(Rem x Reader) Re:Reader - Starting YOUR New Life in Another World

Chapter 160: Carefully Prepared Departure

Chapter 160: Carefully Prepared Departure

Amid the preparations Otto and YN had quietly anticipated, Emilia had already gone before Roswaal, her primary sponsor, to formally request permission to travel and accept Anastasia's invitation.

Roswaal, lounging with his usual air of theatrical indulgence, cooed that the timing was unfortunate. With the annual convening of the Western Nobility approaching, matters were once again growing busy. Even so, he granted Emilia her leave. However, his approval came with conditions: Otto was to accompany her to oversee negotiations, and Garfiel would serve as her bodyguard should anything go awry.

It was to this arrangement that Otto immediately raised a stipulation of his own.

It was to this condition, Otto argued his own: he wanted YN to come along as Roswaal's own representative, in lieu of the Margrave actually coming along. In truth though, the former merchant really wanted the Seneschal to tail along because he too was a skeptic of other Camps like he was, so to have another voice to match his own, he thought, was valuable.

After a brief but pointed exchange between merchant and the Margrave, Roswaal eventually relented. If Emilia herself would not be present at the Western Nobility conference, then there was little reason, in his mind, for YN to attend either. The logic was flimsy at best, but Roswaal had never been one to overexplain his decisions.

Later that evening, as preparations for the journey to the Watergate City of Priestella, —set to begin the day after next, were discussed in earnest, Garfiel, Subaru, and YN gathered together in one of the Mansion's smaller offices, —Otto's.

The merchant, the entire time, was already several drinks ahead of everyone else.

Otto: —You all have no idea how much struggle I endure for this camp!

Sloshing brandy perilously close to the rim of his glass as he scribbled half-legible notes with his quill, Otto's earlier efficiency had long since surrendered to his intoxication. After a moment, his focus drifted before landing squarely on the youngest among them, who in turn was nursing his own glass, but rather than alcohol, he had milk.

Otto: You're really going to make me face this bottle alone, aren't you?

Garfiel blinked, clearly missing whatever dramatic implication Otto thought he was making.

Garfiel: Uhh, Brotto, we're all in here with ya, ain't we?

Not understanding what he meant, Garfiel turned his lip up at Otto gesturing towards the bottle of brandy.

Garfiel: And nah, ain't like that stuff. Made me feel like 'Gurdle's Uncle lookin' at the horizon' the next mornin'.

YN suppressed a small exhale of amusement. Though he had his own reservations about drinking, he was quietly grateful Garfiel had no fondness for it.

Garfiel would become a huge handful if he took to drinking like Otto did... But even worse if he was a belligerent kind of drunk.

For Garfiel's fifteenth birthday, Otto had gotten the golden-haired youth to down an entire bottle of wine before the likes of Frederica could stop him. Maybe out of wanting to have a regular drinking buddy so he wouldn't feel so shameful for his own intake, Otto's efforts had garnered him no more than a death stare out of Ram the next morning as she went about hoisting Garfiel out his own vomit-covered clothes from the floor of the bathing room.

Nee-sama's silent glares of anger are worse than when she berates and yells...

Essentially 'too angry to speak' was what that boiled down to.