2
Passing through the illusory wall and going back into the castle, Subaru was alone.
Julius and Anastasia—or rather, Echidna—had left the balcony, but Subaru had lingered, dumbstruck as the cold desert wind hit him.
He had been overwhelmed by what Julius had just said and could not bring himself to move.
“ ”
He had honestly thought Julius would not say anything. —No, that wasn’t it.
He had assumed that Julius would not make him feel better about his own guilty conscience by cursing and shouting at him. He had assumed that Julius’s nobility would not allow him to become emotional.
—But that wasn’t what happened.
Julius’s final words had become a thorn tearing at Subaru’s heart.
I thought it would be easier to deal with if he said something instead of saying nothing at all. So what is this bleeding hole in my heart? Why is it so painful?
“—Barusu?”
“…Big Sis?”
Stopping at the unexpected sound, he saw Ram ahead of him in the hallway. Out for a late-night stroll, she looked Subaru up and down with her pink eyes.
“You look quite dejected. Disgraceful.”
“…That was fast. What are you doing at a time like this?”
“I could ask you the exact same thing… But I can imagine what you’ve been doing until now perfectly well.”
Subaru’s cheeks tensed. Seeing that, Ram shrugged.
“I’m sure you were grumbling your pointless complaints to Rem. No matter how cute and magnanimous my sister is, you should stop foisting all your hardest problems onto her.”
“…Ahh, that. Well, yeah.”
“—?”
His eyes widened slightly at the Ram-like objection, and then he smiled bitterly.
It wasn’t as if she had guessed what he was thinking, but it was a prediction based on what he had done day in and day out for so long. She was right. He had passed more than a few nights beside Rem.
I even did tonight, too. It’s natural she would assume I’m coming back from that.
But it wasn’t just that today…
“Stop looking so pathetic.”
“Agh.”
“Dejected, pathetic. You are already a vulgar man, and that only makes it worse. You’ll bring Lady Emilia’s dignity into question for having you as her knight. Shape up.”
Ram flicked his forehead as he looked down.
The force of it made his eyes water, but his complaint was silenced, seeing Ram snort in disinterest. If anything, he was relieved…
“…I dunno, but that’s just like you, Ram.”
“Hah. Spare me your sickening thoughts.”
Ram’s expression furrowed in heartfelt disgust as Subaru rubbed his forehead. That her attitude was a relief just made him feel more pathetic.
It’s not like she even asked anything or tried to understand what’s going on.
“So what have you been doing, Ram?”
“Obscene.”
“Don’t try to end the conversation there. It was just getting started…”
Shrugging at that bristling response, Subaru exhaled a bit and then looked behind Ram—toward where she had been walking from.
The fourth floor was fairly big, but there were not really many eye-catching points, either. Just the green room, the luggage that had been brought up from the carriage, and…
“…The stairs to the second floor?”
“ ”
“You didn’t go up there by yourself, did you?”
“Relax. I’m not that reckless. Even if I didn’t see him for myself, I’m not so pretentious to think I can do something about Reid Astrea on my own.”
Subaru’s lips curled as he had a bad premonition, but Ram denied it as if the idea was laughable.
He could see a bit of unhappiness at Julius’s rash decision peeking through, but bringing that up would just be picking at the thorns sticking into his own heart.
“I see, so something happened with Sir Julius. A fight?”
“Am I really that easy to read?”
“A combination of you being easy to read and Ram being too wise. The latter is the more important factor, so you don’t need to worry… Actually, no, you should worry about being easy to read, too. If you are ever tortured, they will discover all our secrets in no time.”
“That torture scenario is too scary.”
Subaru kneaded his cheeks, but Ram just narrowed her eyes. Realizing that she had meant it fairly seriously, Subaru shuddered.
Certainly, considering his position, either as part of the royal selection or just people hostile to Emilia more generally, it wasn’t impossible that someone would try something as outrageous at that.
I’ll keep that in mind.
“But that aside, why are you here then…?”
“I didn’t go up to the second floor… I just tried to go up.”
“Didn’t you just say you weren’t that reckless? Don’t tell me you were trying to catch him sleeping.”
Subaru did not mind the attitude of using whatever it took to win. He could understand if Ram had that in mind and had been waiting for Reid to go to sleep so she could sneak in and kill him.
The problem was even if they could pull off a sneak attack like that, it wasn’t like they could do something about him just because he happened to be asleep.
“Unfortunately, that sort of attack is impossible. I turned back partway up the stairs. That is just how monstrous he is. He makes Garf look cute.”
“Garfiel is pretty cute once he gets attached to you…”
“I’m not talking about behavior—I mean their threat level.”
That would mean she wasn’t denying that he acted cute, but they were in the middle of a serious conversation, so Subaru furrowed his brow without touching on that.
“I’m sure of it. If we don’t hold back at all, then he’ll just respond in kind. As we discussed, we will have to find a way to satisfy him without making him get serious.”
“…You went up to the second floor alone just to confirm that?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself. I didn’t go up to the second floor. It is too difficult for me as I am now.”
Acknowledging a plain and simple lack of strength on her part, Ram was warning him that proper preparations would be vital in order to challenge the second floor. Hearing that they would have to take their time reminded Subaru of the conversation with Echidna and Julius, darkening his expression.
“Barusu?”
“Hmm? Ah, it’s nothing… Well, not nothing, but for now it’ll have to wait. There’ll probably be more to say about it tomorrow, though.”
“That’s rather cryptic.”
“As much as I’d like to say more, it’s not my place to talk about it. If I don’t at least do that much, there will be no coming back from it.”
It was already a fissure that might not be recoverable. He did not want to go hammering the wedge even deeper into it.
Ram did not seem to be convinced by his weak attitude, but she relented.
“Either way, the second floor… Finding a way to get past Reid will take time. At the very least, it would have been better if Shaula had known anything even a bit more useful.”
“Well, her not being much help on this is true, but don’t take it too far. If she didn’t help us, we both would have been charred ash down under the sand.”
Without her, they would not even have reached the examination on the second floor. Thinking about that was enough to make him more willing to cast a kind eye on her sham Sage act.
It would be weirder to clear an exam with the help of the examiner anyway.
“Say all the sweet things you want, but there will come a time when you hit a dead end.”
“I don’t insist on being perfectly righteous, either. I just take it case by case… This time doesn’t cross the line for me yet is all.”
“How carefree. Ram can’t take such an easygoing stance.”
Making her dissatisfaction known, Ram shrugged helplessly. And she slowly turned around.
“Ram should sleep soon, or it will cause issues tomorrow. I’m going back to the carriage.”
“Ah, yeah. Um, I…”
It was hard to explain why it was hard for him to go back. While he was struggling to respond, Ram just turned her head and sighed.
“Do as you please. If you hold us back because of your lack of sleep, I’ll twist it off.”
“Yeah, sorry… Wait, twist off what?!”
“I’ll leave that to your imagination.”
Waving her hand, Ram walked toward the stairs going down. Not touching on the areas he did not want to deal with and counting on his ability to help himself stand back up was her own way of showing her concern.
Watching her slender back move away, Subaru raised his hand, even knowing she could not see it.
“Good night, Big Sis. See you tomorrow.”
“…Ram isn’t your big sister. Stop calling me that.”
Lately her refusals have been losing strength. Like she’s gradually getting to the point where she’s just reluctant to admit it.
Saying that, Ram disappeared down the hall, and Subaru cracked his neck.
“Now what to do…”
I can’t go back to the carriage. And going to the green room is hard, too. In which case, I need a place where I can either rest until tomorrow or else someplace where I can do something useful.
“If I’m just sleeping, then any room works, but…”
The room where the luggage had been left that had served as both meeting room and dining room would work for option one. The luggage had been set out without too much thought, so he could push some things together to make a bed. It would be a little uncomfortable, but he could accept that as just deserts for what he had done.
As for option two…
“Thinking about how to handle Reid.”
Honestly, that would be the most constructive thing. There are a lot of problems right now that would be a lot closer to being resolved if we finish clearing this tower. And I can’t say for sure, but it would probably be a big change for the better in the current situation.
Like they had discussed earlier, the plan for dealing with Reid was to find some method of making him genuinely satisfied without him getting serious, a rather vague concept.
At the very least, if we could firm it up a little bit…
“—Right.”
As he was thinking that, Subaru snapped his fingers.
A eureka moment struck, and he decided where to go.
“If this works well…”
He could not say for sure, but it definitely had the potential to move things forward by a giant leap.
Getting excited at that thought, Subaru quickly hurried there.
—Subaru’s excited footsteps rang out in the tower.
—Just his footsteps.
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