2
“ ghhh?!”
The moment Subaru saw what had happened, a howl rose in the back of his throat.
A terrible heat erupted from the center of his shoulder, and a sharp pain and a tingling sensation spread through him.
The shock of being unexpectedly stabbed was enormous.
“Ghh, gaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
A few seconds later, a clear and obvious cry of pain passed his lips.
He wanted to twist his body, clutch his stabbed shoulder, put pressure on the wound, or do anything about the pain—but he was bound hand and foot, unable even to pull the knife out of his shoulder. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!
“H-hey! What was that scream?!”
Subaru writhed in pain, screaming over and over. And having heard that, Jamal—the rough man with the eye patch—hurried back.
The eyes of the man who had just been kicking Subaru went wide at the sight of Subaru writhing on the floor, bleeding from where the knife was still sticking out of his shoulder.
And…
“Hey—this isn’t what we talked about, Todd! You’re the one who told me to hold back ’cause he had that noble’s knife!”
“Yeah, that was the plan before we knew his identity. When it comes to that, I can see why you’d be mad about how this hasn’t gone the way we’d discussed. My bad.”
“…Meaning, you know who he is now?”
Todd’s answer convinced Jamal to calm down. But Todd just cocked his head.
“No clue,” he said, before putting his foot on Subaru’s body while Subaru writhed in pain. “I didn’t ask who he was. But it’s likely he’s an enemy, so I attacked preemptively.”
“Gh, gyaaaaah!”
“Oh—that looks painful. Not much point making you suffer too much, but are you the type who can take a lot of pain? How would you rate yourself there?”
Todd leaned onto the leg resting on Subaru’s body while talking to him in a calm voice.
But Subaru was lying on the ground, and the increased pressure on him pushed the knife deeper into his shoulder, so amid the unbearable pain he couldn’t come up with a response.
“No response. Defiance. So he is an enemy.”
“…With him rolling around like that, he couldn’t answer even if he wanted to.”
“Hmm? Really? Damn, I don’t really feel much pain, so I always mess this sort of thing up. My bad.”
Todd finally removed his foot from Subaru’s body.
The extra pain faded, but the intermittent agony of having been stabbed was still jabbing at him. Subaru bit down on the pain, which was so difficult to endure, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and tears welling in his eyes.
“And you talk to me about my behavior being bad…”
“—? You beat prisoners and your subordinates just to feel better, right? Don’t get judgy with me. I’m just doing what’s necessary.”
Meanwhile, they continued talking, ignoring Subaru’s situation.
It was hard to imagine from what had happened moments ago, but Jamal was trying to pacify Todd after the latter had stabbed Subaru.
What is happening?
Even considering the fact that mental resources were being diverted to deal with the pain, his thoughts were just not making any sense.
Todd had been so good to them, so why would he…?
“So why did you stab him?”
“When he saw me after I took off his blindfold, the look in his eyes was manipulative. Unease or nervousness, I could understand. Fear or tears would have been fine, too. But looking manipulative is weird, right?”
“Manipulative, huh?”
“If you were kicked awake and then had a blindfold taken off, would you be able to think about using the first person you see? I mean, sure, there are some who naturally do that, but they’re scary, and dealing with them just means trouble. It’s better just to kill them.”
Todd coolly explained his thoughts, and Jamal seemed to be considering what he was saying.
The reason he’d stabbed Subaru was because he’d judged Subaru to be dangerous. And because he thought that the best way to deal with danger was by rendering it powerless.
He had simply made a snap decision for his own safety and acted on it.
What the hell?
“There’s no way you can tell if he was thinking that the moment he woke up, right? He might have woken up while we were carrying him and been listening the whole time.”
“No. I was watching the whole time to see if he was faking it. If he’d regained consciousness at some point along the way, he should have had some basic biological reaction. And if he somehow managed to fool me…”
“Yeah?”
“Then he was feigning sleep in order to deceive us and was planning to manipulate me from the start. That’s even scarier, so it’s better to just kill him.”
Subaru gulped with a shudder, even as he struggled against the pain.
Jamal’s tone softened as he listened to Todd’s explanation. He’d been surprised and angry at first at the fact that Todd had stabbed Subaru, but his anger was gradually dissipating.
Todd got close to people, making a point of being understanding, and then he proposed ideas that were beneficial to them. Once their initial momentum slowed down and they became more open to suggestion, those people would then think about Todd’s proposal and start coming around to it.
That was what was happening with Jamal here, and it was exactly what had happened with Subaru in his previous run.
“I don’t know about the two girls with him, either, but they’re easier to deal with. We should nip this potential complication in the bud.”
“Well, I don’t really mind, but…”
“Or do you want to do it? I stopped you from venting your feelings about that blue-haired girl messing up your men, but you could use something to work through that, right?”
“That’s true.”
Todd’s calm proposal brought a nasty grin to Jamal’s face.
Jamal licked his lips and started giving off a more dangerous, violent sort of aura. But what made Subaru freeze up was the way Todd had said this.
He’d offered Subaru up as a way for Jamal to vent, but also, even taking Subaru out of the picture here, Todd still planned to probe their motives in another way. Using Rem, and Louis.
But they wouldn’t be able to answer, no matter what he asked them. No matter how badly she was tortured, Rem didn’t know anything she could tell him.
“Ngh!”
Gritting his teeth, Subaru used the taste of blood in his mouth as a catalyst, propelling himself forward in search of a way to save Rem.
In just a few more seconds, Jamal’s assault would resume, and Subaru would either be killed by these barbaric attacks because he was no longer needed, or he would be left half dead. And even if Jamal had a conscience and didn’t finish him off, Todd wouldn’t let him live.
Todd had set fire to the jungle, so he would have no qualms about ending Subaru’s life.
Jamal approached, step by step.
And in that moment, Subaru’s thoughts raced, searching for an answer within himself. A way out, some kind of plan, a possibility, a miracle to—
“Try to gimme a nice scream, brat. You’re gonna pay for what your girl d—”
“The Shudrak.”
Just before Jamal could unleash himself on Subaru with that classic thug line, Subaru spoke.
Jamal stopped suddenly, and behind him, Todd’s expression changed, too. Jamal’s surprise was evident, and Todd cocked an eyebrow and chuckled.
“Heh—looks like you know how to gamble.”
“Todd, don’t listen—”
“Now, now, give it a second, Jamal. You can punch and kick him later. But it’s hard to make out what someone says when their throat and mouth are busted up. Let’s listen first.”
“Fuck!”
Suddenly having lost the outlet for his frustrations, Jamal kicked a nearby wooden shelf. Meanwhile, Todd faced Subaru again, and terrifyingly, the smile plastered across his face was the exact same one that Subaru knew.
As Subaru teetered on the precipice between life and death, Todd smiled at Subaru in the same way he had while treating Subaru’s fingers, while having lunch with him, and while praising him for his contributions to burning the jungle.
“So you brought up the Shudrak people without being prompted to. Is it safe to expect you’re about to say something we’d like to hear?”
“…Yeah. I know where the Shudrak people are in the jungle.”
“—! Well, that’s just great!”
Todd clapped, a trace of joy in his smile.
Seeing that reaction, Subaru was sure that the miracle he had dragged out of himself had worked. But it was a double-edged sword, too—since he did not actually know their location.
The man who had given him the knife, and the hunter who had taken aim at him—he thought it likely that one, the other, or perhaps both were connected to the Shudrak, but he had no way to get in contact with them from here, and no clue where exactly they were.
Which meant Subaru was staking his life on a major gamble.
“Why do you know that?”
“…Because I’m one of them.”
“I see—so you really are. Skin color aside, you’ve got the black hair. So I’d suspected that might be the case. The Shudrak are famous for having black hair.”
“ ”
Hearing that, Subaru was greatly relieved and felt a sense of having been saved by luck.
A greasy sweat joined the cold sweat that already coated him from head to toe thanks to the tricky tightrope he was walking. The pain in his shoulder was still growing, and the fingers of his left hand were starting to throb with pain, too.
On top of that, his body had still not recovered from everything that had happened at the Pleiades Watchtower, nor from when he’d chased Rem through the jungle, then escaped into the river.
Holding on as his consciousness wobbled and his mind threatened to give out, he now embarked on an interrogation where any mistake would mean death. All for the sake of survival—all for rescuing Rem.
To return to Emilia and Beatrice, and to reunite Ram and Rem.
“In which case, are you some sort of scout? Are the clothes and knife a disguise so you could blend in with us?”
“…I stole the knife from a traveler. Same for the clothes. And…”
“You tried to slip in to spy on us. That’s a bold plan. It looks like you really did almost drown, and there was always the chance of us not noticing the knife…”
“But it feels more realistic this way, right?”
When Todd pointed out the shoddiness of the supposed plan, Subaru laughed it off as intentional.
He curled his lips, flashing his teeth to make his normal appearance look even nastier and lend his explanation even more credence. Todd considered his claims.
“ ”
The silence was heavy, dragging out Subaru’s suffering.
In truth, Subaru couldn’t say whether his words actually were convincing, or whether his expressions were lending them any weight at all. The pain and the burden on him were so great that he couldn’t really reflect objectively on the situation.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if Todd had brushed off his excuse with a sneer, and he’d then had his head split open as a cherry on top.
Todd’s position being so unreadable just made it all even more nerve-racking.
After a little while…
“Are you selling out your tribe in order to live?”
Todd closed an eye as he asked that question.
Subaru gulped.
He had drawn out the question he had wanted to hear. Now he just had to not mess up the answer.
Selling out his tribe to live. In addition to claiming himself a member of the Shudrak people, he would sell them out.
He couldn’t afford to be caught in that bluff, and he needed to make sure his expression and voice were appropriate.
The voice and expression of a pathetic man who would sell out his tribe for his own survival.
“…Y-yeah, that’s right. I’ll sell them out.”
“ ”
“Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll even lure them out if that’s what you want. Anything. Whatever you want!”
Eyes swimming, cheeks tense, coated in a cold sweat, Subaru begged for his life.
He turned into the sort of person who would beg for his life without concern for anyone else. A selfish act that wouldn’t endear him to anyone.
It was nothing.
He had seen plenty of examples of that in his time here in this world.
Not that I ever expected to see the day when I would use those awful Archbishops as a model.
“What a piece of shit. I don’t like those eyes.”
Seeing Subaru’s act, Jamal grumbled in heartfelt scorn and anger.
At the very least, Subaru’s words had pushed Jamal in a bad direction. But he did not have time to be worrying about Jamal. The person who would decide his fate here was Todd.
Whatever their actual roles and ranks were did not matter here. Not in this moment. So, in accordance with imperial custom, where the strong oppressed the weak…
“…That desperation doesn’t look like a lie.”
And, while Subaru was carefully performing the act of a groveling man, Todd finally spoke.
Those words made Subaru feel like he’d managed to survive, even as he was wary of rejoicing prematurely.
“You serious, Todd?!” Jamal erupted. “The sort of shit who would sell out his own tribe—”
“Look, Jamal, he’s sniveling enough to sell out his tribe for himself, right? He’ll be desperate to make it worth our while. If he doesn’t, he won’t get out of here with the life he cares so much about keeping.”
Todd’s explanation made Jamal swallow his argument.
That was exactly the impression that Subaru had wanted to instill in Todd.
A man who would sell out his comrades to save himself. To make them believe that the information he would provide had value, Subaru needed to lower their opinion of him as much as possible.
On that point, screaming so pathetically when he’d been stabbed had probably worked out in his favor. Though he had a feeling the pain he’d suffered was too great for that knowledge to be much comfort.
“Don’t blame me if anything happens!”
In the end, as Subaru had expected, Jamal was convinced.
“Trust me, trust me,” Todd said, slapping Jamal on the back in reassurance. “Valuing life is just fine. Even it’s just his own.”
Todd looked down at Subaru, who was hunched over like he was groveling.
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