Follow the fallen stars

Sloth Chapter 3: Coming together

"The phrase, 'Hoshin was Banan's sunset'. Didn't it refer to how a legendary trader, Hoshin, brought this place to ruin? It looks too well run and successful to me."

Ram paused for a moment, a bit surprised that her ally had acquired such knowledge. She crossed her arms while taking a moment to think before responding to Subaru's valid questions with:

"I'm surprised. Lazy Barusu actually has some decent knowledge of something like that."

"..." Subaru just looked at Ram, annoyed. She continued:

"Well, you aren't wrong. The trader known as Hoshin brought ruin to what was once considered a small nation but from the look of things, the people here have managed to fix themselves up."

"Yeah but some of these looks are a bit too...familiar..."

"Familiar? In what way?" Ram asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Do you mean the look of Japanese?" Rigel said as he decided to enter Ram and Subaru's conversation.

Subaru was taken aback from this since he wasn't expecting the boy to know of such things.

Before he could even ask the question, Rigel figured what Subaru was thinking, prompting him to say:

"If you want to know, one of my parents knows about this stuff."

"Makes sense but which one?" Subaru asked with some suspicion, having a sneaky feeling that it is his counterpart.

"...wouldn't you like to know..."

Rigel's response did annoy Subaru since this isn't helping him in the slightest.

"I should also let you know about that phrase. People here don't like it so refrain from referring to it."

Subaru took note of what Rigel said, prompting him to nod while keeping himself from looking annoyed.

He hasn't been able to figure anything of importance except for the fact that Rigel is an oni and that his counterpart could have something to do with the world.

This prompted him to say,

'Hey, jackass, are you listening to me?' Subaru thought, wanting the attention of the watcher. He waited a minute or two before he got a response:

"Yes? What do you want?"

'You are aware of what's going on, so where the hell is my counterpart?' Subaru said this in his mind with an annoyed tone. There was another moment of silence before the watcher responded.

"You'll interact with him. Just be patient."

'You really are no help, are you?'

"If I guided you around like a child, you would learn nothing."

Subaru got annoyed by what the watcher had said. He stood silent as he just started to puzzle everything together.

'Okay, let's start with what I know. I see that Halibel isn't someone I'll have to worry about and he did give me important information, that being the fact that Rigel is an oni. Another thing is that one of the boy's parents knows Japanese ascetics considering how people are dressed here...unless that's just Kararagi? Nevermind that, if one of Rigel's parents knows about the word Japanese, then they have to be someone who was isekai'd. Given the fact that he is, from what Halibel said, part Oni and has a parent who is isekaid, then that means—'

"Barusu! Stop sleepwalking, idiot." Ram slapped Subaru in the head, causing him to snap out of his thinking mode.

"Huh?" Subaru rubbed his head as it was hurting.