Boom—!
The air exploded.
The instant Subaru said something had happened to Rem, Ram shot past Shiro like an arrow.
The surrounding air compressed beneath her acceleration, and the resulting shockwave knocked the already exhausted Subaru flat onto the floor.
"Ow, ow, ow..."
Wincing, Subaru rubbed his backside and climbed back to his feet.
Seeing Shiro still standing there looking at him, he hurriedly explained—
"Rem came back from buying groceries, and she looked strange... then she collapsed..."
"Wait."
"Sort out what happened first."
"What exactly happened to Rem?"
Shiro interrupted Subaru's frantic gestures and pulled a bottle of water from his Gift Card before handing it over.
Subaru took it and drew several deep breaths.
This was the first time someone he did not consider an enemy had simply collapsed right in front of him.
Naturally, he was somewhat panicked.
Elsa and the thugs he had seen fall before were people Subaru had already classified as enemies.
In a game, enemies getting defeated was only natural.
But this time was different.
The person who had collapsed was not an enemy.
They had not even known one another for a full day, but Subaru had already mentally categorized everyone in Roswaal Mansion as companions on his road to leveling up.
Seeing one of those companions collapse before him had shaken him badly.
"Earlier, while I was learning magic from Roswaal, Rem came back carrying a huge pile of ingredients."
"She looked really pale, so I asked what was wrong."
"She only said she was tired and went back to her room to rest."
"Then not long after that, I heard she'd collapsed in her room."
"Betty said she seems to have been hit by some kind of curse."
"To stop anyone else from getting cursed too, Roswaal told me to gather everyone together while he and Betty study the curse in the Forbidden Library and see if there's a way to remove it."
After thinking carefully, Subaru finally reconstructed what he had witnessed that afternoon.
Shiro nodded.
"Alright. I understand the general situation."
"You go get Emilia."
"I'll head to the Forbidden Library first and see what's going on."
"Eh?! Wait, I already—"
Before Subaru could finish—
Shiro vanished from his sight like a passing breeze.
"...can't run anymore..."
Left alone, Subaru stared silently at the water bottle in his hand.
...
Shiro rapidly moved through Roswaal Mansion in the direction Ram had disappeared.
This time, he did not deliberately leak mana and follow its flow to locate the Forbidden Library.
Apparently, aside from Shiro and his unusually sharp senses, nobody in the mansion could accurately locate Betty's Door Crossing this way.
Yet Roswaal had told everyone to gather in the Forbidden Library.
That meant he had some way to let them find it without checking every door one by one.
Considering the nature of the Door Crossing—The method was easy enough to guess.
Once the Door Crossing had been found, as long as the connected door remained open, it would stop randomly moving throughout the mansion.
So—
The only open door in Roswaal Mansion right now would be the entrance to Betty's Forbidden Library.
"Aaaah—AAAAAAAH—!"
As Shiro passed a corner, an agonized scream filled with despair suddenly reached his ears.
He had heard that voice only a few minutes ago.
But the cry was so miserable now, as though the speaker were tearing apart her own throat, that Shiro could barely connect it with the proud, sharp-tongued maid from earlier.
"Found it."
He muttered and immediately ran toward the source.
Within seconds, he spotted a door standing wide open.
Shiro reached it and looked inside.
Rem, the blue-haired maid, lay on Betty's bed in her nightgown.
Her eyes were barely open, staring weakly at the ceiling.
Her face was deathly pale.
Her breathing was so faint that it resembled a wisp of smoke in the wind—
Something that could vanish at any moment.
Ram knelt beside the bed with a devastated expression.
Both of her hands tightly clasped Rem's right hand, which lay outside the blanket.
Helpless sobs escaped her throat.
Roswaal and Betty stood nearby.
One looked grave.
The other wore a complicated expression.
"What happened to Rem?"
Feeling her breathing grow weaker by the moment, Shiro walked over to Roswaal and Betty.
"A curse."
Betty glanced at him and answered flatly.
"Someone placed something similar to a heart-weakening curse on Rem."
"Judging from her current condition, her heart will probably stop within another half hour."
"You can't remove it?"
Curses and other weakening-type spells in this world generally fell under Yin magic.
More advanced Yin magic could even involve things like time, space, and gravity.
And Betty—Someone capable of creating the Door Crossing and casually using rare offensive Yin magic whenever she chased Shiro out—Was obviously an expert in the attribute.
So she should also have been skilled at dispelling curses.
Yet Betty shook her head.
"If there were only one curse, Betty could pull it out and remove it easily."
"But whoever did this was clearly experienced."
"The instant they came into contact with Rem, they secretly layered countless curses onto her."
"They're tangled together like threads."
"If Betty pulls at one carelessly, the others may tighten even further."
"There isn't enough time to unravel all of them."
"Right now, there's only one way to save her..."
"Find the curse caster and force them to remove it—riiight?"
Roswaal interrupted.
His words sounded like an explanation of how to save Rem.
In reality—They were practically a death sentence.
The problem remained the same.
There was not enough time.
They did not even know who had cursed Rem.
And even if they somehow identified the culprit, finding and capturing them within half an hour would be like searching for a needle in the ocean.
Worse—
They did not know when the curse had been placed.
If the caster had immediately fled after cursing Rem, where were they supposed to begin looking now?
Sure enough—Roswaal's words brought Ram no comfort at all.
Instead, despair deepened across her face.
Her grip around Rem's hand tightened even further.
As though the moment she loosened her fingers—Rem would disappear from her life forever.
The atmosphere became increasingly suffocating.
In the silence where even a falling needle could be heard—Only Shiro seemed strangely out of place.
His attention was not on Ram or Rem.
Instead—He gave Roswaal a long, penetrating look.
…