Chaper 5: Getting my spirits up
Natsuki Subaru woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling.
Checking his abdomen, he noted that he wasn't dead.
'I should probably try to find out where I am though' he thought as he stood up as if he wasn't just sliced through with a knife like some sort of regular unenchanted grocery store butter.
Natsumi probably would have called him and idiot (and a pervert) if she saw him doing this, but since she wasn't here, and given how Natsuki doesn't like to think these things through, he just straight up ignored all conventional wisdom and walked to the door.
Natsuki continued walking... and walking... and wa- hey! This isn't right! "Ah right, it's just a looping hallway".
With this thought in mind, as if it was the most expected turn of events ever, as if looping hallways were the most natural things ever, he decided to open the closest door.
"You're an insufferable man, I suppose" said a drill loli who was peeved that her victim had ever so casually opened the only door without some sort of magical trap connected to it, which happened to be the door connected to the forbidden library.
"First NPC found!"
"What does that even mean, I suppose?!"
Ah, so it was easy to push her buttons. He understood that they would get along very well.
"So what is this place anyways?"
"Is that the first thing you say, I suppose?!" Beatrice tapped her feet against the libarary's floor to show her indignation, after which she calmed down to awnser his question.
"This is the forbidden library, in fact. Please leave now that I've awnsered your question, I suppose!"
"Hey, that isn't very nice, you haven't introduced yourself yet. I cannot leave until you tell me.
"You're just as insufferable as your sister, in fact! Does being annoying run in the family, I suppose? Betty's name is Beatrice in fact. Now leave before I throw you out of here!"
"My name is Natsuki Subaru by the way, thank you for asking."
Natsuki wouldn't ever regret saying those words, but they led to drill loli using some kind of invisible force to throw Natsuki out of the "forbidden library".
"That man is insufferable, I suppose."
Beatrice hadn't used mana drain to figure out the human boy's intentions. It would'e been redundant to do so since she had already done that to his sister.
Someone as powerful as Beatrice could quite easily read the intentions of someone connected by synesthesia just by feeling the mana of someone on the other end of the connection, so if she read the intentions of the blue-haired maid, she instantly knew the intentions of the pink-haired one, and if she read the intentions of Natsumi...
"Compared to the annoying black-haired girl, the boy was a little less annoying, I suppose."
Betty had been quite gentle with the Natsumi when using mana drain on her after she noticed all of the mana she tried to drain had turned into miasma, before dispersing into the atmosphere.
Since it takes a fraction of a second to make mana drained by mana drain stop flowing towards Beatrice after deactivating it, she noticed that the mana she was draining stopped turning into miasma as soon as she stopped intending to knock the girl unconconsius by by way of mana depletion.
Being the daughter of an individual who was nutorius for her thirst of knowledge, Beatrice's curiosity got the better of her.
So she tried draining Natsumi's mana again, this time not intending to knock her out.
This time, Natsumi's mana didn't get dispersed as miasma before reaching Beatrice, and she was able to drain it just fine.
Beatrice was knew the insufferable girl had noticed Beatrice's intentions, given how she was glaring at her, but she didn't seem nearly skilled enough to do something like turning mana into miasma through conventional magical means, meaning it was probably the automatic effect of an authority.
"At least she holds no hostile intentions, I suppose." Beatrice could tell this from the mana she had finally managed to absorb.
Natsumi's peaceful intentios were the only thing Beatrice was willing to admit that the smug brat had going in her favour.
"She's quite unusual for a witch, I suppose. Betty can only hope that whatever the eccentricity she posseses is, it won't be as destructive as the personalities of the witches of old, in fact."
She took a black book from under the stool she was sitting on and opened it, giving it a melancholic gaze.
"But even with two annoying insects like those two pratteling around, mother still won't guide Betty's way, in fact."
Natsumi had been forced to witness Natsuki getting stabbed in the abdomen, and a part of her changed irreperably from that moment forward
Ever since that moment, Natsumi had made a silent vow to protect him even at the cost of her own life, as the pride of a big sister dictated.
Natsumi had tried to remain calm after her brother had been healed by Emilia-sama, but on the inside, she was the most panicked she had ever been in her 17 years of existence. The panic hadn't abaited while on the way to Roswaal L Mather's mansion, and she only truly calmed down after a young girl named Beatrice had healed Natsuki's wounds for real.
Natsumi had exchanged small talk with the half elf and the pink-haired maid while in the carriage, but it was plain for everyone to see that Natsumi's heart wasn't in it.
After arriving at the mansion, the group was greeted by the mirror image of Ram, a blue-haired girl who's behaviour was the very epitome of maidly ettiquette, a maid named Rem.
However, Rem's attitude very quickly proved to be a facade, as Natsumi felt something that could only be described as pure malice directed towards the new guest as soon as she got close to the maid.
Natsumi didn't know why she felt that way, but her suspicions of Rem only grew when she noticed Rem staring at her in the corner of her eyes.
According to Puck, Natsuki was to be taken to a room where he would be healed, and Natsumi wanted to be there for him throughout this time. Everyone wanted to respect their pricacy as much as possible, and as such they all generally left the two siblings alone, except for when the excentric owner of the mansion popped by to introduce himself, as well as the young healer.
When Beatrice arrived to healg him, Natsumi wondered how such a cute thing could be so adept at healing magic, when Emilia-sama, who Natsumi assumed was quite a bit older than she appears due to her half elf origins, couldn't heal him back to full health.
With a smug grin, Natsumi informed the loli of her cuteness, only to be met wih the cutest outburst of tsundere behaviour.
When she managed to push Beatrice over the edge with her teasing, she noticed a feeling of malice simular to that which she felt from Rem, eminating from the loli. It wasn't anywhere near as opressive as the feeling she got from the maid, but it was still opressive enough as it was. Natsumi unvolontarily glared at Beatrice due to this aura.
The magically adept loli prosceeded to to put her tiny palms against the larger human girl's body, and said human girl felt as if her energy was rapidly being drained. She felt like there existed some kind of odd tingleing sensation inside of her chest at the same time as her life force was being sucked out, and it didn't feel particularly pleasant.
And just as suddenly as the draining of her mana had begun, it stopped, and with it the feeling of malice dissipated into nothing, leaving behind a shocked looking loli.
And a few moments later, after having replaced her shocked look for a more contemplative one, Beatrice resumed the mana drain, but this time it somehow felt gentler, and there wasn't any aura of malice this time around. There wasn't any kind of tingeling sensation present this time around, Natsumi noted.
After pulling her hands away, Beatrice said "You aren't a threat, in fact", before she resumed the healing of Natsumi's brother.
Her interaction with the loli left Natsumi scratching her head, since there were so many unexplained things that happended within a span of a minute.
Not only that, but she had now felt the same malicious aura from two people, but the bowel hunter that anyone would say looked like very concept of murder just by a single glance, didn't emit such an aura, so she could only grow more confused about this the more time she used to think about this.
Natsumi couldn't stay awake for much longer, so she finally went to the room she had been provided with, and took a long, well deserved sleep.