Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. Re:Zero is owned by Tappei Nagatsuki; familiar characters, places, and events are credited to him. Please support the official release.

Disclaimer EX: To those easily nauseated, please don't eat while reading Re:Zero fanfics like this one. Strong language is also going to be introduced, and will most likely persist in future chapters. But of course you already know that. Right?

Re:Zero ~ Uchikatsu IF

Act One: A Wrathful First Day

Scene Three: Sunlit Streets and Dark Alleys

The entire world slowed down. At least, Natsuki Subaru felt like it did.

The girl had both of her hands grabbing the collar of his tracksuit. At the same time her right leg was planted against his stomach, while her left leg was bending and leaning backward along with the rest of her body. It was simple leverage at work—she likely planned to be an organic fulcrum as her strength alone wouldn't be enough to pull him out from death's door.

He felt her fingers trembling, yet her expression showed no fear nor hesitation. Her mouth curled up in a toothy grin, small fangs appearing at its opposite sides.

Subaru found himself moving on instinct. After all, what kind of man would make a young lady do all the work? With all his might, he kicked against the ground and firmly gripped both of the girl's shoulders. In one swift movement he was 3 feet above ground with the girl below him, his head swiftly going downward and meeting the hard brick he was quickly getting irritated at.

"Sorry in advance!"

Preventing possible head injury, he pulled himself to the girl and wrapped his arms around her. A strong scent of mixed mud, blood, and fecal matter assaulted his nostrils but he didn't mind. He only focused on adjusting his body in mid-air so his left shoulder would be the first thing to hit the ground.

The girl in his arms struggled helplessly, though her muffled cries still made their way to his ears. "What are you—"

"Saving you from hurting yourself!" Subaru gritted his teeth and let inertia and gravity do their work.

Bone met brick, and he let out a strained grunt. Avoiding further damage, he started rolling away from the road and towards a crowd that parted for them.

He stopped rolling after a few seconds, his body sandwiched between the ground and the girl who saved him.

Realizing that his arms were still locked in place, he muttered an apology and let her go. "Thanks for saving me, miss."

"Ugh, don't call me that. I just did what I felt like doing." She immediately pushed herself away from him, stood up, and brushed her back. "You didn't need to do... whatever you did back there."

"Of course I didn't. The ground had your back in that trust fall."

"Jeez, I didn't mean it that way!" She outstretched her hand and knelt slightly. "I had everything under—"

"Thanks for saving me, mister!"

The young boy Subaru saved earlier went towards the bickering duo. His steps had slight limps in them but he had a huge smile on his face.

As if the boy's actions were a stage cue, the people surrounding them started clapping and cheering. It seemed like the man wearing armor in the middle of the crowd led them on, the joints of his metal protection clanking as loudly as his claps.

Subaru wordlessly gripped the girl's arm and helped himself up. He then faced the group of civilians, though his gaze was downcast at an angle in which he could see their faces without showing his own.

Their expressions were full of glee and gratitude directed toward him and the girl behind him, who seemed to be failing at looking for an escape route. Maybe they were also proud that somebody in the midst of them had a heart big enough to be willing to put himself in danger for the sake of a stranger.

It irritated him to the core.

His fists clenched and he took a deep breath.

Subaru screamed. "ARE YOU ALL OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"

An entire portion of the thoroughfare's activities skidded to a halt. Every single merchant, civilian, and streetrat in earshot looked towards where he stood. The people surrounding him stood in shock, some even halfway through their nth clap of the day.

He sighed and limped towards the boy, covering the child's ears before continuing.

"Before anything else, if there are children hearing me, would some gracious adults please have some mercy on them and volunteer to cover the ears of the innocent? Now, onto business...

"WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU ALL DOING THERE, STANDING AND DOING NOTHING?!

"You could have saved this kid ages before I did! We would all be looking at a crushed boy if it wasn't for me, damn it!

"And to think that nobody did anything after seeing me get in danger, except for a girl that's probably a quarter of your age! She could have injured herself trying to pull me out from that death trap disguised as a normal road! If somebody just moved before I did, none of this would have happ–mph!"

A pair of petite hands covered around his mouth, the still unnamed girl behind him announcing her presence and making him release the boy he held. "Shut up! I get your point, but you'll get us both in trouble!"

Subaru grunted in protest, but yielded as soon as he felt chills running down his spine. It was a no-brainer; suddenly roaring in the middle of a busy street will make certain people want to shut you up in one way or another.

He nodded and sighed in resignation. He gently removed the girl's hands from his mouth and whispered, "Sorry about that. Follow my lead."

Subaru bowed his head and walked through the crowd, which instead of parting slightly have now given him an extremely wide berth.

He chuckled to himself. His naturally angry-looking eyes may have caused a lot of misunderstandings in the past, but they did have uses that prove to be useful in certain situations.

A few moments passed, and he found himself in what seemed like a shopping district filled with stalls, carts, and wandering merchants.

The young girl who was following him from a distance seconds ago suddenly disappeared, but he didn't pay much attention to it. She saved him, and he technically saved her, so they were even. Nothing attached them, and their first encounter was objectively not good. Separating was only a matter of time.

He wandered in the district, surprised that the goods sold weren't that much different compared to the markets and convenience stores he used to shop in. Taking into consideration the fact that everything in sight were food staples, his opinion might change later once he dived deeper in this world's market.

He took out his wallet that contained a few bills, spare change, and a tiny plastic bag that had a couple of sleeping pills inside it. "This probably wouldn't work, but it's worth a try!"

He shuffled to the nearest fruit stall. A muscular man grunted at him as he approached. The two scars on his forehead made his aura much more menacing to the common man.

"That's a pretty large bag you got there, kid. Strange clothes, too. Are you a foreign merchant?"

The man pointed at Subaru's right shoulder which carried the convenience store goods he still had. After playing hero, some of the packaging burst because of how hard they hit the ground. The soda bottles were still in fine condition, until someone opens them and gets pressurized drink blasted at their face, that is.

Subaru pondered for a moment before replying, "Yeah, you could say that. Do you accept this kind of currency here?"

He took out his remaining thousand-yen bill and a few 5-yen coins from his wallet.

"You call yourself a merchant, but I've never seen that kind of money all my life..." The stall owner sighed, putting a hand to his forehead. "I don't serve broke customers here! Scram!"

"Wait just a second! The barter system should work here, right?"

"You mean berter? You must have come from the boonies or from somewhere really far away from Lugunica... all right, kid, show me what you've got."

"Berter... never mind."

It was such a slight change in both spelling and pronunciation, but Subaru still got caught off guard. He should have expected it–it was another world parallel to his, after all.

He grabbed the small pack of chocolates in his bag. Some of them were crushed, but their shape wouldn't matter too much now that they were exposed to heat for quite a long time. At best they would be soft yet delicious treats.

"How about chocola—"

"You've got chocolate?!" The burly man jumped and grabbed Subaru by the arms, a huge smile on his face. "How did you get that? Only royalty could afford that thing!"

"Ah, I screwed up." Subaru muttered to himself.

[You should be grateful about mass production companies, Subaru-san! Did you know that chocolate was only available to the rich in the past? Because of hard-working employees doing their best to serve as cogs in the machines of ginormous industrial factories, even our snacks are better than those of nobles hundreds of years ago!]

The sudden history lesson that popped out from his head made the boy smile and appreciate the life he had before. He had to adjust to the life conditions in this world now, however.

Subaru quickly made up an excuse. "I hit the jackpot where I came from. This is the last of the chocolate. They melt when heated, so they'll go bad if I still carry them. Might as well give it to a potential business partner than let them go bad, don't you think?"

"You seem to be one of the reckless ones, kid! I like that. Name's Kadomon Risch. Pleasure to do business with you." Kadomon patted Subaru's shoulder. "I could only give at most 1 gold coin or a basket of the freshest appas you could find in this district in exchange for half of your chocolate."

"My name's Natsuki Subaru. I'll take the gold coin." He reached out his hand and recieved a golden coin with the figure of a swordsman brimming with confidence engraved into it.

"I'll buy information with the other half of this chocolate pack," he continued, "What currency do you use here, and how much are they worth?"

Kadomon reached into his pockets and picked out three different coins. One was engraved with the image of a castle, another showed a hooded figure that seemed vaguely familiar, and the last was just like the coin Subaru held.

"There are four denominations of coin here, though we commonly use just these three. There's the copper coin, the silver coin, and the gold coin. Ten coppers are worth a silver, and ten silvers are worth a gold.

"Then there's the sacred gold coin, used by larger businesses or figures of authority. They're worth ten gold coins. It's etched with the symbol of the Dragon, so even having just one of it is the dream of most lowly merchants here."

"Sounds like you're not one of those merchants." Subaru grinned, noticing the small hint of disdain in the stall owner's statement.

Kadomon shrugged. "I'm more of a family man than a businessman. But enough of that! Give me that chocolate!"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Subaru put the chocolate bag on top of the appas (that he deduced were the direct equivalent of apples in this world at this point in time), which was immediately grabbed and put under the stall's shade.

"Pleasure to do business with you, Kadomon-san." Subaru bowed.

"Same here. Now scram! I don't have any more time to spare for customers who've finished their business here!"

"My starting gold ain't so bad..."

Subaru admired the single gold coin he had inside one of the city's alleys. His back was against a stone wall about ten feet tall. The grim atmosphere gave a strange sense of familiarity and comfort, and Subaru had no problem relaxing in the area.

"I should be able to replace this with 100 copper coins in a treasury somewhere, but first things first."

He stared down at the ground, his feet at their worst condition compared to the past months. He spent hours walking around barefoot, his soles scraping brick, dust, and dirt without any sort of protection. It's a miracle how they haven't started bleeding yet.

Subaru unwrapped a portion of the scarf wrapped around his neck and bit into it, tearing two foot-long pieces of cloth. He wrapped his feet with them and tied them tightly.

In under a minute, he made makeshift sandals.

"Not too shabby. Guess I'm in my element today."

"Look at what we have here. You seem to be lost, foreigner."

Three men appeared from the shadows, blocking Subaru from going out the alley.

"Give us everything you have, or you'll be sorry."

A/N:

Aside from normal excuses such as procrastination, school activities, accidentally stabbing myself while researching combat, and getting diagnosed with mild corona, I have no other words to say except sorry for the delay.

I do have some good news. I've already got material for trauma and PTSD (no thanks to that knife), and I've got the entirety of Arc 1 planned out so this won't be stopping anytime soon.

See you when I see you!