26 Disciple

Anything you desire!

Roswaal's words reverberated through the room. Everyone looked at Mordred.

Mordred lightly smiled and said, "Roswaal-san, since you said that I can ask for anything I desire then please forgive me if I'll be a little greedy."

"Oh no, no, no. A man doesn't go back on his wooord. I owe you a lot, Mordred-saaama. If it is to conceal the truth of the lost insignia, then I am willing to do anything," Roswaal said.

'Kill yourself,' Mordred thought.

Mordred coughed and said, "In that case, Roswaal-san, please do your best to teach me magic and impart all of your knowledge on magic to me!"

Although a clown, Roswaal was still claimed to be the most powerful mage on the continent; his centuries of accumulated knowledge and experience were priceless!

Naturally, Mordred's request wasn't small and everyone present knew it. Their eyes widened at his boldness, because he didn't just ask for Roswaal to teach him 'magic', but to impart 'ALL' of his magical knowledge to him. Normally it would be something unacceptable.

Reinhard nodded silently. Although the request that Mordred made was quite big and very greedy, he approved in his heart if it went through. Even if Mordred didn't have aptitude for casting magic, gaining the Mathers' worth of knowledge was invaluable!

Mordred knew that his gate clearly had the Fire and Yin attributes, and he had incredible mana reserves. His talent for magic was also quite something according to the person that tested him. Because of all that, he would certainly want to learn magic of this world even if he's originally a knight; and not only that - he wanted to eventually master all kinds of magic to the pinnacle!

If Mordred reached a high enough level and managed to fuse magic into his combat style well, then one day he might even become a Magic Knight and hold an advantage over Reinhard in that regard, as the Sword Saint is unable to use magic.

Roswaal's expression seemed to flash with surprise. He appeared defeated as he said, "Mordred-saaama is Emilia-sama's political enemy for the throoone, so it would be strengthening an enemy, but very weeell. A man doesn't go back on his wooord! From now on I will do my best to teach you maaaagic!"

Among the people present, Emilia, Ram and Reinhard looked surprised by Roswaal's words and resolve.

Only Mordred wasn't that surprised - Roswaal was really willing to give up on anything in order to revive Echidna and he even seemed to be genuinely smiling right now! As for Subaru, he seemed to be quite dismissive of the weight of Mordred's request.

Roswaal then added. "However, you need to know that I don't live in the caaapital! I'm afraid that there would be little chances for us to meeeeeet. Since I promised to do my best to teeach you, I suggest you move into my maaaansion. My mansion is only half a day away from the capital - you can live there as an honored guest and my disciiiiiiple. This way I could give you lessons whenever pooossible."

Roswaal looked at Mordred, seeming to be eagerly anticipating his answer.

Mordred lightly smirked. 'So that's your plan to bring me into the mansion? Well, I already expected it. '

"I think it's a good idea. Thank you!" Mordred said.

Roswaal's smile deepened. It appeared to Mordred that he was satisfied that things went his way, but that was because Mordred wanted to be enticed by him - he even worded his request in this way to give Roswaal an opening.

'Roswaal can try any scheme he wants, but he's simply courtying death if he annoys me too much,' Mordred thought in his heart. Besides his personal strength and Reinhard backing him, Mordred felt that he held Roswaal within his palm thanks to what he learned from the novel.

Roswaal said, "Very weeeell! Then whenever you wish, you can now visit and live at my mansion from now on, Mordred-saaama. I hope that although we are political enemies, we can still get alooooong."

"Yes," Mordred said, lightly nodding. When he looked over at Emilia, he could see her smiling innocently in joy, looking incredibly charming and pure. He guessed her good mood was likely caused by finally having a friend, and Mordred would also sometimes visit her at the mansion.

Roswaal continued, "Emilia-sama will be returning to the mansion on a carriage tomorrow mooorning. Mordred-sama, I wonder if you wish to jooooin her?"

"Tomorrow?" Mordred asked, making a short pause. "I think it would be nice. I want to try using magic as soon as possible."

'Okay, this clown really wants me to get close to Emilia and get attached to her, but it was still my intention to come to the mansion as soon as possible to achieve various objectives… I'll certainly go,' Mordred thought.

Reinhard gave Mordred a mild look and said, "Mordred-sama, it would be best that you stayed in the capital for some time and made connections with various noble families."

Mordred glanced at Reinhard with light annoyance. "No. I'm going. I am here today, so I can meet the most important ones. You can take care of the rest yourself or leave it for later."

Seeing a somewhat disappointed look on Reinhard's face, Mordred smiled and continued, "Reinhard, don't worry about the small stuff. Just place your trust in me. The most important thing for me is to survey the surroundings. I have already seen some of the capital, but not the outside world."

Reinhard appeared slightly taken aback for a brief moment, before he nodded his head, "Very well."

"Now then, seeing how Subaru-kun is your close frieeeend, how about you bring him aloooong? Roswaal said, smiling.

"Yes, that would be great! I'll come," Subaru took this chance to quickly inject himself into conversation.

Mordred frowned. His plan was to leave Subaru in the Astrea Manor and make him learn to read and write, and not bother him.

Not a moment later, Subaru stood up and bent down his body ninety degrees toward Roswaal. "Lord Roswaal, please accept me as your disciple as well!"

The room suddenly fell into silence and everyone looked at Subaru who kept bowing in front of Roswaal.

"Oooh? Subaru-kun wishes to be my disciiiiple?" Roswaal voiced his surprise. "Now, it's rare for me to take in a disiiiple. Mordred-sama could be said to be an exceeeeeeption."

Subaru felt sweat build up on his forehead after hearing Roswaal's answer.

Subaru stuttered, but then he heard Roswaal continue: "It isn't imposiiiible, however, you would need to swear loyalty to me and Emilia-saaaaama!"

"I will do it!" Subaru called out after pondering for two seconds.

'Mordred seems like a nice guy, but I can't take the Mordred route! That would just be too lame,' Subaru thought. How could he decline the offer of being the disciple of the strongest mage who supports a beautiful elf princess main heroine?

"Is that soooo? Subaru-kun, I had a feeling that you were Mordred-sama's atteeeeeendant?" Roswaal raised his eyebrows.

"Well, it's true that we know each other, but I didn't swear loyalty to anyone…" Subaru said.

Mordred was speechless.

"Hoo? Then I suppose Mordred-sama would have no problem if I recruited you into my faaaaction?" Roswaal then looked at Mordred with an inquiring gaze.

Everyone's gaze turned to Mordred.

Mordred frowned as he silently looked back at Roswaal. After several seconds he coughed and was forced to say: "I wished to give Subaru a chance and a position, but if it's his decision to leave me, then I can't stop him..."

At that moment Mordred felt quite betrayed. On one hand, it wasn't entirely fair for him to expect anything from Subaru, but he went to quite great lengths to save Subaru, basically killing himself, and then he also tolerated Subaru's not so pleasant behavior, was quite nice to him and even wanted to give him a good life, yet in the end he was repaid with this…

"Well then. If Mordred-sama has no problem with this, then I shall accept you as my disciiiiiple, Subaru-kun," Roswaal said and smiled.

Subaru made a 'Yess!' gesture as he straightened his body.

At one point Mordred's eyes fell on Emilia who was not far from Subaru.

Emillia seemed to have noticed Mordred's somber expression, as she bitterly smiled back at him.

Mordred only silently sighed and slumped in his seat. It seemed like inviting Subaru for the talk was a mistake, but he could only accept it for now.

Mordred's sight then traveled toward the smiling clown. All of it was obviously set up by Roswaal. Roswaal must have expected Subaru to make his request thanks to his book that predicts the future, and he pulled Subaru into his clutches.

It was an annoying development, but Mordred didn't feel that he was without options.

"Since everything has been settled, shall we take our leeeeave, Emilia-saaama?" Roswaal asked with a smile as he stood up. When Emilia also stood up, Roswaal turned to Mordred. "Mordred-sama, according to our agreement, I will begin to teach you magic when you arrive at my maaansion."

"Okay." Mordred stood up and then looked at Emilia. "Then we'll meet tomorrow morning, Emily."

"Yes," Emilia said with a gentle innocent smile. "Thank you again, Mordred. We'll meet tomorrow."

"See you later, Mordred. I'll thank you later as well!" Puck also waved at Mordred with his paw, floating near Emilia.

"See you later, Puck." Mordred slightly smiled. Puck's innocent appearance soothed his soul.

"Subaru-kun, I suggest you should come with us as weeeell," Roswaal turned to Subaru.

"Right, then let's go." Subaru stood up from his seat and turned toward Mordred and Reinhard. He slightly bowed his head and said, "Thank you for helping me, Mordred, Reinhard!"

Reinhard gently smiled and said nothing, visibly letting Mordred have the initiative.

Mordred smiled bitterly. "You're welcome. By the way, Subaru, there's something that I want to talk about with you before you leave."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Let's talk in private," Mordred said as he remained in his seat.

Soon Emilia, Puck, Ram and Roswaal left the room together, meanwhile Subaru, Mordred and Reinhard remained within.

Mordred turned to Reinhard. "Reinhard, is it safe to talk here?"

Reinhard then closed his eyes, seeming to use one of his unlimited Divine Protection cheats, before opening them after a while. "Yes. It's safe."

Mordred turned to Subaru with a serious expression. He swallowed his pride, leaned closer and whispered, "It's a shame that you're leaving me, Subaru, but there's one thing that I need to warn you about. Don't ever accept a soul contract from a magus. No matter what it is."

Mordred looked at Subaru seriously.

"Soul contract?" Subaru parroted, having his own thoughts.

"I'm serious. Do you understand?" Mordred said, looking at Subaru.

"Sure, I get it. Soul contract sounds like serious stuff. I'm not stupid," Subaru said.

Mordred continued looking at Subaru for a while. He finally said, "Good."

Meanwhile Reinhard observed the conversation silently.

"There's one more thing," Mordred added. "I want to purchase the snacks you have, Subaru."

Subaru looked at Mordred for a moment, before smiling. "Oh, so you want to purchase my snacks. You know those chips were not that cheap at all. You can't get them anywhere around here no matter how hard you try. It's a true delicacy!"

Mordred gently wrinkled his brows. He was willing to pay any price for this world's only chips and instant ramen noodles!

"Well, fine! I can give them to you," Subaru then said.

'Give?' Mordred raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"You helped me when I had no place to stay. It's no big deal. They're just snacks." Subaru smiled.

"Ah." Mordred couldn't lie that Subaru's sudden generosity came as a surprise to him.

"By the way, how did you know that these were snacks?" Subaru asked as he thought of something.

"You must be from Earth, Subaru. Let's just say that I've been on Earth once." Mordred smiled mysteriously.

Subaru hummed. "Hmm, you were on Earth once?... Well, anyway, you can take the snacks, I left them in my room. Thanks for your help, Mordred."

"Alright, thanks, Subaru." Mordred smiled. He wanted to give Emilia a new experience with these snacks, the only ones in the world.

A while later Subaru left. When the doors finally closed, Mordred slouched down in his seat, letting out a sigh. 'Damn clown, he puts me so on edge. I need to tolerate him for my goals, but if he steps out of line, I'll give him a good time…'

Mordred noticed that Reinhard was giving him a surprised look. He asked, "What is it?"

Reinhard mildly smiled, saying, "You seem to quite value Subaru, Mordred-sama."

Mordred snorted and gave his official answer regarding that matter: "Subaru is from another world, right? No matter what, he's bound to have some kind of knowledge about the world that he's from. That's why I value him."

At that moment Reinhard's eyes shone with realization and he gazed downards in shame. What Mordred just said was the obvious truth! It was the simplest consequence of the appearance of someone from another world, yet all this still evaded Reinhard's mind. Reinhard originally thought that Mordred valued Subaru simply because of the latter's magic talent and compassion.

Reinhard looked up back at Mordred. Mordred's way of thinking, that he couldn't replicate, further convinced him that he had made a good decision.

"I see. Then it's a shame that Subaru left us," Reinhard said. "By the way, you seem quite suspicious of Lord Roswaal?"

Mordred faintly looked at Reinhard. "Of course I'm suspicious. Roswaal is the strongest mage. He gives me the vibe of a true magus. Do you know what I mean?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Reinhard admitted. Of course he didn't.

Mordred sighed. "Let's just say that Roswaal is dangerous. Why do you think Roswaal L. Mathers, the strongest mage and a filthy rich individual, would choose to support a half-elf Emilia, someone who has almost no chances of winning the Royal Election? Obviously he's not doing it out of kindness. He's doing it for his own plans and uses her as a tool, and now he manipulated the events to rope me and Subaru in as well."

Mordred was well aware of Roswaal's character. There is no barrier that Roswaal wouldn't cross to accomplish his goal of reviving Echidna. To name a few, being orignally a man, he was once his own grandmother and obviously must have given birth to his own descendants and new bodies (likely many, so that he could choose a host with the best Gate), and he also bred into Felix's family, just so that he could use healing magic (it didn't succeed).

Some people view Roswaal as a nice character, but the truth is that Roswaal is someone who would backstab and burn all of his friends, family and allies with a smile on his face if only it was a small step toward his goal. Just because he wears a smile on his face and acts friendly doesn't make him any better, in fact, in Mordred's eyes he was only more dangerous. The smile on his face is only a mask of his black heart.

Mordred honestly admired Roswaal and his attitude quite a lot, they were quite similar, and precisely because of that he was wary of him and would want to eliminate him, but not before digesting all of Roswaal's knowledge.

Mordred continued, "Roswaal feels like someone who would go to any lengths to achieve his goal, whether it is live human experimentation or torturing his family and friends, it's probably nothing to him."

Reinhard was about to question Mordred, but seeing the serious look on the latter's face, he said nothing.

Mordred: "By taking Roswaal's invitation I'm walking into a wolf's den, but I'm ready for it. Reinhard, is there a way for me to contact you in case of an emergency?"

*******

///Important Author's Note:///

I planned to make a gradual reveal of this world's background and culminate it during the meeting with with the Witches in the Sanctuary, but it seems that there are too many misconseptions. I already edited Chapter 12, but I'll make a post here for the current readers and people who only watched the anime {probably a lot}.)

BTW, I never said that Emilia is the future Satella, it was just the MC's first working theory. I'll just copy things from the edited Chapter 12 that makes things clearer:

***

Mordred originally thought that he was summoned to this world by Satella the Witch of Envy, while his Heroic Spirit transformation was also caused by her, but perhaps that was all wrong, just like his assumption that Subaru was definitely the fated Loved One.

Seeing how Mordred even received Lugnica's Language knowledge and other information that a Heroic Spirit would get from a Holy Grail, Mordred felt that he could have come here through different means - likely someone used a Holy Grail.

In the first place, Mordred felt that he was quite naive in his assumptions.

When thinking about all this, Mordred recalled a scene from the Witches' Tea Party that was not included in the anime, seemingly as if to prevent the anime watchers from catching up too quickly. In that scene Satella claimed that the reason she loved Subaru was because she had a past with him - she said that Subaru showed her the outside world, that he held her hand when she was scared and that he kissed her when she was lonely; she said that he saved her.

Looking at the simple fact that Subaru didn't seem to have Return by Death, but Mordred did, it would be a logical assumption that the one who had a past with Satella in this world was not Subaru anymore, but perhaps him! It is most likely that Subaru does not have Return by Death simply because he never 'earned it' by saving Satella, whether it was in the past, future, failed loop or something.

Unlike in the novel, in this world apart from Subaru there was also Mordred who had his knowledge of the Re:Zero story, as well as quite high strength and perhaps importance to the world's fate due to his status as a Royal Candidate. Whoever Satella was, if during the 'first summoning' Mordred had met her, then he could have surely intervened in the established development if he realized some things.

He was definitely far more 'capable' in 'saving Satella' than Subaru!

Especially if Mordred actually liked Satella, then he would definitely fight for her! No matter what pairing her fictional version had in a story that he once read on Earth, he would do what he felt.

As for Subaru still being summoned here, a similar question could be asked as for why was Al summoned. Al was also a transmigrator, and was not loved by any witch, but he was still summoned to have some sort of use. In the first place, believing that Subaru was summoned by Satella, because she was the one who gave him Return by Death, is a very silly and illogical thing to do; correlation does not imply causation, and Satella loving Subaru could, in fact, rather be seen as a counter-argument, given that they should have somehow met first.

At that moment Mordred slowly suspected that Al, Subaru and him were likely all summoned through various other means, all to participate in some kind of plan.

Perhaps Emilia wasn't the future Satella or perhaps she was, but at the very least Mordred couldn't help but wonder about what kind of connection the two half-elf girls had, two rare and unique girls that shared all - appearance, personality and voice. If as a person Satella was just like Emilia, then could it be that Mordred actually end up with Satella/Emilia in the past or the future instead of Subaru, while Subaru perhaps died due to having low strength, being schemed by others or to set off a certain flow of events?

Mordred couldn't completely reject this possibility and it bugged him; perhaps it was due to his intuition.

He waved his hand across the water surface absentmindedly, creating a wave. Because of how Emilia was portrayed in the anime, he was previously quite annoyed by this seemingly foolish girl, but what if?

'Ehh, Emilia is no longer just a fictional character for me. She has incredible potential, is very kind-hearted and incredibly charming. Very likely Satella is just the same. Perhaps I should at least give her a chance?'

Eventually, Mordred had finished bathing and returned to his room. Slowly, he had somewhat accepted the fact that he was the one loved by the Witch of Envy and had Return by Death, and Subaru was… just there it seemed, dying a seemingly meaningless death.

However, it was still the same evening when Mordred suddenly got the news - Subaru's body disappeared.

***

In short: Subaru likely doesn't have Return by Death, because he never earned it by saving Satella (whenever that happened), simple logic. Subaru is still summoned, because he's probably needed (just like Al, even if his use is limited). Little reason to think that Subaru was summoned by Satella in the first place, either here or in the original.