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The van advanced through the stone streets with a deep, heavy roar, far too modern for that world of ancient walls, slanted rooftops, and superstitious stares. Link did not know where he was going. That was the most humiliating part of all. He had driven off in front of Subaru as if he had a clear direction, as if his refusal were firm, as if abandoning Felt and old Rom were a decision already made and not cowardice disguised as survival. However, as soon as he left the market behind and Subaru's desperate voice was lost beneath the noise of the engine, the impulse that had kept him moving began to unravel inside his chest.
I'm not a hero, he repeated silently as he turned into a narrower street, forcing several pedestrians to press themselves against the walls to avoid the wheels of that black monster. I'm not a hero. I'm nobody. I don't owe this world anything. I don't owe Subaru anything. I don't owe anything to a blonde thief I met less than a day ago. I don't owe anything to an old giant who sells stolen things in a miserable hole. I don't have to die for them.
The problem was that his memory did not obey.
Every time he tried to convince himself, Felt's image returned with unbearable clarity. Not as a warrior, nor as a heroine, nor as a perfect victim. She returned as she was: a skinny girl, with a distrustful gaze, torn clothes, and sharp teeth, pretending the world could not hurt her because admitting it would give it too much advantage. She returned with the candies in her hand, with her eyes shining for one second before trying to hide it beneath a grimace of pride. She returned covered in blood, screaming for Rom while the woman in black smiled.
Link gritted his teeth.
"It's not my problem," he murmured, but the sentence sounded weak even to him.
He turned into an alley with too much force. One of the van's wheels climbed over the stone edge of a nonexistent sidewalk, and the chassis growled. Link slammed on the brakes, striking the steering wheel with both hands. This time he did not break it. He had learned to contain the strength, though not the rage.
The alley smelled of dampness, garbage, and rancid grease. It was narrower than the main avenues, trapped between old wooden walls and blackened stone. A couple of barrels lay against a corner; on one of them, a skinny gray cat opened one eye, observed him with absolute indifference, and went back to sleep as if a vehicle from another world had not just parked in front of it. Link let out a bitter, almost hysterical laugh.
"Even the cat has more mental stability than I do."
He turned off the engine. The silence that followed fell over him like a heavy blanket. Without the van's roar, the capital sounded again like what it was: distant footsteps, muffled voices, cart wheels over stone, some vendor's shout lost beyond the buildings. Link rested his forehead against the steering wheel and closed his eyes.
Leave. Just leave.
He could do it. He could still do it. He had a van. He had a box of weapons in the back. He had food, some shopping bags, objects from his world that would surely be worth a fortune if he found someone willing not to kill him for them. He could leave the capital, hide the van, sell things little by little, learn the written language, figure out where the hell he was and how to survive. It was the logical decision. The adult decision. The decision of someone who did not want to see his intestines outside his body again.
Then Subaru shouted again in his memory.
Felt dies too!
Link's eyes snapped open and he struck the steering wheel again, this time with less control. The horn sounded in the alley with a metallic howl that made the cat leap off the barrel and provoked a chorus of curses farther ahead.
"What the hell was that?!"
"That weird noise again! I told you this day was cursed!"
"First the red-haired knight and now this. Today the capital smells like trouble!"
Link lifted his head.
Three figures appeared at the end of the alley. It did not take him long to recognize what kind of people they were, because that type existed in every world: shoulders hunched from the habit of intimidating, dirty smiles, eyes searching for weakness, hands too close to small weapons. One was tall and broad, with the face of someone who had lost more fights than he admitted. Another was thinner, with a knife hidden under his sleeve. The third had a nervous expression and a short club in his hand, as if he needed to remind himself that he was dangerous.
The three stopped when they saw the van. Their gazes moved from the vehicle to Link, from Link to the vehicle, and then back to Link again.
"What's that thing supposed to be?" asked the broad one.
Link got out of the van very slowly.
Not because he wanted to intimidate them. Not at first. He did it because part of his brain was still calculating whether that situation was real or whether he was going to wake up again with the steering wheel in his hands and a tree in front of the windshield. His boots touched the alley cobblestones. His clothes were still torn, stained with forest dust, and his face must have looked like someone who had slept fifteen minutes inside a tomb.
The thief with the knife smiled when he saw him.
"Would you look at that. Another weird vagrant."
"I don't have money from this world," Link said, without enthusiasm.
"We'll decide that."
"You're not understanding," Link replied, closing the van door without taking his eyes off them. "I'm having a shitty day, and you look like exactly the kind of people who turn a bad day into an international incident."
The thieves looked at each other.
"What?"
Link sighed.
"Forget it. Leave me alone."
The broad one spat on the ground and took a step forward.
"You're not in a position to give orders. A few minutes ago, some damn knight stuck his nose where nobody called him, but he's not here anymore. So lower your attitude, hand over what you have, and maybe we won't finish breaking your face."
Knight. Red-haired. A few minutes ago.
Link did not understand the context, and he did not have the energy to try. The only thing he understood was that those three bastards had recently had a bad experience and had decided to compensate for it by choosing him as a target. At another time, perhaps he would have tried to talk. Perhaps he would have raised his hands. Perhaps he would have thought that three against one was an idiocy worth escaping from.
But that day he had already had his throat cut.
That day he had already fled from Subaru.
That day fear had accumulated so much in his chest that it needed to come out somewhere.
The thief with the club was the first to move. He took a quick step toward him and raised the weapon with the intention of striking his shoulder or head. Link reacted without thinking. It was not a clean technique. There was no elegance. There was no martial stance or movement worthy of a combat school. It was an ugly, brusque, direct response, born from the street, from rage, and from that desperate violence that does not seek to look good, only to end the problem before the problem ends you.
Link entered the distance before the club could fully descend. With his left hand he caught the thief's wrist, and with his right, he drove a dry blow into his stomach. The man expelled all the air with a miserable noise. Link grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the side wall, not hard enough to kill him, but enough for the club to fall from his hand and his legs to stop obeying him.
The second thief tried to attack him from the side. Link turned his body and drove an elbow into his face with such force that the man made a clumsy turn before falling to his knees. Blood immediately burst from his nose. The third, the broad one, roared and charged him, trying to grab him by the waist. Link took the impact head-on, stepped back barely half a step, and, to the thief's surprise, did not fall. The man tried to push him again. Link looked at him from very close, feeling the other man's strength crash against his body like a wave against a rock.
"I'm not in the mood," he said.
He headbutted him.
The sound was dry. The thief staggered backward, bringing both hands to his forehead. Link did not give him time to recover. He advanced with a low kick to the leg, then a punch to the chest that sent him crashing into some barrels. One of them split under his back, spilling dirty water across the ground.
The thief with the knife, with his nose broken and his eyes full of humiliated fury, drew the blade from his sleeve.
"Damn monster!"
Link saw him coming.
Perhaps, if he had been more afraid at that moment, he would have tried to dodge. But he was tired. Tired of running, tired of screaming, tired of dying, tired of not understanding what was happening. So when the thief lunged with the knife toward his abdomen, Link did not move enough. He only lowered his gaze, as if observing a scene that did not fully belong to the present.
The blade struck his stomach.
It did not enter.
The metal bent first, with a brief and sharp screech, and then snapped into two pieces that fell onto the alley cobblestones.
The thief froze, still holding the useless handle.
Link did too.
For one second, the entire alley seemed to forget how to breathe.
Link slowly lowered his gaze toward his torn shirt. The tip of the knife had touched his skin. There was no cut. No blood. Not even a mark. The memory of Elsa splitting him open imposed itself all at once, and the contradiction made him nauseous. An ordinary knife had just broken against his body, but that woman's blades had torn him apart as if he were normal flesh. That only meant one terrible thing: he was not invincible. He was only harder to kill for the wrong people.
He lifted his eyes toward the thief.
The man went pale.
"I... I didn't..."
Link ripped the broken handle out of his hand and threw it to the ground.
"Run."
He did not have to repeat it.
The thief stumbled backward, crashed into the companion who was trying to stand, and both began to flee with a mixture of screams and curses. The broad one got up with difficulty, still dizzy from the headbutt, saw Link standing in the middle of the alley with his torn shirt, unharmed body, and an expression that promised no mercy, and decided dignity could rot on its own. He ran after the other two.
Link remained there, breathing heavily.
The gray cat peeked out again from another barrel, evaluated the result of the fight, and meowed as if approving the show.
"Don't start," Link told it.
The cat left.
Link placed one hand against the alley wall. The adrenaline began to empty out of his body and left room for something else: clarity. Cruel, annoying, inevitable. He looked toward the van. Not toward the driver's seat, but toward the rear.
The black metal of the vehicle was dirty with forest dust. The rear compartment was still closed. Inside was the box. The same box that had condemned him in his world. The merchandise his boss had used him for, the reason he had ended up kidnapped by criminals before being thrown into that nightmare. Weapons. A box full of weapons. Things that should not be in that world. Dangerous, horrible things, created to kill at a distance without looking too closely.
He had told himself he would not go back. He had told himself it was not his problem. But now the thought appeared with unpleasant logic.
He had weapons.
He had a van.
He had a body that broke ordinary knives and split trees.
Maybe he could not defeat Elsa. Maybe that woman was still a monster beyond anything he could understand. But perhaps he did not need to defeat her. Perhaps he only needed to get Felt out of the path. Perhaps he only needed to arrive earlier. Perhaps he only needed to prevent her from being in the same place as that madwoman dressed in black.
Link closed his eyes and let out a short, bitter laugh full of hatred toward himself.
"You're an idiot," he murmured. "You're an idiot, an animal, a clown with a license to suffer. You left five minutes ago swearing you wouldn't go back, and now you're looking for excuses to throw yourself into the slaughterhouse again."
No one answered.
That made it worse.
He passed both hands over his face, breathed deeply, and looked toward the alley exit. Subaru had spoken of the Loot House. In the previous loop, they had reached it by following clues from the slums. Felt had the insignia. Rom was connected to her. Street children knew things. That much he remembered. That world could be absurd, but poverty worked the same everywhere: adults pretended not to see, thieves hid, children heard everything, and a bag of candy could open more doors than a threat.
Link returned to the van and opened the door.
"I'm only going to get her out of there," he told himself as he climbed in. "Only that. I'm not going to fight Elsa. I'm not saving the day. I'm not teaming up with Subaru. I find Felt, get her away, and leave. That's all."
He started the engine.
The roar filled the alley like a dangerous promise.
"That's all," he repeated, though he himself did not believe it.
The van left the alley with a sharp turn, leaving behind the broken barrels, the snapped knife, and the little common sense he still had left.
Finding Felt was not immediate, but Link soon discovered that the capital had an invisible information network far more efficient than any map. It was not in the important stalls or in the guard patrols. It was in the children running barefoot through side streets, in the skinny boys selling used rags, in the girls carrying baskets larger than their arms, in the small eyes that watched too much and spoke little.
The first group ran away when they saw the van. The second hid behind some sacks. The third, made up of four children with dirty faces and sharp gazes, stayed at a cautious distance when Link turned off the engine and got out with a bag of sweets in his hand.
He did not say anything at first. He simply took out a candy wrapped in shiny paper and placed it on an empty box.
The four children looked at it as if he had placed gold there.
"I'm looking for a blonde girl," Link said. "Small, fast, sharp fang, face like she'd steal even your name if you blink."
One of the children, the oldest, did not take his eyes off the candy.
"There are lots of blonde girls."
Link took out another candy.
"This one is named Felt."
The reaction was minimal, but it existed. A blink. A movement of shoulders. An exchange of glances that did not manage to be hidden. Link placed the second candy beside the first.
"I don't want to hurt her. I want to find her before she gets into trouble."
"Everyone says that," replied a girl with a soot-stained face.
Link looked at her.
"Yes. And most of them lie."
"You don't?"
Link exhaled through his nose. He did not smile.
"I'm too tired to lie well."
That seemed to confuse them more than reassure them. Link took out the whole bag, shook it gently, and the sound of the wrappers made the children's eyes shine. It was not a great diplomatic strategy, but it was honest in its brutality.
"You take me to the place where I can find her or where she usually hides, and this is yours. No tricks. No guards. No weird questions."
The oldest narrowed his eyes.
"All of it?"
"All of it."
"Half first."
Link looked at him for a few seconds. Then he let out a low laugh.
"Look at the little businessman."
"Half first," the boy repeated, firmer.
Link threw him half the bag. The boy caught it against his chest with a speed that would have made Felt proud. He handed out only two candies and hid the rest under his clothes like a war treasure.
"Follow us. But leave that beast here. It makes too much noise."
Link looked at the van.
"Not a chance."
"Then you won't get through some streets."
"We improvise."
Improvising, in that case, meant advancing slowly through alleyways where the van barely fit, scraping walls, bending mirrors, accidentally tearing off an awning with one corner of the vehicle, and receiving insults in at least two different accents. The children ran ahead like guides in a disaster parade, enjoying every second of the chaos caused by the strange black carriage. Link drove with clenched teeth, trying not to think about how absurd it was to use a modern van as a slum mule in a fantasy world.
The deeper they went into the poor districts, the more the city changed.
The main streets, with their clean stones and solid buildings, were left behind. The ground became irregular, mixing mud, rotten wood, and fragments of stone. Houses leaned against each other like tired old men, held together by poor-quality beams and sheer stubbornness. There was clothing hanging between windows, dirty water running through open ditches, flies gathered over food scraps, and a sour smell that clung to the throat. It was not just poverty. It was abandonment. It was the kind of place where the city preferred not to look because recognizing it would mean admitting someone had allowed it to exist.
Link slowed down, feeling something sink in his stomach.
He had seen poor neighborhoods. He had seen tin houses, hillsides where rain could carry away an entire family, children selling candy at dawn, dogs sleeping on garbage bags, people used to the world telling them to wait their turn even though no one ever intended to call them. But that place had something worse: the feeling of being outside the protection of any law. As if, after crossing a certain street, people had stopped counting.
One of the children pointed toward a wide, dark building near a wall.
"There. She goes sometimes. Old Rom is there. If Felt stole something good, she ends up there."
Link stopped the van at a cautious distance.
The Loot House.
It was even more unpleasant to see it without the urgency of the previous loop. It did not look so much like a "house" as a dead animal that still kept the shape of a building. The boards were swollen by dampness, some windows had been covered with uneven panels, and the front door had marks from old blows, scratches, and badly done repairs. The smell coming from the cracks was a mixture of strong liquor, rotten wood, old dust, and rusted metal. If the neighborhood was an open wound, that building was the infected scab where everyone pretended the blood was no longer flowing.
Link stared at the place.
There he had died.
There Rom and Subaru had died.
There Felt had cried.
There Elsa had smiled.
The children waited for their payment in silence. Link gave them the rest of the sweets without looking.
"Leave."
"Don't you want us to call Felt?"
"I said leave."
The hardness in his voice convinced them more than any explanation. The children disappeared into the alleys with their sugar loot, leaving Link alone in front of the building.
For a long while, he did not move.
Then he opened the back of the van.
The wooden box was there, heavy, alien, marked with transport symbols that meant nothing in Lugnica. Link observed it as if looking at a curse. He did not open it completely. He did not need to in order to remember what it contained. Weapons. Tools created by people like his boss, people who turned others' fear into business and then smiled as if it were all honest work. He was disgusted by depending on that. He was more disgusted by admitting it might be the only thing that gave him any chance.
He took out just enough to feel less naked. He did not check too much. He did nothing elaborate. He had no real training beyond fear and the memory of having shot uselessly at Elsa. He kept the pistol where he could reach it and closed the box again.
"I'm not going in," he told himself.
He walked toward the Loot House.
"I'm only going to wait."
He reached the door, but did not knock. Instead, he stayed under the broken eave, glancing sideways at the streets where Felt might appear. Waiting was worse than action. Every sound seemed like the prelude to a tragedy: a board creaking, a rat moving through garbage, a distant voice, a step on wet stone. Link felt his body too alive, too alert, as if every muscle wanted to fight or flee without waiting for permission from his head.
He did not know how much time passed before he heard light footsteps over wood.
They did not come from the ground.
Link raised his gaze.
A small shadow crossed between two low rooftops, jumped toward a wall, bounced with the agility of a cat, and landed in the alley with a bag held tight against her chest. Ash-blonde hair shone under the faint light of dusk. The girl lifted her head, satisfied with herself, until her red eyes met Link's.
Felt froze.
Link raised a hand.
"Before you run—"
Felt was already running.
"Damn it!"
He did not try to chase her with the van or shoot or do anything stupid. He moved. His body responded before his fear, cutting the distance with a speed that surprised even him. Felt was fast, absurdly fast, but the alley was narrow and Link was already too close. She tried to jump toward a wall to gain height. Link extended his arm and caught the edge of her cape.
Felt spun in the air like a wild beast.
"Let go of me, idiot!"
Her heel struck his jaw. Link barely moved his head from the impact, more surprised than hurt. Felt took advantage and tried to bite his hand, but Link released her before her teeth closed.
She landed on her feet a few steps away, crouched, ready to flee again. Her eyes moved between Link, the van, and the Loot House door.
"Who the hell are you?" she spat. "Did that woman in black send you? Because if so, tell her I don't need a babysitter to deliver a job."
Link felt his chest tighten.
Woman in black.
So it was already in motion.
"She didn't send me."
"Then who?"
"No one."
Felt let out a dry laugh.
"Sure. A weird guy with wrecked clothes, standing in front of the place where I have to deliver merchandise, with a black metal beast behind him, appears right when I arrive and wants me to believe he's here by coincidence. Do you think I was born yesterday?"
"No. I think you were born in a place where if you lower your guard, they eat you alive."
That silenced her for half a second.
Only half.
"Don't talk like you know me."
"I don't know you."
"Then don't talk."
"But I do know one thing. If you go in there and wait for that woman in black, you're going to die."
Felt's expression changed.
Not from fear. Not immediately. It was more like defensive anger, a door slamming shut.
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a warning."
"They sound the same when they come out of the mouth of someone waiting for you in an alley."
Link clenched his jaw. Felt's logic was flawless, and that irritated him because he had no time to earn her trust in a normal way. The only things he had were memories she did not share, deaths she had not lived through, and an urgency that sounded like madness.
"Listen. That woman isn't coming to negotiate."
"She's coming with money."
"She's coming with knives."
"Everyone comes with knives."
"Not like her."
Felt looked at him more carefully. Her fingers tightened around the bag she held against her chest, where the insignia surely was. Link forced himself not to look too much at the object. Any wrong gesture could make her bolt again.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"For you not to go in."
"And in exchange?"
Link looked at her, bewildered.
"In exchange?"
"Yes, genius. If you want me not to deliver the job, I need something better than your scared-dog eyes and your mysterious phrases. That insignia is worth money. A lot. Enough money to get out of this hole. I'm not throwing away my chance because a stranger tells me, 'careful, little girl, the world is dangerous.'"
Link felt a stab of frustration because, again, she was right. Felt was not playing. It was not simple greed. It was hunger shaped like ambition. It was the desperate desire to buy an exit door.
"I have things from another world," he said.
Felt narrowed her eyes.
"Another what?"
Link pointed at the van.
"That thing isn't from here. I'm not from here. I have objects worth more than the insignia. I can pay you not to go with Elsa."
Felt tilted her head.
"Elsa?"
Link went still.
He had used the name.
Shit.
Felt noticed immediately. Her eyes sharpened.
"I didn't say her name."
"No."
"Then you do know her."
"I saw her."
"Where?"
Link did not answer right away. He could not say "in a timeline where I saved you while she cut off my hand," because that was not a conversation, it was an invitation for her to hit him and run away. He breathed deeply and chose the least impossible part.
"I saw her kill."
Felt swallowed almost imperceptibly.
"Who?"
Link looked toward the Loot House door. For an instant, he imagined old Rom inside, alive, drinking, grumbling, not knowing that in another version of that day his blood had filled the floor.
"Someone you care about."
Felt launched herself at him.
Not to escape. To attack.
She drew a small dagger with brutal speed and aimed at his side. Link caught her wrist before the blade touched his clothes. Felt struggled like a wild animal, kicking his leg, trying to free herself, but Link did not squeeze enough to hurt her. He only held her.
"Don't you ever say that again!" she growled, eyes full of fury. "You don't know anything about me!"
"You're right," Link said, keeping his voice low. "I don't know anything. I don't know who you are, I don't know what you've lived through, I don't know why that old man looks at you like you're his family. I only know that if you follow this path, that woman is going to turn this place into a slaughterhouse."
Felt breathed heavily. Her wrist was still trapped, but her rage began to mix with something else. Not trust. Never trust. But doubt.
"What are you?" she asked.
"An idiot."
"That much I can see."
"One trying not to repeat a mistake."
Felt pulled her arm.
"Let go of me."
Link released her.
She stepped back twice, sheathing the dagger without taking her eyes off him.
"You talk like a drunk, but you don't smell like liquor."
"Today, smelling liquor almost killed me. Don't remind me."
Felt frowned, not understanding.
Link rubbed his face and then put a hand in his pocket. Felt tensed, ready to move, but what he pulled out was not a weapon. It was a candy wrapped in shiny paper. One of the few he had not given to the children. He held it between two fingers and threw it to her.
Felt caught it by reflex.
"What's this?"
"Candy."
"Poison?"
"If I wanted to poison you, I wouldn't have warned you that an assassin is coming for you."
"That is exactly what someone who wants to poison me would say."
Link looked at her with absolute exhaustion.
"God, you're unbearable."
"And you're suspicious."
"Yes. But I have candy."
Felt observed the wrapper. She smelled it. Her expression changed slightly, a flash of childlike curiosity breaking through the distrust. She unwrapped it carefully, as if expecting it to explode, and put it in her mouth.
Her eyes widened.
She tried to hide it. Failed.
"It's... acceptable."
"Sure."
"I've tasted better."
"Lie."
"Shut up."
The tension eased barely, but it was enough for Link to breathe without feeling that everything was going to explode in the next second. Felt sucked the candy with an almost solemn concentration, not lowering her guard, but not running away. Link leaned against the wall beside the Loot House door.
"I'm not going to take the insignia from you," he said. "Nor am I going to hand you over to the guards. I only want you to listen to one possibility: you take my payment, you hide, you don't go negotiate with Elsa, and you don't bring Rom into this."
Felt looked at him sideways.
"And what happens with the original buyer?"
"She can rot."
"You don't understand how the slums work."
"I understand better than you think."
"No. If I fail someone dangerous, hiding for one night isn't enough. People search. People ask. People pay for information. People sell others for less than the cost of a hot meal. If that woman is as dangerous as you say, then refusing the deal can also kill me."
Link did not answer.
Because that was also true.
Felt studied him with a more serious gaze, less mocking.
"Besides, Rom is inside."
Link's stomach closed up.
"He's inside?"
"Of course he's inside. It's his place."
Link looked at the door as if there were fire on the other side.
He did not want to go in.
His whole body rejected the idea. His muscles tensed, not to fight, but to flee. The smell of old wood brought back physical memories: blood on the floor, Rom's arm separated from his body, Elsa tilting her head, Subaru paralyzed, Felt screaming. He felt cold sweat run down his back.
Felt noticed.
"You're scared."
Link did not deny it.
"Yes."
That unsettled her more than any lie.
"Of Elsa?"
"Of going in there."
Felt looked at the door, then at him.
"Why?"
Link took a while to answer.
"Because in my head, that place is already full of blood."
Felt went silent.
The sentence explained nothing, but something in the way he said it must have sounded too honest to discard as a threat. Felt tightened the bag against her chest, the candy still in her mouth, and her eyes drifted toward the van.
"You say you can pay me."
"Yes."
"How much?"
"I don't know how much anything is worth here."
"Very useful."
"I have rare objects. Worked metal. Tools. Strange food. Things no one here has seen."
"That doesn't mean they're worth more than real money."
"No. But there's a boy coming here with a similar object. Subaru. Black hair, ridiculous clothes, idiot face. He also wants to buy the insignia."
Felt raised an eyebrow.
"Another one?"
"Another one."
"How many people are supposed to show up today for this thing?"
"Too many."
"And is that Subaru with you?"
Link grimaced.
"Not exactly."
"That sounds like yes."
"That sounds like 'it's complicated.'"
"So, yes."
Link looked at her.
"You have a very annoying way of being right."
Felt smiled faintly, sideways, as if the candy had softened her mood more than she would admit.
"I'm starting to have fun."
"I'm glad my existential crisis is local entertainment."
"I don't know what that is, but it sounds expensive."
Before Link could answer, the Loot House door opened from inside with a heavy creak.
Rom appeared in the doorway.
Alive.
Huge. Bald. Wearing his usual ragged clothes, arms thick as logs, and that grumpy old-man expression that seemed capable of intimidating a bear with one look. Link went completely still. He saw him breathe. He saw him frown. He saw him look first at Felt, then at Link, then at the van, and finally back at Link.
"Felt," Rom said slowly. "Why is there a weird guy, dressed like he was dragged through a mountain, standing in front of my door with a black beast behind him?"
Felt pointed at Link with her thumb.
"He says a woman in black is coming to kill us."
Rom blinked.
"And you believed him?"
"No. But he gave me a weird candy."
Rom looked at Link.
"That explains everything."
Link could not help letting out a short laugh. It was not joy. It was tension breaking in an absurd way.
"Old Man Rom."
Rom narrowed his eyes.
"Do we know each other?"
Link swallowed. The answer "yes, I saw you die" did not seem useful.
"Not in this... no. Not exactly."
"That sounds like a drunk's answer."
"I haven't drunk anything."
"Worse."
Felt crossed her arms.
"He says he can pay more than Elsa."
Rom's expression changed when he heard the name. Not much, but enough for Link to understand that the old man knew who the buyer was, or at least understood that the deal was not an innocent visit.
"Elsa?" Rom growled. "Felt, what did you do?"
"Work."
"Jobs that bring people like her to my door aren't called jobs, they're called problems with a price."
"Everything that pays well is a problem with a price."
Rom opened his mouth to respond, but Link raised a hand.
"Look, I don't have time to get involved in your family dynamic of criminal grandpa and thief granddaughter."
Felt bared her teeth.
"Granddaughter what?"
Rom let out a laugh.
"I like the weird boy."
"I don't," Felt said.
"Because he described you well."
"Old man."
Link brought a hand to his temple. This was absurd. They were arguing in front of the building where an assassin could appear at any moment, and yet that small family fight struck him with painful nostalgia. Rom was alive. Felt was alive. There was still time.
"Elsa is going to come," Link said firmly. "I don't know how much time is left. Subaru is going to come too. Probably with a cellphone, which here you'll call a Metia or something similar. He'll try to negotiate for the insignia. If everyone stays inside waiting for offers, this ends badly."
Rom stopped smiling.
"You speak with a lot of certainty for someone who says he doesn't know us."
"Because I am certain."
"How?"
Link held the old man's gaze.
"I can't explain without sounding insane."
Rom snorted.
"Boy, you're standing in front of my warehouse in beggar's clothes, with a metal beast behind you, talking about assassin women and strange objects. That ship has already sailed."
Felt let out a giggle.
Link closed his eyes for a second.
"Elsa isn't coming to lose a negotiation. If she feels the deal slipping away, she'll attack. She's fast. Very. Don't fight in an enclosed space. Don't let her get close. Don't trust a table, a wall, or a club to stop her. And if I tell you to run, you run."
Felt looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"Who named you boss?"
"Nobody. That's why idiots don't listen to me."
Rom crossed his arms, evaluating him. Unlike Felt, his distrust was heavier, older. It was not the suspicion of someone who had grown up running away, but that of someone who had survived too many bad nights to dismiss a warning just because it sounded impossible.
"If what you say is true," Rom said, "then we shouldn't stay here."
"Exactly."
"But if we run now, Felt loses the payment, Elsa gets suspicious, and the job remains open. Besides, we don't know if your other buyer is really coming."
"He's coming."
"Do you also know that through your convenient madness?"
"Yes."
Felt laughed.
"At least he's honest."
Link pointed at the van.
"I have a proposal. We don't negotiate inside. We do it outside, near the van. If Elsa arrives, we have space. If something goes wrong, Felt gets in and we leave."
"We leave?" Felt repeated. "You think I'm going to get into that thing?"
"It has seats."
"It looks like it devours people."
"Only emotionally."
Rom looked at the van with interest.
"It moves without ground dragons?"
"Yes."
"And it doesn't explode?"
Link took half a second too long to answer.
"I'd rather not promise that."
Felt pointed at him accusingly.
"What do you mean you don't promise that?!"
"It's a long story."
Rom scratched his chin.
"A negotiation outside would be strange."
"All of this is strange," Link said.
Felt looked at the stored insignia, then at the Loot House, then at the van, then at Link. Her face showed pure calculation. Not fear, not yet. She was measuring risks, gains, possibilities. Link had to admit that, if life had given her another path, Felt would have been a dangerous merchant.
"I want to see what you can offer," she finally said.
Link nodded.
"Fine."
"And I want more candy."
"That wasn't in the deal."
"It is now."
Rom laughed again.
"I definitely like him."
Link exhaled through his nose, defeated, and walked toward the van. Felt followed him at a cautious distance. Rom closed the Loot House door, but not all the way; he left it ajar, as if wanting to be able to return inside quickly if everything turned out to be a trap. Link opened one of the shopping bags that had survived the chaos and took out a few small packages: candies, cookies, a bottled drink far too colorful for that world, and a couple of metal objects with no sentimental value but good appearance.
Felt took a cookie as if it were a peace treaty.
"This smells amazing."
"Don't eat it all at once."
"Don't give me orders."
"You're going to choke."
"I've survived worse things than a cookie."
She bit it.
Her expression betrayed her again.
This time Link smiled a little.
"Acceptable, right?"
Felt looked away.
"Average."
Rom extended a hand.
"Let me see."
Felt immediately moved the package away.
"No."
"Felt."
"It's mine."
"I also want to try."
"Buy your own."
"I raised you better than this."
"You didn't raise me."
"I fed you once."
"That doesn't count."
Link took out another package and tossed it to Rom. The giant caught it between two fingers, smelled it, opened the wrapper with surprising delicacy for his size, and tried a cookie. His expression immediately turned serious.
"Weird boy."
"Yeah?"
"This is worth money."
"That's what I hoped."
Rom looked at Felt.
"A lot of money."
Felt stopped chewing so quickly.
"More than the insignia?"
"Don't be ridiculous. But if he has more things like this, he can compete with a decent offer. I don't know if with Elsa, but he can."
Link felt a small relief. Not enough to relax, but enough to confirm he was not completely lost.
"Then we wait for Subaru," he said.
"And Elsa?" Felt asked.
"If she appears before him, you get in the van."
"No."
"Felt."
"I'm not running away from my own business."
Link looked at her for a few seconds. Then, without asking permission, he extended his hand and tapped her forehead with his knuckles.
It was not hard. It was more like a scolding little knock.
Felt froze.
Rom opened his eyes.
Link also seemed to realize too late what he had just done.
"Don't be stubborn," he said, trying to sound normal. "Your life is worth more than a bag of gold."
Felt's response was not verbal. Her cheeks turned red, her eyes sharpened like knives, and before Link could step back, the girl jumped toward his hand with her teeth first.
Link pulled his hand away just in time.
"Hey!"
"Try touching me again and I'll rip your fingers off!"
"It was a big-brother tap!"
"You're not my brother!"
"With that attitude, thank God!"
Rom covered his mouth with one enormous hand, clearly trying not to laugh too loudly. Felt pointed at him furiously.
"Don't laugh, old man!"
"I'm not laughing."
"You're laughing with your shoulders!"
For the first time since he had awakened in that van, Link felt something that was not fear. It was small, fragile, almost guilty, but it was there. One second of absurd normality in front of the end of the world. Felt with a cookie in one hand, trying to bite him for touching her head. Rom alive, laughing. The van behind them. The Loot House still without blood on the floor.
Then he heard footsteps.
Fast.
Desperate.
When he turned his head, he saw Subaru Natsuki appear at the end of the street, panting, in his recognizable tracksuit and with the convenience-store bag in his hand. The boy stopped when he saw the scene: Link leaning against the van, Rom beside the door, Felt eating a cookie with the expression of a street beast surprised in the middle of a theft, and the negotiation completely diverted from the route he expected to find.
Subaru opened his mouth.
No sound came out at first.
Link raised a hand with a calm he did not feel.
"You're late, Subaru."
Felt frowned.
"This is the other buyer?"
"Yes," Link answered.
Subaru looked at the van. Then he looked at Rom. Then at Felt. Then at Link. His eyes seemed incapable of deciding which part of the scene was the most impossible.
"What... what did you do?"
Link leaned toward Felt and, with an imprudence he himself could not justify, stroked her head once, as if wanting to show off that he had arrived first.
"Negotiate."
Felt took less than a second to react.
"I told you not to touch me!"
Her teeth closed over Link's hand.
"Ah! Damn it, let go, wildcat!"
Subaru, still panting, slowly raised a finger.
"I definitely arrived late."