Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (LN) - Volume 26 - Chapter 4.04

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With Subaru in front, the procession entered the Badheim Jungle.

Their aim was to determine the location of the Shudrak settlement. However, their navigator Subaru was bluffing, and he didn’t know the location of any village at all.

Not only that, but he also had no idea what the true identity of the Shudrak people was.

“ ”

Proceeding through the dense jungle, Subaru kept an eye out for any sort of opening to escape.

There were eighteen soldiers, and while they were lightly armored, they couldn’t move more freely than Subaru could. If he got the opportunity to escape, it should be possible for him to get back to camp before them and escape with Rem. Or rather, that was the only plan he could come up with at the moment.

Fortunately, it was easy to unlock the cell Rem was in from the outside. The important thing was, he needed to find an opportunity to do it, and of course, there was the question of whether Rem would come with him if he opened the cell for her. And then there was Louis.

“If I say we should leave her, Rem will never come with me…”

Due to the extra miasma from Return by Death, Rem’s trust levels had plummeted again. Even if he returned in desperation, Rem wouldn’t welcome him saying they should abandon Louis. She might even just beat him up on the spot and take Louis with her before leaving him there in the camp.

“…Or maybe not, even for her. She can’t move her legs properly, after all.”

Of course, that was only because she couldn’t pull that off with her legs not working right. If her body recovered, she would absolutely do it. I think. And it would be a huge problem if she did.

Which is why he would have to bring Louis along, too, when freeing Rem. Why does it have to be so hard to give this deadweight dragging us down the slip?

And…

“So how long will it take to reach the settlement?”

“…Generally speaking, about two to three hours, I suppose.”

“Two to three hours! That’s pretty quick. If that’s all, then that’s great to hear. It was looking like a yearslong mission on our end.”

Todd’s face softened at the windfall he’d found.

He was wearing light armor and had a hatchet at his waist. Subaru remembered that Todd was on this mission while his fiancée waited for him back home. Even if he had suddenly decided to attack and potentially kill Subaru, it wasn’t like his background or personality had dramatically changed.

Todd had been sent to this jungle on orders as an imperial soldier, and as a result, he was forced to be separated from his loved ones. And it was not just him, but Jamal and the other soldiers, too. They all had their own situations and their own reasons for being on this mission.

In that sense, there was no reason for him to be fighting them. They’d just been unlucky. Several unfortunate events had overlapped. The situation was not great. There were a lot of ways he could have put it, but that was just how it was.

But…

“…I know it’s not for me to say so, but isn’t this a little careless? For you to only bring this many people to the Shudrak village?”

“You think you’re in a position to worry about us, huh? There’s no guarantee your head’ll still be on your shoulders at the end of this. You better work hard to humor us.”

“Jamal, sir…”

“Don’t get friendly with me, you filthy traitor. I’ll cut you to pieces when this is done, and those damn girls, too… General Second-Class Zickle loves him some women; maybe I’ll offer them to him. I bet he’d love that.”

Jamal’s eyes and voice were dangerous; he seemed to genuinely despise Subaru. And since Jamal’s relationship with Rem was also awful, letting him have the deciding vote in this situation could only go terribly.

“C’mon, Jamal… Spare me all that nonsense. It’s exhausting.”

Of course, Todd was the one to soothe Jamal and calm the situation.

“Relax. Don’t forget, if anything we’ve gotta humor him. He’s giving us information to save himself. And in exchange, we have to save him, or else we’ll end up getting attacked all at once by the Shudrak on our way to the village.”

“Bring it. If they try, we can kill them all ourselves,” Jamal shot back impudently.

“Are you serious? I’m not picking a fight I can’t win. And you don’t want to leave your little sister a widow before she’s even married, do you, Big Bro?”

“Gh…”

Subaru was getting to see a side of them that he hadn’t seen before, but unfortunately, it did not make him feel anything. He had already resolved to do what he had to do when it came to them.

The way they met, this whole situation—it was all a stroke of bad luck.

“But Rem is more important to me.”

So he was going to put them in danger.

“—?”

Suddenly, in the back of the exploration squad, a lone soldier made a noise. He turned his head, as if he’d noticed something and was looking for it.

Feeling faintly uneasy and unable to ignore it, he peered into the depths of the jungle, and—

“Ah?”

—met a pair of yellow eyes floating in the darkness.

“Demon beaaaaaaaast!!!”

Immediately, the soldier warned his comrades.

His reaction was perfect. The same could have been said of his comrades, who immediately prepared for combat.

But then the soldier drew his sword and charged at the demon beast.

That could have been considered rash.

“Whoooooa!!!”

Because the opponent the soldier had charged into the jungle to attack was a giant snake—a thirty-foot-long, green-scaled snake demon beast.

It was of the same species as the one Subaru had encountered earlier, and for the soldiers, who hadn’t known there were demon beasts in the jungle, it came as a complete surprise.

But attempting to immediately deal with the danger of the demon beast was both the correct judgment, and yet also a mistake. Because it was not the imperial soldiers the demon beast was after.

Its goal was none other than Subaru Natsuki, who was standing in a massive cloud of miasma.

“ Tsss!!!”

The sword slash struck its scales, and the snake roared while sweeping the soldier aside with its tail. Its yellow eyes gleamed ferociously as it hammered the procession with a tremendous roar.

Having spent a year being a decoy for demon beasts, Subaru was a pro at it.

In most cases, demon beasts would proactively target Subaru, with all his miasma, but only until someone threatened them. It was the same for the giant snake as it had been for the White Whale.

The White Whale had targeted Wilhelm because he’d attacked it, and the snake had turned its fangs on the hunter who had shot it. And Subaru had used that law to his advantage here.

The snake now turned its attention from Subaru to the soldiers in armor, who were directing their malice at the snake.

“Ngh! A demon beast?! No one mentioned anything about that!!!”

Facing down the giant snake’s animosity, Jamal shouted these words while drawing a pair of swords. And surprisingly, he displayed a genuinely high level of skill, boldly attacking the demon beast with swift and agile movements.

However, Subaru wouldn’t support Jamal’s unexpectedly difficult fighting.

Subaru had spent a few hours tromping through the jungle with the soldiers, aiming for this exact outcome.

The soldiers did not know there were demon beasts in the jungle. Demon beasts that were drawn to Subaru by his miasma. He’d used his body’s smell to control demon beasts like always, making him a skilled demon beast master, too.

When I meet up with Meili again, I should challenge her to the title of demon beast master by comparing our stats.

But I don’t have time to worry about that right now.

“I have to…”

…use this opportunity to get back to camp and free Rem.

Just as he was about to start running, he felt a terrifying chill at the nape of his neck. Reacting immediately, he frantically ducked his head.

Just then, a hatchet swung right through where his head had been and landed in the trunk of the tree right next to him.

“Ngh!”

Had he not ducked, Subaru would have died on the spot.

Shuddering at that realization, Subaru turned around and looked at his attacker.

Todd was glaring at him with a furious scowl.

“Ngh!”

Not wanting to be pinned in place by that gaze, Subaru started sprinting through the jungle.

If he stopped, Todd would catch him. And if he was caught, Todd would surely kill him. Those eyes were filled with that sort of powerful determination. A pitch-black resolve.

Subaru felt a different sort of terror than he’d felt when facing Archbishops, demon beasts, or even Reid Astrea.

Those eyes shone with unrelenting tenacity.

“Gah?!”

As he ran, there was a heavy thud in his back.

Although he didn’t turn back, he could tell a knife had buried itself right by his shoulder blade—it looked like the knife had returned to him in an unpleasant way.

Subaru ran desperately, breathing raggedly with the knife still sticking out of his shoulder.

Behind him, the demon beast and the soldiers were still fighting, but Subaru kept running to avoid bumping into any other demon beasts or being caught by Todd.

Desperately, desperately, desperately running and running and running.

Subaru ran—breathing ragged, coughing up blood, tripping any number of times then actually falling, his whole body covered in mud as he continued to flee, desperately trying to get back to the army’s camp.

“Rem… Rem… Re…em…”

His speed had fallen to the point where a child could walk faster than him, and as his parched throat itched and he ran out of oxygen, focus, and endurance, he was fixated on only one thing.