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She’d been unable to shake off her pursuer, and unable to stop him with traps.
What would the Rem Subaru knew do if she found herself in that situation?
She could find her pursuer by scent, and if she noticed the breadcrumbs he was using to follow her, then she would use them to her advantage to set another trap for him and finish things head-on.
Subaru had read her like an open book. The problem was…
“…Haaaaah!”
…the difference in their combat abilities meant he couldn’t stop her.
“Guooh!”
Subaru was sent flying with a groan as Rem’s arm hit him on her way down.
Frankly, both the fact that she could move as well as she did without any assistance from her legs and the fact that Subaru had reflexively tried to catch her were both fully unexpected.
“How persistent can one man be?!”
“W-wait, Rem, listen to me…” Subaru pleaded, blood dripping from his nose.
“No!”
Crawling across the jungle floor, she glared at Subaru with her blue eyes.
“If you had just given up on us there, I had no intention of doing anything else to you. And still, you chased us… Just stop it!”
“It really hurts my feelings when you put it that way…”
“The stench is unbearable! It’s impossible to miss your approach. And it’s even worse than it was in the clearing…”
Keeping pressure on his nose, Subaru staggered to his feet.
He was standing, whereas Rem was crawling on the ground. At a glance, it might have looked like the situation was in his favor, but if she started crawling across the ground like in a horror movie and knocked him into the big hole with her raw strength, that would be it for him.
Carefully gauging the distance between them, Subaru had no option but to try to resolve the misunderstanding.
“Rem, please listen to me. Apparently I have a pretty strong smell to you—”
“Yes, you stink.”
“Hearing you say that is so nostalgic…! Anyway, I apparently give off a strong smell, and I know it feels evil to you, but I don’t have any bad intentions!”
Raising both hands, he tried to demonstrate his lack of animosity.
Sadly, that wasn’t enough to convince Rem. The Witch’s scent kept her guard up.
No matter where I go, the Witch brings nothing but trouble.
“There’s the stench, and I know your first impression of me wasn’t good, either. I’ve lived with that for eighteen years now. So would you please let me have a do-over?”
“…A do-over?”
“It was my fault. I was wrong. You’re uneasy and don’t remember anything, and I didn’t explain anything. I got so caught up in my own head, I didn’t consider your feelings at all…”
His impatience and anxiety had made him completely ignore how she felt in all this. But there was no point in trying to explain himself. He didn’t need words in order to protect himself. He needed words to reach Rem and soften her heart.
“You’re important to me. I want to protect you. So please listen to me. Please don’t reject me. Please just give me one more chance.”
“…Is that it?”
“…Huh?”
“Is that all you have to say to me?”
Subaru was dumbfounded by her response.
The emotion in her voice was not what he had been hoping for. But it also differed from his worst expectations. Her voice was quiet, tinted with barely controlled anger.
“R-Rem…?”
“Of course I think you are suspicious and strange, chasing us all around, giving off that wicked stench. But…” Rem glared at Subaru, who was watching her in bewilderment, as if he were the manifestation of evil. “More than anything, that cannot absolve you of attempting to abandon such a little girl. How could anyone trust such a terrible and contemptible person?”
“Ah.”
Subaru didn’t know what to say in response to her condemnation.
As the words sank into his brain, he realized the reason he had failed to earn Rem’s trust had nothing to do with the Witch’s scent. His own choices had been to blame all along.
Even if Louis was the pure manifestation of evil, to Rem, she was nothing more than a young and weak little girl. He had completely missed that.
“ ”
He didn’t know how he should respond.
Subaru had overcome countless difficulties. Sometimes, he failed to overcome them and died, forcing him to approach the problem from another angle. But right now, he didn’t have a solution for this.
Should he apologize? Make an excuse? Tell the truth? Which should he prioritize? No matter what he picked, he couldn’t see it changing Rem’s distrustful gaze.
And all this was the result of a decision he had made that was already locked in, thanks to Return by Death.
“Nothing more to say, I see.”
While Subaru simply stood in place with eyes darting around and face rigid, unable to speak, Rem reached her limit.
She raised her upper body and started to move away from Subaru. It seemed she had no intention of killing him to spare herself any future anxiety.
She probably thought Subaru wouldn’t keep following them after having been cornered here. Of course, he knew that couldn’t be any less accurate. Even if she rejected him, Subaru would continue to hold out his hand until she was willing to take it. But…
“…Re—”
As she prepared to leave, he started to call to her.
He called her name, even without having a clue as to what he should say next.
When…
“ ”
As he stretched his hand out toward her back, he noticed something.
A shadow peeking through the dense foliage—a familiar figure.
“Rem!!!”
Before a thought could cross his mind, he immediately leaped toward her. Surprised, Rem froze.
The moment he had her small body cradled in his arms, an arrow from that powerful bow passed overhead, and splinters exploded from the tree it slammed into.
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