Re:Zero: Emilia Camp Short Stories - Chapter 4

Emilia And Ram’s Bumpy Master-Servant Relationship

“Ugeh…”

The moment the girl entered the guest room without even knocking, she ended up raising her voice at the sight that awaited her within.

The girl possessed sweet, lovely features. Sporting short, uniform hair, her almond eyes shone a light crimson. But contrary to her lovely appearance, the girl seemed to have a sharp, intellectual aura about her.

But even that aura dissipated as she grimaced at the unpleasant sight before her.

“―That voice, is that you, Ram? Sorry to surprise you.”

The next voice did not come from the girl ― From Ram, it came from a person who was already in the room beforehand.

This voice was as clear as a silver bell, and merely hearing it would shake the listener’s heart for better or for worse. But this time around, the voice sounded strangely confined as it reverberated through the room. This was only natural.

The reason being that the owner of the voice was in this room with a bucket completely covering their head.

“… What is this, Emilia-sama. To cover your head with a bucket in a place like this.”

“Fufufu, can you not tell just by looking?”

“I can only imagine that this is Barusu’s fault.”

“You’re kind of acting like this is reeeally weird? Also, Subaru does have something to do with this whole bucket thing, but I’m keeping this secret from him. Please keep quiet about this.”

“Barusu has something to do with this, but it’s a secret from him…? That’s rather complicated, Emilia-sama.”

With the bucket still on her head, Emilia was sitting in a chair in the middle of the guest room. Ram’s conversation with her while unable to even see her face failed to touch on the heart of the matter, and was thus going nowhere.

“Hmm, Alright, I’ll explain. Off you go.”

Perhaps having noticed Ram’s frustration, Emilia slowly took her bucket off.

As she did so, her long, glistening silver hair spilled out of the bucket. This hair which was alluring as moonlight itself flowed down her back as she blinked and set her amethyst eyes on Ram.

All the while, she held the bucket to her chest as if it was precious to her. Ram knit her brows.

“As far as Ram remembers, you were not afflicted with a perverse obsession with buckets.”

“Yeah, it’s not like I’m particularly crazy about buckets either. But this bucket right here is my sensei, so that’s why things ended up like this.”

“――”

She was awaiting a normal response, so this answer that made her head hurt all the more caused Ram to narrow her eyes. In response to this reaction, Emilia hurriedly waved her hands,

“Ah, no, that’s not it! Umm, I’d better explain from the start. Do you remember what happened this afternoon? Not that I really want you to…”

“Are you referring to that singing that sounded like a bird’s death throes?”

“T-That’s… What I’m talking about, yeah, right…”

When Ram bluntly got right to the point, Emilia hung her head with a sad smile.

As Ram cast a sidelong glance at Emilia’s disheartened state, the events of several hours ago replayed in her mind. This was during their short break after they had finished the first stage of work in the mansion, and everyone had some free time to do as they pleased. 

Ram was walking around the mansion looking for her much beloved little sister when she heard it, a completely bizarre voice entered her ears when she passed by the dining room. Suspecting that this voice that sounded very much like a bird being strangled to death was yet another one of her colleague Subaru’s pranks, Ram barged into the room, but―

“But what I actually found within that room was your unfortunate figure sincerely attempting to sing.”

“Don’t call it unfortunate! Although I will admit that that was kind of horrible.”

“Kind of.”

“Reeeeally horrible! Are you happy now? You’re so mean, Ram! Beh―!”

Tormented by a strange sense of stubbornness, Emilia’s attitude turned completely sullen. However, Ram tilted her head, not feeling the sense of disappointment she had expected from this response.

Ram had assumed that Emilia who knew of her tone deafness was someone who was easily influenced.

“Despite this, you are not discouraged. Does this mean you’ve suddenly become defiant in this short time?”

“I don’t know what kind of impression you have of me, but I haven’t become defiant or discouraged or anything! Nor do I even have time for that sort of thing, I’m burning up!”

“Heeh, is that right.”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m burning up. I’m seeeeeriously on fire.”

In response to Ram’s indifferent reply, Emilia’s eyes sparkled as she repeated herself any number of times. Her expression was very clearly saying, ‘Ask me what I’m so excited about, ask me, ask me’, causing Ram to sigh.

“Emilia-sama, it truly does seem to me that Barusu has had a hand in this.”

“I don’t think that’s the case, though…”

“… Well then, for what reason exactly are you burning up?”

“Ah, you want to know? Fufu, and with that I shall return to the tale of the bucket. This must be quite the shock, isn’t that right?”

“I suppose so, it would be absurd if the bucket had no relation to this.”

As Emilia showed off the bucket she was holding, Ram momentarily felt relieved that they were finally returning to the topic at hand. Emilia’s fingers gently stroked the bucket’s surface as she continued,

“Subaru told me about this. That there are some ways to correct t-tone… Deafness.”

“Please continue without shame.”

“And then, he said the first step was to put a bucket over my head to confirm my tone deafness. It thought that was another one of his pranks at first, but that wasn’t the case at all. Subaru was seriously thinking about how to help me, so I figured I should do my best as well.”

Her enthusiasm was splendid, but the connection between her tone deafness and this bucket remained unclear. Although reflecting on their conversation thus far, Ram could hazard a guess as to what was going on here.

“You wanna know what the connection is between tone deafness and buckets?”

“Yes, absolutely. When you have a bucket over your head, the sound of your voice reverberating within would allow you to comprehend the extent of your tone deafness. If there exists some other explanation, please do elaborate.”

“… Ram, could it be that you actually knew what buckets could do all along?”

“Well, Ram has been using buckets for quite some time after all.”

The contents of their conversation were utterly meaningless and thus her responses became increasingly perfunctory as well.

As Ram boldly boasted in her formal manner, Emilia’s attitude seemed to be one of comprehension, “I see.” This straightforward reaction made Ram feel just a little uneasy.

―From Ram’s perspective, her relationship with Emilia posed some unusual difficulties.

It went without saying that to Ram, her one and only master for life was none other than Roswaal. Her body, mind, and soul, everything she had― Barring her love for her little sister, it would be no exaggeration to say she devoted all of herself to him.

And Emilia was absolutely indispensable to Roswaal’s plans. Consequently, Roswaal welcomed her into his mansion and treated her as someone even higher than himself.

Of course, Roswaal had ordered Ram and Rem to follow his example, but―

“… She’s completely unreliable.”

That was the sort of impression Ram had of Emilia.

When she accompanied her to the capital, she separated from Ram and ended up having the insignia that qualified her as a royal selection candidate stolen from her. Such incidents caused Ram’s wariness to steadily build up over the four months they’d known each other.

At the very least, Emilia was not someone Ram felt like she could count on just like that. She was also completely lacking in refinement, there was a limit to how flawed she could be as a person.

“So you have decided to practice on your own in order to correct your tone deafness, Emilia-sama? And moreover, at this hour.”

“Umm, That’s how… It is. I mean, if I were to sing in my room it would probably be an inconvenience to everyone else. There’s no one around this part of the building, so I thought it would be fine to sing here.”

“Meaning you did not expect Ram to come looking around here. Ram does not do this very frequently, however.”

Showing consideration in her own way, Emilia had decided to move elsewhere and Ram had ended up happening upon her, that appeared to be the gist of it. Perhaps one could call this a false alarm. All the more so now that she had discovered that Emilia was merely practicing to correct her tone deafness.

“Although I do not think this is something one ought to go as far as to cut into their sleeping hours for.”

“Even I can’t say anything in response to that. But I ended up bothering Subaru and the others a whoooole lot today, so… I want to do this properly.”

“――”

“The truth is that the reason everyone went along with my singing practice was for my sake, isn’t that right. Not to correct my tone deafness, but to, umm… How do I put this?”

“To relax, is it?”

“Right, to relax. It was reeeeally fun, but in all that fun the tension ended up leaving me, so I wonder if that was how it was.”

Emilia donned a faint smile as she spoke, Ram who was an outsider could not give her an accurate answer.

However, she could make a guess.

The reason Roswaal let Emilia have some time to enjoy herself even though she should have been studying every single day in preparation for the royal selection ― Everyone in the mansion knew that Emilia had been pushing herself too hard these past several days, and that willpower of hers was going nowhere.

Simply put, Subaru and Roswaal were working together in secret in order to change Emilia’s mood.

“Even though he is Barusu, to think he had fun conspiring with Roswaal-sama, what a crafty little…”

“Ram? Your eyes kind of look super fierce right about now, are you okay?”

“Yes, I am fine. I merely lost my cool for a moment. Well then…”

Having noticed the consideration of those around her, Emilia whose mood should have changed was now staying up late to practice singing. This was completely backwards, or rather, Ram got the feeling that their original objective was a failure.

As Ram thought such things, Emilia placed a finger on her lip and smiled in response.

“It’s alright. Everyone came together to teach me how to relax properly. Now, while I’ll be sure to remember that, I also want to be able to sing.”

“Although it seems to me that having you sing was secondary to them.”

“I know that. But I want both. Is it wrong to say that?”

As Emilia tilted her head, her attitude displayed the simple desire to overcome her shortcomings, and Ram assented having understood this. Emilia really was a little different after all.

“Do you not think you have become greedier than you used to be, Emilia-sama?”

“Don’t you know, Ram? That I’m actually trying to become the ruler of this country.”

Compared to the scale of this goal of hers, most other things were hardly even worth mentioning. This response of hers caused Ram to smile.

This was not a wry smile nor was it one of ridicule, it was a rare smile from the bottom of her heart.

“Ah, you’re smiling. Did I say something funny?”

“I wonder? It’s just, Ram’s opinion of you has changed ever so slightly.”

“Really? That makes me pretty happy then.”

Those words meant that Ram was looking down on her before, but Emilia decided to ignore that part and accepted it wholeheartedly.

Honest and easily deceived, one might think she would be easy to manipulate as a puppet. But due to her flaws, she could also do things that were completely unexpected. This girl’s nature was truly bothersome.

However―

“But to earnestly give it your all despite your flaws… I cannot say I dislike it.”

That nature was something Ram always saw in her darling other half.

No matter how different they were from her beloved little sister, Ram could not hate anyone who strived to overcome their shortcomings. Because that was a feeling Ram could not understand.

“Did you say something just now?”

Emilia looked puzzled, she could not quite catch Ram’s murmur which was as quiet as a whisper. Meeting her gaze, Ram shrugged slightly.

“Yes, I did say something. I was wondering if your rigorous training has produced any results, Emilia-sama.”

“Mm, I can’t overlook what you just said. Very well. You came at exactly the right time, so listen closely. The truth is I improved quite a bit in the afternoon alone. But I’ve advanced even further beyond that now!”

“Well then, please give it your all.”

Extending her hand towards Emilia who was full of vigor, Ram sat down on the guest room’s unused bed. This ruffled the sheets slightly, but it was Subaru who would have to fix them tomorrow. No problem.

“La, la, lalala―”

Receiving Ram’s signal and her gaze, Emilia looked just a little tense as she started singing. Her voice was slightly too shrill when she started, but it settled down soon enough. She was actually singing.

Considering she started with a sound that could be described as a bird’s death throes, her current advancement could be considered a historic achievement.

“――”

She started burning up as she sang and swayed her shoulders as she became increasingly engrossed in her singing. Even Ram who was listening intently ended up closing her eyes and devoting herself to the song before she knew it. 

‘The Sword Demon’s Love Song’ was an extremely popular love song passed down in the kingdom for generations. Liliana, a traveling minstrel who had once stopped by the mansion, had performed it so well that even Ram was secretly taken in. Of course, Emilia’s singing was still lacking a number of ways compared to hers. She still made mistakes that stood out. But it wasn’t bad.

“――”

When the song approached its end, it was as if the scenes the lyrics described were manifesting in her closed eyes. Realizing just how deeply absorbed she was in this song, Ram smiled wryly.

And with that smile still on her face, the song came to a close, and Emilia turned to look at Ram.

“That is all. Your impressions, please.”

“Yes… Nine points.”

“Eh! You mean out of nine?”

“You’re quite audacious all of a sudden. I mean out of a hundred, of course.”

This scathing appraisal caused Emilia to drop her shoulders in dejection. However, she immediately clenched her fists tightly and looked up.

“But I’ve gotten a little better, right? How many points would I have gotten when I first started?”

“It is rather absurd that you think you would get any points at all.”

“It was that bad?!”

To begin with, even calling it singing would be an insult to the concept of songs. That was how bad it was. So compared to that, Emilia’s current level definitely got a passing grade.

“But I’m sure a passing grade is not enough to satisfy you.”

“I suppose so. I wanna work harder and become better. Also, it looks like I’m still no good with songs besides the Sword Demon’s Love Song after all…”

Scratching her cheek in an embarrassed manner, Emilia pointed out her flaws. Ram sighed at Emilia’s ambition and the enthusiasm that came with it.

At this rate, this singing practice that was supposed to be a change of pace for her might once again cause her to overexert herself, putting them back at square one.

“Very well, then let us do this every other day. You shall practice here only on a fixed schedule. Ram shall free up some time as well.”

“… You’ll do this with me? Ram, with me?”

“It would be worrisome if there wasn’t someone watching over you.”

This was what Ram truly felt, of course she also had the ulterior motive of doing it for Roswaal’s sake.

But even setting that aside ― The song wasn’t bad, she thought.

“Thank you, Ram. I’ll do my best with you and bucket-sensei!”

“Please do not place Ram on the same level as that bucket.”

And with this bumpy conclusion, it was decided that for now, these nightly practice sessions would continue.