Chapter 96: Sudden Turn for the Worse

Not long after Betty had left, Natsuki Subaru wondered just what on earth was happening outside—Betty being summoned away was something that had never occurred in any of the previous loops.

He hesitated for a long while, but in the end decided not to sit and wait for death within the Forbidden Archive; instead, he would go out and see what was going on.

The moment he opened the door of the Forbidden Archive, sunlight struck Natsuki Subaru's face, filling his entire field of vision.

The morning light cast off by the slowly rising sun was refracted by the glass into a yellow-green hue, and the scene before him appeared, in Natsuki Subaru's eyes, sacred and brimming with hope.

"Did I… really make it safely through the night of the fourth day?"

Natsuki Subaru sank to his knees, unable to hold back tears of excitement and joy.

"To think it would be this easy after all… I really did take one enormous detour, didn't I."

"Oho, so the boss pulled it off? Never thought clearing it would be this simple!"

Garfiel planted his hands on his hips and roared with laughter.

"Easy as anything, easy as anything!"

"Could you not bellow in front of me like some monkey? Use your head even a little and you'd know it couldn't possibly be that simple."

Priscilla flicked open her fiery-red fan to cover her delicate little nose, tilting her head slightly to give Garfiel a look of utter disdain.

"Hah? You woman, you dare call this great one a monkey? Want to bet I'll pound you to death?"

Garfiel flared up in an instant, forgetting even what he'd just been mocked about, and made to storm right up to Priscilla with murderous momentum.

"You want to hit me?"

Priscilla raised an eyebrow at the approaching Garfiel.

"That's right, I absolutely have to hit you!"

Garfiel had, of course, not the slightest hesitation about that question.

Hearing this, Priscilla's gaze turned playful as she spoke.

"Is that so? But I am the boss—Natsuki Subaru's woman. Which would make you my little brother-in-law, wouldn't it? Shouldn't you be calling me 'sister-in-law'?"

"And is it really alright to strike your big brother's woman?"

In that instant, Garfiel was pinned in place by Priscilla's single remark, and he began to question his whole existence.

It seemed… that really wouldn't do, would it? It didn't fit with his own inner code of honor either, did it?

This woman claimed to be the boss's woman—though there was no proof, and he'd never heard the boss say as much.

But surely a woman like this wouldn't stake her own chastity just to deceive him.

At that thought, Garfiel sensed something was off. He lifted his head and swept his gaze around the room.

Apart from the four women who all claimed to be his sisters-in-law—Big Sis Emilia, Rem, Ram—ah, and that one over there with the faint presence, the Bowel Hunter… it seemed every one of them treated the boss in a less-than-ordinary manner.

Dizzy and reeling, Garfiel covered his face. His sisters-in-law… seemed to be rather many.

"Indeed, this is not the loop in which Subaru cleared it. The proof is that this stretch of experience exists nowhere in my memory."

At this point Betty spoke up, cutting off this whole farce and drawing everyone's attention back.

Hearing these words, the crowd in the viewing area grew tense one after another—after all, if it wasn't the correct loop, that meant—

Natsuki Subaru had once again experienced death.

Truly cruel, truly merciless.

As Natsuki Subaru stood there blankly in a daze, his thoughts were interrupted by an abrupt call.

"Subaru?"

Natsuki Subaru turned his head toward the voice and saw Emilia standing not far from him, in a shadowed spot untouched by direct sunlight, wrapped in gloom.

Standing in the sunlight, Natsuki Subaru asked in puzzlement.

"Emilia-tan?"

"Where did you go? No… never mind. Come with me!"

Emilia walked up to Natsuki Subaru and, without allowing any objection, seized his hand and strode briskly off with him in the direction she had come from.

Lowering her head to hide her grim expression, she led Natsuki Subaru with heavy steps to the doorway of Rem's bedroom.

"Emilia-tan, what's wrong? Everything went so smoothly—I made it through the night of the fourth day, I'm perfectly safe, Emilia-tan is safe, everyone is safe—"

The further Natsuki Subaru spoke, the smaller his voice grew, and with some hesitation and uncertainty he said:

"Has something… happened to someone?"

"No—!"

Suddenly, a heart-rending scream rang out from within Rem's bedroom, cutting off Natsuki Subaru's question.

"Wha…"

Startled into a cold sweat by this abrupt scene, Natsuki Subaru tentatively stepped over to the doorway of Rem's bedroom and looked in from outside.

There he saw the usually cold and aloof Lady Ram, now kneeling without a shred of composure before Rem's bed, wailing in anguish, as though she had lost the most precious treasure in her life.

Natsuki Subaru gasped nervously for breath, his gaze inching little by little toward Rem's bed.

At that moment Rem lay there quietly—no, rather than say it was Rem, it would be better to say it was… Rem's corpse lying there.

"Why… why has Rem been killed?"

Natsuki Subaru's mind stiffly circled around this question over and over, yet could find no answer. Within the darkened bedroom, Roswaal and the summoned Betty stood silently in a corner watching, and then turned their gazes upon Natsuki Subaru.

"The cause of death was a wasting away, as though in deep slumber—the flame of life snuffed out. More than magic, this resembles the methods of a curse."

"Wasted away to death—Lady Rem was struck by a curse?"

Otto cried out in alarm, and in an instant all sorts of clues strung themselves together in his mind.

"That's right—in this loop, Mr. Natsuki didn't become a servant and go along to the village to purchase supplies, so the one bitten by the dog… became Lady Rem!"

Otto slapped his thigh hard, his train of thought clearer than ever before.

"It seems this is yet another failed loop."

Beside him, Reinhard withdrew the gaze he had placed on Otto and looked back at the image on the screen.

Death, the grieving kin sorrowing over the dead, and… the "culprit" who had brought all of this about.

Reinhard fixed his eyes and furrowed his brow. If nothing went amiss, what came next would be—

Hearing the word "curse," Natsuki Subaru halted his departing steps and, almost reflexively, turned a face full of shock toward where Rem lay.

He had kept assuming that curse was Rem's doing—so it turned out the Curse Caster and Rem weren't the same person after all?

"Natsuki Subaru… honored guest, might I ask whether you understand something about this?"

Catching sight of this, Roswaal—having noticed Natsuki Subaru's reaction—narrowed his eyes and asked, courtesy edged with a chill.

"For my attendant to fall to such cruel hands—it seems I too am beginning to feel a touch of anger now."

"Subaru, if you know something, then say it."

Emilia, too, tugged at the sleeve of Natsuki Subaru's sleepwear, her expression grave and earnest.

"This is bad—Subaru's hesitant behavior has already roused everyone's suspicion!"

Frederica pressed both hands to her chest, silently praying for the Natsuki Subaru on the screen.

As a former maid of Roswaal Manor, she was well acquainted with the temperaments of these people in the manor.

With their keen and suspicious minds, they could surely tell from a single gesture alone that something was off about Natsuki Subaru—and that he was hiding something.

Crusch knit her brows slightly and spoke with a touch of puzzlement.

"That the others suspect me, I can understand—but Emilia… ever since she was saved by my husband in the Slums (cortiços), she regards my husband as her benefactor on the one hand, yet wavers back and forth on the other."

"The moment something happens, she's the first to put on a sour face toward my husband, showing an attitude of suspicion and distrust… this one point alone, I cannot accept."

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