Crack.
Cheap wooden boots snapped twigs underfoot as two small figures ran through the forest, dodging around thick roots and obstacles.
"Big sis, I—I can't run anymore!"
The younger girl was even smaller, and ever since she had been thrown into the slavers' cart, she had only been given barely enough food each day to stay alive.
After entering the forest, fleeing from one danger beast after another, her strength had been almost completely drained. Now her legs would barely move.
"Hang in there, Kurome. Don't give up."
Akame urged her sister on, but the roars behind them were getting closer.
"Ah!"
Her strength giving out, the little girl's foot slipped. She stumbled over a vine on the ground and fell.
"Kurome!"
Running ahead, Akame stopped immediately.
"Forget me, sis. You run!"
Kurome lay on the ground, eyes brimming with tears from the pain and the fear, yet she still shouted that to the older girl in front of her.
The wolf‑type danger beast that had been chasing them and wearing down their stamina seized the chance and lunged for the fallen girl.
"Don't you dare hurt my sister!"
Akame drew the only weapon in her hand—a small knife—and charged the wolf‑type danger beast, nearly as big as she was, shouting as she went.
She was nimble, dodging its snapping jaws and driving her blade into its neck.
But her angle was off, and she had too little strength. The wound was only a shallow cut on its throat. A sharp shake of its head flung her aside.
A wounded beast is dangerous. Now the wolf‑type danger beast shifted its hatred. Its eyes locked onto the girl who had hurt it and was now dazed on the ground. With a snarl, it pounced, intent on killing that prey first.
"Don't hurt my sister!"
Just before it could bite down on Akame, Kurome had already pushed herself up. The little girl seemed to tap into some hidden reserve of strength, and from the side she drove her knife into its belly. With the momentum of its charge, that stab ripped its abdomen open.
The wolf‑type danger beast started to turn and counterattack, but Akame also scrambled to her feet and plunged forward, driving the knife still in its neck all the way in.
With a final howl, the calf‑sized wolf‑type danger beast gave its last cry and collapsed, felled by the twin‑eyed sisters working together.
"Kurome, are you okay?"
"I'm fine. What about you, sis?"
"I'm fine too. We made it."
The two girls flopped down atop the wolf's corpse, shaking with the feeling of having narrowly survived.
That feeling did not last long. Low growls rose from the trees around them.
The dying wolf's last howl had called the pack. The other wolf‑type danger beasts that had been hunting separately through their territory now converged.
"Kurome."
Akame pulled the smaller girl behind her, yanked the bloody knife from the dead wolf's neck, and leveled it at three new wolf‑type beasts that emerged.
"Sis…"
Kurome gripped her own bloody knife tight and pressed close to the older girl. They were surrounded now.
"In a moment, I'll hold them off. You run straight back."
Akame whispered.
"I won't. I'm going to fight with you."
Kurome shook her head. She would not leave her sister behind.
"Idiot. If you, the weaker one, don't run, how am I supposed to get away?"
"Sis…"
"Don't cry. Mom and Dad are dead, but we have to live."
"Mm, I'll—"
Kurome's reply was cut off by a voice from the side.
"Excuse me, is this for me to eat?"
Broly had arrived in this world and immediately run into two girls flagged by the Crystal Palace as conquerable targets.
[Akame. Current Happiness Value: 0]
[Kurome. Current Happiness Value: 0]
Lying beside them was a freshly killed carcass. Broly had used his last katsudon to feed his father; he did not know where his next meal was coming from. So he asked the two new "wives" he had bumped into on crossing over.
"Huh?"
The boy's sudden appearance made both sisters jump.
"Where did you come from?"
Akame pulled her sister back and eyed him warily.
"Me? I just crossed over."
Broly answered honestly.
"Crossed over?"
Before they could even begin to understand what that meant, one of the wolf‑type danger beasts in the ring around them lost patience and sprang.
"Watch out!"
Akame shouted a warning at the boy. The next moment, her voice died in her throat.
The wolf's jaws closed around the boy's head, but the blood that sprayed did not come from him. It was the great wolf that had bitten him whose fangs shattered under the backlash.
"Don't get my head all sticky."
Broly hated sticky things; they reminded him of Vampa spiders. He lifted his foot and casually kicked the wolf‑type beast biting his head.
He had not put much strength into it, but even so the beast's eyes popped and its spine arched. Vertebrae burst out through its back, and blood fountained.
The brutal sight did nothing to deter the other two wolf‑type beasts. On the contrary, the spray of a packmate's blood only further excited them.
The two slightly smaller wolves' eyes went red, red light flaring off their bodies as if they were rabid dogs. One charged from the left, the other from the right.
Two dull thuds later, both of their heads had been punched apart. Their headless bodies thudded to the ground, giving the newly arrived Saiyan a bit of meat in this world.
"The blood doesn't taste good."
Thirsty, Broly hoisted one of the headless corpses and drank from the stump. After two swallows, he spat, tongue stained red.
His mouth had been spoiled by decent food. The first time he crossed over, he had thought crest worms tasted fine. After that first mouthful of this world's beast blood, he just found it disgusting.
"Of course it does. That's blood. And it's danger beast blood."
Akame muttered, then quickly tugged her sister back again—because the wild, fur‑clad boy was holding a headless wolf corpse out toward them.
"Do you want some? I can share."
Akame: …
"Why would you offer us something you already decided tastes bad?"
Kurome asked bluntly.
"Because I don't want to drink blood, but I don't want to waste it either."
Broly said honestly.
The twin‑eyed sisters: …
Hard to argue with that logic.
"In any case… thank you for saving me and my sister."
Akame thanked him sincerely. Without this boy suddenly appearing, she and Kurome might have died here, like the other children the danger beasts had already picked off.
"No need to thank me. Helping you is what I should do."
Broly was delighted. The Crystal Palace prompts were telling him that the Happiness Values of the two girls in front of him were climbing. In just a short while, Akame had risen to 12, and Kurome to 9.
"A wife's happiness is my happiness."
Thinking of the 21 points of Happiness and how many meals they could buy once the girls became official Crystal Palace members made him swallow.
But per his father Paragus's instructions, he had to raise each wife's Happiness Value as high as possible before inviting her. Otherwise he would lose a lot of points.
"Wife?"
Akame frowned.
"It means 'best friend.'"
Broly explained.
"I want to be your best friend."
As he spoke, he held out his hand to them.
"What are you doing?"
Remembering how he had just blown a wolf's head apart with one punch, both girls instinctively stepped back a little.
"Shaking hands with you, of course. One of my best friends taught me this way of making friends… and finding wives."
"Uh…"
The sisters exchanged a glance. The boy did not seem hostile. They relaxed and each reached out her small hand to take his.
"Shake hands, and we're friends. From today on, you two are my very best friends in this world. Mm… do you want to eat meat?"
"Eh?!"
The topic shift was abrupt, but with Broly, it made perfect sense. He always cared most about food.
And he remembered how, when he ate with Taiga Fujimura, her Happiness Value had shot up.
Yes—he was already using what he considered the first move in boosting Happiness:
Invite your wives to eat with you.
Since their parents' deaths, Akame had become more mature than other children her age out of necessity, to care for her sister.
"This place is too dangerous. Let's find somewhere safer to eat."
Her maturity did not change the fact that she was genuinely starving and genuinely wanted food.
"Okay."
Broly did not see what was so dangerous about here, but he did not argue with his best friend. He yanked down a few vines, bundled up the four wolf corpses, and slung them over his shoulder. This was rations for him and his two best friends.
"Help… help me…"
They had not gone far when they ran into a patch of man‑eating flytrap flowers—dangerous plants that normally lay still, but snapped shut with massive petals when prey drew near, trapping and digesting it.
In the Gifnora Seatre Forest, these flowers had once lived off insects, small animals, and sunlight. But now that scores of children were being driven through their territory, they naturally took the chance to swallow the little intruders.
The one calling for help was a girl already half‑eaten, with most of her body inside the flower's "mouth." Her face was frozen in terror as passing kids ran away in panic, skirting the deadly plants.
That officer at the forest's edge had made it clear: only those who reached the clearing in the center would live.
Once in this death‑filled forest, that goal was all most of the children could think about.
On that point, Akame was no different. She was about to go around the trap flowers when she saw the boy beside her set down the wolves he was carrying.
"Wait, what are you doing?"
"She's calling for help. She really looks like she wants to get out. I'm going to help her."
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