3
“A good woman knows when to quit. A secret makes a woman.”
With that, Shaula backed down.
Honestly, it was too annoying to come up with a retort for that, so he just let her have the last word.
“Sometimes, it’s better not to know.”
Either way, beneath the surface of that tension-breaking scene, Subaru’s situation wasn’t exactly great.
He’d hoped that the truth of how he lost his memory would be made clear by confronting Julius, but he had been wrong, and his investigation was back at square one.
No one other than Julius had reacted strangely during the morning. The one thing he hadn’t noticed, Ram’s initial reaction, had been missed due to his lack of composure, but…
“If that performance was fake, then I don’t know what I can believe…”
The way Ram had refused to believe it when she heard Subaru had lost his memory. If her tearful plea when he forgot her sister was a lie, then there was nothing he could believe.
But if he couldn’t trust anything, then he couldn’t start to suspect anything, either. So for the moment, the one fundamental connection that he could believe in…
“…is Patlash… Talk about a complete misanthrope.”
Even he was exasperated by his conclusion, but it didn’t change the fact that that was how it seemed.
It’s one thing if it’s just other people, but the misanthropy is terminal once you stop being able to trust even yourself.
“Maybe it’d be better to just live in a land dragon–only paradise with Patlash.”
“—Ahh, I heard that.”
“Uegh?!”
The moment he said that out loud, a girl leapt out from around the corner. Her dark blue hair bounced as she giggled teasingly.
Subaru’s shoulders slumped when he realized someone overheard his lame joke.
“Do you want to run some place far away with Patlash, mister? Giggle. Beatrice and big sis would cry if they heard that.”
“It was just a bad joke. On multiple levels, I’d appreciate it if you just forgot about it.”
“Okaaay. But if that was how you really felt, I wouldn’t laugh at you, mister. I told you how I spent so long living with my cute demon beasts, right?”
“Cute demon beasts… Sort of like being raised by wolves?”
“I told you yesterday.”
Subaru was honestly shocked when she didn’t even deny the raised-by-wolves bit. Judging from the fact that they could talk like they did, combined with her bearing and mannerisms, she must have had some degree of education. She didn’t really feel like a wolf girl.
“Mama was strict. Also I was with Elsa a lot, and she was weirdly sloppy, so I had to take care of a lot of things.”
“Ahh, wait, wait, wait, my head’s going to burst with all of this… I’d love to keep playing with you, but I’m kind of busy at the moment. Shaula should be nearby, so just hang out with her.”
“The half-naked lady? That would be fine, but right now I need you for something, mister.”
“Me?”
Not particularly interested in Meili’s family situation, Subaru tried to end the conversation when he was hit by a surprise request. But he wasn’t that against it. In his head, Meili was comparable to Shaula in being easier to talk to.
Probably because she was less reliant on Subaru Natsuki, unlike Emilia and Beatrice and the others, so he felt less guilty for lying to her.
“Well, if you want to talk, I can listen. What’s up?”
“About that.”
Because of that comfort, he decided to lend her an ear. She nodded and holding her hands behind her back, she leaned forward, and with a gaze that was almost coquettish, she licked her red lips…
“—About last night, how seriously should I take what you said?”
Still smiling sweetly, she broke the ice.
“—Oww!”
Feeling a sudden, sharp pain, Subaru reflexively grimaced.
Both of his arms hurt. Looking down to see what happened, he gasped. There were painful scratches all over both wrists and the back of both hands.
“Ughhh, what happened…”
The scratches looked deep, and blood was slowly welling up. Seeing them made the pain assert itself even more intensely. Honestly, it was enough to make his eyes water.
It was almost as if someone had scratched him…
“…Huh? What am I doing…”
Doubt filled his mind.
After breakfast, I called Julius out. After that was the farce with Shaula, and then Meili popped up while I was on my way to Patlash…
“—Ah?”
Looking around for something to take care of his hands, Subaru noticed something strange. And in the sense of being not at all what he would have imagined, it was certainly strange.
“ ”
A slender leg was splayed on the floor.
The leg was limp and unmoving. Moving his gaze, he followed the leg slowly upward, seeing a skirt, and then an upper body, and then…
—It was a girl lying there, not moving at all.
“—Huh?”
—Meili was lying there, dead.
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