6
“—That smell—did you hurt yourself even more?”
“Ugh. You can tell?”
“I can. A child is watching you, so bear that in mind,” Rem reminded him as they sat around the same lunch table.
He couldn’t bring himself to accept the implicit advice, but there was nothing to be gained by arguing, either, so he just nodded. And, sitting beside him, Louis nodded as well, copying him.
Lunch at the camp worked on a ration system. Line up at the distribution center, pick up your food, eat, then clean up after yourself. Rem was helping out with food service, so she was in the last group to eat, meaning they had a late lunch.
Of course, given that they were outsiders, the food itself was just leftovers.
“Not that we can complain too much. Just having something to eat is good enough.”
Subaru carried his and Rem’s share and set them down on a small table at the edge of the space. Louis had impudently taken her own share, just like Subaru.
“What have you been doing? Nothing too hard, right?”
“Not particularly. They were considerate of my legs as well… I only helped a little bit with cooking. While being taught along the way.”
“Taught… Did that bring back any memories?”
“…It would be a lie to say I did not have some hopes of that.”
Rem’s blue eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed at Subaru’s immediate question. Seeing that reaction, he worried he was pushing too hard, but Rem slowly shook her head.
“I tried several things, thinking there might be something that felt familiar. But that would have been too convenient.”
Looking down at her hands, Rem sounded embarrassed by her shallow hopes.
But who could call her hopes shallow? Who could do that, seeing her grasping for an answer when she couldn’t remember the building blocks of herself?
“…Why do you have such a pained look on your face?”
“Why? I…” Subaru looked down.
“…Did you not say just last night that you would wait for me to be ready?”
He was stunned by her response. It sounded like the first hint of compromise from Rem. Enough to make the seed of hope sprout in his breast.
However…
“As I said yesterday, no matter how many times you call me Rem, I cannot accept that as my name. No matter what you might say.”
“Ugh…”
“Perhaps it would be different coming from her.”
Rem’s eyes softened, and she rubbed Louis’s head. Louis just let her do it, focused on taking care of the food in front of her that she had obtained for herself.
Unfortunately, even if Louis had been in her right mind, she couldn’t say anything about Rem. And even if she could, Subaru wouldn’t let her. The animosity that he just couldn’t shake wouldn’t let him.
“What’s with the long face? This is a gloomy table.”
Todd casually interrupted their meal.
Feeling like Todd might brighten the awkward mood some, Subaru welcomed the man who sat down next to him. Just earlier, and before that, too. He’s been a huge help.
“I appreciate you taking the time, but are you all right not eating with your men?”
“Hmm? I’ve known them a pretty long time; a day or two not eating together won’t change things between us. I figured I should make a new friend.”
“Not like I’ve got anything I can pay you back with.”
“You can repay it later. Think of this as an investment.”
Todd lightened the mood with his easy wit, then wrapped an arm around Subaru’s shoulder.
“Still, though,” he whispered in Subaru’s ear. “Looks like you’re getting along better than you were last night. Did you manage to make up?”
“…It’s hard to tell. I wanna say my sincerity has gotten through a little, at least.”
“…I can hear you. If you believe I have lowered my guard, you are mistaken.”
“Uguu!”
Rem made her dissatisfaction with their conversation known. She wiped Louis’s mouth, and the girl seemed to be in tune with Rem, as if siding with her.
Subaru had complicated feelings about seeing them so intimate, and his expression visibly sank.
“Don’t get so down. At least she’s someplace where you can talk with her like this. Compared to me, that’s already a big improvement.”
“Ah, oh yeah—you talked about being separated from your fiancée.”
“Yeah, she lives in the capital. That’s why I have to finish up this mission. We’ve been apart too long. Whoo, it’s lonely, I tell you.”
“Is that why you’re looking after us?”
“Yeah. So just let me use you guys for a bit. Make it worth the effort.”
Maybe Todd had only said that to keep him from feeling anxious, but Subaru was genuinely grateful for Todd’s consideration. It would have been tactless to just thank him directly. And Todd seemed to recognize that, too.
The four of them ate with that sort of mood about them, and then…
“You mentioned us being able to catch a ride with the resupply wagon, but how long do you think this mission will take you guys?”
“I told you—until we can find the people of Shudrak hiding in the jungle… If we don’t find them, we might be left out here for years,” Todd said glumly. “Serving the court isn’t easy.”
“People of Shudrak…”
Subaru thought for a bit as he held the wooden spoon in his mouth.
The people of Shudrak—when he’d first heard about them from Todd, Subaru had wondered if this maybe referred to the masked man he had met in the jungle earlier. Subaru owed the guy for the knife, so he had not mentioned him to Todd, but now that felt a bit ungrateful.
At this point, Todd had done at least as much for Subaru as the masked man had.
So how did it make sense to repay the masked man, but not Todd?
“Hey, Todd, what are you guys going to do when you find them? You’ve got a camp like this set up…so are you going to fight?”
He tried to do his best to feign simple curiosity. But he couldn’t totally hide the tension in his voice and body language. It wasn’t exactly a natural subject to bring up, and Rem’s expression changed when she heard it, too. Even if he was conspicuously ignoring it, she had an evasive reaction to the word fight.
Todd closed an eye.
“The generals seem to prefer not fighting if they can avoid it. The Shudrak are a pretty powerful tribe, apparently. It would be a difficult fight if it came to it, so it seems like negotiations are the goal.”
“Negotiations? With a jungle tribe?”
“Don’t go asking a grunt for strategy! …It’s not like I really know, but probably swearing fealty to the capital, and by extension the emperor, I guess?”
“The Shudrak people haven’t submitted to the emperor?”
“Some people don’t. That’s just the Volakian way, though, isn’t it?”
Subaru just answered with a “Hail Volakia” to Todd’s soldierly smile.
If Todd was right, then the imperial army would rather not fight the Shudrak. In which case, sharing what I know with them might help avoid needless fighting.
But what he knew was not really that big anyway, and if he brought up why he’d concealed it, he would also have to come clean about misrepresenting who he was.
“Uggh, this is hard. Either way is a problem…”
“…It feels like you’ve got a few more wrinkles than usual. It’s not like you have the nicest face in the world to begin with—should you not at least try to smile?”
“That is a painful reminder! …Would you be nicer to me if I was all smiles, all the time?”
“Huh?”
Rem’s genuinely perplexed response quickly broke Subaru’s heart.
Todd laughed as Subaru’s smile twitched and his shoulders slumped. It was upsetting being laughed at, but it was also true that he felt relieved that Todd was dealing with him like that. The reason why this situation had not gotten too heavy to bear was undeniably thanks to Todd.
Which is all the more reason I would like their mission here to be finished up sooner, but…
“When were you going to start seriously going through the jungle?”
“Word is, once the other camps are all set, we all go in at once. The jungle is big and deep. Who knows how much ground we can even cover in a single day…?”
“I see. Well, it’s not like it will go smoothly anyway. You never know what you’ll find in there. It’s the sort of place that would probably have big demon beasts, too.”
Subaru suspected that the masked man might have been a Shudrak. The other possibility was the hunter being one. And then there was the giant snake demon beast that had appeared during the encounter with the hunter. And it was possible to run into any number of Rem’s leftover traps, too.
With all that in mind, it was easy to guess that Todd and the soldiers would have a rough time in the forest.
Even if I can’t explain the situation, I should at least mention Rem’s traps. They’ll cause unnecessary problems…
“Demon beasts?”
But as he was thinking that, Todd’s eyes widened, his cup of water still at his lips. Wiping the water from the corner of his mouth, he looked at Subaru in shock.
“Did you just say ‘demon beasts’? There are demon beasts in that jungle?”
“Eh? Um, I mean, I did… What, did I say something strange?”
“Well, yeah, demon beasts aren’t the sort of thing you run into every day. Maybe in the demon beast capital, Lugunica, but we’re not even near the border.”
“ ”
“You’re kidding…right? Hey, missy.”
Todd’s voice grew more serious, and Subaru couldn’t say a word as he was just confused. So Todd turned his attention to Rem.
“Tell me, please. Did you see a demon beast, too? In the Badheim Jungle out there?”
“If you mean a large creature with green skin, then I did.”
“Was there a horn on its head?”
“A horn? …Yes…a white and twisted one.”
The moment he heard that, Todd spun around to face Subaru.
“What sort of demon beast was it? Do you have a description?”
“A-a snake. A giant snake. Maybe thirty feet long. One big demon beast.”
“One, huh…? Damn it. There’s no way to know if there really is just one in this giant jungle. But you don’t seem to be lying. That changes things!”
As he scratched his head roughly, Todd’s expression had completely changed. He turned away from them, but before he started running, he turned back.
“Right—that was really valuable information. If it weren’t for that, things might have gotten bad. Thanks.”
“…Sure.”
“Gather the squad leaders! I’m getting the general! This is big!”
After letting a little smile break through the grimness, Todd clapped his hands and got everyone’s attention, then headed to the tent in the center of the camp—which was most likely the command tent where strategy meetings were held.
Subaru watched him leave in a furious rush, half in shock.
“…That was quite the reaction. That creature…demon beast…is it really so important? I understand it is a dangerous creature, of course, but…”
“…No, maybe I didn’t fully appreciate its danger, either.”
“Haah…”
Rem sounded, well…suspicious was probably the right word, and Subaru had not quite managed to wrap his head around all of it, either. That was just how out of left field Todd’s reaction had been.
“I guess demon beasts are rare in the empire…”
That was completely unexpected, and honestly something he couldn’t even have imagined.
Demon beasts were inextricably bound up with his new life in another world. Setting the first day aside, demon beasts had played a big part in most of the events that had followed.
Meili’s demon beast mess, Ulgarm, the White Whale battle to fulfill Wilhelm’s wish, and the rabbits trying to consume the Sanctuary.
There had not been demon beasts in Pristella, but Auguria and the Pleiades Watchtower, where they’d gone to deal with the aftermath of Pristella, had been swarming with demon beasts.
And the most memorable demon beast of them all to Subaru—the crimson scorpion.
“Got a little heavy there, but I never really thought of demon beasts as rare.”
He had just seen them like the monsters in a video game RPG—creatures that just sort of appeared everywhere around the world. But apparently this was not the case.
Thinking back on it, it was not like lions or giraffes existed everywhere in his original world, either, so it would probably have been obvious if he had just thought about it.
“This is the first I’ve heard of Lugunica being the demon beast capital…”
Even if it was a powerful creature, just the mention of a single demon beast had been enough to totally change the look on Todd’s face. Judging from that difference in their views of demon beasts, it wasn’t that strange for Lugunica to be called the demon beast capital.
Meili, with her ability to control demon beasts, was probably like something out of a fairy tale.
“Then if she went to a country without that many demon beasts, maybe she would be able to live like a normal girl…”
“Um, pardon me.”
As he thought about Meili and her future, Rem suddenly interrupted, a thoughtful look on her face.
He glanced at her, and she pointed at the table. Looking down, he saw Louis sleeping there, having finished her lunch.
“It seems she is satisfied now that she is full… I resent it, but could I ask you to carry her?”
“You don’t have to be that harsh…”
Grimacing a bit, Subaru reluctantly picked Louis up.
She occasionally clung to him, so he already knew this would be the case, but she was light. She looked like nothing more than a normal girl. And at least in appearance, she really was just a normal girl.
“Are you all right, Rem? My back is free…”
“What do you take me for? I can at least manage myself.”
Rem took up the wooden staff—basically just a thick tree branch she had picked up somewhere—which was leaning against the table. There was cloth wrapped around the grip, turning it into a simple staff. Using that, Rem stood up.
Her steps were still not very steady, but…
“I…am fine.”
“…Really? You don’t have to force yourself. Just rely on me if you need help.”
“I will not. I am fine with this much. Just do not drop her.”
“Haaah. I got it. But just remember, I’m not doing this because I want to, I’m doing it for you.”
“What makes you feel the need to say that…?”
Rem was clearly exasperated by Subaru, who just couldn’t help doing everything he could to make sure no one thought he was actually getting along with Louis. Taking her staff, she slowly followed Subaru.
After taking Rem and Louis back to the tent they were borrowing, Subaru would get back to work cleaning up the tents. —I am curious about Todd and the others, though.
“…Curious about them?”
“…Hmm? Ah, yeah, sort of. I mean, I feel like I’ve been a bit ungrateful to someone I owe big time. And talking about demon beasts might have been unnecessary.”
“…Someone you owe?”
Subaru was feeling down, like he was a villain who kept lying about everything. But having heard those words, Rem then sounded as though she were deep in thought.
“Rem?”
“…No, it is nothing. Please pay me no mind.”
“No, I mean, that’s asking a bit much, after that…”
“Really? Then please do not speak to me.”
“You’re getting further and further away from me! If you were about to say something, then just say it! I’m curious!”
He adjusted his speed to match hers, which made for slow progress. Rem, seemingly annoyed by his doing so, let out a little sigh.
“Umm, that Todd, was it? …I do not have a particularly good impression of him.”
“Huh? Why not? He let us stay here when we didn’t have anything to fall back on, and he protected me from that nasty beast. Not feeling any gratitude at all for that is a little…”
“I did not say I did not feel grateful. I am grateful. However…”
She seemed hesitant to continue. But after a couple seconds of silence, she let out a deep breath and said it.
“It is difficult for me to trust someone who makes no effort to ask someone’s name.”
Subaru’s breath caught in his throat.
He was about to ask her what she was talking about, but then he thought about it.
Someone who makes no effort to ask someone’s name.
Thinking back on it, she’s right.
Todd had not once called Subaru by name. All he said was “you.” And it was natural for him to do this if he did not know Subaru’s name.
“B-but isn’t that just coincidence? You never say my name ei—”
“Subaru Natsuki. Knowing it but not saying it is not the same as never attempting to learn it. That is all.”
“ ”
“Those are my thoughts on the matter. Either way, we have no choice but to rely on them.”
With that, Rem moved past Subaru, who had stopped moving.
Watching her slowly inch forward, Subaru couldn’t say anything.
Unfortunately, he did not have the skill to melt her stubborn heart. And as had become obvious with the demon beast incident, Subaru was not really aware of what constituted common knowledge in this world. He was not even up to snuff in the kingdom, so the empire was as good as uncharted territory.
There might even have been a different significance attached to whether you asked for someone’s name here in Volakia. Maybe it was rude to ask for someone’s name before introducing yourself, or something.
But even if there were a rule like that, Subaru couldn’t explain it to Rem. He could only regret his lack of knowledge and education.
“…How long are you going to keep standing there?”
“Ah…”
Looking up, he saw Rem had turned around from a little further ahead.
She had a mildly impatient look on her face and was glaring at Subaru while resting both her hands on the staff. His heart ached at the sight of her waiting for him like that.
“Gh…”
“Wh… What is it?! Did your fingers…?”
“No, just the thought of you waiting for me, it just…”
“…I shall not say what, but something just went to waste.”
Unamused, Rem turned her back on Subaru again.
Chasing quickly after her, Subaru apologized, then thought back on what she had just said, his eyes narrowed.
He told himself that it was just Rem overthinking things.
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