The girl’s red lips parted slightly, a certain light flashing in her blue-purple eyes.
“…Does it affect your daily life?” After a moment of silence, the girl finally spoke up and asked Subaru.
“I mean your bloodline… Ah, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked!
If you don’t want to answer, just pretend I never said anything!”
Only after the words left her mouth did the girl realize how intrusive the question was.
A flush of pink instantly spread across her pretty face as she hastily apologized.
—That blushing face is cute as hell.
Long live the fantasy isekai!
“If you really want to talk about how it affects my life, it’s mostly just that I might lose control of my strength and crush a water cup…” Still distracted by how cute her blush was, Subaru clearly didn’t find the question offensive at all.
“Honestly, I’m pretty happy to be a half-Viltrumite.
It feels like I inherited my dad’s courage and my mom’s gentleness at the same time… That sounds kind of cheesy, but basically—”
“—I’m never ashamed or arrogant about my mixed bloodline!”
A perfectly timed breeze swept past, rustling the boy and girl’s hair.
The midday sun shone down on them, while pedestrians went about their business in the streets below.
—Yet the two of them seemed entirely removed from the rest of the world.
“Is that so…” The girl looked down, fiddling with a lock of silver hair at her temple.
Because of the angle, Subaru missed the sight of her slightly pointed ears, hidden beneath her silver hair, turning slightly pink.
“Oh, right!
That reminds me, I don’t even know your name yet.
I’ll introduce myself first!”
Subaru thrust his index finger toward the sky with one hand, rested his other hand on his hip, thrust his pelvis forward, and struck a dramatic S-curve pose with his feet planted slightly wider than shoulder-width apart: “I am Subaru Natsuki!
Ignorant, foolish, and completely penniless.
A pleasure to meet you!”
“Just hearing your introduction is enough to know how desperate your situation is.” The little cat had quietly reappeared at some point, flying in a figure-eight pattern through the air.
“And I’m Puck.
Nice to meet you!”
Puck flew over and met Subaru’s outstretched hand of friendship with a dynamic high-five-turned-handshake.
From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like Subaru was trying to crush Puck into paste.
The sheer audacity of his greeting made the girl blink repeatedly in surprise.
But whether it was just Subaru’s imagination or not, the girl’s attitude toward him seemed to have softened significantly.
…Maybe my confident self-introduction actually worked!
“It’s rare to see someone interact so casually with a spirit.
You said you were… a Viltrumite?
Where are you from?”
Whether intentionally or not, the girl changed the subject, asking Subaru about his origins.
“According to the standard tropes, a small island nation in the far east.” Subaru crossed his arms, choosing to place his faith in the classic excuses left by his isekai predecessors.
“Lugunica is located at the easternmost edge of the continental map, so there are no countries further east of here.”
“No way?!
This is already the far east?!”
Subaru’s answer seemed to make the girl even more worried.
“You don’t know where you are, you have no money, you can’t read the language, you have no one to rely on, and you’re a half-blood… Your situation might actually be worse than mine.”
“Hey!
What the hell are you doing on my roof?!”
A window directly below them flew open, and a middle-aged woman stuck her head out.
She twisted her neck to glare angrily at the two people and the cat on her roof.
“Get the hell down right now!
If you break any of my tiles, I’m calling the guards!”
“Crap!
Let’s go!” Subaru turned his back to the girl and gestured for her to climb on.
The girl hesitated for a split second before latching onto Subaru’s back like a koala.
“—Hold on tight.”
Whoosh!
With a surge of displaced air, Subaru launched himself into the sky with the girl clinging to him.
The wind whipped past them, tossing their hair as more than half the Royal Capital unfurled beneath their feet.
“By the way,” Subaru called back over his shoulder mid-flight, “I know your cat’s name, but I still don’t know yours.”
“My name?”
Even though Subaru had deliberately tried to downplay his interest, the girl still seemed slightly surprised, her eyes widening.
Then she closed her eyes.
After several seconds of silence…
“Emili… Satella.”
“Oh?”
Assuming her silence meant she was cursing him out in her head for speaking without thinking, Subaru was a second late in responding to her quiet murmur.
Hearing his response, the girl turned her face away so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“I don’t have a family name.
Just call me Satella.”
Her voice sounded entirely devoid of emotion.
Despite volunteering the name herself, she gave off the distinct impression that she didn’t actually want to be called that.
Satella—the girl calling herself that suddenly exuded a sense of distance she hadn’t shown before.
Ideally, Subaru would have liked her to give him a surname that was easy to use, but her attitude made him too afraid to use her given name directly, leaving him with no choice but to stay quiet.
Ultimately, he weakly decided he would just use second-person pronouns to address her for now.
Watching their interaction, Puck, who was hiding in her silver hair, suddenly mumbled, “And here I thought… what terrible taste.”
But neither Subaru nor the girl caught the quiet muttering.
“Hey,” Satella—let’s temporarily call the silver-haired girl that—suddenly tapped Subaru on the shoulder.
“Over there—”
“Uwaaah!!!” Subaru’s body suddenly jerked violently toward the shoulder she tapped.
He tumbled twice in midair before barely managing to stabilize himself, nearly throwing Satella right off his back.
“I’m still not used to flying, sorry!
Wait, over where?”
“Honestly, how do you have the nerve to carry passengers?” Satella complained softly for the first time.
She shook her slightly dizzy head and pointed down toward a little girl standing by the road below, her face stained with tears.
Satella’s expression turned serious.
“I’m asking you, Subaru: doesn’t she look like she’s lost?”
Standing next to a building across the street was a girl about ten years old.
Her shoulder-length blue hair gave her a pitiable, endearing look.
She had a cute face that looked like it would spread joy to everyone around her when she smiled, but right now, her eyes were filled with anxiety.
The fact that she looked on the verge of tears completely ruined her otherwise adorable features.
“Wait, I thought we were looking for—” Subaru turned to look back at Satella.
“Finding my things is important, but we can’t just ignore a lost child.”
Satella looked into Subaru’s eyes with unprecedented seriousness.
“Besides… that child is crying, right, Subaru?”
“…”
Subaru seemed momentarily stunned.
Beneath Satella’s blue-purple eyes lay an unyielding resolve.
“If you can’t go along with it, that’s fine.
Just let me down,” Satella said, gently patting Subaru’s shoulder.
“Thank you for bringing me this far, Subaru.
I’ll try to figure something out on my own from here… Regardless, I absolutely cannot ignore that child.”
Seeing Subaru remain silent, Satella seemed to decide to part ways with him right then and there.
Rather than showing disgust toward Subaru for not following her lead, it felt more like she was saying it to prevent him from having to indulge her selfishness.
“Alright…” Subaru carried Satella down and landed on the ground.