a little bit of time to compose himself. Do you mind?”
In his stead, the girl with a warm-looking scarf spoke up. Despite her feminine appearance, Subaru thought her tone was almost manly.
She gives off a confident tomboy sort of feel.
“Yeah, I guess it’s fine. It’s a sudden development, after all. I’m sure it was shocking…”
“I’d wager that’s not the only reason…”
“Huh, you really do sound like a tomboy.”
“…For now, you can just refer to me as Anastasia. Were it not for your dramatic reveal, I had intended to make my own shocking confession this morning.”
The girl—Anastasia—rubbed her scarf with a faint smile. Subaru was curious about her supposed confession, but it was doubtful whether he would find it surprising at the moment.
Either way, if they were going to follow Anastasia’s suggestion and give the other guy some time to recover, then…
“In that case, let’s finish preparing breakfast. Lady Emilia, could I borrow Barusu to carry water?”
“Eh? But his memory still hasn’t returned, so it would be better to let him rest…”
“Is that something that gets better with rest? And questions about memory aside, Barusu is technically Lord Roswaal’s servant. A bit of memory loss is not enough to excuse slacking off on the job.”
“That’s a pretty harsh opinion, Miss Ram… Mistress Ram?”
Standing up, Ram brushed off her knees, her gaze sharpening at his response. “…Just Ram. Impertinent as you are, you always left out titles.”
Honestly, her suggestion was like she had thrown him a life preserver. Subaru found it suffocating when people were overly concerned about him. And considering the other guy looked like he was going through a personal crisis of sorts, it probably wasn’t the worst idea for Subaru to be away for a little while.
“Then I can go instead…”
“Lady Emilia, spoiling him over something as small as getting some water will do him no good.”
“But…”
“It’s fine. There’s a logic to what Ram’s saying. Memory aside, my body seems fine, too. And looks like my job in the group is servant or errand boy or something, so I can at least handle fetching some water.”
Emilia was trying to talk the prickly Ram down, but she finally let it go when Subaru insisted it would be okay.
“…You aren’t some servant, you’re my—”
“Your…what? I-is it maybe, um, a lover sort of—”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Nothing like that?! Well, that makes sense…”
Subaru had gotten his hopes up and was breathing raggedly through his nose as he asked, but Emilia promptly shot him down.
Appearance-wise, she was totally his type, but Emilia was so far out of his league that he couldn’t even imagine any romantic relationship.
Memories or not, there’s no way she’d ever see me that way.
“Anyway, I’m fine, so take care of that dude. He looks like he’ll need it. I’ll be counting on you and…Betty.”
When Subaru quietly made his request, Emilia quietly nodded. “…Right. I got it. I’ll try to talk to him.”
Then he noticed that Beatrice had a complicated look on her face as she held his hand.
Seeing him look at her, Betty cleared her throat.
“Subaru, please stop calling Betty that.”
“…? Really? Is Beatrice better?”
“…I suppose that will do for now. Betty will take your request.”
With that, she let go of his hand and Emilia took the chance to hand him an empty bucket.
“All right then. I’ll be back soon. Hold down the fort here, Emilia-chan.”
“…Yeah.”
For a second, Subaru thought he detected some hesitation in Emilia’s response, but he didn’t have a chance to ask why as he was on his way out of the room with Ram. Once they’d traveled down the hallway far enough that he couldn’t hear their voices anymore, Subaru heaved a big sigh.
“…You sound rather exhausted.”
“Well, yeah. I’m kinda pushing myself stupidly hard. I’m not really the sort of person who’s great at being careful around others,” Subaru said with a shrug.
It had been that way since talking to Emilia and Beatrice, but it hurt to have people feel so clearly let down because of him. This was way beyond just failing to read the mood.
“…Can I ask you what that was all about earlier?”
“You mean Sir Julius? That was quite cruel, Barusu.”
“Cruel…?”
Subaru’s face puckered up at her cold response, and he wondered what had transpired between him and that guy. And perhaps because he was thinking about that, he was slow to notice that Ram had stopped walking.
“Ram?”
“—Could you please stop this pointless farce already, Barusu?”
Completely taken by surprise, he turned around to look at her. There was a quiet fury in her pink eyes as she brushed back her peach-pink hair.
“I made a point of changing the location for you. Don’t make a woman embarrass herself unnecessarily. It’s obscene.”
“Uh, obscene?”
“This is just another one of your stupid plots, right? Lady Emilia can’t keep a secret, but at the very least you should tell me what it is you’re planning.”
Her arms were crossed as she spoke but there was a certain nuance to her demand, as if what she really meant was that it’d make her life easier to know what was going on if push ever came to shove.
Hearing that, Subaru avoided looking her in the eye as he scratched his head.
“Ummm. Ram, about what you’re saying… It’s not like I don’t get it, but…”
“But what?”
“Sorry, but this isn’t an act or something. I don’t have any tricks up my sleeve. I genuinely don’t remember a thing. And so I can’t really live up to whatever you’re expecting of me.”
“So you’re going to be stubborn about it. You always try to shoulder everything yourself, but just this time around, that’s a problem. When Rem is involved, you should let me help out.”
“No, I’m being serious…”
Her insistent denial left Subaru completely at a loss and he couldn’t help but wonder which one of them was really being stubborn.
He could understand not taking his memory loss at face value, but if she was being this insistent, there was nothing he could do.
Also, how exactly is pretending to have amnesia supposed to help us make it to the top of the tower?
“I wouldn’t know. But I’m sure you have some secret little plan. So come clean, now. I will keep it a secret.”
“I’m tempted by the ring of ‘it’ll be our little secret’ but…”
At this point, Subaru was beyond surprised and was simply exasperated by how completely unfounded Ram’s assertions were. And what was all this about his supposed plan? How much was she going to overestimate him—
“Whoa!”
While Subaru struggled to come up with an acceptable answer, he suddenly felt a sharp pull on his collar. He stumbled, dropped the bucket on the floor, and found himself with his back up against the wall. And the person who’d put him there was none other than the slender girl in front of him.
“What are you doing all of a sud—”
“Tell me. If you don’t cut it out, I have my own plan.”
“—Ngh, are you listening?! I told you I’m not lying!”
“—Just tell me already!!!”
He tried to push her away, but then her furious shout crashed into him, and he froze. His hands went limp. Her cry had caught him by surprise but that wasn’t the only reason he stopped flailing. There was something much more important.
“Tell me everything…”
Her voice was wavering badly.
Even though he couldn’t remember her, seeing her like this still stunned him.
“…Please, just tell me everything.”
“Ram?”
“…Please…”
She leaned her forehead against his chest as she pleaded in a weak voice.
The explosive force from just moments earlier was gone, leaving only heartbreak.
It wasn’t a tearful voice. She wasn’t that frail. She wasn’t grieving. She wouldn’t allow herself to be.
But the aimless resentment in her voice tore into Subaru’s chest.
“If you forget, then I…then Rem…”
—Rem, her little sister’s name.
The girl who was the spitting image of Ram sleeping on the bed in the green room. What had there been between them and Subaru? What sort of relationship had they built together? He couldn’t begin to imagine.
But he could tell that Ram was desperately clinging onto something that Subaru had forgotten.
“…I’m sorry.”
He apologized as she pressed her head to his chest, not allowing him to see the look on her face.
Was it an apology for forgetting or an apology for not being able to answer her?
It was both. And plenty else.
“ ”
Ram didn’t say anything else. And Subaru couldn’t say anything more.
The only witness to their helplessness was the bucket on the floor.
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