Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 7
Copyright
Re:ZERO Vol. 7
TAPPEI NAGATSUKI
Translation by Jeremiah Bourque
Cover art by Shinichirou Otsuka
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Re:ZERO KARA HAJIMERU ISEKAI SEIKATSU Vol. 7
© Tappei Nagatsuki 2015
First published in Japan in 2015 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights reserved by YEN PRESS, LLC under the license from KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2018 by Yen Press, LLC
Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nagatsuki, Tappei, 1987– author. | Otsuka, Shinichirou, illustrator. | ZephyrRz, translator. | Bourque, Jeremiah, translator.
Title: Re:ZERO starting life in another world / Tappei Nagatsuki ; illustration by Shinichirou Otsuka ; translation by ZephyrRz ; translation by Bourque, Jeremiah
Other titles: Re:ZERO kara hajimeru isekai seikatsu. English
Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2016– | Audience: Ages 13 & up.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031562 | ISBN 9780316315302 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398374 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398404 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398428 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398459 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398473 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316398497 (v. 7 : pbk.)
Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | Time travel—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.N34 Re 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031562
ISBNs: 978-0-316-39849-7 (paperback)
978-0-316-39850-3 (ebook)
E3-20180519-JV-PC
CHAPTER 1
THE DEALT CARD
1
In life, you can only play the game with the cards you’ve been dealt.
This held true no matter the circumstances of a person’s birth, appearance, talent, reputation, or the skills they cultivated.
Subaru Natsuki was keenly aware that he was lacking in every single one of those categories.
Through some kind of mistake, Rem had completely accepted Subaru, but he knew all too well that the Subaru Natsuki she saw was an ideal far removed from the real thing. Compared with the man she envisioned in her mind, the cards that the real Subaru held were few in number, and poor in quality—
But he learned, now that he stood at the playing table, no one cared about his personal problems.
All anyone in his position could do was try to win with the cards he was dealt.
The rest came down to simply how well each person played, their timing, and if they used any bluffs.
“—The White Whale.”
Of all the cards in Subaru’s hand, he chose the one that resulted in the greatest effect on the others.
His declaration changed the faces of those around him in different ways.
They were currently in the reception room of the Duchess of Karsten’s villa in the royal capital’s Nobles’ District.
Not counting Subaru, five were participating in the discussion—first, Crusch Karsten, lady of the manor, accompanied by her two retainers, Ferris and Wilhelm. Also in attendance was Russel Fellow, one of a tiny handful of influential movers in the royal capital, acting as an adviser for Subaru.
And…
“…”
…the fifth was Rem, who was touching Subaru’s sleeve, providing limitless strength by inspiring the courage within him.
The conversation between those six in the capital quickly began hurtling toward an intense climax.
In short, the objective of the discussion was to form an alliance between the Emilia camp and the Crusch camp. The Crusch camp was taking a cautious wait-and-see stance toward the Emilia camp’s request of cooperation to resist the universal menace of the Witch Cult. Subaru’s invoking of the White Whale’s name was his trump card for breaking that stalemate.
Crusch’s eyes narrowed in profound interest; Ferris looked at his master with gloom-filled eyes. The deeply mercantile Russel knotted his brows, whereas Wilhelm—
“—?!”
After an instant, Subaru involuntarily held his breath when a thick, dark hostility permeated the room’s interior.
Feeling sick to his stomach, as if his intestines were about to be rearranged by the tip of a sword, Subaru lifted his face to see the source—and saw the white-maned, old man exhaling deeply and lightly shaking his head.
“…Forgive my…gross indiscretion. It would seem that I, too, still have room for improvement.”
Wilhelm closed one eye and apologized without any change in expression.
The aged swordsman pushed the malice away, leaving no traces remaining even in the farthest corners of the room, then touched the sword on his lap as if ashamed.
“I have no excuse for interrupting. Say the word and I shall remove myself.”
“No, stay. I wish to hear your opinion.”
Crusch personally stopped Wilhelm from excusing himself. “You do not mind?” he said, shifting his eyes to Subaru, who answered as well with a nod of agreement.
“Now then, the term White Whale has been thrown out rather suddenly. May I take it that the White Whale of which you speak is the Demon Beast of Mist, one of the three great demon beasts?”
“Yeah. A monster that spews out mist and swims around in the sky—that White Whale. I know when and where it’ll show up next. I want to offer that information as part of the deal for an alliance.”
Is she gonna bite? wondered Subaru, his nerves on edge as he waited for Crusch’s reaction.
The lady of the house put a hand to her chin in contemplation. Before she rendered judgment, someone cut in.
“Apologies. May I ask you some minor things?” Russel raised his hand and sought permission for questions.
“Sure thing, ask anything you like.”
“First, there is a matter I must verify… Mr. Natsuki, do you have an accurate assessment of what value to place on your knowledge of where the White Whale shall next appear?”
“…It could reduce the number of people caught up in the White Whale’s damage. Merchants and land dragon cargo runners can revise their routes, and it would improve the condition of a lot of victims, I think?”
“Yes, precisely. However, that only earns you a score of fifty.”
Russel’s assessment of Subaru’s mostly timid repl
y was rather harsh.
“Are you aware of just how much blood has flowed due to the Demon Beast of Mist to date?” he continued. “The unlucky caravans, which the White Whale’s mist swallowed up, vanished without a trace! The royal knights assembled to dispatch the White Whale failed, routed by the beast! Until a few decades ago, it appeared near villages and cities, swallowing them and their entire populations whole. It was not uncommon for cases where it was impossible to ascertain the truth of what had happened. The White Whale is more than a very large demon beast.”
Russel’s words, explaining the menace of the White Whale, were hot—almost excessive. Subaru, prone to hiding his negative emotions behind a facade of denial, understood the desire to have others understand such feelings.
Faced with an enemy too vast to fathom, people tried to extoll the vastness of its existence to protect their fragile spirits.
“With such a demon beast, the most crucial measure is never to encounter it. Many merchants and travelers fear nothing greater than mist covering their path. The White Whale is a symbol of calamity, and any mist itself is a veritable evil omen. If one could see ahead to know where it would appear, it would be worth an immense fortune! However…”
Having clenched his fists and spoken with such zeal to that point, Russel suddenly looked down at Subaru with cold eyes.
“Information is assigned value from its trustworthiness. Mr. Natsuki, how can you prove such a thing? Without proof, it cannot be seen as anything but fiction.”
“Most of which I wished to express would only repeat Russel Fellow’s words. I was about to ask if you could prove your claim.”
With thin smiles, Russel and Crusch both questioned the basis of Subaru’s tip.
Is the information true or false? Posed this question, Subaru felt a cold sweat against his back. But he could not reveal his anxiety. Returning a bold smile their way, he managed to keep himself from letting weak thoughts trickle out as he put his next card on the negotiating table—just like he’d elaborately simulated many times over in his preparations beforehand.
“The reason I can know where the White Whale will come out beforehand…is this!”
Suddenly, he took something out of his side pocket and slapped it on the table.
Subaru displayed his evidence on the table. He felt the expressions of everyone staring at it tighten briefly, but the next moment, bewilderment came over them.
“Subaru Natsuki.”
“Yeah.”
When Crusch quietly invoked Subaru’s name, he puffed his chest out without a hint of fear. Without commenting on Subaru’s impudent demeanor, she pointed at the proof Subaru had placed at the center of the table.
“What…is this?”
It was a gleaming piece of cutting-edge future technology encased within a white, metallic body.
—She did not take her eyes off the cell phone for a single instant as she quizzically tilted her head toward Subaru.
2
Subaru’s knowledge of precisely when and where the White Whale would appear was truly the fruit of repeated coincidence and the mischief of fate.
The decisive instant came on that misty night during the third loop—when he encountered the White Whale face-to-face.
While sitting in the driver’s seat of a dragon carriage, he had retrieved the cell phone from his hand baggage and activated it to use it as a light source.
“It was then, right before that.”
The first time Subaru set eyes on the White Whale, he’d been trying to check on the dragon carriage running beside them, had vanished. His eyes struggled to pierce the darkness at the time, so he thought to use the light of his cell phone.
Even in the present, he found it hard to forget meeting the thing in the dark, eyeball to enormous eyeball.
Right after that moment, the demon beast roared. Then, its first attack blew Subaru and Rem’s dragon carriage away, turning it into wood chips. As Rem grasped him by the collar and they sailed into the air, the scene seared itself into Subaru’s eyes as everything moved in slow motion.
And with the world crawling forward one frame at a time, Subaru saw it crystal clear: his cell phone, knocked out of his hand in the initial blast, twirling through the air—and displayed on its backlit screen, 3:30 PM.
After arriving in a new world, the clock function of his cell phone had lost all meaning. But if he used it as an indicator of a determined future event, it was more accurate than anything else available there.
More importantly, the cell phone played the role of an irreplaceable device.
“It’s no fault of yours for not knowing what this is. This is one of those metia thingies, unearthed in my homeland. This is the proof for what I’m saying.”
It was the very fact that the cell phone was from an unknown land that turned it into a valuable weapon for negotiations.
“…May I touch it?”
Russel was the first to swallow his saliva and reach out toward the cell phone. Subaru gave permission with a nod. The man timidly took the cell phone in his hand, checking the feel for himself.
“Oddly, it is quite comfortable to the touch. It seems to be metal, and yet it seems warm… The surface is glossy yet also soft… This spot…opens up?”
Russel unfastened the flip-up phone and marveled at the light flowing from the screen.
Before the conversation started, Subaru had changed the display on the screen to that of a more orthodox clock. Even with skilled operation, there was little else to extract from it save for a few phone numbers.
“There is a glow, and the picture is changing… Ah, but I cannot determine the contents. Are these characters I have never seen? Or wait… Is this a picture?”
Bit by bit, the screen showed the second hand of the clock moving. But the human beings of that world used very different devices to tell time, so Russel could not understand the display. The same went for the numbers indicating the time. His best guess about the Arabic numerals was probably that they resembled a child’s scribbles.
Subaru knew how he felt. After all, he’d gone through the same thing day after day.
“They’re special characters, so I don’t think anyone here can read them.”
“However, you can use it properly… Is that it?”
“I actually can’t fully use all its functions.”
When Crusch posed the question, Subaru employed caution, carefully choosing his words.
There were a number of conditions for successfully completing these negotiations, but one reigned supreme. He could not let Crusch, who possessed absolute confidence in her keen eyes, detect any falsehood within him.
Subaru needed to do everything in his power to avoid stepping on any land mines.
“In other words, you are saying the following: This metia acts like a warning crystal that indicates the approach of the White Whale.”
“I don’t recall ever hearing about these warning crystals, but I think so.”
Judging from the name, they were probably some sort of alarm crafted from magic crystals.
“A metia that signals the approach of the White Whale, eh? What does the expert think?”
“In truth, I must admit I am at a loss. Individual metia differ greatly, and it is rare for any two to work precisely the same. The manufacturing of conversation mirrors is an exception because a method to reproduce them has been discovered, but the costs involved make mass production simply unfeasible even for those. At the very least, this is the first I have heard of this variety of metia.”
Russel avoided making any careless statements about an object he knew nothing of. For the moment, he played the role of a benevolent third party, intervening in neither Subaru’s favor nor Crusch’s.
Naturally, Russel’s eyes were exceptionally critical when it came to discerning whether siding with Subaru or Crusch would accrue him the most profit.
“Therefore, I cannot see any method of determining the veracity of the information. Which means your assertion beco
mes difficult to swallow at face value. Now then, what shall you do?”
“Yeah, that is a tough situation. It’d be great if I at least had a way of proving it, but…”
In response to Crusch, Subaru raised both hands, his gesture indicating that there was no hope for that.
“Hmm. Perhaps try to see if it rings at the approach of an actual demon beast? Or maybe you have another way of proving that this metia is indeed a device that reacts to demon beasts?”
“I’m gonna correct you about one thing.”
Subaru raised a finger and swayed it left and right, as if enjoying a chance to get back at Crusch.
“This metia doesn’t react to demon beasts themselves. If it did that, any demon beasts hanging around would make it ring all the damn time. It turns on for only the important ones.”
“—Surely you are not saying it reacts when a demon beast is threatening the user?”
Crusch reacted to Subaru’s assertion, adding a laugh, as if such a function was too good to be true. But there was yet another reaction that followed Crusch’s.
“—Ah.”
Standing at Subaru’s side, Rem let out a tiny voice of comprehension. Then, immediately after, she lowered her face, apparently ashamed at having disturbed the negotiations.
“That reaction makes me wonder, Rem. Did that remind you of something?”
When Crusch pressed for an answer, Rem’s eyes ran over the side of Subaru’s face for only an instant. Hints of worry and gratitude filled her gaze, so Subaru smiled to give her visible reassurance.
“It’s all right. If you have something to say, go right ahead, ’kay?”
“—Yes. If you say so, Subaru.”
Rem lifted her head, turned toward Crusch, then indicated the cell phone on the table.
“I shall omit the fine details, but recently, there was an incident within the Mathers domain caused by demon beasts. When it occurred, Subaru was the one who acted the swiftest to bring the situation to an end. He had not been with us very long, so I thought it strange he grasped the circumstances before the landlord himself, Master Roswaal, but…”
“With this metia, he noticed the incident beforehand?”