What was that about male and female?
"Where'd you get that book? Let me see it." Beatrice held her hand out toward Yimi—after all, her own Tome was right here in her other hand.
It had better not be a Witch Cult Sin Archbishop's Gospel.
Yimi's eyes slid sideways as she hid the book behind her back. "No."
She hadn't forgotten how Beatrice wouldn't let her look at the Tome of Wisdom before.
Beatrice frowned, then used magic to snatch it directly. "Let Betty see… This does appear to be a genuine Tome of Wisdom."
Seeing Beatrice's own surprise, Roswaal lowered his head and stroked his chin, thinking.
The Tome of Wisdom was in his hands. Beatrice's Tome hadn't left her possession either. Yet she'd personally verified that this was a genuine Tome of Wisdom—not a lesser Gospel. When their teacher had given them the books, she'd been clear: only two copies, one for him, one for Beatrice.
And then there was this unexpected little girl. The Tome of Wisdom had no record of her arrival whatsoever. If she were an insignificant figure, that would be one thing—but she'd displayed a Mana Overflow powerful enough to register, and had even suppressed it on her own.
A faint gleam flickered in Roswaal's eyes.
Of course, since he was a six-foot-one giant standing behind the roughly five-foot-eight Subaru while deep in thought, what Subaru saw when he turned around was this man looming over him with a menacing glint in his gaze.
A chill ran down Subaru's spine.
Roswaal gave him an odd look, recalled what the Tome of Wisdom had recorded about this boy, and patted his shoulder. "If you think of a request, feel free to bring it to me anytime~"
He glanced one last time at Yimi, then turned and left.
"Phew… Emilia."
A relieved Subaru approached Emilia.
"That's strange—did I tell you my name?" Emilia tilted her head, tapping her chin in confusion.
He'd learned Emilia's name through the misunderstanding in the previous loop—a decidedly unpleasant process. Normally, Subaru would've caught a detail like this. When you liked someone, properly asking for their name was an important step.
But this estate's master was going to kill him after dark!
"That doesn't matter right now. Just come with me and—"
"Come with…"
Emilia repeated the words but didn't continue. Subaru noticed she'd taken a small step back, putting distance between them.
The misunderstanding hadn't been cleared up yet. In Emilia's memory, he was still the person who'd called her "Satella" right before passing out—a slur that branded him as bigoted.
Emilia didn't have the pleasant memories of spending a day together with him. She didn't even have yesterday's frantic scramble to clear things up. In her eyes, he was just some stranger who'd inexplicably helped retrieve her insignia, then saved her life for unknown reasons.
A person like that was obviously far more suspicious than Roswaal, whom she'd known longer. And the worst part was that he couldn't explain why Roswaal was dangerous—just like before, when he'd tried to warn the thief girl about the incoming threat. Now he knew something was constantly threatening him. All he could do was sit here, unable to say a word.
Perhaps because he'd died painlessly in his sleep, he could think this calmly now.
Subaru clenched his fist, then released it, forcing another smile. "Let me properly introduce myself. I'm Natsuki Subaru. Might I have the honor of knowing your name, miss?"
"My name? Didn't you just say it a moment ago?"
Subaru wagged a finger. "That's completely different, my beautiful mystery lady. Hearing it from someone else and hearing it from you directly aren't the same thing at all."
Emilia let out a light laugh. "Subaru-san, you're quite strange."
"You don't have to keep hiding behind me anymore. He dresses oddly, sure, but he's not in the habit of eating children." Beatrice pulled Yimi out from behind her skirt, then paused. "Probably."
She'd been closest with the first-generation Roswaal. Whether his descendants had developed any unsavory hobbies, she honestly couldn't say.
That Tome of Wisdom—the one that stopped displaying text the moment it reached Yimi's hands—was practically identical to Beatrice's own.
Yimi cautiously released her grip on Beatrice's clothes. "You won't, help Diego, hit me, right?"
The fake grandmother from last time had done exactly that.
"Why would Betty do such a thing? Betty has never even heard of this 'Diego' you keep going on about. Making assumptions about other people's malice isn't a very good habit, you know."
Puck, lounging in his teacup, looked at Beatrice with amazement. "That kind of lecturing really doesn't sound like something Betty would say."
"Mm." Yimi stared in the direction Roswaal had gone.
This person really hadn't done anything to her. Could he actually not be Diego?
Just as the little cat let her guard slip the tiniest fraction, Subaru—having finished his chat with Emilia—crouched down in front of Yimi. "Can we talk in private for a sec, cat loli?"
Beatrice eyed him. "Why does it have to be private? What kind of secret is it that Betty can't hear?"
"It's a slightly personal matter—I need to apologize one-on-one. I made a bad first impression on this kid because of some misunderstanding, and having an audience would make it too embarrassing to get the words out."
"Come to think of it, Yimi did chase after Subaru-san specifically to bonk him on the head." Emilia vouched for him. After their conversation just now, the wall of distance between them had thinned considerably.
"Apologize." The little cat lifted her chin, ready to graciously accept Subaru's apology.
"Just call me Subaru, Emilia-tan!"
Flashing an energetic grin at Emilia, Subaru led Yimi a good distance away.
He crouched again. His tone shifted abruptly to a plea. "I'm begging you. Right now, you're the only one I can rely on."
"Hm?" Yimi didn't understand.
Weren't you supposed to be apologizing? The cat had already prepared herself to magnanimously accept his regrets.
No exaggeration—since arriving in this world, this little girl was the strongest person Subaru had encountered. More importantly, if she'd also just arrived at this estate as a guest like him, then even though he'd offended her earlier, if she'd truly wanted to kill him over that, she could've done it on the spot.
"For reasons I can't explain, Diego might come to kill me tonight. Can you protect me this once? Or—those plants you mentioned before—could you give me one? Please, I'll trade you my magic device!"
"Diego!" Yimi's attention locked onto that single word.
Diego was going to kill this person! She'd been doubting whether this was really Diego, but now it was confirmed!
Yimi patted Subaru's shoulder, mentally reclassifying him from "smelly and stupid" to "fellow victim of Diego's persecution."
But unfortunately: "Only Tomohisa, has plants. I didn't, bring any. The only plant I have, is cat grass, and I traded that, for this."
She pulled out the Tome of Wisdom and showed it to Subaru.
"You don't have any? Then can you protect me just this once?" Subaru produced what he'd been calling a "magic device"—a flip phone. "This is a magic device that can display the time and capture someone's image inside it. I call it a mobile phone."
He'd originally planned to trade it to the thief girl for Emilia's insignia, but the girl had returned the insignia for free out of gratitude. For the natives of this world who had zero understanding of electronics, a phone was naturally an object of incomprehensible wonder. Its value had already been verified by Old Man Rom—the old man who'd been with the thief girl—so it wasn't exactly a con.
"Phone?" Yimi looked at the flip phone in his hand, puzzled. "You're lying."
Then she pulled out the smartphone Origami had bought for her and held it up high. "THIS is a phone."
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