Chapter 137: You're always thinking only of yourself

"What a pitiful sight you make, Lady Emilia."

At that moment, Ram—who had been watching Emilia's every move—finally found her opening to mock.

And so, without the slightest hesitation, she began to kick her opponent while she was down, pressuring her relentlessly.

"It's hardly surprising. After all, Barusu never really talks to you in the first place, so how could you ever hope to walk into Barusu's heart?"

"So much so that even a shallow question like this... you can't understand it?"

"Don't act like you understand Subaru so well!"

Emilia quickly shouted back at the top of her voice. Were it not for the earlier rule forbidding violence, she would already have lunged over and torn Ram's mouth to shreds.

How could she... how...?

To have someone's composure shattered with just a few words—that too was a rare kind of talent.

"Hmph. Even if Ram doesn't understand Barusu, surely Ram understands you, don't you think?"

Ram folded her arms across her chest, and the single exposed eye glanced at Emilia, whose brow was furrowed in confusion. After letting out a sigh, she gestured toward the screen ahead.

"Right there, it lays out the inner experiences of your heart plainly for all to see. I daresay even the Barusu of the old days—who couldn't read a single word—would be able to understand it."

Ram stared fixedly at Emilia for several seconds, and for some reason her tone gradually softened as she patiently explained.

"The crucial point, in truth, lies in the attitude you showed toward Barusu back when you were first imprisoned by him."

"Nominally, Barusu imprisoned you, but in reality it was a form of protection. That much can be seen from Puck's attitude toward Barusu."

"After all, Puck should be the being who loves you most, no? Even if you won't believe me, surely you'd believe the Puck over there?"

As she said this, Ram gestured toward Puck, who was playing dumb while nestled in Emilia's embrace.

And now that she had been called out by name, Puck could hardly keep pretending to be oblivious.

She had no choice but to float up lightly, drifting and trembling as she faced her daughter.

"Sorry, Lia. I only wanted you to go on living well."

Faced with Puck's explanation, Emilia fell silent for a brief moment, then shook her head and chose to forgive him.

"It's nothing. Just like the screen said, it was only my... one-sided wishful thinking to begin with. I simply wasn't mature enough."

"Ha... but if only you'd realized this a little sooner."

Ram shook her head and said to Emilia.

"You were the one being protected, yet you bared such an ugly, resentful, even hateful expression at the very person protecting you. What do you think Barusu's first impression of you was back then?"

"That this person... truly has nothing on her mind but herself!"

"Nothing on my mind... but myself?"

Emilia lowered her head, softly murmuring as she repeated Ram's words.

She wasn't angry—on the contrary, her eyes suddenly lit up, and a flash of insight streaked across her mind like a shooting star, sending a thrill through her entire being.

That was it. Precisely because she had only ever thought of herself, that was why she'd been unable to understand Subaru, wasn't it?

If her past self had lacked information, lacked the conditions to understand—

But the her of now already knew everything Subaru had been through.

So why had she been fixating on herself and refusing to let go?

Once her thoughts broke free of the cage of the past, the details she had once overlooked all surfaced within her heart, one by one.

Natsuki Subaru's Return by Death, his torture at Rem's hands, his being hunted by Ram—all of these strung together, echoing the later act of deciding life and death with the flip of a single coin.

The reason behind all of it was that Subaru's heart had already become incomparably fragile and sensitive; he trusted no one.

Unless... unless that person remained constant and unchanging!

Emilia nearly gasped aloud, for she suddenly remembered another line—one she hadn't understood at the time—that Natsuki Subaru had spoken the day he furiously rejected her:

"Only now, at this point, do you start being gentle with me?"

Viewed from another angle, this line took on new meaning.

If she had been gentle with Subaru from the very beginning, how would everything have turned out?

But it was all too late now.

Someone like her—who hated Subaru at first, only to confess to him in the end—such a fractured attitude was practically like being two different people. Anyone would refuse to place their trust in her.

Thinking this, Emilia murmured to herself, and faintly, imperceptibly, her words came to overlap with the inner monologue of the Purge King Natsuki Subaru on the screen.

["A heart that changes will, sooner or later, deceive."

"And one who has learned to deceive will, sooner or later, betray."

The Purge King Natsuki Subaru lounged carelessly in the chair at his room's dining table, his gaze calm as he watched Frederica, who had come to deliver his meal.

"Ah, yes!"

Frederica snapped back from surveying this room—one that could only be called plain—and hurriedly answered.

No matter how many times she came, she still found a room like this strange.

If it had one saving grace, it was that it was spacious enough.

But beyond that, this place had none of the extravagant furnishings and décor of the main hall; instead, it looked utterly disordered.

Books of every kind were strewn about at random, and the account ledgers of the 'Pleiades' society could be seen everywhere.

Moreover, the king never allowed anyone to clean his room—likely because he trusted no one and feared that others might tamper with something inside.

That said, this didn't mean her work as a maid had become any easier because of it.

The headless corpses that appeared in the main hall at regular intervals were the most difficult part of her job to bear.

But even so, she had to grit her teeth and do it. After all, the only reason she'd been able to keep her life was that the king's mistress—Emilia—had pleaded on her behalf.

Fortunately, the people connected to her had also survived because of it.

For it was the king's code of conduct that, in killing an enemy, he would spare no one connected to them either—and that was something her circumstances would never change.]

"'King,' huh... What a dashing title. A pity he isn't a little less brutal—that would make it even better."

Outside the screen, Frederica thought this to herself, a little distracted.

But then she shook her head, recalling the experiences of Natsuki Subaru shown earlier in the story, and felt a pang of heartache for this little man who put on such a ruthless front.

He... didn't want to become this way either. He merely wrapped himself in vicious, ruthless means to protect himself.

"Sis... Sis!"

Suddenly, Garfiel's call came from beside her, cutting off her train of thought.

Turning her head to look, she found her little brother Garfiel eyeing her with a strange, meaningful expression—winking and grimacing for reasons unknown—which left Frederica completely bewildered, so she asked outright.

"Garf, do your eyes hurt? Why do you keep blinking like that?"

"Aw come on, Sis, haven't you noticed? That green-haired sword guy, all he said was that rumor has it Emilia is the general's mistress."

"But you, Sis—you came right out and said for certain that the general's mistress is Emilia. So I'm thinking, could it be..."

"Could it be that the one who spread this rumor around was actually you, Sis? Hahaha!"

Garfiel burst out laughing, clutching his belly. It was the first time he'd learned his sister was that sort of person—after all, he'd been separated from her for a very long time.

But this, surely, was just a maid's natural instinct... right? In any case, he'd taken one more step toward understanding his sister.

As for Frederica, upon hearing Garfiel's words, a crimson flush spread from her neck all the way up to her face, like a kettle brought to a boil.

She glanced left and right, only to find that everyone present was, to some degree, casting sidelong glances at her, wearing those knowing, meaningful looks.

She... doesn't know a single thing about any of it right now!

She really, truly isn't that much of a gossip!!

____

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