“Mama! Papa! I’ll be going out for lunch today!” Rob shouted from the door, wearing a new set of clothes - a larger white linen shirt and baggier black pants - along with a pocket full of coins letting out barely audible dings with each step he took.
“Okay! Just take care of yourself and don’t go home too late! You don’t know if there’s a thief out there waiting to steal your money!” Herve shouted from the kitchen. His back was hunched and his body was exhausted, but his eyes were brimming with delight upon taking a look at the piles of paperwork he had finished - albeit there was a ton more that needed to be done.
Rob then walked out of the door and closed it on his way out. Now with his entire afternoon free from work, he licked his lips and followed a preplanned path to a certain area that he’s been wanting to visit since this morning.
He took a glance at his luck floating above his head. After connecting his luck with the bakery, it finally returned to C Rank, turning more solid and larger than before.
His luck was in the form of himself surrounded by a large crowd of noble brats, floating in midair like a meadow of colorful flowers.
Even though I have reached the pinnacle before, luck really is versatile with the right hands. I can even modify my luck to increase my chances of encountering nobles! Although this did take me five days to accomplish, the other forms of luck that I would later need would be a lot harder to do.
Rather than feeling down by the ton of hard work he has to do, Rob Fortune was instead pumped full of excitement as he was finally living the life he longed for the most in his previous incarnation.
As he walked through the streets of the Royal Capital, his eyes landed on a certain building in the distance, and a subtle grin went on to creep up on his ugly face.
“Let’s do this…” He muttered under his breath and proceeded to walk at a brisk pace.
He soon arrived in front of the building and stared up to read the big words written in lavish gold - Moonlit Gold Theater.
Rob grinned and entered the wide and tall building, with many of the luxurious clothes-wearing adolescent teens around the entrance of the theater staring at his simple clothes and boorish face.
He can already guess what they were thinking, such as What is this peasant doing here or Are you sure he’s not lost?
But Rob didn’t care, for in his eyes, they were nothing more than walking piles of flesh with moving skeletons and nerves.
In his life, he has been all sorts of things, ranging from dogs starving on the streets to an eldritch Zombie Moon that devours an entire moon-worth of biomass every few decades or more from unlucky planets.
He had experienced a lot over the eons of life he had lived through, developing a strange yet unique mindset far more bizarre than the other Supreme Existences in the omniverse. Can you even imagine God living as a floating brain in space that had to desperately survive by relying on its deep soul foundation, reconstructing a functional body from the ground up with no food or water, while stranded in the endless void?
With a swift glance at the show that was about to play in a few minutes, Rob paid for a single ticket and was greeted by the numerous rows of seats inside the actual theater.
There were plenty of people in the theater, some were of commoner descent but born with wealth, or of noble blood. Theaters in this world were quite special, to say the least. It has been a long-running culture of humans that creates a physical replication of words written on books or art printed onto paper.
It was a highly entertaining medium full of magical effects that can leave one in a daze, with the high-end theaters utilizing various forms of magic to create a mystical experience for the audience. From illusions to actual spells, Moonlit Gold Theater serves to give its viewers a memory of a lifetime.
As he sat down on his chair, Rob was about to take out his handkerchief to create a makeshift blindfold or sleep mask but was rudely interrupted by a sudden shout right beside his ear.
“R-Rob?!” It was a voice that he was unfortunately familiar with. A voice that belonged to a certain girl that was rude and annoying, a spoiled noble brat with no friends - just like him.
“Sigh…” He shifted his gaze to the side, he was met with a girl with auburn colored hair and light brown eyes that can be barely seen in the dark room.
“What are you doing here?!” Anna almost choked on her drink when she saw who sat on the seat beside her, feeling as if god was playing tricks on her, or that she was hallucinating from constant stress and anger.
“Shh…,” Rob replied weakly and pulled out his handkerchief from his pocket, folding it on his lap to thicken up the fabric to block all light.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Hey, hey. Why do you have that thing on you again?” Anna was beginning to turn insane when she recognized what that thing was in Rob’s hands under the dim illumination of the theater room because that blindfold only meant one thing, Rob was going to sleep! But he’s inside here! And the ticket here isn’t cheap! Don’t tell me he’s going to actually take a nap here?!
“Don’t mind me, don’t mind me, I’m just a little weirdo…” Rob proceeded to tie the makeshift blindfold around his head and wrapped his eyes shut in complete darkness. Then, from his pockets, he pulled out two ear blockers, the same ear blockers he created when he and Anna first me in their classroom.
“Oi, oi, oi! Why are you taking a nap here?! It hasn’t even started yet!”
“I’m just a little weirdo, a strange bug, an illusory ghost. Ignore me, ignore me,” Rob whispered and shifted his body around to enter a more comfortable spot, until finally, he dozed off into dreamland.
As a witness to everything that just happened, Annabeth Auburn sat on her seat, stared at Rob, and held back the urge to punch him in the gut.
Even though he technically did nothing wrong, the way he acted seemed to naturally just naturally infuriate her.
This guy is driving me nuts!
…
A few hours later, the entire room cheered and clapped loudly, with Anna doing the same as everyone else. Her eyes were slightly red, with tears forming at the edges of her eyes.
“Uwah, why did Julio have to jump off the window? Curse that Nun, that molesting Nun! If it wasn’t for her, Julio and Basil would have lived happily ever after, but no, Basil had to turn evil!”
She cursed and gritted her teeth in anger, but she soon remembered something and looked at the seat beside her in a hurry. Instead of being met with Rob’s sleeping figure, she only saw an empty seat with no one on it, which surprised her.
I didn’t even notice that he was gone!
Rob walked out of the theater as he yawned, and inspected his luck with a toothy smile.
1.5 D Rank Luck - pretty decent for a short nap. I could now even steal up to 13 F Rank Luck per minute, and increased the distance to 6.4 meters, although I can still only steal from 8 different sources.
Rob then checked the time and saw that it was around 3:45 pm already and did a quick calculation inside his mind.
I’ll do one more, then eat dinner, and go back home. If the same happens tomorrow, this should net me around 6 D Rank Luck in total this weekend.
Heh, to gain the rank of 6 normal people in two days, this would have been the dream back then. But this is still far from having the same luck as that Crown Prince or a World’s Chosen, much less a Reality’s Chosen.
From the perspective of a Supreme Existence, his luck can only be regarded as trash, utterly shit, with no worth. But for Rob Fortune, from the perspective of someone who has lived a shitty life for eons, this was a great blessing to have, and something he cherished deeply.
And so, with a few more hours to spare, Rob arrived at another theater and did the same as before.
He walked in, bought a ticket, sat on his chair, covered his eyes, blocked his ears, and slept like a baby for two-plus hours until the play ended. After that, he visited a random restaurant, checked his remaining money, and was happy to find that he still had plenty of money left to spare.
After getting that contract and that Opportunity, my weekly allowance has reached an astonishing 50 silver coins! Maybe I’ll even reach the legendary realm of 1 gold coin per week and be a true rich kid!
To put it into perspective, an average middle-class family’s child would have a weekly allowance of around 20 silver coins, with the family having an annual income of 15,000 silver coins or 150 gold coins.
On the other hand, the lowest-ranking nobles, Barons and Baronesses, earn at least ten thousand gold coins annually! Of course, that doesn’t include the various things they have to pay for, the numerous things they had to buy to continuously improve their estates, and other such expenses.
To be considered an upper-class family in this world, one would need to earn up to a thousand gold coins every single year!
And, after signing the deal with Melvin Dolton, an Earl family’s heir, Rob already calculated that their annual income would rise to 300 gold coins from their original 200 gold coins annual income, and this was only with one single bakery.
With new branches being planned out to be built in a couple of weeks and months, Rob wouldn’t find it surprising that the Fortune family’s annual income would rise to over a thousand gold coins!
And a silver coin is essentially the same as a single dollar back in my first life, so I’m living a wealthy life!
Sigh, I love being born as a rich kid.
He soon ate his dinner inside the random restaurant he entered and managed to siphon some luck from a few lucky individuals while he was eating, and raised his luck by quite a bit before finally heading home.
Rob then greeted his parents, helped them deal with some of the paperwork which they greatly appreciated, and hit the sack after a long day of work and sleeping.
…
The next day, Rob went on to repeat his actions as yesterday.
He headed into the bakery, baked some pastries and bread, mostly pastries and dessert, and whipped up some drinks like lemonade and milk tea, before opening the store and handling the surge of customers in the morning.
Then, he took his own share of the income and put most of it into his makeshift piggy bank which was just a metal can, and headed out for the afternoon to nap in some theaters while stealing the luck of spoiled nobles and rich kids.
He then visited another random restaurant which piqued his attention, but unfortunately didn’t find many lucky individuals, and finished his meal without that much increase in luck.
To end the day, he visited one of his favorite bookstores and bought new books to add to his collection, and was even surprised to find that the long-running series he’s been reading for well over three years has now finally released a new book.
With this bountiful haul, Rob returned back home, greeted his parents as usual, and entered his bedroom wearing a comfortable shirt and brown pants. His clothes were pretty comfortable considering they were recently bought and were of high quality.
Hmm, my belly has thinned quite a bit, and I lost some body fat after all this work! Pretty neat! Though I do find being ugly quite nifty with its perks here and there. But eh, appearance won’t matter to me as long as I’m lucky.
I’ll even happily live as a frog if it meant I can boost my luck to S Rank in one go!
With his various thoughts calming down, Rob soon turned off the lights in his room, placed the book he was reading on a nearby desk, and closed the windows shut.
Taking one final look at the ceiling, Rob smiled and muttered, “Cheers to a lucky new day for me...”