"Ow."
The sharp pain shooting through his fingertip made Subaru furrow his brow involuntarily.
Looking down, he saw that the tip of his index finger was faintly split open, with a droplet of blood welling up from it. He'd been sorting through the documents scattered across the desk and had apparently cut himself.
"Damn it, I did it. Guess this is a baptism for underestimating otherworldly papermaking technology..."
"Oh my, Subaru-kun, what happene~d? Cut your finger on paper?"
"Yeah, I get it — 'weaker than paper, how pathetic' — spare me, Rozu. I just slipped up. ...Can you, y'know, heal this real quick?"
Subaru showed his throbbing finger to Roswaal, the room's owner, and asked.
Roswaal, who had been sitting at his own desk doing paperwork, set down his quill pen and said, "Lemme see~" as he examined the cut on Subaru's finger.
"Oh my, that look~s painful. Still, a wound like this is nothing serious. It'll heal if you just lick it. Or shall I lick it for you~?"
"I'll pass on the hospitality~. I'd rather shove my finger in Beako's mouth than let you lick it."
"Haha, that's amusing~. ...You seem to be getting along well with
Roswaal released Subaru's finger and leaned his elbow on the desk, narrowing his eyes with a smile. Hearing this, Subaru tilted his head.
"Really?"
The relationship between Subaru and Beatrice was difficult to put into words. Or rather — it sounded dramatic to say it that way, but Beatrice really hadn't been making many overtures toward him.
"I'm the one who keeps prodding her because she's fun to tease, but I'm not too confident about what she thinks of it."
"No, no, there's no need to worr~y. Beatrice is an honest girl at heart. If she truly wanted to reject you, she wouldn't even let you into the Forbidden Library."
"I see..."
"After all, she won't let me in at all~."
"I see...?"
Roswaal placed a hand on his own chest and smirked. Subaru let out a wry laugh.
That said, Roswaal, like Subaru, seemed to regard Beatrice as someone worth teasing. And he'd been around her far longer than Subaru had.
"Sounds like you might've miscalculated the distance and it's been snowballing ever since. Maybe you should apologize?"
"Well, that's not far from the mark. As for apologizing... a fair bit of time has passed, for both Beatrice and me~."
"Blaming it on time isn't exactly a great excuse either..."
"Mmm, that's even more hard to hear~."
With a loosening smile, Roswaal picked up his quill pen again. Taking it as a signal that he was returning to work, Subaru shrugged and resumed tidying the bookshelf.
Fortunately, the bleeding from his cut had stopped.
"If that finger really bothers you, have
"You won't heal it for me, Rozu? Spartan much?"
"No, no, it's not like tha~t. —You see, I can't use healing magic."
"Really? I just assumed you were some all-powerful wizard who could do everything."
Roswaal's unexpected confession made Subaru raise an eyebrow slightly.
He could incinerate an entire forest of magical beasts with hellfire, and soar into the sky like the wind. Hearing that he was a force to be reckoned with as a mage, you'd assume he'd mastered all the basic magic.
But Roswaal shook his head at Subaru's words.
"I'm sorry I can't live up to your expectations, but magic is heavily influenced by one's innate aptitude. By chance, I was blessed with talent for many types of magic, but not enough to wield every magic that exists in this world."
"So there are others besides healing magic?"
"No, I can use everything except healing magic."
"Just one glaring hole!?"
Despite the heavy lead-up, Roswaal's weakness turned out to be just a single gap.
That said, the fact that this gap was an inability to use healing magic felt like a surprisingly hard one to fill.
"Being able to heal your own wounds during a fight seems pretty important, doesn't it?"
"Oh my? So Subaru-kun can think about things like that too."
"Well, I graduated from elementary school a while ago in terms of choosing only the 'fight' command while ignoring buffs and debuffs. I'm the type who wants to use strategy to compete with ability users, even without powers of my own, like in those manga about abilities."
"That sounds like something deep, but I think it's actually not~."
Despite only a few weeks of acquaintance, Roswaal seemed to have seen through the truth behind Subaru's casual jokes.
At that, Subaru scratched his head and stuck out his tongue. Roswaal closed one eye and fluttered that blue eyelid, then said: "In fact, you're absolutely right, Subaru-kun. The presence or absence of healing magic can fundamentally change a battle... one might say it can reshape the entire battlefield. So it's actually a remarkably rare talent."
"Is that so? But
"The first two are special~. As for Rem... it's partly a matter of aptitude. I also focused on nurturing that talent."
According to Roswaal's subsequent explanation, healing magic was especially valued even among other forms of magic, to the point that a master-apprentice system existed at specialized healing institutions.
Rem could have studied at one of those, but she'd been reluctant to be separated from
"That said, if you get too comfortable relying on healing magic, there's a danger that when you actually do get hurt, you'll have forgotten how to endure it~."
"Right... you'd lose your tolerance for pain. That's definitely a possibility."
Just as a person raised in a sterile room develops no resistance to outside viruses, if you always erased pain immediately with healing magic, the moment you couldn't rely on it anymore could prove fatal.
With that thought, Subaru glanced at the wound on his finger.
"Got it. It's not serious enough to make a fuss over. I'll endure this pain as a reminder."
"You're not being dramatic about a paper cu~t, are you? It's not like healing it would make much difference at this point. Just have Rem fix it?"
"A sweet trap designed to lure me into laziness! ...Nah, I'm fine, I'm fine. No problem."
Though Roswaal's words had been half-joking, they made a certain amount of sense to Subaru.
He already knew from the incidents in the royal capital and the mansion that life in this otherworld was no cakewalk. The less unbearable pain he had to endure, the better.
But— "For when that unavoidable pain does come, I'll steel myself for it."
"You literally just cut your finger~."
Subaru pressed his index finger together tightly and insisted with conviction. Roswaal gave a wry smile.
That said, Subaru's resolve amounted to nothing—once he finished tidying the study and rendezvoused with Rem, the moment she noticed the wound, she healed it on the spot.
△▼△▼△▼△ "Grrrrrrgh...!"
"Here, bite down on this splint. It's gonna hurt, gonna hu~rt."
While saying that, Todd straightened out Subaru's left-hand fingers and applied a pungent-smelling ointment to the three fingers that had turned a bruised purple. Then he swiftly set splints against the fingers, wrapped them tightly with bandages, and finished the treatment.
"Last step — this liquid medicine. It should ease the pain somewhat."
Todd handed Subaru a small bottle of medicine. Subaru, who'd been drenched in cold sweat, took it. Inside was a thick, viscous green substance, but since it was called medicine, he had no choice but to accept it.
Steel himself and gulped the whole thing down.
"Blech! Disgusting! A-thick liquid is coating my throat...!"
"It's famous for being hard to drink. But I guarantee the effectiveness — it's a valuable substance even in the military. It speeds up wound healing."
Todd laughed as he held the now-empty bottle pinched between his fingers.
Wiping his mouth, Subaru ducked his head in apology.
"Sorry for taking something that valuable off your hands. Especially for a guy like me who's completely unknown."
"Don't worry about it. Honestly, if I left it alone any longer, your finger would've rotted off. Think of it as me selling a favor to someone who's already taken the Sword Wolf's dagger from me."
Todd answered casually, and Subaru pressed his lips together, his expression softening.
Todd, being the military man he was, had mistaken Subaru for someone of noble birth thanks to the knife he'd received in the forest. As a result, Subaru was treated surprisingly well despite being a prisoner.
But that was exactly why he felt guilty about deceiving him.
On top of that, a certain question was nagging at the back of Subaru's mind.
It was— "Still, y'know. If I had healing magic, I could fix this up in no flat."
Checking on the condition of his left hand, Subaru tossed that out as if it were idle chatter.
Todd, who overheard this, raised an eyebrow.
"Oho~? Now there's a luxurious complaint. Healing magic isn't exactly something you see every day."
"—So it really is like that?"
"Of course. If you could heal wounds and illnesses just by feeling the same way you do when calling fire or wind, that'd be awfully convenient. Your left hand would've been good as new in no time."
Todd shrugged and spoke quietly. Subaru lowered his gaze.
He felt a tangled mix of unease and relief as his suspicion was confirmed.
Back when Roswaal hadn't yet been exposed and Subaru still thought of him as merely a flamboyant, clownish noble, the topic of healing magic's rarity had come up.
Magic depended on talent, and practitioners of healing magic were valuable.
On top of that information, the medical tent at the encampment was stocked with herbs and bottles of liquid medicine, with no magical tools in sight—only mundane medical equipment.
Todd, who'd offered to treat his wound, had resorted to nothing more than herbal remedies and splints, never once relying on magic. Therefore, there was no doubt.
"Healing magic is... rare."
"At least, I've never seen it once. Word has it they've got practitioners sequestered away in the imperial capital. Either way, it's a world pretty far removed from ordinary folks."
"————"
"Actually, I'm more surprised that the word 'healing magic' even came out of your mouth. As far as I'm concerned, it's not even an option worth considering."
If something wasn't within arm's reach, it wouldn't even register at the edge of one's thoughts.
That was how distant healing magic was in the Empire — at least, to people like Todd.
Subaru had anticipated that kind of response, so he shook his head.
"See, the thing is, I'm actually a traveler. I've been going all over the place, and I've run into a few people who use healing magic along the way."
"Oh, so that's a traveler's getup. I did think your outfit looked odd — the heat around here and your clothes just didn't match at all."
Todd looked Subaru up and down. Subaru's outfit was still the sand-resistant gear from the
The
"So during your travels, you ran into a healer or two and got addicted to the convenience."
"Way to put it! I mean... it is convenient, that's true."
In fact, Subaru had been on the receiving end of healing magic more than once — no, quite frequently.
When he'd first been summoned to this otherworld, surviving that first crisis would have been impossible without Beatrice's healing magic.
If Beatrice hadn't been there back then, Subaru would have had to live with his stomach ripped open, his intestines trailing out, all the way to today.
"Stepping on your own guts and tripping over them — that's an experience I never want to repeat."
"Healing magic, huh..."
"—? Todd?"
Todd quietly let out a breath as Subaru recalled that singular experience. Noticing the shift in atmosphere, Subaru furrowed his brow. Todd closed one eye and said, "Nah, it's nothing."
"I'm just glad healing magic and things like it don't exist in my life. That's all."
"Ruthless...? Why? Isn't it the opposite?"
When Subaru expressed his confusion at Todd's take, Todd kept his eye closed and said, "Because, y'see—"
"If a wound heals, it means you don't die. You don't get pulled from the line for being injured. They heal you up and send you back out to fight again, on and on. That's what 'healing' really means."
"————"
"It terrifies me. Whoever first created healing magic — how much did they love war? That's what it feels like when I see it in action."
Todd's quiet words left Subaru at a loss for a rebuttal.
It was a skewed perspective, certainly. Healing magic's applications weren't limited to the battlefield — it also played a role in saving accident victims and the sick in everyday life.
But Todd's thinking held truth from one angle.
Treating a wounded person on the battlefield, only to drive them back into combat — you couldn't rule out that dimension of it. So Subaru couldn't dismiss his fear.
"Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to go off on a tangent like that. Didn't want to put that kind of crease on your brow."
Seeing Subaru fall silent, Todd reset the atmosphere with a casual remark. Subaru nodded, genuinely encountering a perspective he'd never considered.
Then, to shift the topic, Todd turned his gaze toward the tent's entrance.
"So that means the girl in the cage is your travel companion? Then why the heck does she keep biting you like that?"
"Just... an unfortunate accident, I guess. We used to be really in sync, but things happened and now it's completely one-sided. I'm hoping time will fix it."
"I'm sure, but you look like you're suffering... Still, in that case—"
Todd didn't pry into the complicated situation between Subaru and Rem. Instead, he stroked his chin and looked away.
His gaze landed on Subaru's right arm — the one Subaru had been consciously ignoring this whole time. Clinging to that right arm, all this time, was— "Huh?"
Louie.
She was holding on to Subaru's right hand with a blank, vacant expression, grinning at something only she found amusing, occasionally toying with Subaru's fingers and twisting them into her own hair, doing as she pleased.
"Doesn't look like she's your daughter, age-wise. What's the deal with you two?"
"I've told you a bunch of times — I don't know her. But she's definitely no good."
"Harsh... But the girl in the cage seemed concerned about this kid, didn't she?"
"That's the frustrating part..."
Hearing Todd point it out again, Subaru sighed at the tangle of his situation.
Right now, Subaru's feelings for Rem were completely spinning in place. Rem's cold shoulder was largely influenced by Subaru's treatment of Louie.
But even knowing that, Subaru couldn't accept Louie.
Of course not. She was one of the Archbishops of Sin — one of the pure evils with whom reconciliation was impossible.
"How'd things end up like this? What are you scheming, what are you really after?"
"Hmm? Oh, ah, oh."
No matter how Subaru pressed her, Louie just giggled and gave no answer.
Her attitude was endlessly infuriating. Honestly, Subaru would almost prefer it if she acted wickedly, like she had in the Corridor of Memories — at least that way, he could label her an enemy without any confusion.
This behavior — acting like an infant or a newborn, with only Subaru recognizing the danger she posed — was far worse.
"Well, she's a travel companion. Wherever we're headed, it'd be better to improve the relationship a bit more."
"—Which direction is that advice aimed at?"
"Huh? Who knows~. Take it whichever way you like."
Todd stood up with a word Subaru didn't recognize. Subaru cocked his head but followed.
This was the medical tent, and lingering over small talk probably wasn't appreciated either. Subaru got up, still attached to Louie via his right arm, and trailed after Todd.
"Alright, the wound's been treated, so... mind if I ask you for a favor?"
"Sure. Beats sitting around doing nothing — gives me less guilt. Lay it on me. Anything except boot duty."
"Jamal must've really rubbed you the wrong way... Fine, fine, I won't ask that of you. For starters—"
Todd thought for a moment, then glanced at a cluster of dark tents.
Subaru followed his gaze.
"Those are?"
"Camp supplies. We've been collecting all sorts of things, but nobody's good at organizing all the miscellaneous junk. That's where you come in — someone who's good at tidying up."
"...Did I ever say I was good at tidying?"
"Did you not~? But I was hoping you were. And even if you're not, I figured you'd work hard out of gratitude for the help I've given you."
"You've got some personality on you, Todd."
Todd flashed a friendly grin while saying something rather sharp. Subaru's cheek twitched, and he surveyed the cluster of dark tents.
At a glance, there were around twenty tents. If they were all packed with supplies and only haphazardly organized, as Todd said, it would be backbreaking work.
"Looks like one or two days won't cut it..."
"Don't worry, just have it sorted before the supply caravan's dragon carriage departs. Hahaha."
"Hahaha..."
In other words — work fast.
Considering his injured left hand, the difficulty was a bit higher, but there was nothing to be done.
"This is for today's pay, for getting Rem to
"Yeah!"
Subaru clenched his fist, psyching himself up for the grueling labor. Beside him, Louie raised her voice. She continued dangling from his right arm, and Subaru scowled in annoyance.
This Archbishop of Sin, who looked like she didn't understand a thing, was a burden on both his body and mind. Her cunning nature remained intact, but she'd become far harder to handle — a formidable foe indeed.
"Why is it that between
"Ah, hmm—"
Whether she understood or not, Louie looked to be in good spirits. Dragging her along, Subaru walked toward the dark tents.
Unlike Shaula, with whom he'd ultimately reached an understanding, communication with Louie was impossible from the start. Understanding each other — that was simply out of the question, he thought.
△▼△▼△▼△ "...So you spent the entire time tidying the tents until dark?"
Rem, who had been sitting on the floor, greeted Subaru as he returned from his labors.
Seeing her like that, Subaru's shoulders drooped. Rem narrowed her eyes in response.
"I wasn't greeting you."
"Don't read my mind. ...But you got out of the cell?"
"—At least, these people don't seem to bear any hostility toward me."
She looked away with a guilty expression. She was probably thinking back to that encounter by the riverbank — the bad first impression from the fight with Jamal's squad, the one-eyed man.
When it came to people she hadn't yet warmed up to, Rem had a tendency to be sharp-tongued.
After becoming close with Subaru, she'd softened considerably, but with her memory gone, that temperament seemed to be making a comeback. Subaru figured she was reflecting on it.
"But hey, being able to reflect like that is admirable, Rem. Gold star."
"...What kind of person do you take me for? Even if you praised me, I wouldn't be happy. For starters—"
Rem shot a sharp remark at the smiling Subaru, then raised her gaze.
Instinctively, Subaru looked up too, but all he saw was the narrow ceiling of the conical tent. He tilted his head, and Rem clicked her tongue in annoyance.
"Why are we sharing the same tent? I don't want to sound ungrateful, but couldn't you have shown a little more consideration...?"
"No, actually, I think this is peak consideration. I told Todd we're travel companions, and if that's the case—ow ow ow ow ow!"
"Don't just decide things on your own!"
The moment he sat down next to her, Rem's hand seized his hip bone and squeezed hard. She ground his lumbar spine, and as Subaru writhed in pain, Rem's eyes sharpened.
But then, a small shadow wedged between them and put a stop to it with a quiet "ah."
It was— "Not you again..."
"Yeah!"
Louie threw her whole body against Rem's hand, the one gripping Subaru's waist, in protest.
For reasons unknown, Rem was soft on Louie. She sighed in resignation at the gesture, reluctantly releasing Subaru from her punishment. Instead, she drew Louie's body onto her lap.
She settled Louie's head on her knee—her own legs still being unsteady—and gently stroked her.
"Tch."
"...And now you're the one clicking your tongue? This child is so attached to you. I can't understand how you can be that heartless."
Subaru's bad attitude earned him Rem's displeasure.
As for Subaru, all he could do was watch Louie's every move intently, making sure he could protect Rem if the girl ever revealed her true nature.
—Following Todd's instructions, Subaru had started tidying the dark tents.
Just as he'd initially estimated, organizing the contents of the tents was not a quick job. One reason was that his left hand still wasn't in top shape, but beyond that, the imperials had absolutely no system for organization, and on top of that— "This one keeps messing with my work left and right. Every time I finally get things sorted, she comes along and knocks everything over again. That's why I haven't made any progress at all."
"She doesn't understand anything, so it can't be helped."
"You don't understand anything either, Rem. But Rem doesn't do that. Q.E.D.!"
"Stop saying things that make no sense!"
Subaru knew full well that Rem's coldness toward him stemmed from Louie. Knowing that, how could he possibly be warm toward Louie?
Even though he recognized this was a terrible cold-shoulder spiral, he couldn't bring himself to get along with Louie even on the surface. —Physical revulsion was something that couldn't be suppressed.
"————"
Overwhelmed with helplessness, Subaru flopped backward onto the floor.
The tent held only the three of them — Subaru, Rem, and Louie. Todd had loaned it to them as temporary quarters during their stay.
With members of his squad having gone into the forest and not yet returned while they'd been setting up camp, the tent's owner was absent. Todd had laughed and told them to use it freely.
"Yeah, not exactly laughable..."
That said, having an extra tent to stay in was a tremendous relief.
Subaru could handle himself, but leaving Rem in an all-male camp was extremely worrying. Todd had said he'd treat her as a guest, but how well that would actually hold up was uncertain.
Moreover, Rem had already earned Jamal's displeasure.
Ideally, Subaru would stay by her side and keep an eye on her even while doing odd jobs—but— "Stop sulking and eat."
"Huh?"
Subaru lay on his back, lost in thought. Blocking his line of sight was a grilled skewer that Rem had thrust directly above his face.
He sat up involuntarily. Rem had her face turned away, holding out the skewer.
"What's this?"
"Dinner. They were being distributed in the camp, so I got some. ...I need to practice moving around, even just a little at a time."
As she said this, Rem rubbed her leg with her free hand.
Her legs were still impaired, and there was no telling when they'd recover. Rem herself was probably more anxious about it than Subaru was.
Trapped in an encampment full of strangers, without her memories, occupying a vague position in the group — even if she wanted to learn something by taking action, she couldn't, because her legs wouldn't allow it.
"...Would you hurry up and take it? My hand is getting tired."
"O-okay, okay. Uh, have you already eaten, Rem?"
"What? Why would I eat before making sure this child has eaten? How could I be so selfish?"
Saying that, Rem pulled over a bone plate that had been pushed to the edge of the tent, removed the cloth draped over it, and brought the skewer to Louie's mouth.
Louie, indulged by Rem, nestled into her kindness, nibbling at the meat in tiny bites, like a chick pecking food from its parent's beak.
"Heh."
Rem watched the nibbling Louie with a warm smile.
Unable to look away from the scene, Subaru slowly gnawed at the skewer he'd been given. The meat was simply skewered and grilled — he had no idea what kind of meat it even was.
Roughly put, it was tough, bland, and hard to call delicious.
"On par with cooking from Emilia-tan or Beako, I guess..."
"What are you muttering ab—ah."
"—?"
Rem, who'd been glancing at Subaru while he grumbled about the food, suddenly widened her eyes. Noticing her reaction, Subaru frowned.
Her blue eyes were fixed on his face. So the reason for her surprise must have been on his face.
"What? Please don't tell me this is the first time you've actually looked at my face properly."
"That's not it, but... um, your tears."
"My tears?"
"...You're crying. You haven't noticed?"
Hesitantly, Rem said this. Subaru held his breath. Then, gingerly touching his own cheek, he felt a hot droplet on his fingertips and was startled.
It wasn't Rem's random lie. It was real.
"Huh? Am I crying?"
"You—yes, you are. What's wrong? Your finger... the injury...?"
Wiping the tears with his hand as they streamed down, Subaru was confused by the wave of emotion. But the cause of his tears wasn't the broken finger.
It was something else — probably, the fact that he was sharing this calm moment with Rem.
"————"
The situation was far from settled.
Separated from Emilia and the others, with no way to contact them, in a land where his identity being exposed could put his life in danger, Rem had no memory and treated him as a stranger. To top it off, his companions included an Archbishop of Sin who embodied the world's evil, and their leader was the incompetent, powerless, reckless
There wasn't a single reason to be optimistic. Not one. And yet— "...Being able to talk to you like this, sharing a meal — that made me happy."
"————"
"S-sorry. I know that makes no sense. I know it's weird. You'd be right to find it creepy. ...But I mean it."
Giving up on holding back his tears, Subaru let them fall freely, sniffling his nose, and looked at Rem.
"I've wanted to spend ordinary, unremarkable time with you like this again for so long."
He set the half-eaten skewer on his knee and conveyed those words as if squeezing them out.
He wiped his tears with his sleeve, and the sound of him sniffling echoed through the quiet tent.
For a moment, only that awkward sound filled the air— "...I don't understand what you're saying."
Then, in a voice so faint it was like a breath, Rem spoke.
Subaru held his breath as he wiped his tears. He bit back his own embarrassment, accepting that Rem's cold, hard voice was the natural response.
A strange man — one reeking of an unpleasant smell at that — sobbing right in front of her. There was no way anyone wouldn't find that off-putting.
Once again, he'd damaged Rem's trust in him. And irreparably so.
"But I don't want to laugh at you for crying. It's... unsettling, I suppose. But I wouldn't go so far as to call it disgusting."
"—Huh?"
At her unexpected words, Subaru lifted his face and opened his eyes wide.
Right in front of him, Rem stroked Louie's head on her lap without looking at Subaru's way. Her lips trembled as if she were choosing her words carefully.
"...That's all. Eat up. I'm tired for today."
"—Ah."
Rem said it quickly with her eyes closed, and for an instant, Subaru didn't register what she meant. But when he realized she was talking about the skewer on his knee, he hurriedly took a bite.
"R-right. Yeah. Mm, it's good, it's good. Salty but good."
"That's salty from your tears. ...I can't even enjoy my food because of your body odor. It's unfair."
"That's... um, I'll think of a solution. Yes."
Rem's tone was cold and pointed.
But she hadn't told him to get out, or that she didn't want to eat with him. If that was the case, then it was up to Subaru to come up with an alternative.
He had to. Because if he couldn't protect this precious, heart-easing time with Rem— "...But if we're talking about unfair, I've got something to say too."
"Something to say? What is it? If it's about my finger—"
"—That. The one lounging on your lap."
Subaru jabbed his finger decisively at Louie, who was enjoying Rem's lap pillow. Rem narrowed her eyes as if to say "here we go again."
But Subaru's point was different from the usual back-and-forth.
"Rem keeps talking about my body odor — and that phrasing is really unpleasant, by the way — but that one over there smells pretty similar. You're just going to ignore that?"
Every time he repeated 'Return by Death,' the scent of the
But if this was something connected to the Witch — related to Witch Factors — then the same foul stench should be emanating from Louie, an Archbishop of Sin.
If Rem reacted so violently to the
"...Huh?"
"I told you, this child doesn't smell anything like you. Please don't say ridiculous things just because you're desperate."
But Rem's response was the opposite of what Subaru had expected.
He stared intently at Rem's eyes, but her expression held nothing strange. She wasn't lying, and she didn't seem to be trying to deceive him.
In other words, she genuinely could not sense the Witch's residual miasma from Louie.
"Could it be that miasma can be masked? No, but... why?"
Based on Subaru's experience, very few people could detect what was called the Witch's residual aroma. Even setting aside Rem, who showed the strongest reaction, only a tiny handful — Beatrice and Ryuzu among them — had ever responded to it.
The very idea that Witch Cultists would want to hide it seemed absurd.
They were servants of grand rebellion who trampled over this world with impunity. And yet— "Are you done? If you've finished eating, this child looks sleepy too, so I'd like to get her ready for bed..."
"Ah, um... about what you said earlier — was that really true?"
"You're being persistent."
Rem shut down Subaru's doubts with a sharp tone.
But that very attitude made him feel even more certain that what she sensed was no lie.
"...You can't sense any miasma from Louie?"
Subaru didn't fully understand what that implied.
But one thing was certain — something deeply unsettling, something terribly convenient for Louie, was unfolding before his eyes. He could feel it.
"I'm sorry, but would you mind clearing the dishes? I'm going to prepare the sleeping area."
"Ah, sure, got it. I, uh, won't do anything, so don't worry."
"—That's exactly the kind of thing that makes me more worried."
Hearing those hard words again, Subaru shuffled out of the tent with the used plate in hand.
In the darkness, campfires flickered here and there throughout the encampment. Though it wasn't their turn, some would be keeping vigil through the night.
He only knew this from manga and games, but preparing for war was a grueling affair.
"...I want to get out of here fast."
Todd was a good guy, but the atmosphere of a battlefield was not something Subaru could get used to.
He had to find a way to leave as soon as possible and regroup with Emilia and the others.
With that resolve, Subaru gripped the plate tight — and noticed.
"...Huh? My finger doesn't hurt. Did the medicine kick in already?"
He'd grabbed the plate forcefully, and looking at his left-hand fingers, Subaru was surprised by the medicine's effect.
The discomfort was still there, but the warmth now flowing through his fingers was proof that his left hand was beginning to function properly.
"All that talk about healing magic, but this medicine's doing more than enough..."
Remembering Todd's words, Subaru shook his left hand lightly and walked on.
There was so much to think about — Rem, Louie, himself.
But he'd tackle them one by one, improving each in turn.
Just like this finger on his left hand — one step at a time, moving in a better direction.
△▼△▼△▼△ "————"
A single shadow watched Subaru leave the tent and walk slowly away.
A man with an eyepatch over one eye narrowed his remaining eye, clicked his tongue, and watched the retreating figure.
Then— "Feeling mighty pleased with himself. What a joke."
He murmured those words under his breath.