CHAPTER 4
TRUST ON THE SANDS
1
—Subaru was falling deep, deep into a rift, unable to reach anything.
“ ”
The light in the distance grew smaller and smaller. Until it disappeared.
Like sand slipping through fingers.
Like falling into a deep, deep hole from which there was no return—
“—How long are you going to keep sleeping? Wake up already, Barusu.”
“Prgaka?!”
Something sharp jabbed into his side, causing him to yelp from the shock.
Subaru sat up, breathing in a lungful of the sand that was in the air in the process and then coughing violently.
“Ugh! Bleh, bleh! Kah! Bleh! What? What happened…whoa?!”
Spitting out the sand, he struggled to stand up, but when he stepped down, his foot slipped, and he had to balance himself with his hand. But that hand sunk as well, and his face crashed into a mound of sand.
“Ugh! Gahh! Bleh!”
“…Haven’t had enough sand to eat yet? Your vulgarity knows no bounds.”
“Don’t say it like I’m snacking on sand because I’m feeling a little peckish…”
Firing back at the merciless insult, Subaru raised his head while coughing up sand again. This time he was more careful, making sure not to slip into the sand again while standing up.
“This is…”
“This low a temperature without a breeze… It’s likely somewhere belowground.”
As he looked around the darkness surrounding them, a lantern glowing with a white light—an emergency lantern with ragmite ore inside it—was suddenly thrust in front of him.
Taking the handle, he could finally clearly see the other person with him.
“—Ram?”
“Who else would it be? And don’t say something stupid like Rem.”
“You look alike, but the aura you exude is similar and yet utterly different… How is your body doing? The exhaustion from using clairvoyance, and there was blood seeping out of your eye, too…”
“Hah! How awfully gentlemanly of you. But save your concerns for cute little Ram for later.”
Ram pointed with her chin at their surroundings. Following her lead, Subaru pointed the lantern around them and gulped when he saw the situation.
They were in a cave. It was cool inside, and there was a high ceiling overhead. It was like a maze of sand.
“You were saying it was underground before…”
“If Lady Beatrice’s words before we were separated are to be believed, then the cause was the rift in space.”
“So we were sent flying through a warp…and separated? Right, what about everyone else?”
Listening to Ram’s calm analysis, Subaru was finally able to catch back up to the situation he was in. Swinging the lantern left and right, he looked for anyone else nearby.
“As I said, we’ve been separated. The effect of your magic nullifying the deception of the dunes. I cannot say whether this is the correct path to the tower or if we have fallen into a timeless interdimensional rift.”
“How can you be so calm?! And why are the two of us together…?”
“You’re asking me that?”
Subaru’s face went pale, and he held his breath when he heard her calm voice.
He remembered what had just happened, Beatrice shouting and the world shattering around him. In that moment, Subaru had reflexively held on to Ram.
And then the party had been swallowed up by the rift in the sky, and when he woke up—
“The two of us were here together…”
“I can’t see Lady Emilia or Lady Beatrice… You really stepped in it this time.”
“This isn’t really the time for that! We need to meet up with everyone… No! Rem!”
“ ”
“It’s fine if she ended up with someone else, but if she got separated…”
Emilia and Julius were already the group’s main fighting power. They wouldn’t have a problem. Beatrice and Meili had their own strengths and should be able to find some way to stay alive. Anastasia/Foxidna probably had some ace up her sleeve like when she had to deal with Lust in Pristella.
—But Rem, who could only sleep, was different.
“We have to link up with everyone else, too, but priority one is finding Rem! We can’t just leave her all alone in a place like this. That’s not okay. That’s not okay at all…!”
“…Barusu…”
“Damn it. This is my fault. I just had to bring her along, and because of that, she…Rem…”
“Barusu, calm down. Getting anxious now won’t—”
“Calm down? How the hell do you expect me to calm down?! Are you fine with Rem just being alone in danger?!”
“—Of course not!”
As Subaru panicked and imagined the worst-case scenario, Ram grabbed him by the chest and shouted at him, then pushed him forcefully up against a wall until looking him in the eye from right up in his face.
“—”
Subaru dropped the lantern in the shuffle, and it was lighting Ram’s white face from the side. There was rage in her pink eye—no, not anger. An anxiety and distress that she couldn’t fully hide.
Subaru’s shoulders untensed and Ram let go of his chest.
“…My bad. Sorry. I was being stupid. I’m the worst.”
“…Just like always. If you spent every waking moment apologizing for everything you did wrong, you would never get anything done. Cut the pointless drivel.”
“Yeah…sorry.”
Taking that insult as Ram’s way of reconciling, Subaru apologized one last time.
“It’s mere consolation, but I feel a faint connection to Rem. At the very least, she is still alive.”
“A connection… Right, synesthesia!”
Hearing that, Subaru remembered a nostalgic word.
When the Petelgeuse-led witch cultists were after Emilia and the others, Rem had been able to sense that Ram was in danger at the mansion.
“Any chance you could use that feeling to figure out where Rem is?”
“Like I said, the connection is faint. All I can do is sense that she’s sleeping. And the wavelength of my clairvoyance does not overlap with Lady Emilia or the others, so I can’t say whether they are safe, either.”
“I see. A safety check with clairvoyance… So you can’t connect with anyone?”
“Strictly speaking, there is one other I can connect with. Not that there is any point in it, though.”
Subaru couldn’t understand what she meant by there not being a point in confirming the safety of any comrades who had been separated from them. But that question soon answered itself.
“—From the look of things, I guess you’re up now, Natsuki.”
Subaru shrank back when a light shone on him out of the corner of his eye. But its gentle waving wasn’t threatening him, and he quickly realized it was the light of another lantern.
Finally, the outline of a person holding it became clear enough for him to make out.
“…Anastasia…and Patlash?”
Slowly, the two of them appeared together. Patlash’s black scales made it seem like she emerged from the darkness itself as she approached, and Anastasia was riding on Patlash’s back in her white outfit.
Anastasia smiled down at Subaru.
“Sorry for borrowing Patlash without permission. But I’m a little too helpless to be going around exploring on my own.”
“That’s…fine, but…I thought it was just the two of us, Ram?”
“I don’t recall ever saying it was just the two of us.”
Subaru stared over at Ram, but she feigned ignorance, just blaming it on Subaru’s own assumptions.
“Lady Anastasia, thank you for going out to check. Was there anything of note around us?”
“Mmm, I checked a little deeper, but I couldn’t find anyone else. It seems like the three of us…and Patlash were the only ones sent here.”
“…I see.”
While Subaru had been unconscious, the two of them had apparently split up tasks. It was easy enough to guess how Ram was feeling after hearing Anastasia’s report.
There wasn’t a thing for Subaru to do about his worry for Rem, either, but…
“But it’s at least good news that you’re safe, Anastasia. And also my Patlash.”
“Yes, it’s not all bad news. It’s important to recognize the good things, too. Honestly, it was a big help that Patlash was here—and that she’s willing to listen.”
Patlash lowered her head when Subaru walked over, happy to see him again. Patting her neck, Subaru breathed a sigh of relief at safely reuniting with his trusty steed.
“So is this everyone then? Just four people?”
“If you’re counting Patlash as a person, then yeah. There’s no reason for Emilia or the others to be hiding… Well, I guess Meili might.”
“What, you mean try to escape in all the confusion? I mean, I guess I can’t rule it out, but.”
As Meili flashed through his head, Subaru thought about her.
Thanks to his death resets, he did know that she had the sandworm under her control to fall back on as a last resort. But he had no way of knowing what she intended it to be used for. It might have just been setting herself up to be able to attack them and escape at some point.
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“You hope? Or do you fully trust a girl who already tried to kill you once?”
“Just call it a heartfelt prayer. Anyway, what’s going on deeper?”
Setting Meili aside, Subaru wanted to hear a bit more detail about what Anastasia found while looking around. Ram had deduced they were somewhere underground from their surroundings, but—
“I’m of the same opinion. It’s clearly colder here than out on the sands at night…and the air is heavy, so it’s hard to imagine we’re somewhere outside of Auguria.”
“So the miasma is still thick in the air? Not exactly a great place to be in any sense then.”
“We’re underneath the sands, right? I don’t want to imagine it, but it’s entirely possible this is a sandworm nest.”
“Ugh. If it is, that would be really bad.”
Subaru’s expression twitched as Ram touched the sand wall.
They had seen sandworms that moved underground already, so Subaru couldn’t just laugh off the possibility. Considering how big the sandworm Meili had controlled was, it was certainly possible for a sandworm to make the cavern they were in, too.
In the worst case, they might just end up face-to-face with a sandworm down there.
“Also, I can sense some real malice in this party build! There’s not a single person who can fight here!”
“Unabashedly counting yourself among the noncombat members despite being Lady Emilia’s knight… He’s broken, Lady Anastasia.”
“Just call it knowing my limits. My trusty whip isn’t powerful enough for me to start thinking I’m anything special without Beako.”
Even just on the level of self-defense, they were a gathering of party members who were all lacking in combat ability. Ram had her limitations, and Subaru without Beatrice went without saying.
“Incidentally, what of Lady Beatrice? You’re contracted with her, so can’t you feel a link with her?”
“Unfortunately, while our hearts are strongly bound together, it’s more in the sense of a deep emotional bond.”
“You’re useless.”
“Who asked you?!”
Sticking out his tongue at Ram’s sigh, Subaru turned to Anastasia. Seeing her calm expression, he whispered in her ear.
“And what about you? Can you fight?”
“—If push comes to shove. But it means shaving away at Anna’s life. That’s something I want to avoid if at all possible. So I’ve got big hopes for you.”
“You’re only gonna get let down with hopes like that. For better or for worse.”
Subaru snorted as Foxidna spoke plainly for once.
Either way, though, they had confirmed the situation they were in. And also the fact that they couldn’t afford to just sit around waiting, either.
“There is nothing to be gained by just waiting here. We should search for Rem and Lady Emilia. Fortunately, we have light thanks to Lady Anastasia, so we can keep going forward.”
“More thanks to the emergency bag Natsuki prepared than me. I grabbed that before the carriage was swallowed up, so we have lights, a knife, and some emergency rations.”
Anastasia pointed to the bag hanging from Patlash’s saddle. It was one of the ones that Subaru had prepared in case of an emergency before they left.
“There’s nothing better than not needing an emergency kit, but it’s important to have options when things go wrong. That’s why you always make sure to confirm where the emergency exits are in a building you’ve never been in before, too.”
“For once, a great achievement by Barusu. As a reward, I’ll allow you to hold the lantern. Be sure to keep a brisk pace.”
“Sure, sure… You call this a reward?”
While Subaru took the lantern, Ram and Anastasia got onto Patlash.
No matter how he thought about it, he’d basically been relegated to the position of foot servant.
“Three people riding is just… If Ram and I squeezed in, you could maybe fit?”
“No, if he got that close, Barusu would start breathing raggedly in excitement.”
“Don’t think I’m going to stay quiet forever! If you’re going to be like that, I’ll just imagine something even more amazing! That’s not a threat, either! Don’t underestimate youth!”
Unwilling to admit defeat, Subaru snorted at their reactions and started walking.
He headed into the cavern, setting out beyond the darkness to meet back up with the rest of his comrades.
The lighthearted banter that didn’t fit the situation was merely a front in order for the two of them to avoid dealing with the unease they were feeling.
Both Subaru and Ram realized that, but neither commented on it.
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