“Come to think of it, what exactly did you have stolen?” Subaru asked Satella as they stood in front of the abandoned building.
“I still don’t know.”
“Huh?
I didn’t tell you?” Satella covered her mouth with her hand.
“I’m sorry!
I thought I had mentioned it ages ago…
It’s an insignia made of metal, about this big.”
Satella gestured in the air with her hands.
“It has a dragon-shaped crest on it, with a small jewel set right in the center.”
“A jeweled insignia, huh…” Subaru volunteered himself.
“Don’t worry, just leave this to me.
I’ll figure out a way to negotiate for it.”
Satella looked completely taken aback by his suggestion.
Even that bewildered expression is super cute…
Subaru thought, already preparing to counter whatever concerns she was about to raise—
“Understood.
I’ll leave it to you, Subaru.”
“Eh?” Now it was Subaru’s turn to feel weirded out.
“You’re surprisingly agreeable…
Judging by how things have gone so far, I was sure you were going to say something insulting like, ‘Leave it to a useless dummy like you?
Don’t make me laugh,’ and then decide to handle it yourself.”
“I would never say something so awful.” Subaru’s exaggerated persecution complex ruffled Satella’s feathers, but she coughed into her hand and stared at him with teasing amethyst eyes.
“Though saying you haven’t been holding me back would just be me being polite.”
“It was just you being polite?!”
“But,” Satella’s expression turned serious, “I want to believe in you…
If things go smoothly, we’ll consider it a lucky win.”
“This is the part where you’re supposed to look up at me and say, ‘Do your best for my sake!’ It’d really pump me up.”
“I’m not going to speak with that kind of tone,” Satella said.
The faint glow of the Lagmite ore illuminated her face, making her already striking beauty look even more enchanting.
“But…
do your best.”
“Yeah, I’ll give it my all,” Subaru answered with a smile, then walked toward the entrance of the loot house.
Hand resting on the door handle, Subaru turned back to look at the girl behind him, carefully handing her his plastic bag.
“It won’t take long, but you can eat something from here to kill time.”
That was right—even though it had been a full day since he was transported to another world, Subaru was still carrying around the snacks he had bought at the convenience store.
He hadn’t thrown them away, nor had he eaten them.
“Don’t say such silly things.
Just be careful,” Satella said.
She didn’t understand what he meant, but she accepted the plastic bag and held it in her hands.
“Got it, got it.” Subaru took a deep breath.
“You too, Satella.
Unless I call for you, absolutely do not come inside.”
The courage needed to step into a dangerous place had pushed Subaru to finally say her name.
The name he had been too embarrassed to say out loud had finally been given a voice…
“…What’s wrong?”
But contrary to Subaru’s expectations, Satella had gone completely rigid, her blue-purple eyes wide and round.
This unexpected reaction made Subaru tilt his head in confusion.
After a slight delay, Satella shook her head.
“N-no, it’s fine, it’s nothing…” Satella smiled gently, but a trace of sorrow was hidden in her eyes.
“Once you retrieve the insignia, I will formally apologize to you.”
Once this negotiation is wrapped up, I really want to see her smile again, Subaru thought.
Not this kind of sad smile, but a real, radiant one.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Excuse me…”
He knocked a few times, but there was no response from inside.
Subaru gave the heavy door a light push, and unexpectedly, it swung right open.
The door’s unlocked…
weird…
Subaru stepped into the warehouse, holding up the Lagmite ore.
There were no lights on inside; it was pitch black.
The first thing Subaru saw was the counter directly facing him.
The counter meant for receiving guests, as well as the cramped space behind it, was crammed with all sorts of items.
There were small boxes, pots, swords, and cheap precious metals—a massive variety of junk.
It looked like this building used to be a tavern or an inn.
Now, it seemed to double as a bar.
“Alright, let’s see what kind of monsters or freaks are waiting for me…” Subaru swept his gaze over the counter, but didn’t spot anything resembling Satella’s insignia, so he ventured deeper in—
“Eh?”
Subaru seemed to have stepped in something sticky.
The strange sensation beneath his sole brought him to a halt.
He lifted his foot and touched the bottom of his sneaker with his fingers.
Sure enough, a thick liquid clung to it.
—Blood.
“Crap!” Subaru was instantly on high alert, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
“Oh my, you saw it~”
Something sharp flashed by.
A slash that felt like it could sever the world itself came at Subaru from the front, aimed directly at his stomach.
It was fast, but not so fast that Subaru couldn’t react.
He swung the Lagmite ore down hard.
Clang!
The sound of metal clashing rang out.
The ore couldn’t withstand the immense force between the two of them and exploded into fragments.
The high-speed shards shot into every corner of the room.
The wet sound of flesh tearing could be heard; quite a few of the Lagmite ore fragments had embedded themselves into the attacker’s body.
The widespread white glow of the scattered fragments pushed back the gloom, finally allowing Subaru to see his attacker’s true face.
She was a beauty with drooping eyes and an elegant, luxurious aura.
Her skin, pale to the point of looking sickly, was incredibly eye-catching even in the dim warehouse.
She was tall, about the same height as Subaru, and looked to be in her early twenties.
Though she wore a black cloak, it hung open in the front, revealing a form-fitting black outfit that was impossible to look away from.
She had a slender frame, curved in all the right places—in short, a killer figure.
Like Subaru, she had black hair, which was considered rare in this world.
Her long hair reached past her back and was braided, and right now, she was twirling the end of the braid with her fingers.
The wound was deep, blood flowing steadily from it, yet her face bore a sickly, flushed hue.
“To come out of that barrage of shrapnel completely unscathed…
Ah~ the color of your bowels—they must be absolutely gorgeous!”
Actually, he wasn’t completely unscathed.
Subaru’s tracksuit had been riddled with dozens of holes, and his skin was marked with faint white lines that felt a bit itchy.
Subaru’s expression was grave.
A wave of air pressure surged around him as he lifted off the ground, hovering half a foot in the air, falling into a fighting stance.
“Hey!
You—”
“I want to slice open your stomach so badly~”
Without letting Subaru finish, the woman charged at him again.
Is this woman out of her mind?!
Subaru sidestepped to dodge her vertical slash, casually throwing a wild haymaker right at her chest.
Bam!
The woman was sent spinning backward at several times the speed she had charged, flying directly up to the ceiling as if she’d been hit by a semi-truck.
However, it seemed she had used some kind of special technique to disperse the force of Subaru’s attack.
She adjusted her posture in mid-air and landed lightly on the counter, nimble as a cat.
“Oh my, the blade broke.” The woman held up her kukri knife, which had snapped in two, examining the break from all angles.
She had just used that knife to block Subaru’s heavy punch.
“You’re incredibly strong, boy!
My entire arm is completely numb!”
“If I hadn’t happened to block that with my blade, I’d probably be dead right now, wouldn’t I?”
“However…
you seem to be lacking a little experience when it comes to a deathmatch, boy~”
Riiiip—
At some point, the clothes over Subaru’s stomach had been sliced open.
Though his skin hadn’t been broken—leaving only a white mark—the cold sensation of the blade brushing against him still made Subaru extremely uncomfortable.
When did she—!
“I forgot to introduce myself,” the woman said.
Her left hand drew out from under her large cloak, now holding another strangely shaped kukri knife.
Clinging to the blade were fragments of Subaru’s tracksuit.
“I am the Bowel Hunter, Elsa Granhiert.”
Subaru grimaced, his face contorting as he hunched over, trying to hold his shredded clothes together with his hand.
“Are we supposed to declare our titles before a fight?
Then I’m…
uh, haven’t thought of one yet.
I’m Subaru Natsuki.”
“This isn’t a fight, boy~” Elsa Granhiert stuck out a rosy tongue, licking the fragments of Subaru’s clothing off her kukri.
“This is a massacre.”
Drop stones and Help me rank!
Thank you for reading!
I felt the power scaling in the original Re:Zero was a bit of a mess, and the combat feats were kind of all over the place.
Therefore, this fic includes some balance adjustments to both Viltrumite and Re:Zero power levels.