Chapter 187: Please! If you don't help me, my lord, I...

“Human, I’ve come to throw myself at your mercy for the rest of this life!”

“Since your brain works well enough… you’re sure to be able to take me around killing Witch Cultists!”

Reize had started out saying this to Natsuki Subaru with great excitement.

She’d blurted out her whole purpose in one breath, laying her cards on the table for Subaru, without any regard for whether he could understand or accept any of it.

But Reize wasn’t the type of woman who couldn’t read the room.

Little by little, noticing Subaru’s furrowed brow and darkening expression, her voice grew weaker and weaker.

The excitement on her face faded along with it, slipping out of that fantasy of a bright future.

This human male in front of her — was that reluctance on his face?

Or had she just been making demands without offering him anything in return, and now he was simply annoyed?

Reize bit her red lips, her hands, once clasped behind her back, now shifting awkwardly in front of her.

Then, driven by mounting anxiety, she pressed her right hand to the middle of her left arm, as if she’d taken a bullet there.

This string of unconscious gestures only added to her air of frail, willow-like fragility, making her look thoroughly pitiable in that moment.

“In exchange, you can do whatever you like with this body — vent your beastly urges however you please. I won’t utter a single word of complaint!”

With that, Reize steeled herself, turned her head aside, and closed her eyes, striking the tragic pose of a woman sacrificing herself to serve her captor.

The moment she said it, every woman in the room who’d been glaring at Reize with hostility froze in place, pinned there by her words alone.

Had Subaru and this woman been… playing that kind of game? Was there some sort of coercion roleplay going on?

Could it be that they, the audience, were also part of the two of them’s little drama?

Meanwhile, directly across from Reize, Subaru himself had gone completely numb, thinking: what on earth is wrong with this woman?

If you’ve got something to say, just say it — why come in swinging with a full-power opening move like that? Her communication skills and emotional intelligence were on par with a fully ripened banana!

On the other side, after a long silence with no response, Reize quietly cracked one eye open and glanced around.

To her confusion, she found the man in front of her staring at her with an expression like he’d bitten into a rock, so she spoke up directly.

“What’s wrong? For a lecherous glutton like you, isn’t this the most tempting offer imaginable?”

“What do you mean, ‘lecherous glutton’?!”

“Please take back that misleading label right now — it makes me sound like some kind of pervert!”

Subaru’s vision went dark for a moment, feeling as though his reputation had just been slandered, and he couldn’t help but snap back.

“And this whole nickname-giving, poison-tongued persona of yours — doesn’t that clash with Ram’s? Could you please pick a different style already?!”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. Do you think I’m lying? I’m only stating the facts as I see them!”

For some reason, Reize was especially insistent on this point.

After rebutting Subaru, she pointed at Rem and added her evidence with righteous indignation:

“Your own wife is due to give birth any day now, and yet you’re secretly carrying on with the Great Spirit Zarestia behind her back — if that’s not a lecherous glutton, what is?”

Subaru blinked in blank confusion at this — this was firmly outside his knowledge. How was he supposed to know what he’d done in some other possible world?

But no matter what, he was certain of one thing: married to Rem as he was—

no matter how close his relationship with any Great Spirit might be, at most he’d handle things himself — there was no way he’d go asking her for that kind of help!

Still, just to be safe, Subaru decided to have someone in the know step forward and clarify.

So he quietly turned his head and shot a look at Halibel, who was, unsurprisingly, scratching his head with a puzzled expression.

Just then, Halibel happened to glance over at Subaru too, and their gazes met in midair — the two of them nodded almost in unison.

Understood!

Understood!

“Nonsense! Su-san and Tia are just friends. Even Rem herself has admitted that Tia is family to her — how dare you try to stir up discord here!”

Halibel slammed the table and rose to his feet in indignation. Whenever it came to his good buddy’s affairs, he always saw it through to the end with full effort!

Though honestly, he had no idea whether Su-san and Tia had ever… well. But regardless, the important thing was to object!

Otherwise, if this got out of hand, it’d be trouble — and looking at Su-san’s current situation, surrounded by all these beautiful women, life seemed pretty rough for him already!

Halibel closed his eyes in pain, feeling sorry for his brother.

With that done, he sat back down and closed his eyes to feign a nap. What came next probably didn’t need his involvement — a proper ninja knew when to advance and when to retreat, and it was time to leave his brother some room to work things out.

“Reize… was it? If you slander Subaru and Lady Tia again, please get out of here.”

At this point, Rem beside them finally lost her patience, fixing Reize with a cold stare as she issued the warning!

Subaru was her husband, and Zarestia was her family — both were the most important people in her life!

So Rem would never allow anyone to badmouth them, even if that person might be the last of her own kind.

“Ram understands your hatred of the Witch Cult, because Ram and Rem feel exactly the same way…”

Ram, beside her, calmly voiced her own thoughts — but then, in a sudden shift, she continued.

“But there is one thing you absolutely must not do — insult Master’s taste. A Great Spirit like that? There’s no way Master would ever set his eyes on her, let alone anything else!”

After delivering her usual poison-tongued remarks, Ram stated her position and issued the other woman a final ultimatum.

“Ram’s view is the same as Rem’s! Anyone who insults Master doesn’t deserve to stay in this manor — even if you’re the same kind as Rem and Ram, it doesn’t matter!”

Ram stared coldly at Reize, her words utterly merciless.

“No… no! I— I still can’t leave!”

In an instant, driven out by two women of her own kind and one acquaintance all at once, Reize — who had been so full of righteous confidence just moments ago — suddenly fell into a panic.

Now she had no chance left of obtaining Zarestia’s light orb, no chance of gaining that level of power capable of leveling a city with ease.

So the only thing left for her to rely on was the human male husband of her fellow kinswoman.

Only now did she realize that he was her one and only lifeline — her last straw.

And the most fatal thing was that her own inner pride and reserve kept her from properly positioning herself, kept her from showing the attitude she ought to have.

So Reize ignored everyone else accusing her, and instead turned her trembling, pleading eyes toward Subaru, seated at the head of the table, her lips moving as she spoke.

“I’m… I’m sorry! I didn’t position myself properly, and I offended you with those words, my lord!”

“Uh, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. I’m not angry. It’s just that my humble shrine isn’t big enough for you, so you should probably leave.”

Hearing this, Subaru shook his head to show he wasn’t upset — but he’d also finally understood: this cute oni girl in front of him wasn’t really an acquaintance of his after all.

This so-called ‘borrowing his wisdom’ business was probably just her trying to use him, and he had no obligation whatsoever to help her.

The Witch Cult needed to be wiped out — always, no matter what, it had to be wiped out!

But having someone this disobedient tagging along, no matter how beautiful or elegant she was, someone who’d betray him and cost him affection points at the worst possible moment — that was something he simply couldn’t tolerate.

“Don’t—”

Suddenly, a shrill cry cut through Subaru’s thoughts, leaving his mind blank for a moment.

And the next second, his eyes went wide as he watched Reize, who’d been standing right across from him, lunge forward onto the table in a thoroughly indecent pose.

The dishes in her path were shoved aside by her voluptuous figure.

Because of the force of it, the twin peaks of her chest were pressed flat out of shape, revealing the pale valley between them directly in front of Subaru.

Her hips thrust up high, and the overly forward-leaning posture left the pale skin of her entire waist exposed — and since she was wearing a thigh-length skirt, everything behind her was already on full display.

In that moment, Reize had all but laid herself out on the dining table — to any outside observer, it looked less like an accident and more like she’d volunteered herself as a special dish for Subaru.

She herself, however, remained utterly oblivious to any of this, following only the impulse in her heart as she grabbed both of Subaru’s hands with her soft little ones, her expression urgent and pleading.

“Please! Will you help someone as weak as me take revenge on the Witch Cult? I’ll do anything, anything at all, if it’s within my power!”

Reize bit her lip nervously, begging in a pitiful voice.

“If it weren’t for you, my lord… I!”

“Let go!”

Subaru scrambled to his feet, utterly at a loss over the girl’s sudden breakdown and the position she’d put herself in.

He wanted her to just talk normally, to negotiate properly — it wasn’t like he couldn’t take her along — but with her acting like this, testing him this way, what was he supposed to do?

Was she only thinking of herself, without a single thought for anyone else’s feelings?

“You know, you really only ever think about yourself.”

Subaru looked down coldly at Reize, who’d willingly climbed onto the dining table, and said it flatly.