Chapter 87: Rem's Collapse

After listening to Roswaal's madman-like declaration, the viewing area fell silent for a moment.

"Huh... This guy is so disgusting. Is this the perverted clown Roswaal that my husband mentioned?"

At last, Crusch was the first to break the eerie calm around them.

She stroked her slender arm, as if smoothing down the goosebumps all over her body.

"How is it I can't quite remember some people? I haven't heard a thing about him since Subaru ascended the throne."

Felt pondered for a while, then asked in confusion.

"I know, I know! Subaru said he kicked this guy to death long ago like a stray dog on the roadside!"

Anastasia giggled, not sparing the slightest regard for Roswaal's dignity.

Roswaal, who clearly heard the conversation among the women, stiffened, no longer able to maintain that composed, unhurried demeanor.

"I'm sorry, dear sisters, and everyone else. Although I never harmed Big Brother's memories, I'll reflect on the version of myself on the screen."

Meili bowed to everyone in apology, then held up three fingers and swore an oath.

"And once we get out, Meili will definitely make it up to Big Brother properly!"

As she said this, Meili broke into a sunny, adorable smile.

No one really had anything to say to that, and they turned their heads back to the screen.

[The supply shopping soon came to an end, and Natsuki Subaru and Rem set off on the road home beneath the setting sun. The two of them chatted happily along the way.

The atmosphere was harmonious, and gradually grew more relaxed.

Soon the scene shifted to inside Natsuki Subaru's room, where Emilia was filling in for Ram, supervising Natsuki Subaru's literacy lessons.

And Natsuki Subaru, for his part, seized this opportunity to once again extend Emilia an invitation for a date together the next day.

"Tomorrow's going to be good weather!"

Emilia leaned against the window, gazing down at the courtyard bathed in moonlight, a heartfelt smile spreading across her face.

"Mm, and it'll be an unforgettable day."

Natsuki Subaru walked over to Emilia's side, staring blankly at the moon in the night sky outside the window.

Because he didn't know—would he be able to rewrite the ending in which he'd been killed silently and without a trace in the previous loop, and thus live to see tomorrow?]

"You definitely will, Subaru!"

Rem crossed her hands and clasped them tightly together, making a wish for Natsuki Subaru.

She hoped a miracle would happen, letting Subaru get through this night safely.

Even though, in her heart, she already knew this was impossible.

The Subaru on the screen still hadn't obtained any information about how he had died in the previous loop.

So this time, too, he would once again die in his sleep...

Rem's eyes reddened as she thought of this sorrowfully.

The others realized this as well, but all they could do at this moment was silently offer their blessings to Natsuki Subaru.

[After seeing Emilia off, Natsuki Subaru sat tensely on the stool in his room, silently waiting.

"Let's settle this, O Lord Destiny—tonight I absolutely will not sleep!"

Natsuki Subaru forced a brave little smile onto the corner of his mouth.

"Just like this, I'll greet the hopeful dawn of tomorrow!"

Saying that, he let out a sigh.

"This time it seems I've done things completely differently from the last loop, but at least I'm on good terms with Ram and Rem."

"If there's anything to regret, it's probably that I didn't say goodnight to Betty before bed. I really should have thanked her properly."

As he was thinking this, Natsuki Subaru's eyelids grew heavy, and he drifted toward sleep.]

"Subaru..."

Betty's cute little face was already streaming with tears as she watched Subaru on the screen sorrowfully, feeling that never before had she wanted so badly to see him.

"What... is this?"

Natsuki Subaru, who had already closed his eyes from drowsiness, suddenly felt a chill course through his entire body.

"This is bad, this is... ugh!"

Natsuki Subaru's expression twisted in pain, almost vomiting up everything in his stomach.

"Someone..."

With all his might, using the last of his remaining strength, he propped his body up and staggered out of the room into the hallway.

"Someone, please save..."]

"Subaru, open a door, just open one door, please—at least then I..."

Beyond the screen, Betty cried out loudly, but then, as if remembering something, her whole body stiffened.

No... if it was her from this period.

Faced with a Subaru who was already beyond saving after the curse had activated, she would probably...

A line of tears slid quietly from the corner of Betty's eye. Her expression was anguished, not knowing how to face Subaru.

In fact... the her on the screen had already sensed Subaru's condition in the hallway, hadn't she?

And yet she chose to turn a blind eye.

Was this Betty? Because she didn't want to see an acquaintance in the moments before death, she stood by and did nothing for Subaru!

Betty wept and laughed at once, wishing she could leap back into the screen and give her past self a hard slap.

"Subaru is heading toward... my room. He wants to ask me for help."

Although just a moment ago, Emilia—like before in the Royal Capital—had regained the complete memories of Natsuki Subaru during the manor arc.

But watching the Natsuki Subaru on the screen struggling so desperately, relying on his survival instinct to come to her room and beg her for help, her heart clenched painfully.

"What comes next is... wait, no—!"

Then Emilia suddenly remembered what fate awaited the Natsuki Subaru on the screen next, and she let out a pained cry of alarm.

[Natsuki Subaru stumbled forward.

"Clatter..."

But as he gradually drew closer to Emilia's room, a sound of chains scraping and dragging across the floor came from up ahead in the hallway.

"Why would there suddenly be the sound of chains?"

Otto frowned in confusion. The more he listened, the more familiar the sound seemed.

Until, a flash of insight struck him.

"This kind of sound... it's a morning star flail, and the person who uses this kind of weapon..."

Otto instinctively cast a covert glance toward Rem, his heart seizing with dread.

Mr. Natsuki, approaching at this late hour the room of Lady Emilia—the one in this manor who most needed to be protected.

On top of that, Rem had long held suspicions because of all the careless, scatterbrained behavior he'd shown before.

Could it be that Miss Rem is about to...!

And if Otto could think of this, then of course Rem, sitting in her seat, had realized it too.

She immediately stood up, staring fixedly at the dark hallway ahead on the screen, praying with a trembling heart.

Don't let it be her, don't let it be her... please don't let it be her!

Rem glared with bloodshot eyes, like a gambler who knew she was about to lose yet refused to accept reality.

["...Mm?"

Natsuki Subaru stopped in his tracks, panting heavily, and at the same time squeezed a puzzled sound out of his throat.

However, in the next instant, like a tattered burlap sack, he was sent flying by a blunt weapon that came out of nowhere.]

"Subaru!"

"Husband!"

"Lord Subaru!"

Beyond the screen, everyone, whose nerves had been on edge the whole time, couldn't help but cry out in alarm.

Their dangling hearts finally died, and so every face turned grave.

Garfiel slammed his fist hard against the armrest of his seat, his expression ugly, teeth clenched.

And at that very same moment—

"Thud!"

A loud noise beside them instantly drew everyone's attention.

Rem had collapsed weakly to her knees on the floor, biting her lips so hard they bled profusely, smearing her entire chin.

That's right, that was...

Rem had clearly caught, in that fleeting image, the shape of the weapon that had sent Natsuki Subaru flying.

It was her morning star flail.

At this thought, Rem suddenly clutched her own head, because just now she had abruptly felt her vision grow hazy.

But she immediately shook her head hard, forcing herself to pull her spirits together.

Only because... she had to make herself look closely at exactly what she had done to Subaru.

["Squelch!"

After Natsuki Subaru fell to the ground, he spat out a huge mouthful of fresh blood, mixed with fragments of his internal organs.

"What's going on...?"

Natsuki Subaru forced himself to stay conscious, trying to figure out what had happened, only to notice several drops of liquid dripping onto his face.

He looked up and discovered that his entire severed left arm was hanging from the chandelier above his head.

"Ahh... ahh!!"

Realizing what had happened, Natsuki Subaru let out a hideous, agonized wail.

Then a figure walked up before Natsuki Subaru, the morning star flail swinging down to strike his fragile head.

With a "squelch," one of his burst eyeballs rolled to the feet of the attacker.

The moonlight from the hallway window spilled down—illuminating the black-and-white maid uniform the attacker wore.]

"Ugh... bleurgh!"

The moment Rem saw Natsuki Subaru's severed left arm, she had already vomited uncontrollably.

But even as she retched, in an almost self-tormenting way, she glared with bloodshot eyes, fixated on the scene on the screen before her.

However, once she saw Natsuki Subaru's eyeball roll to a stop at her own feet, her spirit utterly collapsed.

Subaru's hand... Subaru's eye...

All of it was by me, by me...

Rem trembled as she stretched out both her hands.

Her mind grew hazy, and the filth and bile on her two hands transformed in the blink of an eye into the blood flowing from Natsuki Subaru's wounds.

In an instant, her head exploded with a buzz, as if a protective mechanism had been triggered, ceaselessly conjuring up warm memories of the time she had spent with Natsuki Subaru.

Her confession in the bedroom that she wanted to become Subaru's exclusive maid, their meeting in the hallway...

Further back still was her married life with Subaru—that had been her happiest time...

The memories continued rapidly rewinding, reaching the abandoned rooftop in the Royal Capital, where she had accepted Natsuki Subaru's request to flee this country together.

Wait...

Was that right? Why did she remember that, up on that rooftop, she had actually given Natsuki Subaru a grand and passionate confession?

That she had helped him—that he, Rem's hero, had pulled himself together and faced the difficulties ahead?

No, no, it's wrong, it's all jumbled, all of it's jumbled!

Rem clutched her head, tears pouring unstoppably from the corners of her eyes in her panic.

The memories still went on, but around the edges of the remembered images, patches of ever-expanding black dots kept surfacing from time to time.

At the manor, she had been wary yet curious toward the Subaru who was steeped in the witch's lingering scent, with even a faint trace of fondness...

Watching those warm scenes of being together with Natsuki Subaru, chatting and bickering, Rem couldn't help but let a faint smile show at the corner of her mouth.

However, in the next moment, the black dots drifting amid those scenes suddenly expanded.

As if forcibly gouging out a chunk from these beautiful memories and inserting in its place the image of her shattering Natsuki Subaru's arm with the morning star flail.

No... I don't want this!

Rem wept and screamed in collapse, feeling only that her head ached terribly.

Up, down, left, right—everything around her was shaking, in time with the images displayed within that black frame that represented despair.

That morning when the mabeast incident ended—

"Since Ram has lost her horn, let Rem take her place instead..."

"No one is born to be a substitute..."

"Let us smile and throw our arms around each other's shoulders, and talk freely of tomorrow together..."

"Chatting and laughing about the future with an oni is my dream!"

Warm voices from Subaru, one after another, rang out in her ears.

Whenever she thought of these, her heart had always brimmed with strength.

However——

Even these—even these...

Rem panted heavily, watching as Subaru's face, which in her memory had once worn a sunny smile, was replaced by black dots into the image of a Subaru covered in blood.

Even the voices in her ears turned, with a crackling hiss, into the agonized wails Subaru let out as his left shoulder was completely crushed, along with the faint accusations coming from another version of herself.

"It was you... you killed him, you killed Natsuki Subaru!"

Despair was spreading...

At last, the image before Rem's eyes froze on the eyeball belonging to Natsuki Subaru, rolled to a stop at her feet.

Rem stared at Natsuki Subaru's eyeball, as if gazing through that unfocused pupil at the Natsuki Subaru hidden within.

"Hahaha..."

The corners of her mouth split open, the curve growing wider and wider, and then she let out the most despairing, deranged laughter yet—as if it could pierce through time and space.

"Rem... really is so slothful, after all."

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