A Maiden in Distress
Even after having calmed down, dying in such a gruesome and painful way clawed at his mind, the instinctual sweat and tears left Subaru's body. But this was no time to display weakness, thus Subaru wiped his face, rolled up his sleeves, and then slapped his cheeks.
Subaru did his usual stretches in anticipation for a marathon. He got into a sprinting position and slammed his left foot as hard as he could against the pavement for the extra momentum. Unlike his previous loops, this time he was being extra careful, as he clearly remembered running into a carriage and dying very painfully. Subaru clearly did not want to repeat the same mistake.
Yet after running for only few minutes, he tripped and almost got hit by a carriage. This was probably attributed to his body being the same Otaku body from few minutes ago, sure it was somewhat in shape, but nowhere near used to such sudden strain from its usual sedentary norm. The stretches were clearly not enough, and all the running and physical activities that he did in previous loops did not transfer over either.
Subaru eventually reached a guard tower. He then started coming up with possible explanations to somehow get the guards to help him. Thus he slowed down, got his breath back, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He had to stay concentrated in order to keep his story straight. He then picked up the pace and energetically opened the door.
Subaru: "Guards, please help! A thief stole a very important artifact from me and my patron. I require urgent assistance!
Guards somewhat rattled by this sudden commotion got up from the chairs.
Guard 1: "Hey, slow down there bud, do you know how they looked like? How many were there?"
Subaru: "It was a small girl, with short blonde hair, and red eyes."
Guard 1 furrowed his brows in frustration and let out an annoyed frown.
Guard 1: "You seriously got robbed by a little girl, of royal descent no less? Stop joking around, just admit that you were trying to mess around, and I shall let you off the hook."
Subaru gave the guard a confused look.
Subaru: "No I am serious! I did get robbed by that girl and I am more than willing to reward anyone who recovers my item!"
Subaru presented his bag of chips and his phone.
Guard 1: "Uuugh… Even if what you are saying is the truth, fist of all, what the hell are we even looking at?"
Subaru said confidently: "These are very rare delicacies from Ja… my hometown! You can either eat or sell them for a decent price, and this right here is a metia, worth more than 20 holy coins!"
Guard 1 scoffed at Subaru's remarks, and others in the room started laughing.
Guard 1: "Kid I have never seen anything like those items before in my life, I will give you that, but I somehow doubt that's a metia. Lets say it was worth more than 20 holy coins, who in their right mind would pay guards that much to catch a thief? You could probably hire an expert for way less."
Subaru then thought to himself: "Now that I think about it, saying I got robbed by a little girl and overpaying to this degree kinda sounds stupid, maybe I should have thought this through..."
Guard 2: "You understand we have tons of reports on thievery right? You understand we cant take all of them seriously, after all due to current turmoil in the kingdom, some have tried to deceive us before, while others played pointless pranks to waste our time. You'll find better luck somewhere else".
Subaru was full of frustration, but at the same time he understood the guards suspicions. After all he was some shady looking person, with shady looking clothes, who had mean looking eyes and a story that felt like a scam. Thus he did the only thing he knew in such desperate times.
Subaru slammed down on to his knees and put his face on the ground.
Subaru: "Please I beg you, I have no one else to turn to! The artifact is as important as my own life. I will do anything to get it back, anything!"
Guard 1 and 2 at this point started scratching their head, maybe questioning their judgment, but sadly for Subaru they were not fully convinced.
Guard 1: "Huh….."
Guard 2: "Boy stand back up, don't do something so shameful like that again, have some respect for yourself as a man. I would like to help, but we cant risk it, I hope you understand."
Subaru pressed his head harder against the rough floor, scraping it quite badly.
Subaru: "Please, I beg you".
As everything felt hopeless, Subaru heard footsteps heading towards him.
?: " Are you two not ashamed?!" said a man in a commanding tone.
?: "Look at her, you can clearly see her actions are genuine, her determination unwavering! She is bleeding, sweating, and crying. A true knight shall never leave someone such as this in distress!"
Subaru lifted his head up, and as he did, blood started dripping down his face.
The Knight: "Worry not fair maiden, I Julius Juukulius, The Knight of Anastasia Hoshin, shall catch this vile thief at once!"
Subaru gave Julius a confused stare. Julius also returned a confused but ignorant gaze, however soon he realized his mistake.
Julius: "My apologies sir! I could not make out your gender from your appearance! Nevertheless I shall assist you!" He said proudly and reassuringly.
Subaru was relieved when he heard someone, a knight no less, was willing to help, it felt like a ray of shining light in the darkness, but at the same time he was somewhat annoyed at the knights remark. Thus he swallowed his pride and kept his face straight.
Subaru: "Knight Julius... umm... thank you! I'm looking for a girl.."
Julius cut Subaru off: "I overheard the conversation, Time is of the essence, and my apologies! I shall head off immediately!"
Julius proceeded to run out of the building with hasty elegance. The way he did it, somewhat further infuriated already pissed off Subaru.
Subaru then thought: "He clearly said that he was listening to the conversation, the guards clearly called me boy plenty of times. Was he fucking with me?" Subaru slightly gritted his teeth.
Subaru stood back up, gave the guards a respectful bow and left. As he exited the building, he felt a presence and slight warmth above his right shoulder, but he attributed this to his frustration.
Subaru thought to himself: "Considering this guy could not tell whether I was a guy or a girl, kind of makes me doubt that he will catch Felt, unless he was faking it. But on the of chance that he does, I'll probably wont hear the end of it from him". Subaru worried that Julius's face would become even more punchable than it already was. Wanting to avoid this, he decided to look for Felt himself too.
After running for so long, Subaru resorted to slow jogging instead, as he barely made his way to the slums.
Subaru pondered: "Maybe I should have told him that Felt would probably be around here, but that fucking idiot ran off without letting me finish..."
Subaru's frustration grew along with his fatigue, but he did not have luxury to waste time on such trivial matter.
As he was about to make a turn into the alleyway that led to the loot house he accidentally slammed into someone. This was more than enough for Subaru's already tired body to give out. However high cortisol levels in his body from all the stress, brought him back to his senses only few seconds after.
Subaru looked in front of him as he saw a maid on the ground. In some other situation he would be excited from such a cliché and eye-candy of a scene, but now was not the time for this. As Subaru tried to stand back up in order to help the girl back on her feet, he instead fell face first on the maids chest, as his leg muscles gave out.
Subaru groaned in pain, as the maids chest was flat, it felt like he slammed his face into the ground.
The girl let out in an annoyed voice: "I have no time for this"
Subaru with pained and muffled voice: "I'm sorry, I was not looking, are you hurt?"
The maid then proceeded to slap Subaru off of herself.
Maid: "Pervert, pig, go die." Said the girl as she jumped back up on her feet.
She then gave her uniform a disgusted glare as she saw some blood, sweat, and saliva on it.
She then proceeded to give Subaru the most annoyed possible look she could make, and unlike Subaru she did not hold back on her annoyance.
She then let out a sigh and outstretched her hand towards Subaru.
Maid: "Stand back up you pathetic excuse of a human." She said with an even more annoyed glare.
Subaru wanted to be angry, but he understood he was in the wrong here. The girls straightforward and unforgiving persona was somewhat reminiscent of how he felt towards Julius.
Subaru: "My apologies miss, I was in a hurry".
The girl replied hastily and without any hesitation : "So was I! But clearly I was not slamming into and assaulting anyone" then she let out an annoyed "hah"
Subaru in a single loop, met two of the most annoying people he could have. But then again he had to swallow his pride, he wanted to get as much out of this loop as he could.
Subaru grabbed the girls arm and got back on his feet. He brushed the dust from his clothes and asked.
Subaru: "Miss by any chance have you seen a short blonde girl with a knife running around here by any chance?"
The maid instantly gave Subaru a death stare. But asked in a very calm tone, ridding herself of the previous smug and annoyed behavior.
Maid: "No I have not, what a coincidence that we are looking for the same person! Has she stolen something from you as well I wonder?"
"Oh fuck" Subaru thought to himself, he froze up as his body stiffened up. It reminded him of the time when he accidentally slammed into Elsa in one of his first few loops. Was this a premonition, was this girl also somehow related to Elsa? Well he had no other choice but to answer thus he let out in a weak tone.
Subaru: "Ye...s?"
Maid: "Humph, what a pathetic man indeed, not only slammed into a beautiful maiden but also lied in her presence".
Subaru felt cold sweat, his body instinctively further froze up, readying itself to get stabbed again, yet only thing he felt thrust inside his gut were this girls straightforward and unforgiving insults.
Subaru then blurted out: "Considering we are looking for the same person and both of us wasted considerable amount of time here, it would be beneficial for us to work together, right miss…?"
Subaru then gave the maid a gaze, as if she would finish his sentence.
Maid: "Not only pathetic but rude. Do you not first state your name before asking someone for theirs?"
Subaru gave up on his frustrations, sure he could have worded it better, but still, this girl was the physical manifestation of annoyance. Her behavior bugged him, but her straightforward and unfiltered nature somewhat reassured him that she was most likely not a threat.
Subaru: "I apologize miss, my name is Natsuki Subaru, lets work together and catch this thief!"
Subaru stretched out his arm for a handshake.
Maid with an annoyed expression responded: "I am the servant of Roswaaal Mathers, Ram. I doubt you are much useful, especially in your current shape, but if you insist. You better not hold me back Barusu".
Subaru was kept hanging, as the maid turned her back to him.
Subaru: "Baru..?"
Ram: "Hmph?"
Subaru to himself "No, no... its pointless, she will probably tell me to shut up and start moving". Subaru then put on a fake smile and responded. "Nothing, nothing! I was just about to sneeze"
Ram then, without saying a word started speed walking, Subaru followed suit, but with a pained expression and a limp
He had to endure this, clearly she was a new variable, maybe something would change this time.
Thanks for reading! I will be a bit busy in the following week, but will try to keep the pace up! I already have the rough script written up to arc 5, so hopefully wont take me too long.
Keep the reviews and comments coming, I enjoy reading all of them! (I will gladly appreciate criticism, but please be reasonable).
P.S. Give my friend (yaknooowwwww)'s story "Too good of a timing" a read too. He is very passionate about it and puts quite a lot of time into details. Thanks to him I was motivated to post my story after all!