3
The big tree cracked and split from the terrible impact.
It was so powerful he could feel it from a distance. He also felt Rem’s warm, soft body in his arms.
Then he quickly confirmed his limbs were all still attached. That was good enough for now.
“Wh-what are you—?”
“Don’t talk, you’ll bite your tongue!”
Rem was slow to react, but he didn’t have time to listen to her complaints.
He stumbled forward, reaching out and seizing her in his arms, then rolled backward while holding her tightly.
He could feel Rem stifling a scream, but it was drowned out by something louder—the thunderous crash of the broken tree falling to the ground.
They rolled, rolled, and rolled some more, until the ground suddenly disappeared.
“Gah!” “Kyah?!”
After a moment of weightlessness, they both hit the ground.
It was the big hole filled with collapsed trees and dirt—the pitfall Rem had set for Subaru. Subaru had rolled into it on purpose to block the enemy’s line of sight.
His plan had succeeded. But it had come at a price.
“Gah, gh… Yeah, that’s broken…!”
He had unconsciously pulled Rem close with his left arm, and she had broken the fingers that held on to her. The middle finger, ring finger, and pinky of his left hand were all badly broken.
Subaru groaned, doing his best not to look too closely at the fingers, which were pointing in the wrong direction, as Rem crawled away from him.
“Of course! You came at me so suddenly… What in the world is happening?!”
“I didn’t get a chance to mention it, but there’s a dangerous hunter hiding in the trees. The odds they’re out hunting deer and just shot at us by accident are pretty much zero at this point… Ghhhhh.”
Cold sweat breaking out on his brow, Subaru made a splint of wood and a handkerchief for his broken fingers.
The only silver lining was that the broken fingers were on his left hand. If they had been on his dominant hand, Subaru would have been about as helpful as a kindergartner going forward.
“A dangerous hunter… Not your ally?”
“You think an ally would provide supporting fire like that? And how would that even be… Whoa?!”
The moment he poked his head out of the hole to check out the situation, the felled tree right in front of him exploded. It seemed the hunter was intent on getting a clean shot at them. It was probably quite obvious they had no means of retaliating from a distance.
“You know, ordinarily a sniper would change position after their location has been revealed. That’s what you’re supposed to do… That ass is definitely looking down on us. Not that I can do anything about it.”
“…That was an arrow? Unbelievable. That’s ridiculous!”
“Yeah! Exactly! It’ll leave a big gaping hole in your chest if it hits you!”
He had already died once, pinned to a tree like an insect in a science experiment.
But there was something odd about this. The last time Subaru had ventured into the jungle, he’d gone in the opposite direction.
“What are you doing over here, you asshole…?”
The pain from his fingers was hammering away inside his head. He gritted his teeth until it felt like they might crack and desperately tried to think.
It seemed highly unlikely this hunter was someone other than the culprit who’d murdered him before.
Both attacks had come from the same powerful bow. The question was, why were they proactively targeting him?
Maybe this is private property, and they’re a little too aggressive about driving out trespassers. The hunter is insanely accurate—but maybe they just suck at holding back?
“Maybe we can talk this through! Hey! I don’t want to fight! It was just by chance that we ended up in this jungle…”
“Wait a moment! Are you including me and that girl when you say that? I refuse to be put in the same group as you!”
“Is this really the time— Whoa?!”
The answer to Subaru’s request for a ceasefire was an arrow that left a giant gouge in the ground.
The powerful impact also silenced his argument with Rem. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before the hunter had cleared all the obstructions between those arrows and the three of them as they hid in the hole.
“It would appear this is not someone who’s willing to talk… ”
“If they’re using arrows, we have to watch out for arcing shots, too… If this hunter was a real sniper, they could wait hours… But with a bow and arrow, it’s not like staring through the lens of a scope and sitting still, so they probably can’t wait forever.”
In manga or movies, there were lots of scenes of snipers waiting for their targets for long periods of time, but a bow and arrow wasn’t the same as a gun that could be fired at a moment’s notice.
“They’re trying to end this quickly.”
Expecting the enemy to try something in the not-too-distant future, Subaru decided he did not have the time to think for long. If they weren’t willing to talk, then there was no avoiding a fight. And he didn’t have many cards to play in a fight.
“The only choice is running away, like Teach taught me.”
Fortunately, because they had slipped into the hole, the hunter couldn’t see their exact positions. If they climbed out the other side and kept low to the ground, they might be able to sneak away into the undergrowth.
Or…
Subaru looked at Rem, who seemed to be waiting with bated breath.
“…? Why did you suddenly stop talking? Did you come up with a plan to flee?” Rem asked.
“…It is an emergency, after all, so I guess you are at least willing to listen to me.” Subaru said.
Seated neatly there on the ground, Rem pouted in annoyance. But if she was not attacking him, then she must have understood this was not the time to argue. If she was willing to call a truce, then that made things easier.
“Rem, listen. I’ll jump out and get their attention. You climb out the other side of the hole and get to safety.”
“Huh…?”
Between fleeing together or making sure Rem got away first, it was obvious which had better odds.
No matter how masterful an archer the enemy was, this was a dense jungle, and Subaru could move while watching out for incoming arrows. He should be able to buy some time.
“After you’ve gotten away, I’ll make a run for it, too. But I don’t want to get too far from you after this, so I’d appreciate it if you could leave me some sort of markers. It might not make a ton of sense, but in my homeland, arrows are a sort of sign you can use to indicate direction—”
“Don’t tell me that.”
Subaru quickly told Rem his plan, but she interrupted him with a sharp glare.
He was confused, not understanding why, which just made her more annoyed.
“Deciding everything by yourself… And to top it off, you are telling me to run away? Me? The person who is furious at you already for attempting to abandon a child?”
She rejected Subaru’s plan for the exact same reason she had rejected Subaru at first.
I get the logic. You could say it’s an answer that a good person would give. But I didn’t think she would force me to do it now of all times.
“That’s… But I…”
“I’ve had enough of your excuses. There is no time. But I refuse to run away alone. I will not leave that child behind.”
Subaru couldn’t contain his surprise as Rem turned her attention to what was outside the hole. She looked past the big tree that had been blown apart earlier—to another one a short distance beyond it.
“I wondered where she was. So you hid her there? How is she staying quiet while all this is going on…?”
“…It was difficult carrying her around, so I knocked her unconscious. She shouldn’t wake up for a while.”
“You…”
Louis was going to be a drag on their escape, even now. That realization put Subaru on the verge of exploding, but Rem’s incredibly typical response made his frustration crumble.
That sort of over-the-top but decisive action was just like her.
“…I don’t think it was a good choice, either.”
“No, it was a spectacular play. Just to check, you aren’t willing to just leave her while the two of us escape together?”
“I do not know who I am, but I would bite my tongue and kill myself before doing such a thing.”
Honestly, abandoning Louis and running away with Rem was the best choice as far as Subaru was concerned, but it didn’t seem like Rem would allow that.
“Damn it, me. You just had to suddenly decide to be a merciful Buddha when the shadow swallowed us…”
When the shadow had reached the green room, his decision to pick up Louis in addition to Rem had led to all of this. There was no going back and changing it now, but he could still shout from the rooftops that he had made the wrong choice.
“What are you going to do?”
“…I’ll do it. I’ll bring her, too. That tree, right?”
“…Yes. In the hollow of the tree. Is there any chance of winning?”
“My Teach taught me to run without hesitation when a powerful enemy shows up.”
Clind had told him that it didn’t come down to a difference in strength or anything like that.
In this world, most opponents were going to be stronger than Subaru, so the safest assumption was that any opponent he ran into was at least one tier above him.
That was why running was his top priority. If he couldn’t escape, then…
“Gotta use anything you can. Rem, I know you don’t like it, but lend me a hand.”
“…If it’s for the sake of helping her.”
She looked right at his outstretched hand and refused to take it.
But she was willing to go along with his plan, even if she wasn’t happy about it.
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