Emilia's breath hitched. Her amethyst eyes widened as she took in Kaeya's features—his pointed ears, his silver hair, and the undeniable resemblance to her own.
A half-elf. Like her.
"I..." Emilia swallowed. "You... You're a half-elf?"
"Yeah," Kaeya said. "Though I didn't expect to meet someone like me anytime soon."
"I always thought I was the only one unfrozen....."
"I used to think the same... but I guess the world is full of surprises, isn't it?"
Emilia had so many questions. If he was a half-elf like her, then where had he been all this time? How had he survived? Were there more of them?
But before she could speak, Kaeya raised a hand. "Wait. Before you ask anything... I should tell you—I don't remember much of my past. Most of its gone, so I probably don't have the answers you're looking for."
Emilia hesitated. "Oh... That must be difficult."
"Maybe. But it's not like I have anything to compare it to." Kaeya replied.
She hesitated, then asked, "Do you remember anything? Like If there were others..."
"Not much," he replied. "There are faces and places I don't remember. If there were others, I wouldn't know."
He had either twisted the truth or lied entirely with everything he said so far.
Emilia, unaware of the deception, only looked at him with a beautiful smile on her face.
"Well... even if you don't remember, I'm still very glad I met you," she said softly.
He studied Emilia for a moment. She was too innocent and trusting. Most wouldn't have believed him if he just gave Memory loss as a reason.
They would have doubted him or asked him a lot of questions to break apart his lies.
Finally, he gave a small nod and smiled. "Yeah. Me too."
.
.
.
A carriage could be seen traveling towards an unknown place, With its destination being around two hours away.
Kaeya, Emilia and an unconscious Subaru were the passengers sitting in it, well laying for the latter.
The whole Loot house chapter was finally over. At the end Emilia invited Kaeya and Subaru to stay at her benefactor's mansion.
Kaeya agreed, he knew what Subaru's answer would be so Subaru being unconscious was not going to be an issue.
.
.
The carriage stopped right in front of the mansion, from the window Kaeya could see a Blue haired maid. She stood at the entrance attentively, probably waiting for Emilia's arrival.
Both Emilia and Kaeya came out of the carriage with Subaru being on Kaeya's back, Still unconscious.
Before the blue haired maid could comment on their presence, The pink haired maid, previously the driver of the carriage, joined the little group and spoke up.
"These two are Emilia sama's guests. Show them to their guest rooms for tonight." She said while motioning towards the two being mentioned.
The blue haired maid nodded.
"Please follow me." She didn't even look back to see if Kaeya followed her and continued walking.
"Goodnight Kaeya, Let's talk tomorrow, okay?" Emilia looked at him and spoke up.
"Sure, I would love to." He replied and followed the maid, completely missing the excited expression on the Half elf's face.
She wanted to talk a lot with her fellow half elf, But he had fought a strong opponent like Elsa and rest should be his first priority, at least according to her.
.
.
Kaeya took off his green cloak and placed it on a chair near his bed. He stood in the room given to him by the blue haired maid.
Subaru was already carried to his own room by him moments ago.
'I should've asked for her name..' He sighed.
Feeling the need to get a good sleep, He quickly laid on the bed and soon sleep overcame him.
.
.
Subaru had a reputation of being good at waking up, so once he woke up, he would immediately become wide awake.
"...The pillow feels different."
Moreover, the softness of the bed couldn't have been possible on the futon he was used to sleeping on.
"And it smells super nice, too. Ha-ha-ha...it smells like the sun! Well...it's really the smell of lice that were burnt to death in the sun, isn't it...?"
'I'm going to enjoy the stench of death to the fullest!', he thought, and then he opened his eyes.
Fully awake, Subaru got off the bed and lightly turned himself around to check his current condition.
First of all, he checked his shoulders, then the various joints in his arms and legs, and then his cardiovascular and endurance strength by lifting his legs and doing squats, and lastly, while taking a breather due to being out of breath, he pulled up the clothes he was wearing to see if he had any wounds from before.
"Stomach wound...it's gone! No bruises, of course, and no scar from getting disemboweled, either. And zero stitches, so the doctors of this world are excellent! Great!"
The room was as simple as he initially thought. —In addition to the bed, there was a houseplant by the window, some furniture, and paintings on the walls.
"The question is...how long was I unconscious...? Well, maybe five hours?"
Subaru touched his chin and measured the approximate time elapsed by the feel of his stubble.
It was his secret technique that allowed him to check the time quite accurately without a clock. From the feel of his stubble clock, it had been roughly five or six hours since he'd last checked.
Thinking that far, Subaru once again touched his belly. "Anyway...does that mean I avoided activating Return by Death this time?"
With a twist of his head, Subaru tossed out the thought into that matter for the moment, and crept toward the door.
'Ideally, it would have been preferable for me to have an encounter with someone who had come to see me while I was killing time—someone who would also be able to give me an explanation of the current situation. Dammit where are you Kaeya! Wait, is he even here? Or Could it be....This is his mansion! Well I better find someone before coming to conclusions.' he thought and walked towards the door.
Subaru carefully turned the doorknob and opened the door.
Outside the room was a long hallway painted in warm colors. There were long stretches of walls on either side, and he could see similar doors dotted along the way.
"The only thing I can say is, wow. It's super spacious. But with all this space, I wonder where all the people are?"
Walking barefoot down the hallway with floors made out of a smooth, polished material—similar to the floor of his school—Subaru couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the quietness of the hallway.
"This is even more quiet than the room. Almost too quiet...to the point where I'm afraid of making a sound..."
Normally he'd be shouting, "Is anyone here?!" It was in his nature to do as much as he could in whatever circumstances he found himself in, but under the current circumstances, it didn't feel safe enough to do so.
.
.
Subaru had been walking in the hallway for around five minutes now.
His eyes landed on a portrait on the wall, he had seen this before.
'A looping hallway.....Is this one of those things where I can't figure out until I find the right room?' He thought. 'The typical pattern dictates that the first door is likely the goal!'
Subaru turned the doorknob and the door opened with a loud creak.
"What a profoundly aggravating man you are, I suppose."
He received a resentful look from a curly-haired little girl staring at him in an unfamiliar library.
"First NPC found! You're gonna ruin that cute face with that cold attitude. Come on, smile! smile!" He encouraged her.
"The only smile worth giving you is a sneer."
"Are you mad because I guessed it right on the first try?" He said, completely ignoring the irritated look on her face. "I've always been a pretty lucky guesser. I can understand why game masters would want me in all the events, but sorry! So, What is this place, anyways?"
"Hmph! It's Betty's multi-purpose room, which serves as a library and bedroom, I suppose."
"Talk about your token response. Are you one of those manual girls everyone's into now?"
"Betty is growing tired of you, in fact. Roswaal lets that girl do whatever she wants without any consequences... Now Betty has to clean this mess up, I suppose." She said and walked towards him.
"Hey, what are you gonna do?" He asked while walking backwards, almost a few inches away from the door.
And then she said, "Don't you dare move, in fact."
A shiver ran down Subaru's spine as he heard those words.
Suddenly, the smell of old paper that had dominated the library disappeared, and the pain he felt was as if ice had been thrust into his nose.
Subaru's skin turned to the color of ash, and he could hear a distant high-pitched ringing in his ears. The reason why he couldn't smell anything was so his other senses could be strengthened. In this case, sight and touch—his five senses had been cut down to those two senses only.
In front of Subaru's eyes, the little girl was already close to the point where she could reach him. The difference in height was obvious. The little girl was only as tall as Subaru's chest, and her shallow blue eyes were looking up at him closely.
"Do you have something to say, I wonder?" The little girl tilted her head back and asked Subaru, her eyes wide and her lips quivering.
As sweat trickled down his forehead and down his cheeks, Subaru searched for the best word to say in the moment he was allowed.
That's right, the one word that should be uttered right here, the one word that would break the current situation. That was... "Is it gonna hurt?"
"Betty is impressed you can be so light-hearted in this situation, I suppose. —Betty guesses it's up to you whether it hurts or not, in fact." Saying that in a seriously impressed tone, the little girl's hand reached for Subaru's chest.
A palm met his chest and gently and modestly stroked the surface.
There was a tickly sensation running up his spine, like a chill. "Buhhhh..."
—In the next moment, Subaru felt as if his entire body was on fire.
Something terrible raged inside his body, burning everything from his fingertips to his hair. It was as if her fingertips were wrapped in flames and moving all across his body—it was an extremely painful sensation for him to endure.
Subaru's vision flickered, and the next thing he knew, he was on his knees with tears running down his face. His breathing was ragged, as if he had been running for miles, and his whole body was as sluggish and achy as the day after he had done a reckless muscle workout.
Most of all, he felt exhausted, with all the mental "stuff" dragged out of him.
"It looks like you didn't pass out, I suppose. Just like Betty was told, you're quite sturdy, in fact."
"What the hell did you do to me, drill loli...?"
"Betty simply took out some of the mana inside your body, I suppose. It seems to have a special shape, in fact...even though you're just an ordinary guy. Your Gate also seems to be closed, in fact." Muttering to herself, the little girl knelt in front of the crumpled Subaru.
Subaru struggled to support his upper body as she poked her fingers at him while he was trying to get up. "Well, it confirms that you aren't hostile, I suppose. And for all the disrespect from you towards Betty and for all the hard work Betty has done, taking your mana should be a suitable payment, I suppose." She poked him again, causing him to reach his limit, and his upper body fell to the floor, unable to support himself with his trembling arms.
Gathering up all the extra energy in his body between his silly thoughts, Subaru somehow managed to change the angle of his neck on the floor. Slowly, over time, he managed to look up at the little girl's face.
"Hmm?" As the little girl watched Subaru's efforts, she loosened the corners of her mouth in amusement.
Subaru peeled his teeth at such a smile and laughed. "You're not human...are you? —And in this case, I'm not talking about your personality..."
"For all the times you've seen Bubby, you're a little slow on the uptake, I suppose."
Her words made her sound younger than she appeared, which in turn gave him the impression of a little girl cruelly playing with the wings of a feathered insect.
The fact that she was enjoying watching Subaru crawl along the floor drooling was another point that supported his current impression of her. "One correction...in terms of personality, you're not even human, either..."
"Don't measure a noble and sublime being by your standards, human."
It was a statement said in a far too cruel tone for a little girl to utter.
Somehow, Subaru felt something smoldering in his chest. However, although he felt it, he no longer had enough energy left to act on it. No matter what he did, he was being dragged into the darkness.
.
.
"Oh, he is awake, Sister."
"Ah, he is awake, Rem."