“Um…”
Seeing Satella’s somewhat baffling reaction, Subaru was at a loss for words for a moment.
“—Heiya!”
Puck suddenly flew out from Satella’s silver hair, charging at Subaru in a full Viltrumite flight posture.
Boop~
A light kitty-punch landed squarely on Subaru’s cheek.
It didn’t hurt in the slightest, and the soft paw pads felt absolutely amazing.
“Why’d you hit me all of a sudden?”
“No reason—I just wanted to vent this itchy feeling!”
Puck’s fur puffed up all over his body, entering full Stegosaurus mode.
Subaru was about to press Puck further when Satella interrupted their conversation.
“Honestly… Subaru, you’re such a useless dummy.” The girl twirled the ends of her silver hair around her finger, looking up to glare at Subaru.
But though it was a glare, the emotion hidden behind it was much closer to embarrassed indignation.
“Calling someone a dummy is totally out of style lately, you know,” Subaru said, looking at Satella, who was still crouching on the ground.
“And why are you insulting me anyway?”
“Hmph!
I don’t care!” The girl turned her head away, a faint rosy flush covering her cheeks, and stood up as if nothing had happened.
“Right, we have to keep looking for my things.”
What the heck…
Brushing past his unreasonable treatment with a single sentence left Subaru’s face full of indignation.
But being indignant was useless; Subaru had no choice but to swallow it and move on.
With a face full of grievances, Subaru followed behind Satella to continue their search journey.
“By the way,” Subaru called out to stop Satella, “look around.
Didn’t we circle right back?”
“Eh?” Satella took in their surroundings: the alley, the fruit stand, the shops, the fountain, the fruit stand, the alley…
“Did we?”
“Oh crap!
Don’t tell me you’re the type with zero sense of direction?!” Subaru was starting to lose his mind.
He had taken off from the alley carrying Satella on his back, flown around a quarter of the Royal Capital, helped the lost girl find her mom, and then…
They actually strolled all the way back to the starting point?
Was this a joke?!
Subaru still vaguely remembered that after coming out of the convenience store, he had blinked and found himself standing right by that fountain over there.
Didn’t that mean half the day’s search efforts were totally wasted?
Though it wasn’t like they had achieved any success to begin with.
“Just as I thought… running around without a plan yields zero results.
We really need to…”
Subaru’s thoughts were interrupted by a shout.
He looked up in surprise.
A middle-aged man with green hair and a black bandana stood at the fruit stand right next to Subaru.
Wearing an open vest that revealed thick muscles, he looked exceptionally fierce, complete with a scar on his face—he looked exactly like a mobster.
He was probably the owner of the fruit stand.
Right now, he was holding up a red fruit and asking Subaru if he wanted to buy it.
“Are these… apples?” Subaru asked somewhat hesitantly, looking at the round red fruit.
“Yeah, apples.
So, kid, you buying or what?”
Oh… so they have apples in this other world too.
Thank goodness.
Seeing something familiar in an unfamiliar place was incredibly reassuring.
“Do you want one?” Subaru turned his head to ask Satella beside him.
“If you’re buying, you have to get one for me too.”
“Despite your weird expectations of me,” Satella nodded, then shook her head, her silver hair catching the sunlight brilliantly.
“If possible, I’d actually like to eat one, but I didn’t bring any money.”
“The girl’s got no money, huh?
What a pain,” the owner sighed deeply, putting a hand on his hip.
“Kid, you buying?”
“I’d love to, but…” Subaru flashed the owner a proud peace sign.
“I’m flat broke too!
An ignorant, foolish, penniless, ultra-broke pauper!”
“Then get lost!
Don’t get in the way of my business!”
The owner’s attitude did a complete one-eighty.
His expression contorted, making him look even more like a mobster than an actual mobster.
“What the heck…” Driven away by the owner, Subaru stepped away from the stall.
“Poor people have the right to eat apples too!”
For the record, Satella was driven away alongside him.
Her beautiful appearance didn’t earn her any special treatment.
“—Big brother!”
An excited, youthful girl’s voice rang out.
Subaru and Satella turned around.
Into their view came a little girl holding a middle-aged woman’s hand.
She was happily waving at the two of them.
They had unexpectedly run into the girl who had been separated from her mother again!
“Thank you both so much for earlier.”
The girl holding her hand was still waving her arm so vigorously that Subaru was a little worried she might swing her whole arm off.
“Why are you guys here?” Subaru asked, a bit confused.
“This is my husband’s stall, so we stopped by to see him.”
“…Husband?!”
The unexpected answer made Subaru and Satella look at each other.
The two of them slowly turned their heads back to look at the scarred man standing in the stall with his arms crossed and legs spread wide.
How could this slender, gentle-looking, beautiful middle-aged woman marry a fruit stand owner with the aura of a mob boss?
If you’re being threatened, blink twice… Subaru’s mind conjured up a bunch of disturbing scenarios, and that unease crept onto his face.
“Daddy!” The little girl let go of her mother’s hand, ran right past Subaru—who was currently thinking very rude thoughts—and excitedly dashed toward the fruit stand owner, clinging to him like a little octopus.
A gentle look appeared on the owner’s terrifying scarred face.
His large hand softly patted the top of the girl’s head.
“There, there…”
“By the way, do you know these two deadbeats?” The owner snapped back to reality, asking his wife about Subaru and Satella.
His tone wasn’t very friendly; it seemed Subaru had left an overwhelmingly negative impression on him.
“Darling, please don’t call them deadbeats.
It’s very rude.”
The middle-aged woman raised an eyebrow, chiding the owner for his crude language.
She then explained to her husband exactly how Subaru and Satella had helped their daughter.
“Uh…”
The owner looked at Subaru with a highly complicated expression.
Subaru could only return an awkward smile.
“I’m truly sorry for running my mouth at our benefactors.
Please forgive me.” The owner took his hand off his daughter’s head and gave Subaru and Satella a deeply earnest apology.
“Big sister, this is for you!” The girl squirmed out of her father’s embrace and held out her hand to Satella.
In her small palm rested an accessory crafted into the shape of a red flower.
Satella drew a sharp breath, looking back and forth between the little girl and the flower accessory, seeming very troubled.
“Please accept it.
Our daughter wants to thank you in her own way.”
The woman gave the bewildered Satella a gentle push of encouragement.
Hearing her say that, Satella tucked her chin slightly and solemnly accepted the flower accessory from the girl’s hands, treating it not like a cheap children’s trinket, but a priceless jewel.
—No, even if it were a real jewel, in Satella’s eyes, it wouldn’t be as important as the flower accessory the girl was giving her right now.
Satella pinned the flower accessory to the left chest of her white robe, then crouched down so the little girl could easily see it.
A smile brighter than the flower itself bloomed on Satella’s face.
“You see?
Good deeds are rewarded!”
Satella proudly placed her hands on her hips, speaking to Subaru with a joyful, skipping tone: “It ended up benefiting us in the end, didn’t it!”