7
—And the doubt that had started to grow in Subaru’s breast was cleared up the next day.
“—Hey, wake up. How long are you going to keep sleeping?”
Subaru was shaken out of sleep by a hand on his shoulder.
“Nn?”
Waking up easily was one Subaru’s few good traits, but waking up yourself and having someone wake you up were two different things. Trying to get his heavy head into motion, he opened his eyes and saw Todd’s face.
“…Todd?”
“Yeah, you look tired. Makes sense, I guess, given you were doing work you aren’t used to. Either way, though, thanks to you…”
“…Subaru Natsuki.”
“Hmm?”
Todd was speaking quickly as Subaru slowly sat up. But when Subaru suddenly said his own name, Todd’s eyes widened slightly. For a second, Todd seemed confused.
“Subaru Natsuki—that’s my name.”
“Hmm… Ahh, did it bother you that I wasn’t calling you by name?”
“Nah, it’s not that, but…I realized I hadn’t introduced myself, and thought I might have done something really rude.”
“Ha-ha, you’re overthinking things. But it’s Subaru Natsuki, huh? I’ll remember that.”
Subaru gave a weak smile and looked down a bit awkwardly, but Todd just clapped him on the shoulder. It came as a huge relief to Subaru that Todd wasn’t acting any different.
Apparently, Rem’s concerns from the previous day had just been her overthinking things, and Subaru’s gloom had been unnecessary, too.
“Messed up there,” Todd muttered to himself—it seemed he’d just forgotten to ask for Subaru’s name before. “Anyway, that’s important, but I’ve got something even bigger to tell you. Thanks to what you mentioned yesterday, the generals have changed strategy.”
“Strategy… For dealing with the jungle?”
“That’s right. Venturing into unexplored jungle is a different story if there are demon beasts crawling around inside it. Our losses would be nothing to sneeze at. So…”
Todd was wearing a big, satisfied smile as he grabbed Subaru’s face in both hands.
“…they’ve decided to wrap up this mission nice and quick.”
“Nice and quick? So you’ll be able to go back to your fiancée, then?”
“Ha-ha, that’s right!” Todd nodded happily.
Subaru cheered, too.
Todd’s joy about having a deployment that was supposed to last for years changed so that he could return home was enormous. Grabbing each other’s hands, Subaru and Todd danced around in the middle of the tent.
And as they were doing that, naturally…
“…Um, could you quiet down a little, please?”
“Ah, sorry, Rem.”
Rem was sitting up and glaring unhappily at the both of them.
“Goodness,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “—? Is there a strange smell?”
“Smell?”
“Yes—one besides your body odor.”
Rem sniffed, then flapped her hand as if trying to clear the air. Subaru was, of course, hurt by the gesture, but Todd quickly apologized.
“Sorry, sorry. I figured it would be fine given the distance, but with a good nose you can tell. But once something’s been decided, it doesn’t feel right to just sit around doing nothing, right?”
“Todd?”
Todd pulled back the flap of their tent and beckoned them outside.
Subaru met Rem’s gaze, then gave her her wooden staff, and went over to the tent entrance. He stood next to Todd, and then he saw it.
“…Huh?”
Dense black smoke was billowing into the sky, and there was a powerful charred smell.
Badheim Jungle—the great jungle that extended as far as the eye could see—was being consumed by brilliant flames that were becoming an inferno.
“This is…”
Rem was struck speechless, too, at the sight of it.
They stood next to each other in shock, watching the burning trees—the jungle inferno, the world ending before their eyes, like a nightmare come to life.
“If demon beasts are lurking in there, there’s no telling how many people we’ll lose. The commander, General Second-Class Zickle, came around once he learned that.”
“ ”
“Thanks to your information, we can wrap this up without having to lose anyone. You’ve been a great help.”
Todd smiled and gave Subaru a smack on the back. Subaru’s lips trembled as that friendly slap landed. His lungs trembled. His throat trembled. And his voice trembled.
While Todd was acting just as friendly as ever, Subaru asked in a quivering voice…
“Wh-why…?”
“Why…what?”
“You said they didn’t want to fight the Shudrak in the jungle, right?”
Todd had said it would be a difficult battle, if it came to that, and that they were hoping to negotiate the enemy’s submission to the emperor. That was what he had told them at lunch the day before. That was why Subaru had been relieved there wouldn’t be a fight.
“This is…”
“Yeah—they didn’t want to fight. There was no way to know how many losses we would suffer. Even I could have died. But that tidbit about the demon beasts was enough to convince the general, so the problem’s settled. The Shudrak won’t be able to go against the emperor this way, either.”
“—!”
“And I’ll be able to get back to my fiancée soon, too. Seriously, you were quite the find. I told the general about you, so I’m sure you’ll receive an award, too. You might even get a second one of those knives,” Todd said jokingly, giving Subaru another slap on the back.
And then, as if remembering something, he added:
“Right—I was told to get back after I’d showed you what you’ve accomplished. Also, you don’t have to worry about cleaning up those tents anymore. We’ll be breaking camp here before too long.”
“—Aah, eh?”
“C’mon, man, get a hold of yourself. Don’t worry the little lady.”
With that final whisper in Subaru’s ear, Todd left, wearing a genuinely well-intentioned smile.
In the end, Subaru couldn’t say anything as Todd went away.
But as quiet as he might have been, and as much as his mind was ravaged by confusion, it did nothing to change the hellish inferno blazing in front of them.
The flames consumed everything; they would scorch every living thing in that area. That giant snake, the masked man who had been camping in the forest, and the hunter who had taken aim at them. They would all be turned to ash.
“Ngh!”
As Subaru gritted his teeth at the impact of that thought, Rem—who was standing beside him—staggered.
He immediately reached out to support her, but the moment he touched her, her body went tense. Looking up at him, her face was filled with terror and rejection.
“Aaah…”
“I know it isn’t your fault… I know. But…”
“ ”
“Please don’t touch me.”
Biting back the fear that threatened to consume her, Rem gently pushed Subaru’s hand away. She didn’t shake him off, nor did she break his hand. She simply brushed him off.
She was saying what she really felt. Rem understood that Subaru had not meant for this to happen. But that was a trifling consolation.
In the face of what had, in fact, happened, it was all too trifling…
“…She’s woken up.”
Rem looked away from Subaru, averting her eyes from the blazing jungle, and turned to Louis, who was inside the tent, to avoid looking at something she did not want to see.
Behind her, Subaru couldn’t respond immediately.
He had not come to terms with what had happened himself. Everything he could think to say felt wrong.
So he couldn’t stop Rem from moving away at a crawl.
He couldn’t stop her…
“—Ah?”
As he bit his lip and gazed at Rem’s back after having been rejected, Subaru suddenly felt something small hit his back.
Turning around to see what it was, he couldn’t see anyone or anything there that might have touched his back. But then he noticed something just barely out of the corner of his eye.
Something that moved when he moved as he kept turning around…
“Uuuh!!”
The next moment, Louis shouted from inside the tent like a child throwing a tantrum.
But there were more important things to deal with than a noisy Archbishop having a fit after waking up, an Archbishop who was like a toddler now. Though it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about her making a fuss.
“Uaah, aaaah!!!”
“Ngh! Be quiet! Everything’s fine! I don’t have time to deal with—”
As he was shouting at Louis, Subaru’s brow furrowed.
Rem was seated on the ground holding Louis, who was still fidgeting and struggling. All of a sudden, her expression changed. It was not the fear or rejection she’d displayed before; it was pure and simple shock. She was looking at Subaru with blue eyes gone wide—no, it wasn’t Subaru she was looking at, but…
“…My back?”
Subaru figured out where she was looking from the angle of her gaze. Twisting his head, Subaru looked down at his back, and finally realized just what it was that had been moving behind him while he was turning.
“Arrow feathers…”
That was what had caught his eye. And of course, the arrow feathers were attached to an arrow, and an arrow quivering in his back meant that…
“…Ah.”
…someone had shot him in the back with an arrow.
He quickly lost his balance, and, unable to stand anymore, toppled over on the spot. He reflexively grabbed at the tent’s entrance as he fell, and the tent tilted as he collapsed.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Rem let out a shrill cry.
Even as Subaru’s mind raced, he had the pointless, out-of-place thought that he had never heard Rem cry out like that before.
“Aaah, uaaah!”
Crawling on all fours, Louis approached Subaru and started roughly shaking him, but he couldn’t muster the voice to yell at her to stop, or the strength to resist.
It was just a single arrow.
“Someone! Someone, please! …I-it will be fine! This wound is…”
Letting go of her staff, Rem came closer, almost stumbling over herself in the process, and staring at his back, she called out desperately.
Rem really is nice.
Even though she’d refused to trust him because of the miasma, even though he had caused this inferno with a single ill-considered comment, she still tried to call for help when Subaru collapsed right in front of her.
I can’t show her my weakness.
It’s just a simple arrow. Show her you can handle it. Just stand up, Subaru Natsuki. You always thought people didn’t have enough guts, dying or getting knocked out by those little arrows in Taiga dramas and period shows and all, didn’t you?
I mean, even if a giant arrow through the chest is different, Rem’s right—this arrow didn’t hit me that hard. It was so soft, it felt like someone brushing against my back, right?
So why is it that…
He vomited as heat welled up inside him.
“Geh, gh, ugh.”
“Ngh! Is it poisoned?”
Rem had come to the same conclusion as him. It was not the impact alone that was killing him. It was the poison that coated the arrowhead.
Subaru couldn’t move his arms or legs, and his head had stopped working, like he had a bad fever. Something spilled from his eyes, from his nose, from his ears, and his whole body started shuddering.
There was an annoying clanging in his ears, and he couldn’t hear Rem’s worried voice. He couldn’t hear Louis’s annoying shouts, either. He’d stopped hearing at all.
Poison. The poison. Someone had… Why? The arrow. The hunter. The forest, burning. Burning. My words… Demon beast, Todd, burning. Rem. Rem. Rem…
His thoughts were jumbled, and he groaned while blowing bubbles of blood out his mouth. Opening bloodshot eyes, he tried to make out Rem’s face, and that was when he noticed it.
—Maybe thirty yards from the tent—not even ten seconds away if he took the distance at a run—was a small shadowy figure, glaring at him.
“ ”
A child. No bigger than Louis.
A child with a nasty look on her face—no, it wasn’t a nasty look. She was glaring at him. Glaring at him, eyes clouded with hate. She clearly wanted him dead.
Her hair and face were covered in soot, and she held a small bow.
She had, by her hands, with her own will, shot a poison arrow at Subaru.
“ ”
It was natural she would hate him.
It was natural she would want to kill him.
What he caused had invited fate to set her on a course of hatred.
Then this was just Subaru’s just deserts…
“No! Wait! Please wait! Wait…”
He could hear a desperate voice in his ears.
I’d love to wait. I’d love to just stop here. I’d love to hold hands and smile.
But I can’t do that.
I can’t do anything.
Blowing out more bloody spittle, spasming, with his eyes rolled back into his head, Subaru passed out, vomiting his melting internal organs as he fell into shadow.
“Wai…!”
The hideous, unthinking fool slipped into darkness.
He slipped…
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