Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (LN) - Volume SS2 - Chapter 5.04

4

“ Magicking season?”

Subaru craned his neck, confused by the unfamiliar term.

They had moved to the Roswaal Manor dining hall, and all residents were present. Including the sleepy-headed Ram and the reluctantly present Beatrice, they all sat around the table under which Puck sat.

Emilia told them the truth—that Puck was the source of the extreme cold—and when she was asked what the cause was, the unfamiliar term magicking season was given.

“What’s magicking season? Are you sure you don’t mean mating season?”

“Of course I don’t have a mating season. What do you take me for, some common animal? Rude!”

“Yeah, no comment…for a number of reasons.”

As Puck—the spitting image of a cat—washed his face, Subaru turned his perplexed eyes on the rest of the table. It was Rem who raised a hand to answer.

Given yesterday’s dramatic drop in temperature, Rem had changed into her ice season maid’s uniform that morning. The uniform didn’t expose nearly as much skin, but the sight of her still-short skirt and bare legs beneath it gave Subaru the chills. Even in another world, it still baffled him what sort of thought process led girls to wear skirts in the wintertime.

“Magicking season is a phenomenon that happens periodically only to beings with powerful magic,” Rem explained. “Since a magic’s strength is determined by the Odo—the core essence of magic—it truly is restrictive.”

“What was Odo again—it’s, like, not the same as a Gate or mana?”

As far as Subaru knew, mana was the source of magic in this world. The organ that circulated mana through the body was called a Gate, and the Gate connected directly with a magic user’s attributes.

Incidentally, Subaru’s attributes as a magic user were mediocre. Moreover, since he had strained his Gate, he was strictly forbidden from using magic.

“So from what you’re saying, Rem, Odo is more fundamental than mana or your Gate, right?”

“—For a servant of Master Roswaal, your extreme lack of knowledge is downright criminal.” Ram gave a blatant sigh at Subaru’s mediocre knowledge of magic. She sat beside Rem, dressed in thicker layers. Narrowing her eyes, she continued, “If you don’t know what Odo is, I doubt you even have any common sense. Your shallowness has reached new heights, Barusu.”

“Maybe it’s just the cold, but Big Sis sure sounds extra icy today.”

Her already sharp tongue stung even harder in the bitter cold. Hugging her younger twin’s arm for warmth, Ram breathed out white as she insulted Subaru. But the cute earmuffs she wore on her head took the bite out of her bark.

“Turns out my theory about you the other day was right, Big Sis—you don’t like the cold.”

“Everyone has strong points and weaknesses—it’s only a subjective problem. And I don’t approach life with such a narrow-minded perspective. Keep your mouth shut, simpleton. Just die already.”

“The last part was carelessly scathing!”

“This is nothing new, but whenever I leave things to you lot, nothing ever gets done, I suppose.”

Unable to stand Ram’s grumpiness and Subaru’s quippiness despite the cold, Beatrice joined the conversation. Wearing her usual dress, she pointed a finger at Subaru and said, “Fine, I’ll just have to explain it myself. Odo is the nucleus of life, I suppose… It is the source of magic found in every spirit, human, and demon beast. Odo is like a vessel for magic, and it’s also an organ that can store magic brought in through a Gate.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, a vessel that stores mana. Continue.”

“An irritating response, I suppose… Anyway, the more superior the Odo, the more mana it can handle. However, every vessel has its storage limit, I suppose. And if an Odo exceeds its capacity, the mana spills out… Before that happens, it must be released.”

“You’ve gotta release it before your guts explode…so it’s kinda like constipation?”

“There are better comparisons, I suppose!”

When Subaru interpreted Beatrice’s explanation to suit him, she was more than resentful. But thanks to her, he now had a general idea of what had caused the problem.

“So if I’m understanding you correctly—Puck has to fart out all the pent-up mana inside him, and that’s what’s causing the extreme cold?”

“Yeah…that’s basically it. Sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Now that the truth was out in the open, Emilia hung her head in shame. As her kitty’s guardian, his bad behavior was her responsibility. With a sympathetic look to her, Subaru turned to the war criminal—Puck—and said, “What an inconsiderate way to relieve constipation… So is this a recurring thing?”

“It happens about once a year. When I lived in the forest with Lia, I was able to release it moderately, but ever since we moved here, I’ve been behaving so politely that I’m paying the price now. Tee-hee.”

“Tee-hee, my ass.” Subaru rolled his eyes at the giggling cat, folded his arms, and continued. “Anyway, releasing your, um, magic is really important, so no complaints there. But why have the side effects dramatically amplified over the past three days? There’s gotta be some other way.”

“Hmmm—at first, I released it gradually so the effects would be minimal. But since I had way more mana to expel than usual, and since nobody was complaining about the cold, I thought to myself—Huh, maybe I can go a little harder? Yeah, let’s do it! Everyone’s more gullible than I thought!—aaand here we are.”

“Could you be any sloppier?!”

What Subaru assumed was some sort of inescapable circumstance turned out to be the consequence of simple negligence. Knowing that the bottomless cold suffocating the mansion resulted from Puck’s hubris further fueled Subaru’s discontent.

“Magicking season is an inextricable matter for spirits as great as my brother,” Beatrice explained. “On the grounds that he is so cute and fluffy, we should stop making such a fuss, I suppose—sniff-sniff.”

“You’re just as snotty as I am! —And hey, I just realized something: You sneakily put up barriers to contain the cold because you didn’t want your precious brother to get caught. Am I wrong? Gimme the truth!”

“Squeeeeeakle! I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your nose squeaked!”

Even with her nose bright red from the cold, Beatrice refused to turn on Puck. While Subaru sighed in frustration over what to do about her, Emilia diplomatically cut in.

“Please, just listen—Puck and I both feel really sorry about what happened. But Puck’s magicking season should be over very soon…isn’t that right, Puck?”

“Yup. If I keep up the same pace for two more days, that’ll be more than enough.”

“But the rest of us have already had more than enough!” Subaru yelled. “If it gets any colder, you’ll find me and Ram frozen to death, our corpses rolling down the hall tomorrow morning!”

Considering he was the instigator, Puck wasn’t giving the situation the gravity it deserved. He didn’t seem to feel the cold, so the whole thing struck him as nothing worth fretting about.

“Right, I wasn’t worried about Puck because he’s a spirit and has that fur coat, but Emilia-tan, aren’t you cold in that outfit? I wanna see you in a cute fur coat.”

Though he let his ulterior motive slip out at the end, Subaru said most of that out of concern for Emilia’s well-being. Emilia was dressed in her usual light clothing despite the extreme cold.

Subaru’s question made Emilia look down with even more guilt as she said, “Um, well, Puck and I are bound together in a covenant, right? So I can protect myself from the effects of his magic. That’s why—this cold—um—I’m okay…”

Emilia felt so terrible that she seemed to shrink smaller and smaller with each word. Apparently, she felt guilty in part because she was unaffected. Her father figure’s antics, causing a panic and sparing only her, surely must have tortured her conscience.

“Aren’t you ashamed to cause your daughter so much trouble?” Subaru scolded the spirit. “C’mon, let’s come up with a solution.”

“Hey, I do feel bad about it, okay? Even I wish there were some other way to do this. Got any ideas? It has to be something that uses a lot of mana.”

“Can’t you just expel a blast of powerful magic up into the sky or something?”

“Oh, so you’re giving me your consent, right? I’m allowed to bring about the apocalypse—”

“Um, no?!”

“Only kidding,” Puck sang.

Bargaining cataclysms and apocalypses wasn’t exactly the wisest thing to joke about. Worrying that an accidental yes would usher in an epic calamity, Subaru decided to keep his lighthearted quips at bay for a while.

“But this cold is a problem—things aren’t getting done around the house,” Rem lamented. “Ram’s productivity has fallen exponentially during the past three days.”

“Well, obviously it’s gonna fall to nothing if she can’t even get out of bed,” Subaru scoffed. “So are spirits the only creatures who have magicking season? What about other powerful magic users…like Rozchi and Beako?”

If you expanded the definition of “powerful magic users,” Beatrice and Roswaal would be no exception. The conversation thrust upon them, Roswaal shrugged his shoulders, and Beatrice tugged on her curls.

“Well, I use magic on a daily basis and maaaanage it that way,” Roswaal said. “Since I also use magic for my work, my Odo always has plenty of room to spare.”

“Why do you need Ram for your daily wor—you know, never mind. I don’t wanna know.”

Roswaal shot Ram a sideways glance. She blushed and looked down. The sketchy and inappropriate relationship between the master of the house and his maid felt uncomfortably raw to Subaru when he was this close to it.

“I regulate my mana well enough managing the Archive and using my Passage, I suppose,” Beatrice said. “Oh, right, and blasting away a certain annoying human has helped recently, too.”

“Yes, yes, that’s nice, dear.” Ignoring the baiting jab from the puffed-up little girl, Subaru turned next to Emilia and Rem. “Then what about you girls? Do you have mating—er, I mean, magicking season?”

“Well, no,” Rem said. “Magicking season requires a particularly powerful magic that not very many beings possess…”

Emilia chimed in. “I’m too much of a magic dunce to have a magicking season—oh, then again, I have a lot of experience with it because of Puck. So I really am sorry about this. I should have known better…”

“Dang, Emilia-tan, you’re really on a self-deprecating kick today!”

Her honest and diligent personality was having an adverse effect for once. So Subaru had no recourse but to turn to the instigator, who showed no remorse in the little girl’s arms, and lend him a hand.

“Okay. Let’s fill our bellies with good energy and find a solution. First, here’s a question—when was the last time you really got to use magic to your heart’s content?”

“I guess that would have to be when I fought that dark girl in the capital. I almost used up all my mana then.”

“All the good energy is slipping out of my belly!”

Subaru’s memory of the Bowel Hunter killing him brought the pain of his month-old belly wound searing back to the surface. There was no way in hell he could bring that psycho back to the mansion just to help Puck blow off a little magic steam.

“Well, if that won’t work, then it would have to be the time Roswaal came to the forest to get Lia. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I have a feeling we brawled hard that day.”

“Ohhh, right. That was most certainly very intense. That just maaay be the first time I’ve ever fought so hard.”

“Well, you just showed up without an appointment, so I freaked out,” Puck chuckled.

“Well, we did clash in earnest for a full day and niiight.”

The joking atmosphere of the pair was shadowed by the fact that their fight was no doubt uniquely dangerous. If Roswaal and Puck really went at it for real, as they implied, they’d have an apocalypse on their hands.

“Emilia-tan—what actually happened?”

“I heard they had to redraw maps after the fight was over…”

“Okay, stop! I’m putting a moratorium on the whole friends-play-mortal-enemies trope!”

“But Subaruuuu…” Puck whined.

“Don’t you ‘but Subaruuu’ me! Stop altering topography with your fights! Apologize to Ino Tadataka at once!”

“I’m sorry, Mister Tadataka! There, that okay?”

As Puck apologized to Japan’s first great mapmaker, Subaru racked his brain over the dilemma, which proved to be far more arduous than he had imagined. Ideally, Emilia would help out since she had more experience with the matter. However—

“When Puck and I lived in the forest, there just wasn’t anybody around to bother, so I didn’t think magicking season was that big a problem. But that naïveté got us in trouble…”

“And the past three days is the solution you came up with… I can sympathize with you wanting to handle the problem by yourself, Emilia-tan, but I want to say it’s okay to ask others for help…especially me.”

Subaru rather liked being needed by someone—especially if that someone was Emilia. Followed by Rem, sometimes Ram…and Beatrice, Puck, and Roswaal at times, while we’re at it. Then there are the villagers and the children. Okay, Subaru actually liked lots of people needing him.

For better or worse, he knew many people in this world now, and he wanted to cherish the bond that connected them.

“With the world on the brink of destruction, we embark on a quest to defeat Demon Lord Puck—that would just be too much work…so if we want a more peaceful, permanent solution…yes, that’s our only choice…”

Emilia’s eyes shot open. “Subaru—did you get some crazy idea again?”

“That’s our Subaru,” Rem nodded. “I am in awe.”

“Don’t get too excited, ladies!”

With a sheepish grin at Emilia and Rem, who had jumped the gun, Subaru walked over to the dining hall window, which was covered in a thick blanket of fog by then. He rubbed the window with his hand and looked at the mansion garden.

“Beako—am I correct in saying that the cold is confined to the mansion thanks to your barriers?”

“Yes, I suppose. The poor trees and flowerbeds would suffer if the cold escaped outside this building. So I’ve erected a moderate barrier around the mansion perimeter.”

“You spared the garden, eh? That’s honestly very touching. Now—about the barrier, can you still tweak the perimeter? If so, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

“I could always try. But what do you want to do, I wonder?”

“Hmf-hmf-hmf! What else? I’ve got an idea that will make this magicking season funner, funnier, and fantastic-er than ever.”

With one hand still on the window, Subaru snapped the fingers of his opposite hand and pointed to the ceiling. As everyone else’s eyes widened at the spectacle, Roswaal alone smirked and winked. With Subaru reflecting in his golden eye, he said, “Well, I’ve no objection to a little fun. That necromancy you showed us the other day was immeeeensely interesting. So—what is it you have in mind for my mansion and the great spirit Puck?”

“In my hometown of Hokkaido—well, in a broad sense, and there should probably be an asterisk next to ‘hometown’—anyway, we’ve got a festival. And I wanna use copious amounts of Puck’s pent-up magic to have a little bit of fun.”

In Subaru’s brain was an image of a winter wonderland festival he had only seen on TV. A magnificent festival in a kingdom of white. Borrowing the name from his ancestors, the festival was called—

“I hereby call the first annual Chitty-Chitty—Roswaal Manor Snow Festival to order!”

As Subaru posed triumphantly, thumb pointed and teeth gleaming, everyone else in the room held their breaths.

“Chitty-Chitty Snow Festival…”

Emilia tilted her head in thought as she repeated the name of the festival. And her verdict—

“Are you sure we need the ‘Chitty-Chitty’ part?”

And so—letting that one part of the name go—the festival committee began to work out the details of the event.