Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (LN) - Volume 25 - Chapter 10.5

5

There was something rough rubbing his head.

“Ugh…”

Subaru groaned and opened his eyes.

Blinking his eyes until his blurry vision came a bit into focus, he saw the source of the roughness—Patrasche licking him with her red tongue.

“Patrasche…”

“ ”

“Sorry for worrying you… You really outdid yourself this time, didn’t you? Sorry for always asking so much.”

Reaching out to his trusty steed, he smiled while patting her sharp face.

This black ground dragon was always saving him from danger. Of course there was a debt he owed her for saving him after he lost his memories, but on this last go-round, too, Patrasche had been left with an important role, since…

“Without Patrasche, Rem would have been in danger. Bringing her back is the greatest achievement of your life, Barusu.”

“I can’t totally deny it, so let’s not dwell there. I pulled Beako out of the archive, and I recovered Emilia-tan’s handkerchief for her, too. Though Roswaal was pulling strings on both of those.”

More accurately, Roswaal wasn’t actually involved with Beatrice’s issue, but putting it that way would stick it to Ram better, so he didn’t correct it.

As usual, Ram scoffed in aggravation at that.

Seeing Ram leaning against the wall and holding her arms, Subaru narrowed his eyes at just how painfully battered she looked.

“…Sorry, Ram. Because of me, you…mggggh!”

“Don’t be stupid. It’s your fault that I was injured? You aren’t the primary cause of anything in my life. The mere thought is disgusting.”

“Disgusting is a bit much! And it’s totally scary when you stick clumps of plants in people’s mouths all of a sudden!”

Subaru was teary as he complained about having a clump of vines stuffed in his mouth.

“Ha,” Ram laughed, not feeling the least bit guilty.

There was a giggle at that.

“You two really do get along. You look like siblings.”

Meili was sitting on the green mat of vegetation on the floor, her legs splayed out while the tiny red scorpion sat on her head.

Ram scowled at that.

“Barusu, a sibling…? Even if I accept for the sake of argument that he is a hapless, hopeless brother unrelated by blood, anyone as useless as him would have been kicked out, to have fewer mouths to feed.”

“Was it really that Spartan in the Oni village? I’m glad I’m not an Oni, I guess…”

“I was lying. I would have kicked you out simply because of the revulsion.”

“Don’t layer hypotheticals! That makes things so complicated!”

Subaru fired back with a spittle-flecked shout in response to Ram’s standard tune.

But he also understood that in her own roundabout way, it was a show of concern for him on her part. She was telling him that his decision wasn’t why she had been injured.

That curt attitude, like always, was just like Ram. He looked around the room at the people in the green room. Subaru and Patrasche, Ram, and Meili with the tiny red scorpion. And the sleeping princess lying on the bed in the farthest back of the room.

“…Rem hasn’t woken up?”

“Unfortunately, no. I removed the head of that loathsome boor. Thanks to that, it seems Lady Emilia returned, but…”

“Julius and Rem haven’t… What’s missing?”

Pushing his fist against his palm, Subaru bit down in disgust.

It was a reminder again of what they had been talking about before he passed out. In the end, they had to directly ask Gluttony how to eradicate all the effects of their authority.

“So this is the injured list? Where did Emilia-tan and them go?”

“They went upstairs to meet someone. On the first floor, so way, way up there… You know who it is, don’t you, Ms. Ram?”

“It’s nothing important. Just a big and forgetful violent old person.”

“A forgetful, violent old person at the top of the watchtower definitely sounds like some key NPC…”

When he thought about a new person joining the cast at such a late point, Subaru furrowed his brow. Who was the person Ram was describing? If it was an examiner like Reid on the second floor, then was it that loathsome Sage?

“Then…”

“Barusu, quit using Shaula to feel better about your own powerlessness.”

The blood started rising to his head, but Ram’s cool voice stopped him before he could stand up. He caught his breath and looked at Ram. She had him dead to rights.

“I heard about Shaula. She was loud and unrefined and had holes for eyes, to be so attached to you…but she wasn’t so bad she deserved to disappear.”

“ ”

“If you regret it, then don’t get angry. Cry. I’m sure she would be happier if you cried instead of using her as an excuse to vent. And so would I.”

“Ram…”

“Though I still think she was wrong about the person she cared so much about.”

Ram flicked his forehead with that last bit. Knocked back down by it, even though it didn’t hurt, Subaru touched his forehead.

“Sorry…”

“Besides, if it were Flugel on the first floor, Lady Emilia and I would have beaten him half to death before you could do anything.”

“…I don’t know about Emilia-tan, but I could definitely see you doing that.”

Considering what happened to Shaula, it was natural to think everyone in the tower would have some anger to spare for Flugel.

“But then who is the old guy on the first floor…?”

“Just leave it for now. Even if they are of some use, it would be in asking about the victims of the Archbishop of Lust, not Gluttony.”

“That sounds like a big development, but…okay…”

Ram already had a clear priority order when it came to those things, and her ability to say so without hesitation was one of her strong points.

And Subaru felt much the same. The possibility of saving Lust’s victims was tremendous. But it was Gluttony’s victims that he most wanted to save. And he couldn’t help wondering if there had been a better way to do that.

“…Fool.”

“Big sis?”

“If you have time to waste worrying over such pointless things, then focus on resting your body and mind. You aren’t the only one here who failed to make the optimal choices.”

Ram shook her head and touched her forehead.

There was a delicate scar on the place where her horn had once been. Rubbing it, she then reached out toward Rem and lovingly caressed her sister’s forehead, too.

“I borrowed Rem’s strength to defeat the Archbishop of Gluttony. I won as a result, but the price was heavy… I made her bear quite a heavy burden.”

“That’s…”

“I fought like I did when I still had my horn. If you had been carrying the burden then, your insides would have burst.”

Subaru knew all too well that she wasn’t exaggerating. Ram experienced hell just going about her day, breathing and acting normal.

If she became serious…he couldn’t begin to imagine how bad the feedback would be.

“Rem might resent it when she wakes up. But I don’t regret it. I’m her big sister. Even if she hates me or holds a grudge, nothing will change… I only did it to make good on all of that.”

“…Well, that struck painfully close to home.”

Rather than regretting the past, set out to make a better future. That was Ram’s declaration.

Outside of those thoughts, though, Subaru had raced to bend the past many times before.

If Ram’s outlook was the ultimate sort of constructive perspective, Subaru’s Return by Death was the pinnacle of living in the past. His ability that allowed him to change what happened was always the result of some past that he regretted.

“Though it’s always better not having to use it…”

Releasing his fist that had clenched again, Subaru smiled bitterly.

He acknowledged his attitude of using that ability to work hard for a future where everyone could smile together. And also, he reminded himself not to wallow in the Return by Death itself.

Because even here, he had seen so many tears and heard so many voices lamenting his death.

“I don’t really get it, but it looks like you’re feeling a bit better, mister.”

Meili commented on his general demeanor as she played with her hair and said, with her knees up:

“They can cheer you up, but I can’t, so don’t get too down. You promised you’d be a good role model for me, right?”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I? All right, next time I’ll keep it for sure.”

Subaru nodded, looking at Meili and the scorpion on her head.

And then, as if giving his resolve a little push, Patrasche rubbed against his cheek. Even as hard and rough as her scaly skin was, once he was used to it, it didn’t hurt to have it rub against his cheek. With a heartfelt appreciation for that show of affection, he stood up.

He had been so exhausted, he couldn’t even stay up earlier, but it felt like some of his stamina had recovered. All hail the gracious and great green room spirit.

“Even Joseph was part of that all-out fight, but thinking how much the spirit in this room has helped us, no matter how much I thank them, it’ll never be enough…”

The room they had been using as a heal point was home to a spirit that seemed to like healing living things’ wounds, at least according to Shaula.

That was why Rem had been in this room from the moment they arrived at the tower.

“Well, not that we’re lounging here because we want to.”

“The spirit, huh? You’re…no, it would just be a waste of breath. What if it was the effect of Julius’s blessing that brought it into existence?”

“I see what you’re getting at, but my allure is only effective on Beako, so I’m not too bitter. If it really was Julius’s blessing, then I wonder if we can communicate with it…?”

At a simple level, Julius’s blessing made it easy for spirits to like him. Thanks to that, he was contracted to six quasi-spirits—now fully realized spirits—but if as a result, they could communicate with the spirit in this room, it would increase their range of options.

That spirit had been in this tower as long as Shaula, or maybe even longer.

Maybe that nameless being could help in solving the riddles of this tower…

“Ram? Why the weird look?”

“…I feel an odd sort of air. This is—”

Just as she was about to say what it felt like…

“What?!”

Suddenly, a light filled the center of the green room, stunning all of them.

Freezing at the sudden change, Subaru and Ram both leaped toward Rem. Meili and Patrasche were both obviously on guard, moving away from the light.

“Wait, what? What is that?!”

“No clue! For now, stay close! We don’t know what… Whoa?!”

Moving between Meili and the light, he cut himself off while he warned her to be careful.

The reason was because the light grew stronger, blinding him. Covering his face with his arm, he cautiously peered into the light.

The light gradually weakened and faded. Unsure whether to be relieved or wary, Subaru saw it.

“—Huh?”

Seeing it there, where the light had been, Subaru couldn’t comprehend it.

He was speechless, stunned, and speechless again.

“…A girl?”

Beside him, Ram was wary at seeing the same thing.

She was correct. She and Subaru were seeing the same thing. However, Subaru’s perception of that girl was completely different from hers.

Subaru knew her name.

Because the girl lying on the floor of the green room was…

“Louis Arneb.”

Louis Arneb had appeared in the center of the green room in a burst of light.

The youngest sister of the three Gluttony siblings, the gorger who should have been inhabiting the corridors of memory. Subaru was speechless to see her outside like this.

But Ram didn’t let that name pass.

“Louis Arneb…that’s the name of the final Gluttony.”

“Y-yeah, that’s right. I didn’t get to talk too much about it…but that’s the final Gluttony, Louis Arneb. Lye’s and Roy’s little sister, supposedly…”

“…From the looks of it, she’s unconscious.”

Looking closer, Subaru agreed with Ram’s cold observation. Louis was sleeping.

Sleeping? He couldn’t say the situation for sure. And why had she appeared here at all? As terrified as she was of Subaru and as broken by Return by Death as she had been, it was hard to imagine her recovering enough in these couple hours to try again.

That was just how deep a scar death left on a person’s heart.

“She’s not supposed to have a real body in the first place… Damn it, this doesn’t make any sense! Meili! Go get Emilia-tan and the others! Ram and I’ll watch her!”

“Mrgh, you’re such a harsh taskmaster… Don’t go dying, now, all right?”

Edging backward, Meili moved to the room’s entrance. Subaru flashed a thumbs-up at her reminder. On top of her head, the little red scorpion raised its pincer, as if copying him, and she turned around and headed to the first floor to get the others.

Left behind in the room, Subaru and Ram…

“…Let’s not jump to conclusions for now. We should wait for Lady Emilia and Lady Beatrice to return. Once they’re back—”

Then we can discuss how to deal with Louis was probably what she would have said. But she didn’t finish saying it.

Before she could—black destruction crashed over the Pleiades Watchtower.

“—?!”

There was a thud, as if a big explosion had happened down below, and their bodies floated up into the air.

The next moment, slamming into the ceiling and wall, Subaru shouted in pain. Looking around to see what had happened, he noticed something.

The gruesome presence approaching gave him goose bumps all over.

“No way…”

Shaking off the feeling that this should not be happening, he stood back up. But the cold chill just grew stronger, turning into something far more concrete than his disbelief.

It was the obstacle that he had most wanted not to come—one that until this moment should not have been possible—and yet it was wreaking a terrible destruction on the tower anyway.

“Patrasche! Get Ram!”

“—Tsss”

Lifting up Ram, who was kneeling on the ground, unable to get up, he tossed her over to Patrasche. Despite the terrible wounds all over her body, Patrasche caught Rem, and guessing Subaru’s intent, she started running to the green room’s exit.

“Barusu, you idiot…!”

Subaru couldn’t afford to listen to Ram’s complaints. He dashed across the wavering ground; he raced over to Rem on her bed of vines. Lifting her up, he turned to follow Patrasche to the exit…

“ ”

…When he saw Louis lying on the floor.

“Argh! Shit! Damn it all!”

As he cursed angrily, the adrenaline coursing through him granted him a momentary brute strength in an emergency. With Rem’s body under his right arm, he grabbed Louis’s arm with his left hand.

They were both light. And in an emergency like this, he could carry them both without worrying about the weight.

Holding the both of them, Subaru was just about to leap out of the room…

“ ”

…when the dark shadow burst through the floor, coming between him and the exit—the dark shadow.

The final obstacle that he had wanted to believe wouldn’t come—the dark shadow of the Witch, who was so attached to him—had attacked the tower now, of all times.

“Ram!”

He tried to at least get Rem out from the shadow. However, the darkness covered everything in front of him, not allowing any opening. And on top of that, it continued to flow into the room, swallowing up everything to his left and right and behind him.

“Damn it…but I made it this far…!”

Seeing the onrushing shadow, he felt regret fill his heart as he searched for an escape.

If it swallowed him up, he would die and end up returning by death. If the restart point didn’t get updated, he would end up having to redo this with Louis Arneb still inside him.

If that happened, it would mean being controlled by the Archbishop in the form of that pale little girl again.

Even though he had burned everything, to finish this loop, out of fear of that exact situation…

“Barusu! Get ahold of yourself! You’ll make Rem cry!!!”

“—Tsss!!!”

Ram’s and Patrasche’s desperate voices rang out through the shadow.

He took a breath to answer, but he couldn’t get the words out. The black shadow swallowed him whole first.