The exploration phase entered the slums and, true to form, showed signs of stalling out—until, out of nowhere, an unexpected turn of events made Subaru useful of all things.
"Something about this is unnaturally kind. What's going on… Could it be?! Am I finally hitting my second puberty?! Since kindergarten?!"
Back when he was little, Subaru had been adorable-looking, with long hair that often got him mistaken for a girl. —And the fact that a decade-plus could transform him into this was truly nothing to laugh at.
"This is going to be one of those 'probably' conjectures, but…"
"Lay it on me! If there's a scientific—no, we're in a fantasy world, so magical! If there's a magical basis for this puberty of mine, I wanna hear it!"
"I think you'll be disappointed, but it's probably your appearance. You're filthy and still have bloodstains on you, and the people here look like they've been through a lot of hardship too. I'd guess they just can't stand to look at you."
"Well, my doubts are crystal clear now, thanks a bunch!"
Sure enough, that explained why everyone was being so friendly. There was even an old woman who pressed a small piece of something resembling a dried fruit into his hands, saying, "Eat this and stay strong." He cautiously popped it into his mouth — a hard texture with a faint sweetness. Then a horrifying stench came flooding out, an assault that seemed to reach his brain straight from the inside.
"WHOA! I thought it was kindness but it was poison! It's poison! My whole body's on fire! This is bad! I could die! Or maybe I'll strip naked and socially die instead!"
"That's not poison, that's a bokeberry. When you eat it, it stimulates the mana in your body and speeds up wound healing. The effects vary from person to person — mostly it's just a placebo, though…"
Seeing Subaru gasping from the fever and sweat,
"From what I can tell, Subaru, you seem to have a pretty high mana circulation rate. An overdose might actually kill you."
"Would've been nice to know before I ate it! What am I supposed to do now?!"
"Let's see…
As if responding to her call, Puck emerged from within her silver hair. His movements were lethargic, the earlier sprightliness all but gone. In short, he looked incredibly sleepy.
He'd apparently been tuning out most of their conversation, because he was rubbing his big eyes with his paws when he mumbled: "Mew what? I'm about at my limit, you know…"
"Eat something before you sleep. Here, there's a late-night snack right in front of you."
Sensing the barbs in her tone, Subaru noticed Puck's dark eyes fixing on him. The moment they did, those drowsy eyes blazed to life like someone who'd just had their favorite food placed before them.
"Can I eat?"
"Don't— don't bite me, okay."
He was pretty sure he wasn't going to get his head gnawed off, but he put on a brave face anyway.
Puck gave a vague "aite aite" and stretched his tiny body to its full length on Satella's shoulder.
"Then, let's dig in—!"
Immediately after, Subaru felt something indescribable — something that had been rampaging inside his body — get sucked clean out of him.
Where from, he couldn't quite put into words. If he had to describe it, it was like every pore in his body had been vacuumed out from the roots — an eerie sense of hollowing.
"Pardon the meal."
Puck pressed his paws together politely. Subaru was about to return the courtesy with something like "Thanks for the meal," when a chill suddenly engulfed his entire body.
Hot one second, cold the next. And not just a mild chill — this was the kind of cold that radiated from his very core.
Seeing Subaru instinctively hugging his own shoulders, Satella shot Puck a reproachful look.
"Puck."
"Sorry, sorry — it's been a while, so I miscalculated. But Subaru's gate feels weird. It's cooperative even though he hasn't been trained at all. So I might have drawn a little too much."
Puck tapped the side of his head sheepishly with a "tehe," but for the person who'd just been drained, Subaru was in no mood to laugh.
Unfamiliar terms like mana and gate had come up again, but— "It's probably like MP… so it hurts because I got aspirated."
His high-comprehension gamer brain strikes again. The real question was how important MP was in this world. If MP recovery items were priced through the roof, this would be a pretty serious problem.
"I'm sorry. I'll have a proper talk with him later."
"I'm reflecting on it. But I don't regret it. It was delicious."
Judging by Puck's attitude — reminiscent of some manga protagonist — and the way Satella only lightly scolded him, it apparently wasn't that serious.
In that case, moping around feeling cold and resentful wasn't going to look cool either.
"Don't worry about it — the whole 'nearly dying from heat' thing is over. More importantly, let's follow up on the criminal's whereabouts based on the lead I earned. The lead. I. Earned."
"I get that you're happy about being useful, but saying it twice is, like, super uncool."
He'd been trying to change the subject but somehow ended up sounding like a braggart flaunting his achievement.
Satella gave him a look that said "I was starting to reconsider you, and now I regret it," and Subaru offered a wry smile. Just as the two of them were composing themselves to head deeper into the slums— "Sorry, I'm at my limit."
With that, Puck slumped weakly against Satella's neck from her shoulder.
His gray fur was faintly luminous, trembling with an ethereal fragility as though he might dissipate at any moment.
"He's dissolving in a pretty deathly way."
"I've been pushing myself quite a bit. Since I'm materialized using mana, when I fade, I disperse like mist. — Sorry, the crystal, please."
"Got it. Sorry for pushing you, Puck. Get some rest."
What Satella drew from the folds of her robe was a palm-sized green crystal. Not quite a gemstone — it had a different feel from that. In Subaru's frame of reference, "crystal" was the closest match.
Puck slid down her arm to reach the crystal, hugged it with his tiny body, and turned back to Satella.
"I'm sure you know this, but whatever you do, don't push it. If things go south, use Od to summon me back."
"I know. I'm not a child — I know my own limits."
"Do you, though? My daughter is pretty dodgy when it comes to that sort of thing. Take care of her, Subaru."
He produced a smile heavy with tenderness and shifted his gaze from the visibly put-out Satella to Subaru.
Watching their exchange reminded Subaru of a parent-child dynamic, and when Puck turned to him, Subaru thumped his chest.
"Alright, leave it to me. Put your faith in my danger-sense. The moment I think 'Danger! Dangerous!' — I'm booking it right back here."
"I only understand about half of what you're saying, but please.
— Well then, good night. Stay safe."
Puck looked at Satella one final time, and then his figure vanished from the world.
Just as he'd described, his image scattered into motes of light and dissolved into nothing. It was a phenomenon that could never occur in the original world, and a chill ran involuntarily through Subaru's entire body.
Once Puck was gone, Satella tenderly stroked the crystal in her palm and carefully tucked it back into the folds of her robe.
Going by the flow of conversation, Puck's core spiritual body — or something like it — was now inside that crystal.
"It'll just be the two of us now… but don't get any funny ideas. I can use magic, you know."
Unaware of Subaru's inner thoughts — or perhaps feeling that her heart had been too easily glimpsed — Satella issued her warning. Her wariness was palpable. Subaru, taken aback, raised both hands and shook his head.
"As if! Being alone with a girl is a situation I haven't been in since elementary school. I couldn't do anything even if I wanted to. Have you not been watching my social skills this whole time?"
"That's, like, really pathetic and yet weirdly convincing. …Fine. Let's move on. But without Puck on guard, we'll need to be more careful than before."
Perhaps Subaru's brazenness had knocked the tension out of her, because Satella retied her robe's cord and took the lead. She kept to her usual position but turned her head back.
"I'll be the vanguard. Subaru, you cover the rear. If anything happens, call me immediately. Don't try to do anything on your own. It's not that I want to hurt you or anything, but… you're weak, you know."
"You really shouldn't lead with that preamble if you don't want people to feel warm inside…"
If she wanted to maintain that cold image, everything before "you're weak" was unnecessary. The fact that her true feelings slipped through like that proved once again what a softie she really was. The kind who could melt on the spot.
Prodding the expressive Satella along, they began their search as a pair.
Not that anything about the task had changed. They would find residents of the slums, describe the person they were looking for, and ask if anyone had seen them.
Subaru handled the questioning, and with each repetition, he grew more comfortable in the role.
"Could be that
This promising lead came from the fourteenth man they'd approached. Subaru had called out to him with a casual "Hey, brother — business good?" The man, despite his grimy appearance, regarded Subaru with deep sympathy.
"If it's Felt you're after, whatever she stole would be in the goods storage by now. She tags it and hands it over to the keeper, who then sells everything off at the market later."
"That's a weird system… What if the keeper just absconds with everything?"
"That's exactly why he's the keeper — because he doesn't do that. Though, I mean, the fact that something was stolen from you doesn't mean he'll just hand it back with a 'yes sir.' You'll have to negotiate and buy it back."
He laughed, matter-of-fact about it — the victim was the fool, after all — but otherwise warm and friendly, enforcing the rules of the slums without a second thought.
Subaru managed to get the location of the storage from him, so a reunion with the stolen goods should be within reach.
But a new problem reared its head: namely, that the two of them were dead broke.
"Even if we're 'buying it back,' how exactly are we supposed to do that? Since they've got leverage on us, I'm getting a strong whiff of a plot event where they gouge us."
"Why should we have to pay money just to get back something that was stolen from us…"
When the conversation drifted toward finances, it was Satella who immediately wore a troubled expression.
Her mumbled objection was perfectly logical, of course, but the people they were dealing with weren't the sort to be swayed by logic. To settle this smoothly and certainly, the man's advice — negotiate and pay up — was the wisest course.
That said— "This stolen badge we're looking for — does it look expensive at a glance? If we're going to get shaken down, I'd at least like to have some idea of the asking price."
"…There's a small gemstone set in the center. I don't know how much it's worth in money either, but I'm sure it isn't cheap."
"A gemstone, huh… That's a headache."
Even to someone with no expertise, gemstones were the one item that screamed "expensive" at first glance. Since this world probably didn't have the technology to produce imitations, anything that looked like a gemstone was almost certainly the real deal — and the price tag that came with it would reflect that.
Subaru understood there was no silver lining here. But he was also bothered by an oddity in Satella's words. The badge supposedly belonged to her, yet she claimed not to know its value.
It was entirely possible someone had given it to her, but something about it nagged at him.
"Let's head to this storage first and figure things out from there. Depending on how the negotiation goes, they might let us off with a reasonable price…"
Worst-case scenario, it could be painful for Subaru, but he had options.
He trailed off deliberately, and Satella frowned, but he just waved it off with a "Don't worry about it" and let the matter drop.
They walked on for about ten minutes, turning the money problem over in their heads without reaching a conclusion.
—And then they arrived in front of the building that was apparently called the "storage," and the two of them exchanged looks.
"It's bigger than I expected."
"Now you understand why they said 'storage' and not 'shed.' …If everything inside is literally stolen goods, that's just sad."
Of course, since they periodically cleared out their stock, it probably wasn't overflowing with stolen merchandise.
Even so, Subaru thought. Before him, the storage awaited their visit with a look that hardly matched its crude name.
By Subaru's standards, the building was roughly the size of a convenience store. More precisely, it was the size of a convenience store including the parking lot.
It was a single-story structure, but spacious enough to fit at least twenty cars. The surrounding area was devoid of the shabby houses — the tiny ruined shacks and lean-tos — that had lined the streets until now. Instead, backed against a high defensive wall, it sat at the very deepest point of the slums.
"That tall wall is…"
"The capital's defensive wall, I'd imagine. Looks like we've reached the edge without realizing it."
At Satella's words, Subaru vaguely pictured the map of the capital in his head. It was probably a perfect square of land enclosed on all sides by walls like this one. Inside, either at the center or at the northernmost point, there was a castle, and the slums occupied a position far from it.
He had a sense that two or three hours had passed since the search began, which gave some impression of the capital's vastness. Of course, compared to Japan — a country without clear territorial boundaries — there was nothing to really compare it to.
"So, if the rumors are true, there should be a 'keeper' in there consolidating the stolen goods. But given our position, how should we approach this?"
"I'll be honest. I'll tell them we had something stolen, and if they find it inside, we want it returned."
Subaru had argued that this perfectly reasonable approach wouldn't work — repeatedly — but Satella wouldn't listen.
She was fundamentally honest to a fault. She couldn't easily accept that bending the rules was sometimes necessary, or convince herself that doing so was just another valid means to an end.
But then again, it was precisely that quality that had led her to help Subaru despite it being of no benefit to herself.
"Alright, fine. Leave this to me then."
The odds of things getting tangled up were just too high, so Subaru reluctantly volunteered himself.
His trump card — not that the timing felt particularly dramatic or anything. But if he waited too long to play it, things would only get messier. When it came to these kinds of decisions, Subaru didn't hesitate.
Satella, for her part, looked at him blankly.
She studied the strangely confident Subaru with suspicion.
"Alright. I'll trust you with it."
"I figured you wouldn't agree so easily. I know my behavior so far hasn't exactly inspired confidence. But I have a plan, so just trust me and — w-w-wait, what?!"
"W-why are you so surprised?"
"Because that was totally set up for me to get shut down at least once! I was bracing for something like 'You? A socially incompetent waste of breath? I'd sooner expect tea to sprout from my navel — a dog would be better!'"
"I wouldn't say something that awful!"
Satella was indignant at Subaru's paranoid rambling. But after a brief cough to clear her throat, she fixed him with a direct look through those amethyst eyes.
"Granted, so far you haven't been of any use, and there's been nothing to make me reconsider…"
"You summed it up nicely. Not that I can argue with it."
"But I don't think you act without thinking, and I don't believe you're the type to lie."
She seized the opening he'd been reaching for — that self-deprecating joke — and then continued: "Therefore," Satella said, taking a breath. "I'll trust you. …Think of it as: if it works out, great."
"That second half — if you'd said something like 'Do your best for my sake' instead of being deadpan, it'd really boost my motivation, you know."
"I can't bring myself to say something like that with a straight face. But… do your best."
In every sense of the word, she was a girl who simply couldn't lie.
Subaru broke into a grin and, as his answer to her request, headed for the entrance of the storage.
His steps were anything but light, but his back was being pushed forward by her expectation — and a faint thread of trust. If he didn't come back with at least one victory, he'd officially be nothing more than dead weight.
Walking, Subaru looked at what was in his hand — the plastic bag that had never once come up in conversation until now.
Inside were the belongings he'd brought from the modern world. Subaru's sole remaining possessions — the only things he could call his assets. If any one of those could be offered, a barter might be possible.
He didn't know how much the badge was worth, but it was hard to imagine anything in this world being rarer than a mobile phone.
It would be a painful loss for Subaru, but using some of his assets as trade goods meant that reaching a deal wasn't impossible.
That was his true trump card — the thing he hadn't told her. In this world, the items he carried were the kind of cards with no inherent value. If there was a chance to play them, he'd do so without hesitation. That was the right call.
"Um, is anyone hooome?"
He stood before the door and knocked on the wooden thing. It produced a surprisingly deep, muffled sound, but there was no response from inside.
Growing anxious, he gripped the handle — and the door swung open as though the lock had never existed.
With zero light sources inside, the interior was pitch black in the night. For a place where stolen goods were supposedly stored, the complete absence of guards or sentries was baffling.
"Could be a bathroom break, I guess… Hellooo? Anyone here?"
He poked his head in, but moonlight couldn't reach a thing inside. Welcomed by stale air and a stuffy smell, he steeled himself and stepped in.
But before advancing further inside, he turned back to Satella.
"If we both go in and get mistaken for thieves, that'd be a problem. Could you stay outside?"
"Are you sure? Maybe I should go in with you…"
"I've been making enough noise that a sudden ambush is unlikely. And if the keeper comes back from outside, that'd be worse. Please — I'm asking you."
Satella considered for a moment as Subaru bowed his head, then slipped her hand into her robe. What she pulled out next was a white mineral.
She held it out in front of Subaru.
"At least take this light with you. If there's no one inside, great. If there is, you call for me."
"Got it. Be careful — right. …How do I make this glow?"
"You don't even know how to use a ragmite? You really are clueless, Subaru."
With a tone that mingled exasperation and amusement, she lightly struck the mineral against the wall.
Instantly, the white stone began to emit a soft glow. The light was weak — barely enough to illuminate a few meters in every direction — but it was more than sufficient to check for hazards at one's feet or in one's hands.
"These days, most people have switched to mana-powered magic lamps, but this is more convenient, so I've always preferred it. If the light goes out, just hit it the same way again."
"Got it… Handy trick. Alright, let me take a quick look inside."
Clutching the faintly glowing ragmite in one hand, Subaru cautiously stepped inside. He heard Satella call out "Don't push yourself" from behind, and he raised one hand in acknowledgment.
The first thing his dimly lit eyes found upon entering was a small counter. Perhaps the storage had once been a tavern or some other kind of establishment. Behind the counter sat a broken wooden crate — someone, the keeper or otherwise, had probably sat there. That was the impression he got.
The counter that had apparently served as a reception desk had several items laid across it — or were they merchandise? Small boxes, pots, swords and the like were scattered about haphazardly.
Neither his knowledge nor the light was sufficient to gauge their value, but even to an untrained eye, they didn't look particularly impressive.
"Obviously, the pricier stuff will be further in."
The stolen goods on display had wooden tags beside them, carved with what looked like knife scratches. According to the man who'd given them directions, these tags bore the names of the thieves who'd supplied the merchandise. If those tags were collected and turned over to the guards, it would be an easy one-sweep bust — or so it sounded.
"How widespread the concept of fake names is here, I'm not sure. And besides, in situations like this, the dark side of the government is usually rotten and in cahoots with people like this anyway."
The ultimate destination of the stolen goods was equally suspect.
Harboring these unpleasant musings — the kind you'd skim past in a novel or manga — Subaru pressed deeper into the building.
Still no sign of anyone. But even in the dim light, it was clear that the further in he went, the larger and more valuable the stolen items became.
A gemstone-encrusted badge would definitely be in the very back.
With that thought, his steps quickened unconsciously. — And then.
"Hm?"
A strange sensation under his sole made him stop.
It wasn't the feeling of stepping on something hard. Quite the opposite — the ground seemed to pull at his foot, as though something sticky had grabbed hold.
He lifted his foot and touched the sole of his sneaker with his fingertips. Something viscous clung there in a thick smear. It stretched slightly between his fingers, triggering an instinctive revulsion.
"What the…"
He brought his finger to his nose to sniff it, but the musty indoor air made it hard to pick up any distinct scent. That said, he certainly didn't have the courage to taste it.
He scraped the foul substance against the wall, and the discomfort it had stirred urged him to push the light forward. Whatever had caused this was somewhere ahead.
"…Huh?"
An inarticulate sound escaped him as Subaru finally recognized it.
Within the faint circle of light, the first thing he saw was an arm — sprawled limply across the floor. Fingers reaching out as if grasping for something. Strangely, it ended at the elbow; there was nothing above it.
Moving the light in the direction the arm should have connected, he found a leg flung further into the dark. Fortunately, the leg was attached to a torso, and the torso still had its other requisite parts.
—A large, elderly man with his throat brutally slit and one arm severed.
"Ah—"
The instant he registered the corpse, a meaningless exhalation slipped from Subaru's mouth.
What dominated his mind in that moment was not fear, nor despair, nor shock. An all-consuming blankness seized his brain and stripped it of every last thread of thought.
Not even the options "run" or "stay" had room to surface in that emptiness.
Just standing rooted in place, a void of purposelessness lasting until his brain could absorb what lay before him.
And that void brought a fatal consequence upon Subaru's fate.
"Oh my — you found it, didn't you. Well, can't be helped. No, it really can't."
A woman's voice, he thought.
Low, cold, and tinged with what seemed like amusement.
"Guh—!"
There was no time to turn around.
The instant he started to face the voice's direction, an impact exploded through his body and sent him flying.
His back slammed into the wall, the ragmite knocked from his hand, and his vision plunged into darkness.
But Subaru's consciousness wasn't focused on any of that. What consumed it was— "Guh… ahh, hot—"
—An overwhelming heat engulfing his entire body.
This is seriously bad.
His face pressed against the hard ground, Subaru realized he'd fallen face-down.
His whole body was limp, his fingertips already devoid of sensation.
But a searing heat, enough to make him want to claw out his own throat, dominated the center of his being.
—Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.
The instant he opened his mouth to scream, what spilled out was not a shriek but a clot of blood.
He retched, spewing forth the source of his life with abandon. Gurgling, frothing blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. Through his hazy vision, he could see the ground stained a vivid crimson.
—Oh. This is all my blood, isn't it.
Blood loss so severe it was pooling around his body. The human body was roughly eight percent blood, and losing a third of that was life-threatening — but at this rate, wasn't everything pretty much gone already?
The vomiting from his mouth had subsided, but the cause of the burning that consumed his body was still active. His barely functional hand reached for his abdomen and found an impossible sensation there. He understood.
—My stomach's been split open.
No wonder it felt so hot. He'd been confusing pain and heat.
The sharp laceration ran almost cleanly through his torso, his body held together by a single layer of skin at the waist.
In short, it seemed he had come face to face with what was known in life as a "dead end."
The moment he comprehended it, his consciousness began to recede rapidly.
Even the heat that had been thrashing through him moments ago drifted somewhere far away. The repugnant sensation of blood, the feeling of his own hand touching his organs — everything was being carried off as a companion to his fading awareness.
Left behind was only the body — the flesh whose company the "soul" refused to keep.
With a final act of will from his departing consciousness, he moved the body — just slightly. His neck. Tilted upward.
Before his eyes, black shoes pressed into the blood-soaked carpet of the floor, sending ripples through the crimson.
Someone was there. And that someone had, most likely, been the one to kill him.
Curiously, he felt no desire to lay eyes on their face.
He didn't recall being so apathetic that he'd simply spectate even when confronted by the person who'd murdered him, but his heart didn't spare a single shred of interest for the identity of his killer.
All he wished for was this — that she would be safe.
"—Subaru?"
He thought he heard a voice like the ringing of a bell.
In a state where he couldn't tell his ears from his nose, the chances of it being an auditory hallucination were higher. And yet, even if it was something reconstructed from memory, that voice stirred his emotions in the most achingly pleasant way.
And so— "—!"
A short scream rang out, and the carpet of blood welcomed a new participant.
The collapsing body landed right beside him, and there lay his own arm, stretched out limply.
Her pale, powerless hand tangled with his own blood-soaked one.
It was probably all just coincidence.
He thought he felt her fingertips, trembling faintly, squeeze his hand back.
"…et me go"
He seized the retreating nape of his consciousness and wrenched it back, buying himself what little time he could.
Pain, heat — everything was distant, nothing more than the futile howling of a losing dog.
But even so— "I will… for certain—"
—save you.
In the next instant,