Chapter 5. The plot picking up

The silver-haired girl looked at Subaru and slightly wrinkled her eyebrows. "Aren't you? You both wear the same weird clothes. Are you not in some kind of gang?"

"Talk about coming to conclusions! They're the ones who attacked us first!" Subaru yelled out, pointing his finger at the thugs.

The fat one was unconscious, sprawled on the ground, the skinny one was moaning in pain and the tiny one kowtowed on the ground.

Orion was about to confirm Subaru's words, but at that time the little dwarf seemed to have noticed his chance as he spoke up from the ground, "Miss, save us!"

At this, the girl frowned.

"What do you mean save you? You threatened us with knives! You deserve no mercy, you bastards!" Subaru yelled as he looked at the little guy, at which the dwarf shriveled up.

Orion registered the scene, then glanced toward Emilia.

Meanwhile the silver-haired girl was silent and seemed to be appraising the field again with a thoughtful look.

At this time, a new voice slowly spoke up: "Lia, I really don't think you have time for this."

Simultaneously, a small talking cat in a humanoid posture suddenly appeared near the girl's hair.

"Whoa! A talking cat!" Subaru called out.

Meanwhile the two thugs and Orion also stared at it silently.

In response, the cat made a pose as it teasingly said, "Don't stare too much, will you? You're making me bashful."

"Damn, so cute!!! I can totally feel the plot picking up!" Subaru said.

Orion slightly smiled.

In the next moment, Subaru stretched out his hand, crossed his legs and courtly bowed before the silver-haired girl as he spoke in an exaggerated manner: "Beautiful Miss, please allow the two of us to lend you our help in your search."

"... Uuummm…" The girl awkwardly hummed at this, hesitating.

Orion spoke up, "You won't be able to catch the thief by now unless you can fly. Why not hire us for help?"

"Ummm… Buttt… Well…"

As Subaru remained bowing and the girl continued hesitating, the cat looked at the girl, then poked her cheek with its paw repeatedly, saying, "Hey, Lia, I don't sense any ill intent from them. Why not just take them up on their offer?"

"But Puck…"

"I don't think it's a bad idea since I can't be there for you when it gets dark. You can always use them as meat shields if anything happens, right?" The cat added with a smirk. 

Subaru raised his voice at this as he pointed his finger: "Hey! You just shoved the dangerous parts on us, didn't you?!"

"Ahh… Seriously…" The girl rubbed her forehead, then looked toward Orion and said, "However, I can't offer you anything in return."

Subaru prostrated himself and answered with a smile. "No problem!" 

It was totally the beginning of the main quest! How could they miss it?

The girl wore a serious expression as she turned to Subaru. "I'm serious. There's nothing in this for you."

"It doesn't matter. We just want to help!" Subaru quickly replied.

"... We just need a place to stay the night. How about this? We're new to the city," Orion spoke up at this moment, simply trying to say something reasonable.

"A place to stay…" the girl hummed as she entered a deep thought, then eventually slowly nodded her head. "Alright. We can do it like this."

"Yess!" Subaru did a victory pose as he pulled down his fist, then sent a thumbs up toward Orion along with a wink. Good thinking!

At this moment, the girl asked, "How can you help me find the thief then?"

And Subaru froze.

Yeah, how?

On the other hand, Orion already had a plan. He turned toward the dwarf on the ground, poked his head with his foot and said, "Hey, you. Do you know the girl that just ran past?"

He did know Felt, but he needed an excuse to bring up his knowledge.

"..." The dwarf was silent.

"Should I break some of your fingers first?" Orion added as he very lightly stepped on the dwarf's hand that he held next to his head.

"Ah!" The dwarf shrieked in a panic.

At this moment, Subaru stepped up and said in a gentle tone, "Hey. You just need to tell us if you know anything."

'Playing a bad and good cop, how cool!' Subaru secretly shook inwardly in excitement while calmly looking down at the guy on the ground.

"... Will you let us go if I tell you?" the dwarf asked, looking up at Subaru with hope.

"Sure. You just need to tell us," Subaru said.

The dwarf looked at the silver-haired girl's frowning face, Subaru's gentle expression, then at Orion's expressionless mask and after a while said, "Y-yeah, I know her. He-Her name is Felt! She's a famous thief in the slums!"

"Felt?" Subaru parroted.

"So her name is Felt!" The girl exclaimed while triumphantly hitting her palm with her fist.

"How can we find this Felt?" Orion continued his questioning, looking down at the bandit while faking a cold look.

The dwarf replied, "She lives somewhere in the slums… I don't know where, but she works with a guy called Old Man Rom! If you want to get back the stuff stolen from you, she should find it at Old Man Rom's loothouse!"

"Old Man Rom's loothouse…" the girl said quietly.

"That's an important piece of information, huh," Subaru murmured.

The dwarf looked at Orion and said, "I told you everything I know! You'll let us go now, right?"

Orion was momentarily silent, then said, "Lead us to Old Man Rom's loothouse."

"But you said you'll let us go!" the dwarf rebuked.

"I didn't say that. He did." Orion faintly smiled as he pointed toward Subaru with his thumb.

"..." The dwarf was silent.

Subaru smirked when he saw this. 'Ha! That was pretty cool.'

Meanwhile Orion looked back at the silver-haired girl and asked, "Can you use healing magic?"

After a moment's lag, the girl said, "... Yes. Why are you asking?"

"You can heal his two friends. In exchange, he will lead us to Old Man Rom's loot house," Orion said, then turned toward the little guy. "How about this?"

The dwarf bandit hesitated for a moment, then rapidly nodded his head in agreement.

Since he knew that Orion would not let him go no matter what unless he does what he says. Plus, they had a Spirit Arts user with a talking spirit on their side.

'I'll just do what they say.'

Emilia nodded at this with a satisfied expression. "Alright, we can do it like this."

…

While 'Emilia' approached the skinny guy that got punched in the stomach to heal him, Orion and Subaru remained in the back.

"Nice thinking! By the way, what was that move that you used earlier? The one with lightning?" Subaru asked quietly, prodding Orion.

After a brief consideration, Orion lightly smiled and replied, "Well… It just came to me." 

Following that, he stretched out his hand, extending out his two fingers.

'Everything is falling into place. Now the last thing we need is Reinhard on our side. Otherwise… we'll just die,' Orion secretly thought.

He only had 10% of Mordred's power. While it was more than enough to deal with some ordinary bandits, Elsa is a boss monster that's simply not supposed to be defeated on the first day!

Even when Elsa was decimated to bits by Reinhard's strike in the anime, she still regenerated and made one final attempt at an assassination of Emilia. She was extremely persistent and troublesome to deal with, so there was a low chance he could chase her away with his current strength.

At the very least, fighting her together with Emilia and Puck was too risky.

For a guarantee of success on the first attempt, he could only bring the Sword Saint with them on the trip.

'This guy has some insane senses. I hope that if I stir up the Mana in this area enough, then he might come here if he's on patrol. If not, I could only shout or think of something else.'

With this thought, a flash of flickering crimson energy shot out from his hand, forming a blazing flame sword, and in the next moment a broad white-silvery longsword appeared in Orion's hand out of nowhere, with white-crimson electric currents momentarily sparkling alongside it.

Orion grabbed [Clarent] with both hands and looked at it in concealed satisfaction.

Subaru showed a bit of surprise at first, before he nodded with an understanding expression. 'He already unlocked his inventory, huh? I'll have to figure out how to do that too.'

Meanwhile Orion gripped his sword with both hands and pointed it toward the sky.

'Mana Burst!'

He then carefully infused large amounts of Mana into Clarent.

As a result, a beam of white-crimson thunderfire-like energy covered the sword and shot out two meters into the sky.

The beam of light didn't simply shoot out from the sword's tip as a beam attack, but instead persisted as Orion continued infusing Mana into Clarent, practically extending his sword's attack range and raising his power.

Seeing this result, Orion was very satisfied.

"Damn, that's pretty cool!" Subaru smirked at the side.

He was excited. Obviously, since Orion awakened his abilities, he would as well, soon enough!

Orion forced a wry smile and remained quiet. He thought, 'Like I thought. Mordred's Mana Burst can be used like this, to extend the range of a weapon or for attacking directly. It's especially good with Clarent whose primary use is to 'amplify'. Though it does consume a lot of Mana.'

Ignoring the cost, he then poured out even more Mana and extended the range of the crackling crimson lightning blade by one more meter.

Meanwhile the two remaining thugs, 'Emilia' and 'Puck' turned to stare at the scene, the four meter long, in total, thick lightning blade, with either startled or surprised expressions.

"What kind of magic or technique is this? I've never seen something like this before," the cat spoke up as he floated a few steps closer.

Subaru looked at him. "Is Lightning Magic not common? Or is it because it's red?"

"Well, it is rare…" Puck replied. "And it's also shocking the way it's used. It's like you're combining magic and swordsmanship... Who are you?"

It was not a swordsmanship technique that simply forced mana into a sword to make it cut better or to send out a sword strike.

And it was not the combination of Spirit Arts and swordsmanship either.

It looked like complex mana manipulation that seemed to combine Fire magic and Wind magic to create a red lightning blade. It was magic.

After all, creating lightning is rare and advanced combination magic itself, but what this mysterious person created was also attached to his sword and maintained by him, created even without a chant at that. A true combination of magic and swordsmanship.

Or was it the effect of the sword?

Hearing Puck's curious questioning, Orion remained on maintaining his energy blade, glanced at him, then brushed it off, saying, "... Just Orion. I'm new around here."

Come to think of it, there is no lightning attributte in Re Zero, so what he did so casually might be shocking to most people.

"... Humu," the talking cat replied noncommittally, touching its mouth with its paw in thought as he seemed to look at Orion with some kind of suspicion.

On the side Subaru pursed his lips while hesitating. 'Should we tell them that we're from another world? Would it help with the plot of finding the person that summoned us? Well, maybe let's keep it down for now since Orionza said nothing…'

Meanwhile Orion experimented by manipulating his energy sword to make the blade thicker and wider, both to learn more about his skills and to stir up the Mana in the atmosphere.

He then canceled his lightning sword, gathered electric currents at the tip of his sword and a few seconds later released the gathered energy into the air.

As a result, the violent energy exploded, then shot downwards and hit the ground, causing a scorching hole to appear in the stone floor.

'Ups.'

"Hn." Subaru lightly grunted under his nose at the sight. He then crossed his hands behind his back and closed his eyes, beginning to concentrate hard on something.

At this time Orion had used up most of his Mana, so he felt he should stop.

"You shouldn't be damaging public property so carelessly."

As Orion turned his head, he saw 'Emilia' frowning at him after scolding. He lightly said, "Sorry. It wasn't my intention."

In truth, he also did not want to cause any mess and only a violent Mana explosion, but the lightning simply found a target to strike as he was unable to release his attack just into the air alone as he planned.

"Hn," the girl grunted, then walked to approach the large guy on the ground.

"Lia, but you're the one who made a few holes in the buildings on the way while chasing the thief," the cat spoke up with a teasing smile as he floated closer.

"But I had a reason to! It's different!" The girl rebuked with a flustered face.

"Hahaha. I'm only teasing you." The cat chuckled.

"Hum…" Lia pouted and turned away to help the unconscious person.

"She's really cute when she pouts, right?" Subaru commented, then glanced at Orion with a lewd smile.

Orion glanced back, faintly smiled, ignored Subaru and looked toward the entrance of the alley.

Reinhard… Will he come?

After a moment, the silver-haired girl stood up. "Anyway, this person seems to be fine already. He's just unconscious."

"Ah. Then we're ready to go, huh?" Subaru said.

'Emilia' slowly nodded, then turned toward the dwarf boy. "I helped your two friends. Please bring me to the loot house."

However, at this moment a new voice spoke up, "Emilia-sama, is this you?"

Everyone inside the alley turned toward the source of the voice.

Orion, like the others, saw a handsome young man standing at the entrance of the alley.

The young man was slim and tall, and wore a well-tailored neat white outfit. What caught Orion's attention the most was the young man's red hair, literally crimson-red hair.

"You are… Reinhard van Astrea?" 'Emilia' asked as if guessing.

"Re-reinhard van Astrea? The-the Sword Saint?!" The small guy muttered, swallowing down some saliva.

Slowly walking deeper into the alley, the young man gently nodded his head. "It is me. So it really is you, Emilia-sama. I apologize for not recognizing you sooner, but it's the first time I see you in person."

"The Sword Saint?" Subaru raised his eyebrows as he murmured. 'More importantly, this girl's name is Emilia, huh? Such a cute name! And this guy called her with a-sama, but she doesn't use any honorifics. She must be a big shot among the nobility, maybe a princess...'

At this time, Emilia spoke up again, "Reinhard, what are you doing here?"

Reinhard faintly pursed his lips as he looked around the scene briefly, then turned back to Emilia and said, "I sensed some magic that was released around here, so I came to check what had happened. But it seems that it was just you, Emilia-sama."

Orion noticed Reinhard glancing on the hole in the ground, but fortunately he did not seem to mind it.

"Um." Emilia nodded. "It's nothing special. You can go back, Reinhard."

Reinhard was momentarily silent as he looked at Orion and Subaru at the back, then told Emilia again, "Emilia-sama, what happened here? Is there something you need my help with?"

At this, Emilia quickly replied, stuttering: "N-no, it's fine! It's nothing! You don't need to worry about me!" 

And Subaru raised his eyebrows at this, thinking, 'Oh, man, she's totally nervous and wants him gone. Did she screw up big time?'

Reinhard smiled gently and said, "Emilia-sama, I happen to have a day off today. If there is anything, I would be glad to help."

"There's no need!" Emilia replied immediately, calling out a bit too forcefully and loudly for anyone to consider it being natural.

Reinhard hummed, then looked at Subaru who maintained a fake poker face and Orion who was slightly smiling.

However, as Reinhard looked at him, Orion saw that he seemed to freeze and then began staring at him strangely.

'What the hell is this about?' Orion thought as this continued for a few seconds and gulped a little.

He felt a little tense at that moment because for some reason Reinhard continued staring at him non-stop as if he had two heads.

Logically, there was no reason to fear Reinhard based on his knowledge, but dealing with the strongest man still slightly put him on edge since he continued to stare at him extremely strangely.

"Reinhard, is something wrong?" Emilia asked.

At this, Reinhard ignored the question and then took a few steps straight toward Orion. "Excuse me, but could I know your name?"