R-S Chapter 23 (Patreon)

My statement was the first sign of her mask cracking as the princess asked incredulously. “Pass, what do you mean pass?” I drank all the tea down before asking. “If I did agree, when will this betrothal be announced?” She thought about it more. “Possibly in just a few days if you agreed. Why?” I sighed as I explained my thought process.

“Marrying you ties me to the king’s faction. I wouldn’t be able to defend myself if anyone with a year of magic schooling under their belt tried to kill me. So you’d have to put a defensive detail to guard me, which would heavily reduce my personal freedom. Now, let’s say we agree to the betrothal and don’t announce it until after I graduate to increase my own ability to defend myself.”

I signal toward the principal. “Can I get another glass of tea, please? Now, let’s say I agree and get strong enough to defend myself, so I don’t need bodyguards. Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait until then because I’d have better bargaining power to get more out of the agreement? Also, with us not having any contract, I can play you off the nobles so I get the most out of both sides. The main reason above everything is that I doubt you’ll let me run around having sex with other women if I agree to marry you and… I’m not willing to do that.”

I sipped at my freshly prepared tea again as I continued. “As, pretty as you are, I’d rather not die before I can grow powerful enough to defend myself.” As I was speaking, I kept an eye on the princess to read her emotions. She was mad at first, but as I kept explaining, she calmed down enough to only be irritated. Even though she was beautiful, me outright saying it calmed her down the most.

I smirked in her direction as I teased. “Of course, if you want to have sex with me, that won’t hurt your chances at the agreement going through.” She finished her first cup of tea before she answered. “Pass.” With a big smile on my face, I got up. “Is that all then? I’d like my ability to remain hidden for as long as possible. It’s in everyone's best interest for the nobles to not find out because… They might not ask politely like you did to get me on their side.”

That was what I was most afraid of. If the nobles didn’t break the demonic seal, did that mean the time loop would end? It was far too soon for that to happen, and I was already looking at too much turbulence to join one side over the other. I needed to go as long as I possibly could before deciding on which faction I would finally join.

The night when I’d sneak into the lottery winner's home was rapidly approaching. Once I got ahold of the ticket, I would work backwards on which store sold the winning ticket and when would be the best time to buy tickets to guarantee the winner. 

The lottery was a joint venture with the four biggest stores in the city. Each would put out two hundred and fifty tickets, each costing a zeffer, meaning there were one thousand tickets altogether. The tickets were then further categorized by the thousand number digit corresponding with a different store. So if I saw that the winning ticket was 4165, I’d know which store sold the winning ticket and when to possibly buy the ticket based on how many were left until the winning ticket.

The prize for winning was twenty zell, which was five hundred zeffer. It meant that the stores that sold the tickets made just as much as the actual prize winner… And who knew if the prize wasn’t set aside for one of their own people to win? I wouldn’t know until I went to cash in the ticket. His home seemed underwhelming. It looked that way after the owner leaned it out and began renting it out just a few days after the previous winner's death in the last time loop.

Small, unassuming. It meant that the lottery was most likely legit but it was hard to know for sure until the first time I won. I knew already that the man was a drunk, as long as I was too loud or moving in a way that made it obvious I was breaking in, I could enter and search for the lottery ticket without any hassle. I didn’t sneak; sneaking would only make what I was doing far more obvious.

I went up and checked the door… It was unlocked. Entering, I saw the man sleeping on the couch. His home was too small to have a bedroom, only a single living room and a tiny closet-sized bathroom barely big enough to fit a toilet and shower. The man's large size was why he stunk so bad; that shower must have gone mostly unused because his fat body would barely fit.

Now I just needed to find… It’s right on the table. Six lottery tickets sat on the table along with a money pouch with some zenny and a zeffer inside… This felt almost like a trap but… I knew most people wouldn’t put up defenses and protect themselves if they had never been robbed before. Tomorrow, he’d start locking his door and hiding his valuables, but today, they were all mine.

…

Fat Man’s Point of View

I woke up and felt hungover. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. I grabbed at a bottle to start drinking again as I started to wake up fully. I got up, took care of my morning business, and went to grab my money pouch to go get breakfast before the raffle came out later today. That was when I finally noticed. My valuables were missing.

I didn’t think it was stolen at first, maybe in my drunken fugue state I hid it, I had done that before. But no, none of the normal hiding spots I used had my money. No… Oh, no! No, no, no! I scrambled, my hands shaking as I knocked over my bed to check my real hiding place. If someone wanted to steal from this spot, they’d have to move my couch, which was much harder to do with me on top of it.

I unlatch the floor board as I breathe out a sigh of relief. Thank the gods the person who robbed me didn’t find this spot. I had lost a good portion of money, but I didn’t lose the Zell I had stored, or the watch worth about a zell, or even the deed to the slave I owned. My panicking heart calmed down as the worst didn’t happen.

I smiled, as the only thing stolen from me was my pocket change and a few worthless raffle tickets. I knew they most likely weren’t the winning tickets and I would have no way to tell if the person who stole them was the person who won. I didn’t memorize the numbers I picked. I don’t do much memorizing nowadays. 

I would need to break this zell at a bank and guard my money better until I could earn enough to get the change converted back into a zell for me to hide. I felt naked without the backup currency to fall back on in case I was ever robbed… Like I just was. I’ll have to start locking the door from now on and… I should keep my valuables on me until I felt it was safe to store them again. All I needed was someone finding out about my secret spot when I wasn’t home for me to be robbed completely blind.