What burned Subaru's eyelids as he woke up from his slumber was the slight amount of sunlight streaming in through the curtains. The amount of glare was so soft that one would think it was morning.
When Subaru touched the stubble clock on his chin, it felt like it had been four or five hours since he'd woken up last. He could still feel some slight sluggishness in his body.
"It is Seven Brightsun now, sir."
"It is almost Seven Brightsun, sir."
Perhaps it was because Subaru stared at the window and showed the action to check the time, but the voice kindly answered the question.
Seven Solartime—Subaru didn't even know what it meant, but he guessed it was seven o'clock in the morning, judging by the letters. In the first place, he didn't even know if the time in this world ran on a 24-hour system.
"So I pretty much slept through the whole day, huh? Well, that's not much of a surprise to me as someone who has slept for 52 hours straight."
"Sister, did you hear that? Truly the words of a lazy man."
"Yes, I heard that, Rem. Truly the words of a good-for-nothing man."
"So who are you two people who are always stereotyping me, ladies?" With a thud, Subaru bounced off the covers and got up.
The sudden action surprised the girls, who were standing next to the bed with Subaru between them. The girls jolted away from the bed, moved to the middle of the room, and then looked at him, hand in hand with each other.
Although they had expected this to some extent, the girls looking at Subaru with their fingers intertwined looked exactly the same—twins.
They were around five feet tall. They had large eyes and pink lips with shallow faces that made them seem childish and lovely.
The two girls, who looked exactly alike, had their hair cut short, but their hair was different colors—one was pink, and the other was light blue. Furthermore, they covered one eye with their hair, but the pink-haired girl covered her left eye, and the light blue-haired girl covered her right eye.
But such differences were only trivial. At this moment, based on those features, the thing that stirred Subaru's heart the most was... "No way...are there even maid outfits in this world!?"
A black apron dress with a white prim on top of their heads. The beautiful twin girls were dressed in the orthodox classic style of maid clothing.
"Oh no. I'm currently being indecently humiliated in our guest's head, Sister."
"Oh no. I'm being violated right now in the head of our guest, Rem."
"Don't underestimate my mental capacity. You're both fodder for my fantasies, ladies." Subaru held his arms out and ruffled his fingers in the air. The meaningless movement brought a shiver to the faces of the two maids, and they untied their intertwined fingers and pointed at each other.
"Please forgive me, sir. Just let Rem go and go defile Sister."
"Please don't do it, sir. You can let Ram go and defile Rem instead."
"What kind of sisterhood is that?! Selling each other out and making me look like some kind of evil villain?!"
So scary! And the twins ran away, holding hands again.
Subaru jumped out of bed and chased after them.
The three of them ran around in circles in the large room, chasing each other. And—
"Couldn't you have woken up more quietly?" A girl had knocked on the door softly, which opened with a thump, and then looked at the three of them from the doorway.
The beauty of her long silver hair could be seen in full and today it was untied and naturally flowing down her back. Her clothing was not the robed outfit she usually wore, but was designed with noticeably darker colors to suit her white, slender body. The skirt was slightly shorter than knee-length, revealing her slender legs, but that area was hidden by knee socks that reached up to the top of her thighs.
"Wow! Whoever picked this outfit out, I get what they were thinking!"
"Well, I'm not sure what you're talking about, but it's soooooo disappointing when I know it's something meaningless."
Before he knew what he was doing, Subaru pumped his fist and cheered unintentionally.
The girl—Emilia—looked at him with dumbfounded eyes in the doorway of the room.
"I feel like I've imprinted onto you! I don't want to leave you for a second, Mom!"
"Uhh... I was a biiiit worried because I heard that Beatrice played a prank on you while you were low on blood...but I guess it was useless to do so."
"Hey, I've never had trouble waking up! And I'm kind of afraid to ask you this, but..."
At the puzzled Emilia, Subaru nervously tapped his index fingers together and looked up at her. "So uhh, do you remember me?"
"Your mannerisms are soooo weird, and that's a weird question to ask. I don't think anyone could forget someone who leaves such a strong impression like you, Subaru."
Subaru's shoulders descended in relief when he heard Emilia softly whisper his name.The fact that the girl called him by his first name without an honorific was completely unexpected and embarrassing for him, someone who never really interacted with the opposite sex in his original world. His ears ended up turning bright red in embarrassment.
Putting aside this somewhat immature behavior of Subaru, the twins, who had noticed Emilia's presence, rushed to her side. They moved behind her, and with only their faces on either side of her, they stared at Subaru.
"Kindly listen, Lady Emilia. The guest has humiliated my sister."
"Kindly listen, Lady Emilia. The guest has held me captive and violated Rem."
"It's reaaaally not good to tease him too much... I think it's something Subaru would do, but there's no way he could get away with it. Ram and Rem, don't you think you're playing too much with a sick patient?"
"Yes, Lady Emilia. My sister is sorry for what she's done."
"Yes, Lady Emilia. I'm sure Rem will reflect on this."
Ram and Rem, the two who were called by name, declared their remorse without a shred of remorse in sight. Perhaps accustomed to their attitudes, Emilia looked at Subaru without seeming to be bothered by it. "So how are you feeling, Subaru? Does anything feel strange?"
"I thought I was going to die because I felt like my whole body was on fire before losing consciousness," he said, "but I don't feel like that at all now. Now I feel like I slept too much, actually. It was you who saved me, wasn't it, Emilia-tan?"
"Huh? "Tan?" What does Tan mean?" Emilia asked, She looked confused.
"Uh, you can just ignore that one. Seriously, Though, thanks. You saved me."
"No, I'm the one who should thank you. You barely know me, but both of you risked your lives to save me. And it wasn't me who healed you to began with, Kaeya did all of the healing back at the loot house, after you went unconscious."
"Kaeya, huh...So, Where is he now?"
"He is still sleeping in his room, I guess he was quite tired after the whole fight in the loot house. He was the one who did almost all of the fighting afterall."
"Yeah, I guess i have to thank him properly! Well, then, once again, Its time to start a new day!" He said while stretching his arms over his head.
.
.
Subaru left with Emilia, and this time, the hallway he walked through had a proper end. He was then led to a familiar-looking garden outside the manor.
The maids had to wake up Kaeya, so they slipped away while they were on the way to the garden.
"Wow, it's huge...! The mansion is big too, but this is more of a field than a garden, huh."
The garden of a well-off person's mansion—a place that was often used as the setting for lunch or dinner parties in manga and anime. Subaru let out a sigh of admiration as he looked around the large garden and immediately began doing stretching exercises to get himself back into shape.
"Those are some odd movements. What are you doing?"
"HUH!? Is warming up not a thing here? If you don't loosen up your muscles before moving your body, you'll damage your ligaments before you know it! You could tear your Achilles tendon, or something like that!"
"Hmm, I don't think I've seen something like that. But it's true that you can easily get injured if you move suddenly without warming yourself up."
"I didn't know people in this world don't do warm-up exercises. Oh well...then how about I teach you? The authentic warm-up exercises of my homeland, passed down through the generations!"
Impressed by the confidence of Subaru, Emilia hesitantly replied with a "O-okay, then just for a little bit, then."
Subaru asked her to stand next to him. After the two of them were lined up side-by-side, facing away from the manor, they took deep breaths with the sun pouring down on them. "Radio Calisthenics Exercise Twooo! Go! One-two one-two one one-two."
"Uhh, what, no way!?"
"Hold your hands out in front of you and touch the sky! Follow my movements, follow me!" While encouraging the puzzled Emilia, Subaru performed his homelands famous Radio Calisthenics Routine. In the beginning, Emilia seemed perplexed and tried imitating his movements, but she gradually became more motivated and was absorbed in the exercises with a serious look on her face. Once the exercises were over, she took a deep breath, and... "And at the end, hold your hands up high and say, victory!"
"Bi...bictory!"
"Alright, that's the spirit! Not bad for your first time. Emilia-tan is awarded the title of "Calisthenics Novice." Keep up the good work! Fight!"
"Despite what you just said, Subaru, it's true that these exercises were effective, because I can feel my mana circulating in my body."
"Then I hope you can spread the word! But only on the condition that the song and victory! are spread too."
Feeling pressured by Subaru's uncharacteristically serious attitude, Emilia nodded her head. "Let's see...wan-to wan-too?"
"No! It's one-two one-twooo!"
They spent some time saying "one-two one-two" to each other, but Subaru decided to write the lyrics down on paper in the end.
After he reached that decision, Subaru came to the realization that the people in this world might not understand the words he wrote down. At least for now, he couldn't read the letters of this world.
"Maybe I should check it out later, huh. I can only write in Japanese, a little English, and some gal characters, but..."
Subaru had mastered the Gal alphabet after spending a surprisingly enthusiastic amount of time learning it. Although, never actually being able to use it makes it feel like he just wasted his time.
"Even so, you are pretty fit, Subaru." Emilia suddenly muttered that to Subaru, who was turning his wrists and ankles and popping his joints.
Subaru scratched his head. "Well, sort of. Since I'm a shut-in, I should at least exercise a bit."
"Well, I don't know what "shut-in" means, but I'm sure Subaru comes from a reaaally good family. Weren't you taught martial arts?"
"No, I'm seriously from a normal middle-class family, but where did that come from? Do I give off some noble-like elegance?!"
"You must be reaaally curious."
Subaru said, "Let's hear it." and raised his hands up in a playful manner.
Then Emilia quickly grabbed both of Subaru's raised hands. The girl fiddled with his hands vigorously, and he emitted an "ahh" as his throat froze up. "Like these fingers, it's because of the way your skin and hair look. These hands look sooo different from the hands of a commoner. And these muscles don't look like they came from working..." She continued to fiddle with his hands, causing him to blush constantly, but he felt satisfied regardless.
Aspects about his hair and skin, and other things he had never mentioned before, were pointed out to him, and he was greatly reminded of his own foolishness.
Subaru's mind was spinning at a dizzying pace as she talked about aspects of his appearance that were not usually seen among commoners here. Meanwhile, she continued, "Black hair and black eyes. It's a common trait among migrants from the south, and it can be seen in Lugunica too. I've never seen anyone with these traits, but maybe there were some servants before...? Even that outfit was made with a material I've never seen before... Am I right?"