Chapter Text
Chapter One: The Paradise Without Cameras
Lost and penniless. These few words could describe his financial situation, but in Natsuki Subaru's mind, a completely different phrase echoed.
"No security cameras. No police patrols."
He had his wallet in his pocket. Setting aside the spare change and the few yen notes, he carried what he needed. More important than the money was what was inside his plastic convenience store bag: nylon zip ties, a roll of duct tape, surgical gloves, and a small retractable utility knife. The "basic kit."
"Looks like the currency used around here is completely different..."
Tossing the rare 10-yen coin into the air, the boy smiled, a smile that didn't reach his sharp, dead eyes.
To society, Natsuki Subaru was an ordinary young man. A reclusive third-year high school student. A piece of trash who despised everything and isolated himself in his room while his parents wept with worry.
That was the perfect mask.
What society didn't know, and what the Saitama police had been desperately trying to discover for two years, was the identity of the "Alleyway Monster"—a calculating serial killer who had already claimed the lives of seven young women, dissecting them with a precision that bordered on macabre art. The school absences weren't laziness; they were exhaustion from late nights hunting. The isolation in his room wasn't depression; it was time spent cleaning tools and studying anatomy on the deep web.
"So, the result of being summoned to another world, huh..." Subaru murmured.
He crossed his arms, ignoring the stares of passersby. People with blond, green, and blue hair. People with cat ears and scaly skin.
He stepped off the main street and sat down in a dark alley, analyzing the stone floor and rustic buildings.
Medieval civilization, he thought. Which means no DNA analysis. No fingerprints. No luminol. The police in this place must be equipped with swords and superstitions.
His shoulders trembled. He placed a hand over his face to hide the expression of pure ecstasy that distorted his features. He was laughing. A silent, sickly laugh.
He had no idea how he had been summoned. He was in the middle of a night "hunt." He had spotted a girl returning from cram school, the knife already tingling in his pocket, when night turned into day. But it didn't matter who had brought him. That world was a massive slaughterhouse with no rules.
"The genre is a parallel fantasy world... Demi-humans are common. Their anatomy must be fascinating. What kind of sound does a lizardman make when his throat is slit? And the girls with cat ears... is their trachea the same as a human's?"
Having deduced this, Subaru exhaled deeply. An exhale of pure relief. In his world, the police dragnet was closing in. Here, he had a blank canvas and infinite red paint at his disposal.
He heard the sound of footsteps echoing through the alley. He looked up and saw three men blocking the exit. Their clothes were filthy, their smiles predatory.
"Hey there, brat. Hand over everything you have," Thug A said.
Subaru stared at them. Not with the fear of a teenager, but with the cold appraisal of a butcher looking at cattle. They were bigger than him. Three against one.
"Damn. A mandatory event," he muttered, but his pulse quickened with anticipation. In his world, he attacked the weak and unsuspecting stealthily. A direct fight would be a risk, but morbid curiosity overpowered him. What does it feel like to kill someone who is looking right back at me?
"He's muttering something. Is he crazy?" asked Thug C.
"Crazy? No. I'm just someone who fantasizes about people's internal anatomy all the time. Do you guys think you're the predators here?" Subaru replied.
With that declaration, Subaru advanced. Not with a heroic battle cry, but in absolute silence. He aimed for the leader's throat, a strike designed to crush the Adam's apple, but the man moved instinctively. Subaru's fist struck Thug A's face instead.
The impact was heavy. The man fell, but the shock tore the skin off Subaru's knuckles. Are their bones denser? he calculated quickly.
He spun, kicking Thug C's knee, trying to rupture it, but before he could finish, the gleam of a knife appeared in Thug B's hand.
Subaru stopped. The utility knife in his pocket wouldn't be enough against a blade of that size in open combat. He lacked physical strength; he was just a cunning killer, not a martial artist.
Immediately, he changed tactics. The psychopath mask vanished, replaced by that of a terrified victim.
"I'm sorry, it was all my fault! Please forgive me, spare me...!" Subaru cried out.
He threw himself to the ground, cowering. He let them beat him. Thug C kicked him in the stomach; Thug A, getting back up, kicked him in the head.
"Ow, ow, ow! It hurts, it hurts!" he screamed, but internally, his teeth ground together in concentrated hatred. Memorize each of their faces. Their shoes. The smell of rotten sweat and alcohol. I will track them down. I'll rip this one's nails out with the knife first.
Thug B spat on him. "We're gonna kill you and feed you to the Giant Rats."
Subaru watched the knife, calculating if he could draw his utility knife and sever the man's femoral artery before the blade came down. He was ready to gamble his life on it. Blood rushed to his head, a dark frenzy taking over.
Until a voice interrupted the moment.
"Hey, out of the way, move it!"
A small, agile blonde girl ran past them, stepping on the alley walls and vanishing. Subaru barely registered her existence, other than the fact that she would be too fast a target to catch on foot.
The alley fell silent, until a new voice echoed. A voice so firm and beautiful it seemed to freeze the very air.
"Enough, villains! I won't let you do as you please. Stop right there!"
At the alley's entrance stood the most fascinating creature Subaru had ever seen. Long silver hair, amethyst eyes, porcelain skin. She exuded nobility and purity.
For a normal young man, it would be love at first sight. For Subaru, it was an immediate predatory obsession.
How beautiful... Subaru thought. So immaculate. How would she look if she were crying? What shade of red would stain those fine clothes? I want her. She's mine.
The girl, completely oblivious to the darkness in the mind of the boy she had just saved, threatened the thugs. She fired shards of ice from her hand using magic.
Magic. Subaru's eyes widened. So, the laws of physics are different. New tools to learn. New methods to kill.
The flying cat appeared—a spirit named Puck. Yet another variable for his new homicidal equation.
When the thugs fled in terror, Subaru filed their faces away in his "mental archive." They would be the first, later. But right now, the main prize was right in front of him.
"Don't move," the girl said.
Her voice was cold, and her eyes were full of suspicion. She wasn't a fool.
Subaru forced his best innocent smile, hiding the monster behind the mask of a clumsy teenager. He tried to stand up to thank her, planning to earn her trust, find out where she lived, and make himself indispensable.
But his body, beaten beyond its normal limits by men from another world, gave out. The concussion made the ground spin.
In the end, he fell flat on his face. The pain pulled him into darkness, but as his consciousness faded and he heard the silver girl and her spirit arguing over whether to help him or not, Subaru offered one last, imperceptible, insane smile.
You just let a monster into your life, silver girl... and this world will never be the same.