Even though the street was just one off the main road, the atmosphere was full of gloom. It was still and silent, and there was no sign of any kind of life, let alone traces of people around.

The street Subaru and Rem were on wasn\'t far from the main road, but the hustle and bustle from before now seemed like a far-off dream.

"We heard from that guy that if we were looking for stolen goods, they would be handled and sold in the slums, but…" whispered Subaru as he peered down the street that supposedly would lead them to the slums, "…the air down there and the mood, not to mention the general character of the people down there, are all probably going to be pretty terrible. Are you sure you really want to go?"

"It\'s your idea in the first place also this is our only clue so we need to check it"

"You shouldn\'t forget that right after he said that, he added that we should probably give up," said Subaru, reflecting back with a sour face on what was said at the fruit shop.

"I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but wouldn\'t it be better to ask for help? Like, if we asked the police, or…I guess they would be guards in this case…I\'m sure if we asked those kind of people to help us search and they sent a team out to find it, this would get resolved a lot more quickly."

"We can\'t."

Rem immediately rejected Subaru\'s suggestion. In fact, she so flatly rejected it that it took Subaru by surprise.

"Also if there is a fight broke out with Arthur-sama who also joining in search of the badge he can find us easily "

"I feel curious from the start i heard it, but who is Arthur-sama you talking about?"

"He is a very strong person, he is more stronger than me"

"That\'s not help at all you know"

"If you want to know his appearance he is tall handsome young man with white hair and blue eyes, other than very strong he is also very knowledgeable about cuisine"

"What\'s that op character setting he have?! It\'s look like he is the protagonist and not me"

"What are you talking about"

Despite all the talk, their search continued in the same way as before. Their methods were basic. Whenever they found someone, they would describe who they were looking for and asked if the person had any ideas about who it might be.

Subaru, who was now doing all of the asking, had gotten better at it after having talked to so many different people. He was starting to hit his stride.

"You know? It might be that Felt girl. She was blond and really fast, right?"

A little under an hour after they had entered the slums and started asking around, they had finally run into some valuable information.

The guy who gave the information was someone that Subaru had gone straight up to and said, "Hey, my brother, how\'s life?" like they were already friends.

"If it\'s Felt you\'re looking for, whatever she stole is probably sitting in the loot cellar. She usually takes things there, gets them tagged, and then the oldman who\'s the master there\'ll get them sold at a market somewhere else"

"That sounds like a pretty strange system… Doesn\'t anyone worry about the master of the cellar taking off with all of the goods?"

"The reason he\'s the master is because people trust him not to do that. But, well, even if you go up and tell him it\'s stolen, he\'ll probably just say \'So what?\' right back at you, so you\'d better be prepared to negotiate a price to buy it back. After all, it\'s the original owner\'s fault for being stupid and getting it stolen in the first place!" the man finished with a laugh.

Subaru was able to get the guy to tell him the location of the loot cellar, so they would probably be able to find it soon, but there was a new problem.

Subaru and Rem were both penniless.

"That guy said we should buy it back, but without any leverage, I get the feeling this master guy would wipe the floor with us."

"And in the place like this i think my lord name will not enough to scare him, well at least we must need to make sure if the badge is here or not. I can leave everything to Arthur-sama if the badge is really here"

"You seem very confident in your Arthur-sama"

Subaru fell slightly annoyed when he heard Arthur-sama this, Arthur-sama that from Rem

"Anyway, let\'s first just find this loot-cellar place. It is possible that we can negotiate a way to buy it back at a reasonable price…"

In the worst-case scenario, Subaru had one way to secure funds, although he was reluctant to use it. And he didn\'t want to tell Rem until right before he had to.

Now that they were in front of the place called the "loot cellar," Subaru and Rem looked at each other.

"This place is a lot bigger than I imagined. Just how well can the market for theft be going these days?" Subaru said.

"I understand them calling it a cellar rather than a shed…if this place is filled only with stolen goods… this also the first time i see something like this"

"That tall wall behind the building…is that…?"

"I think it\'s one of the walls of the city. Which means that we must have come all the way from the city\'s center to its edge," replied Rem.

Subaru tried to imagine a map of the city in his mind, given what Rem had said. It was likely that the city was built as a square and had walls like this on all four sides. Additionally, either in the center or on the northernmost side there should be a castle, from which these slums would be positioned far away.

Considering that it had been three to four hours since Subaru and Rem had begun their search, the scope of the city seemed to be a little larger than Subaru had originally imagined.

"All right, according to what we\'ve heard, there should be a master in charge of this cellar who handles all of the stolen goods, but…just how exactly do you want to approach this?"

"I prefer if he hand it over without putting a fight but if he didn\'t cherish the opportunity i gave than we will see who\'s fist is stronger"

"Why you seems like to using violence to solve problems "

"Because that\'s the easiest way "

"But that\'s dangerous you know?!"

"That\'s dangerous for the weak"

"Then sorry for being weak here! You wait first here i will go there and maybe i can trade the badge with something i have"

The trump card Subaru had, which he wasn\'t able to tell Rem about, was the one thing out of what he had brought from the previous world that he could really consider worth anything. Because that thing probably didn\'t otherwise exist in this world, there was a possibility he could use it to barter.

Subaru would have liked to avoid doing that, but at the same time he was fairly certain that in this world, Rem\'s badge couldn\'t possibly fetch a higher price than his cell phone, and he didn\'t think he would have another chance in this world to use his cell phone this way.

"Um… Is anybody home? …Er, wait…the door\'s open."

A sour, spoiled sort of smell drifted out of the entrance to the loot cellar. Subaru went to knock on the door, but from a gap in it, he saw that it wasn\'t locked. As he peeked inside, he could only see that it was incredibly dark.

"It\'s hard when there\'s not any kind of light… Well, considering the purpose of the place, I suppose it makes sense, and it even serves as a metaphor for the dark feeling of guilt in doing dirty business."

Subaru stuck his head inside and tried to look around, but not even the light from the moon reached this place in the deepest part of the slums. He couldn\'t see an inch in front of his face. As Subaru prepared to go inside, he turned around to Rem

"I didn\'t hear anyone answer me, but I\'m going to go ahead and go inside, so can you please keep watch?"

"Are you sure? Wouldn\'t it be better for me to go instead?"

"If on the off chance someone ambushes us and you\'re the one taken out, then it\'s all over. If I\'m the one attacked, you\'ll be able both to help me, and to strike back. This is the most reasonable way to do this, so please let\'s just go with my plan, okay?"

Rem considered Subaru\'s plan. After a few moments of silence, she rummaging her sleeve pocket ans took out a white crystal, which suddenly shone with a white light.

"Just in case i want to ask, there is a separate dimension on your sleeve pocket?"

"What are you talking about? Take this lagmite ore with you, and be careful to not break anything inside"

"If you worrying me then just said it, you didn\'t need to make it like that"

"I worried if i can\'t get my badge back if you start making a ruckus there"

"Okay, well then, I\'ll go take a look. I don\'t think I\'ll be gone too long, but you can go ahead and eat without me."

"Oh, stop being so stupid. Be careful, okay?"

"Gotcha. Also Rem Don\'t come in until I call for you got it? No matter what i will get your badge back "

"Once we get my badge back, I\'ll apologize properly."

"I don\'t know what you\'re planning on apologizing for, but I\'d rather hear a \'thank you\' instead. It would be even better if that thank-you came along with a smile."

"You dummy."

As those two words came out of her mouth, Rem made a little bit of a smile, which Subaru made sure to burn into his memory. Even with his stupid jokes, Subaru was at last able to make her smile.

If all of this turned out well, he would like to see that smile again, in a brighter place.

"All right. Will it be a snake or a demon that pops out this time? Given the fantasy setting, neither option is one I can just laugh off…" Subaru joked to himself, and with lagmite in hand, he carefully made his way into the cellar.

In the dim light, Subaru could make out a counter in front of him, across from the entrance. The building must have originally been something like an inn.

Subaru suddenly stopped, feeling something strange under the soles of his shoes. It didn\'t feel like he had stepped on something hard; it was actually the opposite. Like the ground he had stepped on was clinging to him; like there was something sticky on his shoes.

He raised his foot, and touched the bottom of his sneakers. He felt some sort of fluid, something strangely sticky that clung to his fingers, stretching as he pulled them away. It was something that instinctually made him feel uneasy.

"What is this…?"

Subaru brought his fingers close to his nose and tried to smell it, but because of the stagnant air inside the building mixing with it, he couldn\'t quite pin it down. Unsurprisingly, he didn\'t have the courage to try tasting it.

After wiping the rest of the substance on the nearest wall, Subaru, urged on by a feeling of unpleasant dread, put the lagmite out in front of him and started forward. Then, he found the source of the slime.

"…Wha?"

Subaru unconsciously let out a foolish sound as he looked on. In the small visible range of his light, what he first saw lying limp on the ground was an

arm. Its hand\'s fingers were reaching out as if to grab something, but the other end of the arm, at the elbow, was missing the body it should have been connected to.

Moving his light and following along the axis of the arm, Subaru saw a leg

farther on ahead—a leg attached to a body. With the exception of one arm, that

body had all of its other parts, though the throat area was cut wide open. It was the corpse of a large old man.

"Eek!" Subaru squealed pointlessly as he realized what he was looking at.

At that moment, Subaru\'s mind had blanked out. His thought processes had completely left him, and his hands and feet had frozen in place.

There was a pause, and then…

"…Well, you found it. That\'s just too bad. Now I have no choice, yes, nochoice at all."

Subaru thought that it was the voice of a woman. The voice was low and cold, the voice of a woman who seemed somewhat to be having fun.

"Gwah!"

Subaru didn\'t have the opportunity to turn around. As soon as he turned to face the voice, his body was blown away by an incredible force. He hit his back against the wall, and on impact let go of his lagmite, and darkness closed in as it tumbled into the distance.

But Subaru wasn\'t thinking about that. What now ruled over his consciousness was…

"Gu…it\'s…h-hot."

A heat ȧssaulted Subaru Natsuki and completely overwhelmed him.

—This is really, really not good.

Feeling the hard texture of the ground against his face, he realized that he had fallen facedown on the ground. He couldn\'t move, even when he tried, andhe already couldn\'t feel his fingers. What he did feel was heat, and it overwhelmed his entire body.

He coughed and vomited the blood he felt rising in his throat—the source of his waning life. So much came out that it frothed at the edges of his mouth.

With his hazy vision, he could see the ground in front of him stained red.

—You\'ve…got to be kidding me… All of this is mine?

Feeling as though all of the blood in his body had spilled out of him, he reached a shaking hand to try to find the source of the heat that was burning through his body. As his fingertips reached the large cut in his stomach, he understood.

No wonder it felt so hot. His brain must have been mistaking pain for heat.

The clean cut that ran through his torso was so deep it had almost cut him in half. Only bits of skin were still holding him together.

In other words, he had run right into a checkmate in the chess game of his life. As soon as he realized that, his consciousness immediately began to fall away from him.

Now, even the heat that had been ravaging him disappeared, and the unpleasant feeling of touching his own blood and organs vanished as his consciousness continued to fade. The only thing left behind was his body, which refused to follow his soul.

Right before his eyes, he saw a black boot step down and make ripples in the red carpet of his fresh blood.

Someone was there, and that someone…was probably the one who killed him.

But he didn\'t even think to look that person in the face. It didn\'t matter anymore.

—The only thing he did wish for was that she, at least, she would be safe.

"—baru?"

He felt as if he heard a voice that rang like bells. That he heard that voice, that he could hear that voice, felt like salvation to him more than anything else,

so—

"!"

With a short scream, someone else fell upon the carpet of blood.

She fell right beside him. There he was, weakly attempting to reach her.

Her white hand fell, powerless. He lightly grasped it in his own bloodstained grip.

He felt the fingers of her hand move slightly to grasp his own.

"Just you wait…"

He seized his fading consciousness, pulling it desperately back around to

buy a bit more time.

"I\'m going to…"

—find a way to save you.

In the next instant, he lost his life.