Chapter 37 37: Lady Emilia is a Bit of a Hindrance Now, Huh

Emilia slowly turned her head toward Rem.

The rosy flush that had bloomed across her cheeks from Subaru's gaze drained away in an instant, as though swept clean by a cold wind.

Those exquisite violet-blue eyes held a flicker of bewilderment at Rem's behavior — but far more than that, they held something else entirely:

A flame, kindled by this quiet, ever-diligent, unremarkable maid — a flame that went by the name of possessiveness.

"Rem."

Emilia's voice was soft, yet it shattered the fragile, eerie calm that had only just resettled over the dining table.

"You're standing too close to Subaru. Move away."

She didn't even bother with polite speech. The words came out as a flat command, meant to push Rem away from Natsuki Subaru's side.

Rem heard her. She simply raised her eyes — unhurried, steady — and met Emilia's cold gaze without flinching.

There was no fear on her face. Not even the faintest trace of intention to back down.

If anything, she drew herself up just slightly straighter, her voice remaining respectful — yet carrying an unmistakable undercurrent of resolve:

"Lady Emilia, Rem is merely fulfilling her duties as a maid, serving tea to the mas— ...to the guest."

"When the need arises, Rem must remain within the guest's easy reach."

"Easy reach?"

Emilia repeated the words slowly, the corner of her mouth curling into an arc that sent a chill down the spine.

"Whatever Subaru needs — I will be the one to decide that, and I will be the one to provide it. Is that clear, Rem?"

As she spoke, her fingers slipped quietly beneath the table and settled — seemingly by accident — on the back of Natsuki Subaru's hand.

Her fingertips moved in small, gentle circles, as though offering comfort. As though coaxing.

Ram stood behind Roswaal, her brow deeply furrowed.

Her gaze swept back and forth between Rem and Emilia, her expression carrying a weight and confusion she had never worn before.

Her sister's behavior had already pushed far beyond the boundaries of anything she could comprehend.

And the hostility Lady Emilia was radiating — aimed squarely at Rem — made her heart clench with unease.

This was nothing like the gentle Lady Emilia she had always known.

Perhaps...

Ram's brow creased further, as though a thought had just begun to take shape.

Roswaal sat at the head of the table and took it all in.

He rested his chin on one hand, his mismatched eyes glimmering with a light that was difficult to read.

The variable that Natsuki Subaru had introduced was extraordinary indeed — it had thrown even the interpersonal dynamics of the manor into complete disarray.

Lady Emilia's strange infatuation. The maid Rem's near-fanatical transfer of loyalty...

This cascade of changes stirred in him a deeply twisted sense of excitement.

He needed to observe. He needed to judge. Where would this chaos ultimately lead?

Could it truly find its way to his beloved teacher's side — the path he had dreamed of for so long?

The ghost of a smile — playful, unreadable — lingered at the corner of his mouth.

He looked for all the world like a man savoring a magnificent play that had taken the stage without warning and already far exceeded his expectations.

Betty sat across from Natsuki Subaru, her small brow furrowed as well.

Puck, nestled in her arms, was uncharacteristically silent.

He simply watched the soundless smoke of war drifting across the dining table with those blue eyes of his — deep and still.

In that moment, Rem did not speak immediately in the face of Emilia's dominance.

Instead, she let her eyelids fall, her fingertips curling inward without thinking — pressing almost hard enough to leave marks in her palm.

Her thoughts began to drift, sinking toward the depths of memory:

The Royal Capital.

A rooftop — the kind that rose above abandoned buildings and let you look out over the whole of the Royal Capital if you stood at the edge.

Rem, her blue hair stirred by the wind, had watched Natsuki Subaru as his pent-up despair finally broke through the surface — his soul adrift, hollowed out — and felt it like a blade turning inside her.

In that moment, she understood with absolute clarity.

Her hero — Subaru — had given up entirely.

He had surrendered to fate. He had decided to abandon the people who mattered to him and run — to flee this place, no matter the cost.

That surrender was despair made flesh — the grief of someone who had come to believe that every effort would crumble to nothing in the end.

She couldn't fully understand what Subaru had been through to arrive at that kind of hopelessness.

But from where Rem stood:

It had all begun in the Royal Capital. It had begun with the fight between Subaru and Lady Emilia — and the rift that tore them apart.

Lady Emilia had left Subaru behind in the Royal Capital to recover from his injuries. That single act had widened the fracture between them.

Subaru had wanted to become a knight worthy of standing at Lady Emilia's side, and so he had thrown himself into sword training, trying to build the strength to make that real.

But... Subaru simply didn't have that kind of talent.

Day after day after day, his efforts amounted, in the end, to nothing.

The cruelty of reality had come down on him blow after blow, and in the end — one could only imagine — he had been broken completely.

The fierce fire of will that had once burned in Subaru's eyes had gone out. Only cold ash remained.

Rem knew — even if she poured every last drop of her sincerity and devotion into her words, they likely could not break through that thick, hopeless wall around his heart, could not relight the flame of hope inside him.

Because his heart had already been claimed by someone else — by Lady Emilia.

And so, driven also by something she could only call selfishness, Rem could no longer bear to watch her hero continue to suffer.

And so she had agreed to Natsuki Subaru's request — to run away together.

For that, she had taken it upon herself to use the emergency funds left in Count Roswaal's manor, and together with Subaru, she had boarded a carriage and fled the Kingdom of Lugnica.

After that, Rem and Natsuki Subaru had been happy — genuinely happy. After they married, she took his name and became "Natsuki Rem."

She bore him two children — a son and a daughter, two precious little ones.

But more than once, Rem had found herself looking back — or dreaming — of that day on the rooftop, the day she had agreed to run away from Lugnica with Natsuki Subaru.

What if she hadn't taken his hand?

What if instead she had encouraged him to stand up again — to become once more the hero she had once looked up to with all her heart?

What would that world have looked like?

As time went on, she found herself turning the question over and over like someone under a spell, her thoughts growing more and more extreme.

The memory ended. Time returned to now.

Rem's jaw tightened.

The moment she had awakened to find herself reborn at the story's beginning — still in Roswaal's manor — the long-buried regret that had weighed on her heart became tangled with the shock and elation of a survivor who had suddenly discovered she still had a chance to change everything.

Two extreme emotions crashed through her mind at once, filling her with a desperate, urgent need to find the path that led to an ending where everyone was saved.

When she faced that choice on the rooftop again — encourage Subaru, push him to stand up and save everyone?

That was possible, yes. But it also carried the risk of failure.

Because Subaru's heart wasn't with her.

And beyond that — Rem herself didn't want to do it that way anymore.

Subaru... had already become her husband. They had built a life together. They had children.

And yet now she was supposed to stand here and watch the Subaru she loved most in the world — every thought, every feeling, every part of him — belong entirely to Lady Emilia? To give everything for Lady Emilia?

That was simply... too cruel.

But if she acted selfishly and took Subaru for herself — history would repeat. No one would be saved.

Like someone possessed, Rem had wrestled with these two contradictory thoughts all the way down the corridor to the dining room, the conflict shifting and twisting inside her with every step.

Until at last, teetering on the edge of collapse, a thought surfaced in her mind — wild, almost mad, sending tremors through her entire body, and yet... somehow convincing enough that she couldn't dismiss it:

What if... what if, from the very beginning, the person Subaru was infatuated with had been her — instead of Lady Emilia?

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