Chapter 12: Then, I Will Pledge My Loyalty to You (Part 1) (Patreon)

Sometimes, the wind can carry feelings along with it.

And right now, in this very moment, the wind was desolate, defeated, stripped of all its light — and yet, at the same time, it was also spirited, confident, at peace after a great battle.

No one could say exactly when it happened, but the sky, only just beginning to brighten, had already changed its colors, dyed now in the orange-red of a setting sun. Dusk was falling over a place that no one knew of and no one cared about — a place that was, at this moment, the gathering ground for a thousand defeated souls of the slums.

Under the orange glow of the sunset, all that remained was a chorus of ragged breathing — gasps of disbelief mixed with forced submission, and, as dessert after the main course of battle, the defeated, having been made to accept reality, lined up in order and obediently claimed their eggs and apples.

By this point, across the vast battlefield — that enormous, empty plaza, laid bare to the eye — only one person still remained standing.

Without question, his name was Subaru Natsuki.

To call him handsome might be overstating it. To call him very handsome would require quite a few filters. And yet, despite that — even so — the thousand people gathered here now all agreed, wholeheartedly, from the bottom of their hearts, with unwavering conviction—

Subaru Natsuki, this guy, was seriously one hell of a good-looking man.

Not just awed. Utterly conquered.

"Anyone else!"

A deep, deep breath.

Subaru Natsuki drew air deep into his lungs and let it out again. His breathing was heavy, but no matter how heavy it got, he would only stand there. Even now, he still had something left in the tank. He looked around, calling out to whatever opponents remained.

But that thunderous shout, loud as it was, went unanswered. Three seconds passed. Ten seconds passed. No one rose to challenge him. No one came to meet him.

Only then did Subaru's gaze finally refocus, and he realized, almost with a start — there was no one left.

A gauntlet of a thousand men, one after another, and he had won.

No exaggeration, no shortcuts — from start to finish, on his own strength alone, he had held out.

No matter how much stamina a person has, so long as they're only human, they get tired. And once the body's output crosses past its normal limits, the exhaustion only compounds, second by second, grinding down not just the body but the mind. Subaru was no exception.

He had grown stronger, but he was still bound by ordinary limits. Long before now, every single finger he moved had ached with an exhaustion beyond imagining. Earlier, even after he knocked down the slum's thousand, they'd catch their breath and come at him again, over and over, wave after wave.

And still, he had held on.

Maybe he thought there was nothing all that impressive about himself. Maybe he thought he'd only gotten this far because of dumb luck — because of the cheat notebook. Maybe that was even true. But he'd proven it with results.

He'd earned it.

Subaru's gaze kept sweeping around in shock, as if he could hardly believe he'd actually made it this far — that no one was left standing. As his eyes wandered, they landed naturally on Felt and Old Man Rom nearby, and for a moment, his gaze met Felt's.

"Ugh, seriously, your sweat stink is drifting all the way over here. Get away from me. What are you looking at? I can practically smell you from here just by looking..."

A second earlier, Felt's face had still been full of shock — she'd been staring at him so intently, eyes locked, not looking away for even a second. The longer she watched him standing there unbroken, the faster her heart seemed to race.

But the instant Subaru's eyes turned toward her, the little shrimp clapped a hand over her face, putting on a look of pure disgust, as if she really had just caught a whiff of something awful. She even started fanning the air with little muttered noises.

Old Man Rom, off to the side, clicked his tongue, oblivious as ever to the mood. "Eyes met, and no fight? Guess it's just the three of us standing now."

By the way, Ton, Chin, and Kan — the three reformed thugs harboring secret dreams of rebellion — had also tried to seize the moment earlier, only to get knocked right back to their senses with three punches. Boss Subaru, we are loyal men, they'd insisted.

"Why would I fight? Get away from me too!"

Application filed for emancipation from her family of origin.

Felt scoffed in disgust. What was the point of fighting? Winning wouldn't prove anything, and losing wouldn't either — if she won, she'd be ruining this guy's rare chance to establish his authority, and if she lost, wouldn't that make her look like Subaru's underling or something?

Like hell she'd ever be this guy's underling. She was his partner — a partner, equal in standing, matching him step for step, one man and one woman, the only two of them, and nobody else allowed in!

"Hey!"

Someone in the crowd raised a fist and shouted, "So what exactly do you want from us!"

The words sounded like a challenge, but they came out light, almost carefree, spoken with a laughing, unrestrained voice. All around, scattered across the vast open plaza, the thousand men and women of the slums — some sitting, some lying on the ground — all turned their sharp, focused eyes toward the one standing at the center of their circle: Subaru Natsuki.

"Let's get this straight up front — if you're planning to take everything we own, or send us to attack Royal Knights, or assassinate some higher-up in the Council of Wise Men, we're not doing it!"

"—None of that. I don't need any of it."

Slowly pulling himself back from the haze of exhaustion, Subaru's eyes sharpened. His answer rang out clear and strong, needing only a single line: "What I want you to do is simple — stand up."

"What?" A thousand people froze for a moment.

They could vaguely sense this wasn't meant literally, and yet every single one of them found themselves rising to their feet anyway, obeying the command of this genuine man, Subaru Natsuki.

"Stand up. I want every single one of you — every one, without exception — starting tomorrow, to work alongside me and Felt. With our support, I want you to stand on your own two feet, through your own effort. I want you to stop being looked down on. I want you to stop being pushed around. I want every one of you to become someone who can hold their head up high."

"Because the followers of King Subaru Natsuki don't get to be someone else's punching bag!"

His spirits soared.

These weren't words Subaru would normally say. In truth, he didn't even really believe them himself right now — he didn't truly agree with that last line he'd just spoken.

He didn't yet have that kind of soaring self-confidence.

But even without confidence in himself, he wanted to protect other people's confidence.

"Gather here, around me and Felt, and let's make the slums great — that's my goal. That's what I want you to do. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Nothing more, nothing less?"

Someone murmured the words, then gave a bitter laugh.

What nerve, Subaru Natsuki... Who do you think you are, daring to hand out hope like that to us? Don't you know — everyone who ever ended up down here once had hope too? And in the end, what did that hope ever actually bring them?

People who promise hope only ever end up delivering a deeper despair.

"And if it fails?"

Not one person. Not ten. Not a hundred. It was all of them — a thousand voices together, asking as one, uneasy as one.

They spoke in unison. They rejected it, all of them, together. Every one of them pushed back.

But in that moment, even they themselves could no longer tell — were they truly rebelling against him, defying him outright? Or were they, deep down, actually hoping that Subaru Natsuki might give them an answer that could finally put their hearts at ease?