After signing their contract, Mordecai and his now acquired servant went back to the Guild.
The walk was uneventful, mostly because Mordecai was walking with the purpose of a man trying to beat a deadline.
When they entered, the hall was emptier than before. Nick and Lucy weren't there. The only thing that remained from them was the lingering scent of expensive cologne and bad drama.
Mordecai approached the counter. Elara, the receptionist, looked up. When she saw him, her face went through a complex animation sequence: shock, delight, and then a heavy, blushing swoon.
"Master Kaitoyama!" she squeaked, with a big blush on her face. "You returned! I... I knew you would! I fought the committee for you!"
Pyroetta didn't speak, but she was about to kill her.
Elara reached under the counter and pulled out the obsidian sphere—the Skeletal Archivist Core. It hummed with a low, bureaucratic energy.
"They wanted to classify it as 'trash'," Elara whispered dramatically, leaning over the counter, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "But I told them! I told them a hero needs his tools and that he fought VERY HARD to obtain this, just for us! The Guild Master was so moved by my speech that he offered to throw a banquet in your honor! Picture it: a laurel crown, a bard singing of your quiet strength, me handing you a chalice of wine as you weep a single, manly tear for your lost comrades..."
'What the? What did she say? I can't understand.'
"Moreover, everyone knows what happened with the Hero and the Saint!! You caught everyone's attention here!" Elara said, with an almost 'aroused' voice.
'Ah yeah. The classic scene where the main character does literally nothing and people around him start liking him because the plot demanded so. I hate this.'
Mordecai froze. His hand hovered over the core. A wave of physical nausea hit him, starting in his gut and rising to his throat. It tasted like cheap sugar and lazy writing.
Pyroetta, on the other hand, was standing still. Not moving an inch, but her eyes were burning with a killer instinct.
[SYSTEM ALERT: CLICHÉ POISONING DETECTED] [SOURCE: FORCED ROMANTIC SUB-PLOT / GENERIC FANTASY REWARD] [TOXICITY LEVEL: 75%]
"Stop," Mordecai said. His voice was strained, as if he were holding back vomit. "Denied. Categorically denied. If anyone attempts to put a laurel crown on my head, I will consider it a hostile action."
"B-But..." Elara's lip wobbled. "The single manly tear..."
"My tear ducts are strictly for lubricating my eyes against dust," Mordecai snapped. "Transfer the monetary value of the banquet to my account. Immediately."
He grabbed Ugo's core, shoved it into his (void) inventory, and turned on his heel. "Let's go, Pyra. The air in here is thick with bad tropes."
As they left, Elara slumped over the counter, whispering, "So mysterious... so damaged..."
They ate at a tavern called The Rusty Mug. It smelled of stale beer and honesty. Pyra was silent. She ate her stew mechanically, her eyes fixed on the middle distance. She wasn't blushing. She wasn't shouting "Baka!" She was processing.
The contract. The "Quarterly Review." The way he had shut down Elara. Something inside her—the programming of the "Tsundere Princess"—was grinding against a new, colder reality.
'He doesn't want a heroine,' she thought. 'He wants a partner. A functional component.' It was terrifying. It was liberating.
"You're quiet," Mordecai noted, wiping his mouth.
"I am running a diagnostic," Pyra said automatically. Then she blinked, surprised by her own choice of words. "I mean... I'm thinking."
"Good. Save the processing power," Mordecai stood up. "Change of plans. We leave for the Fort tomorrow morning. Today, I want to see the city. I want to know exactly what kind of narrative mess we are leaving behind. You are the local liaison. Show me Oakhaven."
Pyroetta snapped back to reality, returning to her normal-mosquito self for an instant.
"What...? Do you want to see the city? Why?" Pyroetta asked, in confusion.
"Well, I just want to know more of this place." Mordecai said.
In reality, he just wanted to run away.
In Pyra's mind, he was asking to go for a date.
'Oh no... he's asking me for a romantic date... to show around... oh my...' Pyroetta mumbled to herself, while a blush appeared on her cheeks.
Mordecai stared at her in confusion. 'What?'
Her hands reached her cheek and she looked down on the floor.
'Oh my God... a date... my first date... I must prepare... I think this is my moment... hahaha...' Without noticing, Pyroetta's face became redder than her hair.
'Eh? Is she stupid?' Mordecai thought.
"Hey, Pyr-" He tried to say, but his voice got interrupted by a scream.
"HE'S GONNA SEE ME NAKED TONIGHT!" She exclaimed, before looking at him with an embarassed face. "YOU PERVERT! YOU'RE JUST AFTER MY BODY! YOU'RE STILL A COMMONER!" She then tried to slap him, but Mordecai dodged easily.
There was something strange in that slap.
'The speed was not enough. Too easy to dodge. Anime slaps are usually undodgeable thanks to bad writing. She probably did it on purpose... but why?'
[SYSTEM ALERT: ROMANTIC MISUNDERSTANDING , DEBUFF APPLIED: CLICHÉD NAUSEA: YOU'LL SUFFER FROM HEADACHE FOR THE NEXT [1] HOUR]
"Inefficient." Mordecai said, tapping her forehead.
"Ouch-" Pyroetta said, rubbing her forehead after the 'impact'.
'Okay. There's something strange with her. But the strangest thing is the fact that nobody cared about a girl screaming.'
"Show me the city. It's an order." Mordecai said, his voice dropped an octave without realizing, and his eyes glowed of an intense purple.
[PASSIVE ABILITY ACTIVATED: EDGELORD RIZZ. 100% EFFECTIVE, PYROETTA VON SERYLDA]
[STATUS: TOTALLY CHARMED AND AT YOUR MERCY]
"YES DADDY❤️❤️❤️" Pyroetta said with heart-shaped pupils, clinging to his arm and dragging him outside.
'I hate you, System.'
The afternoon sun beat down on Oakhaven, illuminating the cracks in the cobblestones and the cracks in the world building.
For Mordecai, this wasn't a sightseeing tour. It was an inspection of a condemned building.
Exhibit A: The Bard's Corner In the main plaza, a crowd had gathered around a bard with silver hair and a shirt open to his navel. He strummed a lute with exaggerated passion. "And the dragon roared!" the bard wailed, off-key. "But the hero's heart was pure! Oh, so pure! Like the driven snow! But also dark! Like the night!"
Mordecai stopped. He massaged his temples. "Did you hear that lyric?" he asked Pyra. "Pure like snow, but dark like night. That's a logical contradiction. It's lazy. He's just rhyming words because he ran out of budget." Pyra listened. "The harmonic resonance is also off by a semitone. It's... inefficient."
Exhibit B: The Edgelord and the Harem They turned into the Merchant District. Suddenly, a commotion. A young man stood in the center of the street. He had white hair, an eyepatch, a black trench coat (in summer), and a mechanical arm that looked like it was made of glued-together kitchen utensils. He was screaming at his party members—a bunny-girl and a healer. No sight of the Loli Vampire.
"You're useless!" The Edgelord roared, posing dramatically for an invisible camera. "Why must I carry this burden alone?! My darkness is too heavy for you!"
"We're sorry, Master!" the bunny-girl wept, throwing herself at his feet. "Please punish us!"
Mordecai stared.
[SYSTEM ALERT: CLICHÉ POISONING - CRITICAL] [SOURCE: "CRINGE EDGY ISEKAI MC" KNOCK-OFF SCENE] [SUGGESTION: DO NOT ENGAGE. CRINGE IS CONTAGIOUS.]
"Look at him," Mordecai whispered, fascinated by the horror. "He's performing abuse because he thinks it gives him depth. It's store-bought despair. If I threw a battery at him, he'd probably monologue about how the battery understands his pain."
"He is wasting caloric energy," Pyra observed coldly. "And his stance leaves his center of gravity exposed. A stiff breeze would knock him over." She added.
"Exactly. Come on. If I watch this any longer, I'll get an aneurysm." Mordecai replied.
Exhibit C: The Glitch in the Matrix As they headed back toward the inn, they passed a side street.
A boy in a vivid green tracksuit was walking down the road. He didn't look at the shops. He didn't look at the people. He just walked, staring blankly ahead, mouth slightly open. He walked straight into a wooden crate. He didn't react. He just kept walking into the crate, his legs moving in a walking animation, sliding slightly to the left until he clipped around it.
"Did you see that?" Mordecai pointed.
"The peasant?" Pyra asked.
"That's not a peasant. That's an 'Isekai Protagonist' who hasn't received his starter quest yet. The system is just idling him. Look, he's not even rendering a shadow."
"...Okay." Pyra said, with a confused voice, not understanding what he actually meant.
Mordecai felt the nausea rising again. The world felt thin. Cheap. "This city..." Mordecai muttered. "It's a repository of broken code. A landfill for rejected plotlines. I can't build anything here. The foundations are made of cringe."
Their "Date" kept going for some other hours, and Mordecai couldn't hold it anymore.
The pain given by [CLICHÉD NAUSEA] was too much for him to bear.
They returned to the Sleeping Basilisk as the sun set. Mordecai felt exhausted, not physically, but spiritually. He had seen the seams of the world, and they were stitched together with fishing line.
"Pack everything," Mordecai ordered. "We leave at 5 AM and we go to the Fort. I need to be somewhere where the only thing I have to worry about is ancient curses, not bad writing."
Pyra nodded. She placed the Strategic Alliance Pact carefully into her bag, right next to her spare wand. "Understood, Master Kaitoyama. I will initiate sleep mode to ensure peak performance tomorrow."
As Pyroetta went into her room and the lights went out, Mordecai stared at the ceiling. "System," he whispered.
[YES?]
"If you ever send a truck to hit me again... make sure it finishes the job. I don't think I can survive another interaction with that Edgelord."
[QUEST UPDATED: SURVIVE THE NIGHT.]
FEEDBACK FROM THE HIGHER REALMS
XxShadowSlayerxX ⭐⭐⭐⭐: "The Edgelord parody was spot on. I felt physical pain reading the 'My darkness is too heavy' line. Mordecai just watching and judging is a mood."
Critical_Reader_99 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: "The 'City Audit' chapter is brilliant. It deconstructs the world-building by showing how artificial it feels to a sane person. The Green Tracksuit Guy glitching into the crate? Chef's kiss."
LegalWaifuFan ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: "THE PACT! Section 8! 'Quarterly Performance Review'! I'm dying. This is how you do romance in a lit-rpg. Forget flowers, give me a dispute resolution clause."
SystemObserver_Δ: "Narrative integrity in Oakhaven is indeed 12%. Departure is recommended. The protagonist's awareness of 'Cliche Poisoning' is evolving into a tangible resistance stat."