Chapter 4: Felt: I'm the first to cuckold Emilia! (Patreon)

"I don't get it!"

Subaru made a face. He had no idea who either of those two names belonged to, but somehow it felt like he'd just been used to namedrop someone terrifyingly important.

Well, whatever. Forget it!

He'd just keep the shock ability, then. At the very least he could zap enemies with it — a weird, backup way to stay alive in a fight. Huh, thinking about it that way actually made him feel a lot better.

Right. Now that he'd calmed down and thought it through, there seemed to be something else a lot more urgent.

"Okay, so, hold on — I got yanked into another world just like that, so how am I supposed to get back? I've been here all of three minutes and I've already found two problems. I feel like I've really gotten through to your soul here!"

[Until the host completes all quests, the flow of time between this world and Earth will be at a ratio of one to one hundred thousand. The host need not worry — once all quests are complete, a passage allowing free travel between the two worlds will open!]

Huh?

Didn't that mean he could go off and have as many adventures as he wanted here, without worrying about his mom and dad working themselves sick with grief over their missing, whereabouts-unknown son?

Hell yes!

"Hey, you three, on your feet. Time to atone!"

Beaming, all his worries gone, Subaru planted his hands perfectly on his hips, cleared his throat a couple of times, and did his best to strike the pose of a proper new boss. "The out-of-towners who aren't even in the capital, fine, we'll deal with them later if the chance comes up. But right now, go get the money and pay back every last coin you took from the old folks and the kids. You three are filthy!"

Ever since the notebook's panel had first opened, knowledge and nerve had been steadily building up inside Subaru, until he no longer came across as such a ridiculous figure.

Ton, Chin, and Kan traded glances, laughing bitterly, meek and submissive. In the end the old-guard thugs bowed their once-proud heads, shoulders slumped, and limped off in front to lead the way, heading to the slums to dig up their stashed cash and get dragged door to door by Subaru to apologize.

Of course, at first they tried to cut corners — paying back only a handful of victims and pretending the rest simply didn't exist, as if they'd never robbed them at all.

What they didn't know was that Subaru had already read straight through their Book of the Living. He knew exactly who they'd robbed and when — down to details the three of them had genuinely forgotten themselves, lost to time. Subaru could still rattle them off, clean and precise.

Whether this was some all-knowing Divine Protection or whether he had some intelligence network secretly tailing dozens of people including the three of them, either way, Ton, Chin, and Kan were rattled to the bone. At first they'd dared to mutter curses at Subaru under their breath, but once that realization sank in, they didn't dare anymore.

Over the next three days, Subaru dragged Ton, Chin, and Kan across nearly the entire royal capital.

Since the three of them had already blown through most of the stolen money, paying everyone back meant slashing every single payment down — probably to less than a tenth of what was actually owed. But still, something was better than nothing.

At first, when the ordinary townsfolk saw Ton, Chin, and Kan knocking on their doors, they assumed the thugs had decided to graduate from mugging people alone in dark alleys to full-on home invasion.

Then they watched Subaru force the three of them to bow their heads and hand over cash, apologizing the whole time, and the townsfolk just froze.

Am I dreaming?

Dazed through the whole thing, half-convinced it was all some dream, they took the money and let the process run its course.

It was only afterward that they realized it had actually happened. Word spread — one person telling ten, ten telling a hundred — and in no time it became the talk of the entire capital.

Ton, Chin, and Kan had already been minor celebrities across the whole capital outside the noble district, notorious thugs who'd even been caught red-handed and thrown in jail before — only to be back out within a month each time, incorrigible as ever, their rotten reputation known to everyone.

So when they suddenly, unbelievably turned over a new leaf like this, of course it drew attention.

As for Subaru himself, he hadn't noticed any of that. He was just thinking that now that he was the boss, he ought to make a proper show of it — give the victims a good, deep, sincere bow of apology.

Too bad the notebook stopped him.

[A king carries himself with pride. A king does not yield. Blood may spill, life may end, the spine may shatter — but the knee does not bend. This is not the conduct of a king. As the sovereign, the First Monarch, please abandon at once this notion unworthy of your dignity!]

"But I want to lead by example? Also, I'm not exactly an emperor right now..."

[Warning: three seconds until shock punishment activates!]

Three seconds shattered his bowing soul.

Set up by the notebook... capital wins again.

"Whew, so tired. Three days running all over the place, back and forth, wore me out completely. My legs, my back, my bones, ugh..."

"Oh? That sounds rough, kid. Here, have a ling fruit!"

"A ling fruit? What's that? Wait, I don't have any money—"

"No worries, no worries. Today I'm feeling generous. It's on me."

Huh, really?

After leading Ton, Chin, and Kan out of the last victim's house, Subaru had just leaned against a wall by the roadside and slumped down, letting out a sore, weary breath, when out of nowhere someone was treating him.

He turned his head, blinking dumbly, and saw a burly uncle running a fruit stall tossing him a heavy, crisp, sweet-smelling apple with a hearty grin, telling him not to be shy about it.

Subaru tilted his head, a little lost. He didn't even know this guy. "But, um, why are you treating me?"

"What are you talking about? Aren't you the lucky star of the capital's common folk? Not sure how you pulled it off, but word's already gotten around about you knocking those thugs into shape and dragging them door to door to apologize and pay people back."

The fruit-stall uncle waved a hand — greatness needs no explanation. He'd never personally been targeted by thugs, being built like a brick wall, but he had a clear sense of right and wrong. An apple for a hero like this was the least he could do.

"Oh, oh... no way, does that mean I'm famous now? Like, a real celebrity?"

Subaru nodded along blankly at first, not quite processing it — then it hit him, and he lit right up. Heh heh heh. He hadn't done it hoping for some reward, but if good deeds came back around like this, wasn't that just incredibly satisfying!

"So, yeah, guess I found the right guy, huh? You're that Lucky Star, right?"

"Ha, ha, Lucky Star is a bit much, honestly, you're making me blush..."

Subaru laughed and answered on reflex — and only a beat later realized the voice asking hadn't come from the fruit-stall uncle at all. It was a voice that sounded, unmistakably, like some adorable little girl's.

"So it really is you — the one messing with people from our slums. Grovel!"

A sharp intake of breath through bared canine teeth, and a knife pressed cold and sharp against the small of Subaru's back. Felt, all her sweetness gone, voice gone fierce and feral, struck.