Chapter 8: The Fruits of Diligence
The sounds of crashing pans and shouts from the street tore Subaru from his slumber, as he awoke in a startled jolt. The jolt was intense enough that he might have jumped straight to his feet were there not a certain someone draped on top of him.
"You're being so noisy Subaru. Go back to sleep." Emilia's voice called out to him, slurred by sleep.
Subaru might have even been inclined to go along with it this time, if only he hadn't finally made out the words being shouted. But he had, and so he had to wake up Emilia, a task that was often, admittedly, quite difficult..
Gently shaking her shoulders, "Oi, you have to get up! It's an emergency."
Emilia slowly lifted up her head and opened her eyes. She cast a bleary-eyed gaze at Subaru, as she attempted to blink away the daze of sleep. At the end of a cat-like awakening stretch, Emilia paused in concern, her pointed ears having finally made out the warnings being shouted amongst all the commotion.
"Subaru do you think it's because I…" Emilia cast a nervous glance towards Subaru, having reached peak awareness surprisingly quickly after her realization.
"Maybe. The village gave up your location, so they might feel like they were set up. Honestly, they might not be wrong. As afraid of you as everyone is, the villagers might have expected you to take them out." Subaru, who was ever so slightly more worldly than Emilia, conjectured.
In the sequence of events that Subaru had postulated, it was clearly neither his or her fault nor was it his or her responsibility. If the two acted on that belief, they would not be wrong. This outcome was purely the result of the village trying to have two problems take care of each other. However, neither Emilia nor Subaru were the kind of people that could turn away from another's suffering. For Emilia, however, there was also a slightly more selfish motive: she did not wish to have another village's blood shed in her forest.
"Puck are you here?" Emilia called out.
There was, however, no answer. Puck had once again vanished to take care of something, and as usual he had left without warning. The fact that he had not given them any warning meant he had not intended to go very far away or be gone for very long. Emilia would just have to have faith that he would come as soon as he was able to.
As Emilia was about to run off to deal with things, Subaru grabbed her arm. He looked her in the eyes with a conviction that was uncharacteristic of his age.
"I'm not letting you go off on your own," there was a gentle firmness in Subaru's voice.
"But if I don't then-" Emilia's protest was cut off.
"I didn't say I was going to stop you, I just said I won't let you go alone," Subaru reassured.
"But Puck's not here, and you're still hurt," Emilia seemed almost frantic at letting anymore time pass without her helping out.
"Actually, I'm feeling fine, I don't hurt anywhere and my mana's full. Now calm down, this time let's think it through." Seeing Subaru's crooked grin calmed Emilia and caused the slightest, and ever so confusing, flutter in her chest.
"All right, now that you're not panicking how do we plan to stop them? I don't think either of us wants to kill them, but we already learned we can't just knock sense into them."
Subaru's question felt like a bucket of ice water being dumped over her head. If they just knocked out the offending mercenaries and left them, then they would just do something like this again; or perhaps even worse, they might catch them with yet another sneak attack. The thought of slaughtering them like the men she had killed yesterday, however, made her feel nauseous.
"Subaru what did they do with criminals in your world?" The faith and hope in Emilia's eyes and voice felt like the weight of the world to Subaru.
"Well, the police would hold them down, put them in handcuffs and take them to jail," Subaru droned off, trying to work out a plan.
"Handcuffs?"
"Yeah, they're these metal things that tie your hands together behind your back so you can't fight anymore," Subaru's explanation seemed to set off some sort of realization, as her eyes brightened.
"That's it! We can knock them out, tie them up with some rope, and drag them back to town." As Emilia pounded her fist into her palm in triumph, Subaru withheld the many objections he had; afterall, he didn't have a better idea.
There was, however, one problem that could not be left unaddressed, "Emilia where are we going to get rope?"
"We'll pick it up at the trading outpost, if they're not okay with that we'll pay later," Emilia's voice was eager, as she hurriedly brushed aside any objections.
Unable to think of a better plan, Subaru gave her a nod as they dashed out the door. Other than the few men running around town raising the alarm, the village appeared deserted for the most part. Every door they passed was locked shut, and every fire that would normally be visible was extinguished. Primarily operating on trade, very few of the town's inhabitants had much that they could use in the way of weaponry. In fact, the only reasonably armed people to be found were the very people sounding the alarm. Judging by the bows and daggers, Subaru assumed they must have been out hunting when they discovered the attack. It was on their way to the trading outpost that Subaru and Emilia crossed paths with said group once again.
"Excuse me," Subaru shouted trying to be heard over the ruckus they were making, "do you know which way they're coming from?"
As the small hunting party looked towards Subaru, they froze in their tracks, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they froze when they caught sight of the person next to him. Stunned silent they gazed dumbly at the two of them. Surprisingly, it was Emilia herself who took charge and broke the silence.
"Please. We want to help. I don't want to see any more death in this forest." Emilia made a heartfelt entreaty, a gentle resolution in her eyes. A clenched hand fidgeting anxiously at chest height.
Unexpectedly, for the first time since she had thawed in the forest, she had gotten through to someone. Rather this time, she got through not to just a single person, but a group. An unreadable look in his eyes, the man standing in the front of the group stepped forward and held out his hand.
"If you're going to protect our town, we'll go with you," the man met Emilia's stunned eyes as he continued to hold out his proffered hand.
The very action stunned Emilia into a profound silence. The only sign left that she could still move was the ever so slight trembling of her body, as she stood perfectly still, eyes quivering in disbelief. Perhaps she might have even stood in that spot in that state all day, were it not for a hand gently coming to rest itself on her shoulder.
"I...I…" Emilia stammered as she tried to find any words in her head to reply with.
It was only a few seconds of this before that very same hand that had gently pushed her on from her shoulder, grasped her wrist and moved her hand into the villager's still outstretched hand. A gentle squeeze from both parties, and an unspoken understanding was borne. It was a solemn moment, without the need for words of acknowledgment-or so it would have been, had the grinning fool standing next to her, the very one who had made the whole event possible, not opened his mouth.
"It's great that you guys are helping, but we need to know where we're going and we need to get some rope," Subaru simultaneously ruined the moment and took charge.
The hunting party was indeed small, numbering four people in total. The equipment they possessed was equally underwhelming. The daggers they possessed would be of little use against a sword, and the short bows they were carrying would quickly become useless if they couldn't maintain a distance. Perhaps an even bigger problem was that Emilia, by far the strongest fighter amongst them, fought best at close range. If Emilia chose to engage up close then the bows would then be of little utility.
Had Subaru or Emilia been older or more experienced, they might have seen the lack of benefit of bringing such a group with them. Emilia and Subaru, however, had no idea what they were facing, and were pleasantly surprised to have any help. Even so, Emilia would not have had the heart to turn away a group of people who were genuinely reaching out to her in any circumstances.
One of the hunters standing back chose to speak up, "I've got some at my place that we can grab on the way."
The man was relatively young and of seemingly slight build. His uncertain brown eyes and slightly disheveled, short maroon hair gave off a somewhat doubtful air. However, the speed with which he turned the show the way betrayed any presumed timidness. Time being of the essence the party of six took off in a wordless run.
As Subaru dashed through the snow, he was struck by the errant thought that it was like he and Emilia had picked up four NPCs, and were now off to complete a compulsory quest. Subaru shook his head, as if to lose the thought behind him as they made haste. This wasn't a game, it was a harsh world that had nearly taken his life several times. If he and Emilia managed to succeed and fulfill the role of the hero, his only reward would be Emilia's smile. Surprisingly, the reward didn't seem unfair at all to Subaru.
Subaru had slothfully ran and hid from his problems in his old world. Getting good grades was hard, so he stopped caring about them. Being a top athlete seemed impossible, so he gave up. He couldn't make friends, so he made a fool of himself. It was only here, in a fantasy world, that Subaru had been able to experience the fulfillment borne of diligence. Afterall, at his core Subaru was not a slothful person. Rather right now, standing next to his first real friend, Subaru felt unstoppable.
Before long the group came to a stop at a non-descript house. The man who had led them bolted inside, hopping on one leg as he tripped on his doorstep in a frenzied rush. A crash and several thuds later, he came back out a bit bruised but with a long roll of rope. He held it out to Emilia, a slightly nervous look on his face.
"Ah thanks…" Emilia trailed off.
"Laurence. I'm Laurence. If you don't mind...why do you need rope?"
"Well, I don't want to hurt them too badly, so Subaru decided we'd knock them out, tie them up, and drag them to town." Laurence was driven speechless by the naive and innocent reasoning.
"Are you sure about that? They're likely going to be out for blood, you need to take them seriously."
Emilia turned a surprisingly piercing gaze toward Laurence, "I am."
"As long as Subaru and I stay together it'll be fine this time," Laurence averted his gaze unwilling to meet the intensity in Emilia's eyes.
It was a short time later on that the group stood waiting on the path that the mercenaries were expected to arrive. The fear that Subaru was expecting to feel was nowhere to be found. A glance at the silver-haired half-elf next to him was all he needed to feel invincible. Someone needed him; someone had expectations of him. He had no choice but to answer them. Furthermore, for the first time he had a leg up on his competition; he could use magic no matter how basic. As long as they didn't split up, there's no way this encounter would end up like last time.
A thought struck Subaru, "How are we sure they're going to come down this road? Wouldn't criminals rather sneak in?"
"Not around here. There's no real law enforcement out by us, and they were bringing a couple dragon carriages. This is meant to be a show of force before they loot us."
The answer from the presumptive leader of the group of hunters disturbed Subaru. Just what kind of lord must these lands have to let such a situation go on? A glance around at the area revealed a relatively flat region with a well-traveled road. It appeared that the raiding party intended to enter and leave as easily as if they were a group of traveling merchants. Subaru took a calming breath trying to sooth his righteous indignation. Subaru needed to be in control; he wanted to incapacitate with Minya, not kill.
Before long a caravan of six total carriages traveling in two rows emerged from the forest path. The amount of men riding in or walking along those carriages was quite sizeaable, by Subaru's estimation there must have been near one-hundred men in total. As the six people who had set out to defend the village gazed onwards in shock, a lone crossbow-bolt came flying across the field. Subaru's eyes clearly traced the path of the bolt as it was effortlessly snatched into Emilia's hand. A cold gaze in her normally warm eyes, she snapped it in the middle with an understated squeeze before dropping it.
A brief moment of focus later and Emilia handed Subaru a makeshift iceshield. Holding on to it, Subaru felt surprisingly safe. For some reason that bolt had seemed to travel unusually slowly, and while he didn't think he could catch it, he was strangely confident he would have no trouble blocking one.
Between the unexpectedly overwhelming numbers and the incongruent sight of Emilia snatching a crossbow bolt out of the air, the four that had accompanied them were stricken silent and left unmoving. The courage they'd shown up to now had evaporated immediately, and had left behind a numb terror. The cause behind this was simple, when they'd spotted the group in the forest there had been a mere two carriages perhaps 15 or so men. Having figured that the witch herself could easily take out ten or so they had had confidence that the fight wasn't unwinnable. But against a force a hundred strong or more, the four hunters believed that they had no chance of victory.
Such a large group had been formed by the convergence of several separate groups. It was merely good fortune that said groups chose to converge and attack from the same point. Had they done so the groups attacking from different paths would have had an uncontested moment of pillage as Emilia and Subaru fought elsewhere.
Glancing back at their now useless companions Emilia and Subaru gave each other a silent nod before taking off in a sprint. Subaru found himself running at speeds that made his eyes widen comically in surprise, his gate open and functioning correctly was now properly saturating his body in mana. He could feel the warmth of his mana spreading out gently from his gate, seemingly supercharging his very being. At once Puck's comments about using mana to strengthen himself made sense, it was the kind of sensation that once he'd experienced it, he couldn't help but do it. It was almost as if some part of him had always known how to commit this very act.
As Subaru shook off the intoxicating sensation of the strength rushing through him he glanced over towards Emilia. Emilia cast a faint, proud smile towards Subaru, as she checked to make sure he was keeping up. Subaru grinned to himself, believing just this once that he was someone worth being proud of.
Outstretching her hand Emilia chanted, "Huma!"
From her outstretched hand a modestly sized spear of ice launched forth. Aimed toward the wheels of the leftmost row of carriages, her projectile sailed forth, completely dewheeling that side of every carriage lined up. The shattered wood shattered and shot about as shrapnel impaling a couple of the mercenaries who had been standing around in inaction shocked by the sudden assault on their position. As the damaged sides of the carriages collapsed to the ground, the shifting of the passengers gave resounding thuds, the startled grunts of the misplaced passengers following soon after. The ground dragons futilely continued attempting to pull and push onwards but gave up as they succeeded in little more than digging a hole in the grand they stood upon.
Subaru went to follow up Emilia's act, but before he could cast a spell he noticed a volley of arrows coming in from the rear of the battalion. His initial fear was quickly overwhelmed by the heady confidence bursting forth at his new abilities.
"Subaru!" Emilia cried out trying to run towards him to intercept the incoming arrows.
But her concerns were quickly shown baseless as Subaru easily tracked and batted aside the incoming volley. A quick minya later and Subaru's shadow spear had disabled the other half of the carriages. A pained whail could be heard in the distance, but Subaru and Emilia paid it little heed.
"Don't worry Emilia! Today I'm feeling divinely inspired."
"Divinely inspired?"
"What else could I feel charging into battle with an angel at my side?"
Her cheeks stained a deep red Emilia sputtered, "Subaru, you, you, jobbernowl!"
Subaru's usual retorts to Emilia's antiquated language were preempted by a sudden charge of swordsmen storming towards Subaru. As Subaru's Minya's struck true, the attacking swordsmen were temporarily petrified by crystallized mana as they collapsed. Or at least all but one were downed.
The lone swordsman who had been spared Subaru's counterattack raised his sword. The glint of the sun as it refracted off of the tip of the blade, induced a phantom pain as Subaru recalled the sensation of a blade slicing at his neck. Stricken by panic, Subaru aimlessly struck out with his right fist, and succeeded in landing a blow straight across his assailant's left cheek. The swordsman's body was launched backwards a couple meters as several teeth were liberated from his jaw by the force of Subaru's haphazard strike. His body fell bonelessly, having been knocked out by the sensation of his jaw shattering and the whiplash of his sudden launching.
Calming his fear-induced gasps Subaru gazed about his surroundings. There were no more mercenaries left standing. In the time that he had taken down one or two dozen men, Emilia had already disabled the remainder of the hundred or so men. In a way, Subaru thought his victims had been the lucky ones given that he had been using Minya to petrify, Emilia's opponent had been taken down with brute force. Many of Emilia's victims were on the ground writhing in pain, they would need to act fast to immobilize the ones that were still conscious.
Subaru turned back towards the group they had brought with them. At some point the group had shaken off their shock and notched arrows in their bows which they were now slowly lowering in stunned disbelief. As strange as it was to think, Emilia and Subaru had taken down the entire group in the span of a minute or so; between that and given how quickly the two had run in, the four hunters had never had a chance to participate. Or at least they hadn't until this moment, Subaru decided.
"Hey! Can you guys come here and help us tie them up?" Subaru beckoned at the top of his lungs. While waiting for them to bring the rope, Subaru noticed Emilia practically charging at him. Emilia grabbed onto Subaru's shoulders and yanked him around, as she frantically inspected his body.
"You're okay, right? Nothing happened to you, did it?" Emilia frantically fretted over Subaru, inspecting each and every inch of him.
"Emilia, I'm fine. It seems somehow I leveled up over night, so it wasn't a big deal." Subaru assured her.
"Leveled up?" Emilia tilted her head to the side.
"In games when you do enough stuff, you suddenly get stronger. We call that leveling up." Subaru explained.
"It wasn't really that sudden though. I used to have to be soooo gentle when I was playing with you, and lately I don't have to worry that much. Although seeing you run that fast was a bit surprising." Emilia innocently struck below the belt in what she thought was well intentioned praise.
Subaru had noticed that he hadn't had to warn her about overdoing it much at all lately. He'd assumed she was getting better at controlling her strength, and she probably was. But apparently whatever happened today, had been happening this whole time.
The soft crunching of snow being crushed underfoot announced the arrival of their companions. Somewhat pensive looks adorned their faces as they closed the gap. After an exchanged glance, Laurence stepped forward a thoroughly uncomfortable grimace on his face.
A few seconds of awkward silence and Laurence finally found his voice, "I'm sorry."
He swallowed audibly before continuing, "There's no way we can take these men prisoner as a village."
"But, you can't just let them loose!" Subaru shouted in objection.
"No, we can't. For criminals too dangerous to be allowed to be free, there is only one punishment. Especially in a village like ours where we don't even have food for a single extra person."
"You liar!" Emilia roared, the corner of her eyes glistening.
"You knew that we didn't want to kill them. You went along with our plan...and now you...now you…" Emilia's speech became stilted before being silenced all together by sobs.
"Just this once...I wanted to end things without hurting or killing anyone," Emilia's voice as faint as the turn of a gentle breeze.
"If suffering is the only thing I can bring, then maybe I am a witch."
Subaru roughly wrapped his around her shoulder and yanked her body flush to his side, "Come on, whatever happens is on them."
The village hunters watched on silently as Emilia and Subaru turned away from them. The silence and inaction partially driven by fear, and partly driven by the desire to not have two children bear witness to a mass execution.
Moving his arm off his shoulder he grasped her hand and started guiding her as he walked into the forest. As Subaru walked past the wreckage they had lain, he noticed a particularly mauled body. The mercenary's chest had been completely run through, and around the wound was purple petrified flesh. This person had been killed by Minya. This person had been killed by Subaru.
Immediately Subaru's stomach clenched, as he fell to his knees. A burning sensation danced across his cheeks, as his upper body shook violently as he began to heave. Dropped to a tripod position, Subaru vomited as his eyes watered. Subaru wanted to yell, scream, shout but the only thing that would come out of his mouth were his stomach contents.
"Subaru!" Emilia quickly crouched next Subaru both hands firmly on his shoulders keeping him from collapsing face first into the snow.
"Emili-aagh," Subaru's attempt to talk was immediately cut off by a round of dry heaving.
Unsure what else to do Emilia gently rubbed Subaru's back. A few spasms later, it seemed that his body had finally accepted that there was nothing left to expel. He leaned heavily on Emilia as he forced his quivering body back to its feet.
Wordlessly, a pair of crying children entered the forest leaning on each other. The fruit of their diligent efforts to save a village with no casualties were one-hundred soon to be dead bodies. Of course the other fruit would be a legend: the tale of the kind witch and warlock who guarded the Ellior Forest and the towns surrounding it, who had wept even the deaths of murderers. But more importantly, tales of an elven girl with silver hair and amethyst eyes would spread well beyond the forest. Thus began the tale of the Witch of Frost and the Warlock of Shadows.
Afterword
Sorry for the long wait for such a short chapter, the delay was a combination of real life getting in the way, and this being one of those chapters where the words just don't want to come out. Honestly I don't know if I'll have more or less time to write going forward. I ended up leaving a job as a formulation chemist that I was rather unhappy at right at the start of covid(arranged the departure months before covid was a thing). Ended up unemployed for a while before getting a temp job working 6-7 days a week as a covid screener. I've finally found a real job now as a regulatory affairs specialist for product chemistry submissions of crop protection products, so I'm back to a normal 8-5 now but I did do a bit of writing in the down times at the temp job.
Anyways we've wrapped up the prologue. A couple interlude chapters and we'll move on to this story's first actual arc. This chapter was a bittersweet taste of strength for Subaru, and perhaps a first look into just how naive and immature Subaru and Emilia are. You'll notice that a lot of their actions don't make a ton of sense. Of course a village that's struggling to get by couldn't support 100 prisoners (execution is kinder than starving them to death). Subaru charging an armed battalion head on is just plain silly, yes with minya he wins the one on one but swords and arrows still could kill him. A lot of things are converging with positive consequences for Subaru: he hasn't damaged his gate, he's learned to draw mana from his gate and has begun to adapt to it, and his connection to Emilia is doing something. As he is now, he's significantly stronger than the average adult, but by the standards of the powerful in the re: zero verse he is still utterly insignificant.
In a way you could think of this story as a Diligence IF, guided by a virtue rather than a sin. It's more than Subaru exhibiting this virtue that made this reality happen too. Just some food to think on.
