5
“Come on, Meili. We said we’re sorry.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“I already said I wasn’t trying to be mean, right? C’mon, Meili.”
“Whatever.”
Meili was sitting in the middle of the room hugging one of her dolls and sulking, leaving Subaru and the others who had upset her standing there awkwardly.
Subaru wanted to talk with her, but it would be difficult as long as she remained resistant to any attempts to soothe her.
Julius asked, “Ms. Frederica, did you talk to her beforehand about us coming?”
“No, Master Subaru said it would be a long story so he would talk to her directly himself…”
“Subaru…”
“I didn’t mean for it to be like this! I thought it would be better this way is all! Agh, damn it. If it’s come to this, then…”
Subaru wouldn’t deny that his initial plan had come back to bite him, but he refused to take all the blame. He quickly decided to play his ultimate card. He had been working on it in the carriage ride back from Pristella—
“Look, Meili. I brought you a present from our trip, so can you please cheer up? It’s a new design, a droopy panda stuffed animal.”
“—! Waaah, so cute!”
Seeing the black-and-white stuffed animal Subaru was holding, Meili’s eyes suddenly lit up.
In the past year, Subaru had been helping out with various chores, and his sewing skills had gone up dramatically. He was finally able to make stuffed animals and women’s clothes. Meili’s clothes and all the stuffed animals and dolls she was playing with while locked up had all been handmade by Subaru.
“Phew, making me break out my secret weapon so quickly. Talk about a troublesome princess… What is it?”
“…No, I was just marveling at the depths of your preparation.”
“I think I’m probably more disturbed than anything. Beatrice, then Petra, and now this? You don’t have much of an excuse for this, do you, Natsuki?”
“You’ve got it wrong! I’m not gathering little girls because I want to!”
All of a sudden, the title of little girl tamer was starting to seem a bit too real, but Subaru wanted to assert that it was due to some sort of strange outside force that had nothing to do with him.
Either way, after acquiring the new stuffed animal—a panda that was droopy from the heat—Meili’s mood quickly improved. She was rubbing it against her cheek.
“Ummm, um, yeah! I’ve decided! I’m going to call this one giant bear cat!”
“So a straight-up translation of panda. That gets right to the nature of it, though.”
“…Oh, when did you come in, mister?”
Ignoring Subaru’s comments about her naming sense, Meili cocked her head quizzically. Apparently, she was willing to let bygones be bygones and pretend nothing had happened.
Subaru was perfectly happy to go along with it.
“? What do you mean, Meili? Why did you suddenly—?”
“Yeah, it’s been about a month, hasn’t it?! You weren’t lonely while we were away, were you?”
“Not really? It was Petra who was lonely without you around. You’re so bad, mister… Oh, new faces?”
When Subaru interrupted Emilia, who couldn’t read a room for her life, they narrowly avoided upsetting Meili again. Now mollified, the young girl was busy setting up her dolls on a shelf when she noticed Anastasia and Julius.
Anastasia’s expression softened as she watched how the girl changed so quickly.
“That’s fitting for a girl her age. Compared to Mimi, the way she leads people around is downright cute.”
“…That’s certainly one way to put it. We should be grateful to Mimi.” The lady and her retainer shared a moment of odd understanding. Meanwhile, Julius’s yellow eyes scanned the room. “Still, I imagined a harsher environment for something called a prison… This is quite different from what I had pictured.”
“She is a young girl, and it’s not like we want to make her suffer…but we can’t really just let her out, either, so it’s complicated.”
Emilia’s eyes fell to the floor as she murmured regretfully.
As Julius indicated, the prison—the space where Meili was being kept—allowed her more freedom than even the most low-security jail.
It had originally been a simple stone room, but the walls had been painted bright colors, and there was a simple but comfortable carpet lining the floor. There wasn’t much limiting her movements inside the room, and all the dolls Subaru had made for her were neatly lined up on a shelf. There were even books and toys to keep her entertained.
In other words, it was the sort of place a shut-in could live in peace and comfort. A part of Subaru would have loved to just hole up there himself.
“—But this unique atmosphere is emanating from her.”
Julius scanned the room again, before looking at Meili specifically. She smiled at his observation. The sinister air that emanated from every pore of her body was the reason she was being held there.
“Like I mentioned in the carriage, this girl…Meili was originally an assassin of sorts who was trying to kill Emilia-tan and everyone else here. Make sense so far?”
“Can’t say it does, but let’s hear the rest.”
“Feels like you’re thinking of something else, but whatever. Anyway, she was an assassin. As for the method she used, put simply, she can control demon beasts.”
“Yep, I get along really good with bad animals. Hee-hee.”
Meili puffed out her chest in open pride, but it was a confession that would shock anyone who had not heard it before.
Demon beasts were not the sort of creatures that could be tamed by people. Arguably, most considered them inherently hostile. There were some notable exceptions where a demon beast would obey the one who broke their horns, but Meili was different.
“According to what Mama said, my demon control blessing fills the same role as their horn. So because of that, I get along really well with them.”
The meaning of her claim wasn’t exactly clear. There was no evidence in this world of any research about demon beasts and their natural behavior. Of course, there were people who made a living hunting them, but hunters and researchers naturally had different perspectives.
“A little over a year ago, Meili and one other person attacked us as a team. We managed to stop them, and we’ve been holding her here ever since.”
“Why would you do that? If she’s an enemy, then you should put an end to things properly…”
“It ain’t that simple. But also, from what she said, we were reluctant to just let her go, either.”
“Mama will be mad at me. Elsa died, and I messed up, too, right? If she finds me, I’m sure she’ll kill me. That’s why staying here is the safest.”
Meili was relaxed talking about her situation, but she had a clear grasp of the reality she was in. She had lost her partner and failed the job she had been given. The person who was managing them, most likely the handler of the assassins, would never forgive such a failure.
If she was set free, Meili would most likely end up being executed. She had made her own bed, but that outcome didn’t sit well with Subaru and Emilia.
“It’s not as if that sort of consideration is new for you or Lady Emilia. We are outsiders, so I won’t comment on how you’ve decided to handle matters… But I must ask, who is this mother that she is talking about?”
“Unfortunately, other than that, she was called mother or mama; everything about her was a secret according to Meili. From what she said, they never even saw her real face… It all seems a little too thorough.”
“That asshole Roswaal said when Elsa died, he couldn’t reach his contact anymore…”
Frederica answered Julius’s question while Subaru muttered to himself.
Roswaal was the one who hired Elsa to target Emilia and the rest of the people in the manor. That was the truth behind Emilia’s faction’s greatest scandal.
But from what Roswaal had said, he could no longer contact the person who had been the go-between for Elsa and Meili, so in the end, the true identity of that dangerous figure remained unknown to this day.
“Anyway, that’s Meili’s position. We’re not pampering any more than necessary…I think.”
“That’s reeeally like you to not have confidence on that point, Subaru.”
“I mean, this is what happens when you prioritize conscience, right?!”
Imprisoning a young girl like Meili in a cold, dark dungeon would have been heartrending. If home arrest was enough of a punishment, then there was no need for anything more than that.
That was why Meili was just locked away in this basement.
“…That’s an awfully lenient treatment for someone who tried to kill you. You sure you aren’t just being taken advantage of?”
“I mean, there’s such a thing as innocent malice. And a crime is a crime no matter how old the perpetrator, but…”
Subaru scratched his cheek as he thought.
Glancing at Meili, she was looking at him with her hard-to-read eyes. But he couldn’t help feeling like it was simply the gaze of an uneasy little girl.
“If you give evil orders to someone without any ability to judge for themselves, that makes you the evil one. All the more so if you’re using a child. What’s the point in getting all twisted up and taking it out on the child?”
“That’s a nice coat of whitewash. Do you think that will satisfy any of the people who have been killed by her already?”
“Not at all. And if anyone close to them wanted revenge on Meili, I wouldn’t blame them. I also wouldn’t be this forgiving if she had actually hurt anyone here.”
In the end, Subaru’s opinions and thoughts changed wildly depending on who he happened to meet.
If that meant people thinking he was contradictory or that he didn’t stand for anything, then there was no helping it.
“When I was a kid, I had parents and other adults around who took responsibility for me when I couldn’t. So I guess I’m okay with doing the same for a kid who I know and can get along with.”
“…Thanks for the valuable opinion.”
Anastasia ended the discussion, but she was more agreeing to disagree rather than convinced and accepting.
Of course, Subaru had not expected her to accept his perspective. If he wanted a fair and clean resolution, then Meili would have to be judged as a hard-core criminal and sentenced fittingly.
But as far as Subaru was concerned, that seemed like a shitty solution.
“I…”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t think what you are saying is that strange.”
“…Thanks.”
Even if he was resolved to have his belief denied, it was still a relief to hear Emilia say that.
Reflecting on how self-serving his beliefs were, Subaru turned back to Meili and met her eyes. The reason they had come there wasn’t for a scenic tour of the Roswaal mansion’s dungeon.
“I was wanting to ask you for some help with something. Do you think you can try to answer some questions for me?”
“…Sure. On account of Miss Giant Bear Cat, I’ll go along with it.”
She hugged the droopy panda while nodding. She was hiding her face behind the stuffed animal, not letting them see her reaction to the conversation they had been having, but this time no one commented on it.
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