Chapter 2: Carpooling

The light inside the car had finally gotten as bright as it could be, and it blinded the entire cabin, bathing it in white light. The road the car traveled over had begun to smooth out, as no longer was the suspension jostled around. With it, the loud rumbling inside began to quiet down as well.

The change was rather odd to feel. It was so smooth, startlingly so, like he had driven off a cliff and he couldn't help but slightly anticipate a rough landing. What was irritating about it though, was that he could not bring his eyes to look forward, as the light blinding him in the cabin was still too intense.

The sensation continued for what felt like the longest few seconds of his life, but all of YN's attention was being occupied by the feeling of the hand on his shoulder.

But before he knew it, the hand was gone, and as soon as it was, the light all around him began to dim, until it finally became a more warm light, —like sunshine almost. It was no longer the bright scalding white of before.

With his eyes still shut, he started to feel the car rumble.

Was the car back on the road?

No.

This rumbling was much too consistent to be natural. Bricks maybe.

A cobblestone road.

He struggled to open his eyes, which before closing them were still used to the darkness of the night before he had to look away from when this intense light began.

His vision, while blurry, started to come back through. Looking ahead, YN could begin to see an area that was well lit, as well as voices, like he was standing in a crowd. They all sounded alarmed.

Gasping in surprise. Shrieking. Yelling things like "Look out!" "Get out of the way!" "What is that?!"

As his sight cleared up further, what appeared to be a horse's carriage could be made out, and he was approaching it very quickly.

YN slammed the brakes with all he could and jerked the wheel.

Narrowly avoiding totaling his car, he instead careened into what his split-second vision perceived as a stack of wooden barrels and crates, shattering and destroying many before the brakes finally put an end to the car's destructive slide.

?: My inventory! Oh this cannot be!

Despite having just crashed into a bunch of things, YN's mind, fuzzy with confusion and adrenaline, had his eyes begin darting around like a deer in headlights, trying to understand how his scenery had changed to what it was.

YN: Is… Is it day time?

Despite everything else, he rolled down his window and looked up at the sky. It was slightly cloudy, but otherwise, it was a bright, sunny day.

…How?

In his stupor as the change in time, an older woman came running into his vision from the other side of the horse carriage YN saw just moments before his crash.

Woman: Oh dear! It's all ruined! That metal box must have come flying off one of the passing ground dragon carriages!

A rather rotund man, wearing a black apron and scruffy clothes made his way around the same way the woman had come from.

Man: None of that matters now! Come honey, we need to find whatever blithering idiot of a carriage driver lost his load and demand compensation for his failure to secure his product!

Woman: Oh but some of this might be salvageable—!

Man: —We haven't the time! Quickly! We must find him!

Paying YN himself absolutely no mind, as if they hadn't been aware his car was occupied to begin with, these two rather oddly dressed people departed into the busy avenue of bustling traffic. All of it being carriages as well.

Do… Do they not realize that I'm the one who crashed here? It's like they didn't even recognize that this is a car or somethi—

—Except, as YN thought more on what they said, one term stood out to him the most despite all the odd scenery around him.

'Ground dragons?' 'Dragons?'

At this spoken revelation, he opened his door and got out, first observing the damage to his car as his mind snapped back to more grounded and logical concerns as he did.

Thankfully, the damage appeared to be the car shoving these barrels and crates with it's bumper, where most of the destruction to them was caused by them toppling over. Their own fall had done more damage than his actual impact did, as only the bumper had a new ding and scratch to accompany the many that were on it already.

But after he saw this and rectified in his head it hadn't ruined his car, it was his ears that began to focus on all that was new around him.

It was that of the audible environment one might experience in a large city, despite him being on a lonesome road, far from anywhere only moments ago.

The sounds of mid day hustle and bustle of an urban area.

He then turned to see what was behind his car.

Before him was a wide street, filled with many carriages. But—

Those aren't horses pulling them, but rather, large beasts. Lizards? No, dragons.

The woman's voice from only a moment ago echoed in his head. "Ground dragons" she had said.

YN couldn't believe his eyes. Actual dragons. Some on two legs, some on four.

Some blue, or green, or a display of many other colors.

His attention turned to the many passersby walking around through, as where some were staring at him, some had ignored him entirely, and were scavenging the wreckage of his crash.

They all wore elaborate clothes, robes, cloth and hats. It was very fantasy, —very… otherworldly.

YN's attention was then drawn to the buildings with their architecture, the stone pavement of the roads, and finally, the squeak of something on the other side of his car.

Even with all these strange and out-of-place things all around him, this noise near his car had gotten most of his attention. To it, he walked around only to witness what appeared to be some street urchins straight from the last century or two by how ragged they appeared, trying to take the mirror off his passenger door.

YN: Oi! Get your hands off that.

The urchin dropped his hands to his side.

Urchin: B-b-but I found it first!

YN: Yeah but it's mine! Now scam, all of you.

Even in the face of all oddity and strangeness, YN's nerve remained solid enough to stand his ground in this situation, but quickly, he began to feel that nerve question itself, as a small crowd had begun to gather around him and his car.

"What in the world is that?"

"I've never seen anything like it."

What do you suppose it does?"

As he looked upon those who were starting to congregate here, the only thing occupying YN's mind was that not all of the people surrounding him and his car now, were human.

He observed many cat-like, lizard-like, and all other sorts of half or part-humans mixed among the humans in the crowd.

Although he'd never seen it before, he could tell such things weren't costumes or make-up.

The ears, the fur, the scales, the eyes, the hands, and the faces were all too authentic. Before him, in some way, were a large number of people who truly were not one-hundred percent human.

Despite how keenly fascinated and enthralled he silently found himself at this, what finally shook him from his trance of deep thought, was that some of the nearby onlookers were beginning to be brave enough to approach his car, and run their hands along it.

"It's smooth! And cold!"

"Is that whole thing metal? It must weigh as much as a ground dragon!"

"The paint is so shiny I can see myself in it!"

Truthfully, it was not that shiny of paint, but these people must have never seen such a thing before

To their fascination though, YN circled around the front of his car, and got into the driver seat.

Something is telling me if I stay around in one spot for too long, this attention I'm attracting isn't going to be a good thing. I… I gotta get moving to somewhere. Anywhere.

Inserting the keys into the ignition, YN clicked them over, and let the car be started up again.

"Oh, it roared!" One young woman said as the crowd took a collective half step back from the sound of the motor turning over.

"Look papa! It lights up! Wow!"

Another child, holding their parent's hand, remarked at this from YN simply pressing the brake, and putting the car into reverse, causing the corresponding lights on the back to flicker on.

Instinctually, he waited for everyone to move now that he was set to move the car, yet the crowd stayed still.

To this, YN voiced his concern.

YN: I'd like to refrain from hitting anything or anyone else. Can you all please step to the side so I can be on my way?

The crowd stayed though, despite his plea, memorized by what they were seeing.

"It moves! Do you think he controls it?"

"Oh look, smoke, do you think he's got a fireplace inside it?"

Fed up with the crowd, YN did the only thing he thought he could do to this.

*HONK!*

Sounding the car's horn, this loud noise startled the crowd enough that a hole opened up for him to sneak his car through to allow him out of this deadend he had gotten himself down.

With the car rolling down the side of the road, he was now faced with pedestrian traffic. Even in strange worlds it seemed, proper traffic etiquette would include not operating a car on the sidewalk. Nonetheless, YN was struggling to get his car onto the busy road, considering no one here knew what the blinking light on the closer half this moving metal structure meant to signal, and his car itself was much shorter than the high carriages pulled by their even larger dragons all around him.

YN: Come-on, please let me merge.

Mumbled to himself, he kept his head looking over his shoulder, praying for a gap in carriages that he could sneak into. In the confusion of his attempt to merge into the oncoming ground dragon convoy, YN had failed to pay attention to what was in front of him, and subsequently hit something with a 'thunk'.

YN slammed the brakes and looked at the person who had come to inadvertently sit upon his hood. Thankfully it was a very slow bump, just faster than this oblivious person's walking speed. But why had this person not noticed the very foreign sound of the car?

Everyone else around this person is fascinated with the car, why not him?

The person he had just bumped into jumped off the hood and spun around with a great alarm on his face.

Guilty to having hit him, and surely was about to get an earful, YN held one hand up in surrender to show this, and used his other to roll down the window next to him in an attempt to voice his apology.

Something tells me car insurance is worthless wherever I am.

Yet, no sooner than did both of their gazes meet from through the glass windshield they saw each other through, the sight of the other to them both definitely made things more confusing.

While YN hadn't realized it in the second, this other person, recently struck, recognized the person who had just hit him as another wayward traveler like he was. —Both from lands very, very far away.

The person YN had bumped into was a boy, around sixteen to eighteen years of age by his initial impression, —definitely someone who should be close to graduating school. What made him stand out greatly from all these people around him though, was his black and white, with orange accents, track suit.

What had solidified his foreign origin over everyone and everything else around him, was the partially full plastic convenience store bag he had in his hand.

Each recognizing one another as foreign in this foreign place as they were, this boy, with his black hair and eyes, stared back at YN in his car, and vice-versa.

I never saw this show up in my last two attempts… What's it doing here this time?

As the black haired boy though this to himself, he realized the two of them were essentially having another crowd begin to form all around, as a few of the more enthusiastic from before were catching up to YN.

Swallowing his apprehension, this boy walked up to YN's window that he had rolled down, but could only manage to awkwardly stare at each other. Not as if trying to size one up versus themselves, it was only natural for both of them to be assessing truly if they were a potential friend or foe in this foreign land.

They remained silent, until finally, they both spoke at the same time;

Boy/YN: —Y-You're from—!

Silent to each other from that, it was YN that balked up the nerve to ask.

YN: Earth, right?

Boy: Yeah. But uhh, you don't look like you're from the twenty-first century…

YN: I am, don't worry.

Waving his smartphone at the boy to reassure him of that, YN could guess why he might doubt him.

YN: Don't let the car's age fool you.

In an almost relieved expression, the boy seemingly relaxed at that.

Boy: You could have fooled me. This thing looks straight out of some decades old undercover-cop day time television show.

YN: …I'll uhh, take that as a compliment?

Boy: You better!

Speaking as if he'd found a new friend to sit next to in the cafeteria, the boy finished his statement with a thumbs up in YNs face.

With that though, came another brief silence of awkwardness over them both.

YN: So uhh, 'birds of feather?'

YN suggested this by pointing his thumb to his side, over to the passenger seat, all in an effort of inviting this fellow wayward traveler into his car. While he was a stranger, logic might suggest they should probably stick together, as they clearly both were recently arrived foreigners here in this land.

Boy: 'Fly together..?' Yeah.

With a smile to his offer, he nodded, and moved to enter in on the opposite side of the car, and watched as a crowd from where this car had come from was getting closer to where they were. As YN also saw it in his mirrors, he reached over across his cabin and unlocked the door to let this fellow traveler in before others got too close and near, and might even attempt to enter too.

Entering into the car, the boy sat as stiff as a board in the passenger seat after locking the door, letting the bag he carried sit on the floor mat of the car between his tracksuit-ed legs.

YN now tried to juggle the tasks of keeping the conversation going, as well as taking the opportunity he saw to merge into the traffic of the road. Getting up to speed, he voiced his question to the black-haired boy.

YN: So, uhh, where are you from?

Boy: Japan.

Surprised to hear even though the appearance matched, YN nodded, acknowledging what he heard.

YN: Oh. That's pretty far from where I'm from.

Boy: Well, at least you know of it. Uhh, what's your name by the way?

YN: YN.

YN said, extending his right hand for a shake while his eyes were still on the road ahead, concentrating on not hitting any dragons, or being hit himself.

To his offer, the boy next to him slapped the reached out hand enthusiastically as he took the offered handshake, introducing himself as he did.

Subaru: Subaru! —Natsuki Subaru.

Upon hearing his name, YN couldn't help but furrow his brow at the one familiar word entwined into the passenger's name.

YN: 'Subaru?' Like the car compan—?

Subaru: —There!

Before YN could get his inquiry out, Subaru leaned forward in his seat, pointing at something higher above through the windshield.

Subaru: —See that blonde girl running on top of the carriages! Follow her!

To Subaru's call to charge ahead against the yellow and black blur that was leaping from canvas-covered-carriage to canvas-covered-carriage, YN could only comply as he tried to speed up and pass the carriage ahead of him like this was normal highway traffic.

YN: Uhh, okay. Sure.

With Subaru's eyes locked in on trying to keep this blur spotted, YN wasn't afforded an answer to why he should be doing this, so he of course asked.

YN: They uhh… A friend of yours?

Subaru: In a way.

His gaze not letting this figure escape, Subaru responded in somewhat curt, but motivated way.

Subaru: She's got something I need to get a hold of.

YN: Fair enough.

Try as YN might though, the rules of keeping to one side of one's own half of the road to pass, didn't translate well to this world unlike his own spoken language at least. It didn't help either, that this was equivalent to rush-hour traffic, only rather than a city congested with other cars, it was full of ground dragons and their bulky, hard to maneuver carriages. Between being cut off from by the carriage drivers not seeing the low profile of the car, and spooking ground dragons with a motorized moving metal box, they quickly lost track of the blonde girl they were supposedly supposed to keep track of.

With a sense of defeat, the duo diverted onto a much less occupied avenue, and parked to stop and reconvene their, —or rather, Subaru's strategy.

After an awkward silence where neither of them really knew the right thing to say to the other, given their own limited knowledge of this new place, YN broke the silence, moving his hands up to gesture to the world around them.

YN: So, I guess you could say we're not in Kansas anymore.

Subaru: And no yellow brick road to follow.

Subaru replied, elbow on the armrest of his door, his fist pressed to his face, looking out the passenger window.

After a few more moments of silence where he seemed to be thinking diligently on what to say, Subaru chose to speak first this time.

Subaru: Have you been here long? —In this world, I mean?

Only able to blink twice in first response to this sudden inquisition, YN first sought clarity to what Subaru meant.

YN: This… 'world?' —I-I started to get the feeling that was the case, don't get me wrong, but you're positive this is a completely different world? Entirely separate from the old one?

Gesturing himself now to their surroundings, Subaru acted like he needed to convince his driver of this still for some reason.

Subaru: Just look around you. Where on earth could this be?

Sighing at how harsh he really had to put it for himself to understand the depth of it, YN couldn't hold any animosity towards Subaru for that. He was right, and he'd need to come to terms with that sooner or later.

YN: You're right, you're right… But I guess to answer your question, maybe only a few minutes before I bumped into you. —Which, I guess I should say sorry for.

Waving away the concern, Subaru brushed off the circumstances of their meeting as he was more focused on contemplating YN's answer.

At such a dismissal though, it freed his conscious to think upon more or less the same thing Subaru was. A moment later, YN himself replied with an air of speculation as he tilted his head up, looking outward from his own door's window to the strange world around them both, and crossed his arms as he did.

YN: I should probably ask you the same question then; how long have you been here? You seem to be a bit more familiar with this place then I am, albeit, I can sorta tell your own expertise is limited too.

Concluding his evaluation, he turned to face Subaru with a seriously puzzled look on his face.

YN: Not to mention, you already know this blonde, acrobat-thief girl, '—Felt' I think you said her name was? Anyway, besides all that—

Turning his gaze down to the plastic bag that occupied Subaru's lap, it seemed to hold some sort of corn potage chip, and a cup of what he assumed was instant soup or ramen.

YN: —you obviously just got back from a convenience store. And I don't think there's any stores around here that sell that sorta stuff…

YN, somberly saying this, pointed out it was undeniable that Subaru couldn't have been in this world much longer than he himself had if these belongings were in such good condition.

In reply, Subaru gave YN a puzzled look back, but answered his question nonetheless.

Subaru: Well, I was hungry after a long day of gaming in the dark.

Subaru replied back, saying this like it were only a matter of fact, crossing his arms and holding his head turned up as he did.

A second later though, Subaru barked back with an addition to his answer, leaning back and away from YN so he could fully extend a finger of accusation right tohis face.

Subaru: Hey what's with third-degree here, huh?! What does my bag of junk food and my NEET-behavior confession have to do with anything!?

YN: Because—

Bluntly replying to what Subaru's outcry was about, YN reached back to the backseat of this car, and pulled a bag of his own up to the front, filled with the food he also had just bought.

YN: —so did I.

Almost as if for a moment seeing how different the things YN got were versus his own, and about to critique it, the black-haired boy quickly saw the bigger picture of what his driver was getting at. With a hand to his chin, and a concerned look upon his face, he posed the beginnings of another question to him.

Subaru: Did you start to feel dizzy or tired a few moments before—

YN: —Before seeing a huge white light? Yes. Although that could be completely unrelated.

Subaru: No, no, that sounds like what someone would see right before they got teleported to a brand new world. Mine was a little less spectacular though… But hey, why do you think it could be unrelated?

YN: I'm only running on a few hours of sleep, and I've been awake for almost a full day.

To this, YN turned away from facing Subaru, and grabbed onto his steering wheel, placing his hands in the textbook ten-and-two spots upon it, and gave a thousand-yard state out of thre windshield and out onto the horizon.

YN: —Driving. The entire time. Just. Driving. Non-stop driving.

As Subaru could tell it must have been taxing on him, YN snapped himself out of it and turned to look at him once again.

YN: Did you also see… her?

To his question, Subaru was silent for a moment before responding. Almost like he would be seen as crazy if he truthfully answered, he did after some hesitation.

Subaru: …Silver-hair?

YN, nodding to his accurate and tell-tale description, answered with a question of his own.

YN: —And deep purple eyes? Almost like amethysts?

Subaru: Yep.

Acknowledging this while putting a hand to his chin and nodding, Subaru closed his as if agreeing with a philosophical take he too appreciated. Only a second later though—

Subaru: —And didn't she have the cutest, most angelic face and attitude you'd ever seen! Right!?

With twinkles in his eyes and his hands rubbing against his face, Subaru all of a sudden began to gush over the description of this person.

Subaru: Just the way her kind and caring attitude can sway your soul and—

YN: —Uhh, I was going to say "overtly malevolent aura" and "speech pattern like a broken record."

Cutting off his fellow wayward traveling companion, his stark difference in how he described them versus Subaru got him to snap back to reality from his idealized utopia he had begun to hallucinate from.

Subaru: Uhh, to that, I've gotta say I think we're talking about two different people.

To this, Subaru returned his hand to his chin, and the puzzled look to his furrowed brow.

Subaru: Wait, if you've only been in this world for mere moments before running into me, —between that time and your arrival, when did you meet her?

YN: Right before I left the old world.

Subaru: What?

Not expecting such an answer, he sought more information.

Subaru: W-Where was she?

Again, YN was able to bluntly answer Subaru's inquiry by just bringing up the rear seat of his car.

YN: Just back there. She started showing up in my mirror at first, but then actually showed up in person, asking me over and over again if I could 'help her beloved' or something along those lines.

Subaru: That really doesn't sound like the same girl I met. —But I only met her after I got here, not before.

More or less at an impasse in what they could gather from each other's venture into this world, YN shrugged his shoulders in his seat.

YN: Well, now what?

Subaru: Well, since I don't think you have anyplace else to go, we should probably go drive into the slums near the edge of the Capitol and ask around to see where Felt could be hold-up. I have an almost-perfect idea of where she actually lives, so I can guide us in the right direction, at least.

Without any reason to not go along with Subaru, still, as YN put the car back into gear to head back onto the main avenue they had come from, he speculated as to what the black-haired boy might want with this 'Felt' person as he listened to the direction he rattled off.

It's strange he knows all this from not being here much longer then I have… Not to mention, he also dodged my question about that very same subject earlier.

About halfway to their destination, YN's unanswered question had finally bugged him enough, and the hesitation he felt of re-asking had been overpowered by curiosity. Navigating through traffic while following the dictated directions, he cleared his throat before speaking as he carefully passed a slow moving carriage ahead.

YN: So… We got a little off-track there, and I was uhh, still wondering, how long did you say you've been here already? —In regards to being summoned to this world.

To his question, Subaru hesitated to answer.

Do I tell him the truth? I can tell he's already skeptical at best by now. But can I trust him? Something tells me having his cooperation might be useful… He has a car after all. Should I be honest or only count this Loop? Neither would technically be a lie. Subaru thought.

Subaru: An hour or two before you did I would guess…

Subaru cast his gaze out his window while he answered, keeping his response vague just incase YN wanted to call—.

YN: —Bullshit.

Subaru: —hk!

Immediately, he was met with fervently opposition.

YN: How do you meet this silver-haired elf woman, get robbed by this Felt girl, and then learn roughly where she lives in the course of a few hours and then when I roll up, you look just as fresh off the boat as I do.

To say the least, Subaru hadn't anticipated YN's perception to be so high.

Subaru: Well… You see… It's like this—

Elaborating on about all that he had encountered, —at least in his most recent Loop, Subaru told YN of the other silver-haired elf girl he had ran into, and that she had apparently told him her name was one thing, and then later, had accused him of antagonizing her by calling her that, saying that the name she had originally told him was akin to a curse.

He also went on about how his current goal was chasing after the blonde thief-girl known as 'Felt' because had stolen an insignia from that silver-haired girl, and of course too, about his near-death experience with a group of things in a back alley, and how he had been saved by a knight.

When asked plainly "Why?" he felt so indebted to this girl, Subaru explained it was complicated, and YN just had to accept that part.

There's no use in trying to understand that. Clearly he has the hots for this girl. I can't say I really understand being infatuated at first glance, but it explains why he wants to get her insignia back for her so desperately.

Still, there were gaps in Subaru's retelling, and YN went straight to exploiting the biggest one.

YN: —All that still doesn't explain how you know where Felt lives.

His hands up in near surrender, he couldn't hide the nervous expression on his face.

Subaru: I-I only have a rough idea…

YN: And how'd you narrow it down to just that?

The longer this went on, the more it felt like the cabin of this car was becoming an interrogation room.

Subaru: Well uhh, I uhhh asked Reinhard about it. —A-And I told him that she had said to me 'live strong' before she dashed off, and he said that that's a very common saying in a certain area of the slums.

Managing to perfectly waltz his way into connecting dots that shouldn't otherwise fit together, Subaru left no room for a reasonable doubt to remain unless YN wanted to simply just discredit the black-haired boy altogether.

I'm really glad I didn't bring up the loot-house, I don't know how I could have explained that one. Subaru contemplated, slightly admiring his own verbal gymnastics.

Thinking it unwise to damage any proverbial trust he might have in the sole person that he knew shared somewhat similar origins as himself, YN didn't pry anymore into Subaru's past.

After a while of driving into the rougher, outer-skirts of this massive city, the two wayward traveling companions found a place to pull over, conceal the car and continue their search on foot so as to not stand out too distinctly in this area. Because of this, Subaru was able to more easily ask-about to some of the more friendly looking locals about Felt, and they were given better directions as to where she was currently calling home.

Driving a short distance from there, they came upon a dilapidated shack, where Subaru again left the car to investigate while YN stayed to guard the car this time, given there wasn't a place to conceal it out of the way from prying eyes.

No sooner than did Subaru poke his head into the ramshackle shack, did the same blonde-girl YN had only seen as a carriage-top blurry glimpse came from another nearby alley, and began attacking the one snooping about in her dwelling.

It had happened so fast, YN hadn't the opportunity to get out and run over before the shack was destroyed, and Subaru was trapped in the collapse. With a sword pointed at his chest by Felt now, he was finally able to have a dialogue with her despite the circumstance.

Having come to an understanding, Subaru escorted her back to the car YN was still waiting in.

To this, YN reached over to unlock his opposite-side door, and grabbed the lever on the passenger seat, allowing it to be leaned towards the dash and moved up, exposing the backseat for a third occupant.

Subaru: Here, just hop in back there and we'll be off. We don't have much time to waste.

Taking a glance at YN, the car, and then back to Subaru, the short girl with bright-red eyes barked back at the one holding the door open for her.

Felt: Wait a minute. What is this thing, huh? This doesn't look like any carriage I've ever seen. —Are you guys kidnapping me?!

Subaru: Don't be silly, now get in.

—He said, practically throwing her in the backseat. Before she could kick back against him, Subaru pushed the chair back upright, and slid it back to hinder any ease of egress Felt might have retained should she be determined enough, and sat back inside the car himself as well.

Turning to view their new fellow commuter, YN tried to put on a welcoming smile and raise a hand to try and break any further hostile intentions Felt might garner from being in here.

Now viewing him for the first time, he tried to make a good first impression.

YN: H-Hello, Felt-chan. My name is YN. I guess we're both heading the same way, so why not hitch a ride, ya know? I can take us almost anywhere with this uhhh, machine, so no worries!

At his attempt of reassurance, he actually managed to get Felt's expression to soften a bit, but any progress beyond that was cut short by Subaru protesting his choice of words.

Subaru: Hey! Who's side are you on here?! She just got through trying to lop my head off!

In mild frustration to his unkeen behavior, YN wrapped his arm around Subaru's shoulder, and brought him into a front seat strategy huddle, but made sure to use a voice loud enough for Felt to still hear in the backseat.

YN: Ya know, if this girl has something you need to get, and you're trying to get it back in a diplomatic fashion, wouldn't it make sense to be kind at the very least? Eh, Natsuki-san?

To how he addressed Subaru, akin to how a parent might scold a child, the black-haired boy stayed silent for a moment longer before pushing YN's arm off him and sitting back in his chair, sighing as he did.

Subaru: You're right, you're right…

Closing his eyes and crossed his arms, and nodded.

Subaru: Felt, would you please give us directions to the loot-house from here?

Subaru had said it almost in a mocking tone, one that wasn't lost on YN but was just vague enough to not be perceived by Felt. Thankfully though, his kinder words prevailed here as the main quality of his request, and Felt obliged.

Felt: Well, first you need to head down to that crossroad and take a left where that tall building with the shop cover is, —woah woah!

With motion being felt in the cabin from the car turning over to start its engine and begin motion, Felt, not wearing a seatbelt out of pure otherworldly ignorance, clung with white knuckles to the back of each of their front seats.

Felt: A-Are we moving?! We're actually moving!? How is that possible without a ground dragon?! A-And what's that rumbling sound?!

YN had put the car in gear and began rolling down the empty street to the tune of Felts directions. Subaru turned in his chair to face Felt and reassured her.

Understandably, Felt was confused and definitely caught off guard by the car's innate ability to move itself about. To her unsteady words though, Subaru turned around in his seat, and tried to calm the poor girl down.

Subaru: Don't worry, this contraption will get us there quicker than even if we had the fastest ground dragon you can get your hands on.

With a forced wink, Subaru got Felt to continue giving them directions, albeit with a sense of bewilderment and tense curiosity to the situation she had found herself in. Between her short, quickly spoken phases of "Turn left here," or "Take a right," or "Down that street," she tried to sneak in questions about the vessel she was in to the driver like; how it worked, what made it move, how they had come into the possession of such a thing.

Needless to say, it wouldn't be long before they reached their destination.