10.2.7

The instant Subaru awoke, the first thing he felt was a hard sensation against his cheek.

"…aa, uu…"

Moaning with a half-asleep voice, Subaru became aware that he was lying prone. He blinked several times, and reality poured into his vision, awakening him over the course of several seconds.

Pressing his arms to the ground, he slowly lifted himself up—

"This, is… errr…?"

He brushed off the dirt on his cheek with his fingers and squinted into the darkness. When he looked, Subaru saw that he had fallen inside an old ruin—to be precise, several tens of meters into the corridor leading into it.

To his back was the entrance to the tomb, and it was from there that light entered into his eyes. Thanks to that, his escape route was plain to see, but it made for a pretty crummy ruin exploration.

"Anyway, I'd better get out and hook back up with Emilia and Otto…"

Shaking his heavy head, he placed a hand against the wall, wobbly as he rose to his feet. He had no business inside the ruin. The Sanctuary lay outside. Having gone astray, he needed to be outside to rendezvous with Emilia.

He couldn't quite put his finger on why he was so certain of that, but—

"I feel like, someone said that to me…"

"Yo. Ya sure got some guts, comin' straight out from a place like that, outsider."

"Ah…?"

As he exited the ruin with fragmented thoughts, a voice called out to him the instant his eyes narrowed from the light.

His vision, accustomed to the dark, was hazy. As it gradually adjusted, Subaru found himself looking down at the surrounding landscape from the modestly elevated ruin.

In front of the ruin was a single dragon carriage, and a young male driver with a most pitiable look on his face.

"M-Mr. Natsuki…"

"Otto? What are you doing in a place like… No, before that, where's Emilia?!"

"Inside the dragon carriage! I-it has been most terrible since that moment! I-I…!!"

When Subaru raised his voice at the unexpected reunion, Otto shouted back even louder. But thanks to that, Subaru was able to confirm Emilia's presence, and this made his shoulders sink in relief. Otto was pleading about something, but that concern could wait. The immediate problem was—

"Hey, forget the whiny guy. I come first here, damn it!"

The individual standing right beside the dragon carriage spoke to Subaru with a voice that issued seemingly through clenched teeth. Turning his face toward the speaker, Subaru shrugged.

"What a coincidence. I was just thinking the same thing."

"Hah! That's 'ganglion before you think' for ya!"

"Gangl… Ah?"

As Subaru knotted his brows at the mystery phrase mixed in with the reply, the other party took a step forward. With a coarse manner of speech and a hostile glint in his eyes, the speaker's external appearance in no way betrayed Subaru's first, ferocious impression of him.

He had short, combed-back blond hair and a highly visible white scar on his forehead. There was ferocity in his sharp green eyes, and he was dressed in crude clothing Subaru could only call that of a country bumpkin. For a man, he was fairly short, especially in a stooped posture, but the dense, ghastly aura coursing from his entire body made certain others would not underestimate him due to his small stature.

More than any of those things, the individual had one external feature that set him apart. And that was—

"Hey, are ya shakin'? Well, yer luck definitely ran out. Here ya are in a place ya shouldn't be, and now I caught ya!"

As the man spoke, his eyes narrowed, and he laughed—with a mouth full of sharp, extremely distinctive fangs.

Subaru had déjà vu. He'd seen a smiling face just like that extremely recently.

"Well, if yer gonna curse yer bad luck, do like 'Bazomazo swept away right and left'!"

"Wait! Hey, you, listen to us bef—"

"'Tear and tear but Kalran's skin's still blue'… I ain't listenin'!"

Lending no ear to the voice urging him to stop, the fanged man stepped forward; the next instant, he vanished from sight.

An impact made Subaru's breath catch. Before he realized it, he had been caught by his collar. When he turned his head to the side in surprise, the man's ferocious glare was right beside him, close enough to share a breath—and his own feet were rising into the air.

"Oowaa—!!"

His view of the world was flipped upside down as he was hit by a powerful sense of floating, from which he understood that he had been hurled. Subaru proceeded to soar toward the dragon carriage in a powerful straight line. If he was to collide with it, he would suffer injury, be it light or heavy, but—

"You're kidding—?!" "Da, huu—!"

The voice of utter shock was not that of Subaru, but that of Otto as he watched through the fingers of the hands with which he covered his own face.

With no way to stop it, Subaru thought he'd collide with the dragon carriage, breaking every bone in his body. But, by seemingly miraculous coincidence—no, it was an inevitable reaction that rescued him from peril—

"Patlash is simply too incredible!"

The pitch-black land dragon neighed proudly as Otto's voice praised her exploits.

It was none other than Patlash's benevolent decision that had saved Subaru from crashing into the dragon carriage. The land dragon had adeptly set the dragon carriage in motion on her own, thus ensuring that Subaru crashed into the door of the carriage proper. As a result, Subaru punched through the carriage door, sailing in only to have a seat bring him safely to a halt.

"Shit. That one was a little too… Hey, Patlash, wait!"

Tumbling out of the seat, Subaru looked out of the carriage to see the land dragon roaring and charging the man. With a twist of her body, Patlash had unhitched herself from the dragon carriage, seemingly consumed with rage toward the man who had injured Subaru, baring her fangs to bring them to his neck.

"Ha! That decision gave me chills. Yer a good land dragon…nah, a good woman."

However, the land dragon's biting attack missed its mark, and the left arm the man thrust out stopped her in her tracks. Even so, Patlash put strength into her jaw, moving her head as if to bite the man's arm off.

But that head, and that jaw, stopped cold, her power inferior to the man's simple brawn.

"I won't hurt ya. Just put ya to sleep a bit."

As the land dragon's pupils contracted in fright, the man proudly made that statement. Then, with the land dragon still biting his arm, he tucked a hand under her broad head and hurled her huge body. With a softness that belied the heroic image, he tossed down her large frame, quietly rendering the land dragon powerless.

"He threw Patlash…?!"

"H-his skill is no joke… Eh?!"

Subaru and Otto doubted their own eyes as the man before the pair leaped very high, onto the driver's seat of the dragon carriage. With the assailant so close, Otto adopted a combative pose in great haste.

"D-do not underestimate me! I may not look it, but I too am a merchant! I have ways to deal with midjourney violence! Fear the power of Suwen School violence repulsion ar—dahuu!"

"Shut up, amateur. Thanks to your land dragon, I'll settle for half killin' ya. Go to sleep."

Otto was in a worked-up pose, but fainted in anguish as soon as the man flicked his forehead with a finger. It was less of a finger strike than a forehead poke, but its might was such that Otto went down in the blink of an eye without so much as a groan.

Now that he was past Patlash and now Otto, no obstacles remained between him and the dragon carriage.

"—Ugh!"

Biting his lip, Subaru looked back inside the dragon carriage. Where one section of seating had been removed in favor of the simplified bed used to carry Rem, right then a different girl—Emilia—slept upon it.

Otto must have laid her there after Subaru teleported. Even now, Emilia had yet to return to consciousness. Subaru had to protect her no matter what it took.

"Thank yer land dragon for fightin' so hard. I'll half kill ya and toss ya outside the forest. After I make ya swear that ya won't tell anyone else about this place, ya hear me?!"

Just as Subaru hardened his resolve, the man bared his fangs and boarded the carriage. The sharp glint of his fangs at the tip of his upward swinging arm cleanly robbed his declaration about half-killing of all its persuasiveness.

Before the man's wicked deeds, Subaru raised both arms wide to shield Emilia and shouted.

"Wait! You're Frederica's… You're involved with Roswaal and his people, right?!"

"—! Huhhh?"

With a loud voice and a scowl on his face, the man stopped his blow right before it connected with the tip of Subaru's nose. From there, the man gazed at Subaru for a while, surprise and anger residing in his eyes in equal measure.

"…What the hell is that name doin' comin' outta your mouth?"

"Hmm, I wonder why? Think about it nice and hard."

"Already did. I dunno. I'll think about it more after I smash your face in!"

"Cut it out with that nasty way of thinking!! We're with Roswaal, geez!!"

When his opponent took a step toward him in earnest, Subaru hastily raised both hands high and pleaded his case. His words made the man's sharp fangs audibly clench. After thinking it over for a while, he said:

"Aah? Wait, you're sayin' the one sleepin' is that Lady Emilia chick?"

"You know…Emilia's name?"

This time, it was Subaru's turn to be surprised, because the man had referred to the sleeping Emilia as Lady. His reaction made the man cross his arms, nodding with a smug face as he answered.

"Oh yeah, heard all 'bout her. The silver-haired half-demon that bastard Roswaal's taken in, right?"

"She's a half-elf. Don't call her that in front of her ever again."

"Hah! Well lookie here, guess you can put some backbone into your voice."

The man gave Subaru a sharp, scornful gaze before making a sound through his fangs and turning his back. Then, when he left the dragon carriage, Subaru suddenly rushed over, gripping the door and forcing it closed.

The man's shoulders jumped at Subaru's violent action. He shrugged, looking back.

"Relax already. I ain't worked up no more. I don't wanna have Ram yellin' at me."

"I really relate to how you feel about that, but…that doesn't answer my first question, you know?"

"Ahh?"

Though the man spread both arms wide, asserting that he had no intention of fighting, Subaru did not lower his guard. Such behavior made the man sink into thought briefly, finally making an ahhh noise and nodding as if he finally understood before he spoke.

"—Me, I'm Garfiel. Haven't you heard of me?"

"So you're Garfiel…!"

Garfiel was the name of the individual he'd been told over and over again to be wary of back at the mansion. Subaru's brow furled at the gobsmacking development of having encountered the man himself so soon.

His reaction made Garfiel click his tongue, then stare intently at Subaru.

"I've got somethin' to ask you, then. How'd you know I'm related to Frederica?"

"…You're…seriously asking me that?"

When Subaru batted the question back, Garfiel audibly bared his fangs in visible displeasure. Taking his silence as a yes, Subaru felt energy draining from him as he scratched his face and replied.

"Anyone could tell just by looking at your face, sheesh."

The shape of his fang-filled face was undoubtable proof that he was related to Frederica by blood.