I forced the mood to turn heavy in an instant, looking deep into Emilia’s eyes. “How serious are you about breaking the barrier?”
“Subaru?”
“To be blunt, Emilia, do you have what it takes to pass the trials?”
Whereas before Emilia looked thrown off and unsteady from my sudden changing of mood, now she looked resolute, almost fierce. “I will pass the trials,” She said it as a fact, not a supposition.
“And, if you fail, will you be able to stand back up again?”
Her face broke slightly, “I’m... not—”
“Emilia, determination doesn’t mean you just keep throwing yourself at something without ever expecting to succeed. It means you keep standing back up again, over and over, each time with the expectation of success. If you say you are going to do your best, but you only try it halfway with the excuse ‘I can just do it again if I fail’, then your determination was no more than an empty platitude used to make yourself feel better.”
Then, Rem almost said something, perhaps to defend Emilia, but Emilia’s face finished breaking first. I thought she would start crying, making me feel slightly bad for a bit. It was never a good thing when you made a girl cry. I didn’t regret my words, though— they were necessary.
“Subaru.” Emila choked up, her voice full of emotion. “I don’t know if I can do this without Puck.”
For the first time today, I didn’t know what to say. Her response should have been expected, but it still left me floundering for words.
“Emilia?”
She hummed to indicate she was listening, tears gathering in her eyes.
“Don’t you remember the promise we just made together?”
She looked at me, not quite understanding.
“There are more people than just Puck who care about you, you know? Didn’t you just promise to be my friend? Don’t you know that friends lean on one another when things get hard?”
She smiled and hummed again, slightly nodding her head. Suddenly, the tears in her eyes stopped looking like tears of sadness.
“Okay, Subaru. Can you save me again?”
I stood up from out of my chair and walked around the table. Emilia watched me as I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m your knight, aren’t I?”
“Subaru-kun?”
“Yes, Rem-rin?”
“I want to say as expected of Rem’s hero, but can I ask you not to flirt with Emilia while I’m still in the room?”
I scratched the back of my head, embarrassed. “My bad.”
Emilia laughed.
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Tonight, Emilia would attempt the trials. But, that wouldn’t be for a few hours. Right now, I had other things I wanted to accomplish— namely: training.
“Betty has no interest in this slugfest, in fact.”
“Beako! But, we need you! Don’t you want to watch your man get all sweaty?”
“Betty has no interest in that either, I suppose!” She shouted cutely, turning her face away lest I see her blush.
“Subaru-kun, if you are done playing around, shall we get started?” Rem said across from me.
I’d asked her for a spar, hoping to get better with Martial Talent. Rem seemed like a good place to start, since I knew she had good martial prowess even without her signature flail. Betty was here as a healer, but she didn’t like watching spars— she’d rather be holed up in her new library.
“Why does it look like you are about to enjoy this so much?” I asked with a cracked smile.
“That must be Subaru-kun’s imagination,” Rem gave me a feral grin. “Prepare yourself.”
And then, Rem launched at me, a blur that I could only see because I knew she was going easy on me.
I hastily pulled my guard up, taekwondo lessons from my time before the Company kicking in. I had actually been quite a good sparrer in my past life, winning many competitions. None of that training properly prepared me for a supernatural fight, though.
Rem easily stepped into my guard, her head popping up in front of me without warning. I’m ashamed to admit it, but her cute face distracted me for a critical moment, I even had the urge to lean in and try to kiss her, as inappropriate as the timing was. In that split moment, she flashed me a smile, and I got the impression she distracted me like that on purpose. The next moment, I felt a flash of pain through my torso, and then I got sent flying backward into the first tree in my flight path. My back cracked against the trunk, the ridges and grooves of the wood painfully digging in for the split moment my momentum hadn’t yet ended.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Then I fell down into the dirt, crumpling as I desperately reached out for air. My lungs wouldn’t cooperate, I tried to suck in a breath but my diaphragm just spasmed instead. With panic, I tried to force in a gulp of air, but I only wheezed. With my eyes tearing up unconsciously from the damage to my respiratory tract, I felt a few more moments of lying there wouldn’t hurt any.
A moment later, Beako appeared in front of me, and I dazedly heard her say, “You’ll be fine, I suppose.”
No! Beako! My lifeline abandoned me! She didn’t even bother to heal me.
I finally wheezed in a desperate gulp of air, coughing in between breaths. A mop of blue hair appeared directly overhead, and then Rem was offering me her small pale hand. I grabbed it, so she could lift me up. She turned me around and patted the dirt off of my back.
“Perhaps I went too fast for Subaru-kun? But that’s strange, I thought you easily defeated Garfiel. This level of strength should be acceptable?”
“Your cute face distracted me,” I gasped out, “I’ll be ready this time.”
“Compliments won’t make me go any easier on you, Subaru-kun.”
“I know. Okay, let’s try again.”
By the end of my spar, I was absolutely drenched in sweat. My head pulsed with each heartbeat, and I felt uncontrollably thirsty. My body was sore, but in that good sort of way that would last until tomorrow morning— at which point I knew I’d be covered in bruises and have a real tough time of moving normally.
Beako took one look at me, shrugged, and said I’d be ‘fine I suppose,’ so even though Rem had pushed me hard, I knew she hadn’t gone overboard. Beako didn’t even use magic to heal me, making her complain about her time being wasted, but I just patted her head and thanked her sincerely for being there for me. My words made her blush and cutely say something dere~dere.
By the end of it all, I felt that I’d noticeably improved. Rem even praised my level of improvement as prodigious, but I still couldn’t touch her without going Dragon. That being said, Rem had appropriately gauged the level of strength to use against me, and that was proven after I didn’t let her cuteness distract me again. After that initial blow, I didn’t take any hits nearly as bad as that first one.
After all of that, we met up with Ram again and tried to check in on Roswaal. As I’d suspected, he refused to talk to us, much to Ram’s dismay. She’d even begged him to say something— which had felt really out of character for the normally unflappable Ram. He’d just moved his eyes to look at her face for a moment before once again turning to face the wall. To be fair to Ram, that had been the most amount of reaction he’d shown since our brief talk that morning.
Emilia would be taking the trials tonight, so after dinner, I had tried to prepare her as best I could. I’d said something like, ‘Indomitable spirit is about getting up and fighting for success after each failure’— but explained over a larger set of words and examples.
She’d left with a determined smile on her face, though I was still fairly certain she’d fail. I honestly couldn’t remember how Canon Subaru got her to pass the trials, and the version of Subaru within myself seemed to think I’d done a good job so far. He’d be useless on the first loop regardless, so I tried not to pay too much attention to his phantasm.
Regardless, all of that led me to where I was today— sitting down in a chair with a certain iconic drill loli sitting in my lap, receiving head pats.
“Not that Betty minds this, but did you not want to practice magic, I wonder?” Despite her pretending to move things along with her words, she wiggled into my lap to get even more comfortable. She’d melted into my head patting technique like a kitten desperate for scritches.
“Yes, we can practice together. But didn’t you know, skinship is important for this sort of thing? By having you sit on my lap, our souls can be even more closely aligned. That way, our magic will certainly find harmony!” I declared without a shred of remorse.
“Betty is quite certain magic doesn’t work that way, in fact. But, if her Subaru says so, then I suppose we can stay like this.” She angled her head up so she could look at my face. “What would you like to practice first, I wonder?”
“Let’s start with the absolute basics. First of all, now that we are contracted, how much of the magic in my gate do you need to subsist passively?” I asked.
“Betty supposes she is using all of Subaru’s current output, in fact. Indeed, since Betty is Subaru’s contracted spirit, I suppose Betty can only use your mana. Betty cannot take mana from the atmosphere or other people anymore, in fact. Though Betty does have a large amount of mana stored up from 400 years, if I run out, then your passive mana will only be enough for one or two big spells per month, I suppose.”
That wasn’t surprising. I still had default Subaru’s gate, even if it was undamaged. “In that case, things certainly are simple. You are vastly superior to me in magic, so it doesn’t make sense for me to shape things, at least in the short term. That being said, I have an idea for three spells I’d like to challenge you to develop with me. After I explain the premise, you tell me how I can help.”
“Betty is listening, I suppose. Betty is excited to hear Subaru’s ideas, and how to use your innate void magic, I suppose.” I could see her practically salivating at the thought of new magic.
An idea lit up in my brain, “Actually, prior to that, I just had a thought. My dragon blood should be absolutely packed with magic. Also, I know that it can empower those who ingest it, though I suspect it won’t do too much for you since you are already so magically powerful.” According to the catalog, she was already tier 7, so my dragon blood wouldn’t empower her, though it might give her more mana.
Beako made a horrified face, “I will not bleed Subaru like a pig for mana, I suppose!”
“I wish you’d had that mindset when we’d first met.”
Beatrice crossed her arms, “That was different, I suppose.”
When Canon Subaru had first met Beatrice, she had sucked out all of his mana, forcing him to pass out.
“In either case, if you need a mana battery in an emergency, it’s worth it,” I said decisively.
“Betty does not know what a battery is, but if it is an emergency then a little bit of blood might be ok, I suppose,” she conceded.
“Alright!” I clapped my hands once, “That means we’ll have to try it a few times in a non-emergency setting just to make sure it works!”
“Betty did not agree to that, I suppose!” Her earlier panic returned ten-fold, and she turned in my lap, tugging on my sleeve as she looked up at my face. It felt nice, feeling her warm light body on me, practically healing my soul.
I pat her head, “Just to prepare for an emergency, Beako,” I reassured her. “Regardless, we don’t need to try it right now,” I said. “Let’s get back to our earlier, and much more fun topic!”
Beako’s panic evaporated in an instant, the idea of magic and magic theory causing her eyes to sparkle in anticipation. “Betty is excited to hear Subaru’s ideas, I suppose!”