Ram clenched her tiny fists, wrapping them around my shirt the entire walk up to the room I had designated for her. I made sure it was right next to the room Beako, Rem, and I had slept in last night, though Ram hadn’t used it— instead preferring to sleep in the village.

Her face kept switching between agonized and wrathful: for a few moments I’d think she would shout at me, or even just shout at the world. But in the next moment, it looked like she’d break down sobbing and wailing. In either case, she continued to desperately clutch against my chest, shaking with tears streaming down her cheeks, occasionally rubbing her face into me.

I moved with single purpose. First, I would deposit Ram in bed so she could try to get some rest. After I took care of her, then I could start making sense of the situation.

Rem followed along close behind me. She seemed upset too, but not for Roswaal. She kept sending concerned glances toward her sister in my arms.

Finally I reached the doorway, the door opening with a mental command. I marched over to the bed and gently deposited the frail girl in my arms down into the soft mattress. She didn’t resist me in the slightest, instead shuffling under the covers and balling up into an Oni-sized egg— clutching the blankets into her chest.

I moved to turn around and leave, but her arm shot out from under the blankets and clamped down onto my wrist. With wide eyes she took one long glance at me before speaking, “If you find anything out, I’ll be the first to know.” Her voice didn’t break or hitch once despite her puffy crying face.

“You’ll be the first to know,” I easily promised.

Ram let go of my wrist, and I left her room. Rem was standing just out in the hall, staring longingly at the doorway to her sister’s room.

“Do you want to go be with her?”

Rem nodded her head once but hesitated.

“Go, I’ll still be here after.”

She nodded her head again, more relaxed this time. Rem closed the door behind her as she entered her sister’s room.

Using my Beako-sense, I quickly found the door in the long simple white hallways of my Sweet Home that led to the Forbidden Library.

Beatrice looked up as I walked in, moving her eyes away from the book sitting on her pink and black striped leggings. “What is it, I wonder?”

“Can you watch over the twins for me? There’s business I should attend to in Sanctuary.”

Beatrice flipped the front half of the book over, shutting it with a bit more force than needed. Seemingly on its own, the book floated away and back onto a shelf. Then, Beatrice stood up out of her customary wooden stool; her flats clacked against the hardwood floor. “Betty will come with you, I suppose.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “Alright.” Rem could watch over her sister, and I’d make sure to check on them later, just in case.

I held my hand out for Beako, which she happily grasped onto. She was so short that her arm bent at the elbow almost up to her head like a child holding her father’s hand as we walked out of the Forbidden Library together. She was practically an expert at using the Company phone by this point, and she seemed to read my mind since she used it to summon the portal to outside our pocket dimension.

I just stood there on the main dirt path of the village. This was so far and away from Canon, that at this point, I didn’t really know what to do except stay in Sanctuary to monitor the situation. If things started derailing even harder, I wanted to be here to curb it. For example, if Elsa started terrorizing the villagers or something.

The moon had moved to be high overhead by now, the night wind howling against my skin and sending Beako’s drills drifting about. The tops of the massive forest trees swayed against the wind, and most of the villager’s houses were dark by now. A few houses here and there still had light coming through the windows, but not a lot. I knew the rest of the refugees from Arlam Village would be in the center hall, not in any of the normal villagers’ homes.

“Well, don’t just stand here, I suppose.” Beako prompted me to stop staring at the village.

“I’m honestly not sure what to do right now.”

“Start by telling Betty what happened, I suppose.”

“Ram came screaming into the cabin where Rem and I were eating. She told us that she found Roswaal’s dead body.”

Beatrice clicked her tongue. “And he didn’t leave an heir this time, I suppose. The capital will be in chaos. Not that that’s any of Betty’s concern, I suppose.

“Well, let Betty confirm it, I suppose. Maybe we can learn something from his body, in fact.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

That would be as decent a starting place as any. We walked through the dirt paths, up to the somewhat more fancy wooden house that we had last seen Roswaal inside of. Beako led me up the path by the hand until we entered the front door. From there, we walked up the steep creaking old wooden steps to the second floor. We turned the corner and walked into Roswaal’s bedroom.

Indeed, splayed out on the bed was a corpse. The white bedsheets had been stained with a torrentious amount of blood, some of it still dripping down onto the floor where it pooled and seeped into the already dark hardwood below.

The candle chandelier framed Roswaal’s long headless body in a macabre light. His neck looked pulped, his head completely missing. The wall behind his head had been painted in so much chunky meat, pieces of pink brain sticking to the wall behind his empty neck.

“That is disgusting, in fact.”

I huffed out a small breath at Beatrice’s unexpected words. “That’s one way to describe it, though I think most people would call this morbid or tragic before disgusting.”

“Betty will let other people bother with those things instead, I suppose.” Though she said that, I noticed her hand tightening against mine.

The fireplace was still burning hotly, causing the room to be uncomfortably warm. The room smelled like an unholy mixture of light smoke and blood.

“Subaru?” A light, feminine voice reached my ears from behind me.

I quickly turned around, Emilia just walking into the room, a pure lightheartedness in her step.

“Subaru?” She questioned again, staring straight into my face. “I passed the first trial!” She smiled brightly. “I was looking for you.” Then, her eyes moved past me and into the room beyond.

She gasped and fell to her knees. A second later, she turned to the side and retched.

I walked over to Emilia, pulling Beatrice along behind me. Once I reached her, I temporarily let go of Beatrice’s hand to help Emilia stand up. I ushered her out of the room and closed the door behind me.

“B-Beatrice is a master at water magic, surely you can do s-something? That’s why you and Subaru were in the room, right? Surely you didn’t... k-kill Roswaal?”

“Betty had nothing to do with that, I suppose. And, in fact, nothing can be done for Roswaal. He is dead.”

Emilia shook her head, side to side in denial, “No, he-he can’t be dead!”

I put my hand against the small of her back and forced her to keep walking forward. I let out a long breath. “Let’s just get out of here for now, yeah? None of us want to be in the same house as Roswaal right now, I’m sure.”

Emilia stuttered, “I-I, it... I, everything had been going so well. I even passed the trial! So... why???” She trailed off. “Is it my fault?”

Ironically, I suspected her actions had actually been the direct cause for Roswaal deciding to end his own life. He’d seen a future in which Emilia began to pass the trials without becoming dependent on me, which interfered with Roswaal’s plans for defeating the dragon. Despite all of that, none of the true blame could be placed on Emilia’s innocent head.

“It’s not your fault.” I declared with certainty. “Roswaal made his own choices, and he was adult enough to choose his path for himself.”

Emilia stared at me and swallowed uneasily. “That’s.. true. But then, why?”

“Roswaal lost the will to live, I suppose. It’s a feeling Betty is quite familiar with, in fact.”

“No amount of reflection on his actions will ever force it to make sense, I think. We just need to try and move on,” I added.

“O-okay.” Emilia said, shaken. “But, everyone... I’m sorry.”

Honestly, from a practical ‘don’t die’ sense, Roswaal being dead here only made things easier on me. From another angle, Emilia losing her sponsor in the royal selection would hit her already awful chances incredibly hard. Doubly so if they started to suspect any kind of foul play. Those were only the practical concerns, though. I’d already seen the emotional impact his suicide caused for Ram— how would Emilia handle it?

We finished getting down the stairs and made it outside of the house. Waiting on the steps were Garfiel and Ryuzu.

“I suppose’n Emilia’s now tha lord of Sanctuary,” Garfiel said bitterly.

“I—” Emilia began to say.

I cut her off, “We can worry about the consequences of Roswaal’s death in the morning. We are all tired, and this news is only going to make things even more chaotic. For now, do you think we can keep this from the villagers? I’d like to give them a proper debriefing tomorrow, but if we tell them in the middle of the night like this it will only make them worry unnecessarily.

“Yer don’t get ta decide what in what not the villagers ought’n to know.” Garfiel crossed his arms.

Ryuzu lightly smacked him in the side, causing him to shoot a scandalized look her way.

“Of course, Subaru-sama. We will tell the villagers about this in the mornin’. Come on then, Gar-boy. We need some shut-eye too, ah reckon.”

Garfiel huffed. “Fine.” Together, they walked back down the path.

“Is it really ok to hold back such important news?” Emilia looked toward me for guidance.

“Honestly, if we tell them now, I’m worried they’re gonna break out into violence.”

“They wouldn’t do such a thing, surely?” Emilia asked more than said.

“Betty’s Subaru is right, I suppose. In Betty’s opinion, we shouldn’t tell them at all. It makes little difference, either way, I suppose. Subaru and Emilia are their lords now, nothing will change that, in fact.”

I raised my brow at Beatrice’s words, surprised that she lumped me in with Emilia. To be fair, in a situation like this, Emilia had no experience whatsoever. Maybe Beatrice had a point when including me as a potential lord— Or maybe that was just my draconic pride talking.

I had agreed to help Emilia win the Royal Selection, but in all honesty, as she was now, she’d make a poor leader.

“Even if that’s true...” Emilia’s words wandered off again as she looked to me for guidance.

“Don’t worry, Emilia-tan. We’ll tell the villagers in the morning. Can you try and get some sleep for tonight?”

She nodded her head resolutely.

“Alright, follow me. Beako, could you—”

“I already am, I suppose.”

The portal opened in front of us and Beatrice walked through it.

Emilia looked confused, “Where did...”

I just grabbed onto her hand and led her through the portal into my Sweet Home.

“Beatrice and I have been working on some new magic. Here, let me find you a room.”

Honestly, I think at this point, Emilia was just completely overloaded with new information. She quietly walked with me to a room across the hall from mine. I opened the door for her and she walked right in.

Just before I could close the door, she said, “Subaru, do you think everything’s going to be okay?” She looked at me, worried.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll take care of things. I always save you, remember?”

Emilia smiled, “That’s true. I’ll be relying on you again, okay Subaru?”

“Always.”