"Hurry up and give my stuff back."
"I know, I know. I'm not ungrateful—you did save me, after all…"
"And don't steal anymore."
"Don't lecture me about how I live! Think everyone's born with a silver spoon?!"
"You're a thief? You're bad. You won't get Christmas presents. Marisa won't come to, your house."
"You're calling me bad? You're the one who demolished Old Man Rom's whole house!" The thief girl Felt gave as good as she got, even against a clearly overpowered little cat.
The roughly twelve-year-old thief girl looked down at the even younger Yimi.
Her tone softened a touch. "Anyway, thanks for saving us. But I don't have any money, so how about this—if I ever see you again, I absolutely won't steal your stuff. Deal?"
"Mm?" Yimi didn't quite get it.
The tall old man whose neck had been slashed wasn't in mortal danger—Emilia, the half-elf girl who'd called herself "Satella," had treated his wound in time and pulled him back from the brink.
"Excuse me, but what happened here? I thought I heard words like 'stealing.'" A third voice cut in. Even in the slums where patrol coverage was at its thinnest, an explosion that size was bound to draw attention.
It was the red-haired knight Yimi had bumped into earlier—Reinhard van Astrea.
Yimi pointed at Felt. "She said she won't steal my stuff anymore."
"Are you stupid?! Why would you say that right in front of a knight?!" Felt grabbed Yimi by the shoulders and shook her.
"A knight?"
Reinhard scratched his cheek awkwardly. "I'm off-duty today, technically here as a civilian. But now that I've heard all that, asking me to ignore it would be a bit…"
More than the thief, though, he was far more interested in this little girl who could so casually draw the Dragon Sword.
"What—there's a thief?"
Perhaps because Fantasy Nature had been so flashingly conspicuous, nearby guards had rushed over as well, saluting Reinhard before turning unfriendly eyes on Felt. "This brat's the thief?"
"No, no—I wasn't planning to press charges." Emilia waved her hands.
The guard didn't seem particularly inclined to defer to her. "Lady Emilia, a criminal who's committed an offense doesn't get off just because you say you won't pursue it."
"I'll take it from here. You can head back." Reinhard, decent as ever, placed a hand on Felt's shoulder.
"Let go of me!"
Felt was placed under Reinhard's arrest.
At least, that's how it looked on the surface.
Looking at Yimi standing alongside Royal Selection candidate Emilia, Reinhard decided against asking the child to try drawing the Dragon Sword again in front of so many people. In others' eyes, that might imply far more than he intended.
---
The estate of Margrave Roswaal.
Why had Emilia suddenly let go and sent Subaru's head cracking into the floor? That went back to the first timeline. To keep him from getting too involved with her, Emilia had deliberately introduced herself as "Satella."
That name belonged to the Witch of Envy, who had once swallowed half the world. Though long sealed away, she remained so reviled that merely uttering her name drew contempt. And Emilia just happened to share the same traits—silver-haired half-elf. For as long as she could remember, she'd been subjected to others' discrimination. That guard earlier had called her "Lady" but shown her no real respect.
The only reason he'd bothered with "Lady" at all was because she was a Royal Selection candidate.
Right—she'd told Subaru the name "Satella" in the first timeline. But in the current one, they hadn't met until the Loot House. Having someone suddenly call her by a slur out of nowhere was pretty offensive.
Still, the guy had helped her, and then she'd knocked him out cold. She did feel a little guilty. Perhaps because his head had taken two hits in quick succession, Subaru stayed unconscious for quite a while. Emilia had already carried him all the way to Roswaal Manor, a fair distance from the capital, and he still hadn't come to.
"And then he said I stole someone's stuff, but I didn't steal anything at all, and then the second time I was just sitting there, I didn't do anything, and he still said I stole stuff—I absolutely did not steal anything! Even Kyoko only said it, about me once!"
The little cat raised her broken gohei high, loudly laying out her grievances against Subaru, bringing a rare bit of noise to this quiet place.
She'd tagged along out of curiosity about Subaru.
"I see—so that's why you hit him on the head. Subaru-san really is mean." Emilia instinctively reached toward Yimi's head, then pulled her hand back.
In this world, probably only children who didn't know any better would look at her without that different kind of gaze. Before, people called her "half-devil." Now they'd skipped straight to calling her Satella.
"I feel like I slept through yesterday and missed a lot of important stuff." A neutral voice appeared between them. The crystal around Emilia's neck glimmered briefly, and a mouse-gray cat the size of an adult's palm materialized in their midst.
"Cat!" Yimi gently scooped him up.
A mouse-colored cat, though. Kind of gross.
But Yimi wasn't like those three mean cats—she wouldn't be picky about it.
"His name is Puck. He's my best partner and the spirit I've formed a contract with," Emilia introduced.
In the current situation, maintaining his physical form consumed mana, which meant Puck operated on a nine-to-five schedule. Yesterday he'd clocked out at five on the dot, leaving Emilia's fight at a stalemate.
"My fur is quite the magnet for children, you know." Puck shifted in Yimi's hands, then pawed at her palm with a curious expression. "Your mana works in a strange way. No—this isn't mana at all, is it?"
Because this world's mana was unwieldy for her, Yimi had switched back to Third Magic.
"This?" Yimi toggled her energy back to this world's native form—and Puck's expression shifted.
"Wait…"
Her endlessly radiating mana surged toward the sky, tearing a rift through the clouds in a burst of golden light. It didn't belong to any element native to this world, but the symptoms matched a condition that did exist here.
Mana Overflow Period [?].
Put simply: the organ responsible for attracting mana was so efficient that accumulated mana overflowed its container. In severe cases, it could affect the surrounding environment. A problem that typically only an extreme minority of powerful mages ever dealt with.
Realizing the danger, Yimi hastily converted back.
"Oh my, oh my—what a remarkable little guest we have here."
A voice that deliberately dragged out its final syllables appeared behind Yimi. Her body stiffened. Every hair on her tail stood on end.