Arc Two: Sabbath of Greed
Return to the Roswaal Mansion
—
Subaru sighed. His butt hurt.
Another bump in the road lifted Subaru a half inch into the air. The blessing of the wind that ground dragons had negated all wind resistance, but did nothing for bumps in the road.
The residents of the Emilia Camp, and Meiss, were riding a carriage back to the Roswaal estate. In particular, Meiss and Emilia were in discussion.
"Well, I still need to learn this country's language... But if it's a matter of this 'Roswaal' getting some use out of me, then he'll have no complaints. Though it sounds bad when said out loud."
Meiss sat on the floor next to one of two seats on the carriage. This was Otto's personal carriage, suited for storing goods, not people.
"I would be happy to let you live with us since Subaru and Rem seem to enjoy being with you, it's just that Roswaal may want some sort of transaction."
And then in a cute, but terrible, imitation of Roswaal, Emilia continued.
"'I'll let you live here but do this thing for me.' Something like that, probably."
Meiss nodded his head, why let someone just freeload in your house? The blonde took advantage in the conversation's break to glance over at Subaru.
"I can definitely think of a few things. Thanks Emilia, for letting me stay with you guys."
Meiss glanced over at Subaru again. His eyes then shifted to Rem, who had fallen asleep while attached to his waist. Meiss snickered, before wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Subaru's face contorted in many emotions and color, before settling on pink anger.
"WHY DOES EVERYONE WIGGLE THEIR EYEBROWS AT ME?!"
Meiss scooted over while maintaining proper brow-wiggle form. Quite an impressive feat, for not many can wiggle their eyebrows with such ferocity.
"I don't knooow~, could be because you spent the night with someone of the opposite gender? Maybe I should try to imitate some of the sou-"
"ENOUGH! ALL WE DID WAS KISS!"
Rem mumbled in her sleep, before rubbing her eyes and lifting herself off of Subaru. Emilia gasped, to most it would sound exaggerated but this is Emilia. The half-elf's eyes trailed from Subaru and Rem to the floor of the carriage. Nobody noticed the sad look on her face, for within heartbeats her ears perked up and a bubbly expression masked her previous one.
"Rem, I'm so happy for you!"
Rem blinked the sleep out of her eyes, before rubbing them once more and stifling a yawn.
"Rem is extremely proud of herself indeed."
"I wonder what your guy's baby will look like. I bet it will be so cute!"
The blush left Subaru's face abruptly. With a straight face…
"Baby?"
"Yeah, kissing makes babies."
Emilia said this with a straight face as well.
Nobody spoke or moved for a long time, as if frozen in a world of still time. Everyone kinda stared awkwardly at each other, then at Emilia, then at each other once more. Emilia hummed to herself, oblivious to her peril.
Eventually, Meiss rose. Shrouded in the darkness made by the canvas siding of the carriage, he chose to take the responsibility upon himself. His knowledge, vast in useless information and bathed in the light of the elements would surely be called upon. But this… this information was far from useless.
"The Talk… Never would I have thought to be delivering it this young…"
Slowly, the bow turned to face the half-ef, who had just noticed the shift in tone. She tilted her head quizzically, wondering why Meiss was looking at her so weirdly.
"You see Emilia, creating bab-"
"MEISS NO!"
Subaru grabbed Meiss and struggled to cover his mouth. The two cursed boys were thrown off balance when the carriage hit another bump. Rem caught them both before they could hit the carriage floor. She gently put Subaru down, and dropped Meiss.
"OW!"
"Leave the lady talk to the only other lady within talking distance, Meiss."
"Lady talk? It's EVERYBODY talk! 'It' involves BOTH genders to make children! Beyond the waterfall, we have vast knowledge of almost everything! I'm way more qualified to teach her than you!"
While Rem glared spears of ice at Meiss, Subaru had settled into a defeated crouch. He suddenly reared onto his knees and shouted to the sky. He cursed the one who had allowed such a thing to happen.
"PUUUCKK!"
Subaru scampered over to the confused half-elf with intense vigor. He grabbed her green crystal necklace, nearly snapping it off. Emilia merely waved her arms around in a panic.
"We need to have a talk Puck, SOON!"
Emilia unclasped Subarus hands and backed away defensively, she hid the crystal from Subaru's view and stroked in gently. She stated to whisper lightly.
"He hasn't come out in a couple days, I'm starting to really worry."
Meiss looked on, wondering why. Surely he had to have a good reason? His gaze then shifted over to the front of the carriage. Otto was staring at them all with a blank expression.
"Please Otto, after we get the other villagers, leave and never return. I have a feeling it's in your best interests."
Subaru looked up from ridiculing Puck long enough to yell at Otto.
"EYES ON THE ROAD! I don't want to crash into a tree!"
Otto didn't turn around.
"My Blessing of the Linguist is hard at work making sure we don't do exactly that."
Otto make a weird gurgling sound, followed with a few low grumbles. The two ground dragons pulling the carriage, Patrasche and Ferho, roared in response. Otto looked super insane during this exchange.
"See? Completely on the road."
Subaru sighed, defeated.
Rem grabbed his hand and tugged him into a corner of the carriage.
"Subaru, Subaru, Felix has asked Rem to work on healing your gate a few times a day."
A blue glow emanated from the Oni's hands as she pressed them into Subaru's middle back. She pressed her entire body into his, exactly like in that other loop. Subaru couldn't stop himself from blushing as he felt her warm breasts press into his back. Rem giggled, tracing circles on Subaru's back around his gate.
"This is a much better place to have a gate than the upper arm."
"What?"
"Nothing."
—
Subaru threw open the carriages back canvas, exposing the world. He gracefully jumped and glided through the air onto the ground, landing in an exaggerated crouch.
"There is nothing like home."
The rest of the passengers were more subdued, with Meiss staring in barely suppressed awe at the size of the mansion in front of him. He had a box in his hands which contained his remaining possessions from the other world. He had gone and recovered it from his temporary place of residence within the capital before leaving Crush's mansion. Secretly, he felt kind of bad leaving Crusch, since she seemed to like him, but Subaru was the only one who was from beyond the waterfall like him. Not to mention he had a deeper relationship with both him and Rem.
"Wow, I've seen some pretty big houses beyond the waterfall, but this is… wow."
Otto gave a questioning gaze to Meiss. Beyond the waterfall? Rubbish.
Subaru bounded forward and enthusiastically threw open the front door. He danced a few steps in, reveling in his ability to get back here without dying a hundred times. It had only taken six tries this set of loops. Weird to think of six deaths as a small amount, but it was not a hundred, which was good.
"Meiss come on! Despite your problem, I wanna introduce you to-"
A blur of white and black slammed into Subaru, grabbing him and skidding a few meters. Subaru yelled out in pain as he became a meat crayon. A blonde, muscular woman in the Roswaal maid attire was sitting on him, bending his arm into his back and pushing his head into the floor.
"While it would be nice to watch him writhe in pain some more, that's the new guy working here."
The fearsome maid released Subaru, and dusted him off before retreating farther in. Subaru didn't get up though, it appears he was knocked out. The voice from earlier came from the top of the stairs. Ram slid down the railing until the final bend where she was out of sight. She reappeared walking down the steps the rest of the way, as if she hadn't been sliding down the railing.
You were sliding down the railing, admit it.
Rem looked like she wanted to run over and throw herself around the pink-haired maid. Mind and body seemed not to agree though, as she snatched Meiss's box from him and used it to hide her face.
Meiss looked at the unconscious Subaru, who had been defeated in a heartbeat. It was funny, in a sad way. The blonde maid introduced herself as Frederica, she then started trying to wake the boy up by slapping him.
"That is not working… Ram, where is his room?"
The entire returning party, sans Otto who was tending the ground dragons, entered the Roswaal mansion. It was here that the party split. Emilia, accompanied by Rem and Meiss, went to go talk to Roswaal, while Subaru's unconscious body was dragged off by Ram.
Meiss watched the pink-haired maid drag the alien by the foot down the hallway. They went around a corner and Subaru's arm was snagged on the bend, but a few sharp tugs later he was free. Meiss turned to Emilia and Rem.
"I-Is that normal?"
"Yes."
…
"Uhh, I would like to rai-"
A door swung open with such force that a small dent in the wall was created by the handle. An impossibly large library, too large to be placed there, gloomily waited on the other side. The smell of old books was overbearing.
Meiss shot into the doorway, which slammed shut after he was within the library.
Emilia rushed over to the door and flung it open, to reveal a bedroom.
"Meiss may have a difficult time in there, Emilia-sama."
"His spirit affinity's so low it's scary, I hope she doesn't hurt him."
Emilia sighed, and looked over to Rem, who is still holding Meiss' box.
"Actually, now that I remember, I think Roswaal left with the Arlam villagers to Sanctuary. Gah, I'm such an idiot for forgetting."
Emilia smacked her forehead, and Rem put Meiss' box down with a huff.
"Let's go find a room for Meiss, Emilia-sama."
"Perfectly good one here."
Emilia gestured to the door Meiss had disappeared into.
—
"-se a complaint."
Meiss stood still for a second, before the cold warmth of Dolorem spread through his arms. Ok, this is a library, there's a doll on that stool over there, the door hasn't disappeared. Now, what the fiddly fu-
"Betty will tolerate no profanity within her library, in fact."
Meiss spun around to face the talking doll.
Ok then, not a doll. Meiss scrunched his eyes. Going with the pattern of age-body discrepancies, Like how Subaru looked his age, but was almost twenty, or how Emilia looked Subaru's age but was probably in her fifties because elf, this little girl was probably ancient.
Actually, now that he thought about it, Crusch was almost twenty herself. Meiss was only sixteen.
...
T-That's a problem, that's a big problem.
"Hello… Nice to make your acquaintance."
The girl, blond twintails framing her round face, leaned over an oversized book to scrutinize him. She huffed, before looking to her book.
"Your spirit affinity is abysmal in fact. It is taking all of Betty's willpower to not dispose of you immediately, I suppose."
"Spirit what? To bring that up out of nowhere… you must be a spirit then, or closely associated with one.."
Meiss' quick mind put two and two together, and absorbed this new term. Spirit Affinity… must be like a book cover. The higher spirit affinity must mean a more appealing book cover. The inverse must also be true then, and would explain the general distaste most spirits had towards him. Meiss wondered if he even had a cover to begin with.
"Hmm, no response huh? You must not be the loquacious type."
The spirit(?) lazily flipped a page in her book, the leathery page making a rough sound.
"I'm going to apologize in advance, I tend to talk a lot sometimes."
"Far more manners that the other one, I suppose."
"Hmm, I'm assuming you wanted to talk?"
The girl exhaled, before snapping the book shut with enough force to send the sound reverberating throughout the library.
"That would have made the other one flinch, in fact."
The two looked at each other for a few seconds, before the small spirit waved her hand in a dismissive manner.
"The forest was quite busy in the last few days, you were a big part in that. Fill Betty in, I suppose."
Meiss felt his face pull into a slight frown. He stood for a few seconds, before his mouth opened to begin talking. He filled her in on the events that occurred with Petelguese, before moving to the Laifus ambush. He decided to skim over the details greatly.
"So… Sloth… is dead?"
"Yeah, Subaru said he was blown up or something."
The spirit didn't react. Not physically, at least. It was apparent some sort of inner turmoil was present.
"Juice…"
"Juice?"
The spirit waved her hand dismissively, she was covering up her feelings.
"It doesn't matter, I suppose."
Beatrice rested her hand on her book. She looked at the ground, before giving Meiss a sword-like glare.
"That boy, I'm assuming he has absorbed the Sloth Witch-Gene, in fact."
Meiss grimaced, before nodding. That tingling sensation had never left, but his body had grown used to it, like how it stopped feeling clothes over skin.
"That means that part of the Gluttony Witch Gene is floating around somewhere, I suppose… Sloth is a definite, but Gluttony doesn't really fit him, I suppose."
"Part of?"
"There are three Gluttonies, I suppose."
Meiss scrunched up his face in disbelief and anger, before the door opened. An unseen force was slowly pushing him out. Meiss looked at the walls slowly moving past him. It appears that talk time is up.
"Ok, ok, I got it."
Meiss turned and exited the library of his own volition.
Into a bathroom.
It was so spacious, much unlike the cramped occident bathrooms he was familiar with. It reminded him of a pool somewhat, with it's great size and volume. Problem though, he couldn't see anywhere to perform bodily functions. Maybe the two rooms were separate.
"Horndog."
Meiss' appreciation of the size was cut short when the pink-haired maid, Ram, insulted him from the other side of the bath. She didn't even face him as she mopped the floor.
"I just got done talking with the probably 500 year-old spirit; this is where she dropped me off. Also, I am very opposed to being called a 'horndog.'"
The sliding door to the bath opened. The spirit crossed her legs on the stool, the book no longer resting on her lap.
"You have risen in my personal mansion hierarchy I suppose, for realising in the first contact that the all-powerful Betty isn't nine."
Ram walked over and slammed the door shut on Betty.
"I thought I told Beatrice to not use Door Crossing in the bath after what happened last time."
So her name wasn't Betty, but rather Beatrice.
Ram huffed, and left the bath through the previously library-ed door. She didn't clean the entire bath, Meiss noticed. The blonde followed, opening and closing the door a few times to see if the library would reappear. It didn't.
Meiss exited the bath, and got lost.
—
"Hmm."
Subaru looked around Rem's bedroom. It was bare. Rem had little possessions in her room to begin with, but absolutely everything of hers was gone. The owner of said bedroom was slowly turning in a circle in the middle of the room, scrutinizing every bare shelf for what she was missing.
"Barusu."
Subaru jumped at the sudden voice behind him. Rem jumped too, and positioned Subaru between herself and Ram. She clung weakly to his back like a shadow.
"Barusu, I have no problems with you getting frisky, but please don't choose someone who bears such a striking resemblance to me. Also, don't get frisky, the gene pool is polluted enough as is already."
"That was a completely contradictory statement! Also, ow! That hurts my feelings!"
Subaru turned back to glance at Rem. Her shining eyes were peeking at her sister.
"Besides, I was thinking she could stay in this room."
Ram narrowed her pink eyes. Her glare was equivalent to looking at dirt under her nails.
"This is the workers wing, Barusu. I thought even you would have had enough brain function to know that. She must stay in the guest wing for now, until a proper room is set for her."
Subaru's brows motioned to crease before he stopped them.
"If she has no problem with it, then sure."
Ram left, leaving Subaru and Rem alone. The Oni looked dejected. Subaru wrapped his arm around her and led her to the door.
"It's ok Rem, we can move you into the closest room to this wing if you wanna come by my room, or we can move you close to Meiss if you want."
Rem said nothing, merely staring at her sister's back as she retreated down the hall.
—
Meiss, still lost, was walking down the hall towards what he hoped was the main lobby. Turning a corner, a chill went down his back. Looking behind him, he was surprised to find himself standing halfway in a wall. He dipped his hand into the wall, swishing it around. Weird, it was made of colored vapor that blended seamlessly with the hall.
"HOW LONG IS THIS HALLWAY?!"
Meiss turned to see the green-clad merchant farther down the hallway throwing his arms around at no one in particular. Suddenly, he vanished, only for Meiss to hear his stomping from the opposite end of the hallway.
Someone is giving this poor man the illusion of a looping hallway.
This is hilarious.
Or would be, but Meiss couldn't be bothered with no one around. When the merchant stomped past, Meiss walked over to the wall adjacent his, and found it to be made of the same colored, seamless smoke. He kept walking, spotting a set of stairs at the end of the hallway.
"AAAAAUUGGHHH!"
Otto wouldn't find the end of the hallway anytime soon.
—
Dinnertime. The most glorious and awaited part of the day.
Potatoes, rows upon rows of steamed potatoes.
Out of everyone, including the rare Beatrice, the only one who seemed happy about this development was Meiss.
"Potatoes… Potatoes are amazing."
Subaru stared at Meiss with a depressed expression. Subaru had his memories of Ram's cooking bathed in a negative light. While the one-trick-pony's potatoes were not bad by any means, the things she had done to him with the potatoes… He grimaced.
"Thank you Ram, for the mayonnaise. It's the only thing giving me the strength to choke down these potatoes."
"Yes, thank you. I made sure to make your steamed 'tatoes extra dry, Barusu. Enjoy."
Meiss is enjoying his potatoes for sure.
"Oh, right, I made a plate for our other guest. Barusu, become useful and take her plate to her."
Subaru motioned to get up, but Meiss told him to sit back down.
"You've got some catching up to do, I can take Rem her food. Getting to know everybody can wait."
Ram handed the plate of food to Meiss, who balanced it on his forearm with his own plate. The blonde walked down the hall towards Rem's room, leaving Subaru to fill Ram and Frederica in on recent developments.
Subaru sighed.
"Guess I should get you two up to speed on what happened over the last few days..."
Rem and Meiss both enjoyed their potatoes.