4
—Late at night, Subaru took advantage of the opening that finally presented itself in order to act alone.
He snuck out of the green room and peered down the hallway in the dark tower, making sure no one was around before stealthily heading toward his target.
“I don’t think Meili would want us to end up stuck here, either… What an actor.”
“No one asked you.”
“Giggle. Don’t get mad. That wasn’t sarcastic. I really meant it.”
Even though he was trying to move stealthily, the mocking hallucination was still whispering in his ears.
The really dangerous thing about auditory hallucinations was that there was no stopping them. Even if Subaru covered his ears, even if he wanted to shut the voice out, those sweet whispers continued to echo directly in his brain. No matter how much he rejected it, he couldn’t shut it out.
“They say sometimes no really means yes.”
Intentionally ignoring the sing-song mockery, Subaru strained his eyes in the dark.
After dinner, the party had discussed how to continue their efforts the next day, and then quickly retired in order to recharge for the day ahead. With the example of Meili, Emilia and the others proposed everyone sleeping together. Subaru, however, managed to get out of that by asking to recover in the green room to deal with the lingering aftereffects of reading the book of the dead. Of course, there was some reluctance to his proposal, but…
“You look deathly pale, mister.”
“ ”
“So are you leaving that blue-haired lady in the room with you for later?”
The hallucination was trying to tempt Subaru into a rampage in order to get his hands on books of the dead. Because of that, it kept bringing up the sleeping beauty who would be easiest to target, but he ignored that.
Going after her was nowhere near the top of his list of priorities. If anything, convincing Patlash had been the bigger challenge. He’d put his finger to his lips and asked her to let him go in secret, but it was dubious how much made it through when the dragon couldn’t understand what he was saying.
And even the plan of reading Emilia and the others’ books of the dead was still just in the realm of delusions. Even if he went through with the plan, he couldn’t pull it off without catching them by surprise.
So his goal in sneaking out tonight was for something else entirely.
“—Are you going to do something about my dead body?”
“…If I don’t check what’s going on, then neither of us will be satisfied.”
“Heh-heh, that’s true. I agree completely. We’re like two halves of the same whole.”
The delighted hallucination spoke to just how ridiculous Subaru’s actions were.
Meili’s corpse not being discovered was more a devilish trick than an act of God. In the end, taking advantage of the fortunate fact that his actions hadn’t come to light, Subaru’s resolve to come clean withered and he started working on the process of properly hiding her corpse.
It was the pinnacle of arbitrary, on-the-spot decision-making. Subaru wanted to curse himself.
But if he didn’t finish hiding Meili’s corpse now, it was likely Emilia would find it, since she hadn’t given up on her search. That unbounded, positive, sheltered girl’s spirit wouldn’t break until she finally found Meili’s corpse.
Because of that, Subaru needed peace of mind.
Without that, he couldn’t construct a foundation. Without a foundation, he couldn’t put up the load-bearing walls of the castle that was his future. If he couldn’t put up those walls, his future would never be secure.
The existence of Meili was an obstruction to the castle that was Subaru Natsuki’s peace of mind.
“So heartless.”
Ignoring that entirely reasonable reaction, Subaru arrived at the problematic room, the place where he’d hidden her corpse. Gulping slightly, he steeled his resolve and slipped through the door.
Honestly, it left a bad taste in his mouth, but carrying the body outside and burying it in the desert would be the best course.
“ ”
There was a stone pedestal sort of thing in the back of the square room. Meili’s body was lying behind that, beneath a white cloth.
That crude level of hiding was a testament to how panicked Subaru had been. Feeling pathetic at that, Subaru slowly moved behind the pedestal…
“…What?”
…but he was not reunited with Meili’s corpse.
“ ”
Speechless, his eyes widened at the sight.
There was nothing behind the pedestal. Not her body, not the cloth he’d draped over her, nothing.
“Why… This is definitely where I hid her…”
Spinning around, he got down on hands and knees in the center of the room. There was still a faint trace of blood. The blood that had dripped from the wounds on his arm had left a mark there.
This was where Meili died. As stupid as he was, he wouldn’t make a mistake about something like this.
So then where did her body—
“—Out sneaking around so late at night. Are you looking for something, Barusu?”
“—Ngh?!”
Subaru’s shoulders twitched and he immediately spun around when he heard the voice behind him. His face was ghostly pale as he saw someone standing in the doorway.
Her short, peach-colored hair, her sharp, intelligent pink eyes, her dignified yet cute face staring coldly back at him, she seemed almost like a gallant flower as she stood there holding her arms.
Ram was clearly hostile.
“Or should I call you a fake? A Barusu—a Subaru Natsuki knockoff.”
“Wha…”
Shredded by her sharp gaze and voice, Subaru’s heart cried out. There was a heat to her words that utterly betrayed the impression Subaru had gotten from his short time interacting with her.
Feeling a burn as if flames the color of her eyes were scorching him, Subaru struggled to breathe.
“Why are you so flustered? You heard my question. Your job is to answer.”
“I-I was just…”
“Just?”
Grasping for any excuse he could find, he struggled in a panic to get the gears in his head spinning again. He cursed his slow-to-start brain while needing to find some sort of godlike explanation in order to get through this.
But by the time his brain finally started moving, it got hung up on a single fact and couldn’t get into gear.
—They got me.
“ ”
The whole discussion around the dinner table about not finding Meili’s body had been a bluff. Subaru had been incredibly relieved that his crime hadn’t been discovered. So when he heard the convenient story of the frantic search reaching a dead end, when he thought his pathetic efforts to hide the body had worked, he just believed it.
As a result, he was awkwardly going pale as the truth came out.
Subaru had seen this scene countless times before in all sorts of TV dramas.
The murderer had devised some perfect plan, only to screw up by coming back to the scene of the crime where the detectives or police were waiting. Providing the incontrovertible proof by his own actions and then being caught red-handed.
Most viewers took it as an absurd mistake that they would never make if they were in that situation. But would they really? Was Subaru’s predicament not practically a joke?
“—I see you aren’t denying being a fake. I suppose that is evidence you do at least recognize how badly you bungled your act. You didn’t investigate your target well enough. You were lazy.”
“What do you mean lazy…?”
“The first one to notice something off was Emilia. There should be a limit to how poorly you could play your hand.”
Ram didn’t hide the scorn in her voice as she revealed the unexpected source of the suspicion.
Calling him a fake, saying his performance was bungled, pointing out that he didn’t understand Subaru Natsuki well enough, hearing that it was Emilia of all people who saw through it. The person he thought would be easiest to trick. It made him cry.
Forget being at a loss for words, his trampled heart was bleeding, and the agony filled his mind.
Being called a fake over and over made his heart ache—
“A Subaru Natsuki…knockoff…”
A pathetic fake. That thought poured a thick, dark emotion deep into his soul.
The negativity transformed into something vile, filling his heart. His knees that had been quivering quietly steadied. Instead, the depths of his eyes grew hot, lighting the fuse on those dark emotions.
The end of that fuse was what people called bloodlust.
“…So now it’s a crime to go out for a walk at night?”
The moment he heeded that dark mass, Subaru’s thoughts transformed, and he started issuing retorts.
He shrugged at her one-sided denunciation and looked around the room. And after making sure one more time that there was nothing behind the pedestal…
“This was the situation. You can understand wanting to go out for a stroll when your mind is dwelling on things. Somewhere without your sister…without Rem and Patlash around.”
“—Did you think you were unnoticed? No, you were seen.”
“ ”
“It would seem that is another subject you failed to study. You aren’t even worth talking to.”
Subaru tried to feign an innocent explanation, but Ram held her finger to her lips, interrupting him. Whether coincidence or not, her gesture was the same as the one he’d made to Patlash when leaving the green room.
Suddenly, the possibility that her use of the word seen had been meant literally started to look very high…
“Just cleanly admit your crime, your failure—”
Being completely cornered and being called that unforgivable word were the final push.
“—Ngh!”
Lowering his body, Subaru charged at Ram who was standing in the door. If he pushed her over, he intended to do the same thing he’d done to Meili.
He felt no compunction about killing her.
He’d already killed Meili. There wasn’t much difference between one person and two. Besides, a part of him now was a professional killer who had obediently taken countless lives when ordered to.
“—The balance of her left leg is bad.”
Following his reliable advisor’s timely advice, Subaru chose the best hand he had out of countless options. With a seasoned murderer’s guidance—he could kill a girl without trouble.
“A barbaric and boring conclusion.”
“ ”
“Did you think cute little Ram would come to face such a barbaric man all by herself?”
Ram’s voice was more pitiful than ridiculing as the atmosphere cracked.
The water in the atmosphere suddenly froze, producing a loud crack as the vapor in the air was forced to change phases—and the next instant, a powerful shock scooped him up from below.
“What?!”
Losing all grip on the ground, he couldn’t keep his balance and tumbled backward. There were flashes of light in his eyes from the pain as the crackling continued and the air proceeded to freeze around him, until finally a cage surrounding him was completed.
It was whimsically beautiful, a cage made of ice—and Subaru was trapped inside.
“—It would have been better if it was all just a misunderstanding…”
And with Subaru trapped, Emilia appeared from behind Ram, looking at him with sad eyes.
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