By now, Otto's Earth Dragon had unloaded its cargo. The carriage behind it had been swapped for the freight-hauling kind, and it was laboring to drag away the rubble of the Roswaal Mansion.
Wrecked to this degree, the house really wasn't worth saving anymore—but plenty of useful things inside couldn't just be tossed out.
Yimi raised a paw and gave the Earth Dragon a light pat. "Thanks for the hard work, Diego's lackey."
"…"
The Earth Dragon paused its labor and lowered its head to look at the insolent Yimi. A little runt like this, it could swallow in a single bite.
"Please don't bother Mister Earth Dragon while he's working, Lady Yimi." Rem lifted Yimi from behind, tucking her sideways under one arm like a basket and carrying her off.
While the two outsiders, Subaru and Geuse, reeked head to toe of Witch-stench, this one little kitten alone managed to stay somewhat fresh.
As for why she hadn't yet turned on the two men who kept calling each other "Archbishop"—that too was for the sake of this child who had saved her twice.
"Subaru? Subaru! Come on, wake up." Emilia patted Subaru's cheek.
Subaru had come within a hair of being strangled to death by Geuse's Unseen Hand. Now he lay sprawled on the ground like a corpse, foaming at the mouth, black rings drawn around his eyes and rouge daubed on both cheeks.
If Emilia and Beatrice hadn't been holding Yimi back together, she'd already have used the hard-soled shoes Kirisame Marisa had made to measure for her to plant a vicious kick on Subaru's backside.
As a Sin Archbishop, Petelgeuse had been keenly attuned to other people's emotions—even back then, he'd felt that the mad ferocity of Subaru beating on Regulus was no act. No matter how anyone explained it, Geuse would find it hard to believe Subaru was any kind of decent person.
"Has Lady Emilia lost her memories?" Geuse asked, head bowed—and felt, of all things, a flicker of relief.
If memories that painful had lingered, Emilia probably couldn't have grown into the gentle girl she was now, could she?
At the brink of collapse, to glimpse a face that faintly overlapped with the child in his memory—there was no better medicine to pull his sanity back.
Geuse clutched his head in both hands.
But nothing could change the fact that he had accidentally killed Fortuna. Had it not been for the accident along the way, following the instructions in Petelgeuse's Gospel, he might well have turned his hand against Emilia too.
Everything had once been so beautiful. As a moderate, all he'd ever wanted was for the Witch Cult to become something better…
His fingers curled; he came within an inch of clawing at his own face the way Petelgeuse did.
"Lady Emilia has grown up safe and healthy. That is enough."
Watching the child who used to cling to him grow into a young woman with a will of her own—one who no longer needed him—well, for a man who ought to be dead, even a little melancholy was a luxury.
How I wish Fortuna could see this too.
Geuse looked at the Unseen Hands extending from his back. The ill effects of forcibly taking in the Witch Factor of Sloth had already been cast away by that "happiness." Did that mean even a man like him was still worth saving?
"The rain's stopped." Beatrice gazed at the house, already more than half in ruins. "No point repairing this place now, is there? Whatever—leaving his own home for others to clean up, Roswaal's got it coming."
"To see Lady Emilia grow up happy, with so many dependable companions at her side—I am already content. But with Lady Emilia being a Royal Selection Candidate, my staying by her side would only harm her."
"You're leaving? Didn't you want to have a proper talk with Emilia?" Beatrice stood and looked toward Yimi.
She had wanted to introduce that child to him—to tell him she wouldn't be lonely.
"Matters over there must be dealt with properly, so no harm comes to Lady Emilia, desu. And the grudge with the Sin Archbishop of Wrath—that too must be settled properly…"
He believed his recovery was no sign that he deserved to be saved. It meant he ought to go and atone.
…
…
"Ow."
While stitching an Earth Dragon plush, Ram accidentally pricked her finger.
Since Rem had other things to attend to, she'd taken it up herself.
"You can leave this sort of thing to me, onee-san." Rem hurriedly took the needle and thread from her hands.
"I'm not so hopeless that I can't even manage this, Rem." Ram looked at her own hands, a little drowsy, then fished a ball of yarn from the basket and handed it to Yimi to play with.
For a girl, a disfigured face was as good as a ruined life. Thanks to this child healing them of Capella's dragon blood, all the doting on her hadn't gone to waste.
As Beatrice had said, the house was past saving—not only because too much of it had been destroyed, but because this whole affair had drawn them considerably closer to the villagers. In the physical sense, at least.
The spatial pull of D4C Love Train, in a mere dozen-odd seconds, had been enough to drag the village's nearest house to within three meters (about ten feet) of here—and Roswaal, being the lord, surely never wanted to sit so close to the village.
"Lord Roswaal hasn't come back in a long while." Rem looked at her sister with worry—worry aimed less at Roswaal than at Ram.
Ram's expression stiffened.
Rem might be the more capable when it came to their duties, but when it came to matters concerning Roswaal, it was in fact Ram who knew more—and she could faintly guess a few of the reasons he hadn't returned.
"Where'd Diego go?"
Yimi cared about this even more than they did. Her task was all but done; all that was left was to deal with Diego, and then she could leave with an easy mind.
"It's Lord Roswaal."
Ram narrowed her eyes and pinched Yimi's cheek, wobbling it side to side. "At a time like this he's most likely at the Sanctuary. Though where the Sanctuary is isn't something Ram is at liberty to reveal."
"The Sanctuary?"
Rem crouched to meet Yimi's eyes. "More to the point—might I ask a favor of you, Lady Yimi? My sister, you see…"
The weariness hanging on Ram wasn't from drowsiness.
It didn't usually show, but the two sisters were of the Oni Clan, and for the Oni the most vital organ was, naturally, the horn on the head. In an accident in her childhood, Ram had lost that most vital horn.
Even in ordinary life, she needed Roswaal to replenish her mana on a regular basis just to stay alive—so of course, when Capella invaded, she couldn't simply refuse to fight.
Without Roswaal's mana replenishment, Ram faced what amounted to a survival crisis—and Yimi had already set a precedent by helping Puck overcome his mana shortage.
Yimi's eyes darted around. "Okay. But you have to tell me where Diego is."
Ram pinched Yimi's cheek again and gave it a gentle tug, about to call her a freeloader—then caught herself, conflicted, realizing this child had apparently already saved her once.
Ram closed her eyes a moment. "If the Diego you mean is Lord Roswaal, then as it happens, we need to go find him too."
"Mm." Yimi clambered onto her lap. "So how do I do it for you, the mana replenishment?"
"Won't the way you did it for Lord Puck earlier work?" Rem prompted.
"That sort of thing…" But Ram, who knew nothing of the Puck incident, flushed slightly, and obediently revealed the broken horn on her forehead.
Because the horn was the most sensitive spot on the Oni, and replenishing mana meant channeling it through the broken horn, she might well let out some strange noises from sheer sensitivity.
"Mm?" Yimi climbed onto Ram's lap and sniffed curiously at the horn on her forehead.
Then, puzzled, she turned her face toward Ram's wand, reached over to take it, and gave it a sniff. "Your horn—isn't it right here?"
"There?" Rem blinked, and looked at her sister's wand.
And then they watched as Yimi simply snapped the wand Roswaal had given Ram in two—and Ram's broken horn appeared in Yimi's palm.
Yimi glanced at the broken horn in her hand, then at Ram's forehead.
She gave it a lick, and tried to stick it back onto Ram.