It was well into the evening by the time Subaru, having completed his revenge match in the alley, finally stood before the imposing facade of the loot house at the deepest reaches of the slums.
"I—I finally found it. ...Took me way too long, damn it."
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and collapsed to the ground in front of his destination.
One thing and another had sent him running around, and a good two hours had elapsed since he set out—he could confirm at least the passage of time on the cell phone in his pocket. Definitely two hours.
"I thought it'd be a cakewalk since I'd just been there..."
True enough, his inability to read the signs had proven to be a major obstacle. In a royal capital where countless similar streets stood in rows, someone like Subaru, with no sense of direction, couldn't rely on place names or shop signs either.
As a result, he'd been reduced to reconstructing his memories and trying every path by brute force. But— "I kept getting into conversations with
Once he'd entered the slums, this tendency only became more pronounced. And unlike a few hours ago, someone had been kind enough to get his tracksuit properly cleaned, which meant the residents' reactions ranged from cold to standoffish to outright uncooperative.
Charging cheerfully into a place dripping with hostility was far beyond Subaru's interpersonal skills, and so even here, he was isolated and alone.
So, for now, he wanted to give himself a pat on the back for having made it this far.
And so, as a reward for all his hard work— "Finally opening it—corn potage flavor. You know, the whole reason I went to that convenience store in the first place was to get this thing. You could say this is what caused my isekai summoning, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration. What a sinful snack."
Muttering excuse after excuse, Subaru tore open the bag of chips. A soft, sweet aroma was unleashed, and his nostrils were conquered by a blissful sensation. He fished a chip from the bag and placed it on his trembling tongue. Bliss—the flavor utterly ravaged his senses.
"Delicious... so damn good...! Come to think of it, I haven't eaten anything. So damn good."
He chomped away at the chips, replaying the journey so far. His stomach had been growling ever since he missed that chance to eat the apple-like fruit. That had been about six hours ago—he'd put up a good fight.
While masking his hunger, Subaru also became aware that he couldn't quite mask his feelings. His heart was hammering, and the pace of his pulse was far from normal. He could feel blood surging through his entire body with an intensity that made the excitement in that alley just moments ago look like nothing.
His limbs felt heavy, and his mouth was dry with no relation to the chips. A sharp pain, as if he'd been struck on the head, raced through him over and over, accompanied by a high-pitched ringing in his ears.
—The answer Subaru sought was inside this loot house.
He swallowed without thinking, and unwanted images flashed through his mind. A room turned into a sea of blood. The armless corpse of an old man. His own body, gutted and on the verge of death. And Satella, dragged into it all because of him, her power drained from her limp body.
"Don't be scared, don't be scared, don't be scared, me. Are you stupid...? Yeah, I'm stupid. How the hell could I turn back without finding the answer after coming all this way?"
Besides, there was nowhere to go back to.
Steeling himself, he looked ahead—and only then did he notice his knees going weak.
His lower body trembled and refused to obey. He drove his fist into the joint, forcibly steadying the shaking, and then finally took a deep breath before moving forward.
Bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, the door of the loot house seemed to wordlessly refuse his visit.
Suppressing that impression as a product of his own cowardice, Subaru raised his fist toward the door— "Is... anyone there?"
Even as he thought it a fragile hope, he gave the wooden door a light knock.
The surprisingly dull thud should have resonated both inside and out. But what came back was a silence and stillness so complete it was unbearable.
That quiet was terrifying, and Subaru, knowing it was pointless, hammered on the door anyway.
"Is someone... someone's in there, right! Please, answer me... please."
He didn't want to see such a desperate outcome—dying here.
Denying a reality he couldn't bring himself to accept, Subaru pounded his fists against the door until it groaned.
His fury was too much for the old door—gradually its angle began to shift, and the ancient hinges started to deform.
—Right around then.
"—Will you quit it already?! You don't know the code, you don't know the password, and you're trying to bust the door down?!"
The door flew open with tremendous force, sending Subaru—whose weight had been leaning against it—flying backward.
He was hurled nearly five meters back from the entrance of the loot house, rolling awkwardly along the ground. Dazed, eyes spinning, he raised his head.
Standing in the doorway, face flushed crimson and glaring down at Subaru, was the old man from before.
A large, bald old man.
His outer garment, once white perhaps, had discolored to a dingy brown from dust and what might have been years of sweat—altogether unsanitary in appearance. The faintly drifting, toasty foul odor might have been because of that.
Beneath those clothes was a muscular physique, and despite his appearance suggesting considerable age, there was not the slightest hint of frailty—only a hidden toughness.
In short, standing before him was a huge, bald, remarkably energetic geezer.
"Who are you?! That's not a face I recognize—what are you doing here?! How did you find this place, how did you make it here?! Who sent you?!"
The geezer closed the distance with fearsome speed, seizing Subaru by the front with his enormous palm.
Feeling his feet lift easily off the ground, Subaru realized he'd been getting carried away and finally understood his own limitations. The incident from before was special. He really was just an ordinary, mediocre, run-of-the-mill guy.
His baseline physical stamina, which could hold its own against most things, was useless when the opponent was truly out of his league.
Carried by a man nearly two meters tall, all fight drained out of him— "—Consider it a gesture of goodwill. Here, have one."
Facing that face painted entirely in wrath, all Subaru could manage was to toss a single corn potage chip at him—this was all he had.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ After their off-to-a-bad-start meeting, Subaru was invited inside the loot house.
Immediately past the entrance was a counter, and Subaru sat in the fixed customer chair placed beside it, shifting uncomfortably as he tried to find a decent position.
The seat was splintered, and each shift sent a sharp jolt straight into his rear. If his threshold for detonation had been any tighter, it would have triggered for sure.
"Why've you been squirming like that? Is your crotch really that much of a concern?"
"It's not like I'm worried about my dick position. And hey—give me back the chip bag. I never said you could have all of them."
Standing on the other side of the counter, in what would normally be the shopkeeper's seat, was the large old man.
For a man with that brawny, sinewy build, he held up an absurdly small bag—a tiny thing, practically invisible in his grasp.
"Don't be so stingy. Hoarding something this tasty all to yourself—that's a one-way ticket to hell."
"Oh, so a geezer who eats someone else's food without asking gets a free pass? Putting yourself on a pedestal and then complaining—that's a classic boomer habit, that is."
"There you go again with words I don't understand. That's the problem with you young people... num num num—"
"Don't eat them!!"
He leaned across and snatched the bag back from the old man's arm, but most of the contents had already been consigned to the old man's stomach.
He peered at the few remaining chips and let his shoulders sag.
"Ugh... precious corn potage. I may never taste this again."
"Oh? Was it that precious? Well, it does look like nothing I've ever seen. Tell you what—why not commission a duplication spell for the rest?"
"A duplication spell?"
"Magic that doubles a single object. With living things, you can only copy the outside, but with food, I think it'd work just fine."
As the old man scratched his bald head while explaining, Subaru was once again struck by how useful magic could be.
Marveling at its near-omnipotence in all sorts of ways, Subaru's gaze casually swept around the room.
The loot house at dusk—and yet, there was not a single trace of the massacre Subaru had experienced.
Just as before, items of zero stylistic coherence were crammed together, carelessly filling every inch of the spacious interior.
Noticing Subaru's gaze, the old man narrowed his eyes meaningfully.
"Say, kid—interested in the loot, are we?"
—A direct hit, right to the heart of the matter.
The negotiation with the large old man—
The old man had become completely absorbed in the unknown taste shoved into his mouth, and the end result was that Subaru was freed, quickly and unharmed.
After that, Subaru explained that he'd come on a specific errand, that he'd heard about the place from a middle-aged resident of the slums, and after laying all of this out and gaining Old Man Rom's understanding, the two of them now stood on opposite sides of the counter.
On the other side, Old Man Rom rested his powerful arms on the counter top, pouring liquor into a grubby glass with a faint grin.
"Well, anyone who shows up here has one of two purposes. They're either bringing in loot or looking for loot—pick one."
"That's right, that's one of my reasons."
"One of them, eh? So you've got another purpose too?"
Old Man Rom raised an eyebrow at Subaru's conditional confirmation. Subaru nodded, then hesitantly, bracing himself to be mocked, put the question together. It was— "This is going to sound absurd, but... have you died recently, old man?"
I'll leave out the part about his neck and right arm being severed.
Looking at the man now, there was no scar on his neck or shoulder—so there was no point adding that.
Receiving Subaru's words and his gaze, the old man's grayish eyes went wide for a moment. Then, as if time had started moving again, he broke into a grin.
"Ha ha ha, of all the things to say! I admit I'm an old man on his last legs, but unfortunately I haven't died yet. At my age, I imagine it won't be long before that's no longer a distant prospect."
He laughed as though he'd just heard a great joke, and then held the glass toward Subaru. "Want a drink?" Subaru waved off the sharp smell of alcohol with his hand and offered a brief apology for his earlier words.
He apologized, yes, but the sense of wrongness inside Subaru only continued to swell. This man, Old Man Rom—Subaru had seen his corpse. Right here, in the dark, with his throat and one arm severed by a blade, reduced to a lifeless husk.
Yet, as if to deny the image burned into his eyes, Old Man Rom was now awkwardly wedged behind the counter, his large body filling the space. The flush on his face as he tilted the glass was unmistakably warm with circulating blood—a clear contrast to the deathly pallor of someone who'd bled out.
Old Man Rom was without question alive. And conversely, the same was true of Subaru himself.
Looking back, Subaru had also sustained wounds that should have been fatal. And yet, with no trace of those injuries on his body, he'd come to visit this very place.
Subaru was starting to lose confidence in the reliability of his own mind—wondering if this was all some kind of vivid hallucination.
"Was... was all of it a dream? If so, where does reality start and end, and why am I in a world like this?"
The whining thoughts he'd been suppressing with impatience found a place to rest and came surging back. If that guilt, if that searing pain of a fatal wound, if the warmth of that girl he'd barely touched—all of it was nothing more than the fading remnant of a dream, then why was he here?
If anything, he'd rather be told that everything after his isekai summoning was a dream. That would make far more sense than being told the summoning itself was a dream.
"Old Man Rom, have you seen a girl with silver hair around here?"
"Silver hair? ...Nope, haven't seen one. Someone with that striking a look, I wouldn't forget—no matter how far gone my brain is."
"Ha ha ha," the old man laughed it off heartily, but Subaru's expression in response was grim.
Picking up on the seriousness in his demeanor, Old Man Rom abruptly cut off his laughter— "Drink."
Once again the glass was thrust before Subaru.
The old man tilted the liquor bottle over the empty glass, filling it to the brim with an amber liquid. Subaru watched in silence, and Old Man Rom said "Drink" once more, short and blunt.
"Sorry, but I'm not in the mood. Besides, I'm not some kid trying to act tough by drinking."
"Don't be an idiot. Acting tough because you won't drink—now that's what makes you a kid. Just swig it down and let the fire burn inside your gut. When the heat gets to be too much, all sorts of things will come pouring out."
"That's why—drink." Old Man Rom pushed the glass at Subaru for the third time.
Pressured by his relentless insistence, Subaru picked up the glass and brought his nose close to the amber liquid. The thick aroma of alcohol hit his nostrils hard, nearly making him gag. He scowled.
But even as he steepled that wall of resistance, he felt an impulse to simply follow Old Man Rom's words.
Running away to the bottle was the hallmark of a lame adult—that's what he'd believed, despite everything.
"Oh, fine... whatever!"
He tilted the glass and poured the liquor straight down his throat.
He didn't know what the proof was, but the moment he swallowed, his entire body erupted in heat as though it had caught fire. The passage of the liquor burned like a scald, and on pure momentum, he slammed the glass down against the counter.
"Kghaa—! Ugh! That's awful! It's hot! It tastes like crap! Ughhh, it's awful!"
"Say that again and you'll be cursed, you ungrateful brat! Someone who can't enjoy the taste of liquor is missing half of life's pleasures—you fool!"
As Subaru coughed and sputtered, trying to expel the rising heat, Old Man Rom bellowed at him and took his own swig. He did it with gusto—tipping the bottle straight down his throat without bothering with the glass.
He put away at least three times what Subaru had drunk, let out a rough belch, and grinned.
"But that was a fine effort! Feeling like you might actually survive a sip or two now?"
"Yeah! ...Just a little, though! Old Man Rom, I'm going after the other thing I came for."
He turned his face away from the grinning old man, wiped the spilled liquor from his sleeve with his sleeve, and pointed toward the back of the store. Somewhere back there, among the dross piled everywhere, should be the more valuable loot.
Old Man Rom's face grew serious. Watching him, Subaru spoke once more, clearly and firmly— "I'm looking for an insignia with a gemstone embedded in it. —I'd like to buy it."
He put his true purpose into words.
Beyond his original objective of confirming Satella's safety, this was the real reason he'd come.
The gemstone-studded insignia that had been stolen from Satella. He didn't know the reason, but for her, it was something worth risking danger to recover.
He'd been told that anything stolen into the slums would pass through this place. And so long as the insignia actually existed, Subaru could validate the vivid hallucination he'd experienced.
Charging his demand with that desperate hope, Subaru received only a difficult look from Old Man Rom.
"A gemstone insignia? ...No, I'm sorry, but nothing like that's been brought in."
"...Are you sure? Think carefully. You're not going senile on me, are you?"
"I've had some drink and I'm feeling great—sharp as a tack, even. If nothing like that showed up, I can only say I don't know. But—"
Just as Subaru felt his last hope about to be severed, Old Man Rom gave him a meaningful grin.
"I heard in advance that there's a big delivery coming in today. —If it's a gemstone insignia, there's a very real chance that's what it is."
"The one bringing it in—could it be a girl named
"Oh? You even know the name of the person who stole it?"
Old Man Rom sounded disappointed, and Subaru, unable to help himself, threw a fist pump.
A thread he'd thought cut clean had just come back together here.
The name of Felt—the girl suspected of stealing the insignia—had come up. Which meant he could also prove the existence of Satella, the girl from whom the insignia had been stolen.
At the very least, he could safely discard the notion that the silver-haired girl was merely a convenient event character conjured by his delusions.
"I was worried my taste in silver-haired heroines was projecting onto reality or something..."
"Glad as I am you're feeling relieved, whether you can afford to buy whatever's been brought in is another matter entirely. If it's a gemstone insignia, it'll command a fair price."
"Ha! You can size me up all you want—it's a waste of time. I'm dead broke!"
"Well that's no use at all!"
Had Old Man Rom been preparing to drive up the price during negotiations? He looked almost crestfallen as he raised his voice. But Subaru wagged his finger at the old man.
"No, no, no. True, I don't have money. B-U-T—there are more ways to get things in this world than with money. Ever heard of bartering?"
Old Man Rom fell silent, no rebuttal forthcoming. Subaru nodded in response to the wordless invitation to continue, then rummaged in his pants pocket. What his hand pulled out and held up was— "What the hell is this? I've never seen anything like it."
"This, my friend, is the magic artifact that cuts and freezes the time of all things—the 'Keitai'!"
He presented his white cell phone in its compact form. At the sight of something he'd never seen before, Old Man Rom's eyes went wide. Subaru quickly tapped in a command—immediately, a white flash of light sliced through the dim interior.
"Flash!"
The shutter sound echoed. Old Man Rom, caught in the glare, recoiled in exaggerated shock, stumbling backward behind the counter. At the overblown reaction, Subaru couldn't help but laugh.
"What was that just now?! Trying to kill me?! Pulling something so suspicious—you'd best not underestimate old men!"
"Now, now, wait. Take a deep breath, calm down, and take a look at this."
He shoved the phone screen toward Old Man Rom, whose face was red from something other than alcohol. The old man eyed the device suspiciously as he leaned back in, then squinted at the small screen—and his eyes went wide.
Reflected on the screen was Old Man Rom's own face, just as it had been a moment ago. The cell phone camera—used to capture the image. Naturally, such technology didn't exist in this world.
Just as Subaru had expected, Old Man Rom stared at the screen as though it might swallow him whole.
"This is... my face. How is this possible?"
"I told you—it cuts and freezes time. I used this device to cut a moment of Old Man Rom's time and lock it in here."
Speaking as he turned the camera around and photographed himself, Subaru then showed the screen to Old Man Rom once more—this time displaying his face making a peace sign.
"You can freeze a moment like this. Normally you'd use it for something more memorable than wasting it on myself, but still."
"I see... yes, this is... hmm."
Old Man Rom stroked his chin and peered intently into the phone, lost in thought.
His level of interest exceeded Subaru's expectations, and Subaru sensed the upper hand in the negotiation.
As though confirming Subaru's conviction, Old Man Rom took the phone in hand and held it up for a closer look.
"First time I've ever seen one. So this is the 'magic artifact' people talk about?"
"Magic artifact?"
At the unfamiliar term, Subaru tilted his head. Old Man Rom nodded.
"It's a tool that lets even someone without an open gate use magic—like a magic user. That said, they're extremely rare, so this is my first time seeing one in person."
He let out an admiring hum, gazing at the phone as though licking it, then set it back on the counter.
Facing Subaru once more— "Hard to put a price on this. I've been in this trade a long time, but this is my first time handling a magic artifact. Still—there's no question it'd fetch an unprecedented sum."
The thrill of seeing a magic artifact for the first time, and the excitement of being able to treat it as trade goods—Old Man Rom's voice trembled slightly as he prefaced with— "That's precisely why offering it in a barter is too much of a loss for you. I don't know the value of the insignia you're looking for, but it can't possibly exceed this magic artifact. If you're comparing by pure monetary value, you'd be far better off selling the artifact itself!"
Coming from the man who ran the back-alley trade of sorting and fencing stolen goods in the heart of the slums, this was an unexpectedly conscientious piece of advice.
For Subaru, there was no denying it was an attractive offer.
In this world, Subaru had nothing.
He couldn't use magic, wasn't particularly strong, had zero knowledge, couldn't even read—and worst of all, he was flat broke.
If he could sell this cell phone, he could begin to crack open that worst-case, eight-directions-blocked deadlock. At the very least, his financial worries would be gone for the foreseeable future.
He could already see a future where he'd struggle for his next meal, and that made this something he wanted more desperately than anything—as natural a choice as belching after drinking a Coke. But— "Yeah, that works. This magic artifact is for barter with whatever insignia Felt brings in."
"Why go that far? Is the insignia worth more than this? Or are you going to tell me it holds a value that can't be converted to money?"
Old Man Rom regarded Subaru's stubbornness with a hint of exasperation. Even as he questioned the insignia's worth, there was a trace of mockery in his tone at the suggestion of something more valuable than money.
Living in a place like this, he was the type of person who—while he might understand intellectually that things could matter more than money—would find it difficult to truly accept in practice.
Acknowledging that kind of worldview, Subaru shook his head.
"Honestly? I've never even seen the thing in person. If I converted it to money, it'd still be worth less than this magic artifact—I'd take a total loss, guaranteed."
"Then if you know that, why go through with it?"
"Because that's what I want. —I want to take a loss."
Old Man Rom's eyes went wide for the third time, and Subaru watched with deep satisfaction.
Yes—that was the answer.
Even if he couldn't afford tomorrow's meal. Even if the future went pitch black. Even if the dream of filling a bathtub with cash bills receded further out of reach. It would be worth losing everything.
"I want to pay someone back. I settle my debts cleanly, or I can't sleep at night. I'm neurotic like that—I'm a modern kid. —So even at a massive loss, I'm getting that insignia."
"Hmm... so what you're saying is, the insignia doesn't originally belong to you?"
"It belongs to the silver-haired beauty who saved my life. I don't know why, but it's something precious to her."
"And this benefactor? You're not with her?"
"Currently searching for her! In fact—maybe the fact that she saved me, maybe even her entire existence, was all just a delusion conjured by my own dreams!"
He clenched his fist, voicing the doubt he'd just denied and laughing it off.
The pieces had come together this far. There was no way Satella—that girl—didn't exist.
He would get the insignia, and for certain, he would meet that girl once more.
Looking down at Subaru as he steeled his resolve, Old Man Rom gazed at him with the expression of someone beholding the strangest creature he'd ever seen— "—You, my boy, are a certified idiot."
And with all other emotions swept clean, he simply laughed, full of genuine amusement.