Pride Consequences 2

A yawn could be heard in the garden, breaking the quiet morning atmosphere. There, with his shirt sleeves rolled up and squatting next to a bucket of soapy water, was Subaru, who had started the third day with the same "slave" routine of being a servant of the clown-faced man.

"Why me...?" he muttered to himself as he rinsed the clothes, his eyes still heavy with sleep. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear them, but some of the suds seeped into them.

"Burn!" shrieked Subaru, dropping a shirt into the water as he desperately tried to wipe his eyes. Now red-eyed and teary, he was still grumbling, "This is divine punishment. Definitely divine punishment..."

Beside him, the 10-kilogram training weights strapped to his wrists and ankles seemed to have become his only reliable friends (Fuck Kaoru). They were as unavoidable as they were annoying, causing him constant discomfort, like a toxic girlfriend who doesn't want to leave you alone.

"I really want to die..." sighed Subaru dramatically, before stopping, his mind returning to darker memories. "I take that back; dying is horrible. I don't ever want to feel that." He let out a long sigh and continued rinsing the clothes, his thoughts wandering as his hands worked automatically.

Without looking at what he was doing, he lifted a soggy piece of cloth from the bucket, and then he saw it. In his hands was a pair of pink, tender, delicately patterned panties. He froze for a moment, blinking as the drops fell into the soapy water.

"This...?" murmured Subaru, feeling the heat rise quickly to his face. "Whose... whose would they be?" his mind began to wander. "Emilia's? No, no, no, no! Don't think about that, Subaru!" His face turned even redder as he tried to push the idea away, but he couldn't help but imagine it. "Or maybe... Rem? Ram?" He put a hand to his chin, thoughtfully. "They'd definitely look good on either of them..."

Subaru was still lost in his fantasy when he suddenly felt a shiver run down his spine. As if someone was watching him. Slowly he raised his head, and there she was. A few feet away, with his arms crossed and an unreadable face, Ram was staring at him, as if he had been watching him the whole time.

"This..." muttered Subaru, not knowing what to say. His brain was working at full speed to come up with an excuse, but the words wouldn't come.

Ram raised an eyebrow, keeping his expression neutral. "If you're done fantasizing about perverted things and rinsing and squeezing the water, come and lay out the clothes," he finally said, his tone as dry as the desert. However, there was a slight glint in her eyes that Subaru couldn't interpret.

"It's not what it looks like!" exclaimed Subaru, standing up suddenly, still holding the panties in his hand. "I wasn't thinking anything weird! I was just surprised to find them here!"

Ram tilted his head slightly, as if assessing her words. "Is that so, Natsuki Subaru?" he asked, with a slight smile that seemed neither friendly nor teasing. "Then could you drop the underwear before you keep saying things you can't justify?"

Subaru looked down and realized he was still holding the panties. "Aaaaaaaah! Sorry, sorry!" he shouted as he quickly dropped them back into the bucket, as if they were burning. Her face was as red as a tomato as she nervously scratched the back of her neck.

Ram sighed and turned her back on him, starting to walk towards the clothesline. "You really are a basket case. I hope you at least know how to hang clothes properly."

"Hey, I'm not as useless as you think!" retorted Subaru, trying to regain some dignity as he picked up the bucket and followed her. "You'll find I can hang out the laundry like the best servant in this mansion."

Ram gave him a sidelong glance over his shoulder, with a small smile that seemed to hide something else. "Hmph. We'll see about that."

Subaru sighed as he started hanging up the clothes, still feeling Ram's gaze on him from time to time. "She definitely saw the whole thing..." he thought, embarrassed. "This is going to be a long day"

--[Time Skip]--

Subaru was chopping vegetables with a precision he didn't have a few days ago. "I've gotten better lately at chopping vegetables, working in the kitchen, trimming the bushes, and other household chores like cleaning and washing" he reflected as his hands nimbly sliced the potatoes. "I guess the constant effort is paying off...though it wouldn't be so easy if I didn't have the advantage of my previous attempts."

He put the knife down for a moment and looked at the wooden sword he had placed against the wall, a makeshift weapon he had taken from Kaoru's room to practice with in his spare time. "I know very well that I have no muscle memory. My body doesn't remember the movements I learn, so everything I do is repetitive if I die. The only thing that would be retained would be my experience, the 'how' I practiced them. That would allow me to learn faster on the next restart..." Subaru sighed, his expression shadowed for a moment. "But it's not worth it when the requirement to restart is to die horribly. I can't die this time." 

At least there were small accomplishments. He remembered how Ram had been surprised when he could correctly memorize the children's book of I-glyphs and write them down without getting confused. Of course, Ram didn't know that he had already studied those pages to exhaustion in the previous loop before he died. "The knowledge I gain is the only thing I can take with me from one reboot to the next" thought Subaru, as his hands continued to work automatically.

At that moment, he looked towards Rem, who was standing next to him in the kitchen, boiling water and preparing other ingredients. Subaru smiled warmly, trying to break the ice. "Let me help you with this, Rem," he said as he walked over, taking the potatoes he had cut up and carefully tossing them into the pot.

Rem looked up at him, his face neutral, but he nodded slightly. "I approve of your willingness to work," she said in a calm, if somewhat distant, voice. Then, after a pause, he added, "I guess you found a purpose."

Subaru smiled as he continued to help her. "Yeah, hehe. Maybe I was a little lost before, but now I know what I'm supposed to do. I guess it was thanks to you guys." His tone was light but honest.

Rem didn't respond. Subaru thought that maybe she was too focused on preparing the food, but she didn't realize what was really going through the blue-haired maid's mind. The nauseating smell of witch miasma emanating from Subaru made her deeply suspicious, a stench that only she could perceive.

Rem clenched her fists as she looked sideways at Subaru. She couldn't help it. Every time she saw him, that damned smell made her remember the day her village was attacked by the Witch Cult, the same day her sister's horn had been cut off. It was a pain that would never go away, a hatred she could never forget. And now, that strange boy, with his kind demeanor and always smiling, reeked of that same evil that had destroyed everything they loved.

"Why is he here?" Rem thought, striving to maintain a neutral expression as he continued to work. "What are his intentions really? He and Kaoru... what are they planning? Are they part of the witch cult? Are they here to finish what they started?" Her mind strayed to Ram, who wasn't present, but every time she saw Subaru near her older sister, anger boiled inside her.

Rem picked up a knife to continue cutting the vegetables, but her hands were shaking slightly. "If Subaru does anything to threaten Ram, I'll kill him right here. No matter how nice he tries to look, no matter how many jokes he makes, he's not fooling me. I can't trust him." 

Meanwhile, Subaru, oblivious to Rem's dark thoughts, was still working merrily. "You know, Rem. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this. Believe it or not, cutting potatoes is harder than it looks. But, hey, I'm not so bad, am I?" he said, trying to get a smile out of the maid.

Rem looked sideways at him, her face unchanging. "Your skills are... acceptable," she replied coolly, though there was a barely perceptible strain in her voice.

Subaru laughed, scratching the back of his neck. "Acceptable doesn't sound so bad! I'll take that as a compliment." He turned his attention back to his task, oblivious to the weight of Rem's gaze.

"Acceptable for now," Rem thought, as her grip on the knife tightened. "But I will not stop watching you, Subaru Natsuki. If you prove to be a threat, I won't hesitate to act."